--- /dev/null
+
+
+ The Internet Wiretap 1st Online Edition of
+
+
+ THE DEVIL'S DICTIONARY
+
+ by
+
+ AMBROSE BIERCE
+
+
+ Copyright 1911 by Albert and Charles Boni, Inc.
+ A Public Domain Text, Copyright Expired
+
+ Released April 15 1993
+
+ Entered by Aloysius of &tSftDotIotE
+ aloysius@west.darkside.com
+
+
+
+ PREFACE
+
+_The Devil's Dictionary_ was begun in a weekly paper in 1881, and was
+continued in a desultory way at long intervals until 1906. In that
+year a large part of it was published in covers with the title _The
+Cynic's Word Book_, a name which the author had not the power to
+reject or happiness to approve. To quote the publishers of the
+present work:
+ "This more reverent title had previously been forced upon him by
+the religious scruples of the last newspaper in which a part of the
+work had appeared, with the natural consequence that when it came out
+in covers the country already had been flooded by its imitators with a
+score of 'cynic' books -- _The Cynic's This_, _The Cynic's That_, and
+_The Cynic's t'Other_. Most of these books were merely stupid, though
+some of them added the distinction of silliness. Among them, they
+brought the word 'cynic' into disfavor so deep that any book bearing
+it was discredited in advance of publication."
+ Meantime, too, some of the enterprising humorists of the country
+had helped themselves to such parts of the work as served their needs,
+and many of its definitions, anecdotes, phrases and so forth, had
+become more or less current in popular speech. This explanation is
+made, not with any pride of priority in trifles, but in simple denial
+of possible charges of plagiarism, which is no trifle. In merely
+resuming his own the author hopes to be held guiltless by those to
+whom the work is addressed -- enlightened souls who prefer dry wines
+to sweet, sense to sentiment, wit to humor and clean English to slang.
+ A conspicuous, and it is hope not unpleasant, feature of the book
+is its abundant illustrative quotations from eminent poets, chief of
+whom is that learned and ingenius cleric, Father Gassalasca Jape,
+S.J., whose lines bear his initials. To Father Jape's kindly
+encouragement and assistance the author of the prose text is greatly
+indebted.
+ A.B.
+
+
+
+
+ A
+
+
+ABASEMENT, n. A decent and customary mental attitude in the presence
+of wealth of power. Peculiarly appropriate in an employee when
+addressing an employer.
+
+ABATIS, n. Rubbish in front of a fort, to prevent the rubbish outside
+from molesting the rubbish inside.
+
+ABDICATION, n. An act whereby a sovereign attests his sense of the
+high temperature of the throne.
+
+ Poor Isabella's Dead, whose abdication
+ Set all tongues wagging in the Spanish nation.
+ For that performance 'twere unfair to scold her:
+ She wisely left a throne too hot to hold her.
+ To History she'll be no royal riddle --
+ Merely a plain parched pea that jumped the griddle.
+ G.J.
+
+ABDOMEN, n. The temple of the god Stomach, in whose worship, with
+sacrificial rights, all true men engage. From women this ancient
+faith commands but a stammering assent. They sometimes minister at
+the altar in a half-hearted and ineffective way, but true reverence
+for the one deity that men really adore they know not. If woman had a
+free hand in the world's marketing the race would become
+graminivorous.
+
+ABILITY, n. The natural equipment to accomplish some small part of
+the meaner ambitions distinguishing able men from dead ones. In the
+last analysis ability is commonly found to consist mainly in a high
+degree of solemnity. Perhaps, however, this impressive quality is
+rightly appraised; it is no easy task to be solemn.
+
+ABNORMAL, adj. Not conforming to standard. In matters of thought and
+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
+the hope of Hell.
+
+ABORIGINIES, n. Persons of little worth found cumbering the soil of a
+newly discovered country. They soon cease to cumber; they fertilize.
+
+ABRACADABRA.
+
+ By _Abracadabra_ we signify
+ An infinite number of things.
+ 'Tis the answer to What? and How? and Why?
