"THE DEVIL'S DICTIONARY\n\nby Ambrose Bierce\n\n\n\n\nAUTHOR'S PREFACE\n\n_The Devil's Dictionary_ was begun in a weekly paper in 1881, and was\ncontinued in a desultory way at long intervals until 1906.  In that\nyear a large part of it was published in covers with the title _The\nCynic's Word Book_, a name which the author had not the power to\nreject or happiness to approve.  To quote the publishers of the\npresent work:\n\n\"This more reverent title had previously been forced upon him by\nthe religious scruples of the last newspaper in which a part of the\nwork had appeared, with the natural consequence that when it came out\nin covers the country already had been flooded by its imitators with a\nscore of 'cynic' books--_The Cynic's This_, _The Cynic's That_, and\n_The Cynic's t'Other_.  Most of these books were merely stupid, though\nsome of them added the distinction of silliness.  Among them, they\nbrought the word 'cynic' into disfavor so deep that any book bearing\nit was discredited in advance of publication.\"\n\nMeantime, too, some of the enterprising humorists of the country\nhad helped themselves to such parts of the work as served their needs,\nand many of its definitions, anecdotes, phrases and so forth, had\nbecome more or less current in popular speech.  This explanation is\nmade, not with any pride of priority in trifles, but in simple denial\nof possible charges of plagiarism, which is no trifle.  In merely\nresuming his own the author hopes to be held guiltless by those to\nwhom the work is addressed--enlightened souls who prefer dry wines\nto sweet, sense to sentiment, wit to humor and clean English to slang.\n\nA conspicuous, and it is hoped not unpleasant, feature of the book\nis its abundant illustrative quotations from eminent poets, chief of\nwhom is that learned and ingenious cleric, Father Gassalasca Jape,\nS.J., whose lines bear his initials.  To Father Jape's kindly\nencouragement and assistance the author of the prose text is greatly\nindebted.\n\nA.B.\n\n\n\n\nA\n\n\n\nABASEMENT, n.  A decent and customary mental attitude in the presence\nof wealth or power.  Peculiarly appropriate in an employee when\naddressing an employer.\n\nABATIS, n.  Rubbish in front of a fort, to prevent the rubbish outside\nfrom molesting the rubbish inside.\n\nABDICATION, n.  An act whereby a sovereign attests his sense of the\nhigh temperature of the throne.\n\n  Poor Isabella's Dead, whose abdication\n  Set all tongues wagging in the Spanish nation.\n  For that performance 'twere unfair to scold her:\n  She wisely left a throne too hot to hold her.\n  To History she'll be no royal riddle--\n  Merely a plain parched pea that jumped the griddle.\n\nG.J.\n\n\nABDOMEN, n.  The temple of the god Stomach, in whose worship, with\nsacrificial rights, all true men engage.  From women this ancient\nfaith commands but a stammering assent.  They sometimes minister at\nthe altar in a half-hearted and ineffective way, but true reverence\nfor the one deity that men really adore they know not.  If woman had a\nfree hand in the world's marketing the race would become\ngraminivorous.\n\nABILITY, n.  The natural equipment to accomplish some small part of\nthe meaner ambitions distinguishing able men from dead ones.  In the\nlast analysis ability is commonly found to consist mainly in a high\ndegree of solemnity.  Perhaps, however, this impressive quality is\nrightly appraised; it is no easy task to be solemn.\n\nABNORMAL, adj.  Not conforming to standard.  In matters of thought and\nconduct, to be independent is to be abnormal, to be abnormal is to be\ndetested.  Wherefore the lexicographer adviseth a striving toward the\nstraiter [sic] resemblance of the Average Man than he hath to himself.\nWhoso attaineth thereto shall have peace, the prospect of death and\nthe hope of Hell.\n\nABORIGINIES, n.  Persons of little worth found cumbering the soil of a\nnewly discovered country.  They soon cease to cumber; they fertilize.\n\nABRACADABRA.\n\n  By _Abracadabra_ we signify\n      An infinite number of things.\n  'Tis the answer to What? and How? and Why?\n  And Whence? and Whither?--a word whereby\n      The Truth (with the comfort it brings)\n  Is open to all who grope in night,\n  Crying for Wisdom's holy light.\n\n  Whether the word is a verb or a noun\n      Is knowledge beyond my reach.\n  I only know that 'tis handed down.\n          From sage to sage,\n          From age to age--\n      An immortal part of speech!\n\n  Of an ancient man the tale is told\n  That he lived to be ten centuries old,\n      In a cave on a mountain side.\n      (True, he finally died.)\n  The fame of his wisdom filled the land,\n  For his head was bald, and you'll understand\n      His beard was long and white\n      And his eyes uncommonly bright.\n\n  Philosophers gathered from far and near\n  To sit at his feet and hear and hear,\n          Though he never was heard\n          To utter a word\n      But \"_Abracadabra, abracadab_,\n          _Abracada, abracad_,\n      _Abraca, abrac, abra, ab!_\"\n          'Twas all he had,\n  'Twas all they wanted to hear, and each\n  Made copious notes of the mystical speech,\n          Which they published next--\n          A trickle of text\n  In a meadow of commentary.\n      Mighty big books were these,\n      In number, as leaves of trees;\n  In learning, remarkable--very!\n\n          He's dead,\n          As I said,\n  And the books of the sages have perished,\n  But his wisdom is sacredly cherished.\n  In _Abracadabra_ it solemnly rings,\n  Like an ancient bell that forever swings.\n          O, I love to hear\n          That word make clear\n  Humanity's General Sense of Things.\n\nJamrach Holobom\n\n\nABRIDGE, v.t.  To shorten.\n\n      When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for\n  people to abridge their king, a decent respect for the opinions of\n  mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel\n  them to the separation.\n\nOliver Cromwell\n\n\nABRUPT, adj.  Sudden, without ceremony, like the arrival of a cannon-\nshot and the departure of the soldier whose interests are most\naffected by it.  Dr. Samuel Johnson beautifully said of another\nauthor's ideas that they were \"concatenated without abruption.\"\n\nABSCOND, v.i.  To \"move in a mysterious way,\" commonly with the\nproperty of another.\n\n  Spring beckons!  All things to the call respond;\n  The trees are leaving and cashiers abscond.\n\nPhela Orm\n\n\nABSENT, adj.  Peculiarly exposed to the tooth of detraction; vilifed;\nhopelessly in the wrong; superseded in the consideration and affection\nof another.\n\n  To men a man is but a mind.  Who cares\n  What face he carries or what form he wears?\n  But woman's body is the woman.  O,\n  Stay thou, my sweetheart, and do never go,\n  But heed the warning words the sage hath said:\n  A woman absent is a woman dead.\n\nJogo Tyree\n\n\nABSENTEE, n.  A person with an income who has had the forethought to\nremove himself from the sphere of exaction.\n\nABSOLUTE, adj.  Independent, irresponsible.  An absolute monarchy is\none in which the sovereign does as he pleases so long as he pleases\nthe assassins.  Not many absolute monarchies are left, most of them\nhaving been replaced by limited monarchies, where the sovereign's\npower for evil (and for good) is greatly curtailed, and by republics,\nwhich are governed by chance.\n\nABSTAINER, n.  A weak person who yields to the temptation of denying\nhimself a pleasure.  A total abstainer is one who abstains from\neverything but abstention, and especially from inactivity in the\naffairs of others.\n\n  Said a man to a crapulent youth:  \"I thought\n      You a total abstainer, my son.\"\n  \"So I am, so I am,\" said the scapegrace caught--\n      \"But not, sir, a bigoted one.\"\n\nG.J.\n\n\nABSURDITY, n.  A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with\none's own opinion.\n\nACADEME, n.  An ancient school where morality and philosophy were\ntaught.\n\nACADEMY, n.  [from ACADEME]   A modern school where football is\ntaught.\n\nACCIDENT, n.  An inevitable occurrence due to the action of immutable\nnatural laws.\n\nACCOMPLICE, n.  One associated with another in a crime, having guilty\nknowledge and complicity, as an attorney who defends a criminal,\nknowing him guilty.  This view of the attorney's position in the\nmatter has not hitherto commanded the assent of attorneys, no one\nhaving offered them a fee for assenting.\n\nACCORD, n.  Harmony.\n\nACCORDION, n.  An instrument in harmony with the sentiments of an\nassassin.\n\nACCOUNTABILITY, n.  The mother of caution.\n\n  \"My accountability, bear in mind,\"\n      Said the Grand Vizier:  \"Yes, yes,\"\n  Said the Shah:  \"I do--'tis the only kind\n      Of ability you possess.\"\n\nJoram Tate\n\n\nACCUSE, v.t.  To affirm another's guilt or unworth; most commonly as a\njustification of ourselves for having wronged him.\n\nACEPHALOUS, adj.  In the surprising condition of the Crusader who\nabsently pulled at his forelock some hours after a Saracen scimitar\nhad, unconsciously to him, passed through his neck, as related by de\nJoinville.\n\nACHIEVEMENT, n.  The death of endeavor and the birth of disgust.\n\nACKNOWLEDGE, v.t.  To confess.  Acknowledgement of one another's\nfaults is the highest duty imposed by our love of truth.\n\nACQUAINTANCE, n.  A person whom we know well enough to borrow from,\nbut not well enough to lend to.  A degree of friendship called slight\nwhen its object is poor or obscure, and intimate when he is rich or\nfamous.\n\nACTUALLY, adv.  Perhaps; possibly.\n\nADAGE, n.  Boned wisdom for weak teeth.\n\nADAMANT, n.  A mineral frequently found beneath a corset.  Soluble in\nsolicitate of gold.\n\nADDER, n.  A species of snake.  So called from its habit of adding\nfuneral outlays to the other expenses of living.\n\nADHERENT, n.  A follower who has not yet obtained all that he expects\nto get.\n\nADMINISTRATION, n.  An ingenious abstraction in politics, designed to\nreceive the kicks and cuffs due to the premier or president.  A man of\nstraw, proof against bad-egging and dead-catting.\n\nADMIRAL, n.  That part of a war-ship which does the talking while the\nfigure-head does the thinking.\n\nADMIRATION, n.  Our polite recognition of another's resemblance to\nourselves.\n\nADMONITION, n.  Gentle reproof, as with a meat-axe.  Friendly warning.\n\n  Consigned by way of admonition,\n  His soul forever to perdition.\n\nJudibras\n\n\nADORE, v.t.  To venerate expectantly.\n\nADVICE, n.  The smallest current coin.\n\n  \"The man was in such deep distress,\"\n  Said Tom, \"that I could do no less\n  Than give him good advice.\"  Said Jim:\n  \"If less could have been done for him\n  I know you well enough, my son,\n  To know that's what you would have done.\"\n\nJebel Jocordy\n\n\nAFFIANCED, pp.  Fitted with an ankle-ring for the ball-and-chain.\n\nAFFLICTION, n.  An acclimatizing process preparing the soul for\nanother and bitter world.\n\nAFRICAN, n.  A nigger that votes our way.\n\nAGE, n.  That period of life in which we compound for the vices that\nwe still cherish by reviling those that we have no longer the\nenterprise to commit.\n\nAGITATOR, n.  A statesman who shakes the fruit trees of his neighbors\n--to dislodge the worms.\n\nAIM, n.\n\n      The task we set our wishes to.\n  \"Cheer up!  Have you no aim in life?\"\n      She tenderly inquired.\n  \"An aim?  Well, no, I haven't, wife;\n      The fact is--I have fired.\"\n\nG.J.\n\n\nAIR, n.  A nutritious substance supplied by a bountiful Providence for\nthe fattening of the poor.\n\nALDERMAN, n.  An ingenious criminal who covers his secret thieving\nwith a pretence of open marauding.\n\nALIEN, n.  An American sovereign in his probationary state.\n\nALLAH, n.  The Mahometan Supreme Being, as distinguished from the\nChristian, Jewish, and so forth.\n\n  Allah's good laws I faithfully have kept,\n  And ever for the sins of man have wept;\n      And sometimes kneeling in the temple I\n  Have reverently crossed my hands and slept.\n\nJunker Barlow\n\n\nALLEGIANCE, n.\n\n  This thing Allegiance, as I suppose,\n  Is a ring fitted in the subject's nose,\n  Whereby that organ is kept rightly pointed\n  To smell the sweetness of the Lord's anointed.\n\nG.J.\n\n\nALLIANCE, n.  In international politics, the union of two thieves who\nhave their hands so deeply inserted in each other's pockets that they\ncannot separately plunder a third.\n\nALLIGATOR, n.  The crocodile of America, superior in every detail to\nthe crocodile of the effete monarchies of the Old World.  Herodotus\nsays the Indus is, with one exception, the only river that produces\ncrocodiles, but they appear to have gone West and grown up with the\nother rivers.  From the notches on his back the alligator is called a\nsawrian.\n\nALONE, adj.  In bad company.\n\n  In contact, lo! the flint and steel,\n  By spark and flame, the thought reveal\n  That he the metal, she the stone,\n  Had cherished secretly alone.\n\nBooley Fito\n\n\nALTAR, n.  The place whereupon the priest formerly raveled out the\nsmall intestine of the sacrificial victim for purposes of divination\nand cooked its flesh for the gods.  The word is now seldom used,\nexcept with reference to the sacrifice of their liberty and peace by a\nmale and a female tool.\n\n  They stood before the altar and supplied\n  The fire themselves in which their fat was fried.\n  In vain the sacrifice!--no god will claim\n  An offering burnt with an unholy flame.\n\nM.P. Nopput\n\n\nAMBIDEXTROUS, adj.  Able to pick with equal skill a right-hand pocket\nor a left.\n\nAMBITION, n.  An overmastering desire to be vilified by enemies while\nliving and made ridiculous by friends when dead.\n\nAMNESTY, n.  The state's magnanimity to those offenders whom it would\nbe too expensive to punish.\n\nANOINT, v.t.  To grease a king or other great functionary already\nsufficiently slippery.\n\n  As sovereigns are anointed by the priesthood,\n  So pigs to lead the populace are greased good.\n\nJudibras\n\n\nANTIPATHY, n.  The sentiment inspired by one's friend's friend.\n\nAPHORISM, n.  Predigested wisdom.\n\n  The flabby wine-skin of his brain\n  Yields to some pathologic strain,\n  And voids from its unstored abysm\n  The driblet of an aphorism.\n\n\"The Mad Philosopher,\" 1697\n\n\nAPOLOGIZE, v.i.  To lay the foundation for a future offence.\n\nAPOSTATE, n.  A leech who, having penetrated the shell of a turtle\nonly to find that the creature has long been dead, deems it expedient\nto form a new attachment to a fresh turtle.\n\nAPOTHECARY, n.  The physician's accomplice, undertaker's benefactor\nand grave worm's provider.\n\n  When Jove sent blessings to all men that are,\n  And Mercury conveyed them in a jar,\n  That friend of tricksters introduced by stealth\n  Disease for the apothecary's health,\n  Whose gratitude impelled him to proclaim:\n  \"My deadliest drug shall bear my patron's name!\"\n\nG.J.\n\n\nAPPEAL, v.t.  In law, to put the dice into the box for another throw.\n\nAPPETITE, n.  An instinct thoughtfully implanted by Providence as a\nsolution to the labor question.\n\nAPPLAUSE, n.  The echo of a platitude.\n\nAPRIL FOOL, n.  The March fool with another month added to his folly.\n\nARCHBISHOP, n.  An ecclesiastical dignitary one point holier than a\nbishop.\n\n  If I were a jolly archbishop,\n  On Fridays I'd eat all the fish up--\n  Salmon and flounders and smelts;\n  On other days everything else.\n\nJodo Rem\n\n\nARCHITECT, n.  One who drafts a plan of your house, and plans a draft\nof your money.\n\nARDOR, n.  The quality that distinguishes love without knowledge.\n\nARENA, n.  In politics, an imaginary rat-pit in which the statesman\nwrestles with his record.\n\nARISTOCRACY, n.  Government by the best men.  (In this sense the word\nis obsolete; so is that kind of government.)  Fellows that wear downy\nhats and clean shirts--guilty of education and suspected of bank\naccounts.\n\nARMOR, n.  The kind of clothing worn by a man whose tailor is a\nblacksmith.\n\nARRAYED, pp.  Drawn up and given an orderly disposition, as a rioter\nhanged to a lamppost.\n\nARREST, v.t.  Formally to detain one accused of unusualness.\n\n  God made the world in six days and was arrested on the seventh.\n\n_The Unauthorized Version_\n\n\nARSENIC, n.  A kind of cosmetic greatly affected by the ladies, whom\nit greatly affects in turn.\n\n  \"Eat arsenic?  Yes, all you get,\"\n      Consenting, he did speak up;\n  \"'Tis better you should eat it, pet,\n      Than put it in my teacup.\"\n\nJoel Huck\n\n\nART, n.  This word has no definition.  Its origin is related as\nfollows by the ingenious Father Gassalasca Jape, S.J.\n\n  One day a wag--what would the wretch be at?--\n  Shifted a letter of the cipher RAT,\n  And said it was a god's name!  Straight arose\n  Fantastic priests and postulants (with shows,\n  And mysteries, and mummeries, and hymns,\n  And disputations dire that lamed their limbs)\n  To serve his temple and maintain the fires,\n  Expound the law, manipulate the wires.\n  Amazed, the populace that rites attend,\n  Believe whate'er they cannot comprehend,\n  And, inly edified to learn that two\n  Half-hairs joined so and so (as Art can do)\n  Have sweeter values and a grace more fit\n  Than Nature's hairs that never have been split,\n  Bring cates and wines for sacrificial feasts,\n  And sell their garments to support the priests.\n\nARTLESSNESS, n.  A certain engaging quality to which women attain by\nlong study and severe practice upon the admiring male, who is pleased\nto fancy it resembles the candid simplicity of his young.\n\nASPERSE, v.t.  Maliciously to ascribe to another vicious actions which\none has not had the temptation and opportunity to commit.\n\nASS, n.  A public singer with a good voice but no ear.  In Virginia\nCity, Nevada, he is called the Washoe Canary, in Dakota, the Senator,\nand everywhere the Donkey.  The animal is widely and variously\ncelebrated in the literature, art and religion of every age and\ncountry; no other so engages and fires the human imagination as this\nnoble vertebrate.  Indeed, it is doubted by some (Ramasilus, _lib.\nII., De Clem._, and C. Stantatus, _De Temperamente_) if it is not a\ngod; and as such we know it was worshiped by the Etruscans, and, if we\nmay believe Macrobious, by the Cupasians also.  Of the only two\nanimals admitted into the Mahometan Paradise along with the souls of\nmen, the ass that carried Balaam is one, the dog of the Seven Sleepers\nthe other.  This is no small distinction.  From what has been written\nabout this beast might be compiled a library of great splendor and\nmagnitude, rivalling that of the Shakespearean cult, and that which\nclusters about the Bible.  It may be said, generally, that all\nliterature is more or less Asinine.\n\n  \"Hail, holy Ass!\" the quiring angels sing;\n  \"Priest of Unreason, and of Discords King!\"\n  Great co-Creator, let Thy glory shine:\n  God made all else, the Mule, the Mule is thine!\"\n\nG.J.\n\n\nAUCTIONEER, n.  The man who proclaims with a hammer that he has picked\na pocket with his tongue.\n\nAUSTRALIA, n.  A country lying in the South Sea, whose industrial and\ncommercial development has been unspeakably retarded by an unfortunate\ndispute among geographers as to whether it is a continent or an\nisland.\n\nAVERNUS, n.  The lake by which the ancients entered the infernal\nregions.  The fact that access to the infernal regions was obtained by\na lake is believed by the learned Marcus Ansello Scrutator to have\nsuggested the Christian rite of baptism by immersion.  This, however,\nhas been shown by Lactantius to be an error.\n\n  _Facilis descensus Averni,_\n      The poet remarks; and the sense\n  Of it is that when down-hill I turn I\n      Will get more of punches than pence.\n\nJehal Dai Lupe\n\n\n\n\n\nB\n\n\n\nBAAL, n.  An old deity formerly much worshiped under various names.\nAs Baal he was popular with the Phoenicians; as Belus or Bel he had\nthe honor to be served by the priest Berosus, who wrote the famous\naccount of the Deluge; as Babel he had a tower partly erected to his\nglory on the Plain of Shinar.  From Babel comes our English word\n\"babble.\"  Under whatever name worshiped, Baal is the Sun-god.  As\nBeelzebub he is the god of flies, which are begotten of the sun's rays\non the stagnant water.  In Physicia Baal is still worshiped as Bolus,\nand as Belly he is adored and served with abundant sacrifice by the\npriests of Guttledom.\n\nBABE or BABY, n.  A misshapen creature of no particular age, sex, or\ncondition, chiefly remarkable for the violence of the sympathies and\nantipathies it excites in others, itself without sentiment or emotion.\nThere have been famous babes; for example, little Moses, from whose\nadventure in the bulrushes the Egyptian hierophants of seven centuries\nbefore doubtless derived their idle tale of the child Osiris being\npreserved on a floating lotus leaf.\n\n          Ere babes were invented\n          The girls were contended.\n          Now man is tormented\n  Until to buy babes he has squandered\n  His money.  And so I have pondered\n          This thing, and thought may be\n          'T were better that Baby\n  The First had been eagled or condored.\n\nRo Amil\n\n\nBACCHUS, n.  A convenient deity invented by the ancients as an excuse\nfor getting drunk.\n\n  Is public worship, then, a sin,\n      That for devotions paid to Bacchus\n  The lictors dare to run us in,\n      And resolutely thump and whack us?\n\nJorace\n\n\nBACK, n.  That part of your friend which it is your privilege to\ncontemplate in your adversity.\n\nBACKBITE, v.t.  To speak of a man as you find him when he can't find\nyou.\n\nBAIT, n.  A preparation that renders the hook more palatable.  The\nbest kind is beauty.\n\nBAPTISM, n.  A sacred rite of such efficacy that he who finds himself\nin heaven without having undergone it will be unhappy forever.  It is\nperformed with water in two ways--by immersion, or plunging, and by\naspersion, or sprinkling.\n\n  But whether the plan of immersion\n  Is better than simple aspersion\n      Let those immersed\n      And those aspersed\n  Decide by the Authorized Version,\n  And by matching their agues tertian.\n\nG.J.\n\n\nBAROMETER, n.  An ingenious instrument which indicates what kind of\nweather we are having.\n\nBARRACK, n.  A house in which soldiers enjoy a portion of that of\nwhich it is their business to deprive others.\n\nBASILISK, n.  The cockatrice.  A sort of serpent hatched from the egg\nof a cock.  The basilisk had a bad eye, and its glance was fatal.\nMany infidels deny this creature's existence, but Semprello Aurator\nsaw and handled one that had been blinded by lightning as a punishment\nfor having fatally gazed on a lady of rank whom Jupiter loved.  Juno\nafterward restored the reptile's sight and hid it in a cave.  Nothing\nis so well attested by the ancients as the existence of the basilisk,\nbut the cocks have stopped laying.\n\nBASTINADO, n.  The act of walking on wood without exertion.\n\nBATH, n.  A kind of mystic ceremony substituted for religious worship,\nwith what spiritual efficacy has not been determined.\n\n  The man who taketh a steam bath\n  He loseth all the skin he hath,\n  And, for he's boiled a brilliant red,\n  Thinketh to cleanliness he's wed,\n  Forgetting that his lungs he's soiling\n  With dirty vapors of the boiling.\n\nRichard Gwow\n\n\nBATTLE, n.  A method of untying with the teeth of a political knot\nthat would not yield to the tongue.\n\nBEARD, n.  The hair that is commonly cut off by those who justly\nexecrate the absurd Chinese custom of shaving the head.\n\nBEAUTY, n.  The power by which a woman charms a lover and terrifies a\nhusband.\n\nBEFRIEND, v.t.  To make an ingrate.\n\nBEG, v.  To ask for something with an earnestness proportioned to the\nbelief that it will not be given.\n\n  Who is that, father?\n                        A mendicant, child,\n  Haggard, morose, and unaffable--wild!\n  See how he glares through the bars of his cell!\n  With Citizen Mendicant all is not well.\n\n  Why did they put him there, father?\n\n                                       Because\n  Obeying his belly he struck at the laws.\n\n  His belly?\n\n              Oh, well, he was starving, my boy--\n  A state in which, doubtless, there's little of joy.\n  No bite had he eaten for days, and his cry\n  Was \"Bread!\" ever \"Bread!\"\n\n                              What's the matter with pie?\n\n  With little to wear, he had nothing to sell;\n  To beg was unlawful--improper as well.\n\n  Why didn't he work?\n\n                       He would even have done that,\n  But men said:  \"Get out!\" and the State remarked:  \"Scat!\"\n  I mention these incidents merely to show\n  That the vengeance he took was uncommonly low.\n  Revenge, at the best, is the act of a Siou,\n  But for trifles--\n\n                      Pray what did bad Mendicant do?\n\n  Stole two loaves of bread to replenish his lack\n  And tuck out the belly that clung to his back.\n\n  Is that _all_ father dear?\n\n                              There's little to tell:\n  They sent him to jail, and they'll send him to--well,\n  The company's better than here we can boast,\n  And there's--\n\n                  Bread for the needy, dear father?\n\n                                                     Um--toast.\n\nAtka Mip\n\n\nBEGGAR, n.  One who has relied on the assistance of his friends.\n\nBEHAVIOR, n.  Conduct, as determined, not by principle, but by\nbreeding.  The word seems to be somewhat loosely used in Dr. Jamrach\nHolobom's translation of the following lines from the _Dies Irae_:\n\n      Recordare, Jesu pie,\n      Quod sum causa tuae viae.\n      Ne me perdas illa die.\n\n  Pray remember, sacred Savior,\n  Whose the thoughtless hand that gave your\n  Death-blow.  Pardon such behavior.\n\nBELLADONNA, n.  In Italian a beautiful lady; in English a deadly\npoison.  A striking example of the essential identity of the two\ntongues.\n\nBENEDICTINES, n.  An order of monks otherwise known as black friars.\n\n  She thought it a crow, but it turn out to be\n      A monk of St. Benedict croaking a text.\n  \"Here's one of an order of cooks,\" said she--\n      \"Black friars in this world, fried black in the next.\"\n\n\"The Devil on Earth\" (London, 1712)\n\n\nBENEFACTOR, n.  One who makes heavy purchases of ingratitude, without,\nhowever, materially affecting the price, which is still within the\nmeans of all.\n\nBERENICE'S HAIR, n.  A constellation (_Coma Berenices_) named in honor\nof one who sacrificed her hair to save her husband.