THE DEVIL'S DICTIONARY

THE DEVIL'S DICTIONARY by Ambrose Bierce




AUTHOR'S 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.