The Mid. Eng. form of the word was giste or gyste, and was adapted from O. Fr. giste, modern gîte, a beam supporting the platform of a gun. By origin the word meant that on which anything lies or rests (gésir, to lie; Lat. jacere).
The English word “gist,” in such phrases as “the gist of the matter,” the main or central point in an argument, is a doublet of joist. According to Skeat, the origin of this meaning is an O. Fr. proverbial expression, Je sçay bien où gist le lièvre, I know well where the hare lies, i.e. I know the real point of the matter.
JÓKAI, MAURUS (1825–1904), Hungarian novelist, was born
at Rév-Komárom on the 19th of February 1825. His father,
Joseph, was a member of the Asva branch of the ancient Jókay
family; his mother was a scion of the noble Pulays. The lad
was timid and delicate, and therefore educated at home till his
tenth year, when he was sent to Pressburg, subsequently completing
his education at the Calvinist college at Pápá, where he
first met Petöfi, Alexander Kozma, and several other brilliant
young men who subsequently became famous. His family had
meant him to follow the law, his father’s profession, and accordingly
the youth, always singularly assiduous, plodded conscientiously
through the usual curriculum at Kecskemet and Pest,
and as a full-blown advocate actually succeeded in winning his
first case. But the drudgery of a lawyer’s office was uncongenial
to the ardently poetical youth, and, encouraged by the
encomiums pronounced by the Hungarian Academy upon his
first play, Zsidó fiu (“The Jew Boy”), he flitted, when barely
twenty, to Pest in 1845 with a MS. romance in his pocket; he
was introduced by Petöfi to the literary notabilities of the Hungarian
capital, and the same year his first notable romance
Hétköznapok (“Working Days”), appeared, first in the columns
of the Pesti Dievatlap, and subsequently, in 1846, in book form.
Hétköznapok, despite its manifest crudities and extravagances,
was instantly recognized by all the leading critics as a work of
original genius, and in the following year Jókai was appointed
the editor of Életképek, the leading Hungarian literary journal,
and gathered round him all the rising talent of the country. On
the outbreak of the revolution of 1848 the young editor enthusiastically
adopted the national cause, and served it with both pen
and sword. Now, as ever, he was a moderate Liberal, setting his
face steadily against all excesses; but, carried away by the
Hungarian triumphs of April and May 1849, he supported
Kossuth’s fatal blunder of deposing the Hapsburg dynasty, and
though, after the war was over, his life was saved by an ingenious
stratagem of his wife, the great tragic actress, Roza Benke
Laborfalvi, whom he had married on the 29th of August 1848,
he lived for the next fourteen years the life of a political suspect.
Yet this was perhaps the most glorious period of his existence,
for during it he devoted himself to the rehabilitation of the proscribed
and humiliated Magyar language, composing in it no
fewer than thirty great romances, besides innumerable volumes of
tales, essays, criticisms and facetiæ. This was the period of such
masterpieces as Erdély Arany Kord (“The Golden Age of Transylvania”),
with its sequel Törökvilág Magyarországon (“The
Turks in Hungary”), Egy Magyar Nábob (“A Hungarian Nabob”),
Karpáthy Zoltán, Janicsárok végnapjai (“The Last Days of the
Janissaries”), Szomorú napok (“Sad Days”). On the re-establishment
of the Hungarian constitution by the Composition of
1867, Jókai took an active part in politics. As a constant supporter
of the Tisza administration, not only in parliament,
where he sat continuously for more than twenty years, but also
as the editor of the government organ, Hon, founded by him in
1863, he became a power in the state, and, though he never took
office himself, frequently extricated the government from difficult
places. In 1897 the emperor appointed him a member of the
upper house. As a suave, practical and witty debater he was
particularly successful. Yet it was to literature that he continued
to devote most of his time, and his productiveness after
1870 was stupendous, amounting to some hundreds of volumes.
Stranger still, none of this work is slipshod, and the best of it
deserves to endure. Amongst the finest of his later works may
be mentioned the unique and incomparable Az arany ember
(“A Man of Gold”)—translated into English under the title of
Timar’s Two Worlds—and A téngerzemü hölgy (“Eyes like the
Sea”), the latter of which won the Academy’s prize in 1890.