\n\n  Her locks an ancient lady gave\n  Her loving husband's life to save;\n  And men--they honored so the dame--\n  Upon some stars bestowed her name.\n\n  But to our modern married fair,\n  Who'd give their lords to save their hair,\n  No stellar recognition's given.\n  There are not stars enough in heaven.\n\nG.J.\n\n\nBIGAMY, n.  A mistake in taste for which the wisdom of the future will\nadjudge a punishment called trigamy.\n\nBIGOT, n.  One who is obstinately and zealously attached to an opinion\nthat you do not entertain.\n\nBILLINGSGATE, n.  The invective of an opponent.\n\nBIRTH, n.  The first and direst of all disasters.  As to the nature of\nit there appears to be no uniformity.  Castor and Pollux were born\nfrom the egg.  Pallas came out of a skull.  Galatea was once a block\nof stone.  Peresilis, who wrote in the tenth century, avers that he\ngrew up out of the ground where a priest had spilled holy water.  It\nis known that Arimaxus was derived from a hole in the earth, made by a\nstroke of lightning.  Leucomedon was the son of a cavern in Mount\nAetna, and I have myself seen a man come out of a wine cellar.\n\nBLACKGUARD, n.  A man whose qualities, prepared for display like a box\nof berries in a market--the fine ones on top--have been opened on\nthe wrong side.  An inverted gentleman.\n\nBLANK-VERSE, n.  Unrhymed iambic pentameters--the most difficult\nkind of English verse to write acceptably; a kind, therefore, much\naffected by those who cannot acceptably write any kind.\n\nBODY-SNATCHER, n.  A robber of grave-worms.  One who supplies the\nyoung physicians with that with which the old physicians have supplied\nthe undertaker.  The hyena.\n\n  \"One night,\" a doctor said, \"last fall,\n  I and my comrades, four in all,\n      When visiting a graveyard stood\n  Within the shadow of a wall.\n\n  \"While waiting for the moon to sink\n  We saw a wild hyena slink\n      About a new-made grave, and then\n  Begin to excavate its brink!\n\n  \"Shocked by the horrid act, we made\n  A sally from our ambuscade,\n      And, falling on the unholy beast,\n  Dispatched him with a pick and spade.\"\n\nBettel K. Jhones\n\n\nBONDSMAN, n.  A fool who, having property of his own, undertakes to\nbecome responsible for that entrusted to another to a third.\n\nPhilippe of Orleans wishing to appoint one of his favorites, a\ndissolute nobleman, to a high office, asked him what security he would\nbe able to give.  \"I need no bondsmen,\" he replied, \"for I can give\nyou my word of honor.\"  \"And pray what may be the value of that?\"\ninquired the amused Regent.  \"Monsieur, it is worth its weight in gold.\"\n\nBORE, n.  A person who talks when you wish him to listen.\n\nBOTANY, n.  The science of vegetables--those that are not good to\neat, as well as those that are.  It deals largely with their flowers,\nwhich are commonly badly designed, inartistic in color, and\nill-smelling.\n\nBOTTLE-NOSED, adj.  Having a nose created in the image of its maker.\n\nBOUNDARY, n.  In political geography, an imaginary line between two\nnations, separating the imaginary rights of one from the imaginary\nrights of the other.\n\nBOUNTY, n.  The liberality of one who has much, in permitting one who\nhas nothing to get all that he can.\n\n      A single swallow, it is said, devours ten millions of insects\n  every year.  The supplying of these insects I take to be a signal\n  instance of the Creator's bounty in providing for the lives of His\n  creatures.\n\nHenry Ward Beecher\n\n\nBRAHMA, n.  He who created the Hindoos, who are preserved by Vishnu\nand destroyed by Siva--a rather neater division of labor than is\nfound among the deities of some other nations.  The Abracadabranese,\nfor example, are created by Sin, maintained by Theft and destroyed by\nFolly.  The priests of Brahma, like those of Abracadabranese, are holy\nand learned men who are never naughty.\n\n  O Brahma, thou rare old Divinity,\n  First Person of the Hindoo Trinity,\n  You sit there so calm and securely,\n  With feet folded up so demurely--\n  You're the First Person Singular, surely.\n\nPolydore Smith\n\n\nBRAIN, n. An apparatus with which we think what we think.  That which\ndistinguishes the man who is content to _be_ something from the man\nwho wishes to _do_ something.  A man of great wealth, or one who has\nbeen pitchforked into high station, has commonly such a headful of\nbrain that his neighbors cannot keep their hats on.  In our\ncivilization, and under our republican form of government, brain is so\nhighly honored that it is rewarded by exemption from the cares of\noffice.\n\nBRANDY, n.  A cordial composed of one part thunder-and-lightning, one\npart remorse, two parts bloody murder, one part death-hell-and-the\ngrave and four parts clarified Satan.  Dose, a headful all the time.\nBrandy is said by Dr. Johnson to be the drink of heroes.  Only a hero\nwill venture to drink it.\n\nBRIDE, n.  A woman with a fine prospect of happiness behind her.\n\nBRUTE, n.  See HUSBAND.\n\n\n\n\nC\n\n\n\nCAABA, n.  A large stone presented by the archangel Gabriel to the\npatriarch Abraham, and preserved at Mecca.  The patriarch had perhaps\nasked the archangel for bread.\n\nCABBAGE, n.  A familiar kitchen-garden vegetable about as large and\nwise as a man's head.\n\nThe cabbage is so called from Cabagius, a prince who on ascending\nthe throne issued a decree appointing a High Council of Empire\nconsisting of the members of his predecessor's Ministry and the\ncabbages in the royal garden.  When any of his Majesty's measures of\nstate policy miscarried conspicuously it was gravely announced that\nseveral members of the High Council had been beheaded, and his\nmurmuring subjects were appeased.\n\nCALAMITY, n.  A more than commonly plain and unmistakable reminder\nthat the affairs of this life are not of our own ordering.  Calamities\nare of two kinds:  misfortune to ourselves, and good fortune to\nothers.\n\nCALLOUS, adj.  Gifted with great fortitude to bear the evils\nafflicting another.\n\nWhen Zeno was told that one of his enemies was no more he was\nobserved to be deeply moved.  \"What!\" said one of his disciples, \"you\nweep at the death of an enemy?\"  \"Ah, 'tis true,\" replied the great\nStoic; \"but you should see me smile at the death of a friend.\"\n\nCALUMNUS, n.  A graduate of the School for Scandal.\n\nCAMEL, n.  A quadruped (the _Splaypes humpidorsus_) of great value to\nthe show business.  There are two kinds of camels--the camel proper\nand the camel improper.  It is the latter that is always exhibited.\n\nCANNIBAL, n.  A gastronome of the old school who preserves the simple\ntastes and adheres to the natural diet of the pre-pork period.\n\nCANNON, n.  An instrument employed in the rectification of national\nboundaries.\n\nCANONICALS, n.  The motley worm by Jesters of the Court of Heaven.\n\nCAPITAL, n.  The seat of misgovernment.  That which provides the fire,\nthe pot, the dinner, the table and the knife and fork for the\nanarchist; the part of the repast that himself supplies is the\ndisgrace before meat.  _Capital Punishment_, a penalty regarding the\njustice and expediency of which many worthy persons--including all\nthe assassins--entertain grave misgivings.\n\nCARMELITE, n.  A mendicant friar of the order of Mount Carmel.\n\n  As Death was a-rising out one day,\n  Across Mount Camel he took his way,\n      Where he met a mendicant monk,\n      Some three or four quarters drunk,\n  With a holy leer and a pious grin,\n  Ragged and fat and as saucy as sin,\n      Who held out his hands and cried:\n  \"Give, give in Charity's name, I pray.\n  Give in the name of the Church.  O give,\n  Give that her holy sons may live!\"\n      And Death replied,\n      Smiling long and wide:\n      \"I'll give, holy father, I'll give thee--a ride.\"\n\n      With a rattle and bang\n      Of his bones, he sprang\n  From his famous Pale Horse, with his spear;\n      By the neck and the foot\n      Seized the fellow, and put\n  Him astride with his face to the rear.\n\n  The Monarch laughed loud with a sound that fell\n  Like clods on the coffin's sounding shell:\n  \"Ho, ho!  A beggar on horseback, they say,\n      Will ride to the devil!\"--and _thump_\n      Fell the flat of his dart on the rump\n  Of the charger, which galloped away.\n\n  Faster and faster and faster it flew,\n  Till the rocks and the flocks and the trees that grew\n  By the road were dim and blended and blue\n      To the wild, wild eyes\n      Of the rider--in size\n      Resembling a couple of blackberry pies.\n  Death laughed again, as a tomb might laugh\n      At a burial service spoiled,\n      And the mourners' intentions foiled\n      By the body erecting\n      Its head and objecting\n  To further proceedings in its behalf.\n\n  Many a year and many a day\n  Have passed since these events away.\n  The monk has long been a dusty corse,\n  And Death has never recovered his horse.\n      For the friar got hold of its tail,\n      And steered it within the pale\n  Of the monastery gray,\n  Where the beast was stabled and fed\n  With barley and oil and bread\n  Till fatter it grew than the fattest friar,\n  And so in due course was appointed Prior.\n\nG.J.\n\n\nCARNIVOROUS, adj.  Addicted to the cruelty of devouring the timorous\nvegetarian, his heirs and assigns.\n\nCARTESIAN, adj.  Relating to Descartes, a famous philosopher, author\nof the celebrated dictum, _Cogito ergo sum_--whereby he was pleased\nto suppose he demonstrated the reality of human existence.  The dictum\nmight be improved, however, thus:  _Cogito cogito ergo cogito sum_--\n\"I think that I think, therefore I think that I am;\" as close an\napproach to certainty as any philosopher has yet made.\n\nCAT, n.  A soft, indestructible automaton provided by nature to be\nkicked when things go wrong in the domestic circle.\n\n  This is a dog,\n      This is a cat.\n  This is a frog,\n      This is a rat.\n  Run, dog, mew, cat.\n  Jump, frog, gnaw, rat.\n\nElevenson\n\n\nCAVILER, n.  A critic of our own work.\n\nCEMETERY, n.  An isolated suburban spot where mourners match lies,\npoets write at a target and stone-cutters spell for a wager.  The\ninscriptions following will serve to illustrate the success attained\nin these Olympian games:\n\n      His virtues were so conspicuous that his enemies, unable to\n  overlook them, denied them, and his friends, to whose loose lives\n  they were a rebuke, represented them as vices.  They are here\n  commemorated by his family, who shared them.\n      In the earth we here prepare a\n      Place to lay our little Clara.\n\nThomas M. and Mary Frazer\n\n      P.S.--Gabriel will raise her.\n\nCENTAUR, n.  One of a race of persons who lived before the division of\nlabor had been carried to such a pitch of differentiation, and who\nfollowed the primitive economic maxim, \"Every man his own horse.\"  The\nbest of the lot was Chiron, who to the wisdom and virtues of the horse\nadded the fleetness of man.  The scripture story of the head of John\nthe Baptist on a charger shows that pagan myths have somewhat\nsophisticated sacred history.\n\nCERBERUS, n.  The watch-dog of Hades, whose duty it was to guard the\nentrance--against whom or what does not clearly appear; everybody,\nsooner or later, had to go there, and nobody wanted to carry off the\nentrance.  Cerberus is known to have had three heads, and some of the\npoets have credited him with as many as a hundred.  Professor\nGraybill, whose clerky erudition and profound knowledge of Greek give\nhis opinion great weight, has averaged all the estimates, and makes\nthe number twenty-seven--a judgment that would be entirely\nconclusive if Professor Graybill had known (a) something about dogs,\nand (b) something about arithmetic.\n\nCHILDHOOD, n.  The period of human life intermediate between the\nidiocy of infancy and the folly of youth--two removes from the sin\nof manhood and three from the remorse of age.\n\nCHRISTIAN, n.  One who believes that the New Testament is a divinely\ninspired book admirably suited to the spiritual needs of his neighbor.\nOne who follows the teachings of Christ in so far as they are not\ninconsistent with a life of sin.\n\n  I dreamed I stood upon a hill, and, lo!\n  The godly multitudes walked to and fro\n  Beneath, in Sabbath garments fitly clad,\n  With pious mien, appropriately sad,\n  While all the church bells made a solemn din--\n  A fire-alarm to those who lived in sin.\n  Then saw I gazing thoughtfully below,\n  With tranquil face, upon that holy show\n  A tall, spare figure in a robe of white,\n  Whose eyes diffused a melancholy light.\n  \"God keep you, stranger,\" I exclaimed.  \"You are\n  No doubt (your habit shows it) from afar;\n  And yet I entertain the hope that you,\n  Like these good people, are a Christian too.\"\n  He raised his eyes and with a look so stern\n  It made me with a thousand blushes burn\n  Replied--his manner with disdain was spiced:\n  \"What!  I a Christian?  No, indeed!  I'm Christ.\"\n\nG.J.\n\n\nCIRCUS, n.  A place where horses, ponies and elephants are permitted\nto see men, women and children acting the fool.\n\nCLAIRVOYANT, n.  A person, commonly a woman, who has the power of\nseeing that which is invisible to her patron, namely, that he is a\nblockhead.\n\nCLARIONET, n.  An instrument of torture operated by a person with\ncotton in his ears.  There are two instruments that are worse than a\nclarionet--two clarionets.\n\nCLERGYMAN, n.  A man who undertakes the management of our spiritual\naffairs as a method of bettering his temporal ones.\n\nCLIO, n.  One of the nine Muses.  Clio's function was to preside over\nhistory--which she did with great dignity, many of the prominent\ncitizens of Athens occupying seats on the platform, the meetings being\naddressed by Messrs. Xenophon, Herodotus and other popular speakers.\n\nCLOCK, n.  A machine of great moral value to man, allaying his concern\nfor the future by reminding him what a lot of time remains to him.\n\n  A busy man complained one day:\n  \"I get no time!\"  \"What's that you say?\"\n  Cried out his friend, a lazy quiz;\n  \"You have, sir, all the time there is.\n  There's plenty, too, and don't you doubt it--\n  We're never for an hour without it.\"\n\nPurzil Crofe\n\n\nCLOSE-FISTED, adj.  Unduly desirous of keeping that which many\nmeritorious persons wish to obtain.\n\n  \"Close-fisted Scotchman!\" Johnson cried\n      To thrifty J. Macpherson;\n  \"See me--I'm ready to divide\n      With any worthy person.\"\n  Sad Jamie:  \"That is very true--\n      The boast requires no backing;\n  And all are worthy, sir, to you,\n      Who have what you are lacking.\"\n\nAnita M. Bobe\n\n\nCOENOBITE, n.  A man who piously shuts himself up to meditate upon the\nsin of wickedness; and to keep it fresh in his mind joins a\nbrotherhood of awful examples.\n\n  O Coenobite, O coenobite,\n      Monastical gregarian,\n  You differ from the anchorite,\n      That solitudinarian:\n  With vollied prayers you wound Old Nick;\n  With dropping shots he makes him sick.\n\nQuincy Giles\n\n\nCOMFORT, n.  A state of mind produced by contemplation of a neighbor's\nuneasiness.\n\nCOMMENDATION, n.  The tribute that we pay to achievements that\nresembles, but do not equal, our own.\n\nCOMMERCE, n.  A kind of transaction in which A plunders from B the\ngoods of C, and for compensation B picks the pocket of D of money\nbelonging to E.\n\nCOMMONWEALTH, n.  An administrative entity operated by an incalculable\nmultitude of political parasites, logically active but fortuitously\nefficient.\n\n  This commonwealth's capitol's corridors view,\n  So thronged with a hungry and indolent crew\n  Of clerks, pages, porters and all attaches\n  Whom rascals appoint and the populace pays\n  That a cat cannot slip through the thicket of shins\n  Nor hear its own shriek for the noise of their chins.\n  On clerks and on pages, and porters, and all,\n  Misfortune attend and disaster befall!\n  May life be to them a succession of hurts;\n  May fleas by the bushel inhabit their shirts;\n  May aches and diseases encamp in their bones,\n  Their lungs full of tubercles, bladders of stones;\n  May microbes, bacilli, their tissues infest,\n  And tapeworms securely their bowels digest;\n  May corn-cobs be snared without hope in their hair,\n  And frequent impalement their pleasure impair.\n  Disturbed be their dreams by the awful discourse\n  Of audible sofas sepulchrally hoarse,\n  By chairs acrobatic and wavering floors--\n  The mattress that kicks and the pillow that snores!\n  Sons of cupidity, cradled in sin!\n  Your criminal ranks may the death angel thin,\n  Avenging the friend whom I couldn't work in.\n\nK.Q.\n\n\nCOMPROMISE, n.  Such an adjustment of conflicting interests as gives\neach adversary the satisfaction of thinking he has got what he ought\nnot to have, and is deprived of nothing except what was justly his\ndue.\n\nCOMPULSION, n.  The eloquence of power.\n\nCONDOLE, v.i.  To show that bereavement is a smaller evil than\nsympathy.\n\nCONFIDANT, CONFIDANTE, n.  One entrusted by A with the secrets of B,\nconfided by _him_ to C.\n\nCONGRATULATION, n.  The civility of envy.\n\nCONGRESS, n.  A body of men who meet to repeal laws.\n\nCONNOISSEUR, n.  A specialist who knows everything about something and\nnothing about anything else.\n\nAn old wine-bibber having been smashed in a railway collision,\nsome wine was pouted on his lips to revive him.  \"Pauillac, 1873,\" he\nmurmured and died.\n\nCONSERVATIVE, n.  A statesman who is enamored of existing evils, as\ndistinguished from the Liberal, who wishes to replace them with\nothers.\n\nCONSOLATION, n.  The knowledge that a better man is more unfortunate\nthan yourself.\n\nCONSUL, n.  In American politics, a person who having failed to secure\nan office from the people is given one by the Administration on\ncondition that he leave the country.\n\nCONSULT, v.i.  To seek another's disapproval of a course already\ndecided on.\n\nCONTEMPT, n.  The feeling of a prudent man for an enemy who is too\nformidable safely to be opposed.\n\nCONTROVERSY, n.  A battle in which spittle or ink replaces the\ninjurious cannon-ball and the inconsiderate bayonet.\n\n  In controversy with the facile tongue--\n  That bloodless warfare of the old and young--\n  So seek your adversary to engage\n  That on himself he shall exhaust his rage,\n  And, like a snake that's fastened to the ground,\n  With his own fangs inflict the fatal wound.\n  You ask me how this miracle is done?\n  Adopt his own opinions, one by one,\n  And taunt him to refute them; in his wrath\n  He'll sweep them pitilessly from his path.\n  Advance then gently all you wish to prove,\n  Each proposition prefaced with, \"As you've\n  So well remarked,\" or, \"As you wisely say,\n  And I cannot dispute,\" or, \"By the way,\n  This view of it which, better far expressed,\n  Runs through your argument.\"  Then leave the rest\n  To him, secure that he'll perform his trust\n  And prove your views intelligent and just.\n\nConmore Apel Brune\n\n\nCONVENT, n.  A place of retirement for woman who wish for leisure to\nmeditate upon the vice of idleness.\n\nCONVERSATION, n.  A fair for the display of the minor mental\ncommodities, each exhibitor being too intent upon the arrangement of\nhis own wares to observe those of his neighbor.\n\nCORONATION, n.  The ceremony of investing a sovereign with the outward\nand visible signs of his divine right to be blown skyhigh with a\ndynamite bomb.\n\nCORPORAL, n.  A man who occupies the lowest rung of the military\nladder.\n\n  Fiercely the battle raged and, sad to tell,\n  Our corporal heroically fell!\n  Fame from her height looked down upon the brawl\n  And said:  \"He hadn't very far to fall.\"\n\nGiacomo Smith\n\n\nCORPORATION, n.  An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit\nwithout individual responsibility.\n\nCORSAIR, n.  A politician of the seas.\n\nCOURT FOOL, n.  The plaintiff.\n\nCOWARD, n.  One who in a perilous emergency thinks with his legs.\n\nCRAYFISH, n.  A small crustacean very much resembling the lobster, but\nless indigestible.\n\n      In this small fish I take it that human wisdom is admirably\n  figured and symbolized; for whereas the crayfish doth move only\n  backward, and can have only retrospection, seeing naught but the\n  perils already passed, so the wisdom of man doth not enable him to\n  avoid the follies that beset his course, but only to apprehend\n  their nature afterward.\n\nSir James Merivale\n\n\nCREDITOR, n.  One of a tribe of savages dwelling beyond the Financial\nStraits and dreaded for their desolating incursions.\n\nCREMONA, n.  A high-priced violin made in Connecticut.\n\nCRITIC, n.  A person who boasts himself hard to please because nobody\ntries to please him.\n\n  There is a land of pure delight,\n      Beyond the Jordan's flood,\n  Where saints, apparelled all in white,\n      Fling back the critic's mud.\n\n  And as he legs it through the skies,\n      His pelt a sable hue,\n  He sorrows sore to recognize\n      The missiles that he threw.\n\nOrrin Goof\n\n\nCROSS, n.  An ancient religious symbol erroneously supposed to owe its\nsignificance to the most solemn event in the history of Christianity,\nbut really antedating it by thousands of years.  By many it has been\nbelieved to be identical with the _crux ansata_ of the ancient phallic\nworship, but it has been traced even beyond all that we know of that,\nto the rites of primitive peoples.  We have to-day the White Cross as\na symbol of chastity, and the Red Cross as a badge of benevolent\nneutrality in war.  Having in mind the former, the reverend Father\nGassalasca Jape smites the lyre to the effect following:\n\n  \"Be good, be good!\" the sisterhood\n      Cry out in holy chorus,\n  And, to dissuade from sin, parade\n      Their various charms before us.\n\n  But why, O why, has ne'er an eye\n      Seen her of winsome manner\n  And youthful grace and pretty face\n      Flaunting the White Cross banner?\n\n  Now where's the need of speech and screed\n      To better our behaving?\n  A simpler plan for saving man\n      (But, first, is he worth saving?)\n\n  Is, dears, when he declines to flee\n      From bad thoughts that beset him,\n  Ignores the Law as 't were a straw,\n      And wants to sin--don't let him.\n\nCUI BONO?  [Latin]  What good would that do _me_?\n\nCUNNING, n.  The faculty that distinguishes a weak animal or person\nfrom a strong one.  It brings its possessor much mental satisfaction\nand great material adversity.  An Italian proverb says:  \"The furrier\ngets the skins of more foxes than asses.\"\n\nCUPID, n.  The so-called god of love.  This bastard creation of a\nbarbarous fancy was no doubt inflicted upon mythology for the sins of\nits deities.  Of all unbeautiful and inappropriate conceptions this is\nthe most reasonless and offensive.  The notion of symbolizing sexual\nlove by a semisexless babe, and comparing the pains of passion to the\nwounds of an arrow--of introducing this pudgy homunculus into art\ngrossly to materialize the subtle spirit and suggestion of the work--\nthis is eminently worthy of the age that, giving it birth, laid it on\nthe doorstep of prosperity.\n\nCURIOSITY, n.  An objectionable quality of the female mind.  The\ndesire to know whether or not a woman is cursed with curiosity is one\nof the most active and insatiable passions of the masculine soul.\n\nCURSE, v.t.  Energetically to belabor with a verbal slap-stick.  This\nis an operation which in literature, particularly in the drama, is\ncommonly fatal to the victim.  Nevertheless, the liability to a\ncursing is a risk that cuts but a small figure in fixing the rates of\nlife insurance.\n\nCYNIC, n.  A blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are,\nnot as they ought to be.  Hence the custom among the Scythians of\nplucking out a cynic's eyes to improve his vision.\n\n\n\n\nD\n\n\n\nDAMN, v.  A word formerly much used by the Paphlagonians, the meaning\nof which is lost.  By the learned Dr. Dolabelly Gak it is believed to\nhave been a term of satisfaction, implying the highest possible degree\nof mental tranquillity.  Professor Groke, on the contrary, thinks it\nexpressed an emotion of tumultuous delight, because it so frequently\noccurs in combination with the word _jod_ or _god_, meaning \"joy.\"  It\nwould be with great diffidence that I should advance an opinion\nconflicting with that of either of these formidable authorities.\n\nDANCE, v.i.  To leap about to the sound of tittering music, preferably\nwith arms about your neighbor's wife or daughter.  There are many\nkinds of dances, but all those requiring the participation of the two\nsexes have two characteristics in common:  they are conspicuously\ninnocent, and warmly loved by the vicious.\n\nDANGER, n.\n\n  A savage beast which, when it sleeps,\n      Man girds at and despises,\n  But takes himself away by leaps\n      And bounds when it arises.\n\nAmbat Delaso\n\n\nDARING, n.  One of the most conspicuous qualities of a man in\nsecurity.\n\nDATARY, n.  A high ecclesiastic official of the Roman Catholic Church,\nwhose important function is to brand the Pope's bulls with the words\n_Datum Romae_.  He enjoys a princely revenue and the friendship of\nGod.\n\nDAWN, n.  The time when men of reason go to bed.  Certain old men\nprefer to rise at about that time, taking a cold bath and a long walk\nwith an empty stomach, and otherwise mortifying the flesh.  They then\npoint with pride to these practices as the cause of their sturdy\nhealth and ripe years; the truth being that they are hearty and old,\nnot because of their habits, but in spite of them.  The reason we find\nonly robust persons doing this thing is that it has killed all the\nothers who have tried it.\n\nDAY, n.  A period of twenty-four hours, mostly misspent.  This period\nis divided into two parts, the day proper and the night, or day\nimproper--the former devoted to sins of business, the latter\nconsecrated to the other sort.  These two kinds of social activity\noverlap.\n\nDEAD, adj.\n\n  Done with the work of breathing; done\n  With all the world; the mad race run\n  Through to the end; the golden goal\n  Attained and found to be a hole!\n\nSquatol Johnes\n\n\nDEBAUCHEE, n.  One who has so earnestly pursued pleasure that he has\nhad the misfortune to overtake it.\n\nDEBT, n.  An ingenious substitute for the chain and whip of the\nslave-driver.\n\n  As, pent in an aquarium, the troutlet\n  Swims round and round his tank to find an outlet,\n  Pressing his nose against the glass that holds him,\n  Nor ever sees the prison that enfolds him;\n  So the poor debtor, seeing naught around him,\n  Yet feels the narrow limits that impound him,\n  Grieves at his debt and studies to evade it,\n  And finds at last he might as well have paid it.