8656 lines
387 KiB
Plaintext
8656 lines
387 KiB
Plaintext
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: Earth's Dreamlands : Info on: RPG's, :(313)558-5024 : area code :
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:RPGNet World HQ & Archive: Drugs, Industrial :(313)558-5517 : changes to :
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: 1000's of text files : music, Fiction, :InterNet : (810) after :
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: No Elite / No porn : HomeBrew Beer. :rpgnet@aol.com: Dec 1,1993 :
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:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:
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The Internet Wiretap 1st Online Edition of
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THE DEVIL'S DICTIONARY
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by
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AMBROSE BIERCE
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Copyright 1911 by Albert and Charles Boni, Inc.
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A Public Domain Text, Copyright Expired
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Released April 15 1993
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Entered by Aloysius of &tSftDotIotE
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aloysius@west.darkside.com
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PREFACE
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_The Devil's Dictionary_ was begun in a weekly paper in 1881, and was
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continued in a desultory way at long intervals until 1906. In that
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year a large part of it was published in covers with the title _The
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Cynic's Word Book_, a name which the author had not the power to
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reject or happiness to approve. To quote the publishers of the
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present work:
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"This more reverent title had previously been forced upon him by
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the religious scruples of the last newspaper in which a part of the
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work had appeared, with the natural consequence that when it came out
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in covers the country already had been flooded by its imitators with a
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score of 'cynic' books -- _The Cynic's This_, _The Cynic's That_, and
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_The Cynic's t'Other_. Most of these books were merely stupid, though
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some of them added the distinction of silliness. Among them, they
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brought the word 'cynic' into disfavor so deep that any book bearing
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it was discredited in advance of publication."
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Meantime, too, some of the enterprising humorists of the country
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had helped themselves to such parts of the work as served their needs,
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and many of its definitions, anecdotes, phrases and so forth, had
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become more or less current in popular speech. This explanation is
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made, not with any pride of priority in trifles, but in simple denial
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of possible charges of plagiarism, which is no trifle. In merely
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resuming his own the author hopes to be held guiltless by those to
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whom the work is addressed -- enlightened souls who prefer dry wines
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to sweet, sense to sentiment, wit to humor and clean English to slang.
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A conspicuous, and it is hope not unpleasant, feature of the book
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is its abundant illustrative quotations from eminent poets, chief of
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whom is that learned and ingenius cleric, Father Gassalasca Jape,
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S.J., whose lines bear his initials. To Father Jape's kindly
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encouragement and assistance the author of the prose text is greatly
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indebted.
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A.B.
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A
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ABASEMENT, n. A decent and customary mental attitude in the presence
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of wealth of power. Peculiarly appropriate in an employee when
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addressing an employer.
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ABATIS, n. Rubbish in front of a fort, to prevent the rubbish outside
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from molesting the rubbish inside.
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ABDICATION, n. An act whereby a sovereign attests his sense of the
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high temperature of the throne.
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Poor Isabella's Dead, whose abdication
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Set all tongues wagging in the Spanish nation.
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For that performance 'twere unfair to scold her:
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She wisely left a throne too hot to hold her.
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To History she'll be no royal riddle --
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Merely a plain parched pea that jumped the griddle.
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G.J.
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ABDOMEN, n. The temple of the god Stomach, in whose worship, with
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sacrificial rights, all true men engage. From women this ancient
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faith commands but a stammering assent. They sometimes minister at
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the altar in a half-hearted and ineffective way, but true reverence
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for the one deity that men really adore they know not. If woman had a
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||
free hand in the world's marketing the race would become
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graminivorous.
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||
ABILITY, n. The natural equipment to accomplish some small part of
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the meaner ambitions distinguishing able men from dead ones. In the
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||
last analysis ability is commonly found to consist mainly in a high
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degree of solemnity. Perhaps, however, this impressive quality is
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rightly appraised; it is no easy task to be solemn.
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ABNORMAL, adj. Not conforming to standard. In matters of thought and
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conduct, to be independent is to be abnormal, to be abnormal is to be
|
||
detested. Wherefore the lexicographer adviseth a striving toward the
|
||
straiter [sic] resemblance of the Average Man than he hath to himself.
|
||
Whoso attaineth thereto shall have peace, the prospect of death and
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the hope of Hell.
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ABORIGINIES, n. Persons of little worth found cumbering the soil of a
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newly discovered country. They soon cease to cumber; they fertilize.
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ABRACADABRA.
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By _Abracadabra_ we signify
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An infinite number of things.
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'Tis the answer to What? and How? and Why?
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And Whence? and Whither? -- a word whereby
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The Truth (with the comfort it brings)
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Is open to all who grope in night,
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Crying for Wisdom's holy light.
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Whether the word is a verb or a noun
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Is knowledge beyond my reach.
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I only know that 'tis handed down.
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From sage to sage,
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From age to age --
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An immortal part of speech!
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||
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Of an ancient man the tale is told
|
||
That he lived to be ten centuries old,
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In a cave on a mountain side.
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(True, he finally died.)
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The fame of his wisdom filled the land,
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For his head was bald, and you'll understand
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His beard was long and white
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And his eyes uncommonly bright.
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Philosophers gathered from far and near
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To sit at his feat and hear and hear,
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Though he never was heard
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To utter a word
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||
But "_Abracadabra, abracadab_,
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_Abracada, abracad_,
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||
_Abraca, abrac, abra, ab!_"
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'Twas all he had,
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||
'Twas all they wanted to hear, and each
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||
Made copious notes of the mystical speech,
|
||
Which they published next --
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||
A trickle of text
|
||
In the meadow of commentary.
|
||
Mighty big books were these,
|
||
In a number, as leaves of trees;
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||
In learning, remarkably -- very!
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He's dead,
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||
As I said,
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||
And the books of the sages have perished,
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But his wisdom is sacredly cherished.
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In _Abracadabra_ it solemnly rings,
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Like an ancient bell that forever swings.
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O, I love to hear
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That word make clear
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Humanity's General Sense of Things.
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||
Jamrach Holobom
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||
|
||
ABRIDGE, v.t. To shorten.
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When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for
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||
people to abridge their king, a decent respect for the opinions of
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mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel
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||
them to the separation.
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||
Oliver Cromwell
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||
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||
ABRUPT, adj. Sudden, without ceremony, like the arrival of a cannon-
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||
shot and the departure of the soldier whose interests are most
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||
affected by it. Dr. Samuel Johnson beautifully said of another
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||
author's ideas that they were "concatenated without abruption."
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||
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||
ABSCOND, v.i. To "move in a mysterious way," commonly with the
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property of another.
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||
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Spring beckons! All things to the call respond;
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The trees are leaving and cashiers abscond.
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||
Phela Orm
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||
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||
ABSENT, adj. Peculiarly exposed to the tooth of detraction; vilifed;
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||
hopelessly in the wrong; superseded in the consideration and affection
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||
of another.
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||
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||
To men a man is but a mind. Who cares
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||
What face he carries or what form he wears?
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||
But woman's body is the woman. O,
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Stay thou, my sweetheart, and do never go,
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||
But heed the warning words the sage hath said:
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||
A woman absent is a woman dead.
|
||
Jogo Tyree
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||
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||
ABSENTEE, n. A person with an income who has had the forethought to
|
||
remove himself from the sphere of exaction.
|
||
|
||
ABSOLUTE, adj. Independent, irresponsible. An absolute monarchy is
|
||
one in which the sovereign does as he pleases so long as he pleases
|
||
the assassins. Not many absolute monarchies are left, most of them
|
||
having been replaced by limited monarchies, where the sovereign's
|
||
power for evil (and for good) is greatly curtailed, and by republics,
|
||
which are governed by chance.
|
||
|
||
ABSTAINER, n. A weak person who yields to the temptation of denying
|
||
himself a pleasure. A total abstainer is one who abstains from
|
||
everything but abstention, and especially from inactivity in the
|
||
affairs of others.
|
||
|
||
Said a man to a crapulent youth: "I thought
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||
You a total abstainer, my son."
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||
"So I am, so I am," said the scrapgrace caught --
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"But not, sir, a bigoted one."
|
||
G.J.
|
||
|
||
ABSURDITY, n. A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with
|
||
one's own opinion.
|
||
|
||
ACADEME, n. An ancient school where morality and philosophy were
|
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taught.
|
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ACADEMY, n. [from ACADEME] A modern school where football is
|
||
taught.
|
||
|
||
ACCIDENT, n. An inevitable occurrence due to the action of immutable
|
||
natural laws.
|
||
|
||
ACCOMPLICE, n. One associated with another in a crime, having guilty
|
||
knowledge and complicity, as an attorney who defends a criminal,
|
||
knowing him guilty. This view of the attorney's position in the
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||
matter has not hitherto commanded the assent of attorneys, no one
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||
having offered them a fee for assenting.
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||
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||
ACCORD, n. Harmony.
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||
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||
ACCORDION, n. An instrument in harmony with the sentiments of an
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||
assassin.
|
||
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||
ACCOUNTABILITY, n. The mother of caution.
|
||
|
||
"My accountability, bear in mind,"
|
||
Said the Grand Vizier: "Yes, yes,"
|
||
Said the Shah: "I do -- 'tis the only kind
|
||
Of ability you possess."
|
||
Joram Tate
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ACCUSE, v.t. To affirm another's guilt or unworth; most commonly as a
|
||
justification of ourselves for having wronged him.
|
||
|
||
ACEPHALOUS, adj. In the surprising condition of the Crusader who
|
||
absently pulled at his forelock some hours after a Saracen scimitar
|
||
had, unconsciously to him, passed through his neck, as related by de
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||
Joinville.
|
||
|
||
ACHIEVEMENT, n. The death of endeavor and the birth of disgust.
|
||
|
||
ACKNOWLEDGE, v.t. To confess. Acknowledgement of one another's
|
||
faults is the highest duty imposed by our love of truth.
|
||
|
||
ACQUAINTANCE, n. A person whom we know well enough to borrow from,
|
||
but not well enough to lend to. A degree of friendship called slight
|
||
when its object is poor or obscure, and intimate when he is rich or
|
||
famous.
|
||
|
||
ACTUALLY, adv. Perhaps; possibly.
|
||
|
||
ADAGE, n. Boned wisdom for weak teeth.
|
||
|
||
ADAMANT, n. A mineral frequently found beneath a corset. Soluble in
|
||
solicitate of gold.
|
||
|
||
ADDER, n. A species of snake. So called from its habit of adding
|
||
funeral outlays to the other expenses of living.
|
||
|
||
ADHERENT, n. A follower who has not yet obtained all that he expects
|
||
to get.
|
||
|
||
ADMINISTRATION, n. An ingenious abstraction in politics, designed to
|
||
receive the kicks and cuffs due to the premier or president. A man of
|
||
straw, proof against bad-egging and dead-catting.
|
||
|
||
ADMIRAL, n. That part of a war-ship which does the talking while the
|
||
figure-head does the thinking.
|
||
|
||
ADMIRATION, n. Our polite recognition of another's resemblance to
|
||
ourselves.
|
||
|
||
ADMONITION, n. Gentle reproof, as with a meat-axe. Friendly warning.
|
||
|
||
Consigned by way of admonition,
|
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His soul forever to perdition.
|
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Judibras
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|
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ADORE, v.t. To venerate expectantly.
|
||
|
||
ADVICE, n. The smallest current coin.
|
||
|
||
"The man was in such deep distress,"
|
||
Said Tom, "that I could do no less
|
||
Than give him good advice." Said Jim:
|
||
"If less could have been done for him
|
||
I know you well enough, my son,
|
||
To know that's what you would have done."
|
||
Jebel Jocordy
|
||
|
||
AFFIANCED, pp. Fitted with an ankle-ring for the ball-and-chain.
|
||
|
||
AFFLICTION, n. An acclimatizing process preparing the soul for
|
||
another and bitter world.
|
||
|
||
AFRICAN, n. A nigger that votes our way.
|
||
|
||
AGE, n. That period of life in which we compound for the vices that
|
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we still cherish by reviling those that we have no longer the
|
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enterprise to commit.
|
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AGITATOR, n. A statesman who shakes the fruit trees of his neighbors
|
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-- to dislodge the worms.
|
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|
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AIM, n. The task we set our wishes to.
|
||
|
||
"Cheer up! Have you no aim in life?"
|
||
She tenderly inquired.
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"An aim? Well, no, I haven't, wife;
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The fact is -- I have fired."
|
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G.J.
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AIR, n. A nutritious substance supplied by a bountiful Providence for
|
||
the fattening of the poor.
|
||
|
||
ALDERMAN, n. An ingenious criminal who covers his secret thieving
|
||
with a pretence of open marauding.
|
||
|
||
ALIEN, n. An American sovereign in his probationary state.
|
||
|
||
ALLAH, n. The Mahometan Supreme Being, as distinguished from the
|
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Christian, Jewish, and so forth.
|
||
|
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Allah's good laws I faithfully have kept,
|
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And ever for the sins of man have wept;
|
||
And sometimes kneeling in the temple I
|
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Have reverently crossed my hands and slept.
|
||
Junker Barlow
|
||
|
||
ALLEGIANCE, n.
|
||
|
||
This thing Allegiance, as I suppose,
|
||
Is a ring fitted in the subject's nose,
|
||
Whereby that organ is kept rightly pointed
|
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To smell the sweetness of the Lord's anointed.
|
||
G.J.
|
||
|
||
ALLIANCE, n. In international politics, the union of two thieves who
|
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have their hands so deeply inserted in each other's pockets that they
|
||
cannot separately plunder a third.
|
||
|
||
ALLIGATOR, n. The crocodile of America, superior in every detail to
|
||
the crocodile of the effete monarchies of the Old World. Herodotus
|
||
says the Indus is, with one exception, the only river that produces
|
||
crocodiles, but they appear to have gone West and grown up with the
|
||
other rivers. From the notches on his back the alligator is called a
|
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sawrian.
|
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|
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ALONE, adj. In bad company.
|
||
|
||
In contact, lo! the flint and steel,
|
||
By spark and flame, the thought reveal
|
||
That he the metal, she the stone,
|
||
Had cherished secretly alone.
|
||
Booley Fito
|
||
|
||
ALTAR, n. The place whereupon the priest formerly raveled out the
|
||
small intestine of the sacrificial victim for purposes of divination
|
||
and cooked its flesh for the gods. The word is now seldom used,
|
||
except with reference to the sacrifice of their liberty and peace by a
|
||
male and a female tool.
|
||
|
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They stood before the altar and supplied
|
||
The fire themselves in which their fat was fried.
|
||
In vain the sacrifice! -- no god will claim
|
||
An offering burnt with an unholy flame.
|
||
M.P. Nopput
|
||
|
||
AMBIDEXTROUS, adj. Able to pick with equal skill a right-hand pocket
|
||
or a left.
|
||
|
||
AMBITION, n. An overmastering desire to be vilified by enemies while
|
||
living and made ridiculous by friends when dead.
|
||
|
||
AMNESTY, n. The state's magnanimity to those offenders whom it would
|
||
be too expensive to punish.
|
||
|
||
ANOINT, v.t. To grease a king or other great functionary already
|
||
sufficiently slippery.
|
||
|
||
As sovereigns are anointed by the priesthood,
|
||
So pigs to lead the populace are greased good.
|
||
Judibras
|
||
|
||
ANTIPATHY, n. The sentiment inspired by one's friend's friend.
|
||
|
||
APHORISM, n. Predigested wisdom.
|
||
|
||
The flabby wine-skin of his brain
|
||
Yields to some pathologic strain,
|
||
And voids from its unstored abysm
|
||
The driblet of an aphorism.
|
||
"The Mad Philosopher," 1697
|
||
|
||
APOLOGIZE, v.i. To lay the foundation for a future offence.
|
||
|
||
APOSTATE, n. A leech who, having penetrated the shell of a turtle
|
||
only to find that the creature has long been dead, deems it expedient
|
||
to form a new attachment to a fresh turtle.
|
||
|
||
APOTHECARY, n. The physician's accomplice, undertaker's benefactor
|
||
and grave worm's provider.
|
||
|
||
When Jove sent blessings to all men that are,
|
||
And Mercury conveyed them in a jar,
|
||
That friend of tricksters introduced by stealth
|
||
Disease for the apothecary's health,
|
||
Whose gratitude impelled him to proclaim:
|
||
"My deadliest drug shall bear my patron's name!"
|
||
G.J.
|
||
|
||
APPEAL, v.t. In law, to put the dice into the box for another throw.
|
||
|
||
APPETITE, n. An instinct thoughtfully implanted by Providence as a
|
||
solution to the labor question.
|
||
|
||
APPLAUSE, n. The echo of a platitude.
|
||
|
||
APRIL FOOL, n. The March fool with another month added to his folly.
|
||
|
||
ARCHBISHOP, n. An ecclesiastical dignitary one point holier than a
|
||
bishop.
|
||
|
||
If I were a jolly archbishop,
|
||
On Fridays I'd eat all the fish up --
|
||
Salmon and flounders and smelts;
|
||
On other days everything else.
|
||
Jodo Rem
|
||
|
||
ARCHITECT, n. One who drafts a plan of your house, and plans a draft
|
||
of your money.
|
||
|
||
ARDOR, n. The quality that distinguishes love without knowledge.
|
||
|
||
ARENA, n. In politics, an imaginary rat-pit in which the statesman
|
||
wrestles with his record.
|
||
|
||
ARISTOCRACY, n. Government by the best men. (In this sense the word
|
||
is obsolete; so is that kind of government.) Fellows that wear downy
|
||
hats and clean shirts -- guilty of education and suspected of bank
|
||
accounts.
|
||
|
||
ARMOR, n. The kind of clothing worn by a man whose tailor is a
|
||
blacksmith.
|
||
|
||
ARRAYED, pp. Drawn up and given an orderly disposition, as a rioter
|
||
hanged to a lamppost.
|
||
|
||
ARREST, v.t. Formally to detain one accused of unusualness.
|
||
|
||
God made the world in six days and was arrested on the seventh.
|
||
_The Unauthorized Version_
|
||
|
||
ARSENIC, n. A kind of cosmetic greatly affected by the ladies, whom
|
||
it greatly affects in turn.
|
||
|
||
"Eat arsenic? Yes, all you get,"
|
||
Consenting, he did speak up;
|
||
"'Tis better you should eat it, pet,
|
||
Than put it in my teacup."
|
||
Joel Huck
|
||
|
||
ART, n. This word has no definition. Its origin is related as
|
||
follows by the ingenious Father Gassalasca Jape, S.J.
|
||
|
||
One day a wag -- what would the wretch be at? --
|
||
Shifted a letter of the cipher RAT,
|
||
And said it was a god's name! Straight arose
|
||
Fantastic priests and postulants (with shows,
|
||
And mysteries, and mummeries, and hymns,
|
||
And disputations dire that lamed their limbs)
|
||
To serve his temple and maintain the fires,
|
||
Expound the law, manipulate the wires.
|
||
Amazed, the populace that rites attend,
|
||
Believe whate'er they cannot comprehend,
|
||
And, inly edified to learn that two
|
||
Half-hairs joined so and so (as Art can do)
|
||
Have sweeter values and a grace more fit
|
||
Than Nature's hairs that never have been split,
|
||
Bring cates and wines for sacrificial feasts,
|
||
And sell their garments to support the priests.
|
||
|
||
ARTLESSNESS, n. A certain engaging quality to which women attain by
|
||
long study and severe practice upon the admiring male, who is pleased
|
||
to fancy it resembles the candid simplicity of his young.
|
||
|
||
ASPERSE, v.t. Maliciously to ascribe to another vicious actions which
|
||
one has not had the temptation and opportunity to commit.
|
||
|
||
ASS, n. A public singer with a good voice but no ear. In Virginia
|
||
City, Nevada, he is called the Washoe Canary, in Dakota, the Senator,
|
||
and everywhere the Donkey. The animal is widely and variously
|
||
celebrated in the literature, art and religion of every age and
|
||
country; no other so engages and fires the human imagination as this
|
||
noble vertebrate. Indeed, it is doubted by some (Ramasilus, _lib.
|
||
II., De Clem._, and C. Stantatus, _De Temperamente_) if it is not a
|
||
god; and as such we know it was worshiped by the Etruscans, and, if we
|
||
may believe Macrobious, by the Cupasians also. Of the only two
|
||
animals admitted into the Mahometan Paradise along with the souls of
|
||
men, the ass that carried Balaam is one, the dog of the Seven Sleepers
|
||
the other. This is no small distinction. From what has been written
|
||
about this beast might be compiled a library of great splendor and
|
||
magnitude, rivalling that of the Shakespearean cult, and that which
|
||
clusters about the Bible. It may be said, generally, that all
|
||
literature is more or less Asinine.
|
||
|
||
"Hail, holy Ass!" the quiring angels sing;
|
||
"Priest of Unreason, and of Discords King!"
|
||
Great co-Creator, let Thy glory shine:
|
||
God made all else, the Mule, the Mule is thine!"
|
||
G.J.
|
||
|
||
AUCTIONEER, n. The man who proclaims with a hammer that he has picked
|
||
a pocket with his tongue.
|
||
|
||
AUSTRALIA, n. A country lying in the South Sea, whose industrial and
|
||
commercial development has been unspeakably retarded by an unfortunate
|
||
dispute among geographers as to whether it is a continent or an
|
||
island.
|
||
|
||
AVERNUS, n. The lake by which the ancients entered the infernal
|
||
regions. The fact that access to the infernal regions was obtained by
|
||
a lake is believed by the learned Marcus Ansello Scrutator to have
|
||
suggested the Christian rite of baptism by immersion. This, however,
|
||
has been shown by Lactantius to be an error.
|
||
|
||
_Facilis descensus Averni,_
|
||
The poet remarks; and the sense
|
||
Of it is that when down-hill I turn I
|
||
Will get more of punches than pence.
|
||
Jehal Dai Lupe
|
||
|
||
|
||
B
|
||
|
||
|
||
BAAL, n. An old deity formerly much worshiped under various names.
|
||
As Baal he was popular with the Phoenicians; as Belus or Bel he had
|
||
the honor to be served by the priest Berosus, who wrote the famous
|
||
account of the Deluge; as Babel he had a tower partly erected to his
|
||
glory on the Plain of Shinar. From Babel comes our English word
|
||
"babble." Under whatever name worshiped, Baal is the Sun-god. As
|
||
Beelzebub he is the god of flies, which are begotten of the sun's rays
|
||
on the stagnant water. In Physicia Baal is still worshiped as Bolus,
|
||
and as Belly he is adored and served with abundant sacrifice by the
|
||
priests of Guttledom.
|
||
|
||
BABE or BABY, n. A misshapen creature of no particular age, sex, or
|
||
condition, chiefly remarkable for the violence of the sympathies and
|
||
antipathies it excites in others, itself without sentiment or emotion.
|
||
There have been famous babes; for example, little Moses, from whose
|
||
adventure in the bulrushes the Egyptian hierophants of seven centuries
|
||
before doubtless derived their idle tale of the child Osiris being
|
||
preserved on a floating lotus leaf.
|
||
|
||
Ere babes were invented
|
||
The girls were contended.
|
||
Now man is tormented
|
||
Until to buy babes he has squandered
|
||
His money. And so I have pondered
|
||
This thing, and thought may be
|
||
'T were better that Baby
|
||
The First had been eagled or condored.
|
||
Ro Amil
|
||
|
||
BACCHUS, n. A convenient deity invented by the ancients as an excuse
|
||
for getting drunk.
|
||
|
||
Is public worship, then, a sin,
|
||
That for devotions paid to Bacchus
|
||
The lictors dare to run us in,
|
||
And resolutely thump and whack us?
|
||
Jorace
|
||
|
||
BACK, n. That part of your friend which it is your privilege to
|
||
contemplate in your adversity.
|
||
|
||
BACKBITE, v.t. To speak of a man as you find him when he can't find
|
||
you.
|
||
|
||
BAIT, n. A preparation that renders the hook more palatable. The
|
||
best kind is beauty.
|
||
|
||
BAPTISM, n. A sacred rite of such efficacy that he who finds himself
|
||
in heaven without having undergone it will be unhappy forever. It is
|
||
performed with water in two ways -- by immersion, or plunging, and by
|
||
aspersion, or sprinkling.
|
||
|
||
But whether the plan of immersion
|
||
Is better than simple aspersion
|
||
Let those immersed
|
||
And those aspersed
|
||
Decide by the Authorized Version,
|
||
And by matching their agues tertian.
|
||
G.J.
|
||
|
||
BAROMETER, n. An ingenious instrument which indicates what kind of
|
||
weather we are having.
|
||
|
||
BARRACK, n. A house in which soldiers enjoy a portion of that of
|
||
which it is their business to deprive others.
|
||
|
||
BASILISK, n. The cockatrice. A sort of serpent hatched form the egg
|
||
of a cock. The basilisk had a bad eye, and its glance was fatal.
|
||
Many infidels deny this creature's existence, but Semprello Aurator
|
||
saw and handled one that had been blinded by lightning as a punishment
|
||
for having fatally gazed on a lady of rank whom Jupiter loved. Juno
|
||
afterward restored the reptile's sight and hid it in a cave. Nothing
|
||
is so well attested by the ancients as the existence of the basilisk,
|
||
but the cocks have stopped laying.
|
||
|
||
BASTINADO, n. The act of walking on wood without exertion.
|
||
|
||
BATH, n. A kind of mystic ceremony substituted for religious worship,
|
||
with what spiritual efficacy has not been determined.
|
||
|
||
The man who taketh a steam bath
|
||
He loseth all the skin he hath,
|
||
And, for he's boiled a brilliant red,
|
||
Thinketh to cleanliness he's wed,
|
||
Forgetting that his lungs he's soiling
|
||
With dirty vapors of the boiling.
|
||
Richard Gwow
|
||
|
||
BATTLE, n. A method of untying with the teeth of a political knot
|
||
that would not yield to the tongue.
|
||
|
||
BEARD, n. The hair that is commonly cut off by those who justly
|
||
execrate the absurd Chinese custom of shaving the head.
|
||
|
||
BEAUTY, n. The power by which a woman charms a lover and terrifies a
|
||
husband.
|
||
|
||
BEFRIEND, v.t. To make an ingrate.
|
||
|
||
BEG, v. To ask for something with an earnestness proportioned to the
|
||
belief that it will not be given.
|
||
|
||
Who is that, father?
|
||
|
||
A mendicant, child,
|
||
Haggard, morose, and unaffable -- wild!
|
||
See how he glares through the bars of his cell!
|
||
With Citizen Mendicant all is not well.
|
||
|
||
Why did they put him there, father?
|
||
|
||
Because
|
||
Obeying his belly he struck at the laws.
|
||
|
||
His belly?
|
||
|
||
Oh, well, he was starving, my boy --
|
||
A state in which, doubtless, there's little of joy.
|
||
No bite had he eaten for days, and his cry
|
||
Was "Bread!" ever "Bread!"
|
||
|
||
What's the matter with pie?
|
||
|
||
With little to wear, he had nothing to sell;
|
||
To beg was unlawful -- improper as well.
|
||
|
||
Why didn't he work?
|
||
|
||
He would even have done that,
|
||
But men said: "Get out!" and the State remarked: "Scat!"
|
||
I mention these incidents merely to show
|
||
That the vengeance he took was uncommonly low.
|
||
Revenge, at the best, is the act of a Siou,
|
||
But for trifles --
|
||
|
||
Pray what did bad Mendicant do?
|
||
|
||
Stole two loaves of bread to replenish his lack
|
||
And tuck out the belly that clung to his back.
|
||
|
||
Is that _all_ father dear?
|
||
|
||
There's little to tell:
|
||
They sent him to jail, and they'll send him to -- well,
|
||
The company's better than here we can boast,
|
||
And there's --
|
||
|
||
Bread for the needy, dear father?
|
||
|
||
Um -- toast.
|
||
Atka Mip
|
||
|
||
BEGGAR, n. One who has relied on the assistance of his friends.
|
||
|
||
BEHAVIOR, n. Conduct, as determined, not by principle, but by
|
||
breeding. The word seems to be somewhat loosely used in Dr. Jamrach
|
||
Holobom's translation of the following lines from the _Dies Irae_:
|
||
|
||
Recordare, Jesu pie,
|
||
Quod sum causa tuae viae.
|
||
Ne me perdas illa die.
|
||
|
||
Pray remember, sacred Savior,
|
||
Whose the thoughtless hand that gave your
|
||
Death-blow. Pardon such behavior.
|
||
|
||
BELLADONNA, n. In Italian a beautiful lady; in English a deadly
|
||
poison. A striking example of the essential identity of the two
|
||
tongues.
|
||
|
||
BENEDICTINES, n. An order of monks otherwise known as black friars.
|
||
|
||
She thought it a crow, but it turn out to be
|
||
A monk of St. Benedict croaking a text.
|
||
"Here's one of an order of cooks," said she --
|
||
"Black friars in this world, fried black in the next."
|
||
"The Devil on Earth" (London, 1712)
|
||
|
||
BENEFACTOR, n. One who makes heavy purchases of ingratitude, without,
|
||
however, materially affecting the price, which is still within the
|
||
means of all.
|
||
|
||
BERENICE'S HAIR, n. A constellation (_Coma Berenices_) named in honor
|
||
of one who sacrificed her hair to save her husband.
|
||
|
||
Her locks an ancient lady gave
|
||
Her loving husband's life to save;
|
||
And men -- they honored so the dame --
|
||
Upon some stars bestowed her name.
|
||
|
||
But to our modern married fair,
|
||
Who'd give their lords to save their hair,
|
||
No stellar recognition's given.
|
||
There are not stars enough in heaven.
|
||
G.J.
|
||
|
||
BIGAMY, n. A mistake in taste for which the wisdom of the future will
|
||
adjudge a punishment called trigamy.
|
||
|
||
BIGOT, n. One who is obstinately and zealously attached to an opinion
|
||
that you do not entertain.
|
||
|
||
BILLINGSGATE, n. The invective of an opponent.
|
||
|
||
BIRTH, n. The first and direst of all disasters. As to the nature of
|
||
it there appears to be no uniformity. Castor and Pollux were born
|
||
from the egg. Pallas came out of a skull. Galatea was once a block
|
||
of stone. Peresilis, who wrote in the tenth century, avers that he
|
||
grew up out of the ground where a priest had spilled holy water. It
|
||
is known that Arimaxus was derived from a hole in the earth, made by a
|
||
stroke of lightning. Leucomedon was the son of a cavern in Mount
|
||
Aetna, and I have myself seen a man come out of a wine cellar.
|
||
|
||
BLACKGUARD, n. A man whose qualities, prepared for display like a box
|
||
of berries in a market -- the fine ones on top -- have been opened on
|
||
the wrong side. An inverted gentleman.
|
||
|
||
BLANK-VERSE, n. Unrhymed iambic pentameters -- the most difficult
|
||
kind of English verse to write acceptably; a kind, therefore, much
|
||
affected by those who cannot acceptably write any kind.
|
||
|
||
BODY-SNATCHER, n. A robber of grave-worms. One who supplies the
|
||
young physicians with that with which the old physicians have supplied
|
||
the undertaker. The hyena.
|
||
|
||
"One night," a doctor said, "last fall,
|
||
I and my comrades, four in all,
|
||
When visiting a graveyard stood
|
||
Within the shadow of a wall.
|
||
|
||
"While waiting for the moon to sink
|
||
We saw a wild hyena slink
|
||
About a new-made grave, and then
|
||
Begin to excavate its brink!
|
||
|
||
"Shocked by the horrid act, we made
|
||
A sally from our ambuscade,
|
||
And, falling on the unholy beast,
|
||
Dispatched him with a pick and spade."
|
||
Bettel K. Jhones
|
||
|
||
BONDSMAN, n. A fool who, having property of his own, undertakes to
|
||
become responsible for that entrusted to another to a third.
|
||
Philippe of Orleans wishing to appoint one of his favorites, a
|
||
dissolute nobleman, to a high office, asked him what security he would
|
||
be able to give. "I need no bondsmen," he replied, "for I can give
|
||
you my word of honor." "And pray what may be the value of that?"
|
||
inquired the amused Regent. "Monsieur, it is worth its weight in
|
||
gold."
|
||
|
||
BORE, n. A person who talks when you wish him to listen.
|
||
|
||
BOTANY, n. The science of vegetables -- those that are not good to
|
||
eat, as well as those that are. It deals largely with their flowers,
|
||
which are commonly badly designed, inartistic in color, and ill-
|
||
smelling.
|
||
|
||
BOTTLE-NOSED, adj. Having a nose created in the image of its maker.
|
||
|
||
BOUNDARY, n. In political geography, an imaginary line between two
|
||
nations, separating the imaginary rights of one from the imaginary
|
||
rights of the other.
|
||
|
||
BOUNTY, n. The liberality of one who has much, in permitting one who
|
||
has nothing to get all that he can.
|
||
|
||
A single swallow, it is said, devours ten millions of insects
|
||
every year. The supplying of these insects I take to be a signal
|
||
instance of the Creator's bounty in providing for the lives of His
|
||
creatures.
|
||
Henry Ward Beecher
|
||
|
||
BRAHMA, n. He who created the Hindoos, who are preserved by Vishnu
|
||
and destroyed by Siva -- a rather neater division of labor than is
|
||
found among the deities of some other nations. The Abracadabranese,
|
||
for example, are created by Sin, maintained by Theft and destroyed by
|
||
Folly. The priests of Brahma, like those of Abracadabranese, are holy
|
||
and learned men who are never naughty.
|
||
|
||
O Brahma, thou rare old Divinity,
|
||
First Person of the Hindoo Trinity,
|
||
You sit there so calm and securely,
|
||
With feet folded up so demurely --
|
||
You're the First Person Singular, surely.
|
||
Polydore Smith
|
||
|
||
BRAIN, n. An apparatus with which we think what we think. That which
|
||
distinguishes the man who is content to _be_ something from the man
|
||
who wishes to _do_ something. A man of great wealth, or one who has
|
||
been pitchforked into high station, has commonly such a headful of
|
||
brain that his neighbors cannot keep their hats on. In our
|
||
civilization, and under our republican form of government, brain is so
|
||
highly honored that it is rewarded by exemption from the cares of
|
||
office.
|
||
|
||
BRANDY, n. A cordial composed of one part thunder-and-lightning, one
|
||
part remorse, two parts bloody murder, one part death-hell-and-the-
|
||
grave and four parts clarified Satan. Dose, a headful all the time.
|
||
Brandy is said by Dr. Johnson to be the drink of heroes. Only a hero
|
||
will venture to drink it.
|
||
|
||
BRIDE, n. A woman with a fine prospect of happiness behind her.
|
||
|
||
BRUTE, n. See HUSBAND.
|
||
|
||
|
||
C
|
||
|
||
|
||
CAABA, n. A large stone presented by the archangel Gabriel to the
|
||
patriarch Abraham, and preserved at Mecca. The patriarch had perhaps
|
||
asked the archangel for bread.
|
||
|
||
CABBAGE, n. A familiar kitchen-garden vegetable about as large and
|
||
wise as a man's head.
|
||
The cabbage is so called from Cabagius, a prince who on ascending
|
||
the throne issued a decree appointing a High Council of Empire
|
||
consisting of the members of his predecessor's Ministry and the
|
||
cabbages in the royal garden. When any of his Majesty's measures of
|
||
state policy miscarried conspicuously it was gravely announced that
|
||
several members of the High Council had been beheaded, and his
|
||
murmuring subjects were appeased.
|
||
|
||
CALAMITY, n. A more than commonly plain and unmistakable reminder
|
||
that the affairs of this life are not of our own ordering. Calamities
|
||
are of two kinds: misfortune to ourselves, and good fortune to
|
||
others.
|
||
|
||
CALLOUS, adj. Gifted with great fortitude to bear the evils
|
||
afflicting another.
|
||
When Zeno was told that one of his enemies was no more he was
|
||
observed to be deeply moved. "What!" said one of his disciples, "you
|
||
weep at the death of an enemy?" "Ah, 'tis true," replied the great
|
||
Stoic; "but you should see me smile at the death of a friend."
|
||
|
||
CALUMNUS, n. A graduate of the School for Scandal.
|
||
|
||
CAMEL, n. A quadruped (the _Splaypes humpidorsus_) of great value to
|
||
the show business. There are two kinds of camels -- the camel proper
|
||
and the camel improper. It is the latter that is always exhibited.
|
||
|
||
CANNIBAL, n. A gastronome of the old school who preserves the simple
|
||
tastes and adheres to the natural diet of the pre-pork period.
|
||
|
||
CANNON, n. An instrument employed in the rectification of national
|
||
boundaries.
|
||
|
||
CANONICALS, n. The motley worm by Jesters of the Court of Heaven.
|
||
|
||
CAPITAL, n. The seat of misgovernment. That which provides the fire,
|
||
the pot, the dinner, the table and the knife and fork for the
|
||
anarchist; the part of the repast that himself supplies is the
|
||
disgrace before meat. _Capital Punishment_, a penalty regarding the
|
||
justice and expediency of which many worthy persons -- including all
|
||
the assassins -- entertain grave misgivings.
|
||
|
||
CARMELITE, n. A mendicant friar of the order of Mount Carmel.
|
||
|
||
As Death was a-rising out one day,
|
||
Across Mount Camel he took his way,
|
||
Where he met a mendicant monk,
|
||
Some three or four quarters drunk,
|
||
With a holy leer and a pious grin,
|
||
Ragged and fat and as saucy as sin,
|
||
Who held out his hands and cried:
|
||
"Give, give in Charity's name, I pray.
|
||
Give in the name of the Church. O give,
|
||
Give that her holy sons may live!"
|
||
And Death replied,
|
||
Smiling long and wide:
|
||
"I'll give, holy father, I'll give thee -- a ride."
|
||
|
||
With a rattle and bang
|
||
Of his bones, he sprang
|
||
From his famous Pale Horse, with his spear;
|
||
By the neck and the foot
|
||
Seized the fellow, and put
|
||
Him astride with his face to the rear.
|
||
|
||
The Monarch laughed loud with a sound that fell
|
||
Like clods on the coffin's sounding shell:
|
||
"Ho, ho! A beggar on horseback, they say,
|
||
Will ride to the devil!" -- and _thump_
|
||
Fell the flat of his dart on the rump
|
||
Of the charger, which galloped away.
|
||
|
||
Faster and faster and faster it flew,
|
||
Till the rocks and the flocks and the trees that grew
|
||
By the road were dim and blended and blue
|
||
To the wild, wild eyes
|
||
Of the rider -- in size
|
||
Resembling a couple of blackberry pies.
|
||
Death laughed again, as a tomb might laugh
|
||
At a burial service spoiled,
|
||
And the mourners' intentions foiled
|
||
By the body erecting
|
||
Its head and objecting
|
||
To further proceedings in its behalf.
|
||
|
||
Many a year and many a day
|
||
Have passed since these events away.
|
||
The monk has long been a dusty corse,
|
||
And Death has never recovered his horse.
|
||
For the friar got hold of its tail,
|
||
And steered it within the pale
|
||
Of the monastery gray,
|
||
Where the beast was stabled and fed
|
||
With barley and oil and bread
|
||
Till fatter it grew than the fattest friar,
|
||
And so in due course was appointed Prior.
|
||
G.J.
|
||
|
||
CARNIVOROUS, adj. Addicted to the cruelty of devouring the timorous
|
||
vegetarian, his heirs and assigns.
|
||
|
||
CARTESIAN, adj. Relating to Descartes, a famous philosopher, author
|
||
of the celebrated dictum, _Cogito ergo sum_ -- whereby he was pleased
|
||
to suppose he demonstrated the reality of human existence. The dictum
|
||
might be improved, however, thus: _Cogito cogito ergo cogito sum_ --
|
||
"I think that I think, therefore I think that I am;" as close an
|
||
approach to certainty as any philosopher has yet made.
|
||
|
||
CAT, n. A soft, indestructible automaton provided by nature to be
|
||
kicked when things go wrong in the domestic circle.
|
||
|
||
This is a dog,
|
||
This is a cat.
|
||
This is a frog,
|
||
This is a rat.
|
||
Run, dog, mew, cat.
|
||
Jump, frog, gnaw, rat.
|
||
Elevenson
|
||
|
||
CAVILER, n. A critic of our own work.
|
||
|
||
CEMETERY, n. An isolated suburban spot where mourners match lies,
|
||
poets write at a target and stone-cutters spell for a wager. The
|
||
inscriptions following will serve to illustrate the success attained
|
||
in these Olympian games:
|
||
|
||
His virtues were so conspicuous that his enemies, unable to
|
||
overlook them, denied them, and his friends, to whose loose lives
|
||
they were a rebuke, represented them as vices. They are here
|
||
commemorated by his family, who shared them.
|
||
|
||
In the earth we here prepare a
|
||
Place to lay our little Clara.
|
||
Thomas M. and Mary Frazer
|
||
P.S. -- Gabriel will raise her.
|
||
|
||
CENTAUR, n. One of a race of persons who lived before the division of
|
||
labor had been carried to such a pitch of differentiation, and who
|
||
followed the primitive economic maxim, "Every man his own horse." The
|
||
best of the lot was Chiron, who to the wisdom and virtues of the horse
|
||
added the fleetness of man. The scripture story of the head of John
|
||
the Baptist on a charger shows that pagan myths have somewhat
|
||
sophisticated sacred history.
|
||
|
||
CERBERUS, n. The watch-dog of Hades, whose duty it was to guard the
|
||
entrance -- against whom or what does not clearly appear; everybody,
|
||
sooner or later, had to go there, and nobody wanted to carry off the
|
||
entrance. Cerberus is known to have had three heads, and some of the
|
||
poets have credited him with as many as a hundred. Professor
|
||
Graybill, whose clerky erudition and profound knowledge of Greek give
|
||
his opinion great weight, has averaged all the estimates, and makes
|
||
the number twenty-seven -- a judgment that would be entirely
|
||
conclusive is Professor Graybill had known (a) something about dogs,
|
||
and (b) something about arithmetic.
|
||
|
||
CHILDHOOD, n. The period of human life intermediate between the
|
||
idiocy of infancy and the folly of youth -- two removes from the sin
|
||
of manhood and three from the remorse of age.
|
||
|
||
CHRISTIAN, n. One who believes that the New Testament is a divinely
|
||
inspired book admirably suited to the spiritual needs of his neighbor.
|
||
One who follows the teachings of Christ in so far as they are not
|
||
inconsistent with a life of sin.
|
||
|
||
I dreamed I stood upon a hill, and, lo!
|
||
The godly multitudes walked to and fro
|
||
Beneath, in Sabbath garments fitly clad,
|
||
With pious mien, appropriately sad,
|
||
While all the church bells made a solemn din --
|
||
A fire-alarm to those who lived in sin.
|
||
Then saw I gazing thoughtfully below,
|
||
With tranquil face, upon that holy show
|
||
A tall, spare figure in a robe of white,
|
||
Whose eyes diffused a melancholy light.
|
||
"God keep you, strange," I exclaimed. "You are
|
||
No doubt (your habit shows it) from afar;
|
||
And yet I entertain the hope that you,
|
||
Like these good people, are a Christian too."
|
||
He raised his eyes and with a look so stern
|
||
It made me with a thousand blushes burn
|
||
Replied -- his manner with disdain was spiced:
|
||
"What! I a Christian? No, indeed! I'm Christ."
|
||
G.J.
|
||
|
||
CIRCUS, n. A place where horses, ponies and elephants are permitted
|
||
to see men, women and children acting the fool.
|
||
|
||
CLAIRVOYANT, n. A person, commonly a woman, who has the power of
|
||
seeing that which is invisible to her patron, namely, that he is a
|
||
blockhead.
|
||
|
||
CLARIONET, n. An instrument of torture operated by a person with
|
||
cotton in his ears. There are two instruments that are worse than a
|
||
clarionet -- two clarionets.
|
||
|
||
CLERGYMAN, n. A man who undertakes the management of our spiritual
|
||
affairs as a method of better his temporal ones.
|
||
|
||
CLIO, n. One of the nine Muses. Clio's function was to preside over
|
||
history -- which she did with great dignity, many of the prominent
|
||
citizens of Athens occupying seats on the platform, the meetings being
|
||
addressed by Messrs. Xenophon, Herodotus and other popular speakers.
|
||
|
||
CLOCK, n. A machine of great moral value to man, allaying his concern
|
||
for the future by reminding him what a lot of time remains to him.
|
||
|
||
A busy man complained one day:
|
||
"I get no time!" "What's that you say?"
|
||
Cried out his friend, a lazy quiz;
|
||
"You have, sir, all the time there is.
|
||
There's plenty, too, and don't you doubt it --
|
||
We're never for an hour without it."
|
||
Purzil Crofe
|
||
|
||
CLOSE-FISTED, adj. Unduly desirous of keeping that which many
|
||
meritorious persons wish to obtain.
|
||
|
||
"Close-fisted Scotchman!" Johnson cried
|
||
To thrifty J. Macpherson;
|
||
"See me -- I'm ready to divide
|
||
With any worthy person."
|
||
Sad Jamie: "That is very true --
|
||
The boast requires no backing;
|
||
And all are worthy, sir, to you,
|
||
Who have what you are lacking."
|
||
Anita M. Bobe
|
||
|
||
COENOBITE, n. A man who piously shuts himself up to meditate upon the
|
||
sin of wickedness; and to keep it fresh in his mind joins a
|
||
brotherhood of awful examples.
|
||
|
||
O Coenobite, O coenobite,
|
||
Monastical gregarian,
|
||
You differ from the anchorite,
|
||
That solitudinarian:
|
||
With vollied prayers you wound Old Nick;
|
||
With dropping shots he makes him sick.
|
||
Quincy Giles
|
||
|
||
COMFORT, n. A state of mind produced by contemplation of a neighbor's
|
||
uneasiness.
|
||
|
||
COMMENDATION, n. The tribute that we pay to achievements that
|
||
resembles, but do not equal, our own.
|
||
|
||
COMMERCE, n. A kind of transaction in which A plunders from B the
|
||
goods of C, and for compensation B picks the pocket of D of money
|
||
belonging to E.
|
||
|
||
COMMONWEALTH, n. An administrative entity operated by an incalculable
|
||
multitude of political parasites, logically active but fortuitously
|
||
efficient.
|
||
|
||
This commonwealth's capitol's corridors view,
|
||
So thronged with a hungry and indolent crew
|
||
Of clerks, pages, porters and all attaches
|
||
Whom rascals appoint and the populace pays
|
||
That a cat cannot slip through the thicket of shins
|
||
Nor hear its own shriek for the noise of their chins.
|
||
On clerks and on pages, and porters, and all,
|
||
Misfortune attend and disaster befall!
|
||
May life be to them a succession of hurts;
|
||
May fleas by the bushel inhabit their shirts;
|
||
May aches and diseases encamp in their bones,
|
||
Their lungs full of tubercles, bladders of stones;
|
||
May microbes, bacilli, their tissues infest,
|
||
And tapeworms securely their bowels digest;
|
||
May corn-cobs be snared without hope in their hair,
|
||
And frequent impalement their pleasure impair.
|
||
Disturbed be their dreams by the awful discourse
|
||
Of audible sofas sepulchrally hoarse,
|
||
By chairs acrobatic and wavering floors --
|
||
The mattress that kicks and the pillow that snores!
|
||
Sons of cupidity, cradled in sin!
|
||
Your criminal ranks may the death angel thin,
|
||
Avenging the friend whom I couldn't work in.
|
||
K.Q.
|
||
|
||
COMPROMISE, n. Such an adjustment of conflicting interests as gives
|
||
each adversary the satisfaction of thinking he has got what he ought
|
||
not to have, and is deprived of nothing except what was justly his
|
||
due.
|
||
|
||
COMPULSION, n. The eloquence of power.
|
||
|
||
CONDOLE, v.i. To show that bereavement is a smaller evil than
|
||
sympathy.
|
||
|
||
CONFIDANT, CONFIDANTE, n. One entrusted by A with the secrets of B,
|
||
confided by _him_ to C.
|
||
|
||
CONGRATULATION, n. The civility of envy.
|
||
|
||
CONGRESS, n. A body of men who meet to repeal laws.
|
||
|
||
CONNOISSEUR, n. A specialist who knows everything about something and
|
||
nothing about anything else.
|
||
An old wine-bibber having been smashed in a railway collision,
|
||
some wine was pouted on his lips to revive him. "Pauillac, 1873," he
|
||
murmured and died.
|
||
|
||
CONSERVATIVE, n. A statesman who is enamored of existing evils, as
|
||
distinguished from the Liberal, who wishes to replace them with
|
||
others.
|
||
|
||
CONSOLATION, n. The knowledge that a better man is more unfortunate
|
||
than yourself.
|
||
|
||
CONSUL, n. In American politics, a person who having failed to secure
|
||
and office from the people is given one by the Administration on
|
||
condition that he leave the country.
|
||
|
||
CONSULT, v.i. To seek another's disapproval of a course already
|
||
decided on.
|
||
|
||
CONTEMPT, n. The feeling of a prudent man for an enemy who is too
|
||
formidable safely to be opposed.
|
||
|
||
CONTROVERSY, n. A battle in which spittle or ink replaces the
|
||
injurious cannon-ball and the inconsiderate bayonet.
|
||
|
||
In controversy with the facile tongue --
|
||
That bloodless warfare of the old and young --
|
||
So seek your adversary to engage
|
||
That on himself he shall exhaust his rage,
|
||
And, like a snake that's fastened to the ground,
|
||
With his own fangs inflict the fatal wound.
|
||
You ask me how this miracle is done?
|
||
Adopt his own opinions, one by one,
|
||
And taunt him to refute them; in his wrath
|
||
He'll sweep them pitilessly from his path.
