Imatges de pàgina
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LLD Doctor of Laws-i.e. both civil and canon. The double L is the plural, as in MSS., the plural of MS. (manuscript), pp., pages, etc.

La Belle Sauvage. Pocahontas (q.v.). La Grange. A character in Molière's Precieuses Ridicules (q.v.). He and his friend Du Croisy pay their addresses to two young ladies whose heads have been turned by novels.

La Mancha, The Knight of. Don Quixote de la Mancha, the hero of Cervantes' romance Don Quixote (q.v.). La Mancha, an old province of Spain, is now a part of Ciudad Real.

La Vallière, Louise, duchess de. A historical character, one of the mistresses of Louis XIV. She is the heroine of an episode in Balzac's novel The Vicomte de Bragelonne, which is frequently published separately as Louise de la Vallière (see under Three Musketeers) and of Bulwer Lytton's Duchess de la Vallière (1836).

Laban. In the Old Testament, the uncle of Jacob (q.v.), father of Leah and Rachel. Jacob served him for fourteen years for his two daughters.

Lab'arum. The standard borne before the Roman emperors. It consisted of a gilded spear, with an eagle on the top, while from a cross-staff hung a splendid purple streamer, with a gold fringe, adorned with precious stones. Constantine substituted a crown for the eagle, and inscribed in the midst the mysterious monogram. See Cross.

La'be, Queen. The Circe of the Arabians, who, by her enchantments, transformed men into horses and other brute beasts. She is introduced into the Arabian Nights' Entertainments, where Beder, prince of Persia, marries her, defeats her plots against him, and turns her into a mare. Being restored to her proper shape by her mother, she turns Beder into an owl; but the Prince ultimately regains his own proper form.

Lab'yrinth. A Greek word of unknown (but probably Egyptian) origin, denoting a mass of buildings or garden walks, so complicated as to puzzle strangers to extricate themselves; a maze. The chief labyrinths of antiquity are:

(1) The Egyptian, by Petesu'chis or Tithoes, near the Lake Maris. It had 3,000 apartments, half of which were underground. (B.c. 1800.) Pliny, xxxvi, 13; and Pomponius Mela, i, 9.

(2) The Cretan, by Da'dalus, for imprisoning the Mi'notaur. The only means of finding a way out of it was by help of a skein of thread. (See Virgil: Eneid, v.)

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(3) The Cretan conduit, which had 1,000 branches or turnings.

(4) The Lem'nian, by the architects Smilis, Rholus, and Theodorus. It had 150 columns, so nicely adjusted that a child could turn them. Vestiges of this labyrinth were still in existence in the time of Pliny.

(5) The labyrinth of Clu'sium, made by Lars Por'sena, King of Etruria, for his tomb.

(6) The Samian, by Theodo'rus (B.c. 540). Referred to by Pliny; by Herodotus, ii. 145; by Strabo, x; and by Diodorus Siculus, i.

(7) The labyrinth at Woodstock, built by Henry II. to protect the Fair Rosamund.

Lachesis. The Fate who spins life's thread, working into the woof the events destined to occur. See Fate.

Lack-learning Parliament. See Parlia

ments.

Lacy, Sir Hugo de. One of the chief characters of Scott's novel, The Betrothed (q.v.), constable of Chester, a Crusader.

Sir Damian de Lacy. Nephew of Sir Hugo. He marries Lady Eveline.

Randal de Lacy. Sir Hugo's cousin, introduced in several disguises, as a merchant, a hawk-seller and a robbercaptain.

Ladislaw, Will. In George Eliot's Middlemarch (q.v.) the gay, lovable Bohemian whom Dorothea Brooke marries after Rev. Mr. Casaubon's death. He becomes the editor of a Middlemarch newspaper.

La'don. The name of the dragon which guarded the apples of the Hesper'ides (q.v.), also of one of the dogs of Actæon. Ladur'lad. In Southey's Curse of Kehama, the father of Kail'yal. He killed Ar'valan for attempting to dishonor his daughter, and thereby incurred the curse of Keha'ma" (Arvalan's father). The curse was that water should not wet him nor fire consume him, that sleep should not visit him nor death release him, etc. After enduring a time of agony, these curses turned to blessings. See also Kehama; Kailyal.