\n\nBarlow S. Vode\n\n\nDECALOGUE, n.  A series of commandments, ten in number--just enough\nto permit an intelligent selection for observance, but not enough to\nembarrass the choice.  Following is the revised edition of the\nDecalogue, calculated for this meridian.\n\n  Thou shalt no God but me adore:\n  'Twere too expensive to have more.\n\n  No images nor idols make\n  For Robert Ingersoll to break.\n\n  Take not God's name in vain; select\n  A time when it will have effect.\n\n  Work not on Sabbath days at all,\n  But go to see the teams play ball.\n\n  Honor thy parents.  That creates\n  For life insurance lower rates.\n\n  Kill not, abet not those who kill;\n  Thou shalt not pay thy butcher's bill.\n\n  Kiss not thy neighbor's wife, unless\n  Thine own thy neighbor doth caress\n\n  Don't steal; thou'lt never thus compete\n  Successfully in business.  Cheat.\n\n  Bear not false witness--that is low--\n  But \"hear 'tis rumored so and so.\"\n\n  Covet thou naught that thou hast not\n  By hook or crook, or somehow, got.\n\nG.J.\n\n\nDECIDE, v.i.  To succumb to the preponderance of one set of influences\nover another set.\n\n  A leaf was riven from a tree,\n  \"I mean to fall to earth,\" said he.\n\n  The west wind, rising, made him veer.\n  \"Eastward,\" said he, \"I now shall steer.\"\n\n  The east wind rose with greater force.\n  Said he:  \"'Twere wise to change my course.\"\n\n  With equal power they contend.\n  He said:  \"My judgment I suspend.\"\n\n  Down died the winds; the leaf, elate,\n  Cried:  \"I've decided to fall straight.\"\n\n  \"First thoughts are best?\"  That's not the moral;\n  Just choose your own and we'll not quarrel.\n\n  Howe'er your choice may chance to fall,\n  You'll have no hand in it at all.\n\nG.J.\n\n\nDEFAME, v.t.  To lie about another.  To tell the truth about another.\n\nDEFENCELESS, adj.  Unable to attack.\n\nDEGENERATE, adj.  Less conspicuously admirable than one's ancestors.\nThe contemporaries of Homer were striking examples of degeneracy; it\nrequired ten of them to raise a rock or a riot that one of the heroes\nof the Trojan war could have raised with ease.  Homer never tires of\nsneering at \"men who live in these degenerate days,\" which is perhaps\nwhy they suffered him to beg his bread--a marked instance of\nreturning good for evil, by the way, for if they had forbidden him he\nwould certainly have starved.\n\nDEGRADATION, n.  One of the stages of moral and social progress from\nprivate station to political preferment.\n\nDEINOTHERIUM, n.  An extinct pachyderm that flourished when the\nPterodactyl was in fashion.  The latter was a native of Ireland, its\nname being pronounced Terry Dactyl or Peter O'Dactyl, as the man\npronouncing it may chance to have heard it spoken or seen it printed.\n\nDEJEUNER, n.  The breakfast of an American who has been in Paris.\nVariously pronounced.\n\nDELEGATION, n.  In American politics, an article of merchandise that\ncomes in sets.\n\nDELIBERATION, n.  The act of examining one's bread to determine which\nside it is buttered on.\n\nDELUGE, n.  A notable first experiment in baptism which washed away\nthe sins (and sinners) of the world.\n\nDELUSION, n.  The father of a most respectable family, comprising\nEnthusiasm, Affection, Self-denial, Faith, Hope, Charity and many\nother goodly sons and daughters.\n\n  All hail, Delusion!  Were it not for thee\n  The world turned topsy-turvy we should see;\n  For Vice, respectable with cleanly fancies,\n  Would fly abandoned Virtue's gross advances.\n\nMumfrey Mappel\n\n\nDENTIST, n.  A prestidigitator who, putting metal into your mouth,\npulls coins out of your pocket.\n\nDEPENDENT, adj.  Reliant upon another's generosity for the support\nwhich you are not in a position to exact from his fears.\n\nDEPUTY, n.  A male relative of an office-holder, or of his bondsman.\nThe deputy is commonly a beautiful young man, with a red necktie and\nan intricate system of cobwebs extending from his nose to his desk.\nWhen accidentally struck by the janitor's broom, he gives off a cloud\nof dust.\n\n  \"Chief Deputy,\" the Master cried,\n  \"To-day the books are to be tried\n  By experts and accountants who\n  Have been commissioned to go through\n  Our office here, to see if we\n  Have stolen injudiciously.\n  Please have the proper entries made,\n  The proper balances displayed,\n  Conforming to the whole amount\n  Of cash on hand--which they will count.\n  I've long admired your punctual way--\n  Here at the break and close of day,\n  Confronting in your chair the crowd\n  Of business men, whose voices loud\n  And gestures violent you quell\n  By some mysterious, calm spell--\n  Some magic lurking in your look\n  That brings the noisiest to book\n  And spreads a holy and profound\n  Tranquillity o'er all around.\n  So orderly all's done that they\n  Who came to draw remain to pay.\n  But now the time demands, at last,\n  That you employ your genius vast\n  In energies more active.  Rise\n  And shake the lightnings from your eyes;\n  Inspire your underlings, and fling\n  Your spirit into everything!\"\n  The Master's hand here dealt a whack\n  Upon the Deputy's bent back,\n  When straightway to the floor there fell\n  A shrunken globe, a rattling shell\n  A blackened, withered, eyeless head!\n  The man had been a twelvemonth dead.\n\nJamrach Holobom\n\n\nDESTINY, n.  A tyrant's authority for crime and fool's excuse for\nfailure.\n\nDIAGNOSIS, n.  A physician's forecast of the disease by the patient's\npulse and purse.\n\nDIAPHRAGM, n.  A muscular partition separating disorders of the chest\nfrom disorders of the bowels.\n\nDIARY, n.  A daily record of that part of one's life, which he can\nrelate to himself without blushing.\n\n  Hearst kept a diary wherein were writ\n  All that he had of wisdom and of wit.\n  So the Recording Angel, when Hearst died,\n  Erased all entries of his own and cried:\n  \"I'll judge you by your diary.\"  Said Hearst:\n  \"Thank you; 'twill show you I am Saint the First\"--\n  Straightway producing, jubilant and proud,\n  That record from a pocket in his shroud.\n  The Angel slowly turned the pages o'er,\n  Each stupid line of which he knew before,\n  Glooming and gleaming as by turns he hit\n  On Shallow sentiment and stolen wit;\n  Then gravely closed the book and gave it back.\n  \"My friend, you've wandered from your proper track:\n  You'd never be content this side the tomb--\n  For big ideas Heaven has little room,\n  And Hell's no latitude for making mirth,\"\n  He said, and kicked the fellow back to earth.\n\n\"The Mad Philosopher\"\n\n\nDICTATOR, n.  The chief of a nation that prefers the pestilence of\ndespotism to the plague of anarchy.\n\nDICTIONARY, n.  A malevolent literary device for cramping the growth\nof a language and making it hard and inelastic.  This dictionary,\nhowever, is a most useful work.\n\nDIE, n.  The singular of \"dice.\"  We seldom hear the word, because\nthere is a prohibitory proverb, \"Never say die.\"  At long intervals,\nhowever, some one says:  \"The die is cast,\" which is not true, for it\nis cut.  The word is found in an immortal couplet by that eminent poet\nand domestic economist, Senator Depew:\n\n  A cube of cheese no larger than a die\n  May bait the trap to catch a nibbling mie.\n\nDIGESTION, n.  The conversion of victuals into virtues.  When the\nprocess is imperfect, vices are evolved instead--a circumstance from\nwhich that wicked writer, Dr. Jeremiah Blenn, infers that the ladies\nare the greater sufferers from dyspepsia.\n\nDIPLOMACY, n.  The patriotic art of lying for one's country.\n\nDISABUSE, v.t.  To present your neighbor with another and better\nerror than the one which he has deemed it advantageous to embrace.\n\nDISCRIMINATE, v.i.  To note the particulars in which one person or\nthing is, if possible, more objectionable than another.\n\nDISCUSSION, n.  A method of confirming others in their errors.\n\nDISOBEDIENCE, n.  The silver lining to the cloud of servitude.\n\nDISOBEY, v.t.  To celebrate with an appropriate ceremony the maturity\nof a command.\n\n  His right to govern me is clear as day,\n  My duty manifest to disobey;\n  And if that fit observance e'er I shut\n  May I and duty be alike undone.\n\nIsrafel Brown\n\n\nDISSEMBLE, v.i.  To put a clean shirt upon the character.\n  Let us dissemble.\n\nAdam\n\n\nDISTANCE, n.  The only thing that the rich are willing for the poor to\ncall theirs, and keep.\n\nDISTRESS, n.  A disease incurred by exposure to the prosperity of a\nfriend.\n\nDIVINATION, n.  The art of nosing out the occult.  Divination is of as\nmany kinds as there are fruit-bearing varieties of the flowering dunce\nand the early fool.\n\nDOG, n.  A kind of additional or subsidiary Deity designed to catch\nthe overflow and surplus of the world's worship.  This Divine Being in\nsome of his smaller and silkier incarnations takes, in the affection\nof Woman, the place to which there is no human male aspirant.  The Dog\nis a survival--an anachronism.  He toils not, neither does he spin,\nyet Solomon in all his glory never lay upon a door-mat all day long,\nsun-soaked and fly-fed and fat, while his master worked for the means\nwherewith to purchase the idle wag of the Solomonic tail, seasoned\nwith a look of tolerant recognition.\n\nDRAGOON, n.  A soldier who combines dash and steadiness in so equal\nmeasure that he makes his advances on foot and his retreats on\nhorseback.\n\nDRAMATIST, n.  One who adapts plays from the French.\n\nDRUIDS, n.  Priests and ministers of an ancient Celtic religion which\ndid not disdain to employ the humble allurement of human sacrifice.\nVery little is now known about the Druids and their faith.  Pliny says\ntheir religion, originating in Britain, spread eastward as far as\nPersia.  Caesar says those who desired to study its mysteries went to\nBritain.  Caesar himself went to Britain, but does not appear to have\nobtained any high preferment in the Druidical Church, although his\ntalent for human sacrifice was considerable.\n\nDruids performed their religious rites in groves, and knew nothing\nof church mortgages and the season-ticket system of pew rents.  They\nwere, in short, heathens and--as they were once complacently\ncatalogued by a distinguished prelate of the Church of England--\nDissenters.\n\nDUCK-BILL, n.  Your account at your restaurant during the canvas-back\nseason.\n\nDUEL, n.  A formal ceremony preliminary to the reconciliation of two\nenemies.  Great skill is necessary to its satisfactory observance; if\nawkwardly performed the most unexpected and deplorable consequences\nsometimes ensue.  A long time ago a man lost his life in a duel.\n\n  That dueling's a gentlemanly vice\n      I hold; and wish that it had been my lot\n      To live my life out in some favored spot--\n  Some country where it is considered nice\n  To split a rival like a fish, or slice\n      A husband like a spud, or with a shot\n      Bring down a debtor doubled in a knot\n  And ready to be put upon the ice.\n  Some miscreants there are, whom I do long\n      To shoot, to stab, or some such way reclaim\n  The scurvy rogues to better lives and manners,\n  I seem to see them now--a mighty throng.\n      It looks as if to challenge _me_ they came,\n  Jauntily marching with brass bands and banners!\n\nXamba Q. Dar\n\n\nDULLARD, n.  A member of the reigning dynasty in letters and life.\nThe Dullards came in with Adam, and being both numerous and sturdy\nhave overrun the habitable world.  The secret of their power is their\ninsensibility to blows; tickle them with a bludgeon and they laugh\nwith a platitude.  The Dullards came originally from Boeotia, whence\nthey were driven by stress of starvation, their dullness having\nblighted the crops.  For some centuries they infested Philistia, and\nmany of them are called Philistines to this day.  In the turbulent\ntimes of the Crusades they withdrew thence and gradually overspread\nall Europe, occupying most of the high places in politics, art,\nliterature, science and theology.  Since a detachment of Dullards came\nover with the Pilgrims in the _Mayflower_ and made a favorable report\nof the country, their increase by birth, immigration, and conversion\nhas been rapid and steady.  According to the most trustworthy\nstatistics the number of adult Dullards in the United States is but\nlittle short of thirty millions, including the statisticians.  The\nintellectual centre of the race is somewhere about Peoria, Illinois,\nbut the New England Dullard is the most shockingly moral.\n\nDUTY, n.  That which sternly impels us in the direction of profit,\nalong the line of desire.\n\n  Sir Lavender Portwine, in favor at court,\n  Was wroth at his master, who'd kissed Lady Port.\n  His anger provoked him to take the king's head,\n  But duty prevailed, and he took the king's bread,\n          Instead.\n\nG.J.\n\n\n\n\n\nE\n\n\n\nEAT, v.i.  To perform successively (and successfully) the functions of\nmastication, humectation, and deglutition.\n\n\"I was in the drawing-room, enjoying my dinner,\" said Brillat-Savarin,\nbeginning an anecdote.  \"What!\" interrupted Rochebriant; \"eating dinner\nin a drawing-room?\"  \"I must beg you to observe, monsieur,\" explained\nthe great gastronome, \"that I did not say I was eating my dinner, but\nenjoying it.  I had dined an hour before.\"\n\nEAVESDROP, v.i.  Secretly to overhear a catalogue of the crimes and\nvices of another or yourself.\n\n  A lady with one of her ears applied\n  To an open keyhole heard, inside,\n  Two female gossips in converse free--\n  The subject engaging them was she.\n  \"I think,\" said one, \"and my husband thinks\n  That she's a prying, inquisitive minx!\"\n  As soon as no more of it she could hear\n  The lady, indignant, removed her ear.\n  \"I will not stay,\" she said, with a pout,\n  \"To hear my character lied about!\"\n\nGopete Sherany\n\n\nECCENTRICITY, n.  A method of distinction so cheap that fools employ\nit to accentuate their incapacity.\n\nECONOMY, n.  Purchasing the barrel of whiskey that you do not need for\nthe price of the cow that you cannot afford.\n\nEDIBLE, adj.  Good to eat, and wholesome to digest, as a worm to a\ntoad, a toad to a snake, a snake to a pig, a pig to a man, and a man\nto a worm.\n\nEDITOR, n.  A person who combines the judicial functions of Minos,\nRhadamanthus and Aeacus, but is placable with an obolus; a severely\nvirtuous censor, but so charitable withal that he tolerates the\nvirtues of others and the vices of himself; who flings about him the\nsplintering lightning and sturdy thunders of admonition till he\nresembles a bunch of firecrackers petulantly uttering his mind at the\ntail of a dog; then straightway murmurs a mild, melodious lay, soft as\nthe cooing of a donkey intoning its prayer to the evening star.\nMaster of mysteries and lord of law, high-pinnacled upon the throne of\nthought, his face suffused with the dim splendors of the\nTransfiguration, his legs intertwisted and his tongue a-cheek, the\neditor spills his will along the paper and cuts it off in lengths to\nsuit.  And at intervals from behind the veil of the temple is heard\nthe voice of the foreman demanding three inches of wit and six lines\nof religious meditation, or bidding him turn off the wisdom and whack\nup some pathos.\n\n  O, the Lord of Law on the Throne of Thought,\n      A gilded impostor is he.\n  Of shreds and patches his robes are wrought,\n              His crown is brass,\n              Himself an ass,\n      And his power is fiddle-dee-dee.\n  Prankily, crankily prating of naught,\n  Silly old quilly old Monarch of Thought.\n      Public opinion's camp-follower he,\n      Thundering, blundering, plundering free.\n                  Affected,\n                      Ungracious,\n                  Suspected,\n                      Mendacious,\n  Respected contemporaree!\n                                                    J.H. Bumbleshook\n\nEDUCATION, n. That which discloses to the wise and disguises from the\nfoolish their lack of understanding.\n\nEFFECT, n.  The second of two phenomena which always occur together in\nthe same order.  The first, called a Cause, is said to generate the\nother--which is no more sensible than it would be for one who has\nnever seen a dog except in the pursuit of a rabbit to declare the\nrabbit the cause of a dog.\n\nEGOTIST, n.  A person of low taste, more interested in himself than in me.\n\n  Megaceph, chosen to serve the State\n  In the halls of legislative debate,\n  One day with all his credentials came\n  To the capitol's door and announced his name.\n  The doorkeeper looked, with a comical twist\n  Of the face, at the eminent egotist,\n  And said:  \"Go away, for we settle here\n  All manner of questions, knotty and queer,\n  And we cannot have, when the speaker demands\n  To be told how every member stands,\n  A man who to all things under the sky\n  Assents by eternally voting 'I'.\"\n\nEJECTION, n.  An approved remedy for the disease of garrulity.  It is\nalso much used in cases of extreme poverty.\n\nELECTOR, n.  One who enjoys the sacred privilege of voting for the man\nof another man's choice.\n\nELECTRICITY, n.  The power that causes all natural phenomena not known\nto be caused by something else.  It is the same thing as lightning,\nand its famous attempt to strike Dr. Franklin is one of the most\npicturesque incidents in that great and good man's career.  The memory\nof Dr. Franklin is justly held in great reverence, particularly in\nFrance, where a waxen effigy of him was recently on exhibition,\nbearing the following touching account of his life and services to\nscience:\n\n      \"Monsieur Franqulin, inventor of electricity.  This\n  illustrious savant, after having made several voyages around the\n  world, died on the Sandwich Islands and was devoured by savages,\n  of whom not a single fragment was ever recovered.\"\n\n  Electricity seems destined to play a most important part in the\narts and industries.  The question of its economical application to\nsome purposes is still unsettled, but experiment has already proved\nthat it will propel a street car better than a gas jet and give more\nlight than a horse.\n\nELEGY, n.  A composition in verse, in which, without employing any of\nthe methods of humor, the writer aims to produce in the reader's mind\nthe dampest kind of dejection.  The most famous English example begins\nsomewhat like this:\n\n  The cur foretells the knell of parting day;\n      The loafing herd winds slowly o'er the lea;\n  The wise man homeward plods; I only stay\n      To fiddle-faddle in a minor key.\n\nELOQUENCE, n.  The art of orally persuading fools that white is the\ncolor that it appears to be.  It includes the gift of making any color\nappear white.\n\nELYSIUM, n.  An imaginary delightful country which the ancients\nfoolishly believed to be inhabited by the spirits of the good.  This\nridiculous and mischievous fable was swept off the face of the earth\nby the early Christians--may their souls be happy in Heaven!\n\nEMANCIPATION, n.  A bondman's change from the tyranny of another to\nthe despotism of himself.\n\n  He was a slave:  at word he went and came;\n      His iron collar cut him to the bone.\n  Then Liberty erased his owner's name,\n      Tightened the rivets and inscribed his own.\n\nG.J.\n\n\nEMBALM, v.i.  To cheat vegetation by locking up the gases upon which\nit feeds.  By embalming their dead and thereby deranging the natural\nbalance between animal and vegetable life, the Egyptians made their\nonce fertile and populous country barren and incapable of supporting\nmore than a meagre crew.  The modern metallic burial casket is a step\nin the same direction, and many a dead man who ought now to be\nornamenting his neighbor's lawn as a tree, or enriching his table as a\nbunch of radishes, is doomed to a long inutility.  We shall get him\nafter awhile if we are spared, but in the meantime the violet and rose\nare languishing for a nibble at his _glutoeus maximus_.\n\nEMOTION, n.  A prostrating disease caused by a determination of the\nheart to the head.  It is sometimes accompanied by a copious discharge\nof hydrated chloride of sodium from the eyes.\n\nENCOMIAST, n.  A special (but not particular) kind of liar.\n\nEND, n.  The position farthest removed on either hand from the\nInterlocutor.\n\n  The man was perishing apace\n      Who played the tambourine;\n  The seal of death was on his face--\n      'Twas pallid, for 'twas clean.\n\n  \"This is the end,\" the sick man said\n      In faint and failing tones.\n  A moment later he was dead,\n      And Tambourine was Bones.\n\nTinley Roquot\n\n\nENOUGH, pro.  All there is in the world if you like it.\n\n  Enough is as good as a feast--for that matter\n  Enougher's as good as a feast for the platter.\n\nArbely C. Strunk\n\n\nENTERTAINMENT, n.  Any kind of amusement whose inroads stop short of\ndeath by injection.\n\nENTHUSIASM, n.  A distemper of youth, curable by small doses of\nrepentance in connection with outward applications of experience.\nByron, who recovered long enough to call it \"entuzy-muzy,\" had a\nrelapse, which carried him off--to Missolonghi.\n\nENVELOPE, n.  The coffin of a document; the scabbard of a bill; the\nhusk of a remittance; the bed-gown of a love-letter.\n\nENVY, n.  Emulation adapted to the meanest capacity.\n\nEPAULET, n.  An ornamented badge, serving to distinguish a military\nofficer from the enemy--that is to say, from the officer of lower\nrank to whom his death would give promotion.\n\nEPICURE, n.  An opponent of Epicurus, an abstemious philosopher who,\nholding that pleasure should be the chief aim of man, wasted no time\nin gratification from the senses.\n\nEPIGRAM, n.  A short, sharp saying in prose or verse, frequently\ncharacterized by acidity or acerbity and sometimes by wisdom.\nFollowing are some of the more notable epigrams of the learned and\ningenious Dr. Jamrach Holobom:\n\n      We know better the needs of ourselves than of others.  To\n  serve oneself is economy of administration.\n\n      In each human heart are a tiger, a pig, an ass and a\n  nightingale.  Diversity of character is due to their unequal\n  activity.\n\n      There are three sexes; males, females and girls.\n\n      Beauty in women and distinction in men are alike in this:\n  they seem to the unthinking a kind of credibility.\n      Women in love are less ashamed than men.  They have less to be\n  ashamed of.\n\n      While your friend holds you affectionately by both your hands\n  you are safe, for you can watch both his.\n\nEPITAPH, n.  An inscription on a tomb, showing that virtues acquired\nby death have a retroactive effect.  Following is a touching example:\n\n  Here lie the bones of Parson Platt,\n  Wise, pious, humble and all that,\n  Who showed us life as all should live it;\n  Let that be said--and God forgive it!\n\nERUDITION, n.  Dust shaken out of a book into an empty skull.\n\n  So wide his erudition's mighty span,\n  He knew Creation's origin and plan\n  And only came by accident to grief--\n  He thought, poor man, 'twas right to be a thief.\n\nRomach Pute\n\n\nESOTERIC, adj.  Very particularly abstruse and consummately occult.\nThe ancient philosophies were of two kinds,--_exoteric_, those that\nthe philosophers themselves could partly understand, and _esoteric_,\nthose that nobody could understand.  It is the latter that have most\nprofoundly affected modern thought and found greatest acceptance in\nour time.\n\nETHNOLOGY, n.  The science that treats of the various tribes of Man,\nas robbers, thieves, swindlers, dunces, lunatics, idiots and\nethnologists.\n\nEUCHARIST, n.  A sacred feast of the religious sect of Theophagi.\n  A dispute once unhappily arose among the members of this sect as\nto what it was that they ate.  In this controversy some five hundred\nthousand have already been slain, and the question is still unsettled.\n\nEULOGY, n.  Praise of a person who has either the advantages of wealth\nand power, or the consideration to be dead.\n\nEVANGELIST, n.  A bearer of good tidings, particularly (in a religious\nsense) such as assure us of our own salvation and the damnation of\nour neighbors.\n\nEVERLASTING, adj.  Lasting forever.  It is with no small diffidence\nthat I venture to offer this brief and elementary definition, for I am\nnot unaware of the existence of a bulky volume by a sometime Bishop of\nWorcester, entitled, _A Partial Definition of the Word \"Everlasting,\"\nas Used in the Authorized Version of the Holy Scriptures_.  His book\nwas once esteemed of great authority in the Anglican Church, and is\nstill, I understand, studied with pleasure to the mind and profit of\nthe soul.\n\nEXCEPTION, n.  A thing which takes the liberty to differ from other\nthings of its class, as an honest man, a truthful woman, etc.  \"The\nexception proves the rule\" is an expression constantly upon the lips\nof the ignorant, who parrot it from one another with never a thought\nof its absurdity.  In the Latin, \"_Exceptio probat regulam_\" means\nthat the exception _tests_ the rule, puts it to the proof, not\n_confirms_ it.  The malefactor who drew the meaning from this\nexcellent dictum and substituted a contrary one of his own exerted an\nevil power which appears to be immortal.\n\nEXCESS, n.  In morals, an indulgence that enforces by appropriate\npenalties the law of moderation.\n\n  Hail, high Excess--especially in wine,\n      To thee in worship do I bend the knee\n      Who preach abstemiousness unto me--\n  My skull thy pulpit, as my paunch thy shrine.\n  Precept on precept, aye, and line on line,\n      Could ne'er persuade so sweetly to agree\n      With reason as thy touch, exact and free,\n  Upon my forehead and along my spine.\n  At thy command eschewing pleasure's cup,\n      With the hot grape I warm no more my wit;\n      When on thy stool of penitence I sit\n  I'm quite converted, for I can't get up.\n  Ungrateful he who afterward would falter\n  To make new sacrifices at thine altar!\n\nEXCOMMUNICATION, n.\n\n  This \"excommunication\" is a word\n  In speech ecclesiastical oft heard,\n  And means the damning, with bell, book and candle,\n  Some sinner whose opinions are a scandal--\n  A rite permitting Satan to enslave him\n  Forever, and forbidding Christ to save him.\n\nGat Huckle\n\n\nEXECUTIVE, n.  An officer of the Government, whose duty it is to\nenforce the wishes of the legislative power until such time as the\njudicial department shall be pleased to pronounce them invalid and of\nno effect.  