|
||
Advance then gently all you wish to prove,
|
||
Each proposition prefaced with, "As you've
|
||
So well remarked," or, "As you wisely say,
|
||
And I cannot dispute," or, "By the way,
|
||
This view of it which, better far expressed,
|
||
Runs through your argument." Then leave the rest
|
||
To him, secure that he'll perform his trust
|
||
And prove your views intelligent and just.
|
||
Conmore Apel Brune
|
||
|
||
CONVENT, n. A place of retirement for woman who wish for leisure to
|
||
meditate upon the vice of idleness.
|
||
|
||
CONVERSATION, n. A fair to the display of the minor mental
|
||
commodities, each exhibitor being too intent upon the arrangement of
|
||
his own wares to observe those of his neighbor.
|
||
|
||
CORONATION, n. The ceremony of investing a sovereign with the outward
|
||
and visible signs of his divine right to be blown skyhigh with a
|
||
dynamite bomb.
|
||
|
||
CORPORAL, n. A man who occupies the lowest rung of the military
|
||
ladder.
|
||
|
||
Fiercely the battle raged and, sad to tell,
|
||
Our corporal heroically fell!
|
||
Fame from her height looked down upon the brawl
|
||
And said: "He hadn't very far to fall."
|
||
Giacomo Smith
|
||
|
||
CORPORATION, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit
|
||
without individual responsibility.
|
||
|
||
CORSAIR, n. A politician of the seas.
|
||
|
||
COURT FOOL, n. The plaintiff.
|
||
|
||
COWARD, n. One who in a perilous emergency thinks with his legs.
|
||
|
||
CRAYFISH, n. A small crustacean very much resembling the lobster, but
|
||
less indigestible.
|
||
|
||
In this small fish I take it that human wisdom is admirably
|
||
figured and symbolized; for whereas the crayfish doth move only
|
||
backward, and can have only retrospection, seeing naught but the
|
||
perils already passed, so the wisdom of man doth not enable him to
|
||
avoid the follies that beset his course, but only to apprehend
|
||
their nature afterward.
|
||
Sir James Merivale
|
||
|
||
CREDITOR, n. One of a tribe of savages dwelling beyond the Financial
|
||
Straits and dreaded for their desolating incursions.
|
||
|
||
CREMONA, n. A high-priced violin made in Connecticut.
|
||
|
||
CRITIC, n. A person who boasts himself hard to please because nobody
|
||
tries to please him.
|
||
|
||
There is a land of pure delight,
|
||
Beyond the Jordan's flood,
|
||
Where saints, apparelled all in white,
|
||
Fling back the critic's mud.
|
||
|
||
And as he legs it through the skies,
|
||
His pelt a sable hue,
|
||
He sorrows sore to recognize
|
||
The missiles that he threw.
|
||
Orrin Goof
|
||
|
||
CROSS, n. An ancient religious symbol erroneously supposed to owe its
|
||
significance to the most solemn event in the history of Christianity,
|
||
but really antedating it by thousands of years. By many it has been
|
||
believed to be identical with the _crux ansata_ of the ancient phallic
|
||
worship, but it has been traced even beyond all that we know of that,
|
||
to the rites of primitive peoples. We have to-day the White Cross as
|
||
a symbol of chastity, and the Red Cross as a badge of benevolent
|
||
neutrality in war. Having in mind the former, the reverend Father
|
||
Gassalasca Jape smites the lyre to the effect following:
|
||
|
||
"Be good, be good!" the sisterhood
|
||
Cry out in holy chorus,
|
||
And, to dissuade from sin, parade
|
||
Their various charms before us.
|
||
|
||
But why, O why, has ne'er an eye
|
||
Seen her of winsome manner
|
||
And youthful grace and pretty face
|
||
Flaunting the White Cross banner?
|
||
|
||
Now where's the need of speech and screed
|
||
To better our behaving?
|
||
A simpler plan for saving man
|
||
(But, first, is he worth saving?)
|
||
|
||
Is, dears, when he declines to flee
|
||
From bad thoughts that beset him,
|
||
Ignores the Law as 't were a straw,
|
||
And wants to sin -- don't let him.
|
||
|
||
CUI BONO? [Latin] What good would that do _me_?
|
||
|
||
CUNNING, n. The faculty that distinguishes a weak animal or person
|
||
from a strong one. It brings its possessor much mental satisfaction
|
||
and great material adversity. An Italian proverb says: "The furrier
|
||
gets the skins of more foxes than asses."
|
||
|
||
CUPID, n. The so-called god of love. This bastard creation of a
|
||
barbarous fancy was no doubt inflicted upon mythology for the sins of
|
||
its deities. Of all unbeautiful and inappropriate conceptions this is
|
||
the most reasonless and offensive. The notion of symbolizing sexual
|
||
love by a semisexless babe, and comparing the pains of passion to the
|
||
wounds of an arrow -- of introducing this pudgy homunculus into art
|
||
grossly to materialize the subtle spirit and suggestion of the work --
|
||
this is eminently worthy of the age that, giving it birth, laid it on
|
||
the doorstep of prosperity.
|
||
|
||
CURIOSITY, n. An objectionable quality of the female mind. The
|
||
desire to know whether or not a woman is cursed with curiosity is one
|
||
of the most active and insatiable passions of the masculine soul.
|
||
|
||
CURSE, v.t. Energetically to belabor with a verbal slap-stick. This
|
||
is an operation which in literature, particularly in the drama, is
|
||
commonly fatal to the victim. Nevertheless, the liability to a
|
||
cursing is a risk that cuts but a small figure in fixing the rates of
|
||
life insurance.
|
||
|
||
CYNIC, n. A blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are,
|
||
not as they ought to be. Hence the custom among the Scythians of
|
||
plucking out a cynic's eyes to improve his vision.
|
||
|
||
|
||
D
|
||
|
||
|
||
DAMN, v. A word formerly much used by the Paphlagonians, the meaning
|
||
of which is lost. By the learned Dr. Dolabelly Gak it is believed to
|
||
have been a term of satisfaction, implying the highest possible degree
|
||
of mental tranquillity. Professor Groke, on the contrary, thinks it
|
||
expressed an emotion of tumultuous delight, because it so frequently
|
||
occurs in combination with the word _jod_ or _god_, meaning "joy." It
|
||
would be with great diffidence that I should advance an opinion
|
||
conflicting with that of either of these formidable authorities.
|
||
|
||
DANCE, v.i. To leap about to the sound of tittering music, preferably
|
||
with arms about your neighbor's wife or daughter. There are many
|
||
kinds of dances, but all those requiring the participation of the two
|
||
sexes have two characteristics in common: they are conspicuously
|
||
innocent, and warmly loved by the vicious.
|
||
|
||
DANGER, n.
|
||
|
||
A savage beast which, when it sleeps,
|
||
Man girds at and despises,
|
||
But takes himself away by leaps
|
||
And bounds when it arises.
|
||
Ambat Delaso
|
||
|
||
DARING, n. One of the most conspicuous qualities of a man in
|
||
security.
|
||
|
||
DATARY, n. A high ecclesiastic official of the Roman Catholic Church,
|
||
whose important function is to brand the Pope's bulls with the words
|
||
_Datum Romae_. He enjoys a princely revenue and the friendship of
|
||
God.
|
||
|
||
DAWN, n. The time when men of reason go to bed. Certain old men
|
||
prefer to rise at about that time, taking a cold bath and a long walk
|
||
with an empty stomach, and otherwise mortifying the flesh. They then
|
||
point with pride to these practices as the cause of their sturdy
|
||
health and ripe years; the truth being that they are hearty and old,
|
||
not because of their habits, but in spite of them. The reason we find
|
||
only robust persons doing this thing is that it has killed all the
|
||
others who have tried it.
|
||
|
||
DAY, n. A period of twenty-four hours, mostly misspent. This period
|
||
is divided into two parts, the day proper and the night, or day
|
||
improper -- the former devoted to sins of business, the latter
|
||
consecrated to the other sort. These two kinds of social activity
|
||
overlap.
|
||
|
||
DEAD, adj.
|
||
|
||
Done with the work of breathing; done
|
||
With all the world; the mad race run
|
||
Though to the end; the golden goal
|
||
Attained and found to be a hole!
|
||
Squatol Johnes
|
||
|
||
DEBAUCHEE, n. One who has so earnestly pursued pleasure that he has
|
||
had the misfortune to overtake it.
|
||
|
||
DEBT, n. An ingenious substitute for the chain and whip of the slave-
|
||
driver.
|
||
|
||
As, pent in an aquarium, the troutlet
|
||
Swims round and round his tank to find an outlet,
|
||
Pressing his nose against the glass that holds him,
|
||
Nor ever sees the prison that enfolds him;
|
||
So the poor debtor, seeing naught around him,
|
||
Yet feels the narrow limits that impound him,
|
||
Grieves at his debt and studies to evade it,
|
||
And finds at last he might as well have paid it.
|
||
Barlow S. Vode
|
||
|
||
DECALOGUE, n. A series of commandments, ten in number -- just enough
|
||
to permit an intelligent selection for observance, but not enough to
|
||
embarrass the choice. Following is the revised edition of the
|
||
Decalogue, calculated for this meridian.
|
||
|
||
Thou shalt no God but me adore:
|
||
'Twere too expensive to have more.
|
||
|
||
No images nor idols make
|
||
For Robert Ingersoll to break.
|
||
|
||
Take not God's name in vain; select
|
||
A time when it will have effect.
|
||
|
||
Work not on Sabbath days at all,
|
||
But go to see the teams play ball.
|
||
|
||
Honor thy parents. That creates
|
||
For life insurance lower rates.
|
||
|
||
Kill not, abet not those who kill;
|
||
Thou shalt not pay thy butcher's bill.
|
||
|
||
Kiss not thy neighbor's wife, unless
|
||
Thine own thy neighbor doth caress
|
||
|
||
Don't steal; thou'lt never thus compete
|
||
Successfully in business. Cheat.
|
||
|
||
Bear not false witness -- that is low --
|
||
But "hear 'tis rumored so and so."
|
||
|
||
Cover thou naught that thou hast not
|
||
By hook or crook, or somehow, got.
|
||
G.J.
|
||
|
||
DECIDE, v.i. To succumb to the preponderance of one set of influences
|
||
over another set.
|
||
|
||
A leaf was riven from a tree,
|
||
"I mean to fall to earth," said he.
|
||
|
||
The west wind, rising, made him veer.
|
||
"Eastward," said he, "I now shall steer."
|
||
|
||
The east wind rose with greater force.
|
||
Said he: "'Twere wise to change my course."
|
||
|
||
With equal power they contend.
|
||
He said: "My judgment I suspend."
|
||
|
||
Down died the winds; the leaf, elate,
|
||
Cried: "I've decided to fall straight."
|
||
|
||
"First thoughts are best?" That's not the moral;
|
||
Just choose your own and we'll not quarrel.
|
||
|
||
Howe'er your choice may chance to fall,
|
||
You'll have no hand in it at all.
|
||
G.J.
|
||
|
||
DEFAME, v.t. To lie about another. To tell the truth about another.
|
||
|
||
DEFENCELESS, adj. Unable to attack.
|
||
|
||
DEGENERATE, adj. Less conspicuously admirable than one's ancestors.
|
||
The contemporaries of Homer were striking examples of degeneracy; it
|
||
required ten of them to raise a rock or a riot that one of the heroes
|
||
of the Trojan war could have raised with ease. Homer never tires of
|
||
sneering at "men who live in these degenerate days," which is perhaps
|
||
why they suffered him to beg his bread -- a marked instance of
|
||
returning good for evil, by the way, for if they had forbidden him he
|
||
would certainly have starved.
|
||
|
||
DEGRADATION, n. One of the stages of moral and social progress from
|
||
private station to political preferment.
|
||
|
||
DEINOTHERIUM, n. An extinct pachyderm that flourished when the
|
||
Pterodactyl was in fashion. The latter was a native of Ireland, its
|
||
name being pronounced Terry Dactyl or Peter O'Dactyl, as the man
|
||
pronouncing it may chance to have heard it spoken or seen it printed.
|
||
|
||
DEJEUNER, n. The breakfast of an American who has been in Paris.
|
||
Variously pronounced.
|
||
|
||
DELEGATION, n. In American politics, an article of merchandise that
|
||
comes in sets.
|
||
|
||
DELIBERATION, n. The act of examining one's bread to determine which
|
||
side it is buttered on.
|
||
|
||
DELUGE, n. A notable first experiment in baptism which washed away
|
||
the sins (and sinners) of the world.
|
||
|
||
DELUSION, n. The father of a most respectable family, comprising
|
||
Enthusiasm, Affection, Self-denial, Faith, Hope, Charity and many
|
||
other goodly sons and daughters.
|
||
|
||
All hail, Delusion! Were it not for thee
|
||
The world turned topsy-turvy we should see;
|
||
For Vice, respectable with cleanly fancies,
|
||
Would fly abandoned Virtue's gross advances.
|
||
Mumfrey Mappel
|
||
|
||
DENTIST, n. A prestidigitator who, putting metal into your mouth,
|
||
pulls coins out of your pocket.
|
||
|
||
DEPENDENT, adj. Reliant upon another's generosity for the support
|
||
which you are not in a position to exact from his fears.
|
||
|
||
DEPUTY, n. A male relative of an office-holder, or of his bondsman.
|
||
The deputy is commonly a beautiful young man, with a red necktie and
|
||
an intricate system of cobwebs extending from his nose to his desk.
|
||
When accidentally struck by the janitor's broom, he gives off a cloud
|
||
of dust.
|
||
|
||
"Chief Deputy," the Master cried,
|
||
"To-day the books are to be tried
|
||
By experts and accountants who
|
||
Have been commissioned to go through
|
||
Our office here, to see if we
|
||
Have stolen injudiciously.
|
||
Please have the proper entries made,
|
||
The proper balances displayed,
|
||
Conforming to the whole amount
|
||
Of cash on hand -- which they will count.
|
||
I've long admired your punctual way --
|
||
Here at the break and close of day,
|
||
Confronting in your chair the crowd
|
||
Of business men, whose voices loud
|
||
And gestures violent you quell
|
||
By some mysterious, calm spell --
|
||
Some magic lurking in your look
|
||
That brings the noisiest to book
|
||
And spreads a holy and profound
|
||
Tranquillity o'er all around.
|
||
So orderly all's done that they
|
||
Who came to draw remain to pay.
|
||
But now the time demands, at last,
|
||
That you employ your genius vast
|
||
In energies more active. Rise
|
||
And shake the lightnings from your eyes;
|
||
Inspire your underlings, and fling
|
||
Your spirit into everything!"
|
||
The Master's hand here dealt a whack
|
||
Upon the Deputy's bent back,
|
||
When straightway to the floor there fell
|
||
A shrunken globe, a rattling shell
|
||
A blackened, withered, eyeless head!
|
||
The man had been a twelvemonth dead.
|
||
Jamrach Holobom
|
||
|
||
DESTINY, n. A tyrant's authority for crime and fool's excuse for
|
||
failure.
|
||
|
||
DIAGNOSIS, n. A physician's forecast of the disease by the patient's
|
||
pulse and purse.
|
||
|
||
DIAPHRAGM, n. A muscular partition separating disorders of the chest
|
||
from disorders of the bowels.
|
||
|
||
DIARY, n. A daily record of that part of one's life, which he can
|
||
relate to himself without blushing.
|
||
|
||
Hearst kept a diary wherein were writ
|
||
All that he had of wisdom and of wit.
|
||
So the Recording Angel, when Hearst died,
|
||
Erased all entries of his own and cried:
|
||
"I'll judge you by your diary." Said Hearst:
|
||
"Thank you; 'twill show you I am Saint the First" --
|
||
Straightway producing, jubilant and proud,
|
||
That record from a pocket in his shroud.
|
||
The Angel slowly turned the pages o'er,
|
||
Each stupid line of which he knew before,
|
||
Glooming and gleaming as by turns he hit
|
||
On Shallow sentiment and stolen wit;
|
||
Then gravely closed the book and gave it back.
|
||
"My friend, you've wandered from your proper track:
|
||
You'd never be content this side the tomb --
|
||
For big ideas Heaven has little room,
|
||
And Hell's no latitude for making mirth,"
|
||
He said, and kicked the fellow back to earth.
|
||
"The Mad Philosopher"
|
||
|
||
DICTATOR, n. The chief of a nation that prefers the pestilence of
|
||
despotism to the plague of anarchy.
|
||
|
||
DICTIONARY, n. A malevolent literary device for cramping the growth
|
||
of a language and making it hard and inelastic. This dictionary,
|
||
however, is a most useful work.
|
||
|
||
DIE, n. The singular of "dice." We seldom hear the word, because
|
||
there is a prohibitory proverb, "Never say die." At long intervals,
|
||
however, some one says: "The die is cast," which is not true, for it
|
||
is cut. The word is found in an immortal couplet by that eminent poet
|
||
and domestic economist, Senator Depew:
|
||
|
||
A cube of cheese no larger than a die
|
||
May bait the trap to catch a nibbling mie.
|
||
|
||
DIGESTION, n. The conversion of victuals into virtues. When the
|
||
process is imperfect, vices are evolved instead -- a circumstance from
|
||
which that wicked writer, Dr. Jeremiah Blenn, infers that the ladies
|
||
are the greater sufferers from dyspepsia.
|
||
|
||
DIPLOMACY, n. The patriotic art of lying for one's country.
|
||
|
||
DISABUSE, v.t. The present your neighbor with another and better
|
||
error than the one which he has deemed it advantageous to embrace.
|
||
|
||
DISCRIMINATE, v.i. To note the particulars in which one person or
|
||
thing is, if possible, more objectionable than another.
|
||
|
||
DISCUSSION, n. A method of confirming others in their errors.
|
||
|
||
DISOBEDIENCE, n. The silver lining to the cloud of servitude.
|
||
|
||
DISOBEY, v.t. To celebrate with an appropriate ceremony the maturity
|
||
of a command.
|
||
|
||
His right to govern me is clear as day,
|
||
My duty manifest to disobey;
|
||
And if that fit observance e'er I shut
|
||
May I and duty be alike undone.
|
||
Israfel Brown
|
||
|
||
DISSEMBLE, v.i. To put a clean shirt upon the character.
|
||
|
||
Let us dissemble.
|
||
Adam
|
||
|
||
DISTANCE, n. The only thing that the rich are willing for the poor to
|
||
call theirs, and keep.
|
||
|
||
DISTRESS, n. A disease incurred by exposure to the prosperity of a
|
||
friend.
|
||
|
||
DIVINATION, n. The art of nosing out the occult. Divination is of as
|
||
many kinds as there are fruit-bearing varieties of the flowering dunce
|
||
and the early fool.
|
||
|
||
DOG, n. A kind of additional or subsidiary Deity designed to catch
|
||
the overflow and surplus of the world's worship. This Divine Being in
|
||
some of his smaller and silkier incarnations takes, in the affection
|
||
of Woman, the place to which there is no human male aspirant. The Dog
|
||
is a survival -- an anachronism. He toils not, neither does he spin,
|
||
yet Solomon in all his glory never lay upon a door-mat all day long,
|
||
sun-soaked and fly-fed and fat, while his master worked for the means
|
||
wherewith to purchase the idle wag of the Solomonic tail, seasoned
|
||
with a look of tolerant recognition.
|
||
|
||
DRAGOON, n. A soldier who combines dash and steadiness in so equal
|
||
measure that he makes his advances on foot and his retreats on
|
||
horseback.
|
||
|
||
DRAMATIST, n. One who adapts plays from the French.
|
||
|
||
DRUIDS, n. Priests and ministers of an ancient Celtic religion which
|
||
did not disdain to employ the humble allurement of human sacrifice.
|
||
Very little is now known about the Druids and their faith. Pliny says
|
||
their religion, originating in Britain, spread eastward as far as
|
||
Persia. Caesar says those who desired to study its mysteries went to
|
||
Britain. Caesar himself went to Britain, but does not appear to have
|
||
obtained any high preferment in the Druidical Church, although his
|
||
talent for human sacrifice was considerable.
|
||
Druids performed their religious rites in groves, and knew nothing
|
||
of church mortgages and the season-ticket system of pew rents. They
|
||
were, in short, heathens and -- as they were once complacently
|
||
catalogued by a distinguished prelate of the Church of England --
|
||
Dissenters.
|
||
|
||
DUCK-BILL, n. Your account at your restaurant during the canvas-back
|
||
season.
|
||
|
||
DUEL, n. A formal ceremony preliminary to the reconciliation of two
|
||
enemies. Great skill is necessary to its satisfactory observance; if
|
||
awkwardly performed the most unexpected and deplorable consequences
|
||
sometimes ensue. A long time ago a man lost his life in a duel.
|
||
|
||
That dueling's a gentlemanly vice
|
||
I hold; and wish that it had been my lot
|
||
To live my life out in some favored spot --
|
||
Some country where it is considered nice
|
||
To split a rival like a fish, or slice
|
||
A husband like a spud, or with a shot
|
||
Bring down a debtor doubled in a knot
|
||
And ready to be put upon the ice.
|
||
Some miscreants there are, whom I do long
|
||
To shoot, to stab, or some such way reclaim
|
||
The scurvy rogues to better lives and manners,
|
||
I seem to see them now -- a mighty throng.
|
||
It looks as if to challenge _me_ they came,
|
||
Jauntily marching with brass bands and banners!
|
||
Xamba Q. Dar
|
||
|
||
DULLARD, n. A member of the reigning dynasty in letters and life.
|
||
The Dullards came in with Adam, and being both numerous and sturdy
|
||
have overrun the habitable world. The secret of their power is their
|
||
insensibility to blows; tickle them with a bludgeon and they laugh
|
||
with a platitude. The Dullards came originally from Boeotia, whence
|
||
they were driven by stress of starvation, their dullness having
|
||
blighted the crops. For some centuries they infested Philistia, and
|
||
many of them are called Philistines to this day. In the turbulent
|
||
times of the Crusades they withdrew thence and gradually overspread
|
||
all Europe, occupying most of the high places in politics, art,
|
||
literature, science and theology. Since a detachment of Dullards came
|
||
over with the Pilgrims in the _Mayflower_ and made a favorable report
|
||
of the country, their increase by birth, immigration, and conversion
|
||
has been rapid and steady. According to the most trustworthy
|
||
statistics the number of adult Dullards in the United States is but
|
||
little short of thirty millions, including the statisticians. The
|
||
intellectual centre of the race is somewhere about Peoria, Illinois,
|
||
but the New England Dullard is the most shockingly moral.
|
||
|
||
DUTY, n. That which sternly impels us in the direction of profit,
|
||
along the line of desire.
|
||
|
||
Sir Lavender Portwine, in favor at court,
|
||
Was wroth at his master, who'd kissed Lady Port.
|
||
His anger provoked him to take the king's head,
|
||
But duty prevailed, and he took the king's bread,
|
||
Instead.
|
||
G.J.
|
||
|
||
|
||
E
|
||
|
||
|
||
EAT, v.i. To perform successively (and successfully) the functions of
|
||
mastication, humectation, and deglutition.
|
||
"I was in the drawing-room, enjoying my dinner," said Brillat-
|
||
Savarin, beginning an anecdote. "What!" interrupted Rochebriant;
|
||
"eating dinner in a drawing-room?" "I must beg you to observe,
|
||
monsieur," explained the great gastronome, "that I did not say I was
|
||
eating my dinner, but enjoying it. I had dined an hour before."
|
||
|
||
EAVESDROP, v.i. Secretly to overhear a catalogue of the crimes and
|
||
vices of another or yourself.
|
||
|
||
A lady with one of her ears applied
|
||
To an open keyhole heard, inside,
|
||
Two female gossips in converse free --
|
||
The subject engaging them was she.
|
||
"I think," said one, "and my husband thinks
|
||
That she's a prying, inquisitive minx!"
|
||
As soon as no more of it she could hear
|
||
The lady, indignant, removed her ear.
|
||
"I will not stay," she said, with a pout,
|
||
"To hear my character lied about!"
|
||
Gopete Sherany
|
||
|
||
ECCENTRICITY, n. A method of distinction so cheap that fools employ
|
||
it to accentuate their incapacity.
|
||
|
||
ECONOMY, n. Purchasing the barrel of whiskey that you do not need for
|
||
the price of the cow that you cannot afford.
|
||
|
||
EDIBLE, adj. Good to eat, and wholesome to digest, as a worm to a
|
||
toad, a toad to a snake, a snake to a pig, a pig to a man, and a man
|
||
to a worm.
|
||
|
||
EDITOR, n. A person who combines the judicial functions of Minos,
|
||
Rhadamanthus and Aeacus, but is placable with an obolus; a severely
|
||
virtuous censor, but so charitable withal that he tolerates the
|
||
virtues of others and the vices of himself; who flings about him the
|
||
splintering lightning and sturdy thunders of admonition till he
|
||
resembles a bunch of firecrackers petulantly uttering his mind at the
|
||
tail of a dog; then straightway murmurs a mild, melodious lay, soft as
|
||
the cooing of a donkey intoning its prayer to the evening star.
|
||
Master of mysteries and lord of law, high-pinnacled upon the throne of
|
||
thought, his face suffused with the dim splendors of the
|
||
Transfiguration, his legs intertwisted and his tongue a-cheek, the
|
||
editor spills his will along the paper and cuts it off in lengths to
|
||
suit. And at intervals from behind the veil of the temple is heard
|
||
the voice of the foreman demanding three inches of wit and six lines
|
||
of religious meditation, or bidding him turn off the wisdom and whack
|
||
up some pathos.
|
||
|
||
O, the Lord of Law on the Throne of Thought,
|
||
A gilded impostor is he.
|
||
Of shreds and patches his robes are wrought,
|
||
His crown is brass,
|
||
Himself an ass,
|
||
And his power is fiddle-dee-dee.
|
||
Prankily, crankily prating of naught,
|
||
Silly old quilly old Monarch of Thought.
|
||
Public opinion's camp-follower he,
|
||
Thundering, blundering, plundering free.
|
||
Affected,
|
||
Ungracious,
|
||
Suspected,
|
||
Mendacious,
|
||
Respected contemporaree!
|
||
J.H. Bumbleshook
|
||
|
||
EDUCATION, n. That which discloses to the wise and disguises from the
|
||
foolish their lack of understanding.
|
||
|
||
EFFECT, n. The second of two phenomena which always occur together in
|
||
the same order. The first, called a Cause, is said to generate the
|
||
other -- which is no more sensible than it would be for one who has
|
||
never seen a dog except in the pursuit of a rabbit to declare the
|
||
rabbit the cause of a dog.
|
||
|
||
EGOTIST, n. A person of low taste, more interested in himself than in
|
||
me.
|
||
|
||
Megaceph, chosen to serve the State
|
||
In the halls of legislative debate,
|
||
One day with all his credentials came
|
||
To the capitol's door and announced his name.
|
||
The doorkeeper looked, with a comical twist
|
||
Of the face, at the eminent egotist,
|
||
And said: "Go away, for we settle here
|
||
All manner of questions, knotty and queer,
|
||
And we cannot have, when the speaker demands
|
||
To be told how every member stands,
|
||
A man who to all things under the sky
|
||
Assents by eternally voting 'I'."
|
||
|
||
EJECTION, n. An approved remedy for the disease of garrulity. It is
|
||
also much used in cases of extreme poverty.
|
||
|
||
ELECTOR, n. One who enjoys the sacred privilege of voting for the man
|
||
of another man's choice.
|
||
|
||
ELECTRICITY, n. The power that causes all natural phenomena not known
|
||
to be caused by something else. It is the same thing as lightning,
|
||
and its famous attempt to strike Dr. Franklin is one of the most
|
||
picturesque incidents in that great and good man's career. The memory
|
||
of Dr. Franklin is justly held in great reverence, particularly in
|
||
France, where a waxen effigy of him was recently on exhibition,
|
||
bearing the following touching account of his life and services to
|
||
science:
|
||
|
||
"Monsieur Franqulin, inventor of electricity. This
|
||
illustrious savant, after having made several voyages around the
|
||
world, died on the Sandwich Islands and was devoured by savages,
|
||
of whom not a single fragment was ever recovered."
|
||
|
||
Electricity seems destined to play a most important part in the
|
||
arts and industries. The question of its economical application to
|
||
some purposes is still unsettled, but experiment has already proved
|
||
that it will propel a street car better than a gas jet and give more
|
||
light than a horse.
|
||
|
||
ELEGY, n. A composition in verse, in which, without employing any of
|
||
the methods of humor, the writer aims to produce in the reader's mind
|
||
the dampest kind of dejection. The most famous English example begins
|
||
somewhat like this:
|
||
|
||
The cur foretells the knell of parting day;
|
||
The loafing herd winds slowly o'er the lea;
|
||
The wise man homeward plods; I only stay
|
||
To fiddle-faddle in a minor key.
|
||
|
||
ELOQUENCE, n. The art of orally persuading fools that white is the
|
||
color that it appears to be. It includes the gift of making any color
|
||
appear white.
|
||
|
||
ELYSIUM, n. An imaginary delightful country which the ancients
|
||
foolishly believed to be inhabited by the spirits of the good. This
|
||
ridiculous and mischievous fable was swept off the face of the earth
|
||
by the early Christians -- may their souls be happy in Heaven!
|
||
|
||
EMANCIPATION, n. A bondman's change from the tyranny of another to
|
||
the despotism of himself.
|
||
|
||
He was a slave: at word he went and came;
|
||
His iron collar cut him to the bone.
|
||
Then Liberty erased his owner's name,
|
||
Tightened the rivets and inscribed his own.
|
||
G.J.
|
||
|
||
EMBALM, v.i. To cheat vegetation by locking up the gases upon which
|
||
it feeds. By embalming their dead and thereby deranging the natural
|
||
balance between animal and vegetable life, the Egyptians made their
|
||
once fertile and populous country barren and incapable of supporting
|
||
more than a meagre crew. The modern metallic burial casket is a step
|
||
in the same direction, and many a dead man who ought now to be
|
||
ornamenting his neighbor's lawn as a tree, or enriching his table as a
|
||
bunch of radishes, is doomed to a long inutility. We shall get him
|
||
after awhile if we are spared, but in the meantime the violet and rose
|
||
are languishing for a nibble at his _glutoeus maximus_.
|
||
|
||
EMOTION, n. A prostrating disease caused by a determination of the
|
||
heart to the head. It is sometimes accompanied by a copious discharge
|
||
of hydrated chloride of sodium from the eyes.
|
||
|
||
ENCOMIAST, n. A special (but not particular) kind of liar.
|
||
|
||
END, n. The position farthest removed on either hand from the
|
||
Interlocutor.
|
||
|
||
The man was perishing apace
|
||
Who played the tambourine;
|
||
The seal of death was on his face --
|
||
'Twas pallid, for 'twas clean.
|
||
|
||
"This is the end," the sick man said
|
||
In faint and failing tones.
|
||
A moment later he was dead,
|
||
And Tambourine was Bones.
|
||
Tinley Roquot
|
||
|
||
ENOUGH, pro. All there is in the world if you like it.
|
||
|
||
Enough is as good as a feast -- for that matter
|
||
Enougher's as good as a feast for the platter.
|
||
Arbely C. Strunk
|
||
|
||
ENTERTAINMENT, n. Any kind of amusement whose inroads stop short of
|
||
death by injection.
|
||
|
||
ENTHUSIASM, n. A distemper of youth, curable by small doses of
|
||
repentance in connection with outward applications of experience.
|
||
Byron, who recovered long enough to call it "entuzy-muzy," had a
|
||
relapse, which carried him off -- to Missolonghi.
|
||
|
||
ENVELOPE, n. The coffin of a document; the scabbard of a bill; the
|
||
husk of a remittance; the bed-gown of a love-letter.
|
||
|
||
ENVY, n. Emulation adapted to the meanest capacity.
|
||
|
||
EPAULET, n. An ornamented badge, serving to distinguish a military
|
||
officer from the enemy -- that is to say, from the officer of lower
|
||
rank to whom his death would give promotion.
|
||
|
||
EPICURE, n. An opponent of Epicurus, an abstemious philosopher who,
|
||
holding that pleasure should be the chief aim of man, wasted no time
|
||
in gratification from the senses.
|
||
|
||
EPIGRAM, n. A short, sharp saying in prose or verse, frequently
|
||
characterize by acidity or acerbity and sometimes by wisdom.
|
||
Following are some of the more notable epigrams of the learned and
|
||
ingenious Dr. Jamrach Holobom:
|
||
|
||
We know better the needs of ourselves than of others. To
|
||
serve oneself is economy of administration.
|
||
|
||
In each human heart are a tiger, a pig, an ass and a
|
||
nightingale. Diversity of character is due to their unequal
|
||
activity.
|
||
|
||
There are three sexes; males, females and girls.
|
||
|
||
Beauty in women and distinction in men are alike in this:
|
||
they seem to be the unthinking a kind of credibility.
|
||
|
||
Women in love are less ashamed than men. They have less to be
|
||
ashamed of.
|
||
|
||
While your friend holds you affectionately by both your hands
|
||
you are safe, for you can watch both his.
|
||
|
||
EPITAPH, n. An inscription on a tomb, showing that virtues acquired
|
||
by death have a retroactive effect. Following is a touching example:
|
||
|
||
Here lie the bones of Parson Platt,
|
||
Wise, pious, humble and all that,
|
||
Who showed us life as all should live it;
|
||
Let that be said -- and God forgive it!
|
||
|
||
ERUDITION, n. Dust shaken out of a book into an empty skull.
|
||
|
||
So wide his erudition's mighty span,
|
||
He knew Creation's origin and plan
|
||
And only came by accident to grief --
|
||
He thought, poor man, 'twas right to be a thief.
|
||
Romach Pute
|
||
|
||
ESOTERIC, adj. Very particularly abstruse and consummately occult.
|
||
The ancient philosophies were of two kinds, -- _exoteric_, those that
|
||
the philosophers themselves could partly understand, and _esoteric_,
|
||
those that nobody could understand. It is the latter that have most
|
||
profoundly affected modern thought and found greatest acceptance in
|
||
our time.
|
||
|
||
ETHNOLOGY, n. The science that treats of the various tribes of Man,
|
||
as robbers, thieves, swindlers, dunces, lunatics, idiots and
|
||
ethnologists.
|
||
|
||
EUCHARIST, n. A sacred feast of the religious sect of Theophagi.
|
||
A dispute once unhappily arose among the members of this sect as
|
||
to what it was that they ate. In this controversy some five hundred
|
||
thousand have already been slain, and the question is still unsettled.
|
||
|
||
EULOGY, n. Praise of a person who has either the advantages of wealth
|
||
and power, or the consideration to be dead.
|
||
|
||
EVANGELIST, n. A bearer of good tidings, particularly (in a religious
|
||
sense) such as assure us of our own salvation and the damnation of
|
||
our neighbors.
|
||
|
||
EVERLASTING, adj. Lasting forever. It is with no small diffidence
|
||
that I venture to offer this brief and elementary definition, for I am
|
||
not unaware of the existence of a bulky volume by a sometime Bishop of
|
||
Worcester, entitled, _A Partial Definition of the Word "Everlasting,"
|
||
as Used in the Authorized Version of the Holy Scriptures_. His book
|
||
was once esteemed of great authority in the Anglican Church, and is
|
||
still, I understand, studied with pleasure to the mind and profit of
|
||
the soul.
|
||
|
||
EXCEPTION, n. A thing which takes the liberty to differ from other
|
||
things of its class, as an honest man, a truthful woman, etc. "The
|
||
exception proves the rule" is an expression constantly upon the lips
|
||
of the ignorant, who parrot it from one another with never a thought
|
||
of its absurdity. In the Latin, "_Exceptio probat regulam_" means
|
||
that the exception _tests_ the rule, puts it to the proof, not
|
||
_confirms_ it. The malefactor who drew the meaning from this
|
||
excellent dictum and substituted a contrary one of his own exerted an
|
||
evil power which appears to be immortal.
|
||
|
||
EXCESS, n. In morals, an indulgence that enforces by appropriate
|
||
penalties the law of moderation.
|
||
|
||
Hail, high Excess -- especially in wine,
|
||
To thee in worship do I bend the knee
|
||
Who preach abstemiousness unto me --
|
||
My skull thy pulpit, as my paunch thy shrine.
|
||
Precept on precept, aye, and line on line,
|
||
Could ne'er persuade so sweetly to agree
|
||
With reason as thy touch, exact and free,
|
||
Upon my forehead and along my spine.
|
||
At thy command eschewing pleasure's cup,
|
||
With the hot grape I warm no more my wit;
|
||
When on thy stool of penitence I sit
|
||
I'm quite converted, for I can't get up.
|
||
Ungrateful he who afterward would falter
|
||
To make new sacrifices at thine altar!
|
||
|
||
EXCOMMUNICATION, n.
|
||
|
||
This "excommunication" is a word
|
||
In speech ecclesiastical oft heard,
|
||
And means the damning, with bell, book and candle,
|
||
Some sinner whose opinions are a scandal --
|
||
A rite permitting Satan to enslave him
|
||
Forever, and forbidding Christ to save him.
|
||
Gat Huckle
|
||
|
||
EXECUTIVE, n. An officer of the Government, whose duty it is to
|
||
enforce the wishes of the legislative power until such time as the
|
||
judicial department shall be pleased to pronounce them invalid and of
|
||
no effect. Following is an extract from an old book entitled, _The
|
||
Lunarian Astonished_ -- Pfeiffer & Co., Boston, 1803:
|
||
|
||
LUNARIAN: Then when your Congress has passed a law it goes
|
||
directly to the Supreme Court in order that it may at once be
|
||
known whether it is constitutional?
|
||
TERRESTRIAN: O no; it does not require the approval of the
|
||
Supreme Court until having perhaps been enforced for many
|
||
years somebody objects to its operation against himself -- I
|
||
mean his client. The President, if he approves it, begins to
|
||
execute it at once.
|
||
LUNARIAN: Ah, the executive power is a part of the legislative.
|
||
Do your policemen also have to approve the local ordinances
|
||
that they enforce?
|
||
TERRESTRIAN: Not yet -- at least not in their character of
|
||
constables. Generally speaking, though, all laws require the
|
||
approval of those whom they are intended to restrain.
|
||
LUNARIAN: I see. The death warrant is not valid until signed by
|
||
the murderer.
|
||
TERRESTRIAN: My friend, you put it too strongly; we are not so
|
||
consistent.
|
||
LUNARIAN: But this system of maintaining an expensive judicial
|
||
machinery to pass upon the validity of laws only after they
|
||
have long been executed, and then only when brought before the
|
||
court by some private person -- does it not cause great
|
||
confusion?
|
||
TERRESTRIAN: It does.
|
||
LUNARIAN: Why then should not your laws, previously to being
|
||
executed, be validated, not by the signature of your
|
||
President, but by that of the Chief Justice of the Supreme
|
||
Court?
|
||
TERRESTRIAN: There is no precedent for any such course.
|
||
LUNARIAN: Precedent. What is that?
|
||
TERRESTRIAN: It has been defined by five hundred lawyers in three
|
||
volumes each. So how can any one know?
|
||
|
||
EXHORT, v.t. In religious affairs, to put the conscience of another
|
||
upon the spit and roast it to a nut-brown discomfort.
|
||
|
||
EXILE, n. One who serves his country by residing abroad, yet is not
|
||
an ambassador.
|
||
An English sea-captain being asked if he had read "The Exile of
|
||
Erin," replied: "No, sir, but I should like to anchor on it." Years
|
||
afterwards, when he had been hanged as a pirate after a career of
|
||
unparalleled atrocities, the following memorandum was found in the
|
||
ship's log that he had kept at the time of his reply:
|
||
|
||
Aug. 3d, 1842. Made a joke on the ex-Isle of Erin. Coldly
|
||
received. War with the whole world!
|
||
|
||
EXISTENCE, n.
|
||
|
||
A transient, horrible, fantastic dream,
|
||
Wherein is nothing yet all things do seem:
|
||
From which we're wakened by a friendly nudge
|
||
Of our bedfellow Death, and cry: "O fudge!"
|
||
|
||
EXPERIENCE, n. The wisdom that enables us to recognize as an
|
||
undesirable old acquaintance the folly that we have already embraced.
|
||
|
||
To one who, journeying through night and fog,
|
||
Is mired neck-deep in an unwholesome bog,
|
||
Experience, like the rising of the dawn,
|
||
Reveals the path that he should not have gone.
|
||
Joel Frad Bink
|
||
|
||
EXPOSTULATION, n. One of the many methods by which fools prefer to
|
||
lose their friends.
|
||
|
||
EXTINCTION, n. The raw material out of which theology created the
|
||
future state.
|
||
|
||
|
||
F
|
||
|
||
|
||
FAIRY, n. A creature, variously fashioned and endowed, that formerly
|
||
inhabited the meadows and forests. It was nocturnal in its habits,
|
||
and somewhat addicted to dancing and the theft of children. The
|
||
fairies are now believed by naturalist to be extinct, though a
|
||
clergyman of the Church of England saw three near Colchester as lately
|
||
as 1855, while passing through a park after dining with the lord of
|
||
the manor. The sight greatly staggered him, and he was so affected
|
||
that his account of it was incoherent. In the year 1807 a troop of
|
||
fairies visited a wood near Aix and carried off the daughter of a
|
||
peasant, who had been seen to enter it with a bundle of clothing. The
|
||
son of a wealthy _bourgeois_ disappeared about the same time, but
|
||
afterward returned. He had seen the abduction been in pursuit of the
|
||
fairies. Justinian Gaux, a writer of the fourteenth century, avers
|
||
that so great is the fairies' power of transformation that he saw one
|
||
change itself into two opposing armies and fight a battle with great
|
||
slaughter, and that the next day, after it had resumed its original
|
||
shape and gone away, there were seven hundred bodies of the slain
|
||
which the villagers had to bury. He does not say if any of the
|
||
wounded recovered. In the time of Henry III, of England, a law was
|
||
made which prescribed the death penalty for "Kyllynge, wowndynge, or
|
||
mamynge" a fairy, and it was universally respected.
|
||
|
||
FAITH, n. Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks
|
||
without knowledge, of things without parallel.
|
||
|
||
FAMOUS, adj. Conspicuously miserable.
|
||
|
||
Done to a turn on the iron, behold
|
||
Him who to be famous aspired.
|
||
Content? Well, his grill has a plating of gold,
|
||
And his twistings are greatly admired.
|
||
Hassan Brubuddy
|
||
|
||
FASHION, n. A despot whom the wise ridicule and obey.
|
||
|
||
A king there was who lost an eye
|
||
In some excess of passion;
|
||
And straight his courtiers all did try
|
||
To follow the new fashion.
|
||
|
||
Each dropped one eyelid when before
|
||
The throne he ventured, thinking
|
||
'Twould please the king. That monarch swore
|
||
He'd slay them all for winking.
|
||
|
||
What should they do? They were not hot
|
||
To hazard such disaster;
|
||
They dared not close an eye -- dared not
|
||
See better than their master.
|
||
|
||
Seeing them lacrymose and glum,
|
||
A leech consoled the weepers:
|
||
He spread small rags with liquid gum
|
||
And covered half their peepers.
|
||
|
||
The court all wore the stuff, the flame
|
||
Of royal anger dying.
|
||
That's how court-plaster got its name
|
||
Unless I'm greatly lying.
|
||
Naramy Oof
|
||
|
||
FEAST, n. A festival. A religious celebration usually signalized by
|
||
gluttony and drunkenness, frequently in honor of some holy person
|
||
distinguished for abstemiousness. In the Roman Catholic Church
|
||
feasts are "movable" and "immovable," but the celebrants are uniformly
|
||
immovable until they are full. In their earliest development these
|
||
entertainments took the form of feasts for the dead; such were held by
|
||
the Greeks, under the name _Nemeseia_, by the Aztecs and Peruvians,
|
||
as in modern times they are popular with the Chinese; though it is
|
||
believed that the ancient dead, like the modern, were light eaters.
|
||
Among the many feasts of the Romans was the _Novemdiale_, which was
|
||
held, according to Livy, whenever stones fell from heaven.
|
||
|
||
FELON, n. A person of greater enterprise than discretion, who in
|
||
embracing an opportunity has formed an unfortunate attachment.
|
||
|
||
FEMALE, n. One of the opposing, or unfair, sex.
|
||
|
||
The Maker, at Creation's birth,
|
||
With living things had stocked the earth.
|
||
From elephants to bats and snails,
|
||
They all were good, for all were males.
|
||
But when the Devil came and saw
|
||
He said: "By Thine eternal law
|
||
Of growth, maturity, decay,
|
||
These all must quickly pass away
|
||
And leave untenanted the earth
|
||
Unless Thou dost establish birth" --
|
||
Then tucked his head beneath his wing
|
||
To laugh -- he had no sleeve -- the thing
|
||
With deviltry did so accord,
|
||
That he'd suggested to the Lord.
|
||
The Master pondered this advice,
|
||
Then shook and threw the fateful dice
|
||
Wherewith all matters here below
|
||
Are ordered, and observed the throw;
|
||
Then bent His head in awful state,
|
||
Confirming the decree of Fate.
|
||
From every part of earth anew
|
||
The conscious dust consenting flew,
|
||
While rivers from their courses rolled
|
||
To make it plastic for the mould.
|
||
Enough collected (but no more,
|
||
For niggard Nature hoards her store)
|
||
He kneaded it to flexible clay,
|
||
While Nick unseen threw some away.
|
||
And then the various forms He cast,
|
||
Gross organs first and finer last;
|
||
No one at once evolved, but all
|
||
By even touches grew and small
|
||
Degrees advanced, till, shade by shade,
|
||
To match all living things He'd made
|
||
Females, complete in all their parts
|
||
Except (His clay gave out) the hearts.
|
||
"No matter," Satan cried; "with speed
|
||
I'll fetch the very hearts they need" --
|
||
So flew away and soon brought back
|
||
The number needed, in a sack.
|
||
That night earth range with sounds of strife --
|
||
Ten million males each had a wife;
|
||
That night sweet Peace her pinions spread
|
||
O'er Hell -- ten million devils dead!
|
||
G.J.
|
||
|
||
FIB, n. A lie that has not cut its teeth. An habitual liar's nearest
|
||
approach to truth: the perigee of his eccentric orbit.
|
||
|
||
When David said: "All men are liars," Dave,
|
||
Himself a liar, fibbed like any thief.
|
||
Perhaps he thought to weaken disbelief
|
||
By proof that even himself was not a slave
|
||
To Truth; though I suspect the aged knave
|
||
Had been of all her servitors the chief
|
||
Had he but known a fig's reluctant leaf
|
||
Is more than e'er she wore on land or wave.
|
||
No, David served not Naked Truth when he
|
||
Struck that sledge-hammer blow at all his race;
|
||
Nor did he hit the nail upon the head:
|
||
For reason shows that it could never be,
|
||
And the facts contradict him to his face.
|
||
Men are not liars all, for some are dead.
|
||
Bartle Quinker
|
||
|
||
FICKLENESS, n. The iterated satiety of an enterprising affection.
|
||
|
||
FIDDLE, n. An instrument to tickle human ears by friction of a
|
||
horse's tail on the entrails of a cat.
|
||
|
||
To Rome said Nero: "If to smoke you turn
|
||
I shall not cease to fiddle while you burn."
|
||
To Nero Rome replied: "Pray do your worst,
|
||
'Tis my excuse that you were fiddling first."
|
||
Orm Pludge
|
||
|
||
FIDELITY, n. A virtue peculiar to those who are about to be betrayed.
|
||
|
||
FINANCE, n. The art or science of managing revenues and resources for
|
||
the best advantage of the manager. The pronunciation of this word
|
||
with the i long and the accent on the first syllable is one of
|
||
America's most precious discoveries and possessions.
|
||
|
||
FLAG, n. A colored rag borne above troops and hoisted on forts and
|
||
ships. It appears to serve the same purpose as certain signs that one
|
||
sees and vacant lots in London -- "Rubbish may be shot here."
|
||
|
||
FLESH, n. The Second Person of the secular Trinity.
|
||
|
||
FLOP, v. Suddenly to change one's opinions and go over to another
|
||
party. The most notable flop on record was that of Saul of Tarsus,
|
||
who has been severely criticised as a turn-coat by some of our
|
||
partisan journals.
|
||
|
||
FLY-SPECK, n. The prototype of punctuation. It is observed by
|
||
Garvinus that the systems of punctuation in use by the various
|
||
literary nations depended originally upon the social habits and
|
||
general diet of the flies infesting the several countries. These
|
||
creatures, which have always been distinguished for a neighborly and
|
||
companionable familiarity with authors, liberally or niggardly
|
||
embellish the manuscripts in process of growth under the pen,
|
||
according to their bodily habit, bringing out the sense of the work by
|
||
a species of interpretation superior to, and independent of, the
|
||
writer's powers. The "old masters" of literature -- that is to say,
|
||
the early writers whose work is so esteemed by later scribes and
|
||
critics in the same language -- never punctuated at all, but worked
|
||
right along free-handed, without that abruption of the thought which
|
||
comes from the use of points. (We observe the same thing in children
|
||
to-day, whose usage in this particular is a striking and beautiful
|
||
instance of the law that the infancy of individuals reproduces the
|
||
methods and stages of development characterizing the infancy of
|
||
races.) In the work of these primitive scribes all the punctuation is
|
||
found, by the modern investigator with his optical instruments and
|
||
chemical tests, to have been inserted by the writers' ingenious and
|
||
serviceable collaborator, the common house-fly -- _Musca maledicta_.