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Lady. Lady Baltimore. The title of a novel by Owen Wister (Am. 1906), named from a delicious Southern cake.

Lady Bountiful. The benevolent lady of a village is so called, from Lady Bounti ful in The Beaux' Stratagem, by Farquhar.

Lady Clare. Title and heroine of a poem by Tennyson.

My Lady Nicotine. Tobacco. See My Lady Nicotine.

The Lady of Babylon or Lady of Rome. The Roman Catholic Church, with reference to the scarlet woman described in Revelation.

The Lady of Shallott. See Shallott. Lady of the Lake, The. (1). In the Arthurian legends, Vivien (q.v.), the mistress of Merlin. She lived in the midst of an imaginary lake which apparently prevented access, surrounded by knights and damsels. She stole Launcelot in his infancy, and plunged with him into her. home lake; hence Launcelot was called du Lac. When her protégé was grown to manhood, she presented him to King Arthur. It was she who gave Arthur the famous sword Excaliber (q.v.). James Branch Cabell introduces her into his Jurgen (Am. 1919) as Anaïtis (q.v.). Cp. Morgan le Fay.

(2). In Scott's poem of this name (1810) the lady is Ellen Douglas, who lived with her father near Loch Katrine.

Lady from the Sea, The. A drama by Henrik Ibsen (Nor. 1888), portraying the struggle in the titular heroine, Ellida, between wholesome love for her husband, Dr. Wrangel, and an unhealthy hypnotic infatuation for a strange seaman to whom she had once been engaged and to whose renewed appeals she all but yields. Her husband wins her by his understanding sympathy.

Lady of the Aroostook, The. A novel by W. D. Howells (Am. 1879). The position of the New England heroine, Lydia Blood, as the only feminine passenger to make the trip to Venice on board the freighter Aroostook, gives rise to criticism and gossip, but Lydia bears herself with charming propriety and ends by marrying Staniford, who had been one of the most horrified of her fellow passengers.

Lady or the Tiger, The. A short story by Frank R. Stockton (Am. 1882) much admired for its clever ending which does not solve but only proposes the puzzle of the story. A youth so bold as to love the King's daughter, is condemned to open one of two doors. Behind one is a fascinating girl whom he must marry, behind the other a tiger. The King's daughter learns the secret and signals her lover to open one of the two doors but which?

Lady Windermere's Fan. A drama by Oscar Wilde (Eng. 1892). Annoyed at her husband's persistent interest in Mrs. Erlynne, a woman of little reputation, Lady Windermere decides to leave him and run away with her lover, Lord Darlington. Mrs. Erlynne, who is in reality Lady Windermere's mother, supposed by her to be dead, finds the note left for Windermere and follows her daughter to Darlington's apartments.

When Lord Darlington, Lord Windermere and others come in from the club, Lady Windermere yields to Mrs. Erlynne's persuasions and escapes unnoticed. She has, however, left her fan, and only Mrs. Erlynne's quick-witted and generous assumption of guilt and explanation that she took the fan by mistake, saves her daughter's reputation at the cost of her own. She succeeds nevertheless in her scheme of marrying Lord Augustus Lawton and departs for the Continent.

Lælaps. In classical mythology, the powerful dog given by Diana to Procris who gave it to Ceph'alus (q.v.). While pursuing a wild boar it was metamorphosed into a stone. The name, which was originally that of one of Acteon's fifty dogs, means the hurricane."

Læstrygones. See Lestrigons.

Laer'tes. In Shakespeare's Hamlet (q.v.), son of Polonius, lord chamberlain of Denmark, and brother of Ophelia. He is induced by the king to challenge Hamlet to a "friendly" duel, but poisons his rapier. Laertes wounds Hamlet; and in the scuffle which ensues, the combatants change swords, and Hamlet wounds Laertes, so that both die.

Lafeu. In Shakespeare's All's Well that Ends Well, an old French lord, sent to conduct Bertram, count of Rousillon, to the King of France, by whom he was invited to the royal court.

