Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 8, 2025
As its root is, so also are its fruits, and when after glancing at its morality we turn to its history, we shall see that the corrupt tree bears corrupt fruit, and that from the evil stem of a thinly disguised Paganism spring forth the death-bringing branches of the Upas-tree Christianity, stunting the growth of the young civilisation of the West, and drugging, with its poisonous dew-droppings, the Europe which lay beneath its shade, swoon-slumbering in the death stupor of the Ages of Darkness and of Faith.
For instance, till within a very late period people believed that the upas-tree, which grows in Java, possessed such noxious qualities that it destroyed all vegetable life in the neighbourhood.
"'Oh, said Eunice, 'we must send for some oil and vinegar! This lettuce is very nice." "'Oil and vinegar? exclaimed Abel. "'Why, yes, said she, innocently: 'they are both vegetable substances. "Abel at first looked rather foolish, but quickly recovering himself, said, "'All vegetable substances are not proper for food: you would not taste the poison-oak, or sit under the upas-tree of Java.
I want you to be famous. I should be for ever miserable if my love proved a upas-tree. 'A upas-tree! It will be you who will help me; it will be your presence that will help me to write my play.
This something was a strong vegetable poison which he also knew how to prepare; and the upas-tree, that had so nearly proved fatal to all of them, was now called into requisition to effect a friendly service.
Impalpably, however, the poison of the dead and decaying vegetation is inhaled into the system with a result sometimes as fatal as that which is said to arise from the vicinity of the Upas-tree. The first evil results experienced from the presence of malaria are confined bowels and an oppressive languor, excessive drowsiness, and a constant disposition to yawn.
Chopin's moods are often morbid, his music often pathological; Beethoven too is morbid, but in his kingdom, so vast, so varied, the mood is lost or lightly felt, while in Chopin's province, it looms a maleficent upas-tree, with flowers of evil and its leaves glistering with sensuousness.
It spoils the primitiveness of the people, and gives them ideas below their station. They lose their simple manliness and take tips. They corrupt their autochthonic customs, and drink champagne cider. The modern hotel is a upas-tree, under whose boughs poetry withers. One looks to see the ancient ballads lose their blood and brawn. In time we may expect to find Cornwall producing vers de societe.
Doctor signs the death-warrant, 'pothecary does the deed!" "Certainly we don't profess to keep a dying man alive upon the juice of the deadly upas-tree." "Of course you don't. There are no poisons with us. That's just the difference between you and me, Dr. Dosewell." "Indeed, I have always said that if you can do no good, you can do no harm, with your infinitesimals."
This seems to be his favourite image; it reappears like the upas-tree in the early work of Coleridge: we may judge with what childish eyes he looked upon the world, if one of the sights which most impressed him was that of a man going to order dinner.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking