United States or Malta ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Take the instance of the belladonna, or deadly nightshade, an extremely rare British species, found only in the immediate neighbourhood of old castles and monastic buildings. Belladonna, of course, is a deadly poison, and was much used in the half-magical, half-criminal sorceries of the Middle Ages.
BITTERSWEET. The berries of this plant have been sometimes eaten by children, and have produced very alarming effects. It is common in hedges, and should be at all times as much extirpated as possible. SOLANUM nigrum. DEADLY NIGHTSHADE. Webfer has given us an account of some children that were killed in consequence of having eaten the berries of this plant for black currants.
The deadly nightshade is a plant of ill omen, and Gerarde describing it says, "if you will follow my counsel, deal not with the same in any case, and banish it from your gardens, and the use of it also, being a plant so furious and deadly; for it bringeth such as have eaten thereof into a dead sleep, wherein many have died."
The Romans were in the practice of adhibiting skulls at their banquets, and sometimes little skeletons of silver, as a silent admonition to the guests to enjoy life while it lasted. The Reverend Doctor Gaster. Sound doctrine, Mr Nightshade. Mr Escot. I question its soundness. The use of vinous spirit has a tremendous influence in the deterioration of the human race. Mr Foster.
The yellows were extracted from poppies, blues from nightshade, though the reds were gained from stones picked up from the beach. The glue was manufactured on the spot from the bones, etc., of the animals slaughtered for food. As examples of interior decoration, the Missions of San Miguel Arcángel and Santa Inés are the only ones that afford opportunity for extended study.
Or of the paths that lead beside many a little New England stream, whose bank is lost to sight in a smooth green slope of grape-vine: the lower shoots rest upon the quiet water, but the upper masses are crowned by a white wreath of alder-blooms; beside them grow great masses of wild-roses, and the simultaneous blossoms and berries of the gaudy nightshade.
DEADLY NIGHTSHADE. The Leaves, L. E. D. Belladonna was first employed as an external application, in the form of fomentation, to scirrhus and cancer. It was afterwards administered internally in the same affections; and numerous cases, in which it had proved successful, were given on the authority of the German practitioners.
Lilian leaned back her head on her mother's bosom, and answered faintly, "The stain! Some one said there was a stain on this hand. I do not see it, do you?" "There is no stain, never was," said I; "the hand is white as your own innocence, or the lily from which you take your name." "Hush! you do not know my name. I will whisper it. Soft! my name is Nightshade!
It can never be done more perfectly than at Furness Abbey, which is in itself a very sombre scene, and stands, moreover, in the midst of a melancholy valley, the Saxon name of which means the Vale of the Deadly Nightshade.
It takes no account of the history of wasted opportunities and regrets, of defeat and discontent, of self-wrought failure and remorse, that may plainly be read in 'To my Sister, 'An Exile's Farewell, 'Early Adieux, 'Whispering in the Wattle Boughs, 'Quare Fatigasti, 'Wormwood and Nightshade, and other poems. The writer, as he himself says, has no reserve in the criticism of his own career.
Word Of The Day