United States or Belize ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
To leave well alone is a golden rule worth all in Pythagoras. The ladies of Bubastis, my dear, a place in Egypt where the cat was worshipped, always kept rigidly aloof from the gentlemen in Athribis, who adored the shrew-mice. Cats are domestic animals, your shrew-mice are sad gadabouts: you can't find a better model, any Kitty, than the ladies of Bubastis!"
And because they had often seen battles lost by the cumbersome lets and disturbing encumbrances of women confusedly huddled in amongst armies, it was at that time decreed and enacted that they should expel and drive out of heaven into Egypt and the confines of Nile that whole crew of goddesses, disguised in the shapes of weasels, polecats, bats, shrew-mice, ferrets, fulmarts, and other such like odd transformations; only Minerva was reserved to participate with Jupiter in the horrific fulminating power, as being the goddess both of war and learning, of arts and arms, of counsel and despatch a goddess armed from her birth, a goddess dreaded in heaven, in the air, by sea and land.
Then this Curtius of nibblers made his little speech, not the jargon of common mice, but in the polite language of shrew-mice: 'My lord, I have heard with much concern of your glorious family, of which I am one of the most devoted slaves.
The good man calling to mind old stories, had no confidence in any race, and if it had been permissible would have implored the Creator for a new one, but not daring to trouble Him about such trifles, did not know whom to choose, and was thinking that his wealth would be a great trouble to him, when he met in his path a pretty little shrew-mouse of the noble race of shrew-mice, who bear all gules on an azure ground.
And from these facts, Gargantua, in order that the high authority of his lieutenant might be universally known by all of the shrew-mice, cats, weasels, martins, field-mice, mice, rats, and other bad characters of the same kidney, had lightly dipped his muzzle, pointed as a larding pin, in oil of musk, which all shrew-mice have since inherited, because this one, is spite of the sage advice of Gargantua, rubbed himself against others of his breed.
Starry lizards. Snakes. Kesudures. Attelabes. Cuhersks, two- Sea-hares. Ascalabotes. tongued adders. Chalcidic newts. Haemorrhoids. Amphibious ser- Footed serpents. Basilisks. pents. Manticores. Fitches. Cenchres. Molures. Sucking water- Cockatrices. Mouse-serpents. snakes. Dipsades. Shrew-mice. Miliares. Salamanders. Stinkfish. Megalaunes. Slowworms. Stuphes. Spitting-asps. Stellions. Sabrins.
Knowledge? Matter for further speculation? I can think sitting still as well as standing up. And what is knowledge? What are our learned men save the descendants of witches and hermits who crouched in caves and in woods brewing herbs, interrogating shrew-mice and writing down the language of the stars?
With regard to the shrew-mice and moles, there is less reason for separating them from other mice; and we shall speak of them in this connection. The Moles are known to be the best burrowers in the world: since they can pass under the surface of the ground as fast as a man can dig after them, or even faster.
Her thoughts, aimless at first, wandered at random, like her greyhound, who ran round and round in the fields, yelping after the yellow butterflies, chasing the shrew-mice, or nibbling the poppies on the edge of a cornfield.
Word Of The Day