United States or Ethiopia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !


As, for example, this symbolic reference of the corner-stone of a material edifice to a mason, when, at his first initiation, he commences the intellectual task of erecting a spiritual temple in his heart, is beautifully sustained in the allusions to all the various parts and qualities which are to be found in a "well-formed, true and trusty" corner-stone.

Nothing but an early and deep initiation in the corrupting school of Indian politics could have produced the facility with which, as occasion required, he could belie his own recorded assertions, turn hostilely round upon his own expressed opinions, disclaim the proxies which he himself had delegated, and, in short, get rid of all the inconveniences of personal identity, by never acknowledging himself to be bound by any engagement or opinion which himself had formed.

He walked around me again and again, muttering sounds which the interpreter did not venture to explain; and laying his hand on me pronounced me 'Con-go-gu-wah, and instantly, with great apparent delight, took me by the hand as a brother. I felt badly during the scene, but it was beyond recall, and supposing it might be useful in a future day, submitted to the initiation.

This, however, now burst again into a glow before which my repugnance faded away. I felt that my resplendent womanhood made me indeed a goddess. Why should not its glory flash from my forehead with visible brilliance? Why does not my voice find a word, some audible cry, which would be like a sacred spell to my country for its fire initiation?

Now the period of life at which initiation takes place is regularly puberty; and this fact suggests that the special danger which totemism and systems like it are intended to obviate is supposed not to arise till sexual maturity has been attained, in fact, that the danger apprehended is believed to attend the relation of the sexes to each other.

Upstairs, in his brown firelit room, he threw himself into an armchair, and remembered... Harvard first then Oxford; then a year of wandering and rich initiation. Returning to New York, he had read law, and now had his desk in the office of the respectable firm in whose charge the Dagonet estate had mouldered for several generations. But his profession was the least real thing in his life.

He was introduced as an equal to the haunts of the gay world of embryonic art the only world that has ever solved the problem of being gay without money. From the first he was assumed to belong to Cellette. How much of the assault, the jeers, the buffoonery, the downright evil of initiation, he was saved by this assumption he never knew. Cellette knew, but her tongue was held by shame.

The interior of the cavern of initiation was lighted by innumerable lamps, and there sat in the east, the west, and the south the principal Hierophants, or explainers of the Mysteries, as the representatives of Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva.

The first service of the subaltern, and his initiation into the perils and responsibilities of an officer in time of war, are interwoven with Custer's own recollections of his generals and their campaigns. We are irresistibly reminded of Lever in the style of the narration, and of that dashing creature "O'Malley" in the adventures of our own dragoon.

In almost every camp flat sticks of various sizes, shapes, and carvings, similar to those shown above, were found. They were always carefully wrapped up in bark secured by hair-string. They are said to be used by the blacks in their several initiation ceremonies, but what their use or significance is, is not known.