Lafontaine, Jean de. A French writer, famous for his fables (1621–1695).

The Danish Lafontaine. Hans Christian Andersen (1805-1875).

Lag'ado. In Swift's Gulliver's Travels, the capital of Balnibarbi celebrated for its grand academy of projectors, where the scholars spend their time in such useful projects as making pincushions from softened rocks, extracting sunbeams from cucumbers, and converting ice into gunpowder.

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Laird's Jock, Death of the. A tale by Scott (1827). The "Laird's Jock is John Armstrong, laird of Mangerton. This old warrior, who has been the champion of the Border counties, witnesses a combat between his son and the English champion Foster, in which his son is overthrown and the shock of humiliation causes his death.

Lais. A courtesan, from the name of two celebrated Greek courtesans; the earlier was the most beautiful woman of Corinth, and lived at the time of the Peloponne'sian War. The beauty of Laïs the Second so excited the jealousy of the

Thessalonian women that they pricked her to death with their bodkins. She was the contemporary and rival of Phryne and sat to Apelles as a model. Demosthenes tells us that Laïs sold her favors for 10,000 (Attic) drachmæ, and adds tanti non emo pænitere. (Horace: 1 Epis. xvii. 1. 36.)

Laissez faire (Fr., let us alone). The principle of allowing things to look after themselves, especially the policy of noninterference by Government in commercial affairs. The phrase comes from the motto of the mid-18th century "Physiocratic" school of French economists, Laissez faire, laissez passer (let us alone, let us have free circulation for our goods), who wished to have all customs duties abolished and thus anticipated the later Freetraders.

Lajeunesse, Gabriel. The lover of Evangeline (q.v.) in Longfellow's poem of that name.

Lakamba. The native rajah of Sambir in Conrad's Outcast of the Islands (q.v.).

Lake School, The. The name applied in derision by the Edinburgh Review to Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Southey, who resided in the Lake District of Cumberland and Westmorland, and sought inspiration in the simplicity of nature. and to the poets who followed them.

Charles Lamb, Lloyd, and "Christopher North" are sometimes placed among the Lake Poets or Lakers.

Lake State. Michigan. See States.

Laks'mi or Lakshmi. One of the consorts of the Hindu god Vishnu, and mother of Kama (q.v.). She is goddess of beauty, wealth and pleasure, and the Ramayana describes her as springing, like Venus, from the foam of the sea.

Lalla Rookh (tulip cheek). In Thomas Moore's poem of that name (1817), the supposed daughter of Aurungzebe, emperor of Delhi, betrothed to Al'iris, sultan of Lesser Buchar'ia. On her journey from Delhi to the valley of Cashmere, she is entertained by the young Persian poet Fer'amorz, who relates the four tales of the romance, and with whom she falls in love; and unbounded is her delight when she discovers that the young poet is the sultan to whom she was betrothed. The four tales are:

(1) The Veiled Prophet of Khorassan. See under Veiled; Mokanna.

(2) Paradise and the Peri. See Peri. (3) The Fire Worshippers. See Hafed. (4) The Light of the Harem. See Nourmahal.

Lama. See Rulers, Title of.

Lamb. In Christian art, an emblem of the Redeemer, in allusion to John i, 29, "Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world."

It is also the attribute of St. Agnes, St. Geneviève, St. Catherine, and St. Regi'na. John the Baptist either carries a lamb or is accompanied by one. It is introduced symbolically to represent any of the "types" of Christ; as Abraham, Moses, and so on.

Lamb, Charles (1775-1834). English essayist, famous for his Essays of Elia.

Lambro. In Byron's Don Juan, a Greek pirate, father of Haidée (q.v.).

We confess that our sympathy is most excited by the silent, wolf-like suffering of Lambro, when he experiences "the solitude of passing his own door without a welcome," and finds the innocence of that sweet child" polluted. Finden: Byron Beauties.

The original of this character was Major Lambro, who was captain (1791) of a Russian piratical squadron, which plundered the islands of the Greek Archipelago and did great damage.

Lame Duck. See Duck.

Lamech. In the Old Testament, one of the men of pre-diluvian days.