|
||
In transcribing these ancient MSS, for the purpose of either making
|
||
the work their own or preserving what they naturally regard as divine
|
||
revelations, later writers reverently and accurately copy whatever
|
||
marks they find upon the papyrus or parchment, to the unspeakable
|
||
enhancement of the lucidity of the thought and value of the work.
|
||
Writers contemporary with the copyists naturally avail themselves of
|
||
the obvious advantages of these marks in their own work, and with such
|
||
assistance as the flies of their own household may be willing to
|
||
grant, frequently rival and sometimes surpass the older compositions,
|
||
in respect at least of punctuation, which is no small glory. Fully to
|
||
understand the important services that flies perform to literature it
|
||
is only necessary to lay a page of some popular novelist alongside a
|
||
saucer of cream-and-molasses in a sunny room and observe "how the wit
|
||
brightens and the style refines" in accurate proportion to the
|
||
duration of exposure.
|
||
|
||
FOLLY, n. That "gift and faculty divine" whose creative and
|
||
controlling energy inspires Man's mind, guides his actions and adorns
|
||
his life.
|
||
|
||
Folly! although Erasmus praised thee once
|
||
In a thick volume, and all authors known,
|
||
If not thy glory yet thy power have shown,
|
||
Deign to take homage from thy son who hunts
|
||
Through all thy maze his brothers, fool and dunce,
|
||
To mend their lives and to sustain his own,
|
||
However feebly be his arrows thrown,
|
||
|
||
Howe'er each hide the flying weapons blunts.
|
||
All-Father Folly! be it mine to raise,
|
||
With lusty lung, here on his western strand
|
||
With all thine offspring thronged from every land,
|
||
Thyself inspiring me, the song of praise.
|
||
And if too weak, I'll hire, to help me bawl,
|
||
Dick Watson Gilder, gravest of us all.
|
||
Aramis Loto Frope
|
||
|
||
FOOL, n. A person who pervades the domain of intellectual speculation
|
||
and diffuses himself through the channels of moral activity. He is
|
||
omnific, omniform, omnipercipient, omniscience, omnipotent. He it was
|
||
who invented letters, printing, the railroad, the steamboat, the
|
||
telegraph, the platitude and the circle of the sciences. He created
|
||
patriotism and taught the nations war -- founded theology, philosophy,
|
||
law, medicine and Chicago. He established monarchical and republican
|
||
government. He is from everlasting to everlasting -- such as
|
||
creation's dawn beheld he fooleth now. In the morning of time he sang
|
||
upon primitive hills, and in the noonday of existence headed the
|
||
procession of being. His grandmotherly hand was warmly tucked-in the
|
||
set sun of civilization, and in the twilight he prepares Man's evening
|
||
meal of milk-and-morality and turns down the covers of the universal
|
||
grave. And after the rest of us shall have retired for the night of
|
||
eternal oblivion he will sit up to write a history of human
|
||
civilization.
|
||
|
||
FORCE, n.
|
||
|
||
"Force is but might," the teacher said --
|
||
"That definition's just."
|
||
The boy said naught but through instead,
|
||
Remembering his pounded head:
|
||
"Force is not might but must!"
|
||
|
||
FOREFINGER, n. The finger commonly used in pointing out two
|
||
malefactors.
|
||
|
||
FOREORDINATION, n. This looks like an easy word to define, but when I
|
||
consider that pious and learned theologians have spent long lives in
|
||
explaining it, and written libraries to explain their explanations;
|
||
when I remember the nations have been divided and bloody battles
|
||
caused by the difference between foreordination and predestination,
|
||
and that millions of treasure have been expended in the effort to
|
||
prove and disprove its compatibility with freedom of the will and the
|
||
efficacy of prayer, praise, and a religious life, -- recalling these
|
||
awful facts in the history of the word, I stand appalled before the
|
||
mighty problem of its signification, abase my spiritual eyes, fearing
|
||
to contemplate its portentous magnitude, reverently uncover and humbly
|
||
refer it to His Eminence Cardinal Gibbons and His Grace Bishop Potter.
|
||
|
||
FORGETFULNESS, n. A gift of God bestowed upon doctors in compensation
|
||
for their destitution of conscience.
|
||
|
||
FORK, n. An instrument used chiefly for the purpose of putting dead
|
||
animals into the mouth. Formerly the knife was employed for this
|
||
purpose, and by many worthy persons is still thought to have many
|
||
advantages over the other tool, which, however, they do not altogether
|
||
reject, but use to assist in charging the knife. The immunity of
|
||
these persons from swift and awful death is one of the most striking
|
||
proofs of God's mercy to those that hate Him.
|
||
|
||
FORMA PAUPERIS. [Latin] In the character of a poor person -- a
|
||
method by which a litigant without money for lawyers is considerately
|
||
permitted to lose his case.
|
||
|
||
When Adam long ago in Cupid's awful court
|
||
(For Cupid ruled ere Adam was invented)
|
||
Sued for Eve's favor, says an ancient law report,
|
||
He stood and pleaded unhabilimented.
|
||
|
||
"You sue _in forma pauperis_, I see," Eve cried;
|
||
"Actions can't here be that way prosecuted."
|
||
So all poor Adam's motions coldly were denied:
|
||
He went away -- as he had come -- nonsuited.
|
||
G.J.
|
||
|
||
FRANKALMOIGNE, n. The tenure by which a religious corporation holds
|
||
lands on condition of praying for the soul of the donor. In mediaeval
|
||
times many of the wealthiest fraternities obtained their estates in
|
||
this simple and cheap manner, and once when Henry VIII of England sent
|
||
an officer to confiscate certain vast possessions which a fraternity
|
||
of monks held by frankalmoigne, "What!" said the Prior, "would you
|
||
master stay our benefactor's soul in Purgatory?" "Ay," said the
|
||
officer, coldly, "an ye will not pray him thence for naught he must
|
||
e'en roast." "But look you, my son," persisted the good man, "this
|
||
act hath rank as robbery of God!" "Nay, nay, good father, my master
|
||
the king doth but deliver him from the manifold temptations of too
|
||
great wealth."
|
||
|
||
FREEBOOTER, n. A conqueror in a small way of business, whose
|
||
annexations lack of the sanctifying merit of magnitude.
|
||
|
||
FREEDOM, n. Exemption from the stress of authority in a beggarly half
|
||
dozen of restraint's infinite multitude of methods. A political
|
||
condition that every nation supposes itself to enjoy in virtual
|
||
monopoly. Liberty. The distinction between freedom and liberty is
|
||
not accurately known; naturalists have never been able to find a
|
||
living specimen of either.
|
||
|
||
Freedom, as every schoolboy knows,
|
||
Once shrieked as Kosciusko fell;
|
||
On every wind, indeed, that blows
|
||
I hear her yell.
|
||
|
||
She screams whenever monarchs meet,
|
||
And parliaments as well,
|
||
To bind the chains about her feet
|
||
And toll her knell.
|
||
|
||
And when the sovereign people cast
|
||
The votes they cannot spell,
|
||
Upon the pestilential blast
|
||
Her clamors swell.
|
||
|
||
For all to whom the power's given
|
||
To sway or to compel,
|
||
Among themselves apportion Heaven
|
||
And give her Hell.
|
||
Blary O'Gary
|
||
|
||
FREEMASONS, n. An order with secret rites, grotesque ceremonies and
|
||
fantastic costumes, which, originating in the reign of Charles II,
|
||
among working artisans of London, has been joined successively by the
|
||
dead of past centuries in unbroken retrogression until now it embraces
|
||
all the generations of man on the hither side of Adam and is drumming
|
||
up distinguished recruits among the pre-Creational inhabitants of
|
||
Chaos and Formless Void. The order was founded at different times by
|
||
Charlemagne, Julius Caesar, Cyrus, Solomon, Zoroaster, Confucious,
|
||
Thothmes, and Buddha. Its emblems and symbols have been found in the
|
||
Catacombs of Paris and Rome, on the stones of the Parthenon and the
|
||
Chinese Great Wall, among the temples of Karnak and Palmyra and in the
|
||
Egyptian Pyramids -- always by a Freemason.
|
||
|
||
FRIENDLESS, adj. Having no favors to bestow. Destitute of fortune.
|
||
Addicted to utterance of truth and common sense.
|
||
|
||
FRIENDSHIP, n. A ship big enough to carry two in fair weather, but
|
||
only one in foul.
|
||
|
||
The sea was calm and the sky was blue;
|
||
Merrily, merrily sailed we two.
|
||
(High barometer maketh glad.)
|
||
On the tipsy ship, with a dreadful shout,
|
||
The tempest descended and we fell out.
|
||
(O the walking is nasty bad!)
|
||
Armit Huff Bettle
|
||
|
||
FROG, n. A reptile with edible legs. The first mention of frogs in
|
||
profane literature is in Homer's narrative of the war between them and
|
||
the mice. Skeptical persons have doubted Homer's authorship of the
|
||
work, but the learned, ingenious and industrious Dr. Schliemann has
|
||
set the question forever at rest by uncovering the bones of the slain
|
||
frogs. One of the forms of moral suasion by which Pharaoh was
|
||
besought to favor the Israelities was a plague of frogs, but Pharaoh,
|
||
who liked them _fricasees_, remarked, with truly oriental stoicism,
|
||
that he could stand it as long as the frogs and the Jews could; so the
|
||
programme was changed. The frog is a diligent songster, having a good
|
||
voice but no ear. The libretto of his favorite opera, as written by
|
||
Aristophanes, is brief, simple and effective -- "brekekex-koax"; the
|
||
music is apparently by that eminent composer, Richard Wagner. Horses
|
||
have a frog in each hoof -- a thoughtful provision of nature, enabling
|
||
them to shine in a hurdle race.
|
||
|
||
FRYING-PAN, n. One part of the penal apparatus employed in that
|
||
punitive institution, a woman's kitchen. The frying-pan was invented
|
||
by Calvin, and by him used in cooking span-long infants that had died
|
||
without baptism; and observing one day the horrible torment of a tramp
|
||
who had incautiously pulled a fried babe from the waste-dump and
|
||
devoured it, it occurred to the great divine to rob death of its
|
||
terrors by introducing the frying-pan into every household in Geneva.
|
||
Thence it spread to all corners of the world, and has been of
|
||
invaluable assistance in the propagation of his sombre faith. The
|
||
following lines (said to be from the pen of his Grace Bishop Potter)
|
||
seem to imply that the usefulness of this utensil is not limited to
|
||
this world; but as the consequences of its employment in this life
|
||
reach over into the life to come, so also itself may be found on the
|
||
other side, rewarding its devotees:
|
||
|
||
Old Nick was summoned to the skies.
|
||
Said Peter: "Your intentions
|
||
Are good, but you lack enterprise
|
||
Concerning new inventions.
|
||
|
||
"Now, broiling in an ancient plan
|
||
Of torment, but I hear it
|
||
Reported that the frying-pan
|
||
Sears best the wicked spirit.
|
||
|
||
"Go get one -- fill it up with fat --
|
||
Fry sinners brown and good in't."
|
||
"I know a trick worth two o' that,"
|
||
Said Nick -- "I'll cook their food in't."
|
||
|
||
FUNERAL, n. A pageant whereby we attest our respect for the dead by
|
||
enriching the undertaker, and strengthen our grief by an expenditure
|
||
that deepens our groans and doubles our tears.
|
||
|
||
The savage dies -- they sacrifice a horse
|
||
To bear to happy hunting-grounds the corse.
|
||
Our friends expire -- we make the money fly
|
||
In hope their souls will chase it to the sky.
|
||
Jex Wopley
|
||
|
||
FUTURE, n. That period of time in which our affairs prosper, our
|
||
friends are true and our happiness is assured.
|
||
|
||
|
||
G
|
||
|
||
|
||
GALLOWS, n. A stage for the performance of miracle plays, in which
|
||
the leading actor is translated to heaven. In this country the
|
||
gallows is chiefly remarkable for the number of persons who escape it.
|
||
|
||
Whether on the gallows high
|
||
Or where blood flows the reddest,
|
||
The noblest place for man to die --
|
||
Is where he died the deadest.
|
||
(Old play)
|
||
|
||
GARGOYLE, n. A rain-spout projecting from the eaves of mediaeval
|
||
buildings, commonly fashioned into a grotesque caricature of some
|
||
personal enemy of the architect or owner of the building. This was
|
||
especially the case in churches and ecclesiastical structures
|
||
generally, in which the gargoyles presented a perfect rogues' gallery
|
||
of local heretics and controversialists. Sometimes when a new dean
|
||
and chapter were installed the old gargoyles were removed and others
|
||
substituted having a closer relation to the private animosities of the
|
||
new incumbents.
|
||
|
||
GARTHER, n. An elastic band intended to keep a woman from coming out
|
||
of her stockings and desolating the country.
|
||
|
||
GENEROUS, adj. Originally this word meant noble by birth and was
|
||
rightly applied to a great multitude of persons. It now means noble
|
||
by nature and is taking a bit of a rest.
|
||
|
||
GENEALOGY, n. An account of one's descent from an ancestor who did
|
||
not particularly care to trace his own.
|
||
|
||
GENTEEL, adj. Refined, after the fashion of a gent.
|
||
|
||
Observe with care, my son, the distinction I reveal:
|
||
A gentleman is gentle and a gent genteel.
|
||
Heed not the definitions your "Unabridged" presents,
|
||
For dictionary makers are generally gents.
|
||
G.J.
|
||
|
||
GEOGRAPHER, n. A chap who can tell you offhand the difference between
|
||
the outside of the world and the inside.
|
||
|
||
Habeam, geographer of wide reknown,
|
||
Native of Abu-Keber's ancient town,
|
||
In passing thence along the river Zam
|
||
To the adjacent village of Xelam,
|
||
Bewildered by the multitude of roads,
|
||
Got lost, lived long on migratory toads,
|
||
Then from exposure miserably died,
|
||
And grateful travelers bewailed their guide.
|
||
Henry Haukhorn
|
||
|
||
GEOLOGY, n. The science of the earth's crust -- to which, doubtless,
|
||
will be added that of its interior whenever a man shall come up
|
||
garrulous out of a well. The geological formations of the globe
|
||
already noted are catalogued thus: The Primary, or lower one,
|
||
consists of rocks, bones or mired mules, gas-pipes, miners' tools,
|
||
antique statues minus the nose, Spanish doubloons and ancestors. The
|
||
Secondary is largely made up of red worms and moles. The Tertiary
|
||
comprises railway tracks, patent pavements, grass, snakes, mouldy
|
||
boots, beer bottles, tomato cans, intoxicated citizens, garbage,
|
||
anarchists, snap-dogs and fools.
|
||
|
||
GHOST, n. The outward and visible sign of an inward fear.
|
||
|
||
He saw a ghost.
|
||
It occupied -- that dismal thing! --
|
||
The path that he was following.
|
||
Before he'd time to stop and fly,
|
||
An earthquake trifled with the eye
|
||
That saw a ghost.
|
||
He fell as fall the early good;
|
||
Unmoved that awful vision stood.
|
||
The stars that danced before his ken
|
||
He wildly brushed away, and then
|
||
He saw a post.
|
||
Jared Macphester
|
||
|
||
Accounting for the uncommon behavior of ghosts, Heine mentions
|
||
somebody's ingenious theory to the effect that they are as much
|
||
afraid of us as we of them. Not quite, if I may judge from such
|
||
tables of comparative speed as I am able to compile from memories of
|
||
my own experience.
|
||
There is one insuperable obstacle to a belief in ghosts. A ghost
|
||
never comes naked: he appears either in a winding-sheet or "in his
|
||
habit as he lived." To believe in him, then, is to believe that not
|
||
only have the dead the power to make themselves visible after there is
|
||
nothing left of them, but that the same power inheres in textile
|
||
fabrics. Supposing the products of the loom to have this ability,
|
||
what object would they have in exercising it? And why does not the
|
||
apparition of a suit of clothes sometimes walk abroad without a ghost
|
||
in it? These be riddles of significance. They reach away down and
|
||
get a convulsive grip on the very tap-root of this flourishing faith.
|
||
|
||
GHOUL, n. A demon addicted to the reprehensible habit of devouring
|
||
the dead. The existence of ghouls has been disputed by that class of
|
||
controversialists who are more concerned to deprive the world of
|
||
comforting beliefs than to give it anything good in their place. In
|
||
1640 Father Secchi saw one in a cemetery near Florence and frightened
|
||
it away with the sign of the cross. He describes it as gifted with
|
||
many heads an an uncommon allowance of limbs, and he saw it in more
|
||
than one place at a time. The good man was coming away from dinner at
|
||
the time and explains that if he had not been "heavy with eating" he
|
||
would have seized the demon at all hazards. Atholston relates that a
|
||
ghoul was caught by some sturdy peasants in a churchyard at Sudbury
|
||
and ducked in a horsepond. (He appears to think that so distinguished
|
||
a criminal should have been ducked in a tank of rosewater.) The water
|
||
turned at once to blood "and so contynues unto ys daye." The pond has
|
||
since been bled with a ditch. As late as the beginning of the
|
||
fourteenth century a ghoul was cornered in the crypt of the cathedral
|
||
at Amiens and the whole population surrounded the place. Twenty armed
|
||
men with a priest at their head, bearing a crucifix, entered and
|
||
captured the ghoul, which, thinking to escape by the stratagem, had
|
||
transformed itself to the semblance of a well known citizen, but was
|
||
nevertheless hanged, drawn and quartered in the midst of hideous
|
||
popular orgies. The citizen whose shape the demon had assumed was so
|
||
affected by the sinister occurrence that he never again showed himself
|
||
in Amiens and his fate remains a mystery.
|
||
|
||
GLUTTON, n. A person who escapes the evils of moderation by
|
||
committing dyspepsia.
|
||
|
||
GNOME, n. In North-European mythology, a dwarfish imp inhabiting the
|
||
interior parts of the earth and having special custody of mineral
|
||
treasures. Bjorsen, who died in 1765, says gnomes were common enough
|
||
in the southern parts of Sweden in his boyhood, and he frequently saw
|
||
them scampering on the hills in the evening twilight. Ludwig
|
||
Binkerhoof saw three as recently as 1792, in the Black Forest, and
|
||
Sneddeker avers that in 1803 they drove a party of miners out of a
|
||
Silesian mine. Basing our computations upon data supplied by these
|
||
statements, we find that the gnomes were probably extinct as early as
|
||
1764.
|
||
|
||
GNOSTICS, n. A sect of philosophers who tried to engineer a fusion
|
||
between the early Christians and the Platonists. The former would not
|
||
go into the caucus and the combination failed, greatly to the chagrin
|
||
of the fusion managers.
|
||
|
||
GNU, n. An animal of South Africa, which in its domesticated state
|
||
resembles a horse, a buffalo and a stag. In its wild condition it is
|
||
something like a thunderbolt, an earthquake and a cyclone.
|
||
|
||
A hunter from Kew caught a distant view
|
||
Of a peacefully meditative gnu,
|
||
And he said: "I'll pursue, and my hands imbrue
|
||
In its blood at a closer interview."
|
||
But that beast did ensue and the hunter it threw
|
||
O'er the top of a palm that adjacent grew;
|
||
And he said as he flew: "It is well I withdrew
|
||
Ere, losing my temper, I wickedly slew
|
||
That really meritorious gnu."
|
||
Jarn Leffer
|
||
|
||
GOOD, adj. Sensible, madam, to the worth of this present writer.
|
||
Alive, sir, to the advantages of letting him alone.
|
||
|
||
GOOSE, n. A bird that supplies quills for writing. These, by some
|
||
occult process of nature, are penetrated and suffused with various
|
||
degrees of the bird's intellectual energies and emotional character,
|
||
so that when inked and drawn mechanically across paper by a person
|
||
called an "author," there results a very fair and accurate transcript
|
||
of the fowl's thought and feeling. The difference in geese, as
|
||
discovered by this ingenious method, is considerable: many are found
|
||
to have only trivial and insignificant powers, but some are seen to be
|
||
very great geese indeed.
|
||
|
||
GORGON, n.
|
||
|
||
The Gorgon was a maiden bold
|
||
Who turned to stone the Greeks of old
|
||
That looked upon her awful brow.
|
||
We dig them out of ruins now,
|
||
And swear that workmanship so bad
|
||
Proves all the ancient sculptors mad.
|
||
|
||
GOUT, n. A physician's name for the rheumatism of a rich patient.
|
||
|
||
GRACES, n. Three beautiful goddesses, Aglaia, Thalia and Euphrosyne,
|
||
who attended upon Venus, serving without salary. They were at no
|
||
expense for board and clothing, for they ate nothing to speak of and
|
||
dressed according to the weather, wearing whatever breeze happened to
|
||
be blowing.
|
||
|
||
GRAMMAR, n. A system of pitfalls thoughtfully prepared for the feet
|
||
for the self-made man, along the path by which he advances to
|
||
distinction.
|
||
|
||
GRAPE, n.
|
||
|
||
Hail noble fruit! -- by Homer sung,
|
||
Anacreon and Khayyam;
|
||
Thy praise is ever on the tongue
|
||
Of better men than I am.
|
||
|
||
The lyre in my hand has never swept,
|
||
The song I cannot offer:
|
||
My humbler service pray accept --
|
||
I'll help to kill the scoffer.
|
||
|
||
The water-drinkers and the cranks
|
||
Who load their skins with liquor --
|
||
I'll gladly bear their belly-tanks
|
||
And tap them with my sticker.
|
||
|
||
Fill up, fill up, for wisdom cools
|
||
When e'er we let the wine rest.
|
||
Here's death to Prohibition's fools,
|
||
And every kind of vine-pest!
|
||
Jamrach Holobom
|
||
|
||
GRAPESHOT, n. An argument which the future is preparing in answer to
|
||
the demands of American Socialism.
|
||
|
||
GRAVE, n. A place in which the dead are laid to await the coming of
|
||
the medical student.
|
||
|
||
Beside a lonely grave I stood --
|
||
With brambles 'twas encumbered;
|
||
The winds were moaning in the wood,
|
||
Unheard by him who slumbered,
|
||
|
||
A rustic standing near, I said:
|
||
"He cannot hear it blowing!"
|
||
"'Course not," said he: "the feller's dead --
|
||
He can't hear nowt [sic] that's going."
|
||
|
||
"Too true," I said; "alas, too true --
|
||
No sound his sense can quicken!"
|
||
"Well, mister, wot is that to you? --
|
||
The deadster ain't a-kickin'."
|
||
|
||
I knelt and prayed: "O Father, smile
|
||
On him, and mercy show him!"
|
||
That countryman looked on the while,
|
||
And said: "Ye didn't know him."
|
||
Pobeter Dunko
|
||
|
||
GRAVITATION, n. The tendency of all bodies to approach one another
|
||
with a strength proportion to the quantity of matter they contain --
|
||
the quantity of matter they contain being ascertained by the strength
|
||
of their tendency to approach one another. This is a lovely and
|
||
edifying illustration of how science, having made A the proof of B,
|
||
makes B the proof of A.
|
||
|
||
GREAT, adj.
|
||
|
||
"I'm great," the Lion said -- "I reign
|
||
The monarch of the wood and plain!"
|
||
|
||
The Elephant replied: "I'm great --
|
||
No quadruped can match my weight!"
|
||
|
||
"I'm great -- no animal has half
|
||
So long a neck!" said the Giraffe.
|
||
|
||
"I'm great," the Kangaroo said -- "see
|
||
My femoral muscularity!"
|
||
|
||
The 'Possum said: "I'm great -- behold,
|
||
My tail is lithe and bald and cold!"
|
||
|
||
An Oyster fried was understood
|
||
To say: "I'm great because I'm good!"
|
||
|
||
Each reckons greatness to consist
|
||
In that in which he heads the list,
|
||
|
||
And Vierick thinks he tops his class
|
||
Because he is the greatest ass.
|
||
Arion Spurl Doke
|
||
|
||
GUILLOTINE, n. A machine which makes a Frenchman shrug his shoulders
|
||
with good reason.
|
||
In his great work on _Divergent Lines of Racial Evolution_, the
|
||
learned Professor Brayfugle argues from the prevalence of this gesture
|
||
-- the shrug -- among Frenchmen, that they are descended from turtles
|
||
and it is simply a survival of the habit of retracing the head inside
|
||
the shell. It is with reluctance that I differ with so eminent an
|
||
authority, but in my judgment (as more elaborately set forth and
|
||
enforced in my work entitled _Hereditary Emotions_ -- lib. II, c. XI)
|
||
the shrug is a poor foundation upon which to build so important a
|
||
theory, for previously to the Revolution the gesture was unknown. I
|
||
have not a doubt that it is directly referable to the terror inspired
|
||
by the guillotine during the period of that instrument's activity.
|
||
|
||
GUNPOWDER, n. An agency employed by civilized nations for the
|
||
settlement of disputes which might become troublesome if left
|
||
unadjusted. By most writers the invention of gunpowder is ascribed to
|
||
the Chinese, but not upon very convincing evidence. Milton says it
|
||
was invented by the devil to dispel angels with, and this opinion
|
||
seems to derive some support from the scarcity of angels. Moreover,
|
||
it has the hearty concurrence of the Hon. James Wilson, Secretary of
|
||
Agriculture.
|
||
Secretary Wilson became interested in gunpowder through an event
|
||
that occurred on the Government experimental farm in the District of
|
||
Columbia. One day, several years ago, a rogue imperfectly reverent of
|
||
the Secretary's profound attainments and personal character presented
|
||
him with a sack of gunpowder, representing it as the sed of the
|
||
_Flashawful flabbergastor_, a Patagonian cereal of great commercial
|
||
value, admirably adapted to this climate. The good Secretary was
|
||
instructed to spill it along in a furrow and afterward inhume it with
|
||
soil. This he at once proceeded to do, and had made a continuous line
|
||
of it all the way across a ten-acre field, when he was made to look
|
||
backward by a shout from the generous donor, who at once dropped a
|
||
lighted match into the furrow at the starting-point. Contact with the
|
||
earth had somewhat dampened the powder, but the startled functionary
|
||
saw himself pursued by a tall moving pillar of fire and smoke and
|
||
fierce evolution. He stood for a moment paralyzed and speechless,
|
||
then he recollected an engagement and, dropping all, absented himself
|
||
thence with such surprising celerity that to the eyes of spectators
|
||
along the route selected he appeared like a long, dim streak
|
||
prolonging itself with inconceivable rapidity through seven villages,
|
||
and audibly refusing to be comforted. "Great Scott! what is that?"
|
||
cried a surveyor's chainman, shading his eyes and gazing at the fading
|
||
line of agriculturist which bisected his visible horizon. "That,"
|
||
said the surveyor, carelessly glancing at the phenomenon and again
|
||
centering his attention upon his instrument, "is the Meridian of
|
||
Washington."
|
||
|
||
|
||
H
|
||
|
||
|
||
HABEAS CORPUS. A writ by which a man may be taken out of jail when
|
||
confined for the wrong crime.
|
||
|
||
HABIT, n. A shackle for the free.
|
||
|
||
HADES, n. The lower world; the residence of departed spirits; the
|
||
place where the dead live.
|
||
Among the ancients the idea of Hades was not synonymous with our
|
||
Hell, many of the most respectable men of antiquity residing there in
|
||
a very comfortable kind of way. Indeed, the Elysian Fields themselves
|
||
were a part of Hades, though they have since been removed to Paris.
|
||
When the Jacobean version of the New Testament was in process of
|
||
evolution the pious and learned men engaged in the work insisted by a
|
||
majority vote on translating the Greek word "Aides" as "Hell"; but a
|
||
conscientious minority member secretly possessed himself of the record
|
||
and struck out the objectional word wherever he could find it. At the
|
||
next meeting, the Bishop of Salisbury, looking over the work, suddenly
|
||
sprang to his feet and said with considerable excitement: "Gentlemen,
|
||
somebody has been razing 'Hell' here!" Years afterward the good
|
||
prelate's death was made sweet by the reflection that he had been the
|
||
means (under Providence) of making an important, serviceable and
|
||
immortal addition to the phraseology of the English tongue.
|
||
|
||
HAG, n. An elderly lady whom you do not happen to like; sometimes
|
||
called, also, a hen, or cat. Old witches, sorceresses, etc., were
|
||
called hags from the belief that their heads were surrounded by a kind
|
||
of baleful lumination or nimbus -- hag being the popular name of that
|
||
peculiar electrical light sometimes observed in the hair. At one time
|
||
hag was not a word of reproach: Drayton speaks of a "beautiful hag,
|
||
all smiles," much as Shakespeare said, "sweet wench." It would not
|
||
now be proper to call your sweetheart a hag -- that compliment is
|
||
reserved for the use of her grandchildren.
|
||
|
||
HALF, n. One of two equal parts into which a thing may be divided, or
|
||
considered as divided. In the fourteenth century a heated discussion
|
||
arose among theologists and philosophers as to whether Omniscience
|
||
could part an object into three halves; and the pious Father
|
||
Aldrovinus publicly prayed in the cathedral at Rouen that God would
|
||
demonstrate the affirmative of the proposition in some signal and
|
||
unmistakable way, and particularly (if it should please Him) upon the
|
||
body of that hardy blasphemer, Manutius Procinus, who maintained the
|
||
negative. Procinus, however, was spared to die of the bite of a
|
||
viper.
|
||
|
||
HALO, n. Properly, a luminous ring encircling an astronomical body,
|
||
but not infrequently confounded with "aureola," or "nimbus," a
|
||
somewhat similar phenomenon worn as a head-dress by divinities and
|
||
saints. The halo is a purely optical illusion, produced by moisture
|
||
in the air, in the manner of a rainbow; but the aureola is conferred
|
||
as a sign of superior sanctity, in the same way as a bishop's mitre,
|
||
or the Pope's tiara. In the painting of the Nativity, by Szedgkin, a
|
||
pious artist of Pesth, not only do the Virgin and the Child wear the
|
||
nimbus, but an ass nibbling hay from the sacred manger is similarly
|
||
decorated and, to his lasting honor be it said, appears to bear his
|
||
unaccustomed dignity with a truly saintly grace.
|
||
|
||
HAND, n. A singular instrument worn at the end of the human arm and
|
||
commonly thrust into somebody's pocket.
|
||
|
||
HANDKERCHIEF, n. A small square of silk or linen, used in various
|
||
ignoble offices about the face and especially serviceable at funerals
|
||
to conceal the lack of tears. The handkerchief is of recent
|
||
invention; our ancestors knew nothing of it and intrusted its duties
|
||
to the sleeve. Shakespeare's introducing it into the play of
|
||
"Othello" is an anachronism: Desdemona dried her nose with her skirt,
|
||
as Dr. Mary Walker and other reformers have done with their coattails
|
||
in our own day -- an evidence that revolutions sometimes go backward.
|
||
|
||
HANGMAN, n. An officer of the law charged with duties of the highest
|
||
dignity and utmost gravity, and held in hereditary disesteem by a
|
||
populace having a criminal ancestry. In some of the American States
|
||
his functions are now performed by an electrician, as in New Jersey,
|
||
where executions by electricity have recently been ordered -- the
|
||
first instance known to this lexicographer of anybody questioning the
|
||
expediency of hanging Jerseymen.
|
||
|
||
HAPPINESS, n. An agreeable sensation arising from contemplating the
|
||
misery of another.
|
||
|
||
HARANGUE, n. A speech by an opponent, who is known as an harrangue-
|
||
outang.
|
||
|
||
HARBOR, n. A place where ships taking shelter from stores are exposed
|
||
to the fury of the customs.
|
||
|
||
HARMONISTS, n. A sect of Protestants, now extinct, who came from
|
||
Europe in the beginning of the last century and were distinguished for
|
||
the bitterness of their internal controversies and dissensions.
|
||
|
||
HASH, x. There is no definition for this word -- nobody knows what
|
||
hash is.
|
||
|
||
HATCHET, n. A young axe, known among Indians as a Thomashawk.
|
||
|
||
"O bury the hatchet, irascible Red,
|
||
For peace is a blessing," the White Man said.
|
||
The Savage concurred, and that weapon interred,
|
||
With imposing rites, in the White Man's head.
|
||
John Lukkus
|
||
|
||
HATRED, n. A sentiment appropriate to the occasion of another's
|
||
superiority.
|
||
|
||
HEAD-MONEY, n. A capitation tax, or poll-tax.
|
||
|
||
In ancient times there lived a king
|
||
Whose tax-collectors could not wring
|
||
From all his subjects gold enough
|
||
To make the royal way less rough.
|
||
For pleasure's highway, like the dames
|
||
Whose premises adjoin it, claims
|
||
Perpetual repairing. So
|
||
The tax-collectors in a row
|
||
Appeared before the throne to pray
|
||
Their master to devise some way
|
||
To swell the revenue. "So great,"
|
||
Said they, "are the demands of state
|
||
A tithe of all that we collect
|
||
Will scarcely meet them. Pray reflect:
|
||
How, if one-tenth we must resign,
|
||
Can we exist on t'other nine?"
|
||
The monarch asked them in reply:
|
||
"Has it occurred to you to try
|
||
The advantage of economy?"
|
||
"It has," the spokesman said: "we sold
|
||
All of our gray garrotes of gold;
|
||
With plated-ware we now compress
|
||
The necks of those whom we assess.
|
||
Plain iron forceps we employ
|
||
To mitigate the miser's joy
|
||
Who hoards, with greed that never tires,
|
||
That which your Majesty requires."
|
||
Deep lines of thought were seen to plow
|
||
Their way across the royal brow.
|
||
"Your state is desperate, no question;
|
||
Pray favor me with a suggestion."
|
||
"O King of Men," the spokesman said,
|
||
"If you'll impose upon each head
|
||
A tax, the augmented revenue
|
||
We'll cheerfully divide with you."
|
||
As flashes of the sun illume
|
||
The parted storm-cloud's sullen gloom,
|
||
The king smiled grimly. "I decree
|
||
That it be so -- and, not to be
|
||
In generosity outdone,
|
||
Declare you, each and every one,
|
||
Exempted from the operation
|
||
Of this new law of capitation.
|
||
But lest the people censure me
|
||
Because they're bound and you are free,
|
||
'Twere well some clever scheme were laid
|
||
By you this poll-tax to evade.
|
||
I'll leave you now while you confer
|
||
With my most trusted minister."
|
||
The monarch from the throne-room walked
|
||
And straightway in among them stalked
|
||
A silent man, with brow concealed,
|
||
Bare-armed -- his gleaming axe revealed!
|
||
G.J.
|
||
|
||
HEARSE, n. Death's baby-carriage.
|
||
|
||
HEART, n. An automatic, muscular blood-pump. Figuratively, this
|
||
useful organ is said to be the esat of emotions and sentiments -- a
|
||
very pretty fancy which, however, is nothing but a survival of a once
|
||
universal belief. It is now known that the sentiments and emotions
|
||
reside in the stomach, being evolved from food by chemical action of
|
||
the gastric fluid. The exact process by which a beefsteak becomes a
|
||
feeling -- tender or not, according to the age of the animal from
|
||
which it was cut; the successive stages of elaboration through which a
|
||
caviar sandwich is transmuted to a quaint fancy and reappears as a
|
||
pungent epigram; the marvelous functional methods of converting a
|
||
hard-boiled egg into religious contrition, or a cream-puff into a sigh
|
||
of sensibility -- these things have been patiently ascertained by M.
|
||
Pasteur, and by him expounded with convincing lucidity. (See, also,
|
||
my monograph, _The Essential Identity of the Spiritual Affections and
|
||
Certain Intestinal Gases Freed in Digestion_ -- 4to, 687 pp.) In a
|
||
scientific work entitled, I believe, _Delectatio Demonorum_ (John
|
||
Camden Hotton, London, 1873) this view of the sentiments receives a
|
||
striking illustration; and for further light consult Professor Dam's
|
||
famous treatise on _Love as a Product of Alimentary Maceration_.
|
||
|
||
HEAT, n.
|
||
|
||
Heat, says Professor Tyndall, is a mode
|
||
Of motion, but I know now how he's proving
|
||
His point; but this I know -- hot words bestowed
|
||
With skill will set the human fist a-moving,
|
||
And where it stops the stars burn free and wild.
|
||
_Crede expertum_ -- I have seen them, child.
|
||
Gorton Swope
|
||
|
||
HEATHEN, n. A benighted creature who has the folly to worship
|
||
something that he can see and feel. According to Professor Howison,
|
||
of the California State University, Hebrews are heathens.
|
||
|
||
"The Hebrews are heathens!" says Howison. He's
|
||
A Christian philosopher. I'm
|
||
A scurril agnostical chap, if you please,
|
||
Addicted too much to the crime
|
||
Of religious discussion in my rhyme.
|
||
|
||
Though Hebrew and Howison cannot agree
|
||
On a _modus vivendi_ -- not they! --
|
||
Yet Heaven has had the designing of me,
|
||
And I haven't been reared in a way
|
||
To joy in the thick of the fray.
|
||
|
||
For this of my creed is the soul and the gist,
|
||
And the truth of it I aver:
|
||
Who differs from me in his faith is an 'ist,
|
||
And 'ite, an 'ie, or an 'er --
|
||
And I'm down upon him or her!
|
||
|
||
Let Howison urge with perfunctory chin
|
||
Toleration -- that's all very well,
|
||
But a roast is "nuts" to his nostril thin,
|
||
And he's running -- I know by the smell --
|
||
A secret and personal Hell!
|
||
Bissell Gip
|
||
|
||
HEAVEN, n. A place where the wicked cease from troubling you with
|
||
talk of their personal affairs, and the good listen with attention
|
||
while you expound your own.
|
||
|
||
HEBREW, n. A male Jew, as distinguished from the Shebrew, an
|
||
altogether superior creation.
|
||
|
||
HELPMATE, n. A wife, or bitter half.
|
||
|
||
"Now, why is yer wife called a helpmate, Pat?"
|
||
Says the priest. "Since the time 'o yer wooin'
|
||
She's niver [sic] assisted in what ye were at --
|
||
For it's naught ye are ever doin'."
|
||
|
||
"That's true of yer Riverence [sic]," Patrick replies,
|
||
And no sign of contrition envices;
|
||
"But, bedad, it's a fact which the word implies,
|
||
For she helps to mate the expinses [sic]!"
|
||
Marley Wottel
|
||
|
||
HEMP, n. A plant from whose fibrous bark is made an article of
|
||
neckwear which is frequently put on after public speaking in the open
|
||
air and prevents the wearer from taking cold.
|
||
|
||
HERMIT, n. A person whose vices and follies are not sociable.
|
||
|
||
HERS, pron. His.
|
||
|
||
HIBERNATE, v.i. To pass the winter season in domestic seclusion.
|
||
There have been many singular popular notions about the hibernation of
|
||
various animals. Many believe that the bear hibernates during the
|
||
whole winter and subsists by mechanically sucking its paws. It is
|
||
admitted that it comes out of its retirement in the spring so lean
|
||
that it had to try twice before it can cast a shadow. Three or four
|
||
centuries ago, in England, no fact was better attested than that
|
||
swallows passed the winter months in the mud at the bottom of their
|
||
brooks, clinging together in globular masses. They have apparently
|
||
been compelled to give up the custom and account of the foulness of
|
||
the brooks. Sotus Ecobius discovered in Central Asia a whole nation
|
||
of people who hibernate. By some investigators, the fasting of Lent
|
||
is supposed to have been originally a modified form of hibernation, to
|
||
which the Church gave a religious significance; but this view was
|
||
strenuously opposed by that eminent authority, Bishop Kip, who did not
|
||
wish any honors denied to the memory of the Founder of his family.
|
||
|
||
HIPPOGRIFF, n. An animal (now extinct) which was half horse and half
|
||
griffin. The griffin was itself a compound creature, half lion and
|
||
half eagle. The hippogriff was actually, therefore, a one-quarter
|
||
eagle, which is two dollars and fifty cents in gold. The study of
|
||
zoology is full of surprises.
|
||
|
||
HISTORIAN, n. A broad-gauge gossip.
|
||
|
||
HISTORY, n. An account mostly false, of events mostly unimportant,
|
||
which are brought about by rulers mostly knaves, and soldiers mostly
|
||
fools.
|
||
|
||
Of Roman history, great Niebuhr's shown
|
||
'Tis nine-tenths lying. Faith, I wish 'twere known,
|
||
Ere we accept great Niebuhr as a guide,
|
||
Wherein he blundered and how much he lied.
|
||
Salder Bupp
|
||
|
||
HOG, n. A bird remarkable for the catholicity of its appetite and
|
||
serving to illustrate that of ours. Among the Mahometans and Jews,
|
||
the hog is not in favor as an article of diet, but is respected for
|
||
the delicacy and the melody of its voice. It is chiefly as a songster
|
||
that the fowl is esteemed; the cage of him in full chorus has been
|
||
known to draw tears from two persons at once. The scientific name of
|
||
this dicky-bird is _Porcus Rockefelleri_. Mr. Rockefeller did not
|
||
discover the hog, but it is considered his by right of resemblance.
|
||
|
||
HOMOEOPATHIST, n. The humorist of the medical profession.
|
||
|
||
HOMOEOPATHY, n. A school of medicine midway between Allopathy and
|
||
Christian Science. To the last both the others are distinctly
|
||
inferior, for Christian Science will cure imaginary diseases, and they
|
||
can not.
|
||
|
||
HOMICIDE, n. The slaying of one human being by another. There are
|
||
four kinds of homocide: felonious, excusable, justifiable, and
|
||
praiseworthy, but it makes no great difference to the person slain
|
||
whether he fell by one kind or another -- the classification is for
|
||
advantage of the lawyers.
|
||
|
||
HOMILETICS, n. The science of adapting sermons to the spiritual
|
||
needs, capacities and conditions of the congregation.
|
||
|
||
So skilled the parson was in homiletics
|
||
That all his normal purges and emetics
|
||
To medicine the spirit were compounded
|
||
With a most just discrimination founded
|
||
Upon a rigorous examination
|
||
Of tongue and pulse and heart and respiration.
|
||
Then, having diagnosed each one's condition,
|
||
His scriptural specifics this physician
|
||
Administered -- his pills so efficacious
|
||
And pukes of disposition so vivacious
|
||
That souls afflicted with ten kinds of Adam
|
||
Were convalescent ere they knew they had 'em.
|
||
But Slander's tongue -- itself all coated -- uttered
|
||
Her bilious mind and scandalously muttered
|
||
That in the case of patients having money
|
||
The pills were sugar and the pukes were honey.
|
||
_Biography of Bishop Potter_
|
||
|
||
HONORABLE, adj. Afflicted with an impediment in one's reach. In
|
||
legislative bodies it is customary to mention all members as
|
||
honorable; as, "the honorable gentleman is a scurvy cur."
|
||
|
||
HOPE, n. Desire and expectation rolled into one.
|
||
|
||
Delicious Hope! when naught to man it left --
|
||
Of fortune destitute, of friends bereft;
|
||
When even his dog deserts him, and his goat
|
||
With tranquil disaffection chews his coat
|
||
While yet it hangs upon his back; then thou,
|
||
The star far-flaming on thine angel brow,
|
||
Descendest, radiant, from the skies to hint
|
||
The promise of a clerkship in the Mint.
|
||
Fogarty Weffing
|
||
|
||
HOSPITALITY, n. The virtue which induces us to feed and lodge certain
|
||
persons who are not in need of food and lodging.
|
||
|
||
HOSTILITY, n. A peculiarly sharp and specially applied sense of the
|
||
earth's overpopulation. Hostility is classified as active and
|
||
passive; as (respectively) the feeling of a woman for her female
|
||
friends, and that which she entertains for all the rest of her sex.
|
||
|
||
HOURI, n. A comely female inhabiting the Mohammedan Paradise to make
|
||
things cheery for the good Mussulman, whose belief in her existence
|
||
marks a noble discontent with his earthly spouse, whom he denies a
|
||
soul. By that good lady the Houris are said to be held in deficient
|
||
esteem.
|
||
|
||
HOUSE, n. A hollow edifice erected for the habitation of man, rat,
|
||
mouse, beelte, cockroach, fly, mosquito, flea, bacillus and microbe.
|
||
_House of Correction_, a place of reward for political and personal
|
||
service, and for the detention of offenders and appropriations.
|
||
_House of God_, a building with a steeple and a mortgage on it.
|
||
_House-dog_, a pestilent beast kept on domestic premises to insult
|
||
persons passing by and appal the hardy visitor. _House-maid_, a
|
||
youngerly person of the opposing sex employed to be variously
|
||
disagreeable and ingeniously unclean in the station in which it has
|
||
pleased God to place her.
|
||
|
||
HOUSELESS, adj. Having paid all taxes on household goods.
|
||
|
||
HOVEL, n. The fruit of a flower called the Palace.
|
||
|
||
Twaddle had a hovel,
|
||
Twiddle had a palace;
|
||
Twaddle said: "I'll grovel
|
||
Or he'll think I bear him malice" --
|
||
A sentiment as novel
|
||
As a castor on a chalice.
|
||
|
||
Down upon the middle
|
||
Of his legs fell Twaddle
|
||
And astonished Mr. Twiddle,
|
||
Who began to lift his noddle.
|
||
Feed upon the fiddle-
|
||
Faddle flummery, unswaddle
|
||
A new-born self-sufficiency and think himself a [mockery.]
|
||
G.J.
|
||
|
||
HUMANITY, n. The human race, collectively, exclusive of the
|
||
anthropoid poets.
|
||
|
||
HUMORIST, n. A plague that would have softened down the hoar
|
||
austerity of Pharaoh's heart and persuaded him to dismiss Israel with
|
||
his best wishes, cat-quick.
|
||
|
||
Lo! the poor humorist, whose tortured mind
|
||
See jokes in crowds, though still to gloom inclined --
|
||
Whose simple appetite, untaught to stray,
|
||
His brains, renewed by night, consumes by day.
|
||
He thinks, admitted to an equal sty,
|
||
A graceful hog would bear his company.
|
||
Alexander Poke
|
||
|
||
HURRICANE, n. An atmospheric demonstration once very common but now
|
||
generally abandoned for the tornado and cyclone. The hurricane is
|
||
still in popular use in the West Indies and is preferred by certain
|
||
old-fashioned sea-captains. It is also used in the construction of
|
||
the upper decks of steamboats, but generally speaking, the hurricane's
|
||
usefulness has outlasted it.
|
||
|
||
HURRY, n. The dispatch of bunglers.
|
||
|
||
HUSBAND, n. One who, having dined, is charged with the care of the
|
||
plate.
|
||
|
||
HYBRID, n. A pooled issue.
|
||
|
||
HYDRA, n. A kind of animal that the ancients catalogued under many
|
||
heads.
|
||
|
||
HYENA, n. A beast held in reverence by some oriental nations from its
|
||
habit of frequenting at night the burial-places of the dead. But the
|
||
medical student does that.
|
||
|
||
HYPOCHONDRIASIS, n. Depression of one's own spirits.
|
||
|
||
Some heaps of trash upon a vacant lot
|
||
Where long the village rubbish had been shot
|
||
Displayed a sign among the stuff and stumps --
|
||
"Hypochondriasis." It meant The Dumps.
|
||
Bogul S. Purvy
|
||
|
||
HYPOCRITE, n. One who, profession virtues that he does not respect
|
||
secures the advantage of seeming to be what he depises.
|
||
|
||
|
||
I
|
||
|
||
|
||
I is the first letter of the alphabet, the first word of the language,
|
||
the first thought of the mind, the first object of affection. In
|
||
grammar it is a pronoun of the first person and singular number. Its
|
||
plural is said to be _We_, but how there can be more than one myself
|
||
is doubtless clearer the grammarians than it is to the author of this
|
||
incomparable dictionary. Conception of two myselfs is difficult, but
|
||
fine. The frank yet graceful use of "I" distinguishes a good writer
|
||
from a bad; the latter carries it with the manner of a thief trying to
|
||
cloak his loot.
|
||
|
||
ICHOR, n. A fluid that serves the gods and goddesses in place of
|
||
blood.
|
||
|
||
Fair Venus, speared by Diomed,
|
||
Restrained the raging chief and said:
|
||
"Behold, rash mortal, whom you've bled --
|
||
Your soul's stained white with ichorshed!"
|
||
Mary Doke
|
||
|
||
ICONOCLAST, n. A breaker of idols, the worshipers whereof are
|
||
imperfectly gratified by the performance, and most strenuously protest
|
||
that he unbuildeth but doth not reedify, that he pulleth down but
|
||
pileth not up. For the poor things would have other idols in place of
|
||
those he thwacketh upon the mazzard and dispelleth. But the
|
||
iconoclast saith: "Ye shall have none at all, for ye need them not;
|
||
and if the rebuilder fooleth round hereabout, behold I will depress
|
||
the head of him and sit thereon till he squawk it."
|
||
|
||
IDIOT, n. A member of a large and powerful tribe whose influence in
|
||
human affairs has always been dominant and controlling. The Idiot's
|
||
activity is not confined to any special field of thought or action,
|
||
but "pervades and regulates the whole." He has the last word in
|
||
everything; his decision is unappealable. He sets the fashions and
|
||
opinion of taste, dictates the limitations of speech and circumscribes
|
||
conduct with a dead-line.
|
||
|
||
IDLENESS, n. A model farm where the devil experiments with seeds of
|
||
new sins and promotes the growth of staple vices.
|
||
|
||
IGNORAMUS, n. A person unacquainted with certain kinds of knowledge
|
||
familiar to yourself, and having certain other kinds that you know
|
||
nothing about.
|
||
|
||
Dumble was an ignoramus,
|
||
Mumble was for learning famous.
|
||
Mumble said one day to Dumble:
|
||
"Ignorance should be more humble.
|
||
Not a spark have you of knowledge
|
||
That was got in any college."
|
||
Dumble said to Mumble: "Truly
|
||
You're self-satisfied unduly.
