148 PROSERPINA. 



26. Indeed, in the first place, the word we have to use 

 so often, * stalk,' has not been got to the roots of, yet. It 

 comes from the Greek o-reXe^o?, (stelechos,) the ' holding 

 part ' of a tree, that which is like a handle to all its 

 branches ; ' stock ' is another form in which it has come 

 down to us : with some notion of its being the mother of 

 branches : thus, when Athena's olive was burnt by the 

 Persians, two days after, a shoot a cubit long had sprung 

 from the ' stelechos,' of it. 



27. Secondly. Few words are more interesting to the 

 modern scholarly and professorial mind than ' stipend.' 

 (I have twice a year at present to consider whether I am 

 worth mine, sent with compliments from the Curators of 

 the University chest). Now, this word comes from 

 ' stips,' small pay, which itself comes from c stipo,' to press 

 together, with the idea of small coin heaped up in little 

 towers or piles. But with the idea of lateral pressing to- 

 gether, instead of downward, we get ' stipes,' a solid log ; 

 in Greek, with the same sense, TTV7ro9, (stupos,) whence, 

 gradually, with help from another word meaning to beat, 

 (and a side-glance at beating of hemp,) we get our < stu- 

 pid,' the German stumph, the Scottish sumph, and the 

 plain English ' stump.' 



Refining on the more delicate sound of stipes, the 

 Latins got ' stipula,' the thin stem of straw : which rustles 

 and ripples daintily in verse, associated with spica and 

 spiculum, used of the sharp pointed ear of corn, and ita 

 fine processes of fairy shafts. 



