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Alabaster Blue Sectory 01
Page 06
During the Christmas festival of 1170 (December 29th) occurred an event memorable in ecclesiastical history--the murder of Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury. In 1162 Becket (who had previously been Chancellor to Henry II.) was made Archbishop, in succession to Archbishop Theobald. The King soon found that he who had served him faithfully as Chancellor would oppose him doggedly as Archbishop. Henry determined to subject the Church as well as the State to the supremacy of the law; and Becket determined to resist the King to the end, thus manifesting his desire for martyrdom in the cause of the Church. Henry had greatly offended the Archbishop by causing his eldest son to be crowned by the Archbishop of York. For this violation of the rights of Canterbury Becket threatened to lay the country under an interdict, which he had the power from the Pope to pronounce. A sort of reconciliation was effected between the King and the Archbishop at Freteval on July 21, 1170, but a further dispute arose on Becket delaying his return to England, the King being anxious to get him out of France. The Archbishop was full of complaints against Henry for the injuries he had done to his see, and the King stood upon his dignity, regardless of the threatened interdiction.
At first Dutch art was influenced, even confounded, with that of Flanders. The Van Eycks led the way, and painters like Bouts and others, though Dutch by birth, became Flemish by adoption in their art at least. When the Flemish painters fell to copying Italy some of the Dutch followed them, but with no great enthusiasm. Suddenly, at the beginning of the seventeenth century, when Holland had gained political independence, Dutch art struck off by itself, became original, became famous. It pictured native life with verve, skill, keenness of insight, and fine pictorial view. Limited it was; it never soared like Italian art, never became universal or world-embracing. It was distinct, individual, national, something that spoke for Holland, but little beyond it.
The Surinam toad, represented in No. 8, is also the possessor of one of the strangest nurseries known to science. It lives in the dense tropical forests of Guiana and Brazil, and is a true water-haunter. But at the breeding season the female undergoes a curious change of integument. The skin on her back grows pulpy, soft, and jelly-like. She lays her eggs in the water: but as soon as she has laid them, her lord and master plasters them on to her impressionable back with his feet, so as to secure them from all assaults of enemies. Every egg is pressed separately into a bed of the soft skin, which soon closes over it automatically, thus burying each in a little cell or niche, where it undergoes its further development. The tadpoles pass through their larval stage within the cell, and then hop out, in the four-legged condition. As soon as they have gone off to shift for themselves, the mother toad finds herself with a ragged and honeycombed skin, which must be very uncomfortable. So she rubs the remnant of it off against stones or the bark of trees, and re-develops a similar back afresh at the next breeding season.
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