Chapter Speaking Heads to Spheres of S by Brewer's Phrase & Fable

Spectre of the Brocken The Brocken is the highest summit of the Hartz mountains in Hanover. This summit is at times enveloped in a thick mist, which reflects in a greatly magnified degree any form opposite at sunset. In one of De Quincey's opium-dreams there is a powerful description of the Brocken spectre.

Spectrum, Spectra, Spectre (Latin, specto, to behold). In optics a spectrum is the image of a sunbeam beheld on a screen, after refraction by one or more prisms. Spectra are the images of objects left on the eye after the objects themselves are removed from sight. A spectre is the apparition of a person no longer living or not bodily present.

Speculate means to look out of a watch-tower, to spy about (Latin). Metaphorically, to look at a subject with the mind's eye, to spy into it; in commerce, to purchase articles which your mind has speculated on, and has led you to expect will prove profitable. (Specularis lapis is what we should now call window- glass.)

Speech Speech was given to conceal or disguise men's thoughts. Voltaire. But erroneously fathered on Talleyrand.

Speed A great punster, the servingman of Valentine, one of the Two Gentlemen of Verona. Launce is the serving-man of Proteus, the other gentleman. (Shakespeare: Two Gentlemen of Verona.)

Spell (A), in workman's language, means a portion of time allotted to some particular work, and from which the men are relieved when the limited time expires.
   To spell is to relieve another at his work.
   Spell ho! An exclamation to signify that the allotted time has expired, and men are to be relieved by another set.
   A pretty good spell. A long bout or pull, as a “spell at the capstan,” etc. (The German spiel means a performance as well as a play, game, or sport.)

Spellbinders Orators who hold their audience spellbound. The word came into use in America in the presidential election of 1888.

“The Hon. Daniel Dougherty says: `The proudest day of his life was when he beheld his name among the “spell-binders” who held the audience in rapture with their eloquence.' ”- Liberty Review July 7th, 1894, p. 13.

Spelter A commercial name for zinc. Also an abbreviation of spelter-solder.

Spence A salle à manger, the room in which meals are taken, a dining-room; also a store-room or pantry. (Dispensorium, Old French dispense, a buttery.)

“The rest of the family held counsel in the spence.”- Sir W. Scott: The Monastery, chap. xxx.

Spencer An outer coat without skirts so named from the Earl Spencer, who wore this dress. (George III.)

Spendthrift The Danish thrift is the noun of the word thrive (to increase or prosper). Shakespeare says, “I have a mind presages me such thrift” (increase, profit). As our frugal ancestors found saving the best way to grow rich, they applied the word to frugality and careful management. A spendthrift is one who spends the thrift or saving of his father, or, as Old Adam says, the “thrifty hire I saved.” (As You Like It.)

Spenser (Edmund), called by Milton “the sage and serious Spenser.” Ben Jonson, in a letter to Drummond, states that the poet “died for lake of bread.” (1553-1599.)

Spenserian Metre (The). The metre in which Spenser's Faërie Queene is written. It is a stanza of nine iambic lines, all of ten syllables except the last, which is an Alexandrine. Only three different rhymes are admitted into a stanza, and these rhymes are thus disposed: Lines 1 and 3 rhyme; lines 2, 4, 5, 7 rhyme; lines 6, 8, 9 rhyme; thus:-

1 - - - - - - - - -	ride
2 - - - - - - - - -	low
3 - - - - - - - - -	side
4 - - - - - - - - -