|
||
Of things in college I'm denied
|
||
A knowledge -- you of all beside."
|
||
Borelli
|
||
|
||
ILLUMINATI, n. A sect of Spanish heretics of the latter part of the
|
||
sixteenth century; so called because they were light weights --
|
||
_cunctationes illuminati_.
|
||
|
||
ILLUSTRIOUS, adj. Suitably placed for the shafts of malice, envy and
|
||
detraction.
|
||
|
||
IMAGINATION, n. A warehouse of facts, with poet and liar in joint
|
||
ownership.
|
||
|
||
IMBECILITY, n. A kind of divine inspiration, or sacred fire affecting
|
||
censorious critics of this dictionary.
|
||
|
||
IMMIGRANT, n. An unenlightened person who thinks one country better
|
||
than another.
|
||
|
||
IMMODEST, adj. Having a strong sense of one's own merit, coupled with
|
||
a feeble conception of worth in others.
|
||
|
||
There was once a man in Ispahan
|
||
Ever and ever so long ago,
|
||
And he had a head, the phrenologists said,
|
||
That fitted him for a show.
|
||
|
||
For his modesty's bump was so large a lump
|
||
(Nature, they said, had taken a freak)
|
||
That its summit stood far above the wood
|
||
Of his hair, like a mountain peak.
|
||
|
||
So modest a man in all Ispahan,
|
||
Over and over again they swore --
|
||
So humble and meek, you would vainly seek;
|
||
None ever was found before.
|
||
|
||
Meantime the hump of that awful bump
|
||
Into the heavens contrived to get
|
||
To so great a height that they called the wight
|
||
The man with the minaret.
|
||
|
||
There wasn't a man in all Ispahan
|
||
Prouder, or louder in praise of his chump:
|
||
With a tireless tongue and a brazen lung
|
||
He bragged of that beautiful bump
|
||
|
||
Till the Shah in a rage sent a trusty page
|
||
Bearing a sack and a bow-string too,
|
||
And that gentle child explained as he smiled:
|
||
"A little present for you."
|
||
|
||
The saddest man in all Ispahan,
|
||
Sniffed at the gift, yet accepted the same.
|
||
"If I'd lived," said he, "my humility
|
||
Had given me deathless fame!"
|
||
Sukker Uffro
|
||
|
||
IMMORAL, adj. Inexpedient. Whatever in the long run and with regard
|
||
to the greater number of instances men find to be generally
|
||
inexpedient comes to be considered wrong, wicked, immoral. If man's
|
||
notions of right and wrong have any other basis than this of
|
||
expediency; if they originated, or could have originated, in any other
|
||
way; if actions have in themselves a moral character apart from, and
|
||
nowise dependent on, their consequences -- then all philosophy is a
|
||
lie and reason a disorder of the mind.
|
||
|
||
IMMORTALITY, n.
|
||
|
||
A toy which people cry for,
|
||
And on their knees apply for,
|
||
Dispute, contend and lie for,
|
||
And if allowed
|
||
Would be right proud
|
||
Eternally to die for.
|
||
G.J.
|
||
|
||
IMPALE, v.t. In popular usage to pierce with any weapon which remains
|
||
fixed in the wound. This, however, is inaccurate; to imaple is,
|
||
properly, to put to death by thrusting an upright sharp stake into the
|
||
body, the victim being left in a sitting position. This was a common
|
||
mode of punishment among many of the nations of antiquity, and is
|
||
still in high favor in China and other parts of Asia. Down to the
|
||
beginning of the fifteenth century it was widely employed in
|
||
"churching" heretics and schismatics. Wolecraft calls it the "stoole
|
||
of repentynge," and among the common people it was jocularly known as
|
||
"riding the one legged horse." Ludwig Salzmann informs us that in
|
||
Thibet impalement is considered the most appropriate punishment for
|
||
crimes against religion; and although in China it is sometimes awarded
|
||
for secular offences, it is most frequently adjudged in cases of
|
||
sacrilege. To the person in actual experience of impalement it must
|
||
be a matter of minor importance by what kind of civil or religious
|
||
dissent he was made acquainted with its discomforts; but doubtless he
|
||
would feel a certain satisfaction if able to contemplate himself in
|
||
the character of a weather-cock on the spire of the True Church.
|
||
|
||
IMPARTIAL, adj. Unable to perceive any promise of personal advantage
|
||
from espousing either side of a controversy or adopting either of two
|
||
conflicting opinions.
|
||
|
||
IMPENITENCE, n. A state of mind intermediate in point of time between
|
||
sin and punishment.
|
||
|
||
IMPIETY, n. Your irreverence toward my deity.
|
||
|
||
IMPOSITION, n. The act of blessing or consecrating by the laying on
|
||
of hands -- a ceremony common to many ecclesiastical systems, but
|
||
performed with the frankest sincerity by the sect known as Thieves.
|
||
|
||
"Lo! by the laying on of hands,"
|
||
Say parson, priest and dervise,
|
||
"We consecrate your cash and lands
|
||
To ecclesiastical service.
|
||
No doubt you'll swear till all is blue
|
||
At such an imposition. Do."
|
||
Pollo Doncas
|
||
|
||
IMPOSTOR n. A rival aspirant to public honors.
|
||
|
||
IMPROBABILITY, n.
|
||
|
||
His tale he told with a solemn face
|
||
And a tender, melancholy grace.
|
||
Improbable 'twas, no doubt,
|
||
When you came to think it out,
|
||
But the fascinated crowd
|
||
Their deep surprise avowed
|
||
And all with a single voice averred
|
||
'Twas the most amazing thing they'd heard --
|
||
All save one who spake never a word,
|
||
But sat as mum
|
||
As if deaf and dumb,
|
||
Serene, indifferent and unstirred.
|
||
Then all the others turned to him
|
||
And scrutinized him limb from limb --
|
||
Scanned him alive;
|
||
But he seemed to thrive
|
||
And tranquiler grow each minute,
|
||
As if there were nothing in it.
|
||
"What! what!" cried one, "are you not amazed
|
||
At what our friend has told?" He raised
|
||
Soberly then his eyes and gazed
|
||
In a natural way
|
||
And proceeded to say,
|
||
As he crossed his feet on the mantel-shelf:
|
||
"O no -- not at all; I'm a liar myself."
|
||
|
||
IMPROVIDENCE, n. Provision for the needs of to-day from the revenues
|
||
of to-morrow.
|
||
|
||
IMPUNITY, n. Wealth.
|
||
|
||
INADMISSIBLE, adj. Not competent to be considered. Said of certain
|
||
kinds of testimony which juries are supposed to be unfit to be
|
||
entrusted with, and which judges, therefore, rule out, even of
|
||
proceedings before themselves alone. Hearsay evidence is inadmissible
|
||
because the person quoted was unsworn and is not before the court for
|
||
examination; yet most momentous actions, military, political,
|
||
commercial and of every other kind, are daily undertaken on hearsay
|
||
evidence. There is no religion in the world that has any other basis
|
||
than hearsay evidence. Revelation is hearsay evidence; that the
|
||
Scriptures are the word of God we have only the testimony of men long
|
||
dead whose identity is not clearly established and who are not known
|
||
to have been sworn in any sense. Under the rules of evidence as they
|
||
now exist in this country, no single assertion in the Bible has in its
|
||
support any evidence admissible in a court of law. It cannot be
|
||
proved that the battle of Blenheim ever was fought, that there was
|
||
such as person as Julius Caesar, such an empire as Assyria.
|
||
But as records of courts of justice are admissible, it can easily
|
||
be proved that powerful and malevolent magicians once existed and were
|
||
a scourge to mankind. The evidence (including confession) upon which
|
||
certain women were convicted of witchcraft and executed was without a
|
||
flaw; it is still unimpeachable. The judges' decisions based on it
|
||
were sound in logic and in law. Nothing in any existing court was
|
||
ever more thoroughly proved than the charges of witchcraft and sorcery
|
||
for which so many suffered death. If there were no witches, human
|
||
testimony and human reason are alike destitute of value.
|
||
|
||
INAUSPICIOUSLY, adv. In an unpromising manner, the auspices being
|
||
unfavorable. Among the Romans it was customary before undertaking any
|
||
important action or enterprise to obtain from the augurs, or state
|
||
prophets, some hint of its probable outcome; and one of their favorite
|
||
and most trustworthy modes of divination consisted in observing the
|
||
flight of birds -- the omens thence derived being called _auspices_.
|
||
Newspaper reporters and certain miscreant lexicographers have decided
|
||
that the word -- always in the plural -- shall mean "patronage" or
|
||
"management"; as, "The festivities were under the auspices of the
|
||
Ancient and Honorable Order of Body-Snatchers"; or, "The hilarities
|
||
were auspicated by the Knights of Hunger."
|
||
|
||
A Roman slave appeared one day
|
||
Before the Augur. "Tell me, pray,
|
||
If --" here the Augur, smiling, made
|
||
A checking gesture and displayed
|
||
His open palm, which plainly itched,
|
||
For visibly its surface twitched.
|
||
A _denarius_ (the Latin nickel)
|
||
Successfully allayed the tickle,
|
||
And then the slave proceeded: "Please
|
||
Inform me whether Fate decrees
|
||
Success or failure in what I
|
||
To-night (if it be dark) shall try.
|
||
Its nature? Never mind -- I think
|
||
'Tis writ on this" -- and with a wink
|
||
Which darkened half the earth, he drew
|
||
Another denarius to view,
|
||
Its shining face attentive scanned,
|
||
Then slipped it into the good man's hand,
|
||
Who with great gravity said: "Wait
|
||
While I retire to question Fate."
|
||
That holy person then withdrew
|
||
His scared clay and, passing through
|
||
The temple's rearward gate, cried "Shoo!"
|
||
Waving his robe of office. Straight
|
||
Each sacred peacock and its mate
|
||
(Maintained for Juno's favor) fled
|
||
With clamor from the trees o'erhead,
|
||
Where they were perching for the night.
|
||
The temple's roof received their flight,
|
||
For thither they would always go,
|
||
When danger threatened them below.
|
||
Back to the slave the Augur went:
|
||
"My son, forecasting the event
|
||
By flight of birds, I must confess
|
||
The auspices deny success."
|
||
That slave retired, a sadder man,
|
||
Abandoning his secret plan --
|
||
Which was (as well the craft seer
|
||
Had from the first divined) to clear
|
||
The wall and fraudulently seize
|
||
On Juno's poultry in the trees.
|
||
G.J.
|
||
|
||
INCOME, n. The natural and rational gauge and measure of
|
||
respectability, the commonly accepted standards being artificial,
|
||
arbitrary and fallacious; for, as "Sir Sycophas Chrysolater" in the
|
||
play has justly remarked, "the true use and function of property (in
|
||
whatsoever it consisteth -- coins, or land, or houses, or merchant-
|
||
stuff, or anything which may be named as holden of right to one's own
|
||
subservience) as also of honors, titles, preferments and place, and
|
||
all favor and acquaintance of persons of quality or ableness, are but
|
||
to get money. Hence it followeth that all things are truly to be
|
||
rated as of worth in measure of their serviceableness to that end; and
|
||
their possessors should take rank in agreement thereto, neither the
|
||
lord of an unproducing manor, howsoever broad and ancient, nor he who
|
||
bears an unremunerate dignity, nor yet the pauper favorite of a king,
|
||
being esteemed of level excellency with him whose riches are of daily
|
||
accretion; and hardly should they whose wealth is barren claim and
|
||
rightly take more honor than the poor and unworthy."
|
||
|
||
INCOMPATIBILITY, n. In matrimony a similarity of tastes, particularly
|
||
the taste for domination. Incompatibility may, however, consist of a
|
||
meek-eyed matron living just around the corner. It has even been
|
||
known to wear a moustache.
|
||
|
||
INCOMPOSSIBLE, adj. Unable to exist if something else exists. Two
|
||
things are incompossible when the world of being has scope enough for
|
||
one of them, but not enough for both -- as Walt Whitman's poetry and
|
||
God's mercy to man. Incompossibility, it will be seen, is only
|
||
incompatibility let loose. Instead of such low language as "Go heel
|
||
yourself -- I mean to kill you on sight," the words, "Sir, we are
|
||
incompossible," would convey and equally significant intimation and in
|
||
stately courtesy are altogether superior.
|
||
|
||
INCUBUS, n. One of a race of highly improper demons who, though
|
||
probably not wholly extinct, may be said to have seen their best
|
||
nights. For a complete account of _incubi_ and _succubi_, including
|
||
_incubae_ and _succubae_, see the _Liber Demonorum_ of Protassus
|
||
(Paris, 1328), which contains much curious information that would be
|
||
out of place in a dictionary intended as a text-book for the public
|
||
schools.
|
||
Victor Hugo relates that in the Channel Islands Satan himself --
|
||
tempted more than elsewhere by the beauty of the women, doubtless --
|
||
sometimes plays at _incubus_, greatly to the inconvenience and alarm
|
||
of the good dames who wish to be loyal to their marriage vows,
|
||
generally speaking. A certain lady applied to the parish priest to
|
||
learn how they might, in the dark, distinguish the hardy intruder from
|
||
their husbands. The holy man said they must feel his brown for horns;
|
||
but Hugo is ungallant enough to hint a doubt of the efficacy of the
|
||
test.
|
||
|
||
INCUMBENT, n. A person of the liveliest interest to the outcumbents.
|
||
|
||
INDECISION, n. The chief element of success; "for whereas," saith Sir
|
||
Thomas Brewbold, "there is but one way to do nothing and divers way to
|
||
do something, whereof, to a surety, only one is the right way, it
|
||
followeth that he who from indecision standeth still hath not so many
|
||
chances of going astray as he who pusheth forwards" -- a most clear
|
||
and satisfactory exposition on the matter.
|
||
"Your prompt decision to attack," said Genera Grant on a certain
|
||
occasion to General Gordon Granger, "was admirable; you had but five
|
||
minutes to make up your mind in."
|
||
"Yes, sir," answered the victorious subordinate, "it is a great
|
||
thing to be know exactly what to do in an emergency. When in doubt
|
||
whether to attack or retreat I never hesitate a moment -- I toss us a
|
||
copper."
|
||
"Do you mean to say that's what you did this time?"
|
||
"Yes, General; but for Heaven's sake don't reprimand me: I
|
||
disobeyed the coin."
|
||
|
||
INDIFFERENT, adj. Imperfectly sensible to distinctions among things.
|
||
|
||
"You tiresome man!" cried Indolentio's wife,
|
||
"You've grown indifferent to all in life."
|
||
"Indifferent?" he drawled with a slow smile;
|
||
"I would be, dear, but it is not worth while."
|
||
Apuleius M. Gokul
|
||
|
||
INDIGESTION, n. A disease which the patient and his friends
|
||
frequently mistake for deep religious conviction and concern for the
|
||
salvation of mankind. As the simple Red Man of the western wild put
|
||
it, with, it must be confessed, a certain force: "Plenty well, no
|
||
pray; big bellyache, heap God."
|
||
|
||
INDISCRETION, n. The guilt of woman.
|
||
|
||
INEXPEDIENT, adj. Not calculated to advance one's interests.
|
||
|
||
INFANCY, n. The period of our lives when, according to Wordsworth,
|
||
"Heaven lies about us." The world begins lying about us pretty soon
|
||
afterward.
|
||
|
||
INFERIAE,n. [Latin] Among the Greeks and Romans, sacrifices for
|
||
propitation of the _Dii Manes_, or souls of the dead heroes; for the
|
||
pious ancients could not invent enough gods to satisfy their spiritual
|
||
needs, and had to have a number of makeshift deities, or, as a sailor
|
||
might say, jury-gods, which they made out of the most unpromising
|
||
materials. It was while sacrificing a bullock to the spirit of
|
||
Agamemnon that Laiaides, a priest of Aulis, was favored with an
|
||
audience of that illustrious warrior's shade, who prophetically
|
||
recounted to him the birth of Christ and the triumph of Christianity,
|
||
giving him also a rapid but tolerably complete review of events down
|
||
to the reign of Saint Louis. The narrative ended abruptly at the
|
||
point, owing to the inconsiderate crowing of a cock, which compelled
|
||
the ghosted King of Men to scamper back to Hades. There is a fine
|
||
mediaeval flavor to this story, and as it has not been traced back
|
||
further than Pere Brateille, a pious but obscure writer at the court
|
||
of Saint Louis, we shall probably not err on the side of presumption
|
||
in considering it apocryphal, though Monsignor Capel's judgment of the
|
||
matter might be different; and to that I bow -- wow.
|
||
|
||
INFIDEL, n. In New York, one who does not believe in the Christian
|
||
religion; in Constantinople, one who does. (See GIAOUR.) A kind of
|
||
scoundrel imperfectly reverent of, and niggardly contributory to,
|
||
divines, ecclesiastics, popes, parsons, canons, monks, mollahs,
|
||
voodoos, presbyters, hierophants, prelates, obeah-men, abbes, nuns,
|
||
missionaries, exhorters, deacons, friars, hadjis, high-priests,
|
||
muezzins, brahmins, medicine-men, confessors, eminences, elders,
|
||
primates, prebendaries, pilgrims, prophets, imaums, beneficiaries,
|
||
clerks, vicars-choral, archbishops, bishops, abbots, priors,
|
||
preachers, padres, abbotesses, caloyers, palmers, curates, patriarchs,
|
||
bonezs, santons, beadsmen, canonesses, residentiaries, diocesans,
|
||
deans, subdeans, rural deans, abdals, charm-sellers, archdeacons,
|
||
hierarchs, class-leaders, incumbents, capitulars, sheiks, talapoins,
|
||
postulants, scribes, gooroos, precentors, beadles, fakeers, sextons,
|
||
reverences, revivalists, cenobites, perpetual curates, chaplains,
|
||
mudjoes, readers, novices, vicars, pastors, rabbis, ulemas, lamas,
|
||
sacristans, vergers, dervises, lectors, church wardens, cardinals,
|
||
prioresses, suffragans, acolytes, rectors, cures, sophis, mutifs and
|
||
pumpums.
|
||
|
||
INFLUENCE, n. In politics, a visionary _quo_ given in exchange for a
|
||
substantial _quid_.
|
||
|
||
INFALAPSARIAN, n. One who ventures to believe that Adam need not have
|
||
sinned unless he had a mind to -- in opposition to the
|
||
Supralapsarians, who hold that that luckless person's fall was decreed
|
||
from the beginning. Infralapsarians are sometimes called
|
||
Sublapsarians without material effect upon the importance and lucidity
|
||
of their views about Adam.
|
||
|
||
Two theologues once, as they wended their way
|
||
To chapel, engaged in colloquial fray --
|
||
An earnest logomachy, bitter as gall,
|
||
Concerning poor Adam and what made him fall.
|
||
"'Twas Predestination," cried one -- "for the Lord
|
||
Decreed he should fall of his own accord."
|
||
"Not so -- 'twas Free will," the other maintained,
|
||
"Which led him to choose what the Lord had ordained."
|
||
So fierce and so fiery grew the debate
|
||
That nothing but bloodshed their dudgeon could sate;
|
||
So off flew their cassocks and caps to the ground
|
||
And, moved by the spirit, their hands went round.
|
||
Ere either had proved his theology right
|
||
By winning, or even beginning, the fight,
|
||
A gray old professor of Latin came by,
|
||
A staff in his hand and a scowl in his eye,
|
||
And learning the cause of their quarrel (for still
|
||
As they clumsily sparred they disputed with skill
|
||
Of foreordination freedom of will)
|
||
Cried: "Sirrahs! this reasonless warfare compose:
|
||
Atwixt ye's no difference worthy of blows.
|
||
The sects ye belong to -- I'm ready to swear
|
||
Ye wrongly interpret the names that they bear.
|
||
_You_ -- Infralapsarian son of a clown! --
|
||
Should only contend that Adam slipped down;
|
||
While _you_ -- you Supralapsarian pup! --
|
||
Should nothing aver but that Adam slipped up.
|
||
It's all the same whether up or down
|
||
You slip on a peel of banana brown.
|
||
Even Adam analyzed not his blunder,
|
||
But thought he had slipped on a peal of thunder!
|
||
G.J.
|
||
|
||
INGRATE, n. One who receives a benefit from another, or is otherwise
|
||
an object of charity.
|
||
|
||
"All men are ingrates," sneered the cynic. "Nay,"
|
||
The good philanthropist replied;
|
||
"I did great service to a man one day
|
||
Who never since has cursed me to repay,
|
||
Nor vilified."
|
||
|
||
"Ho!" cried the cynic, "lead me to him straight --
|
||
With veneration I am overcome,
|
||
And fain would have his blessing." "Sad your fate --
|
||
He cannot bless you, for AI grieve to state
|
||
This man is dumb."
|
||
Ariel Selp
|
||
|
||
INJURY, n. An offense next in degree of enormity to a slight.
|
||
|
||
INJUSTICE, n. A burden which of all those that we load upon others
|
||
and carry ourselves is lightest in the hands and heaviest upon the
|
||
back.
|
||
|
||
INK, n. A villainous compound of tannogallate of iron, gum-arabic and
|
||
water, chiefly used to facilitate the infection of idiocy and promote
|
||
intellectual crime. The properties of ink are peculiar and
|
||
contradictory: it may be used to make reputations and unmake them; to
|
||
blacken them and to make them white; but it is most generally and
|
||
acceptably employed as a mortar to bind together the stones of an
|
||
edifice of fame, and as a whitewash to conceal afterward the rascal
|
||
quality of the material. There are men called journalists who have
|
||
established ink baths which some persons pay money to get into, others
|
||
to get out of. Not infrequently it occurs that a person who has paid
|
||
to get in pays twice as much to get out.
|
||
|
||
INNATE, adj. Natural, inherent -- as innate ideas, that is to say,
|
||
ideas that we are born with, having had them previously imparted to
|
||
us. The doctrine of innate ideas is one of the most admirable faiths
|
||
of philosophy, being itself an innate idea and therefore inaccessible
|
||
to disproof, though Locke foolishly supposed himself to have given it
|
||
"a black eye." Among innate ideas may be mentioned the belief in
|
||
one's ability to conduct a newspaper, in the greatness of one's
|
||
country, in the superiority of one's civilization, in the importance
|
||
of one's personal affairs and in the interesting nature of one's
|
||
diseases.
|
||
|
||
IN'ARDS, n. The stomach, heart, soul and other bowels. Many eminent
|
||
investigators do not class the soul as an in'ard, but that acute
|
||
observer and renowned authority, Dr. Gunsaulus, is persuaded that the
|
||
mysterious organ known as the spleen is nothing less than our
|
||
important part. To the contrary, Professor Garrett P. Servis holds
|
||
that man's soul is that prolongation of his spinal marrow which forms
|
||
the pith of his no tail; and for demonstration of his faith points
|
||
confidently to the fact that no tailed animals have no souls.
|
||
Concerning these two theories, it is best to suspend judgment by
|
||
believing both.
|
||
|
||
INSCRIPTION, n. Something written on another thing. Inscriptions are
|
||
of many kinds, but mostly memorial, intended to commemorate the fame
|
||
of some illustrious person and hand down to distant ages the record of
|
||
his services and virtues. To this class of inscriptions belongs the
|
||
name of John Smith, penciled on the Washington monument. Following
|
||
are examples of memorial inscriptions on tombstones: (See EPITAPH.)
|
||
|
||
"In the sky my soul is found,
|
||
And my body in the ground.
|
||
By and by my body'll rise
|
||
To my spirit in the skies,
|
||
Soaring up to Heaven's gate.
|
||
1878."
|
||
|
||
"Sacred to the memory of Jeremiah Tree. Cut down May 9th, 1862,
|
||
aged 27 yrs. 4 mos. and 12 ds. Indigenous."
|
||
|
||
"Affliction sore long time she boar,
|
||
Phisicians was in vain,
|
||
Till Deth released the dear deceased
|
||
And left her a remain.
|
||
Gone to join Ananias in the regions of bliss."
|
||
|
||
"The clay that rests beneath this stone
|
||
As Silas Wood was widely known.
|
||
Now, lying here, I ask what good
|
||
It was to let me be S. Wood.
|
||
O Man, let not ambition trouble you,
|
||
Is the advice of Silas W."
|
||
|
||
"Richard Haymon, of Heaven. Fell to Earth Jan. 20, 1807, and had
|
||
the dust brushed off him Oct. 3, 1874."
|
||
|
||
INSECTIVORA, n.
|
||
|
||
"See," cries the chorus of admiring preachers,
|
||
"How Providence provides for all His creatures!"
|
||
"His care," the gnat said, "even the insects follows:
|
||
For us He has provided wrens and swallows."
|
||
Sempen Railey
|
||
|
||
INSURANCE, n. An ingenious modern game of chance in which the player
|
||
is permitted to enjoy the comfortable conviction that he is beating
|
||
the man who keeps the table.
|
||
|
||
INSURANCE AGENT: My dear sir, that is a fine house -- pray let me
|
||
insure it.
|
||
HOUSE OWNER: With pleasure. Please make the annual premium so
|
||
low that by the time when, according to the tables of your
|
||
actuary, it will probably be destroyed by fire I will have
|
||
paid you considerably less than the face of the policy.
|
||
INSURANCE AGENT: O dear, no -- we could not afford to do that.
|
||
We must fix the premium so that you will have paid more.
|
||
HOUSE OWNER: How, then, can _I_ afford _that_?
|
||
INSURANCE AGENT: Why, your house may burn down at any time.
|
||
There was Smith's house, for example, which --
|
||
HOUSE OWNER: Spare me -- there were Brown's house, on the
|
||
contrary, and Jones's house, and Robinson's house, which --
|
||
INSURANCE AGENT: Spare _me_!
|
||
HOUSE OWNER: Let us understand each other. You want me to pay
|
||
you money on the supposition that something will occur
|
||
previously to the time set by yourself for its occurrence. In
|
||
other words, you expect me to bet that my house will not last
|
||
so long as you say that it will probably last.
|
||
INSURANCE AGENT: But if your house burns without insurance it
|
||
will be a total loss.
|
||
HOUSE OWNER: Beg your pardon -- by your own actuary's tables I
|
||
shall probably have saved, when it burns, all the premiums I
|
||
would otherwise have paid to you -- amounting to more than the
|
||
face of the policy they would have bought. But suppose it to
|
||
burn, uninsured, before the time upon which your figures are
|
||
based. If I could not afford that, how could you if it were
|
||
insured?
|
||
INSURANCE AGENT: O, we should make ourselves whole from our
|
||
luckier ventures with other clients. Virtually, they pay your
|
||
loss.
|
||
HOUSE OWNER: And virtually, then, don't I help to pay their
|
||
losses? Are not their houses as likely as mine to burn before
|
||
they have paid you as much as you must pay them? The case
|
||
stands this way: you expect to take more money from your
|
||
clients than you pay to them, do you not?
|
||
INSURANCE AGENT: Certainly; if we did not --
|
||
HOUSE OWNER: I would not trust you with my money. Very well
|
||
then. If it is _certain_, with reference to the whole body of
|
||
your clients, that they lose money on you it is _probable_,
|
||
with reference to any one of them, that _he_ will. It is
|
||
these individual probabilities that make the aggregate
|
||
certainty.
|
||
INSURANCE AGENT: I will not deny it -- but look at the figures in
|
||
this pamph --
|
||
HOUSE OWNER: Heaven forbid!
|
||
INSURANCE AGENT: You spoke of saving the premiums which you would
|
||
otherwise pay to me. Will you not be more likely to squander
|
||
them? We offer you an incentive to thrift.
|
||
HOUSE OWNER: The willingness of A to take care of B's money is
|
||
not peculiar to insurance, but as a charitable institution you
|
||
command esteem. Deign to accept its expression from a
|
||
Deserving Object.
|
||
|
||
INSURRECTION, n. An unsuccessful revolution. Disaffection's failure
|
||
to substitute misrule for bad government.
|
||
|
||
INTENTION, n. The mind's sense of the prevalence of one set of
|
||
influences over another set; an effect whose cause is the imminence,
|
||
immediate or remote, of the performance of an involuntary act.
|
||
|
||
INTERPRETER, n. One who enables two persons of different languages to
|
||
understand each other by repeating to each what it would have been to
|
||
the interpreter's advantage for the other to have said.
|
||
|
||
INTERREGNUM, n. The period during which a monarchical country is
|
||
governed by a warm spot on the cushion of the throne. The experiment
|
||
of letting the spot grow cold has commonly been attended by most
|
||
unhappy results from the zeal of many worthy persons to make it warm
|
||
again.
|
||
|
||
INTIMACY, n. A relation into which fools are providentially drawn for
|
||
their mutual destruction.
|
||
|
||
Two Seidlitz powders, one in blue
|
||
And one in white, together drew
|
||
And having each a pleasant sense
|
||
Of t'other powder's excellence,
|
||
Forsook their jackets for the snug
|
||
Enjoyment of a common mug.
|
||
So close their intimacy grew
|
||
One paper would have held the two.
|
||
To confidences straight they fell,
|
||
Less anxious each to hear than tell;
|
||
Then each remorsefully confessed
|
||
To all the virtues he possessed,
|
||
Acknowledging he had them in
|
||
So high degree it was a sin.
|
||
The more they said, the more they felt
|
||
Their spirits with emotion melt,
|
||
Till tears of sentiment expressed
|
||
Their feelings. Then they effervesced!
|
||
So Nature executes her feats
|
||
Of wrath on friends and sympathetes
|
||
The good old rule who don't apply,
|
||
That you are you and I am I.
|
||
|
||
INTRODUCTION, n. A social ceremony invented by the devil for the
|
||
gratification of his servants and the plaguing of his enemies. The
|
||
introduction attains its most malevolent development in this century,
|
||
being, indeed, closely related to our political system. Every
|
||
American being the equal of every other American, it follows that
|
||
everybody has the right to know everybody else, which implies the
|
||
right to introduce without request or permission. The Declaration of
|
||
Independence should have read thus:
|
||
|
||
"We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are
|
||
created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain
|
||
inalienable rights; that among these are life, and the right to
|
||
make that of another miserable by thrusting upon him an
|
||
incalculable quantity of acquaintances; liberty, particularly the
|
||
liberty to introduce persons to one another without first
|
||
ascertaining if they are not already acquainted as enemies; and
|
||
the pursuit of another's happiness with a running pack of
|
||
strangers."
|
||
|
||
INVENTOR, n. A person who makes an ingenious arrangement of wheels,
|
||
levers and springs, and believes it civilization.
|
||
|
||
IRRELIGION, n. The principal one of the great faiths of the world.
|
||
|
||
ITCH, n. The patriotism of a Scotchman.
|
||
|
||
|
||
J
|
||
|
||
|
||
J is a consonant in English, but some nations use it as a vowel --
|
||
than which nothing could be more absurd. Its original form, which has
|
||
been but slightly modified, was that of the tail of a subdued dog, and
|
||
it was not a letter but a character, standing for a Latin verb,
|
||
_jacere_, "to throw," because when a stone is thrown at a dog the
|
||
dog's tail assumes that shape. This is the origin of the letter, as
|
||
expounded by the renowned Dr. Jocolpus Bumer, of the University of
|
||
Belgrade, who established his conclusions on the subject in a work of
|
||
three quarto volumes and committed suicide on being reminded that the
|
||
j in the Roman alphabet had originally no curl.
|
||
|
||
JEALOUS, adj. Unduly concerned about the preservation of that which
|
||
can be lost only if not worth keeping.
|
||
|
||
JESTER, n. An officer formerly attached to a king's household, whose
|
||
business it was to amuse the court by ludicrous actions and
|
||
utterances, the absurdity being attested by his motley costume. The
|
||
king himself being attired with dignity, it took the world some
|
||
centuries to discover that his own conduct and decrees were
|
||
sufficiently ridiculous for the amusement not only of his court but of
|
||
all mankind. The jester was commonly called a fool, but the poets and
|
||
romancers have ever delighted to represent him as a singularly wise
|
||
and witty person. In the circus of to-day the melancholy ghost of the
|
||
court fool effects the dejection of humbler audiences with the same
|
||
jests wherewith in life he gloomed the marble hall, panged the
|
||
patrician sense of humor and tapped the tank of royal tears.
|
||
|
||
The widow-queen of Portugal
|
||
Had an audacious jester
|
||
Who entered the confessional
|
||
Disguised, and there confessed her.
|
||
|
||
"Father," she said, "thine ear bend down --
|
||
My sins are more than scarlet:
|
||
I love my fool -- blaspheming clown,
|
||
And common, base-born varlet."
|
||
|
||
"Daughter," the mimic priest replied,
|
||
"That sin, indeed, is awful:
|
||
The church's pardon is denied
|
||
To love that is unlawful.
|
||
|
||
"But since thy stubborn heart will be
|
||
For him forever pleading,
|
||
Thou'dst better make him, by decree,
|
||
A man of birth and breeding."
|
||
|
||
She made the fool a duke, in hope
|
||
With Heaven's taboo to palter;
|
||
Then told a priest, who told the Pope,
|
||
Who damned her from the altar!
|
||
Barel Dort
|
||
|
||
JEWS-HARP, n. An unmusical instrument, played by holding it fast with
|
||
the teeth and trying to brush it away with the finger.
|
||
|
||
JOSS-STICKS, n. Small sticks burned by the Chinese in their pagan
|
||
tomfoolery, in imitation of certain sacred rites of our holy religion.
|
||
|
||
JUSTICE, n. A commodity which is a more or less adulterated condition
|
||
the State sells to the citizen as a reward for his allegiance, taxes
|
||
and personal service.
|
||
|
||
|
||
K
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
K is a consonant that we get from the Greeks, but it can be traced
|
||
away back beyond them to the Cerathians, a small commercial nation
|
||
inhabiting the peninsula of Smero. In their tongue it was called
|
||
_Klatch_, which means "destroyed." The form of the letter was
|
||
originally precisely that of our H, but the erudite Dr. Snedeker
|
||
explains that it was altered to its present shape to commemorate the
|
||
destruction of the great temple of Jarute by an earthquake, _circa_
|
||
730 B.C. This building was famous for the two lofty columns of its
|
||
portico, one of which was broken in half by the catastrophe, the other
|
||
remaining intact. As the earlier form of the letter is supposed to
|
||
have been suggested by these pillars, so, it is thought by the great
|
||
antiquary, its later was adopted as a simple and natural -- not to say
|
||
touching -- means of keeping the calamity ever in the national memory.
|
||
It is not known if the name of the letter was altered as an additional
|
||
mnemonic, or if the name was always _Klatch_ and the destruction one
|
||
of nature's pums. As each theory seems probable enough, I see no
|
||
objection to believing both -- and Dr. Snedeker arrayed himself on
|
||
that side of the question.
|
||
|
||
KEEP, v.t.
|
||
|
||
He willed away his whole estate,
|
||
And then in death he fell asleep,
|
||
Murmuring: "Well, at any rate,
|
||
My name unblemished I shall keep."
|
||
But when upon the tomb 'twas wrought
|
||
Whose was it? -- for the dead keep naught.
|
||
Durang Gophel Arn
|
||
|
||
KILL, v.t. To create a vacancy without nominating a successor.
|
||
|
||
KILT, n. A costume sometimes worn by Scotchmen in America and
|
||
Americans in Scotland.
|
||
|
||
KINDNESS, n. A brief preface to ten volumes of exaction.
|
||
|
||
KING, n. A male person commonly known in America as a "crowned head,"
|
||
although he never wears a crown and has usually no head to speak of.
|
||
|
||
A king, in times long, long gone by,
|
||
Said to his lazy jester:
|
||
"If I were you and you were I
|
||
My moments merrily would fly --
|
||
Nor care nor grief to pester."
|
||
|
||
"The reason, Sire, that you would thrive,"
|
||
The fool said -- "if you'll hear it --
|
||
Is that of all the fools alive
|
||
Who own you for their sovereign, I've
|
||
The most forgiving spirit."
|
||
Oogum Bem
|
||
|
||
KING'S EVIL, n. A malady that was formerly cured by the touch of the
|
||
sovereign, but has now to be treated by the physicians. Thus 'the
|
||
most pious Edward" of England used to lay his royal hand upon the
|
||
ailing subjects and make them whole --
|
||
|
||
a crowd of wretched souls
|
||
That stay his cure: their malady convinces
|
||
The great essay of art; but at his touch,
|
||
Such sanctity hath Heaven given his hand,
|
||
They presently amend,
|
||
|
||
as the "Doctor" in _Macbeth_ hath it. This useful property of the
|
||
royal hand could, it appears, be transmitted along with other crown
|
||
properties; for according to "Malcolm,"
|
||
|
||
'tis spoken
|
||
To the succeeding royalty he leaves
|
||
The healing benediction.
|
||
|
||
But the gift somewhere dropped out of the line of succession: the
|
||
later sovereigns of England have not been tactual healers, and the
|
||
disease once honored with the name "king's evil" now bears the humbler
|
||
one of "scrofula," from _scrofa_, a sow. The date and author of the
|
||
following epigram are known only to the author of this dictionary, but
|
||
it is old enough to show that the jest about Scotland's national
|
||
disorder is not a thing of yesterday.
|
||
|
||
Ye Kynge his evill in me laye,
|
||
Wh. he of Scottlande charmed awaye.
|
||
He layde his hand on mine and sayd:
|
||
"Be gone!" Ye ill no longer stayd.
|
||
But O ye wofull plyght in wh.
|
||
I'm now y-pight: I have ye itche!
|
||
|
||
The superstition that maladies can be cured by royal taction is
|
||
dead, but like many a departed conviction it has left a monument of
|
||
custom to keep its memory green. The practice of forming a line and
|
||
shaking the President's hand had no other origin, and when that great
|
||
dignitary bestows his healing salutation on
|
||
|
||
strangely visited people,
|
||
All swoln and ulcerous, pitiful to the eye,
|
||
The mere despair of surgery,
|
||
|
||
he and his patients are handing along an extinguished torch which once
|
||
was kindled at the altar-fire of a faith long held by all classes of
|
||
men. It is a beautiful and edifying "survival" -- one which brings
|
||
the sainted past close home in our "business and bosoms."
|
||
|
||
KISS, n. A word invented by the poets as a rhyme for "bliss." It is
|
||
supposed to signify, in a general way, some kind of rite or ceremony
|
||
appertaining to a good understanding; but the manner of its
|
||
performance is unknown to this lexicographer.
|
||
|
||
KLEPTOMANIAC, n. A rich thief.
|
||
|
||
KNIGHT, n.
|
||
|
||
Once a warrior gentle of birth,
|
||
Then a person of civic worth,
|
||
Now a fellow to move our mirth.
|
||
Warrior, person, and fellow -- no more:
|
||
We must knight our dogs to get any lower.
|
||
Brave Knights Kennelers then shall be,
|
||
Noble Knights of the Golden Flea,
|
||
Knights of the Order of St. Steboy,
|
||
Knights of St. Gorge and Sir Knights Jawy.
|
||
God speed the day when this knighting fad
|
||
Shall go to the dogs and the dogs go mad.
|
||
|
||
KORAN, n. A book which the Mohammedans foolishly believe to have been
|
||
written by divine inspiration, but which Christians know to be a
|
||
wicked imposture, contradictory to the Holy Scriptures.
|
||
|
||
|
||
L
|
||
|
||
|
||
LABOR, n. One of the processes by which A acquires property for B.
|
||
|
||
LAND, n. A part of the earth's surface, considered as property. The
|
||
theory that land is property subject to private ownership and control
|
||
is the foundation of modern society, and is eminently worthy of the
|
||
superstructure. Carried to its logical conclusion, it means that some
|
||
have the right to prevent others from living; for the right to own
|
||
implies the right exclusively to occupy; and in fact laws of trespass
|
||
are enacted wherever property in land is recognized. It follows that
|
||
if the whole area of _terra firma_ is owned by A, B and C, there will
|
||
be no place for D, E, F and G to be born, or, born as trespassers, to
|
||
exist.
|
||
|
||
A life on the ocean wave,
|
||
A home on the rolling deep,
|
||
For the spark the nature gave
|
||
I have there the right to keep.
|
||
|
||
They give me the cat-o'-nine
|
||
Whenever I go ashore.
|
||
Then ho! for the flashing brine --
|
||
I'm a natural commodore!
|
||
Dodle
|
||
|
||
LANGUAGE, n. The music with which we charm the serpents guarding
|
||
another's treasure.
|
||
|
||
LAOCOON, n. A famous piece of antique scripture representing a priest
|
||
of that name and his two sons in the folds of two enormous serpents.
|
||
The skill and diligence with which the old man and lads support the
|
||
serpents and keep them up to their work have been justly regarded as
|
||
one of the noblest artistic illustrations of the mastery of human
|
||
intelligence over brute inertia.
|
||
|
||
LAP, n. One of the most important organs of the female system -- an
|
||
admirable provision of nature for the repose of infancy, but chiefly
|
||
useful in rural festivities to support plates of cold chicken and
|
||
heads of adult males. The male of our species has a rudimentary lap,
|
||
imperfectly developed and in no way contributing to the animal's
|
||
substantial welfare.
|
||
|
||
LAST, n. A shoemaker's implement, named by a frowning Providence as
|
||
opportunity to the maker of puns.
|
||
|
||
Ah, punster, would my lot were cast,
|
||
Where the cobbler is unknown,
|
||
So that I might forget his last
|
||
And hear your own.
|
||
Gargo Repsky
|
||
|
||
LAUGHTER, n. An interior convulsion, producing a distortion of the
|
||
features and accompanied by inarticulate noises. It is infectious
|
||
and, though intermittent, incurable. Liability to attacks of laughter
|
||
is one of the characteristics distinguishing man from the animals --
|
||
these being not only inaccessible to the provocation of his example,
|
||
but impregnable to the microbes having original jurisdiction in
|
||
bestowal of the disease. Whether laughter could be imparted to
|
||
animals by inoculation from the human patient is a question that has
|
||
not been answered by experimentation. Dr. Meir Witchell holds that
|
||
the infection character of laughter is due to the instantaneous
|
||
fermentation of _sputa_ diffused in a spray. From this peculiarity he
|
||
names the disorder _Convulsio spargens_.
|
||
|
||
LAUREATE, adj. Crowned with leaves of the laurel. In England the
|
||
Poet Laureate is an officer of the sovereign's court, acting as
|
||
dancing skeleton at every royal feast and singing-mute at every royal
|
||
funeral. Of all incumbents of that high office, Robert Southey had
|
||
the most notable knack at drugging the Samson of public joy and
|
||
cutting his hair to the quick; and he had an artistic color-sense
|
||
which enabled him so to blacken a public grief as to give it the
|
||
aspect of a national crime.
|
||
|
||
LAUREL, n. The _laurus_, a vegetable dedicated to Apollo, and
|
||
formerly defoliated to wreathe the brows of victors and such poets as
|
||
had influence at court. (_Vide supra._)
|
||
|
||
LAW, n.
|
||
|
||
Once Law was sitting on the bench,
|
||
And Mercy knelt a-weeping.
|
||
"Clear out!" he cried, "disordered wench!
|
||
Nor come before me creeping.
|
||
Upon your knees if you appear,
|
||
'Tis plain your have no standing here."
|
||
|
||
Then Justice came. His Honor cried:
|
||
"_Your_ status? -- devil seize you!"
|
||
"_Amica curiae,_" she replied --
|
||
"Friend of the court, so please you."
|
||
"Begone!" he shouted -- "there's the door --
|
||
I never saw your face before!"
|
||
G.J.
|
||
|
||
LAWFUL, adj. Compatible with the will of a judge having jurisdiction.
|
||
|
||
LAWYER, n. One skilled in circumvention of the law.
|
||
|
||
LAZINESS, n. Unwarranted repose of manner in a person of low degree.
|
||
|
||
LEAD, n. A heavy blue-gray metal much used in giving stability to
|
||
light lovers -- particularly to those who love not wisely but other
|
||
men's wives. Lead is also of great service as a counterpoise to an
|
||
argument of such weight that it turns the scale of debate the wrong
|
||
way. An interesting fact in the chemistry of international
|
||
controversy is that at the point of contact of two patriotisms lead is
|
||
precipitated in great quantities.
|
||
|
||
Hail, holy Lead! -- of human feuds the great
|
||
And universal arbiter; endowed
|
||
With penetration to pierce any cloud
|
||
Fogging the field of controversial hate,
|
||
And with a sift, inevitable, straight,
|
||
Searching precision find the unavowed
|
||
But vital point. Thy judgment, when allowed
|
||
By the chirurgeon, settles the debate.
|
||
O useful metal! -- were it not for thee
|
||
We'd grapple one another's ears alway:
|
||
But when we hear thee buzzing like a bee
|
||
We, like old Muhlenberg, "care not to stay."
|
||
And when the quick have run away like pellets
|
||
Jack Satan smelts the dead to make new bullets.
|
||
|
||
LEARNING, n. The kind of ignorance distinguishing the studious.
|
||
|
||
LECTURER, n. One with his hand in your pocket, his tongue in your ear
|
||
and his faith in your patience.
|
||
|
||
LEGACY, n. A gift from one who is legging it out of this vale of
|
||
tears.
|
||
|
||
LEONINE, adj. Unlike a menagerie lion. Leonine verses are those in
|
||
which a word in the middle of a line rhymes with a word at the end, as
|
||
in this famous passage from Bella Peeler Silcox:
|
||
|
||
The electric light invades the dunnest deep of Hades.
|
||
Cries Pluto, 'twixt his snores: "O tempora! O mores!"
|
||
|
||
It should be explained that Mrs. Silcox does not undertake to
|
||
teach pronunciation of the Greek and Latin tongues. Leonine verses
|
||
are so called in honor of a poet named Leo, whom prosodists appear to
|
||
find a pleasure in believing to have been the first to discover that a
|
||
rhyming couplet could be run into a single line.
|
||
|
||
LETTUCE, n. An herb of the genus _Lactuca_, "Wherewith," says that
|
||
pious gastronome, Hengist Pelly, "God has been pleased to reward the
|
||
good and punish the wicked. For by his inner light the righteous man
|
||
has discerned a manner of compounding for it a dressing to the
|
||
appetency whereof a multitude of gustible condiments conspire, being
|
||
reconciled and ameliorated with profusion of oil, the entire
|
||
comestible making glad the heart of the godly and causing his face to
|
||
shine. But the person of spiritual unworth is successfully tempted to
|
||
the Adversary to eat of lettuce with destitution of oil, mustard, egg,
|
||
salt and garlic, and with a rascal bath of vinegar polluted with
|
||
sugar. Wherefore the person of spiritual unworth suffers an
|
||
intestinal pang of strange complexity and raises the song."
|
||
|
||
LEVIATHAN, n. An enormous aquatic animal mentioned by Job. Some
|
||
suppose it to have been the whale, but that distinguished
|
||
ichthyologer, Dr. Jordan, of Stanford University, maintains with
|
||
considerable heat that it was a species of gigantic Tadpole (_Thaddeus
|
||
Polandensis_) or Polliwig -- _Maria pseudo-hirsuta_. For an
|
||
exhaustive description and history of the Tadpole consult the famous
|
||
monograph of Jane Potter, _Thaddeus of Warsaw_.
|
||
|
||
LEXICOGRAPHER, n. A pestilent fellow who, under the pretense of
|
||
recording some particular stage in the development of a language, does
|
||
what he can to arrest its growth, stiffen its flexibility and
|
||
mechanize its methods. For your lexicographer, having written his
|
||
dictionary, comes to be considered "as one having authority," whereas
|
||
his function is only to make a record, not to give a law. The natural
|
||
servility of the human understanding having invested him with judicial
|
||
power, surrenders its right of reason and submits itself to a
|
||
chronicle as if it were a statue. Let the dictionary (for example)
|
||
mark a good word as "obsolete" or "obsolescent" and few men
|
||
thereafter venture to use it, whatever their need of it and however
|
||
desirable its restoration to favor -- whereby the process of
|
||
improverishment is accelerated and speech decays. On the contrary,
|
||
recognizing the truth that language must grow by innovation if it grow
|
||
at all, makes new words and uses the old in an unfamiliar sense, has
|
||
no following and is tartly reminded that "it isn't in the dictionary"
|
||
-- although down to the time of the first lexicographer (Heaven
|
||
forgive him!) no author ever had used a word that _was_ in the
|
||
dictionary. In the golden prime and high noon of English speech; when
|
||
from the lips of the great Elizabethans fell words that made their own
|
||
meaning and carried it in their very sound; when a Shakespeare and a
|
||
Bacon were possible, and the language now rapidly perishing at one end
|
||
and slowly renewed at the other was in vigorous growth and hardy
|
||
preservation -- sweeter than honey and stronger than a lion -- the
|
||
lexicographer was a person unknown, the dictionary a creation which
|
||
his Creator had not created him to create.
|
||
|
||
God said: "Let Spirit perish into Form,"
|
||
And lexicographers arose, a swarm!
|
||
Thought fled and left her clothing, which they took,
|
||
And catalogued each garment in a book.
|
||
Now, from her leafy covert when she cries:
|
||
"Give me my clothes and I'll return," they rise
|
||
And scan the list, and say without compassion:
|
||
"Excuse us -- they are mostly out of fashion."
|
||
Sigismund Smith
|
||
|
||
LIAR, n. A lawyer with a roving commission.
|
||
|
||
LIBERTY, n. One of Imagination's most precious possessions.
|
||
|
||
The rising People, hot and out of breath,
|
||
Roared around the palace: "Liberty or death!"
|
||
"If death will do," the King said, "let me reign;
|
||
You'll have, I'm sure, no reason to complain."