Following is an extract from an old book entitled, _The\nLunarian Astonished_--Pfeiffer & Co., Boston, 1803:\n\n  LUNARIAN:  Then when your Congress has passed a law it goes\n      directly to the Supreme Court in order that it may at once be\n      known whether it is constitutional?\n  TERRESTRIAN:  O no; it does not require the approval of the\n      Supreme Court until having perhaps been enforced for many\n      years somebody objects to its operation against himself--I\n      mean his client.  The President, if he approves it, begins to\n      execute it at once.\n  LUNARIAN:  Ah, the executive power is a part of the legislative.\n      Do your policemen also have to approve the local ordinances\n      that they enforce?\n  TERRESTRIAN:  Not yet--at least not in their character of\n      constables.  Generally speaking, though, all laws require the\n      approval of those whom they are intended to restrain.\n  LUNARIAN:  I see.  The death warrant is not valid until signed by\n      the murderer.\n  TERRESTRIAN:  My friend, you put it too strongly; we are not so\n      consistent.\n  LUNARIAN:  But this system of maintaining an expensive judicial\n      machinery to pass upon the validity of laws only after they\n      have long been executed, and then only when brought before the\n      court by some private person--does it not cause great\n      confusion?\n  TERRESTRIAN:  It does.\n  LUNARIAN:  Why then should not your laws, previously to being\n      executed, be validated, not by the signature of your\n      President, but by that of the Chief Justice of the Supreme\n      Court?\n  TERRESTRIAN:  There is no precedent for any such course.\n  LUNARIAN:  Precedent.  What is that?\n  TERRESTRIAN:  It has been defined by five hundred lawyers in three\n      volumes each.  So how can any one know?\n\nEXHORT, v.t. In religious affairs, to put the conscience of another\nupon the spit and roast it to a nut-brown discomfort.\n\nEXILE, n.  One who serves his country by residing abroad, yet is not\nan ambassador.\n\nAn English sea-captain being asked if he had read \"The Exile of\nErin,\" replied:  \"No, sir, but I should like to anchor on it.\"  Years\nafterwards, when he had been hanged as a pirate after a career of\nunparalleled atrocities, the following memorandum was found in the\nship's log that he had kept at the time of his reply:\n\n  Aug. 3d, 1842.  Made a joke on the ex-Isle of Erin.  Coldly\n  received.  War with the whole world!\n\nEXISTENCE, n.\n\n  A transient, horrible, fantastic dream,\n  Wherein is nothing yet all things do seem:\n  From which we're wakened by a friendly nudge\n  Of our bedfellow Death, and cry:  \"O fudge!\"\n\nEXPERIENCE, n.  The wisdom that enables us to recognize as an\nundesirable old acquaintance the folly that we have already embraced.\n\n  To one who, journeying through night and fog,\n  Is mired neck-deep in an unwholesome bog,\n  Experience, like the rising of the dawn,\n  Reveals the path that he should not have gone.\n\nJoel Frad Bink\n\n\nEXPOSTULATION, n.  One of the many methods by which fools prefer to\nlose their friends.\n\nEXTINCTION, n.  The raw material out of which theology created the\nfuture state.\n\n\n\n\nF\n\n\n\nFAIRY, n.  A creature, variously fashioned and endowed, that formerly\ninhabited the meadows and forests.  It was nocturnal in its habits,\nand somewhat addicted to dancing and the theft of children.  The\nfairies are now believed by naturalists to be extinct, though a\nclergyman of the Church of England saw three near Colchester as lately\nas 1855, while passing through a park after dining with the lord of\nthe manor.  The sight greatly staggered him, and he was so affected\nthat his account of it was incoherent.  In the year 1807 a troop of\nfairies visited a wood near Aix and carried off the daughter of a\npeasant, who had been seen to enter it with a bundle of clothing.  The\nson of a wealthy _bourgeois_ disappeared about the same time, but\nafterward returned.  He had seen the abduction and been in pursuit of the\nfairies.  Justinian Gaux, a writer of the fourteenth century, avers\nthat so great is the fairies' power of transformation that he saw one\nchange itself into two opposing armies and fight a battle with great\nslaughter, and that the next day, after it had resumed its original\nshape and gone away, there were seven hundred bodies of the slain\nwhich the villagers had to bury.  He does not say if any of the\nwounded recovered.  In the time of Henry III, of England, a law was\nmade which prescribed the death penalty for \"Kyllynge, wowndynge, or\nmamynge\" a fairy, and it was universally respected.\n\nFAITH, n.  Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks\nwithout knowledge, of things without parallel.\n\nFAMOUS, adj.  Conspicuously miserable.\n\n  Done to a turn on the iron, behold\n      Him who to be famous aspired.\n  Content?  Well, his grill has a plating of gold,\n      And his twistings are greatly admired.\n\nHassan Brubuddy\n\n\nFASHION, n.  A despot whom the wise ridicule and obey.\n\n  A king there was who lost an eye\n      In some excess of passion;\n  And straight his courtiers all did try\n      To follow the new fashion.\n\n  Each dropped one eyelid when before\n      The throne he ventured, thinking\n  'Twould please the king.  That monarch swore\n      He'd slay them all for winking.\n\n  What should they do?  They were not hot\n      To hazard such disaster;\n  They dared not close an eye--dared not\n      See better than their master.\n\n  Seeing them lacrymose and glum,\n      A leech consoled the weepers:\n  He spread small rags with liquid gum\n      And covered half their peepers.\n\n  The court all wore the stuff, the flame\n      Of royal anger dying.\n  That's how court-plaster got its name\n      Unless I'm greatly lying.\n\nNaramy Oof\n\n\nFEAST, n.  A festival.  A religious celebration usually signalized by\ngluttony and drunkenness, frequently in honor of some holy person\ndistinguished for abstemiousness.  In the Roman Catholic Church\nfeasts are \"movable\" and \"immovable,\" but the celebrants are uniformly\nimmovable until they are full.  In their earliest development these\nentertainments took the form of feasts for the dead; such were held by\nthe Greeks, under the name _Nemeseia_, by the Aztecs and Peruvians,\nas in modern times they are popular with the Chinese; though it is\nbelieved that the ancient dead, like the modern, were light eaters.\nAmong the many feasts of the Romans was the _Novemdiale_, which was\nheld, according to Livy, whenever stones fell from heaven.\n\nFELON, n.  A person of greater enterprise than discretion, who in\nembracing an opportunity has formed an unfortunate attachment.\n\nFEMALE, n.  One of the opposing, or unfair, sex.\n\n  The Maker, at Creation's birth,\n  With living things had stocked the earth.\n  From elephants to bats and snails,\n  They all were good, for all were males.\n  But when the Devil came and saw\n  He said:  \"By Thine eternal law\n  Of growth, maturity, decay,\n  These all must quickly pass away\n  And leave untenanted the earth\n  Unless Thou dost establish birth\"--\n  Then tucked his head beneath his wing\n  To laugh--he had no sleeve--the thing\n  With deviltry did so accord,\n  That he'd suggested to the Lord.\n  The Master pondered this advice,\n  Then shook and threw the fateful dice\n  Wherewith all matters here below\n  Are ordered, and observed the throw;\n  Then bent His head in awful state,\n  Confirming the decree of Fate.\n  From every part of earth anew\n  The conscious dust consenting flew,\n  While rivers from their courses rolled\n  To make it plastic for the mould.\n  Enough collected (but no more,\n  For niggard Nature hoards her store)\n  He kneaded it to flexible clay,\n  While Nick unseen threw some away.\n  And then the various forms He cast,\n  Gross organs first and finer last;\n  No one at once evolved, but all\n  By even touches grew and small\n  Degrees advanced, till, shade by shade,\n  To match all living things He'd made\n  Females, complete in all their parts\n  Except (His clay gave out) the hearts.\n  \"No matter,\" Satan cried; \"with speed\n  I'll fetch the very hearts they need\"--\n  So flew away and soon brought back\n  The number needed, in a sack.\n  That night earth rang with sounds of strife--\n  Ten million males each had a wife;\n  That night sweet Peace her pinions spread\n  O'er Hell--ten million devils dead!\n\nG.J.\n\n\nFIB, n.  A lie that has not cut its teeth.  An habitual liar's nearest\napproach to truth:  the perigee of his eccentric orbit.\n\n  When David said:  \"All men are liars,\" Dave,\n      Himself a liar, fibbed like any thief.\n      Perhaps he thought to weaken disbelief\n  By proof that even himself was not a slave\n  To Truth; though I suspect the aged knave\n      Had been of all her servitors the chief\n      Had he but known a fig's reluctant leaf\n  Is more than e'er she wore on land or wave.\n  No, David served not Naked Truth when he\n      Struck that sledge-hammer blow at all his race;\n          Nor did he hit the nail upon the head:\n  For reason shows that it could never be,\n      And the facts contradict him to his face.\n          Men are not liars all, for some are dead.\n\nBartle Quinker\n\n\nFICKLENESS, n.  The iterated satiety of an enterprising affection.\n\nFIDDLE, n.  An instrument to tickle human ears by friction of a\nhorse's tail on the entrails of a cat.\n\n  To Rome said Nero:  \"If to smoke you turn\n  I shall not cease to fiddle while you burn.\"\n  To Nero Rome replied:  \"Pray do your worst,\n  'Tis my excuse that you were fiddling first.\"\n\nOrm Pludge\n\n\nFIDELITY, n.  A virtue peculiar to those who are about to be betrayed.\n\nFINANCE, n.  The art or science of managing revenues and resources for\nthe best advantage of the manager.  The pronunciation of this word\nwith the i long and the accent on the first syllable is one of\nAmerica's most precious discoveries and possessions.\n\nFLAG, n.  A colored rag borne above troops and hoisted on forts and\nships.  It appears to serve the same purpose as certain signs that one\nsees on vacant lots in London--\"Rubbish may be shot here.\"\n\nFLESH, n.  The Second Person of the secular Trinity.\n\nFLOP, v.  Suddenly to change one's opinions and go over to another\nparty.  The most notable flop on record was that of Saul of Tarsus,\nwho has been severely criticised as a turn-coat by some of our\npartisan journals.\n\nFLY-SPECK, n.  The prototype of punctuation.  It is observed by\nGarvinus that the systems of punctuation in use by the various\nliterary nations depended originally upon the social habits and\ngeneral diet of the flies infesting the several countries.  These\ncreatures, which have always been distinguished for a neighborly and\ncompanionable familiarity with authors, liberally or niggardly\nembellish the manuscripts in process of growth under the pen,\naccording to their bodily habit, bringing out the sense of the work by\na species of interpretation superior to, and independent of, the\nwriter's powers.  The \"old masters\" of literature--that is to say,\nthe early writers whose work is so esteemed by later scribes and\ncritics in the same language--never punctuated at all, but worked\nright along free-handed, without that abruption of the thought which\ncomes from the use of points.  (We observe the same thing in children\nto-day, whose usage in this particular is a striking and beautiful\ninstance of the law that the infancy of individuals reproduces the\nmethods and stages of development characterizing the infancy of\nraces.)  In the work of these primitive scribes all the punctuation is\nfound, by the modern investigator with his optical instruments and\nchemical tests, to have been inserted by the writers' ingenious and\nserviceable collaborator, the common house-fly--_Musca maledicta_.\nIn transcribing these ancient MSS, for the purpose of either making\nthe work their own or preserving what they naturally regard as divine\nrevelations, later writers reverently and accurately copy whatever\nmarks they find upon the papyrus or parchment, to the unspeakable\nenhancement of the lucidity of the thought and value of the work.\nWriters contemporary with the copyists naturally avail themselves of\nthe obvious advantages of these marks in their own work, and with such\nassistance as the flies of their own household may be willing to\ngrant, frequently rival and sometimes surpass the older compositions,\nin respect at least of punctuation, which is no small glory.  Fully to\nunderstand the important services that flies perform to literature it\nis only necessary to lay a page of some popular novelist alongside a\nsaucer of cream-and-molasses in a sunny room and observe \"how the wit\nbrightens and the style refines\" in accurate proportion to the\nduration of exposure.\n\nFOLLY, n.  That \"gift and faculty divine\" whose creative and\ncontrolling energy inspires Man's mind, guides his actions and adorns\nhis life.\n\n  Folly! although Erasmus praised thee once\n      In a thick volume, and all authors known,\n      If not thy glory yet thy power have shown,\n  Deign to take homage from thy son who hunts\n  Through all thy maze his brothers, fool and dunce,\n      To mend their lives and to sustain his own,\n      However feebly be his arrows thrown,\n\n  Howe'er each hide the flying weapons blunts.\n  All-Father Folly! be it mine to raise,\n      With lusty lung, here on his western strand\n      With all thine offspring thronged from every land,\n  Thyself inspiring me, the song of praise.\n  And if too weak, I'll hire, to help me bawl,\n  Dick Watson Gilder, gravest of us all.\n\nAramis Loto Frope\n\n\nFOOL, n.  A person who pervades the domain of intellectual speculation\nand diffuses himself through the channels of moral activity.  He is\nomnific, omniform, omnipercipient, omniscient, omnipotent.  He it was\nwho invented letters, printing, the railroad, the steamboat, the\ntelegraph, the platitude and the circle of the sciences.  He created\npatriotism and taught the nations war--founded theology, philosophy,\nlaw, medicine and Chicago.  He established monarchical and republican\ngovernment.  He is from everlasting to everlasting--such as\ncreation's dawn beheld he fooleth now.  In the morning of time he sang\nupon primitive hills, and in the noonday of existence headed the\nprocession of being.  His grandmotherly hand was warmly tucked-in the\nset sun of civilization, and in the twilight he prepares Man's evening\nmeal of milk-and-morality and turns down the covers of the universal\ngrave.  And after the rest of us shall have retired for the night of\neternal oblivion he will sit up to write a history of human\ncivilization.\n\nFORCE, n.\n\n  \"Force is but might,\" the teacher said--\n      \"That definition's just.\"\n  The boy said naught but thought instead,\n  Remembering his pounded head:\n      \"Force is not might but must!\"\n\nFOREFINGER, n.  The finger commonly used in pointing out two\nmalefactors.\n\nFOREORDINATION, n.  This looks like an easy word to define, but when I\nconsider that pious and learned theologians have spent long lives in\nexplaining it, and written libraries to explain their explanations;\nwhen I remember that nations have been divided and bloody battles\ncaused by the difference between foreordination and predestination,\nand that millions of treasure have been expended in the effort to\nprove and disprove its compatibility with freedom of the will and the\nefficacy of prayer, praise, and a religious life,--recalling these\nawful facts in the history of the word, I stand appalled before the\nmighty problem of its signification, abase my spiritual eyes, fearing\nto contemplate its portentous magnitude, reverently uncover and humbly\nrefer it to His Eminence Cardinal Gibbons and His Grace Bishop Potter.\n\nFORGETFULNESS, n.  A gift of God bestowed upon doctors in compensation\nfor their destitution of conscience.\n\nFORK, n.  An instrument used chiefly for the purpose of putting dead\nanimals into the mouth.  Formerly the knife was employed for this\npurpose, and by many worthy persons is still thought to have many\nadvantages over the other tool, which, however, they do not altogether\nreject, but use to assist in charging the knife.  The immunity of\nthese persons from swift and awful death is one of the most striking\nproofs of God's mercy to those that hate Him.\n\nFORMA PAUPERIS.  [Latin]  In the character of a poor person--a\nmethod by which a litigant without money for lawyers is considerately\npermitted to lose his case.\n\n  When Adam long ago in Cupid's awful court\n      (For Cupid ruled ere Adam was invented)\n  Sued for Eve's favor, says an ancient law report,\n      He stood and pleaded unhabilimented.\n\n  \"You sue _in forma pauperis_, I see,\" Eve cried;\n      \"Actions can't here be that way prosecuted.\"\n  So all poor Adam's motions coldly were denied:\n      He went away--as he had come--nonsuited.\n\nG.J.\n\n\nFRANKALMOIGNE, n.  The tenure by which a religious corporation holds\nlands on condition of praying for the soul of the donor.  In mediaeval\ntimes many of the wealthiest fraternities obtained their estates in\nthis simple and cheap manner, and once when Henry VIII of England sent\nan officer to confiscate certain vast possessions which a fraternity\nof monks held by frankalmoigne, \"What!\" said the Prior, \"would you\nmaster stay our benefactor's soul in Purgatory?\"  \"Ay,\" said the\nofficer, coldly, \"an ye will not pray him thence for naught he must\ne'en roast.\"  \"But look you, my son,\" persisted the good man, \"this\nact hath rank as robbery of God!\"  \"Nay, nay, good father, my master\nthe king doth but deliver him from the manifold temptations of too\ngreat wealth.\"\n\nFREEBOOTER, n.  A conqueror in a small way of business, whose\nannexations lack of the sanctifying merit of magnitude.\n\nFREEDOM, n.  Exemption from the stress of authority in a beggarly half\ndozen of restraint's infinite multitude of methods.  A political\ncondition that every nation supposes itself to enjoy in virtual\nmonopoly.  Liberty.  The distinction between freedom and liberty is\nnot accurately known; naturalists have never been able to find a\nliving specimen of either.\n\n  Freedom, as every schoolboy knows,\n      Once shrieked as Kosciusko fell;\n  On every wind, indeed, that blows\n          I hear her yell.\n\n  She screams whenever monarchs meet,\n      And parliaments as well,\n  To bind the chains about her feet\n          And toll her knell.\n\n  And when the sovereign people cast\n      The votes they cannot spell,\n  Upon the pestilential blast\n          Her clamors swell.\n\n  For all to whom the power's given\n      To sway or to compel,\n  Among themselves apportion Heaven\n          And give her Hell.\n\nBlary O'Gary\n\n\nFREEMASONS, n.  An order with secret rites, grotesque ceremonies and\nfantastic costumes, which, originating in the reign of Charles II,\namong working artisans of London, has been joined successively by the\ndead of past centuries in unbroken retrogression until now it embraces\nall the generations of man on the hither side of Adam and is drumming\nup distinguished recruits among the pre-Creational inhabitants of\nChaos and Formless Void.  The order was founded at different times by\nCharlemagne, Julius Caesar, Cyrus, Solomon, Zoroaster, Confucious,\nThothmes, and Buddha.  Its emblems and symbols have been found in the\nCatacombs of Paris and Rome, on the stones of the Parthenon and the\nChinese Great Wall, among the temples of Karnak and Palmyra and in the\nEgyptian Pyramids--always by a Freemason.\n\nFRIENDLESS, adj.  Having no favors to bestow.  Destitute of fortune.\nAddicted to utterance of truth and common sense.\n\nFRIENDSHIP, n.  A ship big enough to carry two in fair weather, but\nonly one in foul.\n\n  The sea was calm and the sky was blue;\n  Merrily, merrily sailed we two.\n      (High barometer maketh glad.)\n  On the tipsy ship, with a dreadful shout,\n  The tempest descended and we fell out.\n      (O the walking is nasty bad!)\n\nArmit Huff Bettle\n\n\nFROG, n.  A reptile with edible legs.  The first mention of frogs in\nprofane literature is in Homer's narrative of the war between them and\nthe mice.  Skeptical persons have doubted Homer's authorship of the\nwork, but the learned, ingenious and industrious Dr. Schliemann has\nset the question forever at rest by uncovering the bones of the slain\nfrogs.  One of the forms of moral suasion by which Pharaoh was\nbesought to favor the Israelities was a plague of frogs, but Pharaoh,\nwho liked them _fricasees_, remarked, with truly oriental stoicism,\nthat he could stand it as long as the frogs and the Jews could; so the\nprogramme was changed.  The frog is a diligent songster, having a good\nvoice but no ear.  The libretto of his favorite opera, as written by\nAristophanes, is brief, simple and effective--\"brekekex-koax\"; the\nmusic is apparently by that eminent composer, Richard Wagner.  Horses\nhave a frog in each hoof--a thoughtful provision of nature, enabling\nthem to shine in a hurdle race.\n\nFRYING-PAN, n.  One part of the penal apparatus employed in that\npunitive institution, a woman's kitchen.  The frying-pan was invented\nby Calvin, and by him used in cooking span-long infants that had died\nwithout baptism; and observing one day the horrible torment of a tramp\nwho had incautiously pulled a fried babe from the waste-dump and\ndevoured it, it occurred to the great divine to rob death of its\nterrors by introducing the frying-pan into every household in Geneva.\nThence it spread to all corners of the world, and has been of\ninvaluable assistance in the propagation of his sombre faith.  The\nfollowing lines (said to be from the pen of his Grace Bishop Potter)\nseem to imply that the usefulness of this utensil is not limited to\nthis world; but as the consequences of its employment in this life\nreach over into the life to come, so also itself may be found on the\nother side, rewarding its devotees:\n\n  Old Nick was summoned to the skies.\n      Said Peter:  \"Your intentions\n  Are good, but you lack enterprise\n      Concerning new inventions.\n\n  \"Now, broiling is an ancient plan\n      Of torment, but I hear it\n  Reported that the frying-pan\n      Sears best the wicked spirit.\n\n  \"Go get one--fill it up with fat--\n      Fry sinners brown and good in't.\"\n  \"I know a trick worth two o' that,\"\n      Said Nick--\"I'll cook their food in't.\"\n\nFUNERAL, n.  A pageant whereby we attest our respect for the dead by\nenriching the undertaker, and strengthen our grief by an expenditure\nthat deepens our groans and doubles our tears.\n\n  The savage dies--they sacrifice a horse\n  To bear to happy hunting-grounds the corse.\n  Our friends expire--we make the money fly\n  In hope their souls will chase it to the sky.\n\nJex Wopley\n\n\nFUTURE, n.  That period of time in which our affairs prosper, our\nfriends are true and our happiness is assured.\n\n\n\n\nG\n\n\n\nGALLOWS, n.  A stage for the performance of miracle plays, in which\nthe leading actor is translated to heaven.  In this country the\ngallows is chiefly remarkable for the number of persons who escape it.\n\n  Whether on the gallows high\n      Or where blood flows the reddest,\n  The noblest place for man to die--\n      Is where he died the deadest.\n\n(Old play)\n\n\nGARGOYLE, n.  A rain-spout projecting from the eaves of mediaeval\nbuildings, commonly fashioned into a grotesque caricature of some\npersonal enemy of the architect or owner of the building.  This was\nespecially the case in churches and ecclesiastical structures\ngenerally, in which the gargoyles presented a perfect rogues' gallery\nof local heretics and controversialists.  Sometimes when a new dean\nand chapter were installed the old gargoyles were removed and others\nsubstituted having a closer relation to the private animosities of the\nnew incumbents.\n\nGARTHER, n.  An elastic band intended to keep a woman from coming out\nof her stockings and desolating the country.\n\nGENEROUS, adj.  Originally this word meant noble by birth and was\nrightly applied to a great multitude of persons.  It now means noble\nby nature and is taking a bit of a rest.\n\nGENEALOGY, n.  An account of one's descent from an ancestor who did\nnot particularly care to trace his own.\n\nGENTEEL, adj.  Refined, after the fashion of a gent.\n\n  Observe with care, my son, the distinction I reveal:\n  A gentleman is gentle and a gent genteel.\n  Heed not the definitions your \"Unabridged\" presents,\n  For dictionary makers are generally gents.\n\nG.J.\n\n\nGEOGRAPHER, n.  A chap who can tell you offhand the difference between\nthe outside of the world and the inside.\n\n  Habeam, geographer of wide reknown,\n  Native of Abu-Keber's ancient town,\n  In passing thence along the river Zam\n  To the adjacent village of Xelam,\n  Bewildered by the multitude of roads,\n  Got lost, lived long on migratory toads,\n  Then from exposure miserably died,\n  And grateful travelers bewailed their guide.\n\nHenry Haukhorn\n\n\nGEOLOGY, n.  The science of the earth's crust--to which, doubtless,\nwill be added that of its interior whenever a man shall come up\ngarrulous out of a well.  The geological formations of the globe\nalready noted are catalogued thus:  The Primary, or lower one,\nconsists of rocks, bones or mired mules, gas-pipes, miners' tools,\nantique statues minus the nose, Spanish doubloons and ancestors.  The\nSecondary is largely made up of red worms and moles.  The Tertiary\ncomprises railway tracks, patent pavements, grass, snakes, mouldy\nboots, beer bottles, tomato cans, intoxicated citizens, garbage,\nanarchists, snap-dogs and fools.\n\nGHOST, n.  The outward and visible sign of an inward fear.\n\n          He saw a ghost.\n  It occupied--that dismal thing!--\n  The path that he was following.\n  Before he'd time to stop and fly,\n  An earthquake trifled with the eye\n          That saw a ghost.\n  He fell as fall the early good;\n  Unmoved that awful vision stood.\n  The stars that danced before his ken\n  He wildly brushed away, and then\n          He saw a post.\n\nJared Macphester\n\n\nAccounting for the uncommon behavior of ghosts, Heine mentions\nsomebody's ingenious theory to the effect that they are as much\nafraid of us as we of them.  Not quite, if I may judge from such\ntables of comparative speed as I am able to compile from memories of\nmy own experience.\n\nThere is one insuperable obstacle to a belief in ghosts.  