+++ /dev/null
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- 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.
-
-
-
- -)(-
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