|
||
Martha Braymance
|
||
|
||
LICKSPITTLE, n. A useful functionary, not infrequently found editing
|
||
a newspaper. In his character of editor he is closely allied to the
|
||
blackmailer by the tie of occasional identity; for in truth the
|
||
lickspittle is only the blackmailer under another aspect, although the
|
||
latter is frequently found as an independent species. Lickspittling
|
||
is more detestable than blackmailing, precisely as the business of a
|
||
confidence man is more detestable than that of a highway robber; and
|
||
the parallel maintains itself throughout, for whereas few robbers will
|
||
cheat, every sneak will plunder if he dare.
|
||
|
||
LIFE, n. A spiritual pickle preserving the body from decay. We live
|
||
in daily apprehension of its loss; yet when lost it is not missed.
|
||
The question, "Is life worth living?" has been much discussed;
|
||
particularly by those who think it is not, many of whom have written
|
||
at great length in support of their view and by careful observance of
|
||
the laws of health enjoyed for long terms of years the honors of
|
||
successful controversy.
|
||
|
||
"Life's not worth living, and that's the truth,"
|
||
Carelessly caroled the golden youth.
|
||
In manhood still he maintained that view
|
||
And held it more strongly the older he grew.
|
||
When kicked by a jackass at eighty-three,
|
||
"Go fetch me a surgeon at once!" cried he.
|
||
Han Soper
|
||
|
||
LIGHTHOUSE, n. A tall building on the seashore in which the
|
||
government maintains a lamp and the friend of a politician.
|
||
|
||
LIMB, n. The branch of a tree or the leg of an American woman.
|
||
|
||
'Twas a pair of boots that the lady bought,
|
||
And the salesman laced them tight
|
||
To a very remarkable height --
|
||
Higher, indeed, than I think he ought --
|
||
Higher than _can_ be right.
|
||
For the Bible declares -- but never mind:
|
||
It is hardly fit
|
||
To censure freely and fault to find
|
||
With others for sins that I'm not inclined
|
||
Myself to commit.
|
||
Each has his weakness, and though my own
|
||
Is freedom from every sin,
|
||
It still were unfair to pitch in,
|
||
Discharging the first censorious stone.
|
||
Besides, the truth compels me to say,
|
||
The boots in question were _made_ that way.
|
||
As he drew the lace she made a grimace,
|
||
And blushingly said to him:
|
||
"This boot, I'm sure, is too high to endure,
|
||
It hurts my -- hurts my -- limb."
|
||
The salesman smiled in a manner mild,
|
||
Like an artless, undesigning child;
|
||
Then, checking himself, to his face he gave
|
||
A look as sorrowful as the grave,
|
||
Though he didn't care two figs
|
||
For her paints and throes,
|
||
As he stroked her toes,
|
||
Remarking with speech and manner just
|
||
Befitting his calling: "Madam, I trust
|
||
That it doesn't hurt your twigs."
|
||
B. Percival Dike
|
||
|
||
LINEN, n. "A kind of cloth the making of which, when made of hemp,
|
||
entails a great waste of hemp." -- Calcraft the Hangman.
|
||
|
||
LITIGANT, n. A person about to give up his skin for the hope of
|
||
retaining his bones.
|
||
|
||
LITIGATION, n. A machine which you go into as a pig and come out of
|
||
as a sausage.
|
||
|
||
LIVER, n. A large red organ thoughtfully provided by nature to be
|
||
bilious with. The sentiments and emotions which every literary
|
||
anatomist now knows to haunt the heart were anciently believed to
|
||
infest the liver; and even Gascoygne, speaking of the emotional side
|
||
of human nature, calls it "our hepaticall parte." It was at one time
|
||
considered the seat of life; hence its name -- liver, the thing we
|
||
live with. The liver is heaven's best gift to the goose; without it
|
||
that bird would be unable to supply us with the Strasbourg _pate_.
|
||
|
||
LL.D. Letters indicating the degree _Legumptionorum Doctor_, one
|
||
learned in laws, gifted with legal gumption. Some suspicion is cast
|
||
upon this derivation by the fact that the title was formerly _LL.d._,
|
||
and conferred only upon gentlemen distinguished for their wealth. At
|
||
the date of this writing Columbia University is considering the
|
||
expediency of making another degree for clergymen, in place of the old
|
||
D.D. -- _Damnator Diaboli_. The new honor will be known as _Sanctorum
|
||
Custus_, and written _$$c_. The name of the Rev. John Satan has been
|
||
suggested as a suitable recipient by a lover of consistency, who
|
||
points out that Professor Harry Thurston Peck has long enjoyed the
|
||
advantage of a degree.
|
||
|
||
LOCK-AND-KEY, n. The distinguishing device of civilization and
|
||
enlightenment.
|
||
|
||
LODGER, n. A less popular name for the Second Person of that
|
||
delectable newspaper Trinity, the Roomer, the Bedder, and the Mealer.
|
||
|
||
LOGIC, n. The art of thinking and reasoning in strict accordance with
|
||
the limitations and incapacities of the human misunderstanding. The
|
||
basic of logic is the syllogism, consisting of a major and a minor
|
||
premise and a conclusion -- thus:
|
||
_Major Premise_: Sixty men can do a piece of work sixty times as
|
||
quickly as one man.
|
||
_Minor Premise_: One man can dig a posthole in sixty seconds;
|
||
therefore --
|
||
_Conclusion_: Sixty men can dig a posthole in one second.
|
||
This may be called the syllogism arithmetical, in which, by
|
||
combining logic and mathematics, we obtain a double certainty and are
|
||
twice blessed.
|
||
|
||
LOGOMACHY, n. A war in which the weapons are words and the wounds
|
||
punctures in the swim-bladder of self-esteem -- a kind of contest in
|
||
which, the vanquished being unconscious of defeat, the victor is
|
||
denied the reward of success.
|
||
|
||
'Tis said by divers of the scholar-men
|
||
That poor Salmasius died of Milton's pen.
|
||
Alas! we cannot know if this is true,
|
||
For reading Milton's wit we perish too.
|
||
|
||
LOGANIMITY, n. The disposition to endure injury with meek forbearance
|
||
while maturing a plan of revenge.
|
||
|
||
LONGEVITY, n. Uncommon extension of the fear of death.
|
||
|
||
LOOKING-GLASS, n. A vitreous plane upon which to display a fleeting
|
||
show for man's disillusion given.
|
||
The King of Manchuria had a magic looking-glass, whereon whoso
|
||
looked saw, not his own image, but only that of the king. A certain
|
||
courtier who had long enjoyed the king's favor and was thereby
|
||
enriched beyond any other subject of the realm, said to the king:
|
||
"Give me, I pray, thy wonderful mirror, so that when absent out of
|
||
thine august presence I may yet do homage before thy visible shadow,
|
||
prostrating myself night and morning in the glory of thy benign
|
||
countenance, as which nothing has so divine splendor, O Noonday Sun of
|
||
the Universe!"
|
||
Please with the speech, the king commanded that the mirror be
|
||
conveyed to the courtier's palace; but after, having gone thither
|
||
without apprisal, he found it in an apartment where was naught but
|
||
idle lumber. And the mirror was dimmed with dust and overlaced with
|
||
cobwebs. This so angered him that he fisted it hard, shattering the
|
||
glass, and was sorely hurt. Enraged all the more by this mischance,
|
||
he commanded that the ungrateful courtier be thrown into prison, and
|
||
that the glass be repaired and taken back to his own palace; and this
|
||
was done. But when the king looked again on the mirror he saw not his
|
||
image as before, but only the figure of a crowned ass, having a bloody
|
||
bandage on one of its hinder hooves -- as the artificers and all who
|
||
had looked upon it had before discerned but feared to report. Taught
|
||
wisdom and charity, the king restored his courtier to liberty, had the
|
||
mirror set into the back of the throne and reigned many years with
|
||
justice and humility; and one day when he fell asleep in death while
|
||
on the throne, the whole court saw in the mirror the luminous figure
|
||
of an angel, which remains to this day.
|
||
|
||
LOQUACITY, n. A disorder which renders the sufferer unable to curb
|
||
his tongue when you wish to talk.
|
||
|
||
LORD, n. In American society, an English tourist above the state of a
|
||
costermonger, as, lord 'Aberdasher, Lord Hartisan and so forth. The
|
||
traveling Briton of lesser degree is addressed as "Sir," as, Sir 'Arry
|
||
Donkiboi, or 'Amstead 'Eath. The word "Lord" is sometimes used, also,
|
||
as a title of the Supreme Being; but this is thought to be rather
|
||
flattery than true reverence.
|
||
|
||
Miss Sallie Ann Splurge, of her own accord,
|
||
Wedded a wandering English lord --
|
||
Wedded and took him to dwell with her "paw,"
|
||
A parent who throve by the practice of Draw.
|
||
Lord Cadde I don't hesitate to declare
|
||
Unworthy the father-in-legal care
|
||
Of that elderly sport, notwithstanding the truth
|
||
That Cadde had renounced all the follies of youth;
|
||
For, sad to relate, he'd arrived at the stage
|
||
Of existence that's marked by the vices of age.
|
||
Among them, cupidity caused him to urge
|
||
Repeated demands on the pocket of Splurge,
|
||
Till, wrecked in his fortune, that gentleman saw
|
||
Inadequate aid in the practice of Draw,
|
||
And took, as a means of augmenting his pelf,
|
||
To the business of being a lord himself.
|
||
His neat-fitting garments he wilfully shed
|
||
And sacked himself strangely in checks instead;
|
||
Denuded his chin, but retained at each ear
|
||
A whisker that looked like a blasted career.
|
||
He painted his neck an incarnadine hue
|
||
Each morning and varnished it all that he knew.
|
||
The moony monocular set in his eye
|
||
Appeared to be scanning the Sweet Bye-and-Bye.
|
||
His head was enroofed with a billycock hat,
|
||
And his low-necked shoes were aduncous and flat.
|
||
In speech he eschewed his American ways,
|
||
Denying his nose to the use of his A's
|
||
And dulling their edge till the delicate sense
|
||
Of a babe at their temper could take no offence.
|
||
His H's -- 'twas most inexpressibly sweet,
|
||
The patter they made as they fell at his feet!
|
||
Re-outfitted thus, Mr. Splurge without fear
|
||
Began as Lord Splurge his recouping career.
|
||
Alas, the Divinity shaping his end
|
||
Entertained other views and decided to send
|
||
His lordship in horror, despair and dismay
|
||
From the land of the nobleman's natural prey.
|
||
For, smit with his Old World ways, Lady Cadde
|
||
Fell -- suffering Caesar! -- in love with her dad!
|
||
G.J.
|
||
|
||
LORE, n. Learning -- particularly that sort which is not derived from
|
||
a regular course of instruction but comes of the reading of occult
|
||
books, or by nature. This latter is commonly designated as folk-lore
|
||
and embraces popularly myths and superstitions. In Baring-Gould's
|
||
_Curious Myths of the Middle Ages_ the reader will find many of these
|
||
traced backward, through various people son converging lines, toward a
|
||
common origin in remote antiquity. Among these are the fables of
|
||
"Teddy the Giant Killer," "The Sleeping John Sharp Williams," "Little
|
||
Red Riding Hood and the Sugar Trust," "Beauty and the Brisbane," "The
|
||
Seven Aldermen of Ephesus," "Rip Van Fairbanks," and so forth. The
|
||
fable with Goethe so affectingly relates under the title of "The Erl-
|
||
King" was known two thousand years ago in Greece as "The Demos and the
|
||
Infant Industry." One of the most general and ancient of these myths
|
||
is that Arabian tale of "Ali Baba and the Forty Rockefellers."
|
||
|
||
LOSS, n. Privation of that which we had, or had not. Thus, in the
|
||
latter sense, it is said of a defeated candidate that he "lost his
|
||
election"; and of that eminent man, the poet Gilder, that he has "lost
|
||
his mind." It is in the former and more legitimate sense, that the
|
||
word is used in the famous epitaph:
|
||
|
||
Here Huntington's ashes long have lain
|
||
Whose loss is our eternal gain,
|
||
For while he exercised all his powers
|
||
Whatever he gained, the loss was ours.
|
||
|
||
LOVE, n. A temporary insanity curable by marriage or by removal of
|
||
the patient from the influences under which he incurred the disorder.
|
||
This disease, like _caries_ and many other ailments, is prevalent only
|
||
among civilized races living under artificial conditions; barbarous
|
||
nations breathing pure air and eating simple food enjoy immunity from
|
||
its ravages. It is sometimes fatal, but more frequently to the
|
||
physician than to the patient.
|
||
|
||
LOW-BRED, adj. "Raised" instead of brought up.
|
||
|
||
LUMINARY, n. One who throws light upon a subject; as an editor by not
|
||
writing about it.
|
||
|
||
LUNARIAN, n. An inhabitant of the moon, as distinguished from
|
||
Lunatic, one whom the moon inhabits. The Lunarians have been
|
||
described by Lucian, Locke and other observers, but without much
|
||
agreement. For example, Bragellos avers their anatomical identity
|
||
with Man, but Professor Newcomb says they are more like the hill
|
||
tribes of Vermont.
|
||
|
||
LYRE, n. An ancient instrument of torture. The word is now used in a
|
||
figurative sense to denote the poetic faculty, as in the following
|
||
fiery lines of our great poet, Ella Wheeler Wilcox:
|
||
|
||
I sit astride Parnassus with my lyre,
|
||
And pick with care the disobedient wire.
|
||
That stupid shepherd lolling on his crook
|
||
With deaf attention scarcely deigns to look.
|
||
I bide my time, and it shall come at length,
|
||
When, with a Titan's energy and strength,
|
||
I'll grab a fistful of the strings, and O,
|
||
The word shall suffer when I let them go!
|
||
Farquharson Harris
|
||
|
||
|
||
M
|
||
|
||
|
||
MACE, n. A staff of office signifying authority. Its form, that of a
|
||
heavy club, indicates its original purpose and use in dissuading from
|
||
dissent.
|
||
|
||
MACHINATION, n. The method employed by one's opponents in baffling
|
||
one's open and honorable efforts to do the right thing.
|
||
|
||
So plain the advantages of machination
|
||
It constitutes a moral obligation,
|
||
And honest wolves who think upon't with loathing
|
||
Feel bound to don the sheep's deceptive clothing.
|
||
So prospers still the diplomatic art,
|
||
And Satan bows, with hand upon his heart.
|
||
R.S.K.
|
||
|
||
MACROBIAN, n. One forgotten of the gods and living to a great age.
|
||
History is abundantly supplied with examples, from Methuselah to Old
|
||
Parr, but some notable instances of longevity are less well known. A
|
||
Calabrian peasant named Coloni, born in 1753, lived so long that he
|
||
had what he considered a glimpse of the dawn of universal peace.
|
||
Scanavius relates that he knew an archbishop who was so old that he
|
||
could remember a time when he did not deserve hanging. In 1566 a
|
||
linen draper of Bristol, England, declared that he had lived five
|
||
hundred years, and that in all that time he had never told a lie.
|
||
There are instances of longevity (_macrobiosis_) in our own country.
|
||
Senator Chauncey Depew is old enough to know better. The editor of
|
||
_The American_, a newspaper in New York City, has a memory that goes
|
||
back to the time when he was a rascal, but not to the fact. The
|
||
President of the United States was born so long ago that many of the
|
||
friends of his youth have risen to high political and military
|
||
preferment without the assistance of personal merit. The verses
|
||
following were written by a macrobian:
|
||
|
||
When I was young the world was fair
|
||
And amiable and sunny.
|
||
A brightness was in all the air,
|
||
In all the waters, honey.
|
||
The jokes were fine and funny,
|
||
The statesmen honest in their views,
|
||
And in their lives, as well,
|
||
And when you heard a bit of news
|
||
'Twas true enough to tell.
|
||
Men were not ranting, shouting, reeking,
|
||
Nor women "generally speaking."
|
||
|
||
The Summer then was long indeed:
|
||
It lasted one whole season!
|
||
The sparkling Winter gave no heed
|
||
When ordered by Unreason
|
||
To bring the early peas on.
|
||
Now, where the dickens is the sense
|
||
In calling that a year
|
||
Which does no more than just commence
|
||
Before the end is near?
|
||
When I was young the year extended
|
||
From month to month until it ended.
|
||
|
||
I know not why the world has changed
|
||
To something dark and dreary,
|
||
And everything is now arranged
|
||
To make a fellow weary.
|
||
The Weather Man -- I fear he
|
||
Has much to do with it, for, sure,
|
||
The air is not the same:
|
||
It chokes you when it is impure,
|
||
When pure it makes you lame.
|
||
With windows closed you are asthmatic;
|
||
Open, neuralgic or sciatic.
|
||
|
||
Well, I suppose this new regime
|
||
Of dun degeneration
|
||
Seems eviler than it would seem
|
||
To a better observation,
|
||
And has for compensation
|
||
Some blessings in a deep disguise
|
||
Which mortal sight has failed
|
||
To pierce, although to angels' eyes
|
||
They're visible unveiled.
|
||
If Age is such a boon, good land!
|
||
He's costumed by a master hand!
|
||
Venable Strigg
|
||
|
||
MAD, adj. Affected with a high degree of intellectual independence;
|
||
not conforming to standards of thought, speech and action derived by
|
||
the conformants from study of themselves; at odds with the majority;
|
||
in short, unusual. It is noteworthy that persons are pronounced mad
|
||
by officials destitute of evidence that themselves are sane. For
|
||
illustration, this present (and illustrious) lexicographer is no
|
||
firmer in the faith of his own sanity than is any inmate of any
|
||
madhouse in the land; yet for aught he knows to the contrary, instead
|
||
of the lofty occupation that seems to him to be engaging his powers he
|
||
may really be beating his hands against the window bars of an asylum
|
||
and declaring himself Noah Webster, to the innocent delight of many
|
||
thoughtless spectators.
|
||
|
||
MAGDALENE, n. An inhabitant of Magdala. Popularly, a woman found
|
||
out. This definition of the word has the authority of ignorance, Mary
|
||
of Magdala being another person than the penitent woman mentioned by
|
||
St. Luke. It has also the official sanction of the governments of
|
||
Great Britain and the United States. In England the word is
|
||
pronounced Maudlin, whence maudlin, adjective, unpleasantly
|
||
sentimental. With their Maudlin for Magdalene, and their Bedlam for
|
||
Bethlehem, the English may justly boast themselves the greatest of
|
||
revisers.
|
||
|
||
MAGIC, n. An art of converting superstition into coin. There are
|
||
other arts serving the same high purpose, but the discreet
|
||
lexicographer does not name them.
|
||
|
||
MAGNET, n. Something acted upon by magnetism.
|
||
|
||
MAGNETISM, n. Something acting upon a magnet.
|
||
The two definitions immediately foregoing are condensed from the
|
||
works of one thousand eminent scientists, who have illuminated the
|
||
subject with a great white light, to the inexpressible advancement of
|
||
human knowledge.
|
||
|
||
MAGNIFICENT, adj. Having a grandeur or splendor superior to that to
|
||
which the spectator is accustomed, as the ears of an ass, to a rabbit,
|
||
or the glory of a glowworm, to a maggot.
|
||
|
||
MAGNITUDE, n. Size. Magnitude being purely relative, nothing is
|
||
large and nothing small. If everything in the universe were increased
|
||
in bulk one thousand diameters nothing would be any larger than it was
|
||
before, but if one thing remain unchanged all the others would be
|
||
larger than they had been. To an understanding familiar with the
|
||
relativity of magnitude and distance the spaces and masses of the
|
||
astronomer would be no more impressive than those of the microscopist.
|
||
For anything we know to the contrary, the visible universe may be a
|
||
small part of an atom, with its component ions, floating in the life-
|
||
fluid (luminiferous ether) of some animal. Possibly the wee creatures
|
||
peopling the corpuscles of our own blood are overcome with the proper
|
||
emotion when contemplating the unthinkable distance from one of these
|
||
to another.
|
||
|
||
MAGPIE, n. A bird whose thievish disposition suggested to someone
|
||
that it might be taught to talk.
|
||
|
||
MAIDEN, n. A young person of the unfair sex addicted to clewless
|
||
conduct and views that madden to crime. The genus has a wide
|
||
geographical distribution, being found wherever sought and deplored
|
||
wherever found. The maiden is not altogether unpleasing to the eye,
|
||
nor (without her piano and her views) insupportable to the ear, though
|
||
in respect to comeliness distinctly inferior to the rainbow, and, with
|
||
regard to the part of her that is audible, bleating out of the field
|
||
by the canary -- which, also, is more portable.
|
||
|
||
A lovelorn maiden she sat and sang --
|
||
This quaint, sweet song sang she;
|
||
"It's O for a youth with a football bang
|
||
And a muscle fair to see!
|
||
The Captain he
|
||
Of a team to be!
|
||
On the gridiron he shall shine,
|
||
A monarch by right divine,
|
||
And never to roast on it -- me!"
|
||
Opoline Jones
|
||
|
||
MAJESTY, n. The state and title of a king. Regarded with a just
|
||
contempt by the Most Eminent Grand Masters, Grand Chancellors, Great
|
||
Incohonees and Imperial Potentates of the ancient and honorable orders
|
||
of republican America.
|
||
|
||
MALE, n. A member of the unconsidered, or negligible sex. The male
|
||
of the human race is commonly known (to the female) as Mere Man. The
|
||
genus has two varieties: good providers and bad providers.
|
||
|
||
MALEFACTOR, n. The chief factor in the progress of the human race.
|
||
|
||
MALTHUSIAN, adj. Pertaining to Malthus and his doctrines. Malthus
|
||
believed in artificially limiting population, but found that it could
|
||
not be done by talking. One of the most practical exponents of the
|
||
Malthusian idea was Herod of Judea, though all the famous soldiers
|
||
have been of the same way of thinking.
|
||
|
||
MAMMALIA, n.pl. A family of vertebrate animals whose females in a
|
||
state of nature suckle their young, but when civilized and enlightened
|
||
put them out to nurse, or use the bottle.
|
||
|
||
MAMMON, n. The god of the world's leading religion. The chief temple
|
||
is in the holy city of New York.
|
||
|
||
He swore that all other religions were gammon,
|
||
And wore out his knees in the worship of Mammon.
|
||
Jared Oopf
|
||
|
||
MAN, n. An animal so lost in rapturous contemplation of what he
|
||
thinks he is as to overlook what he indubitably ought to be. His
|
||
chief occupation is extermination of other animals and his own
|
||
species, which, however, multiplies with such insistent rapidity as to
|
||
infest the whole habitable earh and Canada.
|
||
|
||
When the world was young and Man was new,
|
||
And everything was pleasant,
|
||
Distinctions Nature never drew
|
||
'Mongst kings and priest and peasant.
|
||
We're not that way at present,
|
||
Save here in this Republic, where
|
||
We have that old regime,
|
||
For all are kings, however bare
|
||
Their backs, howe'er extreme
|
||
Their hunger. And, indeed, each has a voice
|
||
To accept the tyrant of his party's choice.
|
||
|
||
A citizen who would not vote,
|
||
And, therefore, was detested,
|
||
Was one day with a tarry coat
|
||
(With feathers backed and breasted)
|
||
By patriots invested.
|
||
"It is your duty," cried the crowd,
|
||
"Your ballot true to cast
|
||
For the man o' your choice." He humbly bowed,
|
||
And explained his wicked past:
|
||
"That's what I very gladly would have done,
|
||
Dear patriots, but he has never run."
|
||
Apperton Duke
|
||
|
||
MANES, n. The immortal parts of dead Greeks and Romans. They were in
|
||
a state of dull discomfort until the bodies from which they had
|
||
exhaled were buried and burned; and they seem not to have been
|
||
particularly happy afterward.
|
||
|
||
MANICHEISM, n. The ancient Persian doctrine of an incessant warfare
|
||
between Good and Evil. When Good gave up the fight the Persians
|
||
joined the victorious Opposition.
|
||
|
||
MANNA, n. A food miraculously given to the Israelites in the
|
||
wilderness. When it was no longer supplied to them they settled
|
||
down and tilled the soil, fertilizing it, as a rule, with the bodies
|
||
of the original occupants.
|
||
|
||
MARRIAGE, n. The state or condition of a community consisting of a
|
||
master, a mistress and two slaves, making in all, two.
|
||
|
||
MARTYR, n. One who moves along the line of least reluctance to a
|
||
desired death.
|
||
|
||
MATERIAL, adj. Having an actual existence, as distinguished from an
|
||
imaginary one. Important.
|
||
|
||
Material things I know, or fell, or see;
|
||
All else is immaterial to me.
|
||
Jamrach Holobom
|
||
|
||
MAUSOLEUM, n. The final and funniest folly of the rich.
|
||
|
||
MAYONNAISE, n. One of the sauces which serve the French in place of a
|
||
state religion.
|
||
|
||
ME, pro. The objectionable case of I. The personal pronoun in
|
||
English has three cases, the dominative, the objectionable and the
|
||
oppressive. Each is all three.
|
||
|
||
MEANDER, n. To proceed sinuously and aimlessly. The word is the
|
||
ancient name of a river about one hundred and fifty miles south of
|
||
Troy, which turned and twisted in the effort to get out of hearing
|
||
when the Greeks and Trojans boasted of their prowess.
|
||
|
||
MEDAL, n. A small metal disk given as a reward for virtues,
|
||
attainments or services more or less authentic.
|
||
It is related of Bismark, who had been awarded a medal for
|
||
gallantly rescuing a drowning person, that, being asked the meaning of
|
||
the medal, he replied: "I save lives sometimes." And sometimes he
|
||
didn't.
|
||
|
||
MEDICINE, n. A stone flung down the Bowery to kill a dog in Broadway.
|
||
|
||
MEEKNESS, n. Uncommon patience in planning a revenge that is worth
|
||
while.
|
||
|
||
M is for Moses,
|
||
Who slew the Egyptian.
|
||
As sweet as a rose is
|
||
The meekness of Moses.
|
||
No monument shows his
|
||
Post-mortem inscription,
|
||
But M is for Moses
|
||
Who slew the Egyptian.
|
||
_The Biographical Alphabet_
|
||
MEERSCHAUM, n. (Literally, seafoam, and by many erroneously supposed
|
||
to be made of it.) A fine white clay, which for convenience in
|
||
coloring it brown is made into tobacco pipes and smoked by the workmen
|
||
engaged in that industry. The purpose of coloring it has not been
|
||
disclosed by the manufacturers.
|
||
|
||
There was a youth (you've heard before,
|
||
This woeful tale, may be),
|
||
Who bought a meerschaum pipe and swore
|
||
That color it would he!
|
||
|
||
He shut himself from the world away,
|
||
Nor any soul he saw.
|
||
He smoke by night, he smoked by day,
|
||
As hard as he could draw.
|
||
|
||
His dog died moaning in the wrath
|
||
Of winds that blew aloof;
|
||
The weeds were in the gravel path,
|
||
The owl was on the roof.
|
||
|
||
"He's gone afar, he'll come no more,"
|
||
The neighbors sadly say.
|
||
And so they batter in the door
|
||
To take his goods away.
|
||
|
||
Dead, pipe in mouth, the youngster lay,
|
||
Nut-brown in face and limb.
|
||
"That pipe's a lovely white," they say,
|
||
"But it has colored him!"
|
||
|
||
The moral there's small need to sing --
|
||
'Tis plain as day to you:
|
||
Don't play your game on any thing
|
||
That is a gamester too.
|
||
Martin Bulstrode
|
||
|
||
MENDACIOUS, adj. Addicted to rhetoric.
|
||
|
||
MERCHANT, n. One engaged in a commercial pursuit. A commercial
|
||
pursuit is one in which the thing pursued is a dollar.
|
||
|
||
MERCY, n. An attribute beloved of detected offenders.
|
||
|
||
MESMERISM, n. Hypnotism before it wore good clothes, kept a carriage
|
||
and asked Incredulity to dinner.
|
||
|
||
METROPOLIS, n. A stronghold of provincialism.
|
||
|
||
MILLENNIUM, n. The period of a thousand years when the lid is to be
|
||
screwed down, with all reformers on the under side.
|
||
|
||
MIND, n. A mysterious form of matter secreted by the brain. Its
|
||
chief activity consists in the endeavor to ascertain its own nature,
|
||
the futility of the attempt being due to the fact that it has nothing
|
||
but itself to know itself with. From the Latin _mens_, a fact unknown
|
||
to that honest shoe-seller, who, observing that his learned competitor
|
||
over the way had displayed the motto "_Mens conscia recti_,"
|
||
emblazoned his own front with the words "Men's, women's and children's
|
||
conscia recti."
|
||
|
||
MINE, adj. Belonging to me if I can hold or seize it.
|
||
|
||
MINISTER, n. An agent of a higher power with a lower responsibility.
|
||
In diplomacy and officer sent into a foreign country as the visible
|
||
embodiment of his sovereign's hostility. His principal qualification
|
||
is a degree of plausible inveracity next below that of an ambassador.
|
||
|
||
MINOR, adj. Less objectionable.
|
||
|
||
MINSTREL, adj. Formerly a poet, singer or musician; now a nigger with
|
||
a color less than skin deep and a humor more than flesh and blood can
|
||
bear.
|
||
|
||
MIRACLE, n. An act or event out of the order of nature and
|
||
unaccountable, as beating a normal hand of four kings and an ace with
|
||
four aces and a king.
|
||
|
||
MISCREANT, n. A person of the highest degree of unworth.
|
||
Etymologically, the word means unbeliever, and its present
|
||
signification may be regarded as theology's noblest contribution to
|
||
the development of our language.
|
||
|
||
MISDEMEANOR, n. An infraction of the law having less dignity than a
|
||
felony and constituting no claim to admittance into the best criminal
|
||
society.
|
||
|
||
By misdemeanors he essays to climb
|
||
Into the aristocracy of crime.
|
||
O, woe was him! -- with manner chill and grand
|
||
"Captains of industry" refused his hand,
|
||
"Kings of finance" denied him recognition
|
||
And "railway magnates" jeered his low condition.
|
||
He robbed a bank to make himself respected.
|
||
They still rebuffed him, for he was detected.
|
||
S.V. Hanipur
|
||
|
||
MISERICORDE, n. A dagger which in mediaeval warfare was used by the
|
||
foot soldier to remind an unhorsed knight that he was mortal.
|
||
|
||
MISFORTUNE, n. The kind of fortune that never misses.
|
||
|
||
MISS, n. The title with which we brand unmarried women to indicate
|
||
that they are in the market. Miss, Missis (Mrs.) and Mister (Mr.) are
|
||
the three most distinctly disagreeable words in the language, in sound
|
||
and sense. Two are corruptions of Mistress, the other of Master. In
|
||
the general abolition of social titles in this our country they
|
||
miraculously escaped to plague us. If we must have them let us be
|
||
consistent and give one to the unmarried man. I venture to suggest
|
||
Mush, abbreviated to Mh.
|
||
|
||
MOLECULE, n. The ultimate, indivisible unit of matter. It is
|
||
distinguished from the corpuscle, also the ultimate, indivisible unit
|
||
of matter, by a closer resemblance to the atom, also the ultimate,
|
||
indivisible unit of matter. Three great scientific theories of the
|
||
structure of the universe are the molecular, the corpuscular and the
|
||
atomic. A fourth affirms, with Haeckel, the condensation of
|
||
precipitation of matter from ether -- whose existence is proved by the
|
||
condensation of precipitation. The present trend of scientific
|
||
thought is toward the theory of ions. The ion differs from the
|
||
molecule, the corpuscle and the atom in that it is an ion. A fifth
|
||
theory is held by idiots, but it is doubtful if they know any more
|
||
about the matter than the others.
|
||
|
||
MONAD, n. The ultimate, indivisible unit of matter. (See
|
||
_Molecule_.) According to Leibnitz, as nearly as he seems willing to
|
||
be understood, the monad has body without bulk, and mind without
|
||
manifestation -- Leibnitz knows him by the innate power of
|
||
considering. He has founded upon him a theory of the universe, which
|
||
the creature bears without resentment, for the monad is a gentlmean.
|
||
Small as he is, the monad contains all the powers and possibilities
|
||
needful to his evolution into a German philosopher of the first class
|
||
-- altogether a very capable little fellow. He is not to be
|
||
confounded with the microbe, or bacillus; by its inability to discern
|
||
him, a good microscope shows him to be of an entirely distinct
|
||
species.
|
||
|
||
MONARCH, n. A person engaged in reigning. Formerly the monarch
|
||
ruled, as the derivation of the word attests, and as many subjects
|
||
have had occasion to learn. In Russia and the Orient the monarch has
|
||
still a considerable influence in public affairs and in the
|
||
disposition of the human head, but in western Europe political
|
||
administration is mostly entrusted to his ministers, he being
|
||
somewhat preoccupied with reflections relating to the status of his
|
||
own head.
|
||
|
||
MONARCHICAL GOVERNMENT, n. Government.
|
||
|
||
MONDAY, n. In Christian countries, the day after the baseball game.
|
||
|
||
MONEY, n. A blessing that is of no advantage to us excepting when we
|
||
part with it. An evidence of culture and a passport to polite
|
||
society. Supportable property.
|
||
|
||
MONKEY, n. An arboreal animal which makes itself at home in
|
||
genealogical trees.
|
||
|
||
MONOSYLLABIC, adj. Composed of words of one syllable, for literary
|
||
babes who never tire of testifying their delight in the vapid compound
|
||
by appropriate googoogling. The words are commonly Saxon -- that is
|
||
to say, words of a barbarous people destitute of ideas and incapable
|
||
of any but the most elementary sentiments and emotions.
|
||
|
||
The man who writes in Saxon
|
||
Is the man to use an ax on
|
||
Judibras
|
||
|
||
MONSIGNOR, n. A high ecclesiastical title, of which the Founder of
|
||
our religion overlooked the advantages.
|
||
|
||
MONUMENT, n. A structure intended to commemorate something which
|
||
either needs no commemoration or cannot be commemorated.
|
||
|
||
The bones of Agammemnon are a show,
|
||
And ruined is his royal monument,
|
||
|
||
but Agammemnon's fame suffers no diminution in consequence. The
|
||
monument custom has its _reductiones ad absurdum_ in monuments "to the
|
||
unknown dead" -- that is to say, monuments to perpetuate the memory of
|
||
those who have left no memory.
|
||
|
||
MORAL, adj. Conforming to a local and mutable standard of right.
|
||
Having the quality of general expediency.
|
||
|
||
It is sayd there be a raunge of mountaynes in the Easte, on
|
||
one syde of the which certayn conducts are immorall, yet on the other
|
||
syde they are holden in good esteeme; wherebye the mountayneer is much
|
||
conveenyenced, for it is given to him to goe downe eyther way and act
|
||
as it shall suite his moode, withouten offence.
|
||
_Gooke's Meditations_
|
||
|
||
MORE, adj. The comparative degree of too much.
|
||
|
||
MOUSE, n. An animal which strews its path with fainting women. As in
|
||
Rome Christians were thrown to the lions, so centuries earlier in
|
||
Otumwee, the most ancient and famous city of the world, female
|
||
heretics were thrown to the mice. Jakak-Zotp, the historian, the only
|
||
Otumwump whose writings have descended to us, says that these martyrs
|
||
met their death with little dignity and much exertion. He even
|
||
attempts to exculpate the mice (such is the malice of bigotry) by
|
||
declaring that the unfortunate women perished, some from exhaustion,
|
||
some of broken necks from falling over their own feet, and some from
|
||
lack of restoratives. The mice, he avers, enjoyed the pleasures of
|
||
the chase with composure. But if "Roman history is nine-tenths
|
||
lying," we can hardly expect a smaller proportion of that rhetorical
|
||
figure in the annals of a people capable of so incredible cruelty to a
|
||
lovely women; for a hard heart has a false tongue.
|
||
|
||
MOUSQUETAIRE, n. A long glove covering a part of the arm. Worn in
|
||
New Jersey. But "mousquetaire" is a might poor way to spell
|
||
muskeeter.
|
||
|
||
MOUTH, n. In man, the gateway to the soul; in woman, the outlet of
|
||
the heart.
|
||
|
||
MUGWUMP, n. In politics one afflicted with self-respect and addicted
|
||
to the vice of independence. A term of contempt.
|
||
|
||
MULATTO, n. A child of two races, ashamed of both.
|
||
|
||
MULTITUDE, n. A crowd; the source of political wisdom and virtue. In
|
||
a republic, the object of the statesman's adoration. "In a multitude
|
||
of consellors there is wisdom," saith the proverb. If many men of
|
||
equal individual wisdom are wiser than any one of them, it must be
|
||
that they acquire the excess of wisdom by the mere act of getting
|
||
together. Whence comes it? Obviously from nowhere -- as well say
|
||
that a range of mountains is higher than the single mountains
|
||
composing it. A multitude is as wise as its wisest member if it obey
|
||
him; if not, it is no wiser than its most foolish.
|
||
|
||
MUMMY, n. An ancient Egyptian, formerly in universal use among modern
|
||
civilized nations as medicine, and now engaged in supplying art with
|
||
an excellent pigment. He is handy, too, in museums in gratifying the
|
||
vulgar curiosity that serves to distinguish man from the lower
|
||
animals.
|
||
|
||
By means of the Mummy, mankind, it is said,
|
||
Attests to the gods its respect for the dead.
|
||
We plunder his tomb, be he sinner or saint,
|
||
Distil him for physic and grind him for paint,
|
||
Exhibit for money his poor, shrunken frame,
|
||
And with levity flock to the scene of the shame.
|
||
O, tell me, ye gods, for the use of my rhyme:
|
||
For respecting the dead what's the limit of time?
|
||
Scopas Brune
|
||
|
||
MUSTANG, n. An indocile horse of the western plains. In English
|
||
society, the American wife of an English nobleman.
|
||
|
||
MYRMIDON, n. A follower of Achilles -- particularly when he didn't
|
||
lead.
|
||
|
||
MYTHOLOGY, n. The body of a primitive people's beliefs concerning its
|
||
origin, early history, heroes, deities and so forth, as distinguished
|
||
from the true accounts which it invents later.
|
||
|
||
|
||
N
|
||
|
||
|
||
NECTAR, n. A drink served at banquets of the Olympian deities. The
|
||
secret of its preparation is lost, but the modern Kentuckians believe
|
||
that they come pretty near to a knowledge of its chief ingredient.
|
||
|
||
Juno drank a cup of nectar,
|
||
But the draught did not affect her.
|
||
Juno drank a cup of rye --
|
||
Then she bad herself good-bye.
|
||
J.G.
|
||
|
||
NEGRO, n. The _piece de resistance_ in the American political
|
||
problem. Representing him by the letter n, the Republicans begin to
|
||
build their equation thus: "Let n = the white man." This, however,
|
||
appears to give an unsatisfactory solution.
|
||
|
||
NEIGHBOR, n. One whom we are commanded to love as ourselves, and who
|
||
does all he knows how to make us disobedient.
|
||
|
||
NEPOTISM, n. Appointing your grandmother to office for the good of
|
||
the party.
|
||
|
||
NEWTONIAN, adj. Pertaining to a philosophy of the universe invented
|
||
by Newton, who discovered that an apple will fall to the ground, but
|
||
was unable to say why. His successors and disciples have advanced so
|
||
far as to be able to say when.
|
||
|
||
NIHILIST, n. A Russian who denies the existence of anything but
|
||
Tolstoi. The leader of the school is Tolstoi.
|
||
|
||
NIRVANA, n. In the Buddhist religion, a state of pleasurable
|
||
annihilation awarded to the wise, particularly to those wise enough to
|
||
understand it.
|
||
|
||
NOBLEMAN, n. Nature's provision for wealthy American minds ambitious
|
||
to incur social distinction and suffer high life.
|
||
|
||
NOISE, n. A stench in the ear. Undomesticated music. The chief
|
||
product and authenticating sign of civilization.
|
||
|
||
NOMINATE, v. To designate for the heaviest political assessment. To
|
||
put forward a suitable person to incur the mudgobbling and deadcatting
|
||
of the opposition.
|
||
|
||
NOMINEE, n. A modest gentleman shrinking from the distinction of
|
||
private life and diligently seeking the honorable obscurity of public
|
||
office.
|
||
|
||
NON-COMBATANT, n. A dead Quaker.
|
||
|
||
NONSENSE, n. The objections that are urged against this excellent
|
||
dictionary.
|
||
|
||
NOSE, n. The extreme outpost of the face. From the circumstance that
|
||
great conquerors have great noses, Getius, whose writings antedate the
|
||
age of humor, calls the nose the organ of quell. It has been observed
|
||
that one's nose is never so happy as when thrust into the affairs of
|
||
others, from which some physiologists have drawn the inference that
|
||
the nose is devoid of the sense of smell.
|
||
|
||
There's a man with a Nose,
|
||
And wherever he goes
|
||
The people run from him and shout:
|
||
"No cotton have we
|
||
For our ears if so be
|
||
He blow that interminous snout!"
|
||
|
||
So the lawyers applied
|
||
For injunction. "Denied,"
|
||
Said the Judge: "the defendant prefixion,
|
||
Whate'er it portend,
|
||
Appears to transcend
|
||
The bounds of this court's jurisdiction."
|
||
Arpad Singiny
|
||
|
||
NOTORIETY, n. The fame of one's competitor for public honors. The
|
||
kind of renown most accessible and acceptable to mediocrity. A
|
||
Jacob's-ladder leading to the vaudeville stage, with angels ascending
|
||
and descending.
|
||
|
||
NOUMENON, n. That which exists, as distinguished from that which
|
||
merely seems to exist, the latter being a phenomenon. The noumenon is
|
||
a bit difficult to locate; it can be apprehended only be a process of
|
||
reasoning -- which is a phenomenon. Nevertheless, the discovery and
|
||
exposition of noumena offer a rich field for what Lewes calls "the
|
||
endless variety and excitement of philosophic thought." Hurrah
|
||
(therefore) for the noumenon!
|
||
|
||
NOVEL, n. A short story padded. A species of composition bearing the
|
||
same relation to literature that the panorama bears to art. As it is
|
||
too long to be read at a sitting the impressions made by its
|
||
successive parts are successively effaced, as in the panorama. Unity,
|
||
totality of effect, is impossible; for besides the few pages last read
|
||
all that is carried in mind is the mere plot of what has gone before.
|
||
To the romance the novel is what photography is to painting. Its
|
||
distinguishing principle, probability, corresponds to the literal
|
||
actuality of the photograph and puts it distinctly into the category
|
||
of reporting; whereas the free wing of the romancer enables him to
|
||
mount to such altitudes of imagination as he may be fitted to attain;
|
||
and the first three essentials of the literary art are imagination,
|
||
imagination and imagination. The art of writing novels, such as it
|
||
was, is long dead everywhere except in Russia, where it is new. Peace
|
||
to its ashes -- some of which have a large sale.
|
||
|
||
NOVEMBER, n. The eleventh twelfth of a weariness.
|
||
|
||
|
||
O
|
||
|
||
|
||
OATH, n. In law, a solemn appeal to the Deity, made binding upon the
|
||
conscience by a penalty for perjury.
|
||
|
||
OBLIVION, n. The state or condition in which the wicked cease from
|
||
struggling and the dreary are at rest. Fame's eternal dumping ground.
|
||
Cold storage for high hopes. A place where ambitious authors meet
|
||
their works without pride and their betters without envy. A dormitory
|
||
without an alarm clock.
|
||
|
||
OBSERVATORY, n. A place where astronomers conjecture away the guesses
|
||
of their predecessors.
|
||
|
||
OBSESSED, p.p. Vexed by an evil spirit, like the Gadarene swine and
|
||
other critics. Obsession was once more common than it is now.
|
||
Arasthus tells of a peasant who was occupied by a different devil for
|
||
every day in the week, and on Sundays by two. They were frequently
|
||
seen, always walking in his shadow, when he had one, but were finally
|
||
driven away by the village notary, a holy man; but they took the
|
||
peasant with them, for he vanished utterly. A devil thrown out of a
|
||
woman by the Archbishop of Rheims ran through the trees, pursued by a
|
||
hundred persons, until the open country was reached, where by a leap
|
||
higher than a church spire he escaped into a bird. A chaplain in
|
||
Cromwell's army exorcised a soldier's obsessing devil by throwing the
|
||
soldier into the water, when the devil came to the surface. The
|
||
soldier, unfortunately, did not.
|
||
|
||
OBSOLETE, adj. No longer used by the timid. Said chiefly of words.
|
||
A word which some lexicographer has marked obsolete is ever thereafter
|
||
an object of dread and loathing to the fool writer, but if it is a
|
||
good word and has no exact modern equivalent equally good, it is good
|
||
enough for the good writer. Indeed, a writer's attitude toward
|
||
"obsolete" words is as true a measure of his literary ability as
|
||
anything except the character of his work. A dictionary of obsolete
|
||
and obsolescent words would not only be singularly rich in strong and
|
||
sweet parts of speech; it would add large possessions to the
|
||
vocabulary of every competent writer who might not happen to be a
|
||
competent reader.
|
||
|
||
OBSTINATE, adj. Inaccessible to the truth as it is manifest in the
|
||
splendor and stress of our advocacy.
|
||
The popular type and exponent of obstinacy is the mule, a most
|
||
intelligent animal.
|
||
|
||
OCCASIONAL, adj. Afflicting us with greater or less frequency. That,
|
||
however, is not the sense in which the word is used in the phrase
|
||
"occasional verses," which are verses written for an "occasion," such
|
||
as an anniversary, a celebration or other event. True, they afflict
|
||
us a little worse than other sorts of verse, but their name has no
|
||
reference to irregular recurrence.
|
||
|
||
OCCIDENT, n. The part of the world lying west (or east) of the
|
||
Orient. It is largely inhabited by Christians, a powerful subtribe of
|
||
the Hypocrites, whose principal industries are murder and cheating,
|
||
which they are pleased to call "war" and "commerce." These, also, are
|
||
the principal industries of the Orient.
|
||
|
||
OCEAN, n. A body of water occupying about two-thirds of a world made
|
||
for man -- who has no gills.
|
||
|
||
OFFENSIVE, adj. Generating disagreeable emotions or sensations, as
|
||
the advance of an army against its enemy.
|
||
"Were the enemy's tactics offensive?" the king asked. "I should
|
||
say so!" replied the unsuccessful general. "The blackguard wouldn't
|
||
come out of his works!"
|
||
|
||
OLD, adj. In that stage of usefulness which is not inconsistent with
|
||
general inefficiency, as an _old man_. Discredited by lapse of time
|
||
and offensive to the popular taste, as an _old_ book.
|
||
|
||
"Old books? The devil take them!" Goby said.
|
||
"Fresh every day must be my books and bread."
|
||
Nature herself approves the Goby rule
|
||
And gives us every moment a fresh fool.
|
||
Harley Shum
|
||
|
||
OLEAGINOUS, adj. Oily, smooth, sleek.
|
||
Disraeli once described the manner of Bishop Wilberforce as
|
||
"unctuous, oleaginous, saponaceous." And the good prelate was ever
|
||
afterward known as Soapy Sam. For every man there is something in the
|
||
vocabulary that would stick to him like a second skin. His enemies
|
||
have only to find it.
|
||
|
||
OLYMPIAN, adj. Relating to a mountain in Thessaly, once inhabited by
|
||
gods, now a repository of yellowing newspapers, beer bottles and
|
||
mutilated sardine cans, attesting the presence of the tourist and his
|
||
appetite.
|
||
|
||
His name the smirking tourist scrawls
|
||
Upon Minerva's temple walls,
|
||
Where thundered once Olympian Zeus,
|
||
And marks his appetite's abuse.
|
||
Averil Joop
|
||
|
||
OMEN, n. A sign that something will happen if nothing happens.
|
||
|
||
ONCE, adv. Enough.
|
||
|
||
OPERA, n. A play representing life in another world, whose
|
||
inhabitants have no speech but song, no motions but gestures and no
|
||
postures but attitudes. All acting is simulation, and the word
|
||
_simulation_ is from _simia_, an ape; but in opera the actor takes for
|
||
his model _Simia audibilis_ (or _Pithecanthropos stentor_) -- the ape
|
||
that howls.
|
||
|
||
The actor apes a man -- at least in shape;
|
||
The opera performer apes and ape.
|
||
|
||
OPIATE, n. An unlocked door in the prison of Identity. It leads into
|
||
the jail yard.
|
||
|
||
OPPORTUNITY, n. A favorable occasion for grasping a disappointment.
|
||
|
||
OPPOSE, v. To assist with obstructions and objections.
|
||
|
||
How lonely he who thinks to vex
|
||
With bandinage the Solemn Sex!
|
||
Of levity, Mere Man, beware;
|
||
None but the Grave deserve the Unfair.
|
||
Percy P. Orminder
|
||
|
||
OPPOSITION, n. In politics the party that prevents the Government from
|
||
running amuck by hamstringing it.
|
||
The King of Ghargaroo, who had been abroad to study the science of
|
||
government, appointed one hundred of his fattest subjects as members
|
||
of a parliament to make laws for the collection of revenue. Forty of
|
||
these he named the Party of Opposition and had his Prime Minister
|
||
carefully instruct them in their duty of opposing every royal measure.
|
||
Nevertheless, the first one that was submitted passed unanimously.
|
||
Greatly displeased, the King vetoed it, informing the Opposition that
|
||
if they did that again they would pay for their obstinacy with their
|
||
heads. The entire forty promptly disemboweled themselves.
|
||
"What shall we do now?" the King asked. "Liberal institutions
|
||
cannot be maintained without a party of Opposition."
|
||
"Splendor of the universe," replied the Prime Minister, "it is
|
||
true these dogs of darkness have no longer their credentials, but all
|
||
is not lost. Leave the matter to this worm of the dust."