A ghost\nnever comes naked:  he appears either in a winding-sheet or \"in his\nhabit as he lived.\"  To believe in him, then, is to believe that not\nonly have the dead the power to make themselves visible after there is\nnothing left of them, but that the same power inheres in textile\nfabrics.  Supposing the products of the loom to have this ability,\nwhat object would they have in exercising it?  And why does not the\napparition of a suit of clothes sometimes walk abroad without a ghost\nin it?  These be riddles of significance.  They reach away down and\nget a convulsive grip on the very tap-root of this flourishing faith.\n\nGHOUL, n.  A demon addicted to the reprehensible habit of devouring\nthe dead.  The existence of ghouls has been disputed by that class of\ncontroversialists who are more concerned to deprive the world of\ncomforting beliefs than to give it anything good in their place.  In\n1640 Father Secchi saw one in a cemetery near Florence and frightened\nit away with the sign of the cross.  He describes it as gifted with\nmany heads and an uncommon allowance of limbs, and he saw it in more\nthan one place at a time.  The good man was coming away from dinner at\nthe time and explains that if he had not been \"heavy with eating\" he\nwould have seized the demon at all hazards.  Atholston relates that a\nghoul was caught by some sturdy peasants in a churchyard at Sudbury\nand ducked in a horsepond.  (He appears to think that so distinguished\na criminal should have been ducked in a tank of rosewater.)  The water\nturned at once to blood \"and so contynues unto ys daye.\"  The pond has\nsince been bled with a ditch.  As late as the beginning of the\nfourteenth century a ghoul was cornered in the crypt of the cathedral\nat Amiens and the whole population surrounded the place.  Twenty armed\nmen with a priest at their head, bearing a crucifix, entered and\ncaptured the ghoul, which, thinking to escape by the stratagem, had\ntransformed itself to the semblance of a well known citizen, but was\nnevertheless hanged, drawn and quartered in the midst of hideous\npopular orgies.  The citizen whose shape the demon had assumed was so\naffected by the sinister occurrence that he never again showed himself\nin Amiens and his fate remains a mystery.\n\nGLUTTON, n.  A person who escapes the evils of moderation by\ncommitting dyspepsia.\n\nGNOME, n.  In North-European mythology, a dwarfish imp inhabiting the\ninterior parts of the earth and having special custody of mineral\ntreasures.  Bjorsen, who died in 1765, says gnomes were common enough\nin the southern parts of Sweden in his boyhood, and he frequently saw\nthem scampering on the hills in the evening twilight.  Ludwig\nBinkerhoof saw three as recently as 1792, in the Black Forest, and\nSneddeker avers that in 1803 they drove a party of miners out of a\nSilesian mine.  Basing our computations upon data supplied by these\nstatements, we find that the gnomes were probably extinct as early as\n1764.\n\nGNOSTICS, n.  A sect of philosophers who tried to engineer a fusion\nbetween the early Christians and the Platonists.  The former would not\ngo into the caucus and the combination failed, greatly to the chagrin\nof the fusion managers.\n\nGNU, n.  An animal of South Africa, which in its domesticated state\nresembles a horse, a buffalo and a stag.  In its wild condition it is\nsomething like a thunderbolt, an earthquake and a cyclone.\n\n  A hunter from Kew caught a distant view\n      Of a peacefully meditative gnu,\n  And he said:  \"I'll pursue, and my hands imbrue\n      In its blood at a closer interview.\"\n  But that beast did ensue and the hunter it threw\n      O'er the top of a palm that adjacent grew;\n  And he said as he flew:  \"It is well I withdrew\n      Ere, losing my temper, I wickedly slew\n      That really meritorious gnu.\"\n\nJarn Leffer\n\n\nGOOD, adj.  Sensible, madam, to the worth of this present writer.\nAlive, sir, to the advantages of letting him alone.\n\nGOOSE, n.  A bird that supplies quills for writing.  These, by some\noccult process of nature, are penetrated and suffused with various\ndegrees of the bird's intellectual energies and emotional character,\nso that when inked and drawn mechanically across paper by a person\ncalled an \"author,\" there results a very fair and accurate transcript\nof the fowl's thought and feeling.  The difference in geese, as\ndiscovered by this ingenious method, is considerable:  many are found\nto have only trivial and insignificant powers, but some are seen to be\nvery great geese indeed.\n\nGORGON, n.\n\n  The Gorgon was a maiden bold\n  Who turned to stone the Greeks of old\n  That looked upon her awful brow.\n  We dig them out of ruins now,\n  And swear that workmanship so bad\n  Proves all the ancient sculptors mad.\n\nGOUT, n.  A physician's name for the rheumatism of a rich patient.\n\nGRACES, n.  Three beautiful goddesses, Aglaia, Thalia and Euphrosyne,\nwho attended upon Venus, serving without salary.  They were at no\nexpense for board and clothing, for they ate nothing to speak of and\ndressed according to the weather, wearing whatever breeze happened to\nbe blowing.\n\nGRAMMAR, n.  A system of pitfalls thoughtfully prepared for the feet\nfor the self-made man, along the path by which he advances to\ndistinction.\n\nGRAPE, n.\n\n  Hail noble fruit!--by Homer sung,\n      Anacreon and Khayyam;\n  Thy praise is ever on the tongue\n      Of better men than I am.\n\n  The lyre in my hand has never swept,\n      The song I cannot offer:\n  My humbler service pray accept--\n      I'll help to kill the scoffer.\n  The water-drinkers and the cranks\n      Who load their skins with liquor--\n  I'll gladly bear their belly-tanks\n      And tap them with my sticker.\n\n  Fill up, fill up, for wisdom cools\n      When e'er we let the wine rest.\n  Here's death to Prohibition's fools,\n      And every kind of vine-pest!\n\nJamrach Holobom\n\n\nGRAPESHOT, n.  An argument which the future is preparing in answer to\nthe demands of American Socialism.\n\nGRAVE, n.  A place in which the dead are laid to await the coming of\nthe medical student.\n\n  Beside a lonely grave I stood--\n      With brambles 'twas encumbered;\n  The winds were moaning in the wood,\n      Unheard by him who slumbered,\n\n  A rustic standing near, I said:\n      \"He cannot hear it blowing!\"\n  \"'Course not,\" said he:  \"the feller's dead--\n      He can't hear nowt [sic] that's going.\"\n\n  \"Too true,\" I said; \"alas, too true--\n      No sound his sense can quicken!\"\n  \"Well, mister, wot is that to you?--\n      The deadster ain't a-kickin'.\"\n\n  I knelt and prayed:  \"O Father, smile\n      On him, and mercy show him!\"\n  That countryman looked on the while,\n      And said:  \"Ye didn't know him.\"\n\nPobeter Dunko\n\n\nGRAVITATION, n.  The tendency of all bodies to approach one another\nwith a strength proportion to the quantity of matter they contain--\nthe quantity of matter they contain being ascertained by the strength\nof their tendency to approach one another.  This is a lovely and\nedifying illustration of how science, having made A the proof of B,\nmakes B the proof of A.\n\nGREAT, adj.\n\n  \"I'm great,\" the Lion said--\"I reign\n  The monarch of the wood and plain!\"\n\n  The Elephant replied:  \"I'm great--\n  No quadruped can match my weight!\"\n\n  \"I'm great--no animal has half\n  So long a neck!\" said the Giraffe.\n\n  \"I'm great,\" the Kangaroo said--\"see\n  My femoral muscularity!\"\n\n  The 'Possum said:  \"I'm great--behold,\n  My tail is lithe and bald and cold!\"\n\n  An Oyster fried was understood\n  To say:  \"I'm great because I'm good!\"\n\n  Each reckons greatness to consist\n  In that in which he heads the list,\n\n  And Vierick thinks he tops his class\n  Because he is the greatest ass.\n\nArion Spurl Doke\n\n\nGUILLOTINE, n.  A machine which makes a Frenchman shrug his shoulders\nwith good reason.\n\nIn his great work on _Divergent Lines of Racial Evolution_, the\nlearned Professor Brayfugle argues from the prevalence of this gesture\n--the shrug--among Frenchmen, that they are descended from turtles\nand it is simply a survival of the habit of retracting the head inside\nthe shell.  It is with reluctance that I differ with so eminent an\nauthority, but in my judgment (as more elaborately set forth and\nenforced in my work entitled _Hereditary Emotions_--lib. II, c. XI)\nthe shrug is a poor foundation upon which to build so important a\ntheory, for previously to the Revolution the gesture was unknown.  I\nhave not a doubt that it is directly referable to the terror inspired\nby the guillotine during the period of that instrument's activity.\n\nGUNPOWDER, n.  An agency employed by civilized nations for the\nsettlement of disputes which might become troublesome if left\nunadjusted.  By most writers the invention of gunpowder is ascribed to\nthe Chinese, but not upon very convincing evidence.  Milton says it\nwas invented by the devil to dispel angels with, and this opinion\nseems to derive some support from the scarcity of angels.  Moreover,\nit has the hearty concurrence of the Hon. James Wilson, Secretary of\nAgriculture.\n\nSecretary Wilson became interested in gunpowder through an event\nthat occurred on the Government experimental farm in the District of\nColumbia.  One day, several years ago, a rogue imperfectly reverent of\nthe Secretary's profound attainments and personal character presented\nhim with a sack of gunpowder, representing it as the seed of the\n_Flashawful flabbergastor_, a Patagonian cereal of great commercial\nvalue, admirably adapted to this climate.  The good Secretary was\ninstructed to spill it along in a furrow and afterward inhume it with\nsoil.  This he at once proceeded to do, and had made a continuous line\nof it all the way across a ten-acre field, when he was made to look\nbackward by a shout from the generous donor, who at once dropped a\nlighted match into the furrow at the starting-point.  Contact with the\nearth had somewhat dampened the powder, but the startled functionary\nsaw himself pursued by a tall moving pillar of fire and smoke and\nfierce evolution.  He stood for a moment paralyzed and speechless,\nthen he recollected an engagement and, dropping all, absented himself\nthence with such surprising celerity that to the eyes of spectators\nalong the route selected he appeared like a long, dim streak\nprolonging itself with inconceivable rapidity through seven villages,\nand audibly refusing to be comforted.  \"Great Scott! what is that?\"\ncried a surveyor's chainman, shading his eyes and gazing at the fading\nline of agriculturist which bisected his visible horizon.  \"That,\"\nsaid the surveyor, carelessly glancing at the phenomenon and again\ncentering his attention upon his instrument, \"is the Meridian of\nWashington.\"\n\n\n\n\nH\n\n\n\nHABEAS CORPUS.  A writ by which a man may be taken out of jail when\nconfined for the wrong crime.\n\nHABIT, n.  A shackle for the free.\n\nHADES, n.  The lower world; the residence of departed spirits; the\nplace where the dead live.\n\nAmong the ancients the idea of Hades was not synonymous with our\nHell, many of the most respectable men of antiquity residing there in\na very comfortable kind of way.  Indeed, the Elysian Fields themselves\nwere a part of Hades, though they have since been removed to Paris.\nWhen the Jacobean version of the New Testament was in process of\nevolution the pious and learned men engaged in the work insisted by a\nmajority vote on translating the Greek word \"Aides\" as \"Hell\"; but a\nconscientious minority member secretly possessed himself of the record\nand struck out the objectional word wherever he could find it.  At the\nnext meeting, the Bishop of Salisbury, looking over the work, suddenly\nsprang to his feet and said with considerable excitement:  \"Gentlemen,\nsomebody has been razing 'Hell' here!\"  Years afterward the good\nprelate's death was made sweet by the reflection that he had been the\nmeans (under Providence) of making an important, serviceable and\nimmortal addition to the phraseology of the English tongue.\n\nHAG, n.  An elderly lady whom you do not happen to like; sometimes\ncalled, also, a hen, or cat.  Old witches, sorceresses, etc., were\ncalled hags from the belief that their heads were surrounded by a kind\nof baleful lumination or nimbus--hag being the popular name of that\npeculiar electrical light sometimes observed in the hair.  At one time\nhag was not a word of reproach:  Drayton speaks of a \"beautiful hag,\nall smiles,\" much as Shakespeare said, \"sweet wench.\"  It would not\nnow be proper to call your sweetheart a hag--that compliment is\nreserved for the use of her grandchildren.\n\nHALF, n.  One of two equal parts into which a thing may be divided, or\nconsidered as divided.  In the fourteenth century a heated discussion\narose among theologists and philosophers as to whether Omniscience\ncould part an object into three halves; and the pious Father\nAldrovinus publicly prayed in the cathedral at Rouen that God would\ndemonstrate the affirmative of the proposition in some signal and\nunmistakable way, and particularly (if it should please Him) upon the\nbody of that hardy blasphemer, Manutius Procinus, who maintained the\nnegative.  Procinus, however, was spared to die of the bite of a\nviper.\n\nHALO, n.  Properly, a luminous ring encircling an astronomical body,\nbut not infrequently confounded with \"aureola,\" or \"nimbus,\" a\nsomewhat similar phenomenon worn as a head-dress by divinities and\nsaints.  The halo is a purely optical illusion, produced by moisture\nin the air, in the manner of a rainbow; but the aureola is conferred\nas a sign of superior sanctity, in the same way as a bishop's mitre,\nor the Pope's tiara.  In the painting of the Nativity, by Szedgkin, a\npious artist of Pesth, not only do the Virgin and the Child wear the\nnimbus, but an ass nibbling hay from the sacred manger is similarly\ndecorated and, to his lasting honor be it said, appears to bear his\nunaccustomed dignity with a truly saintly grace.\n\nHAND, n.  A singular instrument worn at the end of the human arm and\ncommonly thrust into somebody's pocket.\n\nHANDKERCHIEF, n.  A small square of silk or linen, used in various\nignoble offices about the face and especially serviceable at funerals\nto conceal the lack of tears.  The handkerchief is of recent\ninvention; our ancestors knew nothing of it and intrusted its duties\nto the sleeve.  Shakespeare's introducing it into the play of\n\"Othello\" is an anachronism:  Desdemona dried her nose with her skirt,\nas Dr. Mary Walker and other reformers have done with their coattails\nin our own day--an evidence that revolutions sometimes go backward.\n\nHANGMAN, n.  An officer of the law charged with duties of the highest\ndignity and utmost gravity, and held in hereditary disesteem by a\npopulace having a criminal ancestry.  In some of the American States\nhis functions are now performed by an electrician, as in New Jersey,\nwhere executions by electricity have recently been ordered--the\nfirst instance known to this lexicographer of anybody questioning the\nexpediency of hanging Jerseymen.\n\nHAPPINESS, n.  An agreeable sensation arising from contemplating the\nmisery of another.\n\nHARANGUE, n.  A speech by an opponent, who is known as an\nharangue-outang.\n\nHARBOR, n.  A place where ships taking shelter from stores are exposed\nto the fury of the customs.\n\nHARMONISTS, n.  A sect of Protestants, now extinct, who came from\nEurope in the beginning of the last century and were distinguished for\nthe bitterness of their internal controversies and dissensions.\n\nHASH, x.  There is no definition for this word--nobody knows what\nhash is.\n\nHATCHET, n.  A young axe, known among Indians as a Thomashawk.\n\n  \"O bury the hatchet, irascible Red,\n  For peace is a blessing,\" the White Man said.\n      The Savage concurred, and that weapon interred,\n  With imposing rites, in the White Man's head.\n\nJohn Lukkus\n\n\nHATRED, n.  A sentiment appropriate to the occasion of another's\nsuperiority.\n\nHEAD-MONEY, n.  A capitation tax, or poll-tax.\n\n  In ancient times there lived a king\n  Whose tax-collectors could not wring\n  From all his subjects gold enough\n  To make the royal way less rough.\n  For pleasure's highway, like the dames\n  Whose premises adjoin it, claims\n  Perpetual repairing.  So\n  The tax-collectors in a row\n  Appeared before the throne to pray\n  Their master to devise some way\n  To swell the revenue.  \"So great,\"\n  Said they, \"are the demands of state\n  A tithe of all that we collect\n  Will scarcely meet them.  Pray reflect:\n  How, if one-tenth we must resign,\n  Can we exist on t'other nine?\"\n  The monarch asked them in reply:\n  \"Has it occurred to you to try\n  The advantage of economy?\"\n  \"It has,\" the spokesman said:  \"we sold\n  All of our gray garrotes of gold;\n  With plated-ware we now compress\n  The necks of those whom we assess.\n  Plain iron forceps we employ\n  To mitigate the miser's joy\n  Who hoards, with greed that never tires,\n  That which your Majesty requires.\"\n  Deep lines of thought were seen to plow\n  Their way across the royal brow.\n  \"Your state is desperate, no question;\n  Pray favor me with a suggestion.\"\n  \"O King of Men,\" the spokesman said,\n  \"If you'll impose upon each head\n  A tax, the augmented revenue\n  We'll cheerfully divide with you.\"\n  As flashes of the sun illume\n  The parted storm-cloud's sullen gloom,\n  The king smiled grimly.  \"I decree\n  That it be so--and, not to be\n  In generosity outdone,\n  Declare you, each and every one,\n  Exempted from the operation\n  Of this new law of capitation.\n  But lest the people censure me\n  Because they're bound and you are free,\n  'Twere well some clever scheme were laid\n  By you this poll-tax to evade.\n  I'll leave you now while you confer\n  With my most trusted minister.\"\n  The monarch from the throne-room walked\n  And straightway in among them stalked\n  A silent man, with brow concealed,\n  Bare-armed--his gleaming axe revealed!\n\nG.J.\n\n\nHEARSE, n.  Death's baby-carriage.\n\nHEART, n.  An automatic, muscular blood-pump.  Figuratively, this\nuseful organ is said to be the seat of emotions and sentiments--a\nvery pretty fancy which, however, is nothing but a survival of a once\nuniversal belief.  It is now known that the sentiments and emotions\nreside in the stomach, being evolved from food by chemical action of\nthe gastric fluid.  The exact process by which a beefsteak becomes a\nfeeling--tender or not, according to the age of the animal from\nwhich it was cut; the successive stages of elaboration through which a\ncaviar sandwich is transmuted to a quaint fancy and reappears as a\npungent epigram; the marvelous functional methods of converting a\nhard-boiled egg into religious contrition, or a cream-puff into a sigh\nof sensibility--these things have been patiently ascertained by M.\nPasteur, and by him expounded with convincing lucidity.  (See, also,\nmy monograph, _The Essential Identity of the Spiritual Affections and\nCertain Intestinal Gases Freed in Digestion_--4to, 687 pp.)  In a\nscientific work entitled, I believe, _Delectatio Demonorum_ (John\nCamden Hotton, London, 1873) this view of the sentiments receives a\nstriking illustration; and for further light consult Professor Dam's\nfamous treatise on _Love as a Product of Alimentary Maceration_.\n\nHEAT, n.\n\n  Heat, says Professor Tyndall, is a mode\n      Of motion, but I know now how he's proving\n  His point; but this I know--hot words bestowed\n      With skill will set the human fist a-moving,\n  And where it stops the stars burn free and wild.\n  _Crede expertum_--I have seen them, child.\n\nGorton Swope\n\n\nHEATHEN, n.  A benighted creature who has the folly to worship\nsomething that he can see and feel.  According to Professor Howison,\nof the California State University, Hebrews are heathens.\n\n  \"The Hebrews are heathens!\" says Howison.  He's\n      A Christian philosopher.  I'm\n  A scurril agnostical chap, if you please,\n      Addicted too much to the crime\n      Of religious discussion in my rhyme.\n\n  Though Hebrew and Howison cannot agree\n      On a _modus vivendi_--not they!--\n  Yet Heaven has had the designing of me,\n      And I haven't been reared in a way\n      To joy in the thick of the fray.\n\n  For this of my creed is the soul and the gist,\n      And the truth of it I aver:\n  Who differs from me in his faith is an 'ist,\n      And 'ite, an 'ie, or an 'er--\n      And I'm down upon him or her!\n\n  Let Howison urge with perfunctory chin\n      Toleration--that's all very well,\n  But a roast is \"nuts\" to his nostril thin,\n      And he's running--I know by the smell--\n      A secret and personal Hell!\n\nBissell Gip\n\n\nHEAVEN, n.  A place where the wicked cease from troubling you with\ntalk of their personal affairs, and the good listen with attention\nwhile you expound your own.\n\nHEBREW, n.  A male Jew, as distinguished from the Shebrew, an\naltogether superior creation.\n\nHELPMATE, n.  A wife, or bitter half.\n\n  \"Now, why is yer wife called a helpmate, Pat?\"\n      Says the priest.  \"Since the time 'o yer wooin'\n  She's niver [sic] assisted in what ye were at--\n      For it's naught ye are ever doin'.\"\n\n  \"That's true of yer Riverence [sic],\" Patrick replies,\n      And no sign of contrition envices;\n  \"But, bedad, it's a fact which the word implies,\n      For she helps to mate the expinses [sic]!\"\n\nMarley Wottel\n\n\nHEMP, n.  A plant from whose fibrous bark is made an article of\nneckwear which is frequently put on after public speaking in the open\nair and prevents the wearer from taking cold.\n\nHERMIT, n.  A person whose vices and follies are not sociable.\n\nHERS, pron.  His.\n\nHIBERNATE, v.i.  To pass the winter season in domestic seclusion.\nThere have been many singular popular notions about the hibernation of\nvarious animals.  Many believe that the bear hibernates during the\nwhole winter and subsists by mechanically sucking its paws.  It is\nadmitted that it comes out of its retirement in the spring so lean\nthat it had to try twice before it can cast a shadow.  Three or four\ncenturies ago, in England, no fact was better attested than that\nswallows passed the winter months in the mud at the bottom of their\nbrooks, clinging together in globular masses.  They have apparently\nbeen compelled to give up the custom on account of the foulness of\nthe brooks.  Sotus Ecobius discovered in Central Asia a whole nation\nof people who hibernate.  By some investigators, the fasting of Lent\nis supposed to have been originally a modified form of hibernation, to\nwhich the Church gave a religious significance; but this view was\nstrenuously opposed by that eminent authority, Bishop Kip, who did not\nwish any honors denied to the memory of the Founder of his family.\n\nHIPPOGRIFF, n.  An animal (now extinct) which was half horse and half\ngriffin.  The griffin was itself a compound creature, half lion and\nhalf eagle.  The hippogriff was actually, therefore, a one-quarter\neagle, which is two dollars and fifty cents in gold.  The study of\nzoology is full of surprises.\n\nHISTORIAN, n.  A broad-gauge gossip.\n\nHISTORY, n.  An account mostly false, of events mostly unimportant,\nwhich are brought about by rulers mostly knaves, and soldiers mostly\nfools.\n\n  Of Roman history, great Niebuhr's shown\n  'Tis nine-tenths lying.  Faith, I wish 'twere known,\n  Ere we accept great Niebuhr as a guide,\n  Wherein he blundered and how much he lied.\n\nSalder Bupp\n\n\nHOG, n.  A bird remarkable for the catholicity of its appetite and\nserving to illustrate that of ours.  Among the Mahometans and Jews,\nthe hog is not in favor as an article of diet, but is respected for\nthe delicacy and the melody of its voice.  It is chiefly as a songster\nthat the fowl is esteemed; the cage of him in full chorus has been\nknown to draw tears from two persons at once.  The scientific name of\nthis dicky-bird is _Porcus Rockefelleri_.  Mr. Rockefeller did not\ndiscover the hog, but it is considered his by right of resemblance.\n\nHOMOEOPATHIST, n.  The humorist of the medical profession.\n\nHOMOEOPATHY, n.  A school of medicine midway between Allopathy and\nChristian Science.  To the last both the others are distinctly\ninferior, for Christian Science will cure imaginary diseases, and they\ncan not.\n\nHOMICIDE, n.  The slaying of one human being by another.  There are\nfour kinds of homocide:  felonious, excusable, justifiable, and\npraiseworthy, but it makes no great difference to the person slain\nwhether he fell by one kind or another--the classification is for\nadvantage of the lawyers.\n\nHOMILETICS, n.  The science of adapting sermons to the spiritual\nneeds, capacities and conditions of the congregation.\n\n  So skilled the parson was in homiletics\n  That all his normal purges and emetics\n  To medicine the spirit were compounded\n  With a most just discrimination founded\n  Upon a rigorous examination\n  Of tongue and pulse and heart and respiration.\n  Then, having diagnosed each one's condition,\n  His scriptural specifics this physician\n  Administered--his pills so efficacious\n  And pukes of disposition so vivacious\n  That souls afflicted with ten kinds of Adam\n  Were convalescent ere they knew they had 'em.\n  But Slander's tongue--itself all coated--uttered\n  Her bilious mind and scandalously muttered\n  That in the case of patients having money\n  The pills were sugar and the pukes were honey.\n\n_Biography of Bishop Potter_\n\n\nHONORABLE, adj.  Afflicted with an impediment in one's reach.  In\nlegislative bodies it is customary to mention all members as\nhonorable; as, \"the honorable gentleman is a scurvy cur.\"\n\nHOPE, n.  Desire and expectation rolled into one.\n\n  Delicious Hope! when naught to man is left--\n  Of fortune destitute, of friends bereft;\n  When even his dog deserts him, and his goat\n  With tranquil disaffection chews his coat\n  While yet it hangs upon his back; then thou,\n  The star far-flaming on thine angel brow,\n  Descendest, radiant, from the skies to hint\n  The promise of a clerkship in the Mint.\n\nFogarty Weffing\n\n\nHOSPITALITY, n.  The virtue which induces us to feed and lodge certain\npersons who are not in need of food and lodging.\n\nHOSTILITY, n.  A peculiarly sharp and specially applied sense of the\nearth's overpopulation.  Hostility is classified as active and\npassive; as (respectively) the feeling of a woman for her female\nfriends, and that which she entertains for all the rest of her sex.