Meme distractions:)
1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the next 4-7 sentences on your LJ along with these instructions.
5. Don't you dare dig for that "cool" or "intellectual" book in your closet! I know you were thinking about it! Just pick up whatever is closest (unless it's too troublesome to reach and is really heavy. Then go back to step 1).
"Without them, futile are all attempts to explain the meaning if customs that have ruled nearly every act of life of many peoples, and that still rule a large part of the life of all peoples. With them, we read, as in open book, what mean the scattered relics of feastings at the grave; the modelling of the tomb upon the lines of the house; the decoration and furnishing of it as a place where the ghost might eat, drink and be merry, and enjoy the flowers that garlanded it and the libations poured upon it. And only with knowledge of these ideas can we follow the steps by which the transition was made from grave to altar, and from altar to temple. For the burial places, where feasts of the dead were held, became altars whereon sacrifices were offered to the ancestral spirits, worship of whom is a leading element under various forms in the religions of every race and age, whether among barbaric or civilised peoples. The altars, each containing its relics of the dead, were the nuclei of temples from the rude stone circle upward, through many graduations, to the church of St. Peter in Rome, wherein the saints bones are said to lie."
From 'The story of "primitive" man' by Edward Clodd.
The long winded sentences are due to the fact that the book was written in 1895. I think they were rationing out full stops:p It is an amazingly useful book for me, despite the fact that my copy is 113 years old now:)
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the next 4-7 sentences on your LJ along with these instructions.
5. Don't you dare dig for that "cool" or "intellectual" book in your closet! I know you were thinking about it! Just pick up whatever is closest (unless it's too troublesome to reach and is really heavy. Then go back to step 1).
"Without them, futile are all attempts to explain the meaning if customs that have ruled nearly every act of life of many peoples, and that still rule a large part of the life of all peoples. With them, we read, as in open book, what mean the scattered relics of feastings at the grave; the modelling of the tomb upon the lines of the house; the decoration and furnishing of it as a place where the ghost might eat, drink and be merry, and enjoy the flowers that garlanded it and the libations poured upon it. And only with knowledge of these ideas can we follow the steps by which the transition was made from grave to altar, and from altar to temple. For the burial places, where feasts of the dead were held, became altars whereon sacrifices were offered to the ancestral spirits, worship of whom is a leading element under various forms in the religions of every race and age, whether among barbaric or civilised peoples. The altars, each containing its relics of the dead, were the nuclei of temples from the rude stone circle upward, through many graduations, to the church of St. Peter in Rome, wherein the saints bones are said to lie."
From 'The story of "primitive" man' by Edward Clodd.
The long winded sentences are due to the fact that the book was written in 1895. I think they were rationing out full stops:p It is an amazingly useful book for me, despite the fact that my copy is 113 years old now:)