He died at Budapest on the 5th of May 1904; his wife having
predeceased him in 1886. Jókai was an arch-romantic, with a
perfervid Oriental imagination, and humour of the purest, rarest
description. If one can imagine a combination, in almost equal
parts, of Walter Scott, William Beckford, Dumas père, and
Charles Dickens, together with the native originality of an
ardent Magyar, one may perhaps form a fair idea of the great
Hungarian romancer’s indisputable genius.
See Névy László, Jókai Mór; Hegedúsis Sándor, Jókai Mórról; H. W. Temperley, “Maurus Jokai and the Historical Novel,” Contemporary Review (July 1904).
JOKJAKARTA, or Jokjokarta (more correctly Jokyakarta;
Du. Djokjakarta), a residency of the island of Java, Dutch East
Indies, bounded N. by Kedu and Surakarta, E. by Surakarta,
S. by the Indian Ocean, W. by Bagelen. Pop. (1897), 858,392.
The country is mountainous with the exception of a wedge-like
strip in the middle between the rivers Progo and Upak. In the
north-west are the southern slopes of the volcano Merapi, and
in the east the Kidul hills and the plateau of Sewu. The last-named
is an arid and scantily populated chalk range, with numerous
small summits, whence it is also known as the Thousand
Hills. The remainder of the residency is well-watered and fertile,
important irrigation works having been carried out. Sugar,
rice and indigo are cultivated; salt-making is practised on the
coast. The minerals include coal-beds in the Kidul hills and near
Nangulan, marble and gold in the neighbourhood of Kalasan.
The natives are poor, owing chiefly to maladministration, the
use of opium and the usury practised by foreigners (Chinese,
Arabs, &c.). The principality is divided between the sultan
(vassal of the Dutch government) and the so-called independent
prince Paku Alam; Ngawen and Imogiri are enclaves of Surakarta.
There are good roads, and railways connect the chief
town with Batavia, Samarang, Surakarta, &c. The town of
Jokjakarta (see Java) the seat of the resident, the sultan and
the Paku Alam princes; its most remarkable section is the kraton
or citadel of the sultan. Imogiri, S.W. of the capital, the burial-place
of the princes of Surakarta and Jokjakarta, is guarded by
priests and officials. Sentolo, Nangulan, Brosot, Kalasan,
Tempel, Wonosari are considerable villages. There are numerous
remains of Hindu temples, particularly in the neighbourhood of
Kalasan near the border of Surakarta and Prambanan, which is
just across it. Remarkable sacred grottoes are found on the
coast, namely, the so-called Nyabi Kidul and Rongkob, and at
Selarong, south-east of Jokjakarta.
JOLIET, a city and the county-seat of Will county, Illinois,
U.S.A., in the township of Joliet, in the N.E. part of the state,
on the Des Plaines river, 40 m. S.W. of Chicago. Pop. (1890),
23,264; (1900), 29,353, of whom 8536 were foreign-born, 1889
being German, 1579 Austrian, 1206 Irish and 951 Swedish;
(1910 census) 34,670. In addition there is a large population
in the immediate suburbs: that of the township including the
city was 27,438 in 1890, and 50,640 in 1910. Joliet is served by
the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fé, the Chicago & Alton, the
Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific, the Michigan Central, the
Illinois, Iowa & Minnesota, and the Elgin, Joliet & Eastern
railways, by interurban electric lines, and is on the Illinois &
Michigan canal and the Chicago Sanitary (ship) canal. The
city is situated in a narrow valley, on both sides of the river. It
is the seat of the northern Illinois penitentiary, and has a public
library (in front of which is a statue, by S. Asbjornsen, of Louis
Joliet), the township high school, two hospitals, two Catholic
academies and a club-house, erected by the Illinois Steel Company
for the use of its employees. There are two municipal parks,
West Park and Highland Park; Dellwood Park is an amusement
resort, owned by the Chicago & Joliet Electric Railway Company.
In the vicinity are large deposits of calcareous building stone,
cement and fireclay, and there are coal mines 20 m. distant.
Mineral resources and water-power have facilitated the development
of manufactures. The factory product in 1905 was valued
at $33,788,700 (20.3% more than in 1900), a large part of which
