Comus
well worked out, with a complete originality and extraordinary elevation of style, is perhaps Milton's masterpiece, and is simply the eulogy of virtue.--Taine. I did not perceive its faults.--Anon. Conch (konk) Shell, a large spiral shell with a flowing lip, formerly much used as a dinner horn to call the men from the field. In Hawthorne's day the fish dealer announced his passage along the village street by blowing lustily on a conch shell. The large pink conch of the West Indies is in demand for its pearl, and is much used for inlaid work, buttons, pearl handles and the like. Held to the ear, the conch gives forth a murmuring sound likened by the poets to that of the distant ocean. But I have sinuous shells of pearly hue Within, and they that lustre have imbibed In the sun's palace-porch, where when unyoked His chariot-wheel stands midway in the wave; Shake one, and it awakens; then apply Its polished lips to your attentive ear, And it remembers its august abodes, And murmurs as the ocean murmurs there. --Walter Savage Landor.
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Comus
ko'mus, in ancient Greece, a festal procession in honor of the gods, especially Bacchus. In the later age of Rome, Comus was the god of mirth, who presided over revels and merry-makings. Milton uses the name to designate an evil enchanter in his Masque of Comus. See Comedy
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Comus
in later Greek mythology, a divinity of festive mirth, represented as a winged youth, sometimes drunk and languid as after a debauch, or slumbering in a standing posture with legs crossed. Comus thus becomes the representative deity of riotous merry-making, of tipsy dance and jollity.
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Conan Mac Morna
- A figure in the Ossianic cycle of Irish legend, described as scoffing and deriding all that was high and noble. One day while hunting, he and others of the Fians, entered a magnificent palace which they found empty and began to feast. It soon became apparent, however, that the palace was enchanted, and the walls shrank to the size of a fox's hole. Conan seemed to be unaware of the danger and continued to eat; but two of the Fians pulled him off his chair, to which some of his skin stuck. To soothe the pain a black sheep-skin was placed on his back, on to which it grew, and he wore it till he died.
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Conary Mor
- A legendary High King of Ireland . It is said that his great-grandfather destroyed the Fairy Mound of Bri-Leith, and thus brought down ill-fate upon Conary Mor. When a child he left his three foster-brothers on the Plains of Liffey, and followed a flock of beautiful birds down to the shore. These were transformed into armed men, who told him that they belonged to his father and were his kin. His geise (or taboo) was made known to him. and later he was proclaimed King of Erin. His reign was good, happy and prosperous, until the Danaan folk lured him to the breaking of his geise. It is told how Conary, dying of thirst after battle, sent his warrior Mac Cecht to bring him water. Mac Cecht had much difficulty in obtaining this, and on his return found that Conary had been beheaded the water, however, was raised to the mouth of the bodyless head-which, it is said, thanked Mac Cecht for his deed.
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Conaty
THOMAS JAMES, an American clergyman; born in Ireland, at Aug. 1, 1847. He was graduated at Montreal Theological School and ordained a Roman Catholic priest in 1872, and from 1880 to 1897 was pastor of the Church of the Sacred Heart and from 1893 to 1897 president of the Catholic Summer School. In 1896 he was made rector of the Catholic University of America, in Washington, D. C., and on Nov. 24, 1901, he was consecrated titular bishop of Samos. He became bishop of Monterey and Los Angeles, 1903. He was author of "New Testament Studies," etc. He died on Sept. 18, 1915.
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Concave
The internal surface of a hollow a rounded body. The reverse of convex.
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Concentration Camps
or DIS- TRICTS, the terms are in military usage applied to points, contiguous to the scene of intended departure or operations, where troops are appointed to assemble in large force. The object may be an immediate attack on the enemy or embarkation for the front. During the World War the terms were also applied to the improvised places where war prisoners were confined, and at an earlier date to the camps in which the British collected Boer non-combatants during the war in South Africa (1899- 1902). This is the sense in which the term is popularly used, and it was given a wider application during the rebellion in Cuba against Spanish rule (1896- 1898) when the commanders of the Spanish forces compelled Cuban women and children and other non-combatants to remain within certain fixed boundaries. The idea has been put into practice in most modern campaigns, and concentration camps or districts, where non-combatants were kept out of danger and prevented from interfering with military operations, were established by the American forces in the Philippines during the war with Spain.
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Concepcion
the name of several places in Spanish America, including (1) a province of Chile stretching from the Andes to the coast N. of Arauco. It is an important agricultural and cattleraising district; and has valuable coalmines. Area, 3,535 square miles; pop. about 225,000. 225,000. Concepcion, the capital, near the mouth of the Biobio, has a cathedral and notable buildings. Its port is the safest in Chile. It ranks next to Valparaiso as a mart of foreign trade. Pop. about 55,000. (2) Concepcion del Uruguay, the former capital of the Argentine province of Entre Rios, on the Uruguay, 180 miles S. E. of Paraná by the Entre Rios railway, with large slaughter-houses and active river-trade. (3) Concepcion, a town of Paraguay, on the Paraguay river, about 260 miles above Asuncion, with trade in maté. (4) The name of several places in Bolivia, the largest being Concepcion de Apolobamba, capital of the province of Caupolican, formerly a Franciscan mission. Its Indian population cultivate coca and cacao, and collect medicinal barks from the surrounding forests. (5) Concepcion, a town of Mexico, 50 miles W. of Chihuahua, in the upper Yaqui valley, famous for its apples. (6) Concepcion de la Vega, a town of San Domingo, 5 miles S. E. of Santiago.
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