_What is the Origin of "Getting into a Scrape?"_ (Vol. viii., p. 292.).--It
may have been, first, a tumble in the mire; by such a process many of us in
childhood have both literally and figuratively "got into a scrape." Or,
secondly, the expression may have arisen from the use of _the razor_, where
to be shaved was regarded as an indignity, or practised as a token of deep
humiliation. D'Arvieux mentions an Arab who, having received a wound in his
jaw, chose rather to hazard his life, than allow the surgeon to take off
his beard. When Hanun had shaved off half the beards of David's servants,
"David sent to meet them, because they were greatly ashamed: and the king
said, 'Tarry at Jericho until your beards be grown, and then return'" (2
Sam. x. 4, 5.). The expedient of _shaving off the other half_ seems not to
have been thought on, though that would naturally have been resorted to,
had not the indignity of being rendered beardless appeared intolerable.
Under this figure the desolation of a country is threatened. "In the same
day shall the Lord shave with a razor that is hired, by them beyond the
river, even by the King of Assyria, the head, and the hair of the feet, and
it shall consume the beard" (Isaiah vii. 20.). Again, as a token of grief
and humiliation: "Then Job arose and rent his mantle, and shaved his
beard," &c.--"There came fourscore men, having their heads shaven, and
their clothes rent, and having cut themselves," &c. (Jer. xli. 5.). Or,
thirdly, the allusion may be to the consequence of becoming infected with
some loathsome cutaneous disease. "So Satan smote Job with sore boils from
the sole of his foot unto his crown. And he took him a potsherd to _scrape_
himself withal" (Job ii. 7, 8.).