+ And Whence? and Whither? -- a word whereby
+ The Truth (with the comfort it brings)
+ Is open to all who grope in night,
+ Crying for Wisdom's holy light.
+
+ Whether the word is a verb or a noun
+ Is knowledge beyond my reach.
+ I only know that 'tis handed down.
+ From sage to sage,
+ From age to age --
+ An immortal part of speech!
+
+ Of an ancient man the tale is told
+ That he lived to be ten centuries old,
+ In a cave on a mountain side.
+ (True, he finally died.)
+ The fame of his wisdom filled the land,
+ For his head was bald, and you'll understand
+ His beard was long and white
+ And his eyes uncommonly bright.
+
+ Philosophers gathered from far and near
+ To sit at his feat and hear and hear,
+ Though he never was heard
+ To utter a word
+ But "_Abracadabra, abracadab_,
+ _Abracada, abracad_,
+ _Abraca, abrac, abra, ab!_"
+ 'Twas all he had,
+ 'Twas all they wanted to hear, and each
+ Made copious notes of the mystical speech,
+ Which they published next --
+ A trickle of text
+ In the meadow of commentary.
+ Mighty big books were these,
+ In a number, as leaves of trees;
+ In learning, remarkably -- very!
+
+ He's dead,
+ As I said,
+ And the books of the sages have perished,
+ But his wisdom is sacredly cherished.
+ In _Abracadabra_ it solemnly rings,
+ Like an ancient bell that forever swings.
+ O, I love to hear
+ That word make clear
+ Humanity's General Sense of Things.
+ Jamrach Holobom
+
+ABRIDGE, v.t. To shorten.
+
+ When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for
+ people to abridge their king, a decent respect for the opinions of
+ mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel
+ them to the separation.
+ Oliver Cromwell
+
+ABRUPT, adj. Sudden, without ceremony, like the arrival of a cannon-
+shot and the departure of the soldier whose interests are most
+affected by it. Dr. Samuel Johnson beautifully said of another
+author's ideas that they were "concatenated without abruption."
+
+ABSCOND, v.i. To "move in a mysterious way," commonly with the
+property of another.
+
+ Spring beckons! All things to the call respond;
+ The trees are leaving and cashiers abscond.
+ Phela Orm
+
+ABSENT, adj. Peculiarly exposed to the tooth of detraction; vilifed;
+hopelessly in the wrong; superseded in the consideration and affection
+of another.
+
+ To men a man is but a mind. Who cares
+ What face he carries or what form he wears?
+ But woman's body is the woman. O,
+ Stay thou, my sweetheart, and do never go,
+ But heed the warning words the sage hath said:
+ A woman absent is a woman dead.
+ Jogo Tyree
+
+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
+ You a total abstainer, my son."
+ "So I am, so I am," said the scrapgrace caught --
+ "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
+taught.
+
+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
+matter has not hitherto commanded the assent of attorneys, no one
+having offered them a fee for assenting.
+
+ACCORD, n. Harmony.
+
+ACCORDION, n. An instrument in harmony with the sentiments of an
+assassin.
+
+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
+
+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
+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,
+ His soul forever to perdition.
+ Judibras
+
+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
+we still cherish by reviling those that we have no longer the
+enterprise to commit.
+
+AGITATOR, n. A statesman who shakes the fruit trees of his neighbors
+-- to dislodge the worms.
+
+AIM, n. The task we set our wishes to.
+
+ "Cheer up! Have you no aim in life?"
+ She tenderly inquired.
+ "An aim? Well, no, I haven't, wife;
+ The fact is -- I have fired."
+ G.J.
+
+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
+Christian, Jewish, and so forth.
+
+ Allah's good laws I faithfully have kept,
+ And ever for the sins of man have wept;
+ And sometimes kneeling in the temple I
+ 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
+ To smell the sweetness of the Lord's anointed.
+ G.J.
+
+ALLIANCE, n. In international politics, the union of two thieves who
+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
+sawrian.
+
+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.
+
+ 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.
+
+
+
+ -)(-
projects / packages / dict-misc.git / commitdiff