|
||
So the Minister had the bodies of his Majesty's Opposition
|
||
embalmed and stuffed with straw, put back into the seats of power and
|
||
nailed there. Forty votes were recorded against every bill and the
|
||
nation prospered. But one day a bill imposing a tax on warts was
|
||
defeated -- the members of the Government party had not been nailed to
|
||
their seats! This so enraged the King that the Prime Minister was put
|
||
to death, the parliament was dissolved with a battery of artillery,
|
||
and government of the people, by the people, for the people perished
|
||
from Ghargaroo.
|
||
|
||
OPTIMISM, n. The doctrine, or belief, that everything is beautiful,
|
||
including what is ugly, everything good, especially the bad, and
|
||
everything right that is wrong. It is held with greatest tenacity by
|
||
those most accustomed to the mischance of falling into adversity, and
|
||
is most acceptably expounded with the grin that apes a smile. Being a
|
||
blind faith, it is inaccessible to the light of disproof -- an
|
||
intellectual disorder, yielding to no treatment but death. It is
|
||
hereditary, but fortunately not contagious.
|
||
|
||
OPTIMIST, n. A proponent of the doctrine that black is white.
|
||
A pessimist applied to God for relief.
|
||
"Ah, you wish me to restore your hope and cheerfulness," said God.
|
||
"No," replied the petitioner, "I wish you to create something that
|
||
would justify them."
|
||
"The world is all created," said God, "but you have overlooked
|
||
something -- the mortality of the optimist."
|
||
|
||
ORATORY, n. A conspiracy between speech and action to cheat the
|
||
understanding. A tyranny tempered by stenography.
|
||
|
||
ORPHAN, n. A living person whom death has deprived of the power of
|
||
filial ingratitude -- a privation appealing with a particular
|
||
eloquence to all that is sympathetic in human nature. When young the
|
||
orphan is commonly sent to an asylum, where by careful cultivation of
|
||
its rudimentary sense of locality it is taught to know its place. It
|
||
is then instructed in the arts of dependence and servitude and
|
||
eventually turned loose to prey upon the world as a bootblack or
|
||
scullery maid.
|
||
|
||
ORTHODOX, n. An ox wearing the popular religious joke.
|
||
|
||
ORTHOGRAPHY, n. The science of spelling by the eye instead of the
|
||
ear. Advocated with more heat than light by the outmates of every
|
||
asylum for the insane. They have had to concede a few things since
|
||
the time of Chaucer, but are none the less hot in defence of those to
|
||
be conceded hereafter.
|
||
|
||
A spelling reformer indicted
|
||
For fudge was before the court cicted.
|
||
The judge said: "Enough --
|
||
His candle we'll snough,
|
||
And his sepulchre shall not be whicted."
|
||
|
||
OSTRICH, n. A large bird to which (for its sins, doubtless) nature
|
||
has denied that hinder toe in which so many pious naturalists have
|
||
seen a conspicuous evidence of design. The absence of a good working
|
||
pair of wings is no defect, for, as has been ingeniously pointed out,
|
||
the ostrich does not fly.
|
||
|
||
OTHERWISE, adv. No better.
|
||
|
||
OUTCOME, n. A particular type of disappointment. By the kind of
|
||
intelligence that sees in an exception a proof of the rule the wisdom
|
||
of an act is judged by the outcome, the result. This is immortal
|
||
nonsense; the wisdom of an act is to be juded by the light that the
|
||
doer had when he performed it.
|
||
|
||
OUTDO, v.t. To make an enemy.
|
||
|
||
OUT-OF-DOORS, n. That part of one's environment upon which no
|
||
government has been able to collect taxes. Chiefly useful to inspire
|
||
poets.
|
||
|
||
I climbed to the top of a mountain one day
|
||
To see the sun setting in glory,
|
||
And I thought, as I looked at his vanishing ray,
|
||
Of a perfectly splendid story.
|
||
|
||
'Twas about an old man and the ass he bestrode
|
||
Till the strength of the beast was o'ertested;
|
||
Then the man would carry him miles on the road
|
||
Till Neddy was pretty well rested.
|
||
|
||
The moon rising solemnly over the crest
|
||
Of the hills to the east of my station
|
||
Displayed her broad disk to the darkening west
|
||
Like a visible new creation.
|
||
|
||
And I thought of a joke (and I laughed till I cried)
|
||
Of an idle young woman who tarried
|
||
About a church-door for a look at the bride,
|
||
Although 'twas herself that was married.
|
||
|
||
To poets all Nature is pregnant with grand
|
||
Ideas -- with thought and emotion.
|
||
I pity the dunces who don't understand
|
||
The speech of earth, heaven and ocean.
|
||
Stromboli Smith
|
||
|
||
OVATION, n. n ancient Rome, a definite, formal pageant in honor of
|
||
one who had been disserviceable to the enemies of the nation. A
|
||
lesser "triumph." In modern English the word is improperly used to
|
||
signify any loose and spontaneous expression of popular homage to the
|
||
hero of the hour and place.
|
||
|
||
"I had an ovation!" the actor man said,
|
||
But I thought it uncommonly queer,
|
||
That people and critics by him had been led
|
||
By the ear.
|
||
|
||
The Latin lexicon makes his absurd
|
||
Assertion as plain as a peg;
|
||
In "ovum" we find the true root of the word.
|
||
It means egg.
|
||
Dudley Spink
|
||
|
||
OVEREAT, v. To dine.
|
||
|
||
Hail, Gastronome, Apostle of Excess,
|
||
Well skilled to overeat without distress!
|
||
Thy great invention, the unfatal feast,
|
||
Shows Man's superiority to Beast.
|
||
John Boop
|
||
|
||
OVERWORK, n. A dangerous disorder affecting high public functionaries
|
||
who want to go fishing.
|
||
|
||
OWE, v. To have (and to hold) a debt. The word formerly signified
|
||
not indebtedness, but possession; it meant "own," and in the minds of
|
||
debtors there is still a good deal of confusion between assets and
|
||
liabilities.
|
||
|
||
OYSTER, n. A slimy, gobby shellfish which civilization gives men the
|
||
hardihood to eat without removing its entrails! The shells are
|
||
sometimes given to the poor.
|
||
|
||
|
||
P
|
||
|
||
|
||
PAIN, n. An uncomfortable frame of mind that may have a physical
|
||
basis in something that is being done to the body, or may be purely
|
||
mental, caused by the good fortune of another.
|
||
|
||
PAINTING, n. The art of protecting flat surfaces from the weather and
|
||
exposing them to the critic.
|
||
Formerly, painting and sculpture were combined in the same work:
|
||
the ancients painted their statues. The only present alliance between
|
||
the two arts is that the modern painter chisels his patrons.
|
||
|
||
PALACE, n. A fine and costly residence, particularly that of a great
|
||
official. The residence of a high dignitary of the Christian Church
|
||
is called a palace; that of the Founder of his religion was known as a
|
||
field, or wayside. There is progress.
|
||
|
||
PALM, n. A species of tree having several varieties, of which the
|
||
familiar "itching palm" (_Palma hominis_) is most widely distributed
|
||
and sedulously cultivated. This noble vegetable exudes a kind of
|
||
invisible gum, which may be detected by applying to the bark a piece
|
||
of gold or silver. The metal will adhere with remarkable tenacity.
|
||
The fruit of the itching palm is so bitter and unsatisfying that a
|
||
considerable percentage of it is sometimes given away in what are known
|
||
as "benefactions."
|
||
|
||
PALMISTRY, n. The 947th method (according to Mimbleshaw's
|
||
classification) of obtaining money by false pretences. It consists in
|
||
"reading character" in the wrinkles made by closing the hand. The
|
||
pretence is not altogether false; character can really be read very
|
||
accurately in this way, for the wrinkles in every hand submitted
|
||
plainly spell the word "dupe." The imposture consists in not reading
|
||
it aloud.
|
||
|
||
PANDEMONIUM, n. Literally, the Place of All the Demons. Most of them
|
||
have escaped into politics and finance, and the place is now used as a
|
||
lecture hall by the Audible Reformer. When disturbed by his voice the
|
||
ancient echoes clamor appropriate responses most gratifying to his
|
||
pride of distinction.
|
||
|
||
PANTALOONS, n. A nether habiliment of the adult civilized male. The
|
||
garment is tubular and unprovided with hinges at the points of
|
||
flexion. Supposed to have been invented by a humorist. Called
|
||
"trousers" by the enlightened and "pants" by the unworthy.
|
||
|
||
PANTHEISM, n. The doctrine that everything is God, in
|
||
contradistinction to the doctrine that God is everything.
|
||
|
||
PANTOMIME, n. A play in which the story is told without violence to
|
||
the language. The least disagreeable form of dramatic action.
|
||
|
||
PARDON, v. To remit a penalty and restore to the life of crime. To
|
||
add to the lure of crime the temptation of ingratitude.
|
||
|
||
PASSPORT, n. A document treacherously inflicted upon a citizen going
|
||
abroad, exposing him as an alien and pointing him out for special
|
||
reprobation and outrage.
|
||
|
||
PAST, n. That part of Eternity with some small fraction of which we
|
||
have a slight and regrettable acquaintance. A moving line called the
|
||
Present parts it from an imaginary period known as the Future. These
|
||
two grand divisions of Eternity, of which the one is continually
|
||
effacing the other, are entirely unlike. The one is dark with sorrow
|
||
and disappointment, the other bright with prosperity and joy. The
|
||
Past is the region of sobs, the Future is the realm of song. In the
|
||
one crouches Memory, clad in sackcloth and ashes, mumbling penitential
|
||
prayer; in the sunshine of the other Hope flies with a free wing,
|
||
beckoning to temples of success and bowers of ease. Yet the Past is
|
||
the Future of yesterday, the Future is the Past of to-morrow. They
|
||
are one -- the knowledge and the dream.
|
||
|
||
PASTIME, n. A device for promoting dejection. Gentle exercise for
|
||
intellectual debility.
|
||
|
||
PATIENCE, n. A minor form of despair, disguised as a virtue.
|
||
|
||
PATRIOT, n. One to whom the interests of a part seem superior to
|
||
those of the whole. The dupe of statesmen and the tool of conquerors.
|
||
|
||
PATRIOTISM, n. Combustible rubbish read to the torch of any one
|
||
ambitious to illuminate his name.
|
||
In Dr. Johnson's famous dictionary patriotism is defined as the
|
||
last resort of a scoundrel. With all due respect to an enlightened
|
||
but inferior lexicographer I beg to submit that it is the first.
|
||
|
||
PEACE, n. In international affairs, a period of cheating between two
|
||
periods of fighting.
|
||
|
||
O, what's the loud uproar assailing
|
||
Mine ears without cease?
|
||
'Tis the voice of the hopeful, all-hailing
|
||
The horrors of peace.
|
||
|
||
Ah, Peace Universal; they woo it --
|
||
Would marry it, too.
|
||
If only they knew how to do it
|
||
'Twere easy to do.
|
||
|
||
They're working by night and by day
|
||
On their problem, like moles.
|
||
Have mercy, O Heaven, I pray,
|
||
On their meddlesome souls!
|
||
Ro Amil
|
||
|
||
PEDESTRIAN, n. The variable (an audible) part of the roadway for an
|
||
automobile.
|
||
|
||
PEDIGREE, n. The known part of the route from an arboreal ancestor
|
||
with a swim bladder to an urban descendant with a cigarette.
|
||
|
||
PENITENT, adj. Undergoing or awaiting punishment.
|
||
|
||
PERFECTION, n. An imaginary state of quality distinguished from the
|
||
actual by an element known as excellence; an attribute of the critic.
|
||
The editor of an English magazine having received a letter
|
||
pointing out the erroneous nature of his views and style, and signed
|
||
"Perfection," promptly wrote at the foot of the letter: "I don't
|
||
agree with you," and mailed it to Matthew Arnold.
|
||
|
||
PERIPATETIC, adj. Walking about. Relating to the philosophy of
|
||
Aristotle, who, while expounding it, moved from place to place in
|
||
order to avoid his pupil's objections. A needless precaution -- they
|
||
knew no more of the matter than he.
|
||
|
||
PERORATION, n. The explosion of an oratorical rocket. It dazzles,
|
||
but to an observer having the wrong kind of nose its most conspicuous
|
||
peculiarity is the smell of the several kinds of powder used in
|
||
preparing it.
|
||
|
||
PERSEVERANCE, n. A lowly virtue whereby mediocrity achieves an
|
||
inglorious success.
|
||
|
||
"Persevere, persevere!" cry the homilists all,
|
||
Themselves, day and night, persevering to bawl.
|
||
"Remember the fable of tortoise and hare --
|
||
The one at the goal while the other is -- where?"
|
||
Why, back there in Dreamland, renewing his lease
|
||
Of life, all his muscles preserving the peace,
|
||
The goal and the rival forgotten alike,
|
||
And the long fatigue of the needless hike.
|
||
His spirit a-squat in the grass and the dew
|
||
Of the dogless Land beyond the Stew,
|
||
He sleeps, like a saint in a holy place,
|
||
A winner of all that is good in a race.
|
||
Sukker Uffro
|
||
|
||
PESSIMISM, n. A philosophy forced upon the convictions of the
|
||
observer by the disheartening prevalence of the optimist with his
|
||
scarecrow hope and his unsightly smile.
|
||
|
||
PHILANTHROPIST, n. A rich (and usually bald) old gentleman who has
|
||
trained himself to grin while his conscience is picking his pocket.
|
||
|
||
PHILISTINE, n. One whose mind is the creature of its environment,
|
||
following the fashion in thought, feeling and sentiment. He is
|
||
sometimes learned, frequently prosperous, commonly clean and always
|
||
solemn.
|
||
|
||
PHILOSOPHY, n. A route of many roads leading from nowhere to nothing.
|
||
|
||
PHOENIX, n. The classical prototype of the modern "small hot bird."
|
||
|
||
PHONOGRAPH, n. An irritating toy that restores life to dead noises.
|
||
|
||
PHOTOGRAPH, n. A picture painted by the sun without instruction in
|
||
art. It is a little better than the work of an Apache, but not quite
|
||
so good as that of a Cheyenne.
|
||
|
||
PHRENOLOGY, n. The science of picking the pocket through the scalp.
|
||
It consists in locating and exploiting the organ that one is a dupe
|
||
with.
|
||
|
||
PHYSICIAN, n. One upon whom we set our hopes when ill and our dogs
|
||
when well.
|
||
|
||
PHYSIOGNOMY, n. The art of determining the character of another by
|
||
the resemblances and differences between his face and our own, which
|
||
is the standard of excellence.
|
||
|
||
"There is no art," says Shakespeare, foolish man,
|
||
"To read the mind's construction in the face."
|
||
The physiognomists his portrait scan,
|
||
And say: "How little wisdom here we trace!
|
||
He knew his face disclosed his mind and heart,
|
||
So, in his own defence, denied our art."
|
||
Lavatar Shunk
|
||
|
||
PIANO, n. A parlor utensil for subduing the impenitent visitor. It
|
||
is operated by pressing the keys of the machine and the spirits of the
|
||
audience.
|
||
|
||
PICKANINNY, n. The young of the _Procyanthropos_, or _Americanus
|
||
dominans_. It is small, black and charged with political fatalities.
|
||
|
||
PICTURE, n. A representation in two dimensions of something wearisome
|
||
in three.
|
||
|
||
"Behold great Daubert's picture here on view --
|
||
Taken from Life." If that description's true,
|
||
Grant, heavenly Powers, that I be taken, too.
|
||
Jali Hane
|
||
|
||
PIE, n. An advance agent of the reaper whose name is Indigestion.
|
||
|
||
Cold pie was highly esteemed by the remains.
|
||
Rev. Dr. Mucker
|
||
(in a funeral sermon over a British nobleman)
|
||
|
||
Cold pie is a detestable
|
||
American comestible.
|
||
That's why I'm done -- or undone --
|
||
So far from that dear London.
|
||
(from the headstone of a British nobleman in Kalamazoo)
|
||
|
||
PIETY, n. Reverence for the Supreme Being, based upon His supposed
|
||
resemblance to man.
|
||
|
||
The pig is taught by sermons and epistles
|
||
To think the God of Swine has snout and bristles.
|
||
Judibras
|
||
|
||
PIG, n. An animal (_Porcus omnivorus_) closely allied to the human
|
||
race by the splendor and vivacity of its appetite, which, however, is
|
||
inferior in scope, for it sticks at pig.
|
||
|
||
PIGMY, n. One of a tribe of very small men found by ancient travelers
|
||
in many parts of the world, but by modern in Central Africa only. The
|
||
Pigmies are so called to distinguish them from the bulkier Caucasians
|
||
-- who are Hogmies.
|
||
|
||
PILGRIM, n. A traveler that is taken seriously. A Pilgrim Father was
|
||
one who, leaving Europe in 1620 because not permitted to sing psalms
|
||
through his nose, followed it to Massachusetts, where he could
|
||
personate God according to the dictates of his conscience.
|
||
|
||
PILLORY, n. A mechanical device for inflicting personal distinction
|
||
-- prototype of the modern newspaper conducted by persons of austere
|
||
virtues and blameless lives.
|
||
|
||
PIRACY, n. Commerce without its folly-swaddles, just as God made it.
|
||
|
||
PITIFUL, adj. The state of an enemy of opponent after an imaginary
|
||
encounter with oneself.
|
||
|
||
PITY, n. A failing sense of exemption, inspired by contrast.
|
||
|
||
PLAGIARISM, n. A literary coincidence compounded of a discreditable
|
||
priority and an honorable subsequence.
|
||
|
||
PLAGIARIZE, v. To take the thought or style of another writer whom
|
||
one has never, never read.
|
||
|
||
PLAGUE, n. In ancient times a general punishment of the innocent for
|
||
admonition of their ruler, as in the familiar instance of Pharaoh the
|
||
Immune. The plague as we of to-day have the happiness to know it is
|
||
merely Nature's fortuitous manifestation of her purposeless
|
||
objectionableness.
|
||
|
||
PLAN, v.t. To bother about the best method of accomplishing an
|
||
accidental result.
|
||
|
||
PLATITUDE, n. The fundamental element and special glory of popular
|
||
literature. A thought that snores in words that smoke. The wisdom of
|
||
a million fools in the diction of a dullard. A fossil sentiment in
|
||
artificial rock. A moral without the fable. All that is mortal of a
|
||
departed truth. A demi-tasse of milk-and-mortality. The Pope's-nose
|
||
of a featherless peacock. A jelly-fish withering on the shore of the
|
||
sea of thought. The cackle surviving the egg. A desiccated epigram.
|
||
|
||
PLATONIC, adj. Pertaining to the philosophy of Socrates. Platonic
|
||
Love is a fool's name for the affection between a disability and a
|
||
frost.
|
||
|
||
PLAUDITS, n. Coins with which the populace pays those who tickle and
|
||
devour it.
|
||
|
||
PLEASE, v. To lay the foundation for a superstructure of imposition.
|
||
|
||
PLEASURE, n. The least hateful form of dejection.
|
||
|
||
PLEBEIAN, n. An ancient Roman who in the blood of his country stained
|
||
nothing but his hands. Distinguished from the Patrician, who was a
|
||
saturated solution.
|
||
|
||
PLEBISCITE, n. A popular vote to ascertain the will of the sovereign.
|
||
|
||
PLENIPOTENTIARY, adj. Having full power. A Minister Plenipotentiary
|
||
is a diplomatist possessing absolute authority on condition that he
|
||
never exert it.
|
||
|
||
PLEONASM, n. An army of words escorting a corporal of thought.
|
||
|
||
PLOW, n. An implement that cries aloud for hands accustomed to the
|
||
pen.
|
||
|
||
PLUNDER, v. To take the property of another without observing the
|
||
decent and customary reticences of theft. To effect a change of
|
||
ownership with the candid concomitance of a brass band. To wrest the
|
||
wealth of A from B and leave C lamenting a vanishing opportunity.
|
||
|
||
POCKET, n. The cradle of motive and the grave of conscience. In
|
||
woman this organ is lacking; so she acts without motive, and her
|
||
conscience, denied burial, remains ever alive, confessing the sins of
|
||
others.
|
||
|
||
POETRY, n. A form of expression peculiar to the Land beyond the
|
||
Magazines.
|
||
|
||
POKER, n. A game said to be played with cards for some purpose to
|
||
this lexicographer unknown.
|
||
|
||
POLICE, n. An armed force for protection and participation.
|
||
|
||
POLITENESS, n. The most acceptable hypocrisy.
|
||
|
||
POLITICS, n. A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of
|
||
principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage.
|
||
|
||
POLITICIAN, n. An eel in the fundamental mud upon which the
|
||
superstructure of organized society is reared. When we wriggles he
|
||
mistakes the agitation of his tail for the trembling of the edifice.
|
||
As compared with the statesman, he suffers the disadvantage of being
|
||
alive.
|
||
|
||
POLYGAMY, n. A house of atonement, or expiatory chapel, fitted with
|
||
several stools of repentance, as distinguished from monogamy, which
|
||
has but one.
|
||
|
||
POPULIST, n. A fossil patriot of the early agricultural period, found
|
||
in the old red soapstone underlying Kansas; characterized by an
|
||
uncommon spread of ear, which some naturalists contend gave him the
|
||
power of flight, though Professors Morse and Whitney, pursuing
|
||
independent lines of thought, have ingeniously pointed out that had he
|
||
possessed it he would have gone elsewhere. In the picturesque speech
|
||
of his period, some fragments of which have come down to us, he was
|
||
known as "The Matter with Kansas."
|
||
|
||
PORTABLE, adj. Exposed to a mutable ownership through vicissitudes of
|
||
possession.
|
||
|
||
His light estate, if neither he did make it
|
||
Nor yet its former guardian forsake it,
|
||
Is portable improperly, I take it.
|
||
Worgum Slupsky
|
||
|
||
PORTUGUESE, n.pl. A species of geese indigenous to Portugal. They
|
||
are mostly without feathers and imperfectly edible, even when stuffed
|
||
with garlic.
|
||
|
||
POSITIVE, adj. Mistaken at the top of one's voice.
|
||
|
||
POSITIVISM, n. A philosophy that denies our knowledge of the Real and
|
||
affirms our ignorance of the Apparent. Its longest exponent is Comte,
|
||
its broadest Mill and its thickest Spencer.
|
||
|
||
POSTERITY, n. An appellate court which reverses the judgment of a
|
||
popular author's contemporaries, the appellant being his obscure
|
||
competitor.
|
||
|
||
POTABLE, n. Suitable for drinking. Water is said to be potable;
|
||
indeed, some declare it our natural beverage, although even they find
|
||
it palatable only when suffering from the recurrent disorder known as
|
||
thirst, for which it is a medicine. Upon nothing has so great and
|
||
diligent ingenuity been brought to bear in all ages and in all
|
||
countries, except the most uncivilized, as upon the invention of
|
||
substitutes for water. To hold that this general aversion to that
|
||
liquid has no basis in the preservative instinct of the race is to be
|
||
unscientific -- and without science we are as the snakes and toads.
|
||
|
||
POVERTY, n. A file provided for the teeth of the rats of reform. The
|
||
number of plans for its abolition equals that of the reformers who
|
||
suffer from it, plus that of the philosophers who know nothing about
|
||
it. Its victims are distinguished by possession of all the virtues
|
||
and by their faith in leaders seeking to conduct them into a
|
||
prosperity where they believe these to be unknown.
|
||
|
||
PRAY, v. To ask that the laws of the universe be annulled in behalf
|
||
of a single petitioner confessedly unworthy.
|
||
|
||
PRE-ADAMITE, n. One of an experimental and apparently unsatisfactory
|
||
race of antedated Creation and lived under conditions not easily
|
||
conceived. Melsius believed them to have inhabited "the Void" and to
|
||
have been something intermediate between fishes and birds. Little its
|
||
known of them beyond the fact that they supplied Cain with a wife and
|
||
theologians with a controversy.
|
||
|
||
PRECEDENT, n. In Law, a previous decision, rule or practice which, in
|
||
the absence of a definite statute, has whatever force and authority a
|
||
Judge may choose to give it, thereby greatly simplifying his task of
|
||
doing as he pleases. As there are precedents for everything, he has
|
||
only to ignore those that make against his interest and accentuate
|
||
those in the line of his desire. Invention of the precedent elevates
|
||
the trial-at-law from the low estate of a fortuitous ordeal to the
|
||
noble attitude of a dirigible arbitrament.
|
||
|
||
PRECIPITATE, adj. Anteprandial.
|
||
|
||
Precipitate in all, this sinner
|
||
Took action first, and then his dinner.
|
||
Judibras
|
||
|
||
PRECEDENT, n. In Law, a previous decision, rule or practice which, in
|
||
the absence of a definite statute, has whatever force and authority a
|
||
Judge may choose to give it, thereby greatly simplifying his task of
|
||
doing as he pleases. As there are precedents for everything, he has
|
||
only to ignore those that make against his interest and accentuate
|
||
those in the line of his desire. Invention of the precedent elevates
|
||
the trial-at-law from the low estate of a fortuitous ordeal to the
|
||
noble attitude of a dirigible arbitrament.
|
||
|
||
PRECIPITATE, adj. Anteprandial.
|
||
|
||
Precipitate in all, this sinner
|
||
Took action first, and then his dinner.
|
||
Judibras
|
||
|
||
PREDESTINATION, n. The doctrine that all things occur according to
|
||
programme. This doctrine should not be confused with that of
|
||
foreordination, which means that all things are programmed, but does
|
||
not affirm their occurrence, that being only an implication from other
|
||
doctrines by which this is entailed. The difference is great enough
|
||
to have deluged Christendom with ink, to say nothing of the gore.
|
||
With the distinction of the two doctrines kept well in mind, and a
|
||
reverent belief in both, one may hope to escape perdition if spared.
|
||
|
||
PREDICAMENT, n. The wage of consistency.
|
||
|
||
PREDILECTION, n. The preparatory stage of disillusion.
|
||
|
||
PRE-EXISTENCE, n. An unnoted factor in creation.
|
||
|
||
PREFERENCE, n. A sentiment, or frame of mind, induced by the
|
||
erroneous belief that one thing is better than another.
|
||
An ancient philosopher, expounding his conviction that life is no
|
||
better than death, was asked by a disciple why, then, he did not die.
|
||
"Because," he replied, "death is no better than life."
|
||
It is longer.
|
||
|
||
PREHISTORIC, adj. Belonging to an early period and a museum.
|
||
Antedating the art and practice of perpetuating falsehood.
|
||
|
||
He lived in a period prehistoric,
|
||
When all was absurd and phantasmagoric.
|
||
Born later, when Clio, celestial recorded,
|
||
Set down great events in succession and order,
|
||
He surely had seen nothing droll or fortuitous
|
||
In anything here but the lies that she threw at us.
|
||
Orpheus Bowen
|
||
|
||
PREJUDICE, n. A vagrant opinion without visible means of support.
|
||
|
||
PRELATE, n. A church officer having a superior degree of holiness and
|
||
a fat preferment. One of Heaven's aristocracy. A gentleman of God.
|
||
|
||
PREROGATIVE, n. A sovereign's right to do wrong.
|
||
|
||
PRESBYTERIAN, n. One who holds the conviction that the government
|
||
authorities of the Church should be called presbyters.
|
||
|
||
PRESCRIPTION, n. A physician's guess at what will best prolong the
|
||
situation with least harm to the patient.
|
||
|
||
PRESENT, n. That part of eternity dividing the domain of
|
||
disappointment from the realm of hope.
|
||
|
||
PRESENTABLE, adj. Hideously appareled after the manner of the time
|
||
and place.
|
||
In Boorioboola-Gha a man is presentable on occasions of ceremony
|
||
if he have his abdomen painted a bright blue and wear a cow's tail; in
|
||
New York he may, if it please him, omit the paint, but after sunset he
|
||
must wear two tails made of the wool of a sheep and dyed black.
|
||
|
||
PRESIDE, v. To guide the action of a deliberative body to a desirable
|
||
result. In Journalese, to perform upon a musical instrument; as, "He
|
||
presided at the piccolo."
|
||
|
||
The Headliner, holding the copy in hand,
|
||
Read with a solemn face:
|
||
"The music was very uncommonly grand --
|
||
The best that was every provided,
|
||
For our townsman Brown presided
|
||
At the organ with skill and grace."
|
||
The Headliner discontinued to read,
|
||
And, spread the paper down
|
||
On the desk, he dashed in at the top of the screed:
|
||
"Great playing by President Brown."
|
||
Orpheus Bowen
|
||
|
||
PRESIDENCY, n. The greased pig in the field game of American
|
||
politics.
|
||
|
||
PRESIDENT, n. The leading figure in a small group of men of whom --
|
||
and of whom only -- it is positively known that immense numbers of
|
||
their countrymen did not want any of them for President.
|
||
|
||
If that's an honor surely 'tis a greater
|
||
To have been a simple and undamned spectator.
|
||
Behold in me a man of mark and note
|
||
Whom no elector e'er denied a vote! --
|
||
An undiscredited, unhooted gent
|
||
Who might, for all we know, be President
|
||
By acclimation. Cheer, ye varlets, cheer --
|
||
I'm passing with a wide and open ear!
|
||
Jonathan Fomry
|
||
|
||
PREVARICATOR, n. A liar in the caterpillar estate.
|
||
|
||
PRICE, n. Value, plus a reasonable sum for the wear and tear of
|
||
conscience in demanding it.
|
||
|
||
PRIMATE, n. The head of a church, especially a State church supported
|
||
by involuntary contributions. The Primate of England is the
|
||
Archbishop of Canterbury, an amiable old gentleman, who occupies
|
||
Lambeth Palace when living and Westminster Abbey when dead. He is
|
||
commonly dead.
|
||
|
||
PRISON, n. A place of punishments and rewards. The poet assures us
|
||
that --
|
||
|
||
"Stone walls do not a prison make,"
|
||
|
||
but a combination of the stone wall, the political parasite and the
|
||
moral instructor is no garden of sweets.
|
||
|
||
PRIVATE, n. A military gentleman with a field-marshal's baton in his
|
||
knapsack and an impediment in his hope.
|
||
|
||
PROBOSCIS, n. The rudimentary organ of an elephant which serves him
|
||
in place of the knife-and-fork that Evolution has as yet denied him.
|
||
For purposes of humor it is popularly called a trunk.
|
||
Asked how he knew that an elephant was going on a journey, the
|
||
illustrious Jo. Miller cast a reproachful look upon his tormentor, and
|
||
answered, absently: "When it is ajar," and threw himself from a high
|
||
promontory into the sea. Thus perished in his pride the most famous
|
||
humorist of antiquity, leaving to mankind a heritage of woe! No
|
||
successor worthy of the title has appeared, though Mr. Edward bok, of
|
||
_The Ladies' Home Journal_, is much respected for the purity and
|
||
sweetness of his personal character.
|
||
|
||
PROJECTILE, n. The final arbiter in international disputes. Formerly
|
||
these disputes were settled by physical contact of the disputants,
|
||
with such simple arguments as the rudimentary logic of the times could
|
||
supply -- the sword, the spear, and so forth. With the growth of
|
||
prudence in military affairs the projectile came more and more into
|
||
favor, and is now held in high esteem by the most courageous. Its
|
||
capital defect is that it requires personal attendance at the point of
|
||
propulsion.
|
||
|
||
PROOF, n. Evidence having a shade more of plausibility than of
|
||
unlikelihood. The testimony of two credible witnesses as opposed to
|
||
that of only one.
|
||
|
||
PROOF-READER, n. A malefactor who atones for making your writing
|
||
nonsense by permitting the compositor to make it unintelligible.
|
||
|
||
PROPERTY, n. Any material thing, having no particular value, that may
|
||
be held by A against the cupidity of B. Whatever gratifies the
|
||
passion for possession in one and disappoints it in all others. The
|
||
object of man's brief rapacity and long indifference.
|
||
|
||
PROPHECY, n. The art and practice of selling one's credibility for
|
||
future delivery.
|
||
|
||
PROSPECT, n. An outlook, usually forbidding. An expectation, usually
|
||
forbidden.
|
||
|
||
Blow, blow, ye spicy breezes --
|
||
O'er Ceylon blow your breath,
|
||
Where every prospect pleases,
|
||
Save only that of death.
|
||
Bishop Sheber
|
||
|
||
PROVIDENTIAL, adj. Unexpectedly and conspicuously beneficial to the
|
||
person so describing it.
|
||
|
||
PRUDE, n. A bawd hiding behind the back of her demeanor.
|
||
|
||
PUBLISH, n. In literary affairs, to become the fundamental element in
|
||
a cone of critics.
|
||
|
||
PUSH, n. One of the two things mainly conducive to success,
|
||
especially in politics. The other is Pull.
|
||
|
||
PYRRHONISM, n. An ancient philosophy, named for its inventor. It
|
||
consisted of an absolute disbelief in everything but Pyrrhonism. Its
|
||
modern professors have added that.
|
||
|
||
|
||
Q
|
||
|
||
|
||
QUEEN, n. A woman by whom the realm is ruled when there is a king,
|
||
and through whom it is ruled when there is not.
|
||
|
||
QUILL, n. An implement of torture yielded by a goose and commonly
|
||
wielded by an ass. This use of the quill is now obsolete, but its
|
||
modern equivalent, the steel pen, is wielded by the same everlasting
|
||
Presence.
|
||
|
||
QUIVER, n. A portable sheath in which the ancient statesman and the
|
||
aboriginal lawyer carried their lighter arguments.
|
||
|
||
He extracted from his quiver,
|
||
Did the controversial Roman,
|
||
An argument well fitted
|
||
To the question as submitted,
|
||
Then addressed it to the liver,
|
||
Of the unpersuaded foeman.
|
||
Oglum P. Boomp
|
||
|
||
QUIXOTIC, adj. Absurdly chivalric, like Don Quixote. An insight into
|
||
the beauty and excellence of this incomparable adjective is unhappily
|
||
denied to him who has the misfortune to know that the gentleman's name
|
||
is pronounced Ke-ho-tay.
|
||
|
||
When ignorance from out of our lives can banish
|
||
Philology, 'tis folly to know Spanish.
|
||
Juan Smith
|
||
|
||
QUORUM, n. A sufficient number of members of a deliberative body to
|
||
have their own way and their own way of having it. In the United
|
||
States Senate a quorum consists of the chairman of the Committee on
|
||
Finance and a messenger from the White House; in the House of
|
||
Representatives, of the Speaker and the devil.
|
||
|
||
QUOTATION, n. The act of repeating erroneously the words of another.
|
||
The words erroneously repeated.
|
||
|
||
Intent on making his quotation truer,
|
||
He sought the page infallible of Brewer,
|
||
Then made a solemn vow that we would be
|
||
Condemned eternally. Ah, me, ah, me!
|
||
Stumpo Gaker
|
||
|
||
QUOTIENT, n. A number showing how many times a sum of money belonging
|
||
to one person is contained in the pocket of another -- usually about
|
||
as many times as it can be got there.
|
||
|
||
|
||
R
|
||
|
||
|
||
RABBLE, n. In a republic, those who exercise a supreme authority
|
||
tempered by fraudulent elections. The rabble is like the sacred
|
||
Simurgh, of Arabian fable -- omnipotent on condition that it do
|
||
nothing. (The word is Aristocratese, and has no exact equivalent in
|
||
our tongue, but means, as nearly as may be, "soaring swine.")
|
||
|
||
RACK, n. An argumentative implement formerly much used in persuading
|
||
devotees of a false faith to embrace the living truth. As a call to
|
||
the unconverted the rack never had any particular efficacy, and is now
|
||
held in light popular esteem.
|
||
|
||
RANK, n. Relative elevation in the scale of human worth.
|
||
|
||
He held at court a rank so high
|
||
That other noblemen asked why.
|
||
"Because," 'twas answered, "others lack
|
||
His skill to scratch the royal back."
|
||
Aramis Jukes
|
||
|
||
RANSOM, n. The purchase of that which neither belongs to the seller,
|
||
nor can belong to the buyer. The most unprofitable of investments.
|
||
|
||
RAPACITY, n. Providence without industry. The thrift of power.
|
||
|
||
RAREBIT, n. A Welsh rabbit, in the speech of the humorless, who point
|
||
out that it is not a rabbit. To whom it may be solemnly explained
|
||
that the comestible known as toad-in-a-hole is really not a toad, and
|
||
that _riz-de-veau a la financiere_ is not the smile of a calf prepared
|
||
after the recipe of a she banker.
|
||
|
||
RASCAL, n. A fool considered under another aspect.
|
||
|
||
RASCALITY, n. Stupidity militant. The activity of a clouded
|
||
intellect.
|
||
|
||
RASH, adj. Insensible to the value of our advice.
|
||
|
||
"Now lay your bet with mine, nor let
|
||
These gamblers take your cash."
|
||
"Nay, this child makes no bet." "Great snakes!
|
||
How can you be so rash?"
|
||
Bootle P. Gish
|
||
|
||
RATIONAL, adj. Devoid of all delusions save those of observation,
|
||
experience and reflection.
|
||
|
||
RATTLESNAKE, n. Our prostrate brother, _Homo ventrambulans_.
|
||
|
||
RAZOR, n. An instrument used by the Caucasian to enhance his beauty,
|
||
by the Mongolian to make a guy of himself, and by the Afro-American to
|
||
affirm his worth.
|
||
|
||
REACH, n. The radius of action of the human hand. The area within
|
||
which it is possible (and customary) to gratify directly the
|
||
propensity to provide.
|
||
|
||
This is a truth, as old as the hills,
|
||
That life and experience teach:
|
||
The poor man suffers that keenest of ills,
|
||
An impediment of his reach.
|
||
G.J.
|
||
|
||
READING, n. The general body of what one reads. In our country it
|
||
consists, as a rule, of Indiana novels, short stories in "dialect" and
|
||
humor in slang.
|
||
|
||
We know by one's reading
|
||
His learning and breeding;
|
||
By what draws his laughter
|
||
We know his Hereafter.
|
||
Read nothing, laugh never --
|
||
The Sphinx was less clever!
|
||
Jupiter Muke
|
||
|
||
RADICALISM, n. The conservatism of to-morrow injected into the
|
||
affairs of to-day.
|
||
|
||
RADIUM, n. A mineral that gives off heat and stimulates the organ
|
||
that a scientist is a fool with.
|
||
|
||
RAILROAD, n. The chief of many mechanical devices enabling us to get
|
||
away from where we are to wher we are no better off. For this purpose
|
||
the railroad is held in highest favor by the optimist, for it permits
|
||
him to make the transit with great expedition.
|
||
|
||
RAMSHACKLE, adj. Pertaining to a certain order of architecture,
|
||
otherwise known as the Normal American. Most of the public buildings
|
||
of the United States are of the Ramshackle order, though some of our
|
||
earlier architects preferred the Ironic. Recent additions to the
|
||
White House in Washington are Theo-Doric, the ecclesiastic order of
|
||
the Dorians. They are exceedingly fine and cost one hundred dollars a
|
||
brick.
|
||
|
||
REALISM, n. The art of depicting nature as it is seem by toads. The
|
||
charm suffusing a landscape painted by a mole, or a story written by a
|
||
measuring-worm.
|
||
|
||
REALITY, n. The dream of a mad philosopher. That which would remain
|
||
in the cupel if one should assay a phantom. The nucleus of a vacuum.
|
||
|
||
REALLY, adv. Apparently.
|
||
|
||
REAR, n. In American military matters, that exposed part of the army
|
||
that is nearest to Congress.
|
||
|
||
REASON, v.i. To weight probabilities in the scales of desire.
|
||
|
||
REASON, n. Propensitate of prejudice.
|
||
|
||
REASONABLE, adj. Accessible to the infection of our own opinions.
|
||
Hospitable to persuasion, dissuasion and evasion.
|
||
|
||
REBEL, n. A proponent of a new misrule who has failed to establish
|
||
it.
|
||
|
||
RECOLLECT, v. To recall with additions something not previously
|
||
known.
|
||
|
||
RECONCILIATION, n. A suspension of hostilities. An armed truce for
|
||
the purpose of digging up the dead.
|
||
|
||
RECONSIDER, v. To seek a justification for a decision already made.
|
||
|
||
RECOUNT, n. In American politics, another throw of the dice, accorded
|
||
to the player against whom they are loaded.
|
||
|
||
RECREATION, n. A particular kind of dejection to relieve a general
|
||
fatigue.
|
||
|
||
RECRUIT, n. A person distinguishable from a civilian by his uniform
|
||
and from a soldier by his gait.
|
||
|
||
Fresh from the farm or factory or street,
|
||
His marching, in pursuit or in retreat,
|
||
Were an impressive martial spectacle
|
||
Except for two impediments -- his feet.
|
||
Thompson Johnson
|
||
|
||
RECTOR, n. In the Church of England, the Third Person of the
|
||
parochial Trinity, the Cruate and the Vicar being the other two.
|
||
|
||
REDEMPTION, n. Deliverance of sinners from the penalty of their sin,
|
||
through their murder of the deity against whom they sinned. The
|
||
doctrine of Redemption is the fundamental mystery of our holy
|
||
religion, and whoso believeth in it shall not perish, but have
|
||
everlasting life in which to try to understand it.
|
||
|
||
We must awake Man's spirit from his sin,
|
||
And take some special measure for redeeming it;
|
||
Though hard indeed the task to get it in
|
||
Among the angels any way but teaming it,
|
||
Or purify it otherwise than steaming it.
|
||
I'm awkward at Redemption -- a beginner:
|
||
My method is to crucify the sinner.
|
||
Golgo Brone
|
||
|
||
REDRESS, n. Reparation without satisfaction.
|
||
Among the Anglo-Saxon a subject conceiving himself wronged by the
|
||
king was permitted, on proving his injury, to beat a brazen image of
|
||
the royal offender with a switch that was afterward applied to his own
|
||
naked back. The latter rite was performed by the public hangman, and
|
||
it assured moderation in the plaintiff's choice of a switch.
|
||
|
||
RED-SKIN, n. A North American Indian, whose skin is not red -- at
|
||
least not on the outside.
|
||
|
||
REDUNDANT, adj. Superfluous; needless; _de trop_.
|
||
|
||
The Sultan said: "There's evidence abundant
|
||
To prove this unbelieving dog redundant."
|
||
To whom the Grand Vizier, with mien impressive,
|
||
Replied: "His head, at least, appears excessive."
|
||
Habeeb Suleiman
|
||
|
||
Mr. Debs is a redundant citizen.
|
||
Theodore Roosevelt
|
||
|
||
REFERENDUM, n. A law for submission of proposed legislation to a
|
||
popular vote to learn the nonsensus of public opinion.
|
||
|
||
REFLECTION, n. An action of the mind whereby we obtain a clearer view
|
||
of our relation to the things of yesterday and are able to avoid the
|
||
perils that we shall not again encounter.
|
||
|
||
REFORM, v. A thing that mostly satisfies reformers opposed to
|
||
reformation.
|
||
|
||
REFUGE, n. Anything assuring protection to one in peril. Moses and
|
||
Joshua provided six cities of refuge -- Bezer, Golan, Ramoth, Kadesh,
|
||
Schekem and Hebron -- to which one who had taken life inadvertently
|
||
could flee when hunted by relatives of the deceased. This admirable
|
||
expedient supplied him with wholesome exercise and enabled them to
|
||
enjoy the pleasures of the chase; whereby the soul of the dead man was
|
||
appropriately honored by observations akin to the funeral games of
|
||
early Greece.
|
||
|
||
REFUSAL, n. Denial of something desired; as an elderly maiden's hand
|
||
in marriage, to a rich and handsome suitor; a valuable franchise to a
|
||
rich corporation, by an alderman; absolution to an impenitent king, by
|
||
a priest, and so forth. Refusals are graded in a descending scale of
|
||
finality thus: the refusal absolute, the refusal condition, the
|
||
refusal tentative and the refusal feminine. The last is called by
|
||
some casuists the refusal assentive.
|
||
|
||
REGALIA, n. Distinguishing insignia, jewels and costume of such
|
||
ancient and honorable orders as Knights of Adam; Visionaries of
|
||
Detectable Bosh; the Ancient Order of Modern Troglodytes; the League
|
||
of Holy Humbug; the Golden Phalanx of Phalangers; the Genteel Society
|
||
of Expurgated Hoodlums; the Mystic Alliances of Georgeous Regalians;
|
||
Knights and Ladies of the Yellow Dog; the Oriental Order of Sons of
|
||
the West; the Blatherhood of Insufferable Stuff; Warriors of the Long
|
||
Bow; Guardians of the Great Horn Spoon; the Band of Brutes; the
|
||
Impenitent Order of Wife-Beaters; the Sublime Legion of Flamboyant
|
||
Conspicuants; Worshipers at the Electroplated Shrine; Shining
|
||
Inaccessibles; Fee-Faw-Fummers of the inimitable Grip; Jannissaries of
|
||
the Broad-Blown Peacock; Plumed Increscencies of the Magic Temple; the
|
||
Grand Cabal of Able-Bodied Sedentarians; Associated Deities of the
|
||
Butter Trade; the Garden of Galoots; the Affectionate Fraternity of
|
||
Men Similarly Warted; the Flashing Astonishers; Ladies of Horror;
|
||
Cooperative Association for Breaking into the Spotlight; Dukes of Eden;
|
||
Disciples Militant of the Hidden Faith; Knights-Champions of the
|
||
Domestic Dog; the Holy Gregarians; the Resolute Optimists; the Ancient
|
||
Sodality of Inhospitable Hogs; Associated Sovereigns of Mendacity;
|
||
Dukes-Guardian of the Mystic Cess-Pool; the Society for Prevention of
|
||
Prevalence; Kings of Drink; Polite Federation of Gents-Consequential;
|
||
the Mysterious Order of the Undecipherable Scroll; Uniformed Rank of
|
||
Lousy Cats; Monarchs of Worth and Hunger; Sons of the South Star;
|
||
Prelates of the Tub-and-Sword.
|
||
|
||
RELIGION, n. A daughter of Hope and Fear, explaining to Ignorance the
|
||
nature of the Unknowable.
|
||
"What is your religion my son?" inquired the Archbishop of Rheims.
|
||
"Pardon, monseigneur," replied Rochebriant; "I am ashamed of it."
|
||
"Then why do you not become an atheist?"
|
||
"Impossible! I should be ashamed of atheism."
|
||
"In that case, monsieur, you should join the Protestants."
|
||
|
||
RELIQUARY, n. A receptacle for such sacred objects as pieces of the
|
||
true cross, short-ribs of the saints, the ears of Balaam's ass, the
|
||
lung of the cock that called Peter to repentance and so forth.
|
||
Reliquaries are commonly of metal, and provided with a lock to prevent
|
||
the contents from coming out and performing miracles at unseasonable
|
||
times. A feather from the wing of the Angel of the Annunciation once
|
||
escaped during a sermon in Saint Peter's and so tickled the noses of
|
||
the congregation that they woke and sneezed with great vehemence three
|
||
times each. It is related in the "Gesta Sanctorum" that a sacristan
|
||
in the Canterbury cathedral surprised the head of Saint Dennis in the
|
||
library. Reprimanded by its stern custodian, it explained that it was
|
||
seeking a body of doctrine. This unseemly levity so raged the
|
||
diocesan that the offender was publicly anathematized, thrown into the
|
||
Stour and replaced by another head of Saint Dennis, brought from Rome.
|
||
|
||
RENOWN, n. A degree of distinction between notoriety and fame -- a
|
||
little more supportable than the one and a little more intolerable
|
||
than the other. Sometimes it is conferred by an unfriendly and
|
||
inconsiderate hand.
|
||
|
||
I touched the harp in every key,
|
||
But found no heeding ear;
|
||
And then Ithuriel touched me
|
||
With a revealing spear.
|
||
|
||
Not all my genius, great as 'tis,
|
||
Could urge me out of night.
|
||
I felt the faint appulse of his,
|
||
And leapt into the light!
|
||
W.J. Candleton
|
||
|
||
REPARATION, n. Satisfaction that is made for a wrong and deducted
|
||
from the satisfaction felt in committing it.
|
||
|
||
REPARTEE, n. Prudent insult in retort. Practiced by gentlemen with a
|
||
constitutional aversion to violence, but a strong disposition to
|
||
offend. In a war of words, the tactics of the North American Indian.
|
||
|
||
REPENTANCE, n. The faithful attendant and follower of Punishment. It
|
||
is usually manifest in a degree of reformation that is not
|
||
inconsistent with continuity of sin.
|
||
|
||
Desirous to avoid the pains of Hell,
|
||
You will repent and join the Church, Parnell?
|
||
How needless! -- Nick will keep you off the coals
|
||
And add you to the woes of other souls.
|
||
Jomater Abemy
|
||
|
||
REPLICA, n. A reproduction of a work of art, by the artist that made
|
||
the original. It is so called to distinguish it from a "copy," which
|
||
is made by another artist. When the two are mae with equal skill the
|
||
replica is the more valuable, for it is supposed to be more beautiful
|
||
than it looks.
|
||
|
||
REPORTER, n. A writer who guesses his way to the truth and dispels it
|
||
with a tempest of words.
|
||
|
||
"More dear than all my bosom knows, O thou
|
||
Whose 'lips are sealed' and will not disavow!"
|
||
So sang the blithe reporter-man as grew
|
||
Beneath his hand the leg-long "interview."
|
||
Barson Maith
|
||
|
||
REPOSE, v.i. To cease from troubling.
|
||
|
||
REPRESENTATIVE, n. In national politics, a member of the Lower House
|
||
in this world, and without discernible hope of promotion in the next.
|
||
|
||
REPROBATION, n. In theology, the state of a luckless mortal
|
||
prenatally damned. The doctrine of reprobation was taught by Calvin,
|
||
whose joy in it was somewhat marred by the sad sincerity of his
|
||
conviction that although some are foredoomed to perdition, others are
|
||
predestined to salvation.