\n\nHOURI, n.  A comely female inhabiting the Mohammedan Paradise to make\nthings cheery for the good Mussulman, whose belief in her existence\nmarks a noble discontent with his earthly spouse, whom he denies a\nsoul.  By that good lady the Houris are said to be held in deficient\nesteem.\n\nHOUSE, n.  A hollow edifice erected for the habitation of man, rat,\nmouse, beetle, cockroach, fly, mosquito, flea, bacillus and microbe.\n_House of Correction_, a place of reward for political and personal\nservice, and for the detention of offenders and appropriations.\n_House of God_, a building with a steeple and a mortgage on it.\n_House-dog_, a pestilent beast kept on domestic premises to insult\npersons passing by and appal the hardy visitor.  _House-maid_, a\nyoungerly person of the opposing sex employed to be variously\ndisagreeable and ingeniously unclean in the station in which it has\npleased God to place her.\n\nHOUSELESS, adj.  Having paid all taxes on household goods.\n\nHOVEL, n.  The fruit of a flower called the Palace.\n\n      Twaddle had a hovel,\n          Twiddle had a palace;\n      Twaddle said:  \"I'll grovel\n          Or he'll think I bear him malice\"--\n  A sentiment as novel\n      As a castor on a chalice.\n\n      Down upon the middle\n          Of his legs fell Twaddle\n      And astonished Mr. Twiddle,\n          Who began to lift his noddle.\n      Feed upon the fiddle-\n          Faddle flummery, unswaddle\n  A new-born self-sufficiency and think himself a [mockery.]\n\nG.J.\n\n\nHUMANITY, n.  The human race, collectively, exclusive of the\nanthropoid poets.\n\nHUMORIST, n.  A plague that would have softened down the hoar\nausterity of Pharaoh's heart and persuaded him to dismiss Israel with\nhis best wishes, cat-quick.\n\n  Lo! the poor humorist, whose tortured mind\n  See jokes in crowds, though still to gloom inclined--\n  Whose simple appetite, untaught to stray,\n  His brains, renewed by night, consumes by day.\n  He thinks, admitted to an equal sty,\n  A graceful hog would bear his company.\n\nAlexander Poke\n\n\nHURRICANE, n.  An atmospheric demonstration once very common but now\ngenerally abandoned for the tornado and cyclone.  The hurricane is\nstill in popular use in the West Indies and is preferred by certain\nold-fashioned sea-captains.  It is also used in the construction of\nthe upper decks of steamboats, but generally speaking, the hurricane's\nusefulness has outlasted it.\n\nHURRY, n.  The dispatch of bunglers.\n\nHUSBAND, n.  One who, having dined, is charged with the care of the\nplate.\n\nHYBRID, n.  A pooled issue.\n\nHYDRA, n.  A kind of animal that the ancients catalogued under many\nheads.\n\nHYENA, n.  A beast held in reverence by some oriental nations from its\nhabit of frequenting at night the burial-places of the dead.  But the\nmedical student does that.\n\nHYPOCHONDRIASIS, n.  Depression of one's own spirits.\n\n  Some heaps of trash upon a vacant lot\n  Where long the village rubbish had been shot\n  Displayed a sign among the stuff and stumps--\n  \"Hypochondriasis.\"  It meant The Dumps.\n\nBogul S. Purvy\n\n\nHYPOCRITE, n.  One who, professing virtues that he does not respect\nsecures the advantage of seeming to be what he despises.\n\n\n\n\nI\n\n\n\nI is the first letter of the alphabet, the first word of the language,\nthe first thought of the mind, the first object of affection.  In\ngrammar it is a pronoun of the first person and singular number.  Its\nplural is said to be _We_, but how there can be more than one myself\nis doubtless clearer to the grammarians than it is to the author of this\nincomparable dictionary.  Conception of two myselfs is difficult, but\nfine.  The frank yet graceful use of \"I\" distinguishes a good writer\nfrom a bad; the latter carries it with the manner of a thief trying to\ncloak his loot.\n\nICHOR, n.  A fluid that serves the gods and goddesses in place of\nblood.\n\n  Fair Venus, speared by Diomed,\n  Restrained the raging chief and said:\n  \"Behold, rash mortal, whom you've bled--\n  Your soul's stained white with ichorshed!\"\n\nMary Doke\n\n\nICONOCLAST, n.  A breaker of idols, the worshipers whereof are\nimperfectly gratified by the performance, and most strenuously protest\nthat he unbuildeth but doth not reedify, that he pulleth down but\npileth not up.  For the poor things would have other idols in place of\nthose he thwacketh upon the mazzard and dispelleth.  But the\niconoclast saith:  \"Ye shall have none at all, for ye need them not;\nand if the rebuilder fooleth round hereabout, behold I will depress\nthe head of him and sit thereon till he squawk it.\"\n\nIDIOT, n.  A member of a large and powerful tribe whose influence in\nhuman affairs has always been dominant and controlling.  The Idiot's\nactivity is not confined to any special field of thought or action,\nbut \"pervades and regulates the whole.\"  He has the last word in\neverything; his decision is unappealable.  He sets the fashions and\nopinion of taste, dictates the limitations of speech and circumscribes\nconduct with a dead-line.\n\nIDLENESS, n.  A model farm where the devil experiments with seeds of\nnew sins and promotes the growth of staple vices.\n\nIGNORAMUS, n.  A person unacquainted with certain kinds of knowledge\nfamiliar to yourself, and having certain other kinds that you know\nnothing about.\n\n  Dumble was an ignoramus,\n  Mumble was for learning famous.\n  Mumble said one day to Dumble:\n  \"Ignorance should be more humble.\n  Not a spark have you of knowledge\n  That was got in any college.\"\n  Dumble said to Mumble:  \"Truly\n  You're self-satisfied unduly.\n  Of things in college I'm denied\n  A knowledge--you of all beside.\"\n\nBorelli\n\n\nILLUMINATI, n.  A sect of Spanish heretics of the latter part of the\nsixteenth century; so called because they were light weights--\n_cunctationes illuminati_.\n\nILLUSTRIOUS, adj.  Suitably placed for the shafts of malice, envy and\ndetraction.\n\nIMAGINATION, n.  A warehouse of facts, with poet and liar in joint\nownership.\n\nIMBECILITY, n.  A kind of divine inspiration, or sacred fire affecting\ncensorious critics of this dictionary.\n\nIMMIGRANT, n.  An unenlightened person who thinks one country better\nthan another.\n\nIMMODEST, adj.  Having a strong sense of one's own merit, coupled with\na feeble conception of worth in others.\n\n  There was once a man in Ispahan\n      Ever and ever so long ago,\n  And he had a head, the phrenologists said,\n      That fitted him for a show.\n\n  For his modesty's bump was so large a lump\n      (Nature, they said, had taken a freak)\n  That its summit stood far above the wood\n      Of his hair, like a mountain peak.\n\n  So modest a man in all Ispahan,\n      Over and over again they swore--\n  So humble and meek, you would vainly seek;\n      None ever was found before.\n\n  Meantime the hump of that awful bump\n      Into the heavens contrived to get\n  To so great a height that they called the wight\n      The man with the minaret.\n\n  There wasn't a man in all Ispahan\n      Prouder, or louder in praise of his chump:\n  With a tireless tongue and a brazen lung\n      He bragged of that beautiful bump\n\n  Till the Shah in a rage sent a trusty page\n      Bearing a sack and a bow-string too,\n  And that gentle child explained as he smiled:\n      \"A little present for you.\"\n\n  The saddest man in all Ispahan,\n      Sniffed at the gift, yet accepted the same.\n  \"If I'd lived,\" said he, \"my humility\n      Had given me deathless fame!\"\n\nSukker Uffro\n\n\nIMMORAL, adj.  Inexpedient.  Whatever in the long run and with regard\nto the greater number of instances men find to be generally\ninexpedient comes to be considered wrong, wicked, immoral.  If man's\nnotions of right and wrong have any other basis than this of\nexpediency; if they originated, or could have originated, in any other\nway; if actions have in themselves a moral character apart from, and\nnowise dependent on, their consequences--then all philosophy is a\nlie and reason a disorder of the mind.\n\nIMMORTALITY, n.\n\n  A toy which people cry for,\n  And on their knees apply for,\n  Dispute, contend and lie for,\n      And if allowed\n      Would be right proud\n  Eternally to die for.\n\nG.J.\n\n\nIMPALE, v.t.  In popular usage to pierce with any weapon which remains\nfixed in the wound.  This, however, is inaccurate; to impale is,\nproperly, to put to death by thrusting an upright sharp stake into the\nbody, the victim being left in a sitting position.  This was a common\nmode of punishment among many of the nations of antiquity, and is\nstill in high favor in China and other parts of Asia.  Down to the\nbeginning of the fifteenth century it was widely employed in\n\"churching\" heretics and schismatics.  Wolecraft calls it the \"stoole\nof repentynge,\" and among the common people it was jocularly known as\n\"riding the one legged horse.\"  Ludwig Salzmann informs us that in\nThibet impalement is considered the most appropriate punishment for\ncrimes against religion; and although in China it is sometimes awarded\nfor secular offences, it is most frequently adjudged in cases of\nsacrilege.  To the person in actual experience of impalement it must\nbe a matter of minor importance by what kind of civil or religious\ndissent he was made acquainted with its discomforts; but doubtless he\nwould feel a certain satisfaction if able to contemplate himself in\nthe character of a weather-cock on the spire of the True Church.\n\nIMPARTIAL, adj.  Unable to perceive any promise of personal advantage\nfrom espousing either side of a controversy or adopting either of two\nconflicting opinions.\n\nIMPENITENCE, n.  A state of mind intermediate in point of time between\nsin and punishment.\n\nIMPIETY, n.  Your irreverence toward my deity.\n\nIMPOSITION, n.  The act of blessing or consecrating by the laying on\nof hands--a ceremony common to many ecclesiastical systems, but\nperformed with the frankest sincerity by the sect known as Thieves.\n\n  \"Lo! by the laying on of hands,\"\n      Say parson, priest and dervise,\n  \"We consecrate your cash and lands\n      To ecclesiastical service.\n  No doubt you'll swear till all is blue\n  At such an imposition.  Do.\"\n\nPollo Doncas\n\n\nIMPOSTOR n.  A rival aspirant to public honors.\n\nIMPROBABILITY, n.\n\n  His tale he told with a solemn face\n  And a tender, melancholy grace.\n      Improbable 'twas, no doubt,\n      When you came to think it out,\n      But the fascinated crowd\n      Their deep surprise avowed\n  And all with a single voice averred\n  'Twas the most amazing thing they'd heard--\n  All save one who spake never a word,\n      But sat as mum\n      As if deaf and dumb,\n  Serene, indifferent and unstirred.\n      Then all the others turned to him\n      And scrutinized him limb from limb--\n      Scanned him alive;\n      But he seemed to thrive\n      And tranquiler grow each minute,\n      As if there were nothing in it.\n  \"What! what!\" cried one, \"are you not amazed\n  At what our friend has told?\"  He raised\n  Soberly then his eyes and gazed\n      In a natural way\n      And proceeded to say,\n  As he crossed his feet on the mantel-shelf:\n  \"O no--not at all; I'm a liar myself.\"\n\nIMPROVIDENCE, n.  Provision for the needs of to-day from the revenues\nof to-morrow.\n\nIMPUNITY, n.  Wealth.\n\nINADMISSIBLE, adj.  Not competent to be considered.  Said of certain\nkinds of testimony which juries are supposed to be unfit to be\nentrusted with, and which judges, therefore, rule out, even of\nproceedings before themselves alone.  Hearsay evidence is inadmissible\nbecause the person quoted was unsworn and is not before the court for\nexamination; yet most momentous actions, military, political,\ncommercial and of every other kind, are daily undertaken on hearsay\nevidence.  There is no religion in the world that has any other basis\nthan hearsay evidence.  Revelation is hearsay evidence; that the\nScriptures are the word of God we have only the testimony of men long\ndead whose identity is not clearly established and who are not known\nto have been sworn in any sense.  Under the rules of evidence as they\nnow exist in this country, no single assertion in the Bible has in its\nsupport any evidence admissible in a court of law.  It cannot be\nproved that the battle of Blenheim ever was fought, that there was\nsuch as person as Julius Caesar, such an empire as Assyria.\n\nBut as records of courts of justice are admissible, it can easily\nbe proved that powerful and malevolent magicians once existed and were\na scourge to mankind.  The evidence (including confession) upon which\ncertain women were convicted of witchcraft and executed was without a\nflaw; it is still unimpeachable.  The judges' decisions based on it\nwere sound in logic and in law.  Nothing in any existing court was\never more thoroughly proved than the charges of witchcraft and sorcery\nfor which so many suffered death.  If there were no witches, human\ntestimony and human reason are alike destitute of value.\n\nINAUSPICIOUSLY, adv.  In an unpromising manner, the auspices being\nunfavorable.  Among the Romans it was customary before undertaking any\nimportant action or enterprise to obtain from the augurs, or state\nprophets, some hint of its probable outcome; and one of their favorite\nand most trustworthy modes of divination consisted in observing the\nflight of birds--the omens thence derived being called _auspices_.\nNewspaper reporters and certain miscreant lexicographers have decided\nthat the word--always in the plural--shall mean \"patronage\" or\n\"management\"; as, \"The festivities were under the auspices of the\nAncient and Honorable Order of Body-Snatchers\"; or, \"The hilarities\nwere auspicated by the Knights of Hunger.\"\n\n  A Roman slave appeared one day\n  Before the Augur.  \"Tell me, pray,\n  If--\" here the Augur, smiling, made\n  A checking gesture and displayed\n  His open palm, which plainly itched,\n  For visibly its surface twitched.\n  A _denarius_ (the Latin nickel)\n  Successfully allayed the tickle,\n  And then the slave proceeded:  \"Please\n  Inform me whether Fate decrees\n  Success or failure in what I\n  To-night (if it be dark) shall try.\n  Its nature?  Never mind--I think\n  'Tis writ on this\"--and with a wink\n  Which darkened half the earth, he drew\n  Another denarius to view,\n  Its shining face attentive scanned,\n  Then slipped it into the good man's hand,\n  Who with great gravity said:  \"Wait\n  While I retire to question Fate.\"\n  That holy person then withdrew\n  His scared clay and, passing through\n  The temple's rearward gate, cried \"Shoo!\"\n  Waving his robe of office.  Straight\n  Each sacred peacock and its mate\n  (Maintained for Juno's favor) fled\n  With clamor from the trees o'erhead,\n  Where they were perching for the night.\n  The temple's roof received their flight,\n  For thither they would always go,\n  When danger threatened them below.\n  Back to the slave the Augur went:\n  \"My son, forecasting the event\n  By flight of birds, I must confess\n  The auspices deny success.\"\n  That slave retired, a sadder man,\n  Abandoning his secret plan--\n  Which was (as well the craft seer\n  Had from the first divined) to clear\n  The wall and fraudulently seize\n  On Juno's poultry in the trees.\n\nG.J.\n\n\nINCOME, n.  The natural and rational gauge and measure of\nrespectability, the commonly accepted standards being artificial,\narbitrary and fallacious; for, as \"Sir Sycophas Chrysolater\" in the\nplay has justly remarked, \"the true use and function of property (in\nwhatsoever it consisteth--coins, or land, or houses, or merchant-stuff,\nor anything which may be named as holden of right to one's own\nsubservience) as also of honors, titles, preferments and place, and\nall favor and acquaintance of persons of quality or ableness, are but\nto get money.  Hence it followeth that all things are truly to be\nrated as of worth in measure of their serviceableness to that end; and\ntheir possessors should take rank in agreement thereto, neither the\nlord of an unproducing manor, howsoever broad and ancient, nor he who\nbears an unremunerate dignity, nor yet the pauper favorite of a king,\nbeing esteemed of level excellency with him whose riches are of daily\naccretion; and hardly should they whose wealth is barren claim and\nrightly take more honor than the poor and unworthy.\"\n\nINCOMPATIBILITY, n.  In matrimony a similarity of tastes, particularly\nthe taste for domination.  Incompatibility may, however, consist of a\nmeek-eyed matron living just around the corner.  It has even been\nknown to wear a moustache.\n\nINCOMPOSSIBLE, adj.  Unable to exist if something else exists.  Two\nthings are incompossible when the world of being has scope enough for\none of them, but not enough for both--as Walt Whitman's poetry and\nGod's mercy to man.  Incompossibility, it will be seen, is only\nincompatibility let loose.  Instead of such low language as \"Go heel\nyourself--I mean to kill you on sight,\" the words, \"Sir, we are\nincompossible,\" would convey an equally significant intimation and in\nstately courtesy are altogether superior.\n\nINCUBUS, n.  One of a race of highly improper demons who, though\nprobably not wholly extinct, may be said to have seen their best\nnights.  For a complete account of _incubi_ and _succubi_, including\n_incubae_ and _succubae_, see the _Liber Demonorum_ of Protassus\n(Paris, 1328), which contains much curious information that would be\nout of place in a dictionary intended as a text-book for the public\nschools.\n\nVictor Hugo relates that in the Channel Islands Satan himself--\ntempted more than elsewhere by the beauty of the women, doubtless--\nsometimes plays at _incubus_, greatly to the inconvenience and alarm\nof the good dames who wish to be loyal to their marriage vows,\ngenerally speaking.  A certain lady applied to the parish priest to\nlearn how they might, in the dark, distinguish the hardy intruder from\ntheir husbands.  The holy man said they must feel his brow for horns;\nbut Hugo is ungallant enough to hint a doubt of the efficacy of the\ntest.\n\nINCUMBENT, n.  A person of the liveliest interest to the outcumbents.\n\nINDECISION, n.  The chief element of success; \"for whereas,\" saith Sir\nThomas Brewbold, \"there is but one way to do nothing and divers way to\ndo something, whereof, to a surety, only one is the right way, it\nfolloweth that he who from indecision standeth still hath not so many\nchances of going astray as he who pusheth forwards\"--a most clear\nand satisfactory exposition of the matter.\n\n\"Your prompt decision to attack,\" said General Grant on a certain\noccasion to General Gordon Granger, \"was admirable; you had but five\nminutes to make up your mind in.\"\n\n\"Yes, sir,\" answered the victorious subordinate, \"it is a great\nthing to know exactly what to do in an emergency.  When in doubt\nwhether to attack or retreat I never hesitate a moment--I toss up a\ncopper.\"\n\n\"Do you mean to say that's what you did this time?\"\n\n\"Yes, General; but for Heaven's sake don't reprimand me:  I\ndisobeyed the coin.\"\n\nINDIFFERENT, adj.  Imperfectly sensible to distinctions among things.\n\n  \"You tiresome man!\" cried Indolentio's wife,\n  \"You've grown indifferent to all in life.\"\n  \"Indifferent?\" he drawled with a slow smile;\n  \"I would be, dear, but it is not worth while.\"\n\nApuleius M. Gokul\n\n\nINDIGESTION, n.  A disease which the patient and his friends\nfrequently mistake for deep religious conviction and concern for the\nsalvation of mankind.  As the simple Red Man of the western wild put\nit, with, it must be confessed, a certain force:  \"Plenty well, no\npray; big bellyache, heap God.\"\n\nINDISCRETION, n.  The guilt of woman.\n\nINEXPEDIENT, adj.  Not calculated to advance one's interests.\n\nINFANCY, n.  The period of our lives when, according to Wordsworth,\n\"Heaven lies about us.\"  The world begins lying about us pretty soon\nafterward.\n\nINFERIAE, n.  [Latin]  Among the Greeks and Romans, sacrifices for\npropitiation of the _Dii Manes_, or souls of the dead heroes; for the\npious ancients could not invent enough gods to satisfy their spiritual\nneeds, and had to have a number of makeshift deities, or, as a sailor\nmight say, jury-gods, which they made out of the most unpromising\nmaterials.  It was while sacrificing a bullock to the spirit of\nAgamemnon that Laiaides, a priest of Aulis, was favored with an\naudience of that illustrious warrior's shade, who prophetically\nrecounted to him the birth of Christ and the triumph of Christianity,\ngiving him also a rapid but tolerably complete review of events down\nto the reign of Saint Louis.  The narrative ended abruptly at that\npoint, owing to the inconsiderate crowing of a cock, which compelled\nthe ghosted King of Men to scamper back to Hades.  There is a fine\nmediaeval flavor to this story, and as it has not been traced back\nfurther than Pere Brateille, a pious but obscure writer at the court\nof Saint Louis, we shall probably not err on the side of presumption\nin considering it apocryphal, though Monsignor Capel's judgment of the\nmatter might be different; and to that I bow--wow.\n\nINFIDEL, n.  In New York, one who does not believe in the Christian\nreligion; in Constantinople, one who does.  (See GIAOUR.)  A kind of\nscoundrel imperfectly reverent of, and niggardly contributory to,\ndivines, ecclesiastics, popes, parsons, canons, monks, mollahs,\nvoodoos, presbyters, hierophants, prelates, obeah-men, abbes, nuns,\nmissionaries, exhorters, deacons, friars, hadjis, high-priests,\nmuezzins, brahmins, medicine-men, confessors, eminences, elders,\nprimates, prebendaries, pilgrims, prophets, imaums, beneficiaries,\nclerks, vicars-choral, archbishops, bishops, abbots, priors,\npreachers, padres, abbotesses, caloyers, palmers, curates, patriarchs,\nbonezs, santons, beadsmen, canonesses, residentiaries, diocesans,\ndeans, subdeans, rural deans, abdals, charm-sellers, archdeacons,\nhierarchs, class-leaders, incumbents, capitulars, sheiks, talapoins,\npostulants, scribes, gooroos, precentors, beadles, fakeers, sextons,\nreverences, revivalists, cenobites, perpetual curates, chaplains,\nmudjoes, readers, novices, vicars, pastors, rabbis, ulemas, lamas,\nsacristans, vergers, dervises, lectors, church wardens, cardinals,\nprioresses, suffragans, acolytes, rectors, cures, sophis, mutifs and\npumpums.\n\nINFLUENCE, n.  In politics, a visionary _quo_ given in exchange for a\nsubstantial _quid_.\n\nINFRALAPSARIAN, n.  One who ventures to believe that Adam need not have\nsinned unless he had a mind to--in opposition to the Supralapsarians,\nwho hold that that luckless person's fall was decreed from the\nbeginning.  Infralapsarians are sometimes called Sublapsarians without\nmaterial effect upon the importance and lucidity of their views about\nAdam.\n\n  Two theologues once, as they wended their way\n  To chapel, engaged in colloquial fray--\n  An earnest logomachy, bitter as gall,\n  Concerning poor Adam and what made him fall.\n  \"'Twas Predestination,\" cried one--\"for the Lord\n  Decreed he should fall of his own accord.\"\n  \"Not so--'twas Free will,\" the other maintained,\n  \"Which led him to choose what the Lord had ordained.\"\n  So fierce and so fiery grew the debate\n  That nothing but bloodshed their dudgeon could sate;\n  So off flew their cassocks and caps to the ground\n  And, moved by the spirit, their hands went round.\n  Ere either had proved his theology right\n  By winning, or even beginning, the fight,\n  A gray old professor of Latin came by,\n  A staff in his hand and a scowl in his eye,\n  And learning the cause of their quarrel (for still\n  As they clumsily sparred they disputed with skill\n  Of foreordinational freedom of will)\n  Cried:  \"Sirrahs! this reasonless warfare compose:\n  Atwixt ye's no difference worthy of blows.\n  The sects ye belong to--I'm ready to swear\n  Ye wrongly interpret the names that they bear.\n  _You_--Infralapsarian son of a clown!--\n  Should only contend that Adam slipped down;\n  While _you_--you Supralapsarian pup!--\n  Should nothing aver but that Adam slipped up.\n  It's all the same whether up or down\n  You slip on a peel of banana brown.\n  Even Adam analyzed not his blunder,\n  But thought he had slipped on a peal of thunder!\n\nG.J.\n\n\nINGRATE, n.  One who receives a benefit from another, or is otherwise\nan object of charity.\n\n  \"All men are ingrates,\" sneered the cynic.  \"Nay,\"\n      The good philanthropist replied;\n  \"I did great service to a man one day\n  Who never since has cursed me to repay,\n              Nor vilified.\"\n\n  \"Ho!\" cried the cynic, \"lead me to him straight--\n      With veneration I am overcome,\n  And fain would have his blessing.\"  \"Sad your fate--\n  He cannot bless you, for I grieve to state\n              This man is dumb.\"\n\nAriel Selp\n\n\nINJURY, n.  An offense next in degree of enormity to a slight.\n\nINJUSTICE, n.  A burden which of all those that we load upon others\nand carry ourselves is lightest in the hands and heaviest upon the\nback.\n\nINK, n.  A villainous compound of tannogallate of iron, gum-arabic and\nwater, chiefly used to facilitate the infection of idiocy and promote\nintellectual crime.  The properties of ink are peculiar and\ncontradictory:  it may be used to make reputations and unmake them; to\nblacken them and to make them white; but it is most generally and\nacceptably employed as a mortar to bind together the stones of an\nedifice of fame, and as a whitewash to conceal afterward the rascal\nquality of the material.  There are men called journalists who have\nestablished ink baths which some persons pay money to get into, others\nto get out of.  Not infrequently it occurs that a person who has paid\nto get in pays twice as much to get out.\n\nINNATE, adj.  Natural, inherent--as innate ideas, that is to say,\nideas that we are born with, having had them previously imparted to\nus.  The doctrine of innate ideas is one of the most admirable faiths\nof philosophy, being itself an innate idea and therefore inaccessible\nto disproof, though Locke foolishly supposed himself to have given it\n\"a black eye.\"  Among innate ideas may be mentioned the belief in\none's ability to conduct a newspaper, in the greatness of one's\ncountry, in the superiority of one's civilization, in the importance\nof one's personal affairs and in the interesting nature of one's\ndiseases.\n\nIN'ARDS, n.  