Page:Cyclopedia of illustrations for public speakers, containing facts, incidents, stories, experiences, anecdotes, selections, etc., for illustrative purposes, with cross-references; (IA cyclopediaofillu00scotrich).pdf/191



deadly attractiveness. Not only the curiosity of the little deep-sea fishes, but their appetite is appealed to by the worm-like objects close to or in relief against the phosphorescent bulb of the anglers."

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DEVICES, FATAL

It is easy to go into evil by the trap-*door of temptation; it is not so easy to retrace the steps.

The bladderwort is a water-plant and catches much of its food. Underneath the surface of the water in which the plant floats are a number of lax, leafy branches spread out in all directions, and attached to these are large numbers of little flattened sacks or bladders, sometimes one-sixth of an inch long. The small end of each little bladder is surrounded by a cluster of bristles, forming a sort of hollow funnel leading into the mouth below, and this is covered inside by a perfect little trap-door, which fits closely, but opens with the least pressure from without. A little worm or insect, or even a very small fish, can pass within, but never back again. The sack acts like an eel-trap or a catch-'em-alive mouse-trap. These little sacks actually allure very small animals by displaying glandular hairs about the entrance. The small animals are imprisoned and soon perish and decay to nourish the wicked plant. (Text.)—Prof. , The Popular Science Monthly.

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Devil, A Prayer to the—See.

Devil's Slide—See.

DEVIL, THE, CHOSEN

The course of some men makes it seem as if they had chosen the devil with more purpose than did this lawyer:

St. Evona, or Ives, of Brittany, a famous lawyer in 1300, was lamenting that his profession had not a patron saint to look up to. The physicians had St. Luke; the champions had St. George; the artists each had one; but the lawyers had none. Thinking that the Pope ought to bestow a saint, he went to Rome, and requested his Holiness to give the lawyers of Brittany a patron. The Pope, rather puzzled, proposed to St. Evona that he should go round the church of St. John de Lateran blindfold, and after he had said so many Ave Marias, the first saint he laid hold of should be his patron; and this solution of the difficulty the good old lawyer willingly undertook. When he had finished his Ave Marias, he stopt short, and laid his hands on the first image he came to, and cried out with joy, "This is our saint—this be our patron." But when the bandage was taken from his eyes, what was his astonishment to find that, tho he had stopt at St. Michael's altar, he had all the while laid hold, not of St. Michael, but of the figure under St. Michael's feet—the devil! (Text.)—, "Curiosities of Law and Lawyers."

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Devolution—See.

Devotion to a Leader—See.

Devotion to Christ—See.

Devotion to Duty—See ;

Devotion to Science—See.

DEVOTION TO THE HELPLESS

In a newspaper account of a ship-*wreck, a touching incident is thus described by a survivor:

There was one incident which came particularly to my notice—the devotion of a woman to her blind husband. With her arm linked in his, she sought the rail of the Florida to be transferred to the Baltic.

An officer grabbed the man and hurled him to the rear. "Women and children only in these boats," he yelled, as the man tumbled backward. The wife ran to her husband's side and, again taking his arm, she appealed to the officer.

"He is blind! Can't you see he is helpless?" she said. "I have never left him. If he can not go in the boat with me, I will stay here until this ship sinks under me."

The unwritten law of the sea was waived before this plea, and that lone man, sightless and helpless, was permitted to accompany his wife, who would not leave the Florida until her husband was permitted to go with her.

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Dew, The Existence of the—See.

DIABOLICAL POSSESSION

An old man, nearly octogenarian, who has been in bed for twenty-seven years, being a harmless monomaniac, having the delusion