|
||
|
||
REPUBLIC, n. A nation in which, the thing governing and the thing
|
||
governed being the same, there is only a permitted authority to
|
||
enforce an optional obedience. In a republic, the foundation of
|
||
public order is the ever lessening habit of submission inherited from
|
||
ancestors who, being truly governed, submitted because they had to.
|
||
There are as many kinds of republics as there are graduations between
|
||
the despotism whence they came and the anarchy whither they lead.
|
||
|
||
REQUIEM, n. A mass for the dead which the minor poets assure us the
|
||
winds sing o'er the graves of their favorites. Sometimes, by way of
|
||
providing a varied entertainment, they sing a dirge.
|
||
|
||
RESIDENT, adj. Unable to leave.
|
||
|
||
RESIGN, v.t. To renounce an honor for an advantage. To renounce an
|
||
advantage for a greater advantage.
|
||
|
||
'Twas rumored Leonard Wood had signed
|
||
A true renunciation
|
||
Of title, rank and every kind
|
||
Of military station --
|
||
Each honorable station.
|
||
|
||
By his example fired -- inclined
|
||
To noble emulation,
|
||
The country humbly was resigned
|
||
To Leonard's resignation --
|
||
His Christian resignation.
|
||
Politian Greame
|
||
|
||
RESOLUTE, adj. Obstinate in a course that we approve.
|
||
|
||
RESPECTABILITY, n. The offspring of a _liaison_ between a bald head
|
||
and a bank account.
|
||
|
||
RESPIRATOR, n. An apparatus fitted over the nose and mouth of an
|
||
inhabitant of London, whereby to filter the visible universe in its
|
||
passage to the lungs.
|
||
|
||
RESPITE, n. A suspension of hostilities against a sentenced assassin,
|
||
to enable the Executive to determine whether the murder may not have
|
||
been done by the prosecuting attorney. Any break in the continuity of
|
||
a disagreeable expectation.
|
||
|
||
Altgeld upon his incandescend bed
|
||
Lay, an attendant demon at his head.
|
||
|
||
"O cruel cook, pray grant me some relief --
|
||
Some respite from the roast, however brief."
|
||
|
||
"Remember how on earth I pardoned all
|
||
Your friends in Illinois when held in thrall."
|
||
|
||
"Unhappy soul! for that alone you squirm
|
||
O'er fire unquenched, a never-dying worm.
|
||
|
||
"Yet, for I pity your uneasy state,
|
||
Your doom I'll mollify and pains abate.
|
||
|
||
"Naught, for a season, shall your comfort mar,
|
||
Not even the memory of who you are."
|
||
|
||
Throughout eternal space dread silence fell;
|
||
Heaven trembled as Compassion entered Hell.
|
||
|
||
"As long, sweet demon, let my respite be
|
||
As, governing down here, I'd respite thee."
|
||
|
||
"As long, poor soul, as any of the pack
|
||
You thrust from jail consumed in getting back."
|
||
|
||
A genial chill affected Altgeld's hide
|
||
While they were turning him on t'other side.
|
||
Joel Spate Woop
|
||
|
||
RESPLENDENT, adj. Like a simple American citizen beduking himself in
|
||
his lodge, or affirming his consequence in the Scheme of Things as an
|
||
elemental unit of a parade.
|
||
|
||
The Knights of Dominion were so resplendent in their velvet-
|
||
and-gold that their masters would hardly have known them.
|
||
"Chronicles of the Classes"
|
||
|
||
RESPOND, v.i. To make answer, or disclose otherwise a consciousness
|
||
of having inspired an interest in what Herbert Spencer calls "external
|
||
coexistences," as Satan "squat like a toad" at the ear of Eve,
|
||
responded to the touch of the angel's spear. To respond in damages is
|
||
to contribute to the maintenance of the plaintiff's attorney and,
|
||
incidentally, to the gratification of the plaintiff.
|
||
|
||
RESPONSIBILITY, n. A detachable burden easily shifted to the
|
||
shoulders of God, Fate, Fortune, Luck or one's neighbor. In the days
|
||
of astrology it was customary to unload it upon a star.
|
||
|
||
Alas, things ain't what we should see
|
||
If Eve had let that apple be;
|
||
And many a feller which had ought
|
||
To set with monarchses of thought,
|
||
Or play some rosy little game
|
||
With battle-chaps on fields of fame,
|
||
Is downed by his unlucky star
|
||
And hollers: "Peanuts! -- here you are!"
|
||
"The Sturdy Beggar"
|
||
|
||
RESTITUTIONS, n. The founding or endowing of universities and public
|
||
libraries by gift or bequest.
|
||
|
||
RESTITUTOR, n. Benefactor; philanthropist.
|
||
|
||
RETALIATION, n. The natural rock upon which is reared the Temple of
|
||
Law.
|
||
|
||
RETRIBUTION, n. A rain of fire-and-brimstone that falls alike upon
|
||
the just and such of the unjust as have not procured shelter by
|
||
evicting them.
|
||
In the lines following, addressed to an Emperor in exile by Father
|
||
Gassalasca Jape, the reverend poet appears to hint his sense of the
|
||
improduence of turning about to face Retribution when it is talking
|
||
exercise:
|
||
|
||
What, what! Dom Pedro, you desire to go
|
||
Back to Brazil to end your days in quiet?
|
||
Why, what assurance have you 'twould be so?
|
||
'Tis not so long since you were in a riot,
|
||
And your dear subjects showed a will to fly at
|
||
Your throat and shake you like a rat. You know
|
||
That empires are ungrateful; are you certain
|
||
Republics are less handy to get hurt in?
|
||
|
||
REVEILLE, n. A signal to sleeping soldiers to dream of battlefields
|
||
no more, but get up and have their blue noses counted. In the
|
||
American army it is ingeniously called "rev-e-lee," and to that
|
||
pronunciation our countrymen have pledged their lives, their
|
||
misfortunes and their sacred dishonor.
|
||
|
||
REVELATION, n. A famous book in which St. John the Divine concealed
|
||
all that he knew. The revealing is done by the commentators, who know
|
||
nothing.
|
||
|
||
REVERENCE, n. The spiritual attitude of a man to a god and a dog to a
|
||
man.
|
||
|
||
REVIEW, v.t.
|
||
|
||
To set your wisdom (holding not a doubt of it,
|
||
Although in truth there's neither bone nor skin to it)
|
||
At work upon a book, and so read out of it
|
||
The qualities that you have first read into it.
|
||
|
||
REVOLUTION, n. In politics, an abrupt change in the form of
|
||
misgovernment. Specifically, in American history, the substitution of
|
||
the rule of an Administration for that of a Ministry, whereby the
|
||
welfare and happiness of the people were advanced a full half-inch.
|
||
Revolutions are usually accompanied by a considerable effusion of
|
||
blood, but are accounted worth it -- this appraisement being made by
|
||
beneficiaries whose blood had not the mischance to be shed. The
|
||
French revolution is of incalculable value to the Socialist of to-day;
|
||
when he pulls the string actuating its bones its gestures are
|
||
inexpressibly terrifying to gory tyrants suspected of fomenting law
|
||
and order.
|
||
|
||
RHADOMANCER, n. One who uses a divining-rod in prospecting for
|
||
precious metals in the pocket of a fool.
|
||
|
||
RIBALDRY, n. Censorious language by another concerning oneself.
|
||
|
||
RIBROASTER, n. Censorious language by oneself concerning another.
|
||
The word is of classical refinement, and is even said to have been
|
||
used in a fable by Georgius Coadjutor, one of the most fastidious
|
||
writers of the fifteenth century -- commonly, indeed, regarded as the
|
||
founder of the Fastidiotic School.
|
||
|
||
RICE-WATER, n. A mystic beverage secretly used by our most popular
|
||
novelists and poets to regulate the imagination and narcotize the
|
||
conscience. It is said to be rich in both obtundite and lethargine,
|
||
and is brewed in a midnight fog by a fat which of the Dismal Swamp.
|
||
|
||
RICH, adj. Holding in trust and subject to an accounting the property
|
||
of the indolent, the incompetent, the unthrifty, the envious and the
|
||
luckless. That is the view that prevails in the underworld, where the
|
||
Brotherhood of Man finds its most logical development and candid
|
||
advocacy. To denizens of the midworld the word means good and wise.
|
||
|
||
RICHES, n.
|
||
|
||
A gift from Heaven signifying, "This is my beloved son, in
|
||
whom I am well pleased."
|
||
John D. Rockefeller
|
||
|
||
The reward of toil and virtue.
|
||
J.P. Morgan
|
||
|
||
The sayings of many in the hands of one.
|
||
Eugene Debs
|
||
|
||
To these excellent definitions the inspired lexicographer feels
|
||
that he can add nothing of value.
|
||
|
||
RIDICULE, n. Words designed to show that the person of whom they are
|
||
uttered is devoid of the dignity of character distinguishing him who
|
||
utters them. It may be graphic, mimetic or merely rident.
|
||
Shaftesbury is quoted as having pronounced it the test of truth -- a
|
||
ridiculous assertion, for many a solemn fallacy has undergone
|
||
centuries of ridicule with no abatement of its popular acceptance.
|
||
What, for example, has been more valorously derided than the doctrine
|
||
of Infant Respectability?
|
||
|
||
RIGHT, n. Legitimate authority to be, to do or to have; as the right
|
||
to be a king, the right to do one's neighbor, the right to have
|
||
measles, and the like. The first of these rights was once universally
|
||
believed to be derived directly from the will of God; and this is
|
||
still sometimes affirmed _in partibus infidelium_ outside the
|
||
enlightened realms of Democracy; as the well known lines of Sir
|
||
Abednego Bink, following:
|
||
|
||
By what right, then, do royal rulers rule?
|
||
Whose is the sanction of their state and pow'r?
|
||
He surely were as stubborn as a mule
|
||
Who, God unwilling, could maintain an hour
|
||
His uninvited session on the throne, or air
|
||
His pride securely in the Presidential chair.
|
||
|
||
Whatever is is so by Right Divine;
|
||
Whate'er occurs, God wills it so. Good land!
|
||
It were a wondrous thing if His design
|
||
A fool could baffle or a rogue withstand!
|
||
If so, then God, I say (intending no offence)
|
||
Is guilty of contributory negligence.
|
||
|
||
RIGHTEOUSNESS, n. A sturdy virtue that was once found among the
|
||
Pantidoodles inhabiting the lower part of the peninsula of Oque. Some
|
||
feeble attempts were made by returned missionaries to introduce it
|
||
into several European countries, but it appears to have been
|
||
imperfectly expounded. An example of this faulty exposition is found
|
||
in the only extant sermon of the pious Bishop Rowley, a characteristic
|
||
passage from which is here given:
|
||
|
||
"Now righteousness consisteth not merely in a holy state of
|
||
mind, nor yet in performance of religious rites and obedience to
|
||
the letter of the law. It is not enough that one be pious and
|
||
just: one must see to it that others also are in the same state;
|
||
and to this end compulsion is a proper means. Forasmuch as my
|
||
injustice may work ill to another, so by his injustice may evil be
|
||
wrought upon still another, the which it is as manifestly my duty
|
||
to estop as to forestall mine own tort. Wherefore if I would be
|
||
righteous I am bound to restrain my neighbor, by force if needful,
|
||
in all those injurious enterprises from which, through a better
|
||
disposition and by the help of Heaven, I do myself restrain."
|
||
|
||
RIME, n. Agreeing sounds in the terminals of verse, mostly bad. The
|
||
verses themselves, as distinguished from prose, mostly dull. Usually
|
||
(and wickedly) spelled "rhyme."
|
||
|
||
RIMER, n. A poet regarded with indifference or disesteem.
|
||
|
||
The rimer quenches his unheeded fires,
|
||
The sound surceases and the sense expires.
|
||
Then the domestic dog, to east and west,
|
||
Expounds the passions burning in his breast.
|
||
The rising moon o'er that enchanted land
|
||
Pauses to hear and yearns to understand.
|
||
Mowbray Myles
|
||
|
||
RIOT, n. A popular entertainment given to the military by innocent
|
||
bystanders.
|
||
|
||
R.I.P. A careless abbreviation of _requiescat in pace_, attesting to
|
||
indolent goodwill to the dead. According to the learned Dr. Drigge,
|
||
however, the letters originally meant nothing more than _reductus in
|
||
pulvis_.
|
||
|
||
RITE, n. A religious or semi-religious ceremony fixed by law, precept
|
||
or custom, with the essential oil of sincerity carefully squeezed out
|
||
of it.
|
||
|
||
RITUALISM, n. A Dutch Garden of God where He may walk in rectilinear
|
||
freedom, keeping off the grass.
|
||
|
||
ROAD, n. A strip of land along which one may pass from where it is
|
||
too tiresome to be to where it is futile to go.
|
||
|
||
All roads, howsoe'er they diverge, lead to Rome,
|
||
Whence, thank the good Lord, at least one leads back home.
|
||
Borey the Bald
|
||
|
||
ROBBER, n. A candid man of affairs.
|
||
It is related of Voltaire that one night he and some traveling
|
||
companion lodged at a wayside inn. The surroundings were suggestive,
|
||
and after supper they agreed to tell robber stories in turn. "Once
|
||
there was a Farmer-General of the Revenues." Saying nothing more, he
|
||
was encouraged to continue. "That," he said, "is the story."
|
||
|
||
ROMANCE, n. Fiction that owes no allegiance to the God of Things as
|
||
They Are. In the novel the writer's thought is tethered to
|
||
probability, as a domestic horse to the hitching-post, but in romance
|
||
it ranges at will over the entire region of the imagination -- free,
|
||
lawless, immune to bit and rein. Your novelist is a poor creature, as
|
||
Carlyle might say -- a mere reporter. He may invent his characters
|
||
and plot, but he must not imagine anything taking place that might not
|
||
occur, albeit his entire narrative is candidly a lie. Why he imposes
|
||
this hard condition on himself, and "drags at each remove a
|
||
lengthening chain" of his own forging he can explain in ten thick
|
||
volumes without illuminating by so much as a candle's ray the black
|
||
profound of his own ignorance of the matter. There are great novels,
|
||
for great writers have "laid waste their powers" to write them, but it
|
||
remains true that far and away the most fascinating fiction that we
|
||
have is "The Thousand and One Nights."
|
||
|
||
ROPE, n. An obsolescent appliance for reminding assassins that they
|
||
too are mortal. It is put about the neck and remains in place one's
|
||
whole life long. It has been largely superseded by a more complex
|
||
electrical device worn upon another part of the person; and this is
|
||
rapidly giving place to an apparatus known as the preachment.
|
||
|
||
ROSTRUM, n. In Latin, the beak of a bird or the prow of a ship. In
|
||
America, a place from which a candidate for office energetically
|
||
expounds the wisdom, virtue and power of the rabble.
|
||
|
||
ROUNDHEAD, n. A member of the Parliamentarian party in the English
|
||
civil war -- so called from his habit of wearing his hair short,
|
||
whereas his enemy, the Cavalier, wore his long. There were other
|
||
points of difference between them, but the fashion in hair was the
|
||
fundamental cause of quarrel. The Cavaliers were royalists because
|
||
the king, an indolent fellow, found it more convenient to let his hair
|
||
grow than to wash his neck. This the Roundheads, who were mostly
|
||
barbers and soap-boilers, deemed an injury to trade, and the royal
|
||
neck was therefore the object of their particular indignation.
|
||
Descendants of the belligerents now wear their hair all alike, but the
|
||
fires of animosity enkindled in that ancient strife smoulder to this
|
||
day beneath the snows of British civility.
|
||
|
||
RUBBISH, n. Worthless matter, such as the religions, philosophies,
|
||
literatures, arts and sciences of the tribes infesting the regions
|
||
lying due south from Boreaplas.
|
||
|
||
RUIN, v. To destroy. Specifically, to destroy a maid's belief in the
|
||
virtue of maids.
|
||
|
||
RUM, n. Generically, fiery liquors that produce madness in total
|
||
abstainers.
|
||
|
||
RUMOR, n. A favorite weapon of the assassins of character.
|
||
|
||
Sharp, irresistible by mail or shield,
|
||
By guard unparried as by flight unstayed,
|
||
O serviceable Rumor, let me wield
|
||
Against my enemy no other blade.
|
||
His be the terror of a foe unseen,
|
||
His the inutile hand upon the hilt,
|
||
And mine the deadly tongue, long, slender, keen,
|
||
Hinting a rumor of some ancient guilt.
|
||
So shall I slay the wretch without a blow,
|
||
Spare me to celebrate his overthrow,
|
||
And nurse my valor for another foe.
|
||
Joel Buxter
|
||
|
||
RUSSIAN, n. A person with a Caucasian body and a Mongolian soul. A
|
||
Tartar Emetic.
|
||
|
||
|
||
S
|
||
|
||
|
||
SABBATH, n. A weekly festival having its origin in the fact that God
|
||
made the world in six days and was arrested on the seventh. Among the
|
||
Jews observance of the day was enforced by a Commandment of which this
|
||
is the Christian version: "Remember the seventh day to make thy
|
||
neighbor keep it wholly." To the Creator it seemed fit and expedient
|
||
that the Sabbath should be the last day of the week, but the Early
|
||
Fathers of the Church held other views. So great is the sanctity of
|
||
the day that even where the Lord holds a doubtful and precarious
|
||
jurisdiction over those who go down to (and down into) the sea it is
|
||
reverently recognized, as is manifest in the following deep-water
|
||
version of the Fourth Commandment:
|
||
|
||
Six days shalt thou labor and do all thou art able,
|
||
And on the seventh holystone the deck and scrape the cable.
|
||
|
||
Decks are no longer holystoned, but the cable still supplies the
|
||
captain with opportunity to attest a pious respect for the divine
|
||
ordinance.
|
||
|
||
SACERDOTALIST, n. One who holds the belief that a clergyman is a
|
||
priest. Denial of this momentous doctrine is the hardest challenge
|
||
that is now flung into the teeth of the Episcopalian church by the
|
||
Neo-Dictionarians.
|
||
|
||
SACRAMENT, n. A solemn religious ceremony to which several degrees of
|
||
authority and significance are attached. Rome has seven sacraments,
|
||
but the Protestant churches, being less prosperous, feel that they can
|
||
afford only two, and these of inferior sanctity. Some of the smaller
|
||
sects have no sacraments at all -- for which mean economy they will
|
||
indubitable be damned.
|
||
|
||
SACRED, adj. Dedicated to some religious purpose; having a divine
|
||
character; inspiring solemn thoughts or emotions; as, the Dalai Lama
|
||
of Thibet; the Moogum of M'bwango; the temple of Apes in Ceylon; the
|
||
Cow in India; the Crocodile, the Cat and the Onion of ancient Egypt;
|
||
the Mufti of Moosh; the hair of the dog that bit Noah, etc.
|
||
|
||
All things are either sacred or profane.
|
||
The former to ecclesiasts bring gain;
|
||
The latter to the devil appertain.
|
||
Dumbo Omohundro
|
||
|
||
SANDLOTTER, n. A vertebrate mammal holding the political views of
|
||
Denis Kearney, a notorious demagogue of San Francisco, whose audiences
|
||
gathered in the open spaces (sandlots) of the town. True to the
|
||
traditions of his species, this leader of the proletariat was finally
|
||
bought off by his law-and-order enemies, living prosperously silent
|
||
and dying impenitently rich. But before his treason he imposed upon
|
||
California a constitution that was a confection of sin in a diction of
|
||
solecisms. The similarity between the words "sandlotter" and
|
||
"sansculotte" is problematically significant, but indubitably
|
||
suggestive.
|
||
|
||
SAFETY-CLUTCH, n. A mechanical device acting automatically to prevent
|
||
the fall of an elevator, or cage, in case of an accident to the
|
||
hoisting apparatus.
|
||
|
||
Once I seen a human ruin
|
||
In an elevator-well,
|
||
And his members was bestrewin'
|
||
All the place where he had fell.
|
||
|
||
And I says, apostrophisin'
|
||
That uncommon woful wreck:
|
||
"Your position's so surprisin'
|
||
That I tremble for your neck!"
|
||
|
||
Then that ruin, smilin' sadly
|
||
And impressive, up and spoke:
|
||
"Well, I wouldn't tremble badly,
|
||
For it's been a fortnight broke."
|
||
|
||
Then, for further comprehension
|
||
Of his attitude, he begs
|
||
I will focus my attention
|
||
On his various arms and legs --
|
||
|
||
How they all are contumacious;
|
||
Where they each, respective, lie;
|
||
How one trotter proves ungracious,
|
||
T'other one an _alibi_.
|
||
|
||
These particulars is mentioned
|
||
For to show his dismal state,
|
||
Which I wasn't first intentioned
|
||
To specifical relate.
|
||
|
||
None is worser to be dreaded
|
||
That I ever have heard tell
|
||
Than the gent's who there was spreaded
|
||
In that elevator-well.
|
||
|
||
Now this tale is allegoric --
|
||
It is figurative all,
|
||
For the well is metaphoric
|
||
And the feller didn't fall.
|
||
|
||
I opine it isn't moral
|
||
For a writer-man to cheat,
|
||
And despise to wear a laurel
|
||
As was gotten by deceit.
|
||
|
||
For 'tis Politics intended
|
||
By the elevator, mind,
|
||
It will boost a person splendid
|
||
If his talent is the kind.
|
||
|
||
Col. Bryan had the talent
|
||
(For the busted man is him)
|
||
And it shot him up right gallant
|
||
Till his head begun to swim.
|
||
|
||
Then the rope it broke above him
|
||
And he painful come to earth
|
||
Where there's nobody to love him
|
||
For his detrimented worth.
|
||
|
||
Though he's livin' none would know him,
|
||
Or at leastwise not as such.
|
||
Moral of this woful poem:
|
||
Frequent oil your safety-clutch.
|
||
Porfer Poog
|
||
|
||
SAINT, n. A dead sinner revised and edited.
|
||
The Duchess of Orleans relates that the irreverent old
|
||
calumniator, Marshal Villeroi, who in his youth had known St. Francis
|
||
de Sales, said, on hearing him called saint: "I am delighted to hear
|
||
that Monsieur de Sales is a saint. He was fond of saying indelicate
|
||
things, and used to cheat at cards. In other respects he was a
|
||
perfect gentleman, though a fool."
|
||
|
||
SALACITY, n. A certain literary quality frequently observed in
|
||
popular novels, especially in those written by women and young girls,
|
||
who give it another name and think that in introducing it they are
|
||
occupying a neglected field of letters and reaping an overlooked
|
||
harvest. If they have the misfortune to live long enough they are
|
||
tormented with a desire to burn their sheaves.
|
||
|
||
SALAMANDER, n. Originally a reptile inhabiting fire; later, an
|
||
anthropomorphous immortal, but still a pyrophile. Salamanders are now
|
||
believed to be extinct, the last one of which we have an account
|
||
having been seen in Carcassonne by the Abbe Belloc, who exorcised it
|
||
with a bucket of holy water.
|
||
|
||
SARCOPHAGUS, n. Among the Greeks a coffin which being made of a
|
||
certain kind of carnivorous stone, had the peculiar property of
|
||
devouring the body placed in it. The sarcophagus known to modern
|
||
obsequiographers is commonly a product of the carpenter's art.
|
||
|
||
SATAN, n. One of the Creator's lamentable mistakes, repented in
|
||
sashcloth and axes. Being instated as an archangel, Satan made
|
||
himself multifariously objectionable and was finally expelled from
|
||
Heaven. Halfway in his descent he paused, bent his head in thought a
|
||
moment and at last went back. "There is one favor that I should like
|
||
to ask," said he.
|
||
"Name it."
|
||
"Man, I understand, is about to be created. He will need laws."
|
||
"What, wretch! you his appointed adversary, charged from the dawn
|
||
of eternity with hatred of his soul -- you ask for the right to make
|
||
his laws?"
|
||
"Pardon; what I have to ask is that he be permitted to make them
|
||
himself."
|
||
It was so ordered.
|
||
|
||
SATIETY, n. The feeling that one has for the plate after he has eaten
|
||
its contents, madam.
|
||
|
||
SATIRE, n. An obsolete kind of literary composition in which the
|
||
vices and follies of the author's enemies were expounded with
|
||
imperfect tenderness. In this country satire never had more than a
|
||
sickly and uncertain existence, for the soul of it is wit, wherein we
|
||
are dolefully deficient, the humor that we mistake for it, like all
|
||
humor, being tolerant and sympathetic. Moreover, although Americans
|
||
are "endowed by their Creator" with abundant vice and folly, it is not
|
||
generally known that these are reprehensible qualities, wherefore the
|
||
satirist is popularly regarded as a soul-spirited knave, and his ever
|
||
victim's outcry for codefendants evokes a national assent.
|
||
|
||
Hail Satire! be thy praises ever sung
|
||
In the dead language of a mummy's tongue,
|
||
For thou thyself art dead, and damned as well --
|
||
Thy spirit (usefully employed) in Hell.
|
||
Had it been such as consecrates the Bible
|
||
Thou hadst not perished by the law of libel.
|
||
Barney Stims
|
||
|
||
SATYR, n. One of the few characters of the Grecian mythology accorded
|
||
recognition in the Hebrew. (Leviticus, xvii, 7.) The satyr was at
|
||
first a member of the dissolute community acknowledging a loose
|
||
allegiance with Dionysius, but underwent many transformations and
|
||
improvements. Not infrequently he is confounded with the faun, a
|
||
later and decenter creation of the Romans, who was less like a man and
|
||
more like a goat.
|
||
|
||
SAUCE, n. The one infallible sign of civilization and enlightenment.
|
||
A people with no sauces has one thousand vices; a people with one
|
||
sauce has only nine hundred and ninety-nine. For every sauce invented
|
||
and accepted a vice is renounced and forgiven.
|
||
|
||
SAW, n. A trite popular saying, or proverb. (Figurative and
|
||
colloquial.) So called because it makes its way into a wooden head.
|
||
Following are examples of old saws fitted with new teeth.
|
||
|
||
A penny saved is a penny to squander.
|
||
|
||
A man is known by the company that he organizes.
|
||
|
||
A bad workman quarrels with the man who calls him that.
|
||
|
||
A bird in the hand is worth what it will bring.
|
||
|
||
Better late than before anybody has invited you.
|
||
|
||
Example is better than following it.
|
||
|
||
Half a loaf is better than a whole one if there is much else.
|
||
|
||
Think twice before you speak to a friend in need.
|
||
|
||
What is worth doing is worth the trouble of asking somebody to
|
||
do it.
|
||
|
||
Least said is soonest disavowed.
|
||
|
||
He laughs best who laughs least.
|
||
|
||
Speak of the Devil and he will hear about it.
|
||
|
||
Of two evils choose to be the least.
|
||
|
||
Strike while your employer has a big contract.
|
||
|
||
Where there's a will there's a won't.
|
||
|
||
SCARABAEUS, n. The sacred beetle of the ancient Egyptians, allied to
|
||
our familiar "tumble-bug." It was supposed to symbolize immortality,
|
||
the fact that God knew why giving it its peculiar sanctity. Its habit
|
||
of incubating its eggs in a ball of ordure may also have commended it
|
||
to the favor of the priesthood, and may some day assure it an equal
|
||
reverence among ourselves. True, the American beetle is an inferior
|
||
beetle, but the American priest is an inferior priest.
|
||
|
||
SCARABEE, n. The same as scarabaeus.
|
||
|
||
He fell by his own hand
|
||
Beneath the great oak tree.
|
||
He'd traveled in a foreign land.
|
||
He tried to make her understand
|
||
The dance that's called the Saraband,
|
||
But he called it Scarabee.
|
||
He had called it so through an afternoon,
|
||
And she, the light of his harem if so might be,
|
||
Had smiled and said naught. O the body was fair to see,
|
||
All frosted there in the shine o' the moon --
|
||
Dead for a Scarabee
|
||
And a recollection that came too late.
|
||
O Fate!
|
||
They buried him where he lay,
|
||
He sleeps awaiting the Day,
|
||
In state,
|
||
And two Possible Puns, moon-eyed and wan,
|
||
Gloom over the grave and then move on.
|
||
Dead for a Scarabee!
|
||
Fernando Tapple
|
||
|
||
SCARIFICATION, n. A form of penance practised by the mediaeval pious.
|
||
The rite was performed, sometimes with a knife, sometimes with a hot
|
||
iron, but always, says Arsenius Asceticus, acceptably if the penitent
|
||
spared himself no pain nor harmless disfigurement. Scarification,
|
||
with other crude penances, has now been superseded by benefaction.
|
||
The founding of a library or endowment of a university is said to
|
||
yield to the penitent a sharper and more lasting pain than is
|
||
conferred by the knife or iron, and is therefore a surer means of
|
||
grace. There are, however, two grave objections to it as a
|
||
penitential method: the good that it does and the taint of justice.
|
||
|
||
SCEPTER, n. A king's staff of office, the sign and symbol of his
|
||
authority. It was originally a mace with which the sovereign
|
||
admonished his jester and vetoed ministerial measures by breaking the
|
||
bones of their proponents.
|
||
|
||
SCIMETAR, n. A curved sword of exceeding keenness, in the conduct of
|
||
which certain Orientals attain a surprising proficiency, as the
|
||
incident here related will serve to show. The account is translated
|
||
from the Japanese by Shusi Itama, a famous writer of the thirteenth
|
||
century.
|
||
|
||
When the great Gichi-Kuktai was Mikado he condemned to
|
||
decapitation Jijiji Ri, a high officer of the Court. Soon after
|
||
the hour appointed for performance of the rite what was his
|
||
Majesty's surprise to see calmly approaching the throne the man
|
||
who should have been at that time ten minutes dead!
|
||
"Seventeen hundred impossible dragons!" shouted the enraged
|
||
monarch. "Did I not sentence you to stand in the market-place and
|
||
have your head struck off by the public executioner at three
|
||
o'clock? And is it not now 3:10?"
|
||
"Son of a thousand illustrious deities," answered the
|
||
condemned minister, "all that you say is so true that the truth is
|
||
a lie in comparison. But your heavenly Majesty's sunny and
|
||
vitalizing wishes have been pestilently disregarded. With joy I
|
||
ran and placed my unworthy body in the market-place. The
|
||
executioner appeared with his bare scimetar, ostentatiously
|
||
whirled it in air, and then, tapping me lightly upon the neck,
|
||
strode away, pelted by the populace, with whom I was ever a
|
||
favorite. I am come to pray for justice upon his own dishonorable
|
||
and treasonous head."
|
||
"To what regiment of executioners does the black-boweled
|
||
caitiff belong?" asked the Mikado.
|
||
"To the gallant Ninety-eight Hundred and Thirty-seventh -- I
|
||
know the man. His name is Sakko-Samshi."
|
||
"Let him be brought before me," said the Mikado to an
|
||
attendant, and a half-hour later the culprit stood in the
|
||
Presence.
|
||
"Thou bastard son of a three-legged hunchback without thumbs!"
|
||
roared the sovereign -- "why didst thou but lightly tap the neck
|
||
that it should have been thy pleasure to sever?"
|
||
"Lord of Cranes of Cherry Blooms," replied the executioner,
|
||
unmoved, "command him to blow his nose with his fingers."
|
||
Being commanded, Jijiji Ri laid hold of his nose and trumpeted
|
||
like an elephant, all expecting to see the severed head flung
|
||
violently from him. Nothing occurred: the performance prospered
|
||
peacefully to the close, without incident.
|
||
All eyes were now turned on the executioner, who had grown as
|
||
white as the snows on the summit of Fujiama. His legs trembled
|
||
and his breath came in gasps of terror.
|
||
"Several kinds of spike-tailed brass lions!" he cried; "I am a
|
||
ruined and disgraced swordsman! I struck the villain feebly
|
||
because in flourishing the scimetar I had accidentally passed it
|
||
through my own neck! Father of the Moon, I resign my office."
|
||
So saying, he gasped his top-knot, lifted off his head, and
|
||
advancing to the throne laid it humbly at the Mikado's feet.
|
||
|
||
SCRAP-BOOK, n. A book that is commonly edited by a fool. Many
|
||
persons of some small distinction compile scrap-books containing
|
||
whatever they happen to read about themselves or employ others to
|
||
collect. One of these egotists was addressed in the lines following,
|
||
by Agamemnon Melancthon Peters:
|
||
|
||
Dear Frank, that scrap-book where you boast
|
||
You keep a record true
|
||
Of every kind of peppered roast
|
||
That's made of you;
|
||
|
||
Wherein you paste the printed gibes
|
||
That revel round your name,
|
||
Thinking the laughter of the scribes
|
||
Attests your fame;
|
||
|
||
Where all the pictures you arrange
|
||
That comic pencils trace --
|
||
Your funny figure and your strange
|
||
Semitic face --
|
||
|
||
Pray lend it me. Wit I have not,
|
||
Nor art, but there I'll list
|
||
The daily drubbings you'd have got
|
||
Had God a fist.
|
||
|
||
SCRIBBLER, n. A professional writer whose views are antagonistic to
|
||
one's own.
|
||
|
||
SCRIPTURES, n. The sacred books of our holy religion, as
|
||
distinguished from the false and profane writings on which all other
|
||
faiths are based.
|
||
|
||
SEAL, n. A mark impressed upon certain kinds of documents to attest
|
||
their authenticity and authority. Sometimes it is stamped upon wax,
|
||
and attached to the paper, sometimes into the paper itself. Sealing,
|
||
in this sense, is a survival of an ancient custom of inscribing
|
||
important papers with cabalistic words or signs to give them a magical
|
||
efficacy independent of the authority that they represent. In the
|
||
British museum are preserved many ancient papers, mostly of a
|
||
sacerdotal character, validated by necromantic pentagrams and other
|
||
devices, frequently initial letters of words to conjure with; and in
|
||
many instances these are attached in the same way that seals are
|
||
appended now. As nearly every reasonless and apparently meaningless
|
||
custom, rite or observance of modern times had origin in some remote
|
||
utility, it is pleasing to note an example of ancient nonsense
|
||
evolving in the process of ages into something really useful. Our
|
||
word "sincere" is derived from _sine cero_, without wax, but the
|
||
learned are not in agreement as to whether this refers to the absence
|
||
of the cabalistic signs, or to that of the wax with which letters were
|
||
formerly closed from public scrutiny. Either view of the matter will
|
||
serve one in immediate need of an hypothesis. The initials L.S.,
|
||
commonly appended to signatures of legal documents, mean _locum
|
||
sigillis_, the place of the seal, although the seal is no longer used
|
||
-- an admirable example of conservatism distinguishing Man from the
|
||
beasts that perish. The words _locum sigillis_ are humbly suggested
|
||
as a suitable motto for the Pribyloff Islands whenever they shall take
|
||
their place as a sovereign State of the American Union.
|
||
|
||
SEINE, n. A kind of net for effecting an involuntary change of
|
||
environment. For fish it is made strong and coarse, but women are
|
||
more easily taken with a singularly delicate fabric weighted with
|
||
small, cut stones.
|
||
|
||
The devil casting a seine of lace,
|
||
(With precious stones 'twas weighted)
|
||
Drew it into the landing place
|
||
And its contents calculated.
|
||
|
||
All souls of women were in that sack --
|
||
A draft miraculous, precious!
|
||
But ere he could throw it across his back
|
||
They'd all escaped through the meshes.
|
||
Baruch de Loppis
|
||
|
||
SELF-ESTEEM, n. An erroneous appraisement.
|
||
|
||
SELF-EVIDENT, adj. Evident to one's self and to nobody else.
|
||
|
||
SELFISH, adj. Devoid of consideration for the selfishness of others.
|
||
|
||
SENATE, n. A body of elderly gentlemen charged with high duties and
|
||
misdemeanors.
|
||
|
||
SERIAL, n. A literary work, usually a story that is not true,
|
||
creeping through several issues of a newspaper or magazine.
|
||
Frequently appended to each installment is a "synposis of preceding
|
||
chapters" for those who have not read them, but a direr need is a
|
||
synposis of succeeding chapters for those who do not intend to read
|
||
_them_. A synposis of the entire work would be still better.
|
||
The late James F. Bowman was writing a serial tale for a weekly
|
||
paper in collaboration with a genius whose name has not come down to
|
||
us. They wrote, not jointly but alternately, Bowman supplying the
|
||
installment for one week, his friend for the next, and so on, world
|
||
without end, they hoped. Unfortunately they quarreled, and one Monday
|
||
morning when Bowman read the paper to prepare himself for his task, he
|
||
found his work cut out for him in a way to surprise and pain him. His
|
||
collaborator had embarked every character of the narrative on a ship
|
||
and sunk them all in the deepest part of the Atlantic.
|
||
|
||
SEVERALTY, n. Separateness, as, lands in severalty, i.e., lands held
|
||
individually, not in joint ownership. Certain tribes of Indians are
|
||
believed now to be sufficiently civilized to have in severalty the
|
||
lands that they have hitherto held as tribal organizations, and could
|
||
not sell to the Whites for waxen beads and potato whiskey.
|
||
|
||
Lo! the poor Indian whose unsuited mind
|
||
Saw death before, hell and the grave behind;
|
||
Whom thrifty settler ne'er besought to stay --
|
||
His small belongings their appointed prey;
|
||
Whom Dispossession, with alluring wile,
|
||
Persuaded elsewhere every little while!
|
||
His fire unquenched and his undying worm
|
||
By "land in severalty" (charming term!)
|
||
Are cooled and killed, respectively, at last,
|
||
And he to his new holding anchored fast!
|
||
|
||
SHERIFF, n. In America the chief executive office of a country, whose
|
||
most characteristic duties, in some of the Western and Southern
|
||
States, are the catching and hanging of rogues.
|
||
|
||
John Elmer Pettibone Cajee
|
||
(I write of him with little glee)
|
||
Was just as bad as he could be.
|
||
|
||
'Twas frequently remarked: "I swon!
|
||
The sun has never looked upon
|
||
So bad a man as Neighbor John."
|
||
|
||
A sinner through and through, he had
|
||
This added fault: it made him mad
|
||
To know another man was bad.
|
||
|
||
In such a case he thought it right
|
||
To rise at any hour of night
|
||
And quench that wicked person's light.
|
||
|
||
Despite the town's entreaties, he
|
||
Would hale him to the nearest tree
|
||
And leave him swinging wide and free.
|
||
|
||
Or sometimes, if the humor came,
|
||
A luckless wight's reluctant frame
|
||
Was given to the cheerful flame.
|
||
|
||
While it was turning nice and brown,
|
||
All unconcerned John met the frown
|
||
Of that austere and righteous town.
|
||
|
||
"How sad," his neighbors said, "that he
|
||
So scornful of the law should be --
|
||
An anar c, h, i, s, t."
|
||
|
||
(That is the way that they preferred
|
||
To utter the abhorrent word,
|
||
So strong the aversion that it stirred.)
|
||
|
||
"Resolved," they said, continuing,
|
||
"That Badman John must cease this thing
|
||
Of having his unlawful fling.
|
||
|
||
"Now, by these sacred relics" -- here
|
||
Each man had out a souvenir
|
||
Got at a lynching yesteryear --
|
||
|
||
"By these we swear he shall forsake
|
||
His ways, nor cause our hearts to ache
|
||
By sins of rope and torch and stake.
|
||
|
||
"We'll tie his red right hand until
|
||
He'll have small freedom to fulfil
|
||
The mandates of his lawless will."
|
||
|
||
So, in convention then and there,
|
||
They named him Sheriff. The affair
|
||
Was opened, it is said, with prayer.
|
||
J. Milton Sloluck
|
||
|
||
SIREN, n. One of several musical prodigies famous for a vain attempt
|
||
to dissuade Odysseus from a life on the ocean wave. Figuratively, any
|
||
lady of splendid promise, dissembled purpose and disappointing
|
||
performance.
|
||
|
||
SLANG, n. The grunt of the human hog (_Pignoramus intolerabilis_)
|
||
with an audible memory. The speech of one who utters with his tongue
|
||
what he thinks with his ear, and feels the pride of a creator in
|
||
accomplishing the feat of a parrot. A means (under Providence) of
|
||
setting up as a wit without a capital of sense.
|
||
|
||
SMITHAREEN, n. A fragment, a decomponent part, a remain. The word is
|
||
used variously, but in the following verse on a noted female reformer
|
||
who opposed bicycle-riding by women because it "led them to the devil"
|
||
it is seen at its best:
|
||
|
||
The wheels go round without a sound --
|
||
The maidens hold high revel;
|
||
In sinful mood, insanely gay,
|
||
True spinsters spin adown the way
|
||
From duty to the devil!
|
||
They laugh, they sing, and -- ting-a-ling!
|
||
Their bells go all the morning;
|
||
Their lanterns bright bestar the night
|
||
Pedestrians a-warning.
|
||
With lifted hands Miss Charlotte stands,
|
||
Good-Lording and O-mying,
|
||
Her rheumatism forgotten quite,
|
||
Her fat with anger frying.
|
||
She blocks the path that leads to wrath,
|
||
Jack Satan's power defying.
|
||
The wheels go round without a sound
|
||
The lights burn red and blue and green.
|
||
What's this that's found upon the ground?
|
||
Poor Charlotte Smith's a smithareen!
|
||
John William Yope
|
||
|
||
SOPHISTRY, n. The controversial method of an opponent, distinguished
|
||
from one's own by superior insincerity and fooling. This method is
|
||
that of the later Sophists, a Grecian sect of philosophers who began
|
||
by teaching wisdom, prudence, science, art and, in brief, whatever men
|
||
ought to know, but lost themselves in a maze of quibbles and a fog of
|
||
words.
|
||
|
||
His bad opponent's "facts" he sweeps away,
|
||
And drags his sophistry to light of day;
|
||
Then swears they're pushed to madness who resort
|
||
To falsehood of so desperate a sort.
|
||
Not so; like sods upon a dead man's breast,
|
||
He lies most lightly who the least is pressed.
|
||
Polydore Smith
|
||
|
||
SORCERY, n. The ancient prototype and forerunner of political
|
||
influence. It was, however, deemed less respectable and sometimes was
|
||
punished by torture and death. Augustine Nicholas relates that a poor
|
||
peasant who had been accused of sorcery was put to the torture to
|
||
compel a confession. After enduring a few gentle agonies the
|
||
suffering simpleton admitted his guilt, but naively asked his
|
||
tormentors if it were not possible to be a sorcerer without knowing
|
||
it.
|
||
|
||
SOUL, n. A spiritual entity concerning which there hath been brave
|
||
disputation. Plato held that those souls which in a previous state of
|
||
existence (antedating Athens) had obtained the clearest glimpses of
|
||
eternal truth entered into the bodies of persons who became
|
||
philosophers. Plato himself was a philosopher. The souls that had
|
||
least contemplated divine truth animated the bodies of usurpers and
|
||
despots. Dionysius I, who had threatened to decapitate the broad-
|
||
browed philosopher, was a usurper and a despot. Plato, doubtless, was
|
||
not the first to construct a system of philosophy that could be quoted
|
||
against his enemies; certainly he was not the last.
|
||
"Concerning the nature of the soul," saith the renowned author of
|
||
_Diversiones Sanctorum_, "there hath been hardly more argument than
|
||
that of its place in the body. Mine own belief is that the soul hath
|
||
her seat in the abdomen -- in which faith we may discern and interpret
|
||
a truth hitherto unintelligible, namely that the glutton is of all men
|
||
most devout. He is said in the Scripture to 'make a god of his belly'
|
||
-- why, then, should he not be pious, having ever his Deity with him
|
||
to freshen his faith? Who so well as he can know the might and
|
||
majesty that he shrines? Truly and soberly, the soul and the stomach
|
||
are one Divine Entity; and such was the belief of Promasius, who
|
||
nevertheless erred in denying it immortality. He had observed that
|
||
its visible and material substance failed and decayed with the rest of
|
||
the body after death, but of its immaterial essence he knew nothing.
|
||
This is what we call the Appetite, and it survives the wreck and reek
|
||
of mortality, to be rewarded or punished in another world, according
|
||
to what it hath demanded in the flesh. The Appetite whose coarse
|
||
clamoring was for the unwholesome viands of the general market and the
|
||
public refectory shall be cast into eternal famine, whilst that which
|
||
firmly through civilly insisted on ortolans, caviare, terrapin,
|
||
anchovies, _pates de foie gras_ and all such Christian comestibles
|
||
shall flesh its spiritual tooth in the souls of them forever and ever,
|
||
and wreak its divine thirst upon the immortal parts of the rarest and
|
||
richest wines ever quaffed here below. Such is my religious faith,
|
||
though I grieve to confess that neither His Holiness the Pope nor His
|
||
Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury (whom I equally and profoundly
|
||
revere) will assent to its dissemination."
|
||
|
||
SPOOKER, n. A writer whose imagination concerns itself with
|
||
supernatural phenomena, especially in the doings of spooks. One of
|
||
the most illustrious spookers of our time is Mr. William D. Howells,
|
||
who introduces a well-credentialed reader to as respectable and
|
||
mannerly a company of spooks as one could wish to meet. To the terror
|
||
that invests the chairman of a district school board, the Howells
|
||
ghost adds something of the mystery enveloping a farmer from another
|
||
township.
|
||
|
||
STORY, n. A narrative, commonly untrue. The truth of the stories
|
||
here following has, however, not been successfully impeached.
|
||
|
||
One evening Mr. Rudolph Block, of New York, found himself seated
|
||
at dinner alongside Mr. Percival Pollard, the distinguished critic.
|
||
"Mr. Pollard," said he, "my book, _The Biography of a Dead Cow_,
|
||
is published anonymously, but you can hardly be ignorant of its
|
||
authorship. Yet in reviewing it you speak of it as the work of the
|
||
Idiot of the Century. Do you think that fair criticism?"
|
||
"I am very sorry, sir," replied the critic, amiably, "but it did
|
||
not occur to me that you really might not wish the public to know who
|
||
wrote it."
|
||
|
||
Mr. W.C. Morrow, who used to live in San Jose, California, was
|
||
addicted to writing ghost stories which made the reader feel as if a
|
||
stream of lizards, fresh from the ice, were streaking it up his back
|
||
and hiding in his hair. San Jose was at that time believed to be
|
||
haunted by the visible spirit of a noted bandit named Vasquez, who had
|
||
been hanged there. The town was not very well lighted, and it is
|
||
putting it mildly to say that San Jose was reluctant to be out o'
|
||
nights. One particularly dark night two gentlemen were abroad in the
|
||
loneliest spot within the city limits, talking loudly to keep up their
|
||
courage, when they came upon Mr. J.J. Owen, a well-known journalist.
|
||
"Why, Owen," said one, "what brings you here on such a night as
|
||
this? You told me that this is one of Vasquez' favorite haunts! And
|
||
you are a believer. Aren't you afraid to be out?"
|
||
"My dear fellow," the journalist replied with a drear autumnal
|
||
cadence in his speech, like the moan of a leaf-laden wind, "I am
|
||
afraid to be in. I have one of Will Morrow's stories in my pocket and
|
||
I don't dare to go where there is light enough to read it."
|
||
|
||
Rear-Admiral Schley and Representative Charles F. Joy were
|
||
standing near the Peace Monument, in Washington, discussing the
|
||
question, Is success a failure? Mr. Joy suddenly broke off in the
|
||
middle of an eloquent sentence, exclaiming: "Hello! I've heard that
|
||
band before. Santlemann's, I think."
|
||
"I don't hear any band," said Schley.
|
||
"Come to think, I don't either," said Joy; "but I see General
|
||
Miles coming down the avenue, and that pageant always affects me in
|
||
the same way as a brass band. One has to scrutinize one's impressions
|
||
pretty closely, or one will mistake their origin."
|
||
While the Admiral was digesting this hasty meal of philosophy
|
||
General Miles passed in review, a spectacle of impressive dignity.
|
||
When the tail of the seeming procession had passed and the two
|
||
observers had recovered from the transient blindness caused by its
|
||
effulgence --
|
||
"He seems to be enjoying himself," said the Admiral.
|
||
"There is nothing," assented Joy, thoughtfully, "that he enjoys
|
||
one-half so well."
|
||
|
||
The illustrious statesman, Champ Clark, once lived about a mile
|
||
from the village of Jebigue, in Missouri. One day he rode into town
|
||
on a favorite mule, and, hitching the beast on the sunny side of a
|
||
street, in front of a saloon, he went inside in his character of
|
||
teetotaler, to apprise the barkeeper that wine is a mocker. It was a
|
||
dreadfully hot day. Pretty soon a neighbor came in and seeing Clark,
|
||
said:
|
||
"Champ, it is not right to leave that mule out there in the sun.
|
||
He'll roast, sure! -- he was smoking as I passed him."
|
||
"O, he's all right," said Clark, lightly; "he's an inveterate
|
||
smoker."
|
||
The neighbor took a lemonade, but shook his head and repeated that
|
||
it was not right.
|
||
He was a conspirator. There had been a fire the night before: a
|
||
stable just around the corner had burned and a number of horses had
|
||
put on their immortality, among them a young colt, which was roasted
|
||
to a rich nut-brown. Some of the boys had turned Mr. Clark's mule
|
||
loose and substituted the mortal part of the colt. Presently another
|
||
man entered the saloon.
|
||
"For mercy's sake!" he said, taking it with sugar, "do remove that
|
||
mule, barkeeper: it smells."
|
||
"Yes," interposed Clark, "that animal has the best nose in
|
||
Missouri. But if he doesn't mind, you shouldn't."
|
||
In the course of human events Mr. Clark went out, and there,
|
||
apparently, lay the incinerated and shrunken remains of his charger.