The stomach, heart, soul and other bowels.  Many eminent\ninvestigators do not class the soul as an in'ard, but that acute\nobserver and renowned authority, Dr. Gunsaulus, is persuaded that the\nmysterious organ known as the spleen is nothing less than our\nimmortal part.  To the contrary, Professor Garrett P. Servis holds\nthat man's soul is that prolongation of his spinal marrow which forms\nthe pith of his no tail; and for demonstration of his faith points\nconfidently to the fact that tailed animals have no souls.\nConcerning these two theories, it is best to suspend judgment by\nbelieving both.\n\nINSCRIPTION, n.  Something written on another thing.  Inscriptions are\nof many kinds, but mostly memorial, intended to commemorate the fame\nof some illustrious person and hand down to distant ages the record of\nhis services and virtues.  To this class of inscriptions belongs the\nname of John Smith, penciled on the Washington monument.  Following\nare examples of memorial inscriptions on tombstones:  (See EPITAPH.)\n\n  \"In the sky my soul is found,\n  And my body in the ground.\n  By and by my body'll rise\n  To my spirit in the skies,\n  Soaring up to Heaven's gate.\n          1878.\"\n\n  \"Sacred to the memory of Jeremiah Tree.  Cut down May 9th, 1862,\naged 27 yrs. 4 mos. and 12 ds.  Indigenous.\"\n\n      \"Affliction sore long time she boar,\n          Phisicians was in vain,\n      Till Deth released the dear deceased\n          And left her a remain.\n  Gone to join Ananias in the regions of bliss.\"\n\n  \"The clay that rests beneath this stone\n  As Silas Wood was widely known.\n  Now, lying here, I ask what good\n  It was to let me be S. Wood.\n  O Man, let not ambition trouble you,\n  Is the advice of Silas W.\"\n\n  \"Richard Haymon, of Heaven.  Fell to Earth Jan. 20, 1807, and had\nthe dust brushed off him Oct. 3, 1874.\"\n\nINSECTIVORA, n.\n\n  \"See,\" cries the chorus of admiring preachers,\n  \"How Providence provides for all His creatures!\"\n  \"His care,\" the gnat said, \"even the insects follows:\n  For us He has provided wrens and swallows.\"\n\nSempen Railey\n\n\nINSURANCE, n.  An ingenious modern game of chance in which the player\nis permitted to enjoy the comfortable conviction that he is beating\nthe man who keeps the table.\n\n  INSURANCE AGENT:  My dear sir, that is a fine house--pray let me\n      insure it.\n  HOUSE OWNER:  With pleasure.  Please make the annual premium so\n      low that by the time when, according to the tables of your\n      actuary, it will probably be destroyed by fire I will have\n      paid you considerably less than the face of the policy.\n  INSURANCE AGENT:  O dear, no--we could not afford to do that.\n      We must fix the premium so that you will have paid more.\n  HOUSE OWNER:  How, then, can _I_ afford _that_?\n  INSURANCE AGENT:  Why, your house may burn down at any time.\n      There was Smith's house, for example, which--\n  HOUSE OWNER:  Spare me--there were Brown's house, on the\n      contrary, and Jones's house, and Robinson's house, which--\n  INSURANCE AGENT:  Spare _me_!\n  HOUSE OWNER:  Let us understand each other.  You want me to pay\n      you money on the supposition that something will occur\n      previously to the time set by yourself for its occurrence.  In\n      other words, you expect me to bet that my house will not last\n      so long as you say that it will probably last.\n  INSURANCE AGENT:  But if your house burns without insurance it\n      will be a total loss.\n  HOUSE OWNER:  Beg your pardon--by your own actuary's tables I\n      shall probably have saved, when it burns, all the premiums I\n      would otherwise have paid to you--amounting to more than the\n      face of the policy they would have bought.  But suppose it to\n      burn, uninsured, before the time upon which your figures are\n      based.  If I could not afford that, how could you if it were\n      insured?\n  INSURANCE AGENT:  O, we should make ourselves whole from our\n      luckier ventures with other clients.  Virtually, they pay your\n      loss.\n  HOUSE OWNER:  And virtually, then, don't I help to pay their\n      losses?  Are not their houses as likely as mine to burn before\n      they have paid you as much as you must pay them?  The case\n      stands this way:  you expect to take more money from your\n      clients than you pay to them, do you not?\n  INSURANCE AGENT:  Certainly; if we did not--\n  HOUSE OWNER:  I would not trust you with my money.  Very well\n      then.  If it is _certain_, with reference to the whole body of\n      your clients, that they lose money on you it is _probable_,\n      with reference to any one of them, that _he_ will.  It is\n      these individual probabilities that make the aggregate\n      certainty.\n  INSURANCE AGENT:  I will not deny it--but look at the figures in\n      this pamph--\n  HOUSE OWNER:  Heaven forbid!\n  INSURANCE AGENT:  You spoke of saving the premiums which you would\n      otherwise pay to me.  Will you not be more likely to squander\n      them?  We offer you an incentive to thrift.\n  HOUSE OWNER:  The willingness of A to take care of B's money is\n      not peculiar to insurance, but as a charitable institution you\n      command esteem.  Deign to accept its expression from a\n      Deserving Object.\n\nINSURRECTION, n.  An unsuccessful revolution.  Disaffection's failure\nto substitute misrule for bad government.\n\nINTENTION, n.  The mind's sense of the prevalence of one set of\ninfluences over another set; an effect whose cause is the imminence,\nimmediate or remote, of the performance of an involuntary act.\n\nINTERPRETER, n.  One who enables two persons of different languages to\nunderstand each other by repeating to each what it would have been to\nthe interpreter's advantage for the other to have said.\n\nINTERREGNUM, n.  The period during which a monarchical country is\ngoverned by a warm spot on the cushion of the throne.  The experiment\nof letting the spot grow cold has commonly been attended by most\nunhappy results from the zeal of many worthy persons to make it warm\nagain.\n\nINTIMACY, n.  A relation into which fools are providentially drawn for\ntheir mutual destruction.\n\n  Two Seidlitz powders, one in blue\n  And one in white, together drew\n  And having each a pleasant sense\n  Of t'other powder's excellence,\n  Forsook their jackets for the snug\n  Enjoyment of a common mug.\n  So close their intimacy grew\n  One paper would have held the two.\n  To confidences straight they fell,\n  Less anxious each to hear than tell;\n  Then each remorsefully confessed\n  To all the virtues he possessed,\n  Acknowledging he had them in\n  So high degree it was a sin.\n  The more they said, the more they felt\n  Their spirits with emotion melt,\n  Till tears of sentiment expressed\n  Their feelings.  Then they effervesced!\n  So Nature executes her feats\n  Of wrath on friends and sympathetes\n  The good old rule who won't apply,\n  That you are you and I am I.\n\nINTRODUCTION, n.  A social ceremony invented by the devil for the\ngratification of his servants and the plaguing of his enemies.  The\nintroduction attains its most malevolent development in this country,\nbeing, indeed, closely related to our political system.  Every\nAmerican being the equal of every other American, it follows that\neverybody has the right to know everybody else, which implies the\nright to introduce without request or permission.  The Declaration of\nIndependence should have read thus:\n\n      \"We hold these truths to be self-evident:  that all men are\n  created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain\n  inalienable rights; that among these are life, and the right to\n  make that of another miserable by thrusting upon him an\n  incalculable quantity of acquaintances; liberty, particularly the\n  liberty to introduce persons to one another without first\n  ascertaining if they are not already acquainted as enemies; and\n  the pursuit of another's happiness with a running pack of\n  strangers.\"\n\nINVENTOR, n.  A person who makes an ingenious arrangement of wheels,\nlevers and springs, and believes it civilization.\n\nIRRELIGION, n.  The principal one of the great faiths of the world.\n\nITCH, n.  The patriotism of a Scotchman.\n\n\n\n\nJ\n\n\n\nJ is a consonant in English, but some nations use it as a vowel--\nthan which nothing could be more absurd.  Its original form, which has\nbeen but slightly modified, was that of the tail of a subdued dog, and\nit was not a letter but a character, standing for a Latin verb,\n_jacere_, \"to throw,\" because when a stone is thrown at a dog the\ndog's tail assumes that shape.  This is the origin of the letter, as\nexpounded by the renowned Dr. Jocolpus Bumer, of the University of\nBelgrade, who established his conclusions on the subject in a work of\nthree quarto volumes and committed suicide on being reminded that the\nj in the Roman alphabet had originally no curl.\n\nJEALOUS, adj.  Unduly concerned about the preservation of that which\ncan be lost only if not worth keeping.\n\nJESTER, n.  An officer formerly attached to a king's household, whose\nbusiness it was to amuse the court by ludicrous actions and\nutterances, the absurdity being attested by his motley costume.  The\nking himself being attired with dignity, it took the world some\ncenturies to discover that his own conduct and decrees were\nsufficiently ridiculous for the amusement not only of his court but of\nall mankind.  The jester was commonly called a fool, but the poets and\nromancers have ever delighted to represent him as a singularly wise\nand witty person.  In the circus of to-day the melancholy ghost of the\ncourt fool effects the dejection of humbler audiences with the same\njests wherewith in life he gloomed the marble hall, panged the\npatrician sense of humor and tapped the tank of royal tears.\n\n  The widow-queen of Portugal\n      Had an audacious jester\n  Who entered the confessional\n      Disguised, and there confessed her.\n\n  \"Father,\" she said, \"thine ear bend down--\n      My sins are more than scarlet:\n  I love my fool--blaspheming clown,\n      And common, base-born varlet.\"\n\n  \"Daughter,\" the mimic priest replied,\n      \"That sin, indeed, is awful:\n  The church's pardon is denied\n      To love that is unlawful.\n  \"But since thy stubborn heart will be\n      For him forever pleading,\n  Thou'dst better make him, by decree,\n      A man of birth and breeding.\"\n\n  She made the fool a duke, in hope\n      With Heaven's taboo to palter;\n  Then told a priest, who told the Pope,\n      Who damned her from the altar!\n\nBarel Dort\n\n\nJEWS-HARP, n.  An unmusical instrument, played by holding it fast with\nthe teeth and trying to brush it away with the finger.\n\nJOSS-STICKS, n.  Small sticks burned by the Chinese in their pagan\ntomfoolery, in imitation of certain sacred rites of our holy religion.\n\nJUSTICE, n.  A commodity which is a more or less adulterated condition\nthe State sells to the citizen as a reward for his allegiance, taxes\nand personal service.\n\n\n\n\nK\n\n\n\nK is a consonant that we get from the Greeks, but it can be traced\naway back beyond them to the Cerathians, a small commercial nation\ninhabiting the peninsula of Smero.  In their tongue it was called\n_Klatch_, which means \"destroyed.\"  The form of the letter was\noriginally precisely that of our H, but the erudite Dr. Snedeker\nexplains that it was altered to its present shape to commemorate the\ndestruction of the great temple of Jarute by an earthquake, _circa_\n730 B.C.  This building was famous for the two lofty columns of its\nportico, one of which was broken in half by the catastrophe, the other\nremaining intact.  As the earlier form of the letter is supposed to\nhave been suggested by these pillars, so, it is thought by the great\nantiquary, its later was adopted as a simple and natural--not to say\ntouching--means of keeping the calamity ever in the national memory.\nIt is not known if the name of the letter was altered as an additional\nmnemonic, or if the name was always _Klatch_ and the destruction one\nof nature's puns.  As each theory seems probable enough, I see no\nobjection to believing both--and Dr. Snedeker arrayed himself on\nthat side of the question.\n\nKEEP, v.t.\n\n  He willed away his whole estate,\n      And then in death he fell asleep,\n  Murmuring:  \"Well, at any rate,\n      My name unblemished I shall keep.\"\n  But when upon the tomb 'twas wrought\n  Whose was it?--for the dead keep naught.\n\nDurang Gophel Arn\n\n\nKILL, v.t.  To create a vacancy without nominating a successor.\n\nKILT, n.  A costume sometimes worn by Scotchmen in America and\nAmericans in Scotland.\n\nKINDNESS, n.  A brief preface to ten volumes of exaction.\n\nKING, n.  A male person commonly known in America as a \"crowned head,\"\nalthough he never wears a crown and has usually no head to speak of.\n\n  A king, in times long, long gone by,\n      Said to his lazy jester:\n  \"If I were you and you were I\n  My moments merrily would fly--\n      Nor care nor grief to pester.\"\n\n  \"The reason, Sire, that you would thrive,\"\n      The fool said--\"if you'll hear it--\n  Is that of all the fools alive\n  Who own you for their sovereign, I've\n      The most forgiving spirit.\"\n\nOogum Bem\n\n\nKING'S EVIL, n.  A malady that was formerly cured by the touch of the\nsovereign, but has now to be treated by the physicians.  Thus \"the\nmost pious Edward\" of England used to lay his royal hand upon the\nailing subjects and make them whole--\n\n                  a crowd of wretched souls\n  That stay his cure:  their malady convinces\n  The great essay of art; but at his touch,\n  Such sanctity hath Heaven given his hand,\n  They presently amend,\n\nas the \"Doctor\" in _Macbeth_ hath it.  This useful property of the\nroyal hand could, it appears, be transmitted along with other crown\nproperties; for according to \"Malcolm,\"\n\n                          'tis spoken\n  To the succeeding royalty he leaves\n  The healing benediction.\n\nBut the gift somewhere dropped out of the line of succession:  the\nlater sovereigns of England have not been tactual healers, and the\ndisease once honored with the name \"king's evil\" now bears the humbler\none of \"scrofula,\" from _scrofa_, a sow.  The date and author of the\nfollowing epigram are known only to the author of this dictionary, but\nit is old enough to show that the jest about Scotland's national\ndisorder is not a thing of yesterday.\n\n  Ye Kynge his evill in me laye,\n  Wh. he of Scottlande charmed awaye.\n  He layde his hand on mine and sayd:\n  \"Be gone!\"  Ye ill no longer stayd.\n  But O ye wofull plyght in wh.\n  I'm now y-pight:  I have ye itche!\n\nThe superstition that maladies can be cured by royal taction is\ndead, but like many a departed conviction it has left a monument of\ncustom to keep its memory green.  The practice of forming a line and\nshaking the President's hand had no other origin, and when that great\ndignitary bestows his healing salutation on\n\n                      strangely visited people,\n  All swoln and ulcerous, pitiful to the eye,\n  The mere despair of surgery,\n\nhe and his patients are handing along an extinguished torch which once\nwas kindled at the altar-fire of a faith long held by all classes of\nmen.  It is a beautiful and edifying \"survival\"--one which brings\nthe sainted past close home in our \"business and bosoms.\"\n\nKISS, n.  A word invented by the poets as a rhyme for \"bliss.\"  It is\nsupposed to signify, in a general way, some kind of rite or ceremony\nappertaining to a good understanding; but the manner of its\nperformance is unknown to this lexicographer.\n\nKLEPTOMANIAC, n.  A rich thief.\n\nKNIGHT, n.\n\n  Once a warrior gentle of birth,\n  Then a person of civic worth,\n  Now a fellow to move our mirth.\n  Warrior, person, and fellow--no more:\n  We must knight our dogs to get any lower.\n  Brave Knights Kennelers then shall be,\n  Noble Knights of the Golden Flea,\n  Knights of the Order of St. Steboy,\n  Knights of St. Gorge and Sir Knights Jawy.\n  God speed the day when this knighting fad\n  Shall go to the dogs and the dogs go mad.\n\nKORAN, n.  A book which the Mohammedans foolishly believe to have been\nwritten by divine inspiration, but which Christians know to be a\nwicked imposture, contradictory to the Holy Scriptures.\n\n\n\n\nL\n\n\n\nLABOR, n.  One of the processes by which A acquires property for B.\n\nLAND, n.  A part of the earth's surface, considered as property.  The\ntheory that land is property subject to private ownership and control\nis the foundation of modern society, and is eminently worthy of the\nsuperstructure.  Carried to its logical conclusion, it means that some\nhave the right to prevent others from living; for the right to own\nimplies the right exclusively to occupy; and in fact laws of trespass\nare enacted wherever property in land is recognized.  It follows that\nif the whole area of _terra firma_ is owned by A, B and C, there will\nbe no place for D, E, F and G to be born, or, born as trespassers, to\nexist.\n\n  A life on the ocean wave,\n      A home on the rolling deep,\n  For the spark that nature gave\n      I have there the right to keep.\n\n  They give me the cat-o'-nine\n      Whenever I go ashore.\n  Then ho! for the flashing brine--\n      I'm a natural commodore!\n\nDodle\n\n\nLANGUAGE, n.  The music with which we charm the serpents guarding\nanother's treasure.\n\nLAOCOON, n.  A famous piece of antique scripture representing a priest\nof that name and his two sons in the folds of two enormous serpents.\nThe skill and diligence with which the old man and lads support the\nserpents and keep them up to their work have been justly regarded as\none of the noblest artistic illustrations of the mastery of human\nintelligence over brute inertia.\n\nLAP, n.  One of the most important organs of the female system--an\nadmirable provision of nature for the repose of infancy, but chiefly\nuseful in rural festivities to support plates of cold chicken and\nheads of adult males.  The male of our species has a rudimentary lap,\nimperfectly developed and in no way contributing to the animal's\nsubstantial welfare.\n\nLAST, n.  A shoemaker's implement, named by a frowning Providence as\nopportunity to the maker of puns.\n\n  Ah, punster, would my lot were cast,\n      Where the cobbler is unknown,\n  So that I might forget his last\n      And hear your own.\n\nGargo Repsky\n\n\nLAUGHTER, n.  An interior convulsion, producing a distortion of the\nfeatures and accompanied by inarticulate noises.  It is infectious\nand, though intermittent, incurable.  Liability to attacks of laughter\nis one of the characteristics distinguishing man from the animals--\nthese being not only inaccessible to the provocation of his example,\nbut impregnable to the microbes having original jurisdiction in\nbestowal of the disease.  Whether laughter could be imparted to\nanimals by inoculation from the human patient is a question that has\nnot been answered by experimentation.  Dr. Meir Witchell holds that\nthe infectious character of laughter is due to the instantaneous\nfermentation of _sputa_ diffused in a spray.  From this peculiarity he\nnames the disorder _Convulsio spargens_.\n\nLAUREATE, adj.  Crowned with leaves of the laurel.  In England the\nPoet Laureate is an officer of the sovereign's court, acting as\ndancing skeleton at every royal feast and singing-mute at every royal\nfuneral.  Of all incumbents of that high office, Robert Southey had\nthe most notable knack at drugging the Samson of public joy and\ncutting his hair to the quick; and he had an artistic color-sense\nwhich enabled him so to blacken a public grief as to give it the\naspect of a national crime.\n\nLAUREL, n.  The _laurus_, a vegetable dedicated to Apollo, and\nformerly defoliated to wreathe the brows of victors and such poets as\nhad influence at court.  (_Vide supra._)\n\nLAW, n.\n\n  Once Law was sitting on the bench,\n      And Mercy knelt a-weeping.\n  \"Clear out!\" he cried, \"disordered wench!\n      Nor come before me creeping.\n  Upon your knees if you appear,\n  'Tis plain your have no standing here.\"\n\n  Then Justice came.  His Honor cried:\n      \"_Your_ status?--devil seize you!\"\n  \"_Amica curiae,_\" she replied--\n      \"Friend of the court, so please you.\"\n  \"Begone!\" he shouted--\"there's the door--\n  I never saw your face before!\"\n\nG.J.\n\n\nLAWFUL, adj.  Compatible with the will of a judge having jurisdiction.\n\nLAWYER, n.  One skilled in circumvention of the law.\n\nLAZINESS, n.  Unwarranted repose of manner in a person of low degree.\n\nLEAD, n.  A heavy blue-gray metal much used in giving stability to\nlight lovers--particularly to those who love not wisely but other\nmen's wives.  Lead is also of great service as a counterpoise to an\nargument of such weight that it turns the scale of debate the wrong\nway.  An interesting fact in the chemistry of international\ncontroversy is that at the point of contact of two patriotisms lead is\nprecipitated in great quantities.\n\n  Hail, holy Lead!--of human feuds the great\n      And universal arbiter; endowed\n      With penetration to pierce any cloud\n  Fogging the field of controversial hate,\n  And with a swift, inevitable, straight,\n      Searching precision find the unavowed\n      But vital point.  Thy judgment, when allowed\n  By the chirurgeon, settles the debate.\n  O useful metal!--were it not for thee\n      We'd grapple one another's ears alway:\n  But when we hear thee buzzing like a bee\n      We, like old Muhlenberg, \"care not to stay.\"\n  And when the quick have run away like pellets\n  Jack Satan smelts the dead to make new bullets.\n\nLEARNING, n.  The kind of ignorance distinguishing the studious.\n\nLECTURER, n.  One with his hand in your pocket, his tongue in your ear\nand his faith in your patience.\n\nLEGACY, n.  A gift from one who is legging it out of this vale of\ntears.\n\nLEONINE, adj.  Unlike a menagerie lion.  Leonine verses are those in\nwhich a word in the middle of a line rhymes with a word at the end, as\nin this famous passage from Bella Peeler Silcox:\n\n  The electric light invades the dunnest deep of Hades.\n  Cries Pluto, 'twixt his snores:  \"O tempora! O mores!\"\n\nIt should be explained that Mrs. Silcox does not undertake to\nteach pronunciation of the Greek and Latin tongues.  Leonine verses\nare so called in honor of a poet named Leo, whom prosodists appear to\nfind a pleasure in believing to have been the first to discover that a\nrhyming couplet could be run into a single line.\n\nLETTUCE, n.  An herb of the genus _Lactuca_, \"Wherewith,\" says that\npious gastronome, Hengist Pelly, \"God has been pleased to reward the\ngood and punish the wicked.  For by his inner light the righteous man\nhas discerned a manner of compounding for it a dressing to the\nappetency whereof a multitude of gustible condiments conspire, being\nreconciled and ameliorated with profusion of oil, the entire\ncomestible making glad the heart of the godly and causing his face to\nshine.  But the person of spiritual unworth is successfully tempted to\nthe Adversary to eat of lettuce with destitution of oil, mustard, egg,\nsalt and garlic, and with a rascal bath of vinegar polluted with\nsugar.  Wherefore the person of spiritual unworth suffers an\nintestinal pang of strange complexity and raises the song.\"\n\nLEVIATHAN, n.  An enormous aquatic animal mentioned by Job.  Some\nsuppose it to have been the whale, but that distinguished\nichthyologer, Dr. Jordan, of Stanford University, maintains with\nconsiderable heat that it was a species of gigantic Tadpole (_Thaddeus\nPolandensis_) or Polliwig--_Maria pseudo-hirsuta_.  For an\nexhaustive description and history of the Tadpole consult the famous\nmonograph of Jane Potter, _Thaddeus of Warsaw_.\n\nLEXICOGRAPHER, n.  A pestilent fellow who, under the pretense of\nrecording some particular stage in the development of a language, does\nwhat he can to arrest its growth, stiffen its flexibility and\nmechanize its methods.  For your lexicographer, having written his\ndictionary, comes to be considered \"as one having authority,\" whereas\nhis function is only to make a record, not to give a law.  The natural\nservility of the human understanding having invested him with judicial\npower, surrenders its right of reason and submits itself to a\nchronicle as if it were a statute.  Let the dictionary (for example)\nmark a good word as \"obsolete\" or \"obsolescent\" and few men\nthereafter venture to use it, whatever their need of it and however\ndesirable its restoration to favor--whereby the process of\nimpoverishment is accelerated and speech decays.\nOn the contrary, the bold and discerning writer who,\nrecognizing the truth that language must grow by innovation if it grow\nat all, makes new words and uses the old in an unfamiliar sense, has\nno following and is tartly reminded that \"it isn't in the dictionary\"\n--although down to the time of the first lexicographer (Heaven\nforgive him!) no author ever had used a word that _was_ in the\ndictionary.  In the golden prime and high noon of English speech; when\nfrom the lips of the great Elizabethans fell words that made their own\nmeaning and carried it in their very sound; when a Shakespeare and a\nBacon were possible, and the language now rapidly perishing at one end\nand slowly renewed at the other was in vigorous growth and hardy\npreservation--sweeter than honey and stronger than a lion--the\nlexicographer was a person unknown, the dictionary a creation which\nhis Creator had not created him to create.\n\n  God said:  \"Let Spirit perish into Form,\"\n  And lexicographers arose, a swarm!\n  Thought fled and left her clothing, which they took,\n  And catalogued each garment in a book.\n  Now, from her leafy covert when she cries:\n  \"Give me my clothes and I'll return,\" they rise\n  And scan the list, and say without compassion:\n  \"Excuse us--they are mostly out of fashion.\"\n\nSigismund Smith\n\n\nLIAR, n.  A lawyer with a roving commission.\n\nLIBERTY, n.  One of Imagination's most precious possessions.\n\n  The rising People, hot and out of breath,\n  Roared around the palace:  \"Liberty or death!\"\n  \"If death will do,\" the King said, \"let me reign;\n  You'll have, I'm sure, no reason to complain.\"\n\nMartha Braymance\n\n\nLICKSPITTLE, n.  A useful functionary, not infrequently found editing\na newspaper.  