The Last Chronicle of Barset (135 page)

2.
shall toil and spin no more
: Matthew 6:28–9: ‘And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin. And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.'

1.
some of the caloric
: Caloric theory, influential until the mid nineteenth century, rested on the idea that heat and combustion were caused by the flow of a weightless invisible fluid called caloric which surrounded every thing.

2.
Leander
: Leander swam the Hellespont at night to visit his lover Hero, a priestess of Aphrodite. He drowned in a storm, and the grieving Hero threw herself into the sea. See, for example,
Hero and Leander
(1598) by Christopher Marlowe.

1.
might have been Dean of Barchester
: See Chapter
47
of
Barchester Towers
.

1.
among the potsherds, like Job
: Job 2:7–8: ‘So went Satan forth from the presence of the Lord, and smote Job with sore boils from the sole of his foot unto his crown. And he took him a potsherd to scrape himself withal; and he sat down among the ashes.'

1.
curtailed in length
: The ‘long frock, coming nearly to his feet' would have been favoured by those of a High Church or of Tractarian persuasion, but for some it would have been too close to the garb of a Roman Catholic priest.
Dean Arabin's remonstration indicates that he has distanced himself from his youthful fascination with the Roman Church (see also Chapter
1
, note
3
, and
Barchester Towers
, Chapter
20
).