|
||
The boys idd not have any fun out of Mr. Clarke, who looked at the
|
||
body and, with the non-committal expression to which he owes so much
|
||
of his political preferment, went away. But walking home late that
|
||
night he saw his mule standing silent and solemn by the wayside in the
|
||
misty moonlight. Mentioning the name of Helen Blazes with uncommon
|
||
emphasis, Mr. Clark took the back track as hard as ever he could hook
|
||
it, and passed the night in town.
|
||
|
||
General H.H. Wotherspoon, president of the Army War College, has a
|
||
pet rib-nosed baboon, an animal of uncommon intelligence but
|
||
imperfectly beautiful. Returning to his apartment one evening, the
|
||
General was surprised and pained to find Adam (for so the creature is
|
||
named, the general being a Darwinian) sitting up for him and wearing
|
||
his master's best uniform coat, epaulettes and all.
|
||
"You confounded remote ancestor!" thundered the great strategist,
|
||
"what do you mean by being out of bed after naps? -- and with my coat
|
||
on!"
|
||
Adam rose and with a reproachful look got down on all fours in the
|
||
manner of his kind and, scuffling across the room to a table, returned
|
||
with a visiting-card: General Barry had called and, judging by an
|
||
empty champagne bottle and several cigar-stumps, had been hospitably
|
||
entertained while waiting. The general apologized to his faithful
|
||
progenitor and retired. The next day he met General Barry, who said:
|
||
"Spoon, old man, when leaving you last evening I forgot to ask you
|
||
about those excellent cigars. Where did you get them?"
|
||
General Wotherspoon did not deign to reply, but walked away.
|
||
"Pardon me, please," said Barry, moving after him; "I was joking
|
||
of course. Why, I knew it was not you before I had been in the room
|
||
fifteen minutes."
|
||
|
||
SUCCESS, n. The one unpardonable sin against one's fellows. In
|
||
literature, and particularly in poetry, the elements of success are
|
||
exceedingly simple, and are admirably set forth in the following lines
|
||
by the reverend Father Gassalasca Jape, entitled, for some mysterious
|
||
reason, "John A. Joyce."
|
||
|
||
The bard who would prosper must carry a book,
|
||
Do his thinking in prose and wear
|
||
A crimson cravat, a far-away look
|
||
And a head of hexameter hair.
|
||
Be thin in your thought and your body'll be fat;
|
||
If you wear your hair long you needn't your hat.
|
||
|
||
SUFFRAGE, n. Expression of opinion by means of a ballot. The right
|
||
of suffrage (which is held to be both a privilege and a duty) means,
|
||
as commonly interpreted, the right to vote for the man of another
|
||
man's choice, and is highly prized. Refusal to do so has the bad name
|
||
of "incivism." The incivilian, however, cannot be properly arraigned
|
||
for his crime, for there is no legitimate accuser. If the accuser is
|
||
himself guilty he has no standing in the court of opinion; if not, he
|
||
profits by the crime, for A's abstention from voting gives greater
|
||
weight to the vote of B. By female suffrage is meant the right of a
|
||
woman to vote as some man tells her to. It is based on female
|
||
responsibility, which is somewhat limited. The woman most eager to
|
||
jump out of her petticoat to assert her rights is first to jump back
|
||
into it when threatened with a switching for misusing them.
|
||
|
||
SYCOPHANT, n. One who approaches Greatness on his belly so that he
|
||
may not be commanded to turn and be kicked. He is sometimes an
|
||
editor.
|
||
|
||
As the lean leech, its victim found, is pleased
|
||
To fix itself upon a part diseased
|
||
Till, its black hide distended with bad blood,
|
||
It drops to die of surfeit in the mud,
|
||
So the base sycophant with joy descries
|
||
His neighbor's weak spot and his mouth applies,
|
||
Gorges and prospers like the leech, although,
|
||
Unlike that reptile, he will not let go.
|
||
Gelasma, if it paid you to devote
|
||
Your talent to the service of a goat,
|
||
Showing by forceful logic that its beard
|
||
Is more than Aaron's fit to be revered;
|
||
If to the task of honoring its smell
|
||
Profit had prompted you, and love as well,
|
||
The world would benefit at last by you
|
||
And wealthy malefactors weep anew --
|
||
Your favor for a moment's space denied
|
||
And to the nobler object turned aside.
|
||
Is't not enough that thrifty millionaires
|
||
Who loot in freight and spoliate in fares,
|
||
Or, cursed with consciences that bid them fly
|
||
To safer villainies of darker dye,
|
||
Forswearing robbery and fain, instead,
|
||
To steal (they call it "cornering") our bread
|
||
May see you groveling their boots to lick
|
||
And begging for the favor of a kick?
|
||
Still must you follow to the bitter end
|
||
Your sycophantic disposition's trend,
|
||
And in your eagerness to please the rich
|
||
Hunt hungry sinners to their final ditch?
|
||
In Morgan's praise you smite the sounding wire,
|
||
And sing hosannas to great Havemeyher!
|
||
What's Satan done that him you should eschew?
|
||
He too is reeking rich -- deducting _you_.
|
||
|
||
SYLLOGISM, n. A logical formula consisting of a major and a minor
|
||
assumption and an inconsequent. (See LOGIC.)
|
||
|
||
SYLPH, n. An immaterial but visible being that inhabited the air when
|
||
the air was an element and before it was fatally polluted with factory
|
||
smoke, sewer gas and similar products of civilization. Sylphs were
|
||
allied to gnomes, nymphs and salamanders, which dwelt, respectively,
|
||
in earth, water and fire, all now insalubrious. Sylphs, like fowls of
|
||
the air, were male and female, to no purpose, apparently, for if they
|
||
had progeny they must have nested in accessible places, none of the
|
||
chicks having ever been seen.
|
||
|
||
SYMBOL, n. Something that is supposed to typify or stand for
|
||
something else. Many symbols are mere "survivals" -- things which
|
||
having no longer any utility continue to exist because we have
|
||
inherited the tendency to make them; as funereal urns carved on
|
||
memorial monuments. They were once real urns holding the ashes of the
|
||
dead. We cannot stop making them, but we can give them a name that
|
||
conceals our helplessness.
|
||
|
||
SYMBOLIC, adj. Pertaining to symbols and the use and interpretation
|
||
of symbols.
|
||
|
||
They say 'tis conscience feels compunction;
|
||
I hold that that's the stomach's function,
|
||
For of the sinner I have noted
|
||
That when he's sinned he's somewhat bloated,
|
||
Or ill some other ghastly fashion
|
||
Within that bowel of compassion.
|
||
True, I believe the only sinner
|
||
Is he that eats a shabby dinner.
|
||
You know how Adam with good reason,
|
||
For eating apples out of season,
|
||
Was "cursed." But that is all symbolic:
|
||
The truth is, Adam had the colic.
|
||
G.J.
|
||
|
||
|
||
T
|
||
|
||
|
||
T, the twentieth letter of the English alphabet, was by the Greeks
|
||
absurdly called _tau_. In the alphabet whence ours comes it had the
|
||
form of the rude corkscrew of the period, and when it stood alone
|
||
(which was more than the Phoenicians could always do) signified
|
||
_Tallegal_, translated by the learned Dr. Brownrigg, "tanglefoot."
|
||
|
||
TABLE D'HOTE, n. A caterer's thrifty concession to the universal
|
||
passion for irresponsibility.
|
||
|
||
Old Paunchinello, freshly wed,
|
||
Took Madam P. to table,
|
||
And there deliriously fed
|
||
As fast as he was able.
|
||
|
||
"I dote upon good grub," he cried,
|
||
Intent upon its throatage.
|
||
"Ah, yes," said the neglected bride,
|
||
"You're in your _table d'hotage_."
|
||
Associated Poets
|
||
|
||
TAIL, n. The part of an animal's spine that has transcended its
|
||
natural limitations to set up an independent existence in a world of
|
||
its own. Excepting in its foetal state, Man is without a tail, a
|
||
privation of which he attests an hereditary and uneasy consciousness
|
||
by the coat-skirt of the male and the train of the female, and by a
|
||
marked tendency to ornament that part of his attire where the tail
|
||
should be, and indubitably once was. This tendency is most observable
|
||
in the female of the species, in whom the ancestral sense is strong
|
||
and persistent. The tailed men described by Lord Monboddo are now
|
||
generally regarded as a product of an imagination unusually
|
||
susceptible to influences generated in the golden age of our pithecan
|
||
past.
|
||
|
||
TAKE, v.t. To acquire, frequently by force but preferably by stealth.
|
||
|
||
TALK, v.t. To commit an indiscretion without temptation, from an
|
||
impulse without purpose.
|
||
|
||
TARIFF, n. A scale of taxes on imports, designed to protect the
|
||
domestic producer against the greed of his consumer.
|
||
|
||
The Enemy of Human Souls
|
||
Sat grieving at the cost of coals;
|
||
For Hell had been annexed of late,
|
||
And was a sovereign Southern State.
|
||
|
||
"It were no more than right," said he,
|
||
"That I should get my fuel free.
|
||
The duty, neither just nor wise,
|
||
Compels me to economize --
|
||
Whereby my broilers, every one,
|
||
Are execrably underdone.
|
||
What would they have? -- although I yearn
|
||
To do them nicely to a turn,
|
||
I can't afford an honest heat.
|
||
This tariff makes even devils cheat!
|
||
I'm ruined, and my humble trade
|
||
All rascals may at will invade:
|
||
Beneath my nose the public press
|
||
Outdoes me in sulphureousness;
|
||
The bar ingeniously applies
|
||
To my undoing my own lies;
|
||
My medicines the doctors use
|
||
(Albeit vainly) to refuse
|
||
To me my fair and rightful prey
|
||
And keep their own in shape to pay;
|
||
The preachers by example teach
|
||
What, scorning to perform, I teach;
|
||
And statesmen, aping me, all make
|
||
More promises than they can break.
|
||
Against such competition I
|
||
Lift up a disregarded cry.
|
||
Since all ignore my just complaint,
|
||
By Hokey-Pokey! I'll turn saint!"
|
||
Now, the Republicans, who all
|
||
Are saints, began at once to bawl
|
||
Against _his_ competition; so
|
||
There was a devil of a go!
|
||
They locked horns with him, tete-a-tete
|
||
In acrimonious debate,
|
||
Till Democrats, forlorn and lone,
|
||
Had hopes of coming by their own.
|
||
That evil to avert, in haste
|
||
The two belligerents embraced;
|
||
But since 'twere wicked to relax
|
||
A tittle of the Sacred Tax,
|
||
'Twas finally agreed to grant
|
||
The bold Insurgent-protestant
|
||
A bounty on each soul that fell
|
||
Into his ineffectual Hell.
|
||
Edam Smith
|
||
|
||
TECHNICALITY, n. In an English court a man named Home was tried for
|
||
slander in having accused his neighbor of murder. His exact words
|
||
were: "Sir Thomas Holt hath taken a cleaver and stricken his cook
|
||
upon the head, so that one side of the head fell upon one shoulder and
|
||
the other side upon the other shoulder." The defendant was acquitted
|
||
by instruction of the court, the learned judges holding that the words
|
||
did not charge murder, for they did not affirm the death of the cook,
|
||
that being only an inference.
|
||
|
||
TEDIUM, n. Ennui, the state or condition of one that is bored. Many
|
||
fanciful derivations of the word have been affirmed, but so high an
|
||
authority as Father Jape says that it comes from a very obvious
|
||
source -- the first words of the ancient Latin hymn _Te Deum
|
||
Laudamus_. In this apparently natural derivation there is something
|
||
that saddens.
|
||
|
||
TEETOTALER, n. One who abstains from strong drink, sometimes totally,
|
||
sometimes tolerably totally.
|
||
|
||
TELEPHONE, n. An invention of the devil which abrogates some of the
|
||
advantages of making a disagreeable person keep his distance.
|
||
|
||
TELESCOPE, n. A device having a relation to the eye similar to that
|
||
of the telephone to the ear, enabling distant objects to plague us
|
||
with a multitude of needless details. Luckily it is unprovided with a
|
||
bell summoning us to the sacrifice.
|
||
|
||
TENACITY, n. A certain quality of the human hand in its relation to
|
||
the coin of the realm. It attains its highest development in the hand
|
||
of authority and is considered a serviceable equipment for a career in
|
||
politics. The following illustrative lines were written of a
|
||
Californian gentleman in high political preferment, who has passed to
|
||
his accounting:
|
||
|
||
Of such tenacity his grip
|
||
That nothing from his hand can slip.
|
||
Well-buttered eels you may o'erwhelm
|
||
In tubs of liquid slippery-elm
|
||
In vain -- from his detaining pinch
|
||
They cannot struggle half an inch!
|
||
'Tis lucky that he so is planned
|
||
That breath he draws not with his hand,
|
||
For if he did, so great his greed
|
||
He'd draw his last with eager speed.
|
||
Nay, that were well, you say. Not so
|
||
He'd draw but never let it go!
|
||
|
||
THEOSOPHY, n. An ancient faith having all the certitude of religion
|
||
and all the mystery of science. The modern Theosophist holds, with
|
||
the Buddhists, that we live an incalculable number of times on this
|
||
earth, in as many several bodies, because one life is not long enough
|
||
for our complete spiritual development; that is, a single lifetime
|
||
does not suffice for us to become as wise and good as we choose to
|
||
wish to become. To be absolutely wise and good -- that is perfection;
|
||
and the Theosophist is so keen-sighted as to have observed that
|
||
everything desirous of improvement eventually attains perfection.
|
||
Less competent observers are disposed to except cats, which seem
|
||
neither wiser nor better than they were last year. The greatest and
|
||
fattest of recent Theosophists was the late Madame Blavatsky, who had
|
||
no cat.
|
||
|
||
TIGHTS, n. An habiliment of the stage designed to reinforce the
|
||
general acclamation of the press agent with a particular publicity.
|
||
Public attention was once somewhat diverted from this garment to Miss
|
||
Lillian Russell's refusal to wear it, and many were the conjectures as
|
||
to her motive, the guess of Miss Pauline Hall showing a high order of
|
||
ingenuity and sustained reflection. It was Miss Hall's belief that
|
||
nature had not endowed Miss Russell with beautiful legs. This theory
|
||
was impossible of acceptance by the male understanding, but the
|
||
conception of a faulty female leg was of so prodigious originality as
|
||
to rank among the most brilliant feats of philosophical speculation!
|
||
It is strange that in all the controversy regarding Miss Russell's
|
||
aversion to tights no one seems to have thought to ascribe it to what
|
||
was known among the ancients as "modesty." The nature of that
|
||
sentiment is now imperfectly understood, and possibly incapable of
|
||
exposition with the vocabulary that remains to us. The study of lost
|
||
arts has, however, been recently revived and some of the arts
|
||
themselves recovered. This is an epoch of _renaissances_, and there
|
||
is ground for hope that the primitive "blush" may be dragged from its
|
||
hiding-place amongst the tombs of antiquity and hissed on to the
|
||
stage.
|
||
|
||
TOMB, n. The House of Indifference. Tombs are now by common consent
|
||
invested with a certain sanctity, but when they have been long
|
||
tenanted it is considered no sin to break them open and rifle them,
|
||
the famous Egyptologist, Dr. Huggyns, explaining that a tomb may be
|
||
innocently "glened" as soon as its occupant is done "smellynge," the
|
||
soul being then all exhaled. This reasonable view is now generally
|
||
accepted by archaeologists, whereby the noble science of Curiosity has
|
||
been greatly dignified.
|
||
|
||
TOPE, v. To tipple, booze, swill, soak, guzzle, lush, bib, or swig.
|
||
In the individual, toping is regarded with disesteem, but toping
|
||
nations are in the forefront of civilization and power. When pitted
|
||
against the hard-drinking Christians the absemious Mahometans go down
|
||
like grass before the scythe. In India one hundred thousand beef-
|
||
eating and brandy-and-soda guzzling Britons hold in subjection two
|
||
hundred and fifty million vegetarian abstainers of the same Aryan
|
||
race. With what an easy grace the whisky-loving American pushed the
|
||
temperate Spaniard out of his possessions! From the time when the
|
||
Berserkers ravaged all the coasts of western Europe and lay drunk in
|
||
every conquered port it has been the same way: everywhere the nations
|
||
that drink too much are observed to fight rather well and not too
|
||
righteously. Wherefore the estimable old ladies who abolished the
|
||
canteen from the American army may justly boast of having materially
|
||
augmented the nation's military power.
|
||
|
||
TORTOISE, n. A creature thoughtfully created to supply occasion for
|
||
the following lines by the illustrious Ambat Delaso:
|
||
|
||
TO MY PET TORTOISE
|
||
|
||
My friend, you are not graceful -- not at all;
|
||
Your gait's between a stagger and a sprawl.
|
||
|
||
Nor are you beautiful: your head's a snake's
|
||
To look at, and I do not doubt it aches.
|
||
|
||
As to your feet, they'd make an angel weep.
|
||
'Tis true you take them in whene'er you sleep.
|
||
|
||
No, you're not pretty, but you have, I own,
|
||
A certain firmness -- mostly you're [sic] backbone.
|
||
|
||
Firmness and strength (you have a giant's thews)
|
||
Are virtues that the great know how to use --
|
||
|
||
I wish that they did not; yet, on the whole,
|
||
You lack -- excuse my mentioning it -- Soul.
|
||
|
||
So, to be candid, unreserved and true,
|
||
I'd rather you were I than I were you.
|
||
|
||
Perhaps, however, in a time to be,
|
||
When Man's extinct, a better world may see
|
||
|
||
Your progeny in power and control,
|
||
Due to the genesis and growth of Soul.
|
||
|
||
So I salute you as a reptile grand
|
||
Predestined to regenerate the land.
|
||
|
||
Father of Possibilities, O deign
|
||
To accept the homage of a dying reign!
|
||
|
||
In the far region of the unforeknown
|
||
I dream a tortoise upon every throne.
|
||
|
||
I see an Emperor his head withdraw
|
||
Into his carapace for fear of Law;
|
||
|
||
A King who carries something else than fat,
|
||
Howe'er acceptably he carries that;
|
||
|
||
A President not strenuously bent
|
||
On punishment of audible dissent --
|
||
|
||
Who never shot (it were a vain attack)
|
||
An armed or unarmed tortoise in the back;
|
||
|
||
Subject and citizens that feel no need
|
||
To make the March of Mind a wild stampede;
|
||
|
||
All progress slow, contemplative, sedate,
|
||
And "Take your time" the word, in Church and State.
|
||
|
||
O Tortoise, 'tis a happy, happy dream,
|
||
My glorious testudinous regime!
|
||
|
||
I wish in Eden you'd brought this about
|
||
By slouching in and chasing Adam out.
|
||
|
||
TREE, n. A tall vegetable intended by nature to serve as a penal
|
||
apparatus, though through a miscarriage of justice most trees bear
|
||
only a negligible fruit, or none at all. When naturally fruited, the
|
||
tree is a beneficient agency of civilization and an important factor
|
||
in public morals. In the stern West and the sensitive South its fruit
|
||
(white and black respectively) though not eaten, is agreeable to the
|
||
public taste and, though not exported, profitable to the general
|
||
welfare. That the legitimate relation of the tree to justice was no
|
||
discovery of Judge Lynch (who, indeed, conceded it no primacy over the
|
||
lamp-post and the bridge-girder) is made plain by the following
|
||
passage from Morryster, who antedated him by two centuries:
|
||
|
||
While in yt londe I was carried to see ye Ghogo tree, whereof
|
||
I had hearde moch talk; but sayynge yt I saw naught remarkabyll in
|
||
it, ye hed manne of ye villayge where it grewe made answer as
|
||
followeth:
|
||
"Ye tree is not nowe in fruite, but in his seasonne you shall
|
||
see dependynge fr. his braunches all soch as have affroynted ye
|
||
King his Majesty."
|
||
And I was furder tolde yt ye worde "Ghogo" sygnifyeth in yr
|
||
tong ye same as "rapscal" in our owne.
|
||
_Trauvells in ye Easte_
|
||
|
||
TRIAL, n. A formal inquiry designed to prove and put upon record the
|
||
blameless characters of judges, advocates and jurors. In order to
|
||
effect this purpose it is necessary to supply a contrast in the person
|
||
of one who is called the defendant, the prisoner, or the accused. If
|
||
the contrast is made sufficiently clear this person is made to undergo
|
||
such an affliction as will give the virtuous gentlemen a comfortable
|
||
sense of their immunity, added to that of their worth. In our day the
|
||
accused is usually a human being, or a socialist, but in mediaeval
|
||
times, animals, fishes, reptiles and insects were brought to trial. A
|
||
beast that had taken human life, or practiced sorcery, was duly
|
||
arrested, tried and, if condemned, put to death by the public
|
||
executioner. Insects ravaging grain fields, orchards or vineyards
|
||
were cited to appeal by counsel before a civil tribunal, and after
|
||
testimony, argument and condemnation, if they continued _in
|
||
contumaciam_ the matter was taken to a high ecclesiastical court,
|
||
where they were solemnly excommunicated and anathematized. In a
|
||
street of Toledo, some pigs that had wickedly run between the
|
||
viceroy's legs, upsetting him, were arrested on a warrant, tried and
|
||
punished. In Naples and ass was condemned to be burned at the stake,
|
||
but the sentence appears not to have been executed. D'Addosio relates
|
||
from the court records many trials of pigs, bulls, horses, cocks,
|
||
dogs, goats, etc., greatly, it is believed, to the betterment of their
|
||
conduct and morals. In 1451 a suit was brought against the leeches
|
||
infesting some ponds about Berne, and the Bishop of Lausanne,
|
||
instructed by the faculty of Heidelberg University, directed that some
|
||
of "the aquatic worms" be brought before the local magistracy. This
|
||
was done and the leeches, both present and absent, were ordered to
|
||
leave the places that they had infested within three days on pain of
|
||
incurring "the malediction of God." In the voluminous records of this
|
||
_cause celebre_ nothing is found to show whether the offenders braved
|
||
the punishment, or departed forthwith out of that inhospitable
|
||
jurisdiction.
|
||
|
||
TRICHINOSIS, n. The pig's reply to proponents of porcophagy.
|
||
Moses Mendlessohn having fallen ill sent for a Christian
|
||
physician, who at once diagnosed the philosopher's disorder as
|
||
trichinosis, but tactfully gave it another name. "You need and
|
||
immediate change of diet," he said; "you must eat six ounces of pork
|
||
every other day."
|
||
"Pork?" shrieked the patient -- "pork? Nothing shall induce me to
|
||
touch it!"
|
||
"Do you mean that?" the doctor gravely asked.
|
||
"I swear it!"
|
||
"Good! -- then I will undertake to cure you."
|
||
|
||
TRINITY, n. In the multiplex theism of certain Christian churches,
|
||
three entirely distinct deities consistent with only one. Subordinate
|
||
deities of the polytheistic faith, such as devils and angels, are not
|
||
dowered with the power of combination, and must urge individually
|
||
their clames to adoration and propitiation. The Trinity is one of the
|
||
most sublime mysteries of our holy religion. In rejecting it because
|
||
it is incomprehensible, Unitarians betray their inadequate sense of
|
||
theological fundamentals. In religion we believe only what we do not
|
||
understand, except in the instance of an intelligible doctrine that
|
||
contradicts an incomprehensible one. In that case we believe the
|
||
former as a part of the latter.
|
||
|
||
TROGLODYTE, n. Specifically, a cave-dweller of the paleolithic
|
||
period, after the Tree and before the Flat. A famous community of
|
||
troglodytes dwelt with David in the Cave of Adullam. The colony
|
||
consisted of "every one that was in distress, and every one that was
|
||
in debt, and every one that was discontented" -- in brief, all the
|
||
Socialists of Judah.
|
||
|
||
TRUCE, n. Friendship.
|
||
|
||
TRUTH, n. An ingenious compound of desirability and appearance.
|
||
Discovery of truth is the sole purpose of philosophy, which is the
|
||
most ancient occupation of the human mind and has a fair prospect of
|
||
existing with increasing activity to the end of time.
|
||
|
||
TRUTHFUL, adj. Dumb and illiterate.
|
||
|
||
TRUST, n. In American politics, a large corporation composed in
|
||
greater part of thrifty working men, widows of small means, orphans in
|
||
the care of guardians and the courts, with many similar malefactors
|
||
and public enemies.
|
||
|
||
TURKEY, n. A large bird whose flesh when eaten on certain religious
|
||
anniversaries has the peculiar property of attesting piety and
|
||
gratitude. Incidentally, it is pretty good eating.
|
||
|
||
TWICE, adv. Once too often.
|
||
|
||
TYPE, n. Pestilent bits of metal suspected of destroying
|
||
civilization and enlightenment, despite their obvious agency in this
|
||
incomparable dictionary.
|
||
|
||
TZETZE (or TSETSE) FLY, n. An African insect (_Glossina morsitans_)
|
||
whose bite is commonly regarded as nature's most efficacious remedy
|
||
for insomnia, though some patients prefer that of the American
|
||
novelist (_Mendax interminabilis_).
|
||
|
||
|
||
U
|
||
|
||
|
||
UBIQUITY, n. The gift or power of being in all places at one time,
|
||
but not in all places at all times, which is omnipresence, an
|
||
attribute of God and the luminiferous ether only. This important
|
||
distinction between ubiquity and omnipresence was not clear to the
|
||
mediaeval Church and there was much bloodshed about it. Certain
|
||
Lutherans, who affirmed the presence everywhere of Christ's body were
|
||
known as Ubiquitarians. For this error they were doubtless damned,
|
||
for Christ's body is present only in the eucharist, though that
|
||
sacrament may be performed in more than one place simultaneously. In
|
||
recent times ubiquity has not always been understood -- not even by
|
||
Sir Boyle Roche, for example, who held that a man cannot be in two
|
||
places at once unless he is a bird.
|
||
|
||
UGLINESS, n. A gift of the gods to certain women, entailing virtue
|
||
without humility.
|
||
|
||
ULTIMATUM, n. In diplomacy, a last demand before resorting to
|
||
concessions.
|
||
Having received an ultimatum from Austria, the Turkish Ministry
|
||
met to consider it.
|
||
"O servant of the Prophet," said the Sheik of the Imperial Chibouk
|
||
to the Mamoosh of the Invincible Army, "how many unconquerable
|
||
soldiers have we in arms?"
|
||
"Upholder of the Faith," that dignitary replied after examining
|
||
his memoranda, "they are in numbers as the leaves of the forest!"
|
||
"And how many impenetrable battleships strike terror to the hearts
|
||
of all Christian swine?" he asked the Imaum of the Ever Victorious
|
||
Navy.
|
||
"Uncle of the Full Moon," was the reply, "deign to know that they
|
||
are as the waves of the ocean, the sands of the desert and the stars
|
||
of Heaven!"
|
||
For eight hours the broad brow of the Sheik of the Imperial
|
||
Chibouk was corrugated with evidences of deep thought: he was
|
||
calculating the chances of war. Then, "Sons of angels," he said, "the
|
||
die is cast! I shall suggest to the Ulema of the Imperial Ear that he
|
||
advise inaction. In the name of Allah, the council is adjourned."
|
||
|
||
UN-AMERICAN, adj. Wicked, intolerable, heathenish.
|
||
|
||
UNCTION, n. An oiling, or greasing. The rite of extreme unction
|
||
consists in touching with oil consecrated by a bishop several parts of
|
||
the body of one engaged in dying. Marbury relates that after the rite
|
||
had been administered to a certain wicked English nobleman it was
|
||
discovered that the oil had not been properly consecrated and no other
|
||
could be obtained. When informed of this the sick man said in anger:
|
||
"Then I'll be damned if I die!"
|
||
"My son," said the priest, "this is what we fear."
|
||
|
||
UNDERSTANDING, n. A cerebral secretion that enables one having it to
|
||
know a house from a horse by the roof on the house. Its nature and
|
||
laws have been exhaustively expounded by Locke, who rode a house, and
|
||
Kant, who lived in a horse.
|
||
|
||
His understanding was so keen
|
||
That all things which he'd felt, heard, seen,
|
||
He could interpret without fail
|
||
If he was in or out of jail.
|
||
He wrote at Inspiration's call
|
||
Deep disquisitions on them all,
|
||
Then, pent at last in an asylum,
|
||
Performed the service to compile 'em.
|
||
So great a writer, all men swore,
|
||
They never had not read before.
|
||
Jorrock Wormley
|
||
|
||
UNITARIAN, n. One who denies the divinity of a Trinitarian.
|
||
|
||
UNIVERSALIST, n. One who forgoes the advantage of a Hell for persons
|
||
of another faith.
|
||
|
||
URBANITY, n. The kind of civility that urban observers ascribe to
|
||
dwellers in all cities but New York. Its commonest expression is
|
||
heard in the words, "I beg your pardon," and it is not consistent with
|
||
disregard of the rights of others.
|
||
|
||
The owner of a powder mill
|
||
Was musing on a distant hill --
|
||
Something his mind foreboded --
|
||
When from the cloudless sky there fell
|
||
A deviled human kidney! Well,
|
||
The man's mill had exploded.
|
||
His hat he lifted from his head;
|
||
"I beg your pardon, sir," he said;
|
||
"I didn't know 'twas loaded."
|
||
Swatkin
|
||
|
||
USAGE, n. The First Person of the literary Trinity, the Second and
|
||
Third being Custom and Conventionality. Imbued with a decent
|
||
reverence for this Holy Triad an industrious writer may hope to
|
||
produce books that will live as long as the fashion.
|
||
|
||
UXORIOUSNESS, n. A perverted affection that has strayed to one's own
|
||
wife.
|
||
|
||
|
||
V
|
||
|
||
|
||
VALOR, n. A soldierly compound of vanity, duty and the gambler's
|
||
hope.
|
||
"Why have you halted?" roared the commander of a division and
|
||
Chickamauga, who had ordered a charge; "move forward, sir, at once."
|
||
"General," said the commander of the delinquent brigade, "I am
|
||
persuaded that any further display of valor by my troops will bring
|
||
them into collision with the enemy."
|
||
|
||
VANITY, n. The tribute of a fool to the worth of the nearest ass.
|
||
|
||
They say that hens do cackle loudest when
|
||
There's nothing vital in the eggs they've laid;
|
||
And there are hens, professing to have made
|
||
A study of mankind, who say that men
|
||
Whose business 'tis to drive the tongue or pen
|
||
Make the most clamorous fanfaronade
|
||
O'er their most worthless work; and I'm afraid
|
||
They're not entirely different from the hen.
|
||
Lo! the drum-major in his coat of gold,
|
||
His blazing breeches and high-towering cap --
|
||
Imperiously pompous, grandly bold,
|
||
Grim, resolute, an awe-inspiring chap!
|
||
Who'd think this gorgeous creature's only virtue
|
||
Is that in battle he will never hurt you?
|
||
Hannibal Hunsiker
|
||
|
||
VIRTUES, n.pl. Certain abstentions.
|
||
|
||
VITUPERATION, n. Saite, as understood by dunces and all such as
|
||
suffer from an impediment in their wit.
|
||
|
||
VOTE, n. The instrument and symbol of a freeman's power to make a
|
||
fool of himself and a wreck of his country.
|
||
|
||
|
||
W
|
||
|
||
|
||
W (double U) has, of all the letters in our alphabet, the only
|
||
cumbrous name, the names of the others being monosyllabic. This
|
||
advantage of the Roman alphabet over the Grecian is the more valued
|
||
after audibly spelling out some simple Greek word, like
|
||
_epixoriambikos_. Still, it is now thought by the learned that other
|
||
agencies than the difference of the two alphabets may have been
|
||
concerned in the decline of "the glory that was Greece" and the rise
|
||
of "the grandeur that was Rome." There can be no doubt, however, that
|
||
by simplifying the name of W (calling it "wow," for example) our
|
||
civilization could be, if not promoted, at least better endured.
|
||
|
||
WALL STREET, n. A symbol for sin for every devil to rebuke. That
|
||
Wall Street is a den of thieves is a belief that serves every
|
||
unsuccessful thief in place of a hope in Heaven. Even the great and
|
||
good Andrew Carnegie has made his profession of faith in the matter.
|
||
|
||
Carnegie the dauntless has uttered his call
|
||
To battle: "The brokers are parasites all!"
|
||
Carnegie, Carnegie, you'll never prevail;
|
||
Keep the wind of your slogan to belly your sail,
|
||
Go back to your isle of perpetual brume,
|
||
Silence your pibroch, doff tartan and plume:
|
||
Ben Lomond is calling his son from the fray --
|
||
Fly, fly from the region of Wall Street away!
|
||
While still you're possessed of a single baubee
|
||
(I wish it were pledged to endowment of me)
|
||
'Twere wise to retreat from the wars of finance
|
||
Lest its value decline ere your credit advance.
|
||
For a man 'twixt a king of finance and the sea,
|
||
Carnegie, Carnegie, your tongue is too free!
|
||
Anonymus Bink
|
||
|
||
WAR, n. A by-product of the arts of peace. The most menacing
|
||
political condition is a period of international amity. The student
|
||
of history who has not been taught to expect the unexpected may justly
|
||
boast himself inaccessible to the light. "In time of peace prepare
|
||
for war" has a deeper meaning than is commonly discerned; it means,
|
||
not merely that all things earthly have an end -- that change is the
|
||
one immutable and eternal law -- but that the soil of peace is thickly
|
||
sown with the seeds of war and singularly suited to their germination
|
||
and growth. It was when Kubla Khan had decreed his "stately pleasure
|
||
dome" -- when, that is to say, there were peace and fat feasting in
|
||
Xanadu -- that he
|
||
|
||
heard from afar
|
||
Ancestral voices prophesying war.
|
||
|
||
One of the greatest of poets, Coleridge was one of the wisest of
|
||
men, and it was not for nothing that he read us this parable. Let us
|
||
have a little less of "hands across the sea," and a little more of
|
||
that elemental distrust that is the security of nations. War loves to
|
||
come like a thief in the night; professions of eternal amity provide
|
||
the night.
|
||
|
||
WASHINGTONIAN, n. A Potomac tribesman who exchanged the privilege of
|
||
governing himself for the advantage of good government. In justice to
|
||
him it should be said that he did not want to.
|
||
|
||
They took away his vote and gave instead
|
||
The right, when he had earned, to _eat_ his bread.
|
||
In vain -- he clamors for his "boss," pour soul,
|
||
To come again and part him from his roll.
|
||
Offenbach Stutz
|
||
|
||
WEAKNESSES, n.pl. Certain primal powers of Tyrant Woman wherewith she
|
||
holds dominion over the male of her species, binding him to the
|
||
service of her will and paralyzing his rebellious energies.
|
||
|
||
WEATHER, n. The climate of the hour. A permanent topic of
|
||
conversation among persons whom it does not interest, but who have
|
||
inherited the tendency to chatter about it from naked arboreal
|
||
ancestors whom it keenly concerned. The setting up official weather
|
||
bureaus and their maintenance in mendacity prove that even governments
|
||
are accessible to suasion by the rude forefathers of the jungle.
|
||
|
||
Once I dipt into the future far as human eye could see,
|
||
And I saw the Chief Forecaster, dead as any one can be --
|
||
Dead and damned and shut in Hades as a liar from his birth,
|
||
With a record of unreason seldom paralleled on earth.
|
||
While I looked he reared him solemnly, that incadescent youth,
|
||
From the coals that he'd preferred to the advantages of truth.
|
||
He cast his eyes about him and above him; then he wrote
|
||
On a slab of thin asbestos what I venture here to quote --
|
||
For I read it in the rose-light of the everlasting glow:
|
||
"Cloudy; variable winds, with local showers; cooler; snow."
|
||
Halcyon Jones
|
||
|
||
WEDDING, n. A ceremony at which two persons undertake to become one,
|
||
one undertakes to become nothing, and nothing undertakes to become
|
||
supportable.
|
||
|
||
WEREWOLF, n. A wolf that was once, or is sometimes, a man. All
|
||
werewolves are of evil disposition, having assumed a bestial form to
|
||
gratify a beastial appetite, but some, transformed by sorcery, are as
|
||
humane and is consistent with an acquired taste for human flesh.
|
||
Some Bavarian peasants having caught a wolf one evening, tied it
|
||
to a post by the tail and went to bed. The next morning nothing was
|
||
there! Greatly perplexed, they consulted the local priest, who told
|
||
them that their captive was undoubtedly a werewolf and had resumed its
|
||
human for during the night. "The next time that you take a wolf," the
|
||
good man said, "see that you chain it by the leg, and in the morning
|
||
you will find a Lutheran."
|
||
|
||
WHANGDEPOOTENAWAH, n. In the Ojibwa tongue, disaster; an unexpected
|
||
affliction that strikes hard.
|
||
|
||
Should you ask me whence this laughter,
|
||
Whence this audible big-smiling,
|
||
With its labial extension,
|
||
With its maxillar distortion
|
||
And its diaphragmic rhythmus
|
||
Like the billowing of an ocean,
|
||
Like the shaking of a carpet,
|
||
I should answer, I should tell you:
|
||
From the great deeps of the spirit,
|
||
From the unplummeted abysmus
|
||
Of the soul this laughter welleth
|
||
As the fountain, the gug-guggle,
|
||
Like the river from the canon [sic],
|
||
To entoken and give warning
|
||
That my present mood is sunny.
|
||
Should you ask me further question --
|
||
Why the great deeps of the spirit,
|
||
Why the unplummeted abysmus
|
||
Of the soule extrudes this laughter,
|
||
This all audible big-smiling,
|
||
I should answer, I should tell you
|
||
With a white heart, tumpitumpy,
|
||
With a true tongue, honest Injun:
|
||
William Bryan, he has Caught It,
|
||
Caught the Whangdepootenawah!
|
||
|
||
Is't the sandhill crane, the shankank,
|
||
Standing in the marsh, the kneedeep,
|
||
Standing silent in the kneedeep
|
||
With his wing-tips crossed behind him
|
||
And his neck close-reefed before him,
|
||
With his bill, his william, buried
|
||
In the down upon his bosom,
|
||
With his head retracted inly,
|
||
While his shoulders overlook it?
|
||
Does the sandhill crane, the shankank,
|
||
Shiver grayly in the north wind,
|
||
Wishing he had died when little,
|
||
As the sparrow, the chipchip, does?
|
||
No 'tis not the Shankank standing,
|
||
Standing in the gray and dismal
|
||
Marsh, the gray and dismal kneedeep.
|
||
No, 'tis peerless William Bryan
|
||
Realizing that he's Caught It,
|
||
Caught the Whangdepootenawah!
|
||
|
||
WHEAT, n. A cereal from which a tolerably good whisky can with some
|
||
difficulty be made, and which is used also for bread. The French are
|
||
said to eat more bread _per capita_ of population than any other
|
||
people, which is natural, for only they know how to make the stuff
|
||
palatable.
|
||
|
||
WHITE, adj. and n. Black.
|
||
|
||
WIDOW, n. A pathetic figure that the Christian world has agreed to
|
||
take humorously, although Christ's tenderness towards widows was one
|
||
of the most marked features of his character.
|
||
|
||
WINE, n. Fermented grape-juice known to the Women's Christian Union
|
||
as "liquor," sometimes as "rum." Wine, madam, is God's next best gift
|
||
to man.
|
||
|
||
WIT, n. The salt with which the American humorist spoils his
|
||
intellectual cookery by leaving it out.
|
||
|
||
WITCH, n. (1) Any ugly and repulsive old woman, in a wicked league
|
||
with the devil. (2) A beautiful and attractive young woman, in
|
||
wickedness a league beyond the devil.
|
||
|
||
WITTICISM, n. A sharp and clever remark, usually quoted, and seldom
|
||
noted; what the Philistine is pleased to call a "joke."
|
||
|
||
WOMAN, n.
|
||
|
||
An animal usually living in the vicinity of Man, and having a
|
||
rudimentary susceptibility to domestication. It is credited by
|
||
many of the elder zoologists with a certain vestigial docility
|
||
acquired in a former state of seclusion, but naturalists of the
|
||
postsusananthony period, having no knowledge of the seclusion,
|
||
deny the virtue and declare that such as creation's dawn beheld,
|
||
it roareth now. The species is the most widely distributed of all
|
||
beasts of prey, infesting all habitable parts of the globe, from
|
||
Greeland's spicy mountains to India's moral strand. The popular
|
||
name (wolfman) is incorrect, for the creature is of the cat kind.
|
||
The woman is lithe and graceful in its movement, especially the
|
||
American variety (_felis pugnans_), is omnivorous and can be
|
||
taught not to talk.
|
||
Balthasar Pober
|
||
|
||
WORMS'-MEAT, n. The finished product of which we are the raw
|
||
material. The contents of the Taj Mahal, the Tombeau Napoleon and the
|
||
Granitarium. Worms'-meat is usually outlasted by the structure that
|
||
houses it, but "this too must pass away." Probably the silliest work
|
||
in which a human being can engage is construction of a tomb for
|
||
himself. The solemn purpose cannot dignify, but only accentuates by
|
||
contrast the foreknown futility.
|
||
|
||
Ambitious fool! so mad to be a show!
|
||
How profitless the labor you bestow
|
||
Upon a dwelling whose magnificence
|
||
The tenant neither can admire nor know.
|
||
|
||
Build deep, build high, build massive as you can,
|
||
The wanton grass-roots will defeat the plan
|
||
By shouldering asunder all the stones
|
||
In what to you would be a moment's span.
|
||
|
||
Time to the dead so all unreckoned flies
|
||
That when your marble is all dust, arise,
|
||
If wakened, stretch your limbs and yawn --
|
||
You'll think you scarcely can have closed your eyes.
|
||
|
||
What though of all man's works your tomb alone
|
||
Should stand till Time himself be overthrown?
|
||
Would it advantage you to dwell therein
|
||
Forever as a stain upon a stone?
|
||
Joel Huck
|
||
|
||
WORSHIP, n. Homo Creator's testimony to the sound construction and
|
||
fine finish of Deus Creatus. A popular form of abjection, having an
|
||
element of pride.
|
||
|
||
WRATH, n. Anger of a superior quality and degree, appropriate to
|
||
exalted characters and momentous occasions; as, "the wrath of God,"
|
||
"the day of wrath," etc. Amongst the ancients the wrath of kings was
|
||
deemed sacred, for it could usually command the agency of some god for
|
||
its fit manifestation, as could also that of a priest. The Greeks
|
||
before Troy were so harried by Apollo that they jumped out of the
|
||
frying-pan of the wrath of Cryses into the fire of the wrath of
|
||
Achilles, though Agamemnon, the sole offender, was neither fried nor
|
||
roasted. A similar noted immunity was that of David when he incurred
|
||
the wrath of Yahveh by numbering his people, seventy thousand of whom
|
||
paid the penalty with their lives. God is now Love, and a director of
|
||
the census performs his work without apprehension of disaster.
|
||
|
||
|
||
X
|
||
|
||
|
||
X in our alphabet being a needless letter has an added invincibility
|
||
to the attacks of the spelling reformers, and like them, will
|
||
doubtless last as long as the language. X is the sacred symbol of ten
|
||
dollars, and in such words as Xmas, Xn, etc., stands for Christ, not,
|
||
as is popular supposed, because it represents a cross, but because the
|
||
corresponding letter in the Greek alphabet is the initial of his name
|
||
-- _Xristos_. If it represented a cross it would stand for St.
|
||
Andrew, who "testified" upon one of that shape. In the algebra of
|
||
psychology x stands for Woman's mind. Words beginning with X are
|
||
Grecian and will not be defined in this standard English dictionary.
|
||
|
||
|
||
Y
|
||
|
||
|
||
YANKEE, n. In Europe, an American. In the Northern States of our
|
||
Union, a New Englander. In the Southern States the word is unknown.
|
||
(See DAMNYANK.)
|
||
|
||
YEAR, n. A period of three hundred and sixty-five disappointments.
|
||
|
||
YESTERDAY, n. The infancy of youth, the youth of manhood, the entire
|
||
past of age.
|
||
|
||
But yesterday I should have thought me blest
|
||
To stand high-pinnacled upon the peak
|
||
Of middle life and look adown the bleak
|
||
And unfamiliar foreslope to the West,
|
||
Where solemn shadows all the land invest
|
||
And stilly voices, half-remembered, speak
|
||
Unfinished prophecy, and witch-fires freak
|
||
The haunted twilight of the Dark of Rest.
|
||
Yea, yesterday my soul was all aflame
|
||
To stay the shadow on the dial's face
|
||
At manhood's noonmark! Now, in God His name
|
||
I chide aloud the little interspace
|
||
Disparting me from Certitude, and fain
|
||
Would know the dream and vision ne'er again.
|
||
Baruch Arnegriff
|
||
|
||
It is said that in his last illness the poet Arnegriff was
|
||
attended at different times by seven doctors.
|
||
|
||
YOKE, n. An implement, madam, to whose Latin name, _jugum_, we owe
|
||
one of the most illuminating words in our language -- a word that
|
||
defines the matrimonial situation with precision, point and poignancy.
|
||
A thousand apologies for withholding it.
|
||
|
||
YOUTH, n. The Period of Possibility, when Archimedes finds a fulcrum,
|
||
Cassandra has a following and seven cities compete for the honor of
|
||
endowing a living Homer.
|
||
|
||
Youth is the true Saturnian Reign, the Golden Age on earth
|
||
again, when figs are grown on thistles, and pigs betailed with
|
||
whistles and, wearing silken bristles, live ever in clover, and
|
||
clows fly over, delivering milk at every door, and Justice never
|
||
is heard to snore, and every assassin is made a ghost and,
|
||
howling, is cast into Baltimost!
|
||
Polydore Smith
|
||
|
||
|
||
Z
|
||
|
||
|
||
ZANY, n. A popular character in old Italian plays, who imitated with
|
||
ludicrous incompetence the _buffone_, or clown, and was therefore the
|
||
ape of an ape; for the clown himself imitated the serious characters
|
||
of the play. The zany was progenitor to the specialist in humor, as
|
||
we to-day have the unhappiness to know him. In the zany we see an
|
||
example of creation; in the humorist, of transmission. Another
|
||
excellent specimen of the modern zany is the curate, who apes the
|
||
rector, who apes the bishop, who apes the archbishop, who apes the
|
||
devil.
|
||
|
||
ZANZIBARI, n. An inhabitant of the Sultanate of Zanzibar, off the
|
||
eastern coast of Africa. The Zanzibaris, a warlike people, are best
|
||
known in this country through a threatening diplomatic incident that
|
||
occurred a few years ago. The American consul at the capital occupied
|
||
a dwelling that faced the sea, with a sandy beach between. Greatly to
|
||
the scandal of this official's family, and against repeated
|
||
remonstrances of the official himself, the people of the city
|
||
persisted in using the beach for bathing. One day a woman came down
|
||
to the edge of the water and was stooping to remove her attire (a pair
|
||
of sandals) when the consul, incensed beyond restraint, fired a charge
|
||
of bird-shot into the most conspicuous part of her person.
|
||
Unfortunately for the existing _entente cordiale_ between two great
|
||
nations, she was the Sultana.
|
||
|
||
ZEAL, n. A certain nervous disorder afflicting the young and
|
||
inexperienced. A passion that goeth before a sprawl.
|
||
|
||
When Zeal sought Gratitude for his reward
|
||
He went away exclaiming: "O my Lord!"
|
||
"What do you want?" the Lord asked, bending down.
|
||
"An ointment for my cracked and bleeding crown."
|
||
Jum Coople
|
||
|
||
ZENITH, n. The point in the heavens directly overhead to a man
|
||
standing or a growing cabbage. A man in bed or a cabbage in the pot
|
||
is not considered as having a zenith, though from this view of the
|
||
matter there was once a considerably dissent among the learned, some
|
||
holding that the posture of the body was immaterial. These were
|
||
called Horizontalists, their opponents, Verticalists. The
|
||
Horizontalist heresy was finally extinguished by Xanobus, the
|
||
philosopher-king of Abara, a zealous Verticalist. Entering an
|
||
assembly of philosophers who were debating the matter, he cast a
|
||
severed human head at the feet of his opponents and asked them to
|
||
determine its zenith, explaining that its body was hanging by the
|
||
heels outside. Observing that it was the head of their leader, the
|
||
Horizontalists hastened to profess themselves converted to whatever
|
||
opinion the Crown might be pleased to hold, and Horizontalism took its
|
||
place among _fides defuncti_.
|
||
|
||
ZEUS, n. The chief of Grecian gods, adored by the Romans as Jupiter
|
||
and by the modern Americans as God, Gold, Mob and Dog. Some explorers
|
||
who have touched upon the shores of America, and one who professes to
|
||
have penetrated a considerable distance to the interior, have thought
|
||
that these four names stand for as many distinct deities, but in his
|
||
monumental work on Surviving Faiths, Frumpp insists that the natives
|
||
are monotheists, each having no other god than himself, whom he
|
||
worships under many sacred names.
|
||
|
||
ZIGZAG, v.t. To move forward uncertainly, from side to side, as one
|
||
carrying the white man's burden. (From _zed_, _z_, and _jag_, an
|
||
Icelandic word of unknown meaning.)
|
||
|
||
He zedjagged so uncomen wyde
|
||
Thet non coude pas on eyder syde;
|
||
So, to com saufly thruh, I been
|
||
Constreynet for to doodge betwene.
|
||
Munwele
|
||
|
||
ZOOLOGY, n. The science and history of the animal kingdom, including
|
||
its king, the House Fly (_Musca maledicta_). The father of Zoology
|
||
was Aristotle, as is universally conceded, but the name of its mother
|
||
has not come down to us. Two of the science's most illustrious
|
||
expounders were Buffon and Oliver Goldsmith, from both of whom we
|
||
learn (_L'Histoire generale des animaux_ and _A History of Animated
|
||
Nature_) that the domestic cow sheds its horn every two years.
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
-)(-
|
||
|