Lamech's Song. "Ye wives of Lamech, hearken unto my speech: for I have slain a man to my wounding, and a young man to my hurt! If Cain shall be avenged sevenfold, truly Lamech seventy and sevenfold." - Gen. iv. 23, 24.

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As Lemech grew old, his eyes became dim, and finally all sight was taken from them, and Tubal-cain, his son, led him by the hand when he walked abroad. And it came to pass that he led his father into the fields to hunt, and said to his father: "Lo! yonder is a beast of prey; shoot thine arrow in that direction. Lemech did as his son had spoken, and the arrow struck Cain, who was walking afar off, and killed him. Now when Lemech . saw [sic] that he had killed Cain, he trembled exceedingly, and being blind, he saw not his son, but struck the lad's head between his hands, and killed him. And he cried to his wives, Ada and Zillah, "Listen to my voice, ye wives of Lemech. I have slain a man to my hurt, and a child to my wounding!" !"-The Talmud, i.

Lam'erock or Lamoracke, Sir. In Arthurian romance one of the knights of the Round Table, son of Sir Pellinore, and brother of Sir Percival. He had an amour with his own aunt, the wife of King Lot.

Lam'ia. A female phantom, whose name was used by the Greeks and Romans as a bugbear to children. She was a Lib'yan queen beloved by Jupiter, but robbed of her offspring by the jealous Juno; and in consequence she vowed vengeance against all children, whom she delighted to entice and devour.

Witches in the Middle Ages were called Lamia, and Keats' poem Lamia

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Lammle, Alfred. In Dickens' novel, Our Mutual Friend (1864), a mature young gentleman, with too much nose on his face, too much ginger in his whiskers, too much torso in his waistcoat, too much sparkle in his studs, his eyes, his buttons, his talk, his teeth." He married Miss Akershem, thinking she had money, and she married him under the same delusion; and the two kept up a fine appearance on nothing at all.

Lamplighter, The. A once-popular novel by Maria S. Cummins (Am. 1854). The heroine, Gertrude, a child of unknown parentage, is brought up by the old lamplighter, Trueman Flint. She is befriended by Miss Graham, a wealthy blind girl, and eventually her father turns out to be Miss Graham's long-lost brother.

Lancelot. See Launcelot.

Lancelot or Launcelot Gobbo. See under Gobbo.

Land. The Land of Beulah (Is. lxii. 4). In The Pilgrim's Progress it is that land of heavenly joy where the pilgrims tarry till they are summoned to enter the Celestial City; the Paradise before the resurrection.

The Land of Bondage. Egypt, from Egypt, from the oppression of the Israelites there.

The Land of Cakes. Scotland, famous for its oatmeal cakes.

The Land of Nod. To go to the land of Nod is to go to bed. There are many similar puns, and more in French than in English. Of course, the reference is to Gen. iv. 16, Cain went . . . and

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Gladstone, in one of his Midlothian campaigns, once amused the natives by using the phrase as a complimentary synonym for Scotland itself.

The Land of Promise, or the Promised Land. Canaan, which God promised to give to Abraham for his obedience. See Ex. xii. 25, Deut. ix. 28, etc.; also Promised Land.

The Land of Steady Habits. A name given to the State of Connecticut, which was the original stronghold of Presbyterianism in America and the home of the notorious Blue Laws (q.v.).

Landor, Walter Savage (1775-1864). English poet. His best known lyric is Rose Aylmer (q.v.). Gebir and Count Julian are considered the best of the

more pretentious works. As a prose writer, Landor is known for his Imaginary Conversations.

Langeais, Antoinette de. Titular heroine of Balzac's novel, The Duchess de Langeais, usually published as part of The Thirteen (L'Histoire des Treize). She is beloved by Armand, the marquis de Montriveau, whom she holds always. at arm's length.

Langham, Edward. An Oxford tutor, shy, morbid but nevertheless likable, in Mrs. Humphry Ward's Robert Elsmere. The author explained later that the character was suggested by Amiel (q.v.), whose diary she had been engaged in translating.

Langland, William (1332-1400). English poet, author of Piers the Plowman (q.v.).

Langstaff, Launcelot. The pseudonym under which Salmagundi (q.v.) was published (1807), the authors being Washington Irving, William Irving and J. K. Paulding.

Languish, Lydia. In Sheridan's comedy The Rivals (q.v.), the heroine, a romantic young lady, who is for ever reading sensational novels, and moulding her behavior on the characters which she reads of in these books of fiction.

Lanier, Sidney (1842-1881). American poet. His best-known lyrics are probably

The Marshes of Glynn, A Ballad of Trees and the Master and The Song of the Chattahoochee.

Lantenac, The Marquis de. A character in Victor Hugo's Ninety-Three (q.v.).

Lantern. Lantern Land. The land of literary charlatans, pedantic graduates in arts, doctors, professors, prelates, and so on ridiculed as Lanterns by Rabelais (with a side allusion to the divines assembled in conference at the Council of Trent) in his Gargantua and Pantagruel, v. 33. Cp. City of Lanterns.

The feast of lanterns. A popular Chinese festival, celebrated at the first full moon of each year. Tradition says that the daughter of a famous mandarin one evening fell into a lake. The father and his neighbors went with lanterns to look for her, and happily she was rescued. In commemoration thereof a festival was ordained, and it grew in time to be the celebrated "feast of lanterns."

Lanternois. Inhabitants of Rabelais' Lantern Land (q.v.).

Laocoön. In Virgil's Eneid, a son of Priam and priest of Apollo of Troy, famous for the tragic fate of himself and his two sons, who were crushed to death by serpents while he was sacrificing to Poseidon, in consequence of his having offended Apollo. The group representing these three in their death agony, now in the Vatican, was discovered in 1506, on the Esquiline Hill (Rome). It is a single block of marble, and is attributed to Agesandrus, Athenodorus, and Polydorus of the School of Rhodes in the 2nd century B. C. It has been restored.

Lessing called his famous treatise on the limits of poetry and the plastic arts (1766) Laocoon because he uses the group as the peg on which to hang his dissertation.

Since I have, as it were, set out from the Laocoon, and several times return to it, I have wished to give it a share also in the title. - Preface.

Irving Babbit has a philosophic book entitled The New Laokoon (Am. 1910).

Laodami'a. In classic myth, the wife of Protesila'us, who was slain before Troy. She begged to be allowed to converse with her dead husband for only three hours, and her request was granted. When the respite was over, she voluntarily accompanied the dead hero to the shades. Wordsworth has a poem on the subject (1815).

Laodice an. One indifferent to religion, caring little or nothing about the matter, like the Christians of that church, men

tioned in the book of Revelation (Ch. iii. 14-18).

Laodicean, A. A novel by Thomas Hardy (1881). The plot centers about the rivalry of Somerset, a young architect, and Captain de Stancy for the hand of Paula Powers, the owner of the Stancy castle. Captain de Stancy's son, who is known as Will Dare, steals Somerset's plans and takes underhanded means of discrediting Somerset in his work on the castle, but is finally exposed.

Laomedon. In classic myth, King of Troy, the father of Priam. He is remembered chiefly for the sin of ingratitude; he refused to give the rewards he had promised to Apollo for pasturing his flocks on Mount Ida, to Poseidon for building the walls of Troy and to Hercules for rescuing his daughter Hesiode from the sea-monster sent by Poseidon. Hercules slew him and all his sons but Priam in revenge.

Laon. Hero of Shelley's poem, The Revolt of Islam (q.v.).

Lapham, Silas, The hero of Howells' Rise of Silas Lapham (q.v.). Mrs. Lapham and the daughters Irene and Penelope are important characters in the same novel.

Lap'ithae. A people of Thessaly, noted in Greek legend for their defeat of the Centaurs at the marriage-feast of Hippodamia, when the latter were driven out of Pelion. The contest was represented on the Parthenon, the Theseum at Athens, the Temple of Apollo at Basso, and on numberless vases.

Lapsus Linguæ (Lat.). A slip of the tongue, a mistake in uttering a word, an imprudent word inadvertently spoken.

We have also adopted the Latin phrases lapsus calami (a slip of the pen), and lapsus memoria (a slip of the memory).

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