In his character of editor he is closely allied to the\nblackmailer by the tie of occasional identity; for in truth the\nlickspittle is only the blackmailer under another aspect, although the\nlatter is frequently found as an independent species.  Lickspittling\nis more detestable than blackmailing, precisely as the business of a\nconfidence man is more detestable than that of a highway robber; and\nthe parallel maintains itself throughout, for whereas few robbers will\ncheat, every sneak will plunder if he dare.\n\nLIFE, n.  A spiritual pickle preserving the body from decay.  We live\nin daily apprehension of its loss; yet when lost it is not missed.\nThe question, \"Is life worth living?\" has been much discussed;\nparticularly by those who think it is not, many of whom have written\nat great length in support of their view and by careful observance of\nthe laws of health enjoyed for long terms of years the honors of\nsuccessful controversy.\n\n  \"Life's not worth living, and that's the truth,\"\n  Carelessly caroled the golden youth.\n  In manhood still he maintained that view\n  And held it more strongly the older he grew.\n  When kicked by a jackass at eighty-three,\n  \"Go fetch me a surgeon at once!\" cried he.\n\nHan Soper\n\n\nLIGHTHOUSE, n.  A tall building on the seashore in which the\ngovernment maintains a lamp and the friend of a politician.\n\nLIMB, n.  The branch of a tree or the leg of an American woman.\n\n  'Twas a pair of boots that the lady bought,\n      And the salesman laced them tight\n      To a very remarkable height--\n  Higher, indeed, than I think he ought--\n      Higher than _can_ be right.\n  For the Bible declares--but never mind:\n      It is hardly fit\n  To censure freely and fault to find\n  With others for sins that I'm not inclined\n      Myself to commit.\n  Each has his weakness, and though my own\n      Is freedom from every sin,\n      It still were unfair to pitch in,\n  Discharging the first censorious stone.\n  Besides, the truth compels me to say,\n  The boots in question were _made_ that way.\n  As he drew the lace she made a grimace,\n      And blushingly said to him:\n  \"This boot, I'm sure, is too high to endure,\n  It hurts my--hurts my--limb.\"\n  The salesman smiled in a manner mild,\n  Like an artless, undesigning child;\n  Then, checking himself, to his face he gave\n  A look as sorrowful as the grave,\n      Though he didn't care two figs\n  For her pains and throes,\n  As he stroked her toes,\n  Remarking with speech and manner just\n  Befitting his calling:  \"Madam, I trust\n      That it doesn't hurt your twigs.\"\n\nB. Percival Dike\n\n\nLINEN, n.  \"A kind of cloth the making of which, when made of hemp,\nentails a great waste of hemp.\"--Calcraft the Hangman.\n\nLITIGANT, n.  A person about to give up his skin for the hope of\nretaining his bones.\n\nLITIGATION, n.  A machine which you go into as a pig and come out of\nas a sausage.\n\nLIVER, n.  A large red organ thoughtfully provided by nature to be\nbilious with.  The sentiments and emotions which every literary\nanatomist now knows to haunt the heart were anciently believed to\ninfest the liver; and even Gascoygne, speaking of the emotional side\nof human nature, calls it \"our hepaticall parte.\"  It was at one time\nconsidered the seat of life; hence its name--liver, the thing we\nlive with.  The liver is heaven's best gift to the goose; without it\nthat bird would be unable to supply us with the Strasbourg _pate_.\n\nLL.D.  Letters indicating the degree _Legumptionorum Doctor_, one\nlearned in laws, gifted with legal gumption.  Some suspicion is cast\nupon this derivation by the fact that the title was formerly _LL.d._,\nand conferred only upon gentlemen distinguished for their wealth.  At\nthe date of this writing Columbia University is considering the\nexpediency of making another degree for clergymen, in place of the old\nD.D.--_Damnator Diaboli_.  The new honor will be known as _Sanctorum\nCustus_, and written _$$c_.  The name of the Rev. John Satan has been\nsuggested as a suitable recipient by a lover of consistency, who\npoints out that Professor Harry Thurston Peck has long enjoyed the\nadvantage of a degree.\n\nLOCK-AND-KEY, n.  The distinguishing device of civilization and\nenlightenment.\n\nLODGER, n.  A less popular name for the Second Person of that\ndelectable newspaper Trinity, the Roomer, the Bedder, and the Mealer.\n\nLOGIC, n.  The art of thinking and reasoning in strict accordance with\nthe limitations and incapacities of the human misunderstanding.  The\nbasic of logic is the syllogism, consisting of a major and a minor\npremise and a conclusion--thus:\n\n_Major Premise_:  Sixty men can do a piece of work sixty times as\nquickly as one man.\n\n_Minor Premise_:  One man can dig a posthole in sixty seconds;\ntherefore--\n\n_Conclusion_:  Sixty men can dig a posthole in one second.\n\nThis may be called the syllogism arithmetical, in which, by\ncombining logic and mathematics, we obtain a double certainty and are\ntwice blessed.\n\nLOGOMACHY, n.  A war in which the weapons are words and the wounds\npunctures in the swim-bladder of self-esteem--a kind of contest in\nwhich, the vanquished being unconscious of defeat, the victor is\ndenied the reward of success.\n\n  'Tis said by divers of the scholar-men\n  That poor Salmasius died of Milton's pen.\n  Alas! we cannot know if this is true,\n  For reading Milton's wit we perish too.\n\nLONGANIMITY, n.  The disposition to endure injury with meek forbearance\nwhile maturing a plan of revenge.\n\nLONGEVITY, n.  Uncommon extension of the fear of death.\n\nLOOKING-GLASS, n.  A vitreous plane upon which to display a fleeting\nshow for man's disillusion given.\n\nThe King of Manchuria had a magic looking-glass, whereon whoso\nlooked saw, not his own image, but only that of the king.  A certain\ncourtier who had long enjoyed the king's favor and was thereby\nenriched beyond any other subject of the realm, said to the king:\n\"Give me, I pray, thy wonderful mirror, so that when absent out of\nthine august presence I may yet do homage before thy visible shadow,\nprostrating myself night and morning in the glory of thy benign\ncountenance, as which nothing has so divine splendor, O Noonday Sun of\nthe Universe!\"\n\nPlease with the speech, the king commanded that the mirror be\nconveyed to the courtier's palace; but after, having gone thither\nwithout apprisal, he found it in an apartment where was naught but\nidle lumber.  And the mirror was dimmed with dust and overlaced with\ncobwebs.  This so angered him that he fisted it hard, shattering the\nglass, and was sorely hurt.  Enraged all the more by this mischance,\nhe commanded that the ungrateful courtier be thrown into prison, and\nthat the glass be repaired and taken back to his own palace; and this\nwas done.  But when the king looked again on the mirror he saw not his\nimage as before, but only the figure of a crowned ass, having a bloody\nbandage on one of its hinder hooves--as the artificers and all who\nhad looked upon it had before discerned but feared to report.  Taught\nwisdom and charity, the king restored his courtier to liberty, had the\nmirror set into the back of the throne and reigned many years with\njustice and humility; and one day when he fell asleep in death while\non the throne, the whole court saw in the mirror the luminous figure\nof an angel, which remains to this day.\n\nLOQUACITY, n.  A disorder which renders the sufferer unable to curb\nhis tongue when you wish to talk.\n\nLORD, n.  In American society, an English tourist above the state of a\ncostermonger, as, lord 'Aberdasher, Lord Hartisan and so forth.  The\ntraveling Briton of lesser degree is addressed as \"Sir,\" as, Sir 'Arry\nDonkiboi, or 'Amstead 'Eath.  The word \"Lord\" is sometimes used, also,\nas a title of the Supreme Being; but this is thought to be rather\nflattery than true reverence.\n\n  Miss Sallie Ann Splurge, of her own accord,\n  Wedded a wandering English lord--\n  Wedded and took him to dwell with her \"paw,\"\n  A parent who throve by the practice of Draw.\n  Lord Cadde I don't hesitate to declare\n  Unworthy the father-in-legal care\n  Of that elderly sport, notwithstanding the truth\n  That Cadde had renounced all the follies of youth;\n  For, sad to relate, he'd arrived at the stage\n  Of existence that's marked by the vices of age.\n  Among them, cupidity caused him to urge\n  Repeated demands on the pocket of Splurge,\n  Till, wrecked in his fortune, that gentleman saw\n  Inadequate aid in the practice of Draw,\n  And took, as a means of augmenting his pelf,\n  To the business of being a lord himself.\n  His neat-fitting garments he wilfully shed\n  And sacked himself strangely in checks instead;\n  Denuded his chin, but retained at each ear\n  A whisker that looked like a blasted career.\n  He painted his neck an incarnadine hue\n  Each morning and varnished it all that he knew.\n  The moony monocular set in his eye\n  Appeared to be scanning the Sweet Bye-and-Bye.\n  His head was enroofed with a billycock hat,\n  And his low-necked shoes were aduncous and flat.\n  In speech he eschewed his American ways,\n  Denying his nose to the use of his A's\n  And dulling their edge till the delicate sense\n  Of a babe at their temper could take no offence.\n  His H's--'twas most inexpressibly sweet,\n  The patter they made as they fell at his feet!\n  Re-outfitted thus, Mr. Splurge without fear\n  Began as Lord Splurge his recouping career.\n  Alas, the Divinity shaping his end\n  Entertained other views and decided to send\n  His lordship in horror, despair and dismay\n  From the land of the nobleman's natural prey.\n  For, smit with his Old World ways, Lady Cadde\n  Fell--suffering Caesar!--in love with her dad!\n\nG.J.\n\n\nLORE, n.  Learning--particularly that sort which is not derived from\na regular course of instruction but comes of the reading of occult\nbooks, or by nature.  This latter is commonly designated as folk-lore\nand embraces popularly myths and superstitions.  In Baring-Gould's\n_Curious Myths of the Middle Ages_ the reader will find many of these\ntraced backward, through various people on converging lines, toward a\ncommon origin in remote antiquity.  Among these are the fables of\n\"Teddy the Giant Killer,\" \"The Sleeping John Sharp Williams,\" \"Little\nRed Riding Hood and the Sugar Trust,\" \"Beauty and the Brisbane,\" \"The\nSeven Aldermen of Ephesus,\" \"Rip Van Fairbanks,\" and so forth.  The\nfable which Goethe so affectingly relates under the title of \"The\nErl-King\" was known two thousand years ago in Greece as \"The Demos and\nthe Infant Industry.\"  One of the most general and ancient of these\nmyths is that Arabian tale of \"Ali Baba and the Forty Rockefellers.\"\n\nLOSS, n.  Privation of that which we had, or had not.  Thus, in the\nlatter sense, it is said of a defeated candidate that he \"lost his\nelection\"; and of that eminent man, the poet Gilder, that he has \"lost\nhis mind.\"  It is in the former and more legitimate sense, that the\nword is used in the famous epitaph:\n\n  Here Huntington's ashes long have lain\n  Whose loss is our eternal gain,\n  For while he exercised all his powers\n  Whatever he gained, the loss was ours.\n\nLOVE, n.  A temporary insanity curable by marriage or by removal of\nthe patient from the influences under which he incurred the disorder.\nThis disease, like _caries_ and many other ailments, is prevalent only\namong civilized races living under artificial conditions; barbarous\nnations breathing pure air and eating simple food enjoy immunity from\nits ravages.  It is sometimes fatal, but more frequently to the\nphysician than to the patient.\n\nLOW-BRED, adj.  \"Raised\" instead of brought up.\n\nLUMINARY, n.  One who throws light upon a subject; as an editor by not\nwriting about it.\n\nLUNARIAN, n.  An inhabitant of the moon, as distinguished from\nLunatic, one whom the moon inhabits.  The Lunarians have been\ndescribed by Lucian, Locke and other observers, but without much\nagreement.  For example, Bragellos avers their anatomical identity\nwith Man, but Professor Newcomb says they are more like the hill\ntribes of Vermont.\n\nLYRE, n.  An ancient instrument of torture.  The word is now used in a\nfigurative sense to denote the poetic faculty, as in the following\nfiery lines of our great poet, Ella Wheeler Wilcox:\n\n  I sit astride Parnassus with my lyre,\n  And pick with care the disobedient wire.\n  That stupid shepherd lolling on his crook\n  With deaf attention scarcely deigns to look.\n  I bide my time, and it shall come at length,\n  When, with a Titan's energy and strength,\n  I'll grab a fistful of the strings, and O,\n  The word shall suffer when I let them go!\n\nFarquharson Harris\n\n\n\n\n\nM\n\n\n\nMACE, n.  A staff of office signifying authority.  Its form, that of a\nheavy club, indicates its original purpose and use in dissuading from\ndissent.\n\nMACHINATION, n.  The method employed by one's opponents in baffling\none's open and honorable efforts to do the right thing.\n\n  So plain the advantages of machination\n  It constitutes a moral obligation,\n  And honest wolves who think upon't with loathing\n  Feel bound to don the sheep's deceptive clothing.\n  So prospers still the diplomatic art,\n  And Satan bows, with hand upon his heart.\n\nR.S.K.\n\n\nMACROBIAN, n.  One forgotten of the gods and living to a great age.\nHistory is abundantly supplied with examples, from Methuselah to Old\nParr, but some notable instances of longevity are less well known.  A\nCalabrian peasant named Coloni, born in 1753, lived so long that he\nhad what he considered a glimpse of the dawn of universal peace.\nScanavius relates that he knew an archbishop who was so old that he\ncould remember a time when he did not deserve hanging.  In 1566 a\nlinen draper of Bristol, England, declared that he had lived five\nhundred years, and that in all that time he had never told a lie.\nThere are instances of longevity (_macrobiosis_) in our own country.\nSenator Chauncey Depew is old enough to know better.  The editor of\n_The American_, a newspaper in New York City, has a memory that goes\nback to the time when he was a rascal, but not to the fact.  The\nPresident of the United States was born so long ago that many of the\nfriends of his youth have risen to high political and military\npreferment without the assistance of personal merit.  The verses\nfollowing were written by a macrobian:\n\n  When I was young the world was fair\n      And amiable and sunny.\n  A brightness was in all the air,\n      In all the waters, honey.\n      The jokes were fine and funny,\n  The statesmen honest in their views,\n      And in their lives, as well,\n  And when you heard a bit of news\n      'Twas true enough to tell.\n  Men were not ranting, shouting, reeking,\n  Nor women \"generally speaking.\"\n\n  The Summer then was long indeed:\n      It lasted one whole season!\n  The sparkling Winter gave no heed\n      When ordered by Unreason\n      To bring the early peas on.\n  Now, where the dickens is the sense\n      In calling that a year\n  Which does no more than just commence\n      Before the end is near?\n  When I was young the year extended\n  From month to month until it ended.\n  I know not why the world has changed\n      To something dark and dreary,\n  And everything is now arranged\n      To make a fellow weary.\n      The Weather Man--I fear he\n  Has much to do with it, for, sure,\n      The air is not the same:\n  It chokes you when it is impure,\n      When pure it makes you lame.\n  With windows closed you are asthmatic;\n  Open, neuralgic or sciatic.\n\n  Well, I suppose this new regime\n      Of dun degeneration\n  Seems eviler than it would seem\n      To a better observation,\n      And has for compensation\n  Some blessings in a deep disguise\n      Which mortal sight has failed\n  To pierce, although to angels' eyes\n      They're visible unveiled.\n  If Age is such a boon, good land!\n  He's costumed by a master hand!\n\nVenable Strigg\n\n\nMAD, adj.  Affected with a high degree of intellectual independence;\nnot conforming to standards of thought, speech and action derived by\nthe conformants from study of themselves; at odds with the majority;\nin short, unusual.  It is noteworthy that persons are pronounced mad\nby officials destitute of evidence that themselves are sane.  For\nillustration, this present (and illustrious) lexicographer is no\nfirmer in the faith of his own sanity than is any inmate of any\nmadhouse in the land; yet for aught he knows to the contrary, instead\nof the lofty occupation that seems to him to be engaging his powers he\nmay really be beating his hands against the window bars of an asylum\nand declaring himself Noah Webster, to the innocent delight of many\nthoughtless spectators.\n\nMAGDALENE, n.  An inhabitant of Magdala.  Popularly, a woman found\nout.  This definition of the word has the authority of ignorance, Mary\nof Magdala being another person than the penitent woman mentioned by\nSt. Luke.  It has also the official sanction of the governments of\nGreat Britain and the United States.  In England the word is\npronounced Maudlin, whence maudlin, adjective, unpleasantly\nsentimental.  With their Maudlin for Magdalene, and their Bedlam for\nBethlehem, the English may justly boast themselves the greatest of\nrevisers.\n\nMAGIC, n.  An art of converting superstition into coin.  There are\nother arts serving the same high purpose, but the discreet\nlexicographer does not name them.\n\nMAGNET, n.  Something acted upon by magnetism.\n\nMAGNETISM, n.  Something acting upon a magnet.\n\nThe two definitions immediately foregoing are condensed from the\nworks of one thousand eminent scientists, who have illuminated the\nsubject with a great white light, to the inexpressible advancement of\nhuman knowledge.\n\nMAGNIFICENT, adj.  Having a grandeur or splendor superior to that to\nwhich the spectator is accustomed, as the ears of an ass, to a rabbit,\nor the glory of a glowworm, to a maggot.\n\nMAGNITUDE, n.  Size.  Magnitude being purely relative, nothing is\nlarge and nothing small.  If everything in the universe were increased\nin bulk one thousand diameters nothing would be any larger than it was\nbefore, but if one thing remain unchanged all the others would be\nlarger than they had been.  To an understanding familiar with the\nrelativity of magnitude and distance the spaces and masses of the\nastronomer would be no more impressive than those of the microscopist.\nFor anything we know to the contrary, the visible universe may be a\nsmall part of an atom, with its component ions, floating in the\nlife-fluid (luminiferous ether) of some animal.  Possibly the wee\ncreatures peopling the corpuscles of our own blood are overcome with the\nproper emotion when contemplating the unthinkable distance from one of\nthese to another.\n\nMAGPIE, n.  A bird whose thievish disposition suggested to someone\nthat it might be taught to talk.\n\nMAIDEN, n.  A young person of the unfair sex addicted to clewless\nconduct and views that madden to crime.  The genus has a wide\ngeographical distribution, being found wherever sought and deplored\nwherever found.  The maiden is not altogether unpleasing to the eye,\nnor (without her piano and her views) insupportable to the ear, though\nin respect to comeliness distinctly inferior to the rainbow, and, with\nregard to the part of her that is audible, bleaten out of the field\nby the canary--which, also, is more portable.\n\n  A lovelorn maiden she sat and sang--\n      This quaint, sweet song sang she;\n  \"It's O for a youth with a football bang\n      And a muscle fair to see!\n              The Captain he\n              Of a team to be!\n  On the gridiron he shall shine,\n  A monarch by right divine,\n      And never to roast on it--me!\"\n\nOpoline Jones\n\n\nMAJESTY, n.  The state and title of a king.  Regarded with a just\ncontempt by the Most Eminent Grand Masters, Grand Chancellors, Great\nIncohonees and Imperial Potentates of the ancient and honorable orders\nof republican America.\n\nMALE, n.  A member of the unconsidered, or negligible sex.  The male\nof the human race is commonly known (to the female) as Mere Man.  The\ngenus has two varieties:  good providers and bad providers.\n\nMALEFACTOR, n.  The chief factor in the progress of the human race.\n\nMALTHUSIAN, adj.  Pertaining to Malthus and his doctrines.  Malthus\nbelieved in artificially limiting population, but found that it could\nnot be done by talking.  One of the most practical exponents of the\nMalthusian idea was Herod of Judea, though all the famous soldiers\nhave been of the same way of thinking.\n\nMAMMALIA, n.pl.  A family of vertebrate animals whose females in a\nstate of nature suckle their young, but when civilized and enlightened\nput them out to nurse, or use the bottle.\n\nMAMMON, n.  The god of the world's leading religion.  The chief temple\nis in the holy city of New York.\n\n  He swore that all other religions were gammon,\n  And wore out his knees in the worship of Mammon.\n\nJared Oopf\n\n\nMAN, n.  An animal so lost in rapturous contemplation of what he\nthinks he is as to overlook what he indubitably ought to be.  His\nchief occupation is extermination of other animals and his own\nspecies, which, however, multiplies with such insistent rapidity as to\ninfest the whole habitable earth and Canada.\n\n  When the world was young and Man was new,\n      And everything was pleasant,\n  Distinctions Nature never drew\n      'Mongst kings and priest and peasant.\n      We're not that way at present,\n  Save here in this Republic, where\n      We have that old regime,\n  For all are kings, however bare\n      Their backs, howe'er extreme\n  Their hunger.  And, indeed, each has a voice\n  To accept the tyrant of his party's choice.\n\n  A citizen who would not vote,\n      And, therefore, was detested,\n  Was one day with a tarry coat\n      (With feathers backed and breasted)\n      By patriots invested.\n  \"It is your duty,\" cried the crowd,\n      \"Your ballot true to cast\n  For the man o' your choice.\"  He humbly bowed,\n      And explained his wicked past:\n  \"That's what I very gladly would have done,\n  Dear patriots, but he has never run.\"\n\nApperton Duke\n\n\nMANES, n.  The immortal parts of dead Greeks and Romans.  They were in\na state of dull discomfort until the bodies from which they had\nexhaled were buried and burned; and they seem not to have been\nparticularly happy afterward.\n\nMANICHEISM, n.  The ancient Persian doctrine of an incessant warfare\nbetween Good and Evil.  When Good gave up the fight the Persians\njoined the victorious Opposition.\n\nMANNA, n.  A food miraculously given to the Israelites in the\nwilderness.  When it was no longer supplied to them they settled\ndown and tilled the soil, fertilizing it, as a rule, with the bodies\nof the original occupants.\n\nMARRIAGE, n.  The state or condition of a community consisting of a\nmaster, a mistress and two slaves, making in all, two.\n\nMARTYR, n.  One who moves along the line of least reluctance to a\ndesired death.\n\nMATERIAL, adj.  Having an actual existence, as distinguished from an\nimaginary one.  Important.\n\n  Material things I know, or feel, or see;\n  All else is immaterial to me.\n\nJamrach Holobom\n\n\nMAUSOLEUM, n.  The final and funniest folly of the rich.\n\nMAYONNAISE, n.  One of the sauces which serve the French in place of a\nstate religion.\n\nME, pro.  The objectionable case of I.  The personal pronoun in\nEnglish has three cases, the dominative, the objectionable and the\noppressive.  Each is all three.\n\nMEANDER, n.  To proceed sinuously and aimlessly.  The word is the\nancient name of a river about one hundred and fifty miles south of\nTroy, which turned and twisted in the effort to get out of hearing\nwhen the Greeks and Trojans boasted of their prowess.\n\nMEDAL, n.  A small metal disk given as a reward for virtues,\nattainments or services more or less authentic.\n\nIt is related of Bismark, who had been awarded a medal for\ngallantly rescuing a drowning person, that, being asked the meaning of\nthe medal, he replied:  \"I save lives sometimes.\"  And sometimes he\ndidn't.\n\nMEDICINE, n.  A stone flung down the Bowery to kill a dog in Broadway.\n\nMEEKNESS, n.  Uncommon patience in planning a revenge that is worth\nwhile.\n\n  M is for Moses,\n      Who slew the Egyptian.\n  As sweet as a rose is\n  The meekness of Moses.\n  No monument shows his\n      Post-mortem inscription,\n  But M is for Moses\n      Who slew the Egyptian.\n\n_The Biographical Alphabet_\n\nMEERSCHAUM, n.  (Literally, seafoam, and by many erroneously supposed\nto be made of it.)  A fine white clay, which for convenience in\ncoloring it brown is made into tobacco pipes and smoked by the workmen\nengaged in that industry.  The purpose of coloring it has not been\ndisclosed by the manufacturers.\n\n  There was a youth (you've heard before,\n      This woeful tale, may be),\n  Who bought a meerschaum pipe and swore\n      That color it would he!\n\n  He shut himself from the world away,\n      Nor any soul he saw.\n  He smoked by night, he smoked by day,\n      As hard as he could draw.\n\n  His dog died moaning in the wrath\n      Of winds that blew aloof;\n  The weeds were in the gravel path,\n      The owl was on the roof.\n\n  \"He's gone afar, he'll come no more,\"\n      The neighbors sadly say.\n  And so they batter in the door\n      To take his goods away.\n\n  Dead, pipe in mouth, the youngster lay,\n      Nut-brown in face and limb.\n  \"That pipe's a lovely white,\" they say,\n      \"But it has colored him!\"\n\n  The moral there's small need to sing--\n      'Tis plain as day to you:\n  Don't play your game on any thing\n      That is a gamester too.\n\nMartin Bulstrode\n\n\nMENDACIOUS, adj.  Addicted to rhetoric.\n\nMERCHANT, n.  One engaged in a commercial pursuit.  A commercial\npursuit is one in which the thing pursued is a dollar.\n\nMERCY, n.  An attribute beloved of detected offenders.\n\nMESMERISM, n.  Hypnotism before it wore good clothes, kept a carriage\nand asked Incredulity to dinner.\n\nMETROPOLIS, n.  A stronghold of provincialism.\n\nMILLENNIUM, n.  The period of a thousand years when the lid is to be\nscrewed down, with all reformers on the under side.\n\nMIND, n.  A mysterious form of matter secreted by the brain.  Its\nchief activity consists in the endeavor to ascertain its own nature,\nthe futility of the attempt being due to the fact that it has nothing\nbut itself to know itself with.  From the Latin _mens_, a fact unknown\nto that honest shoe-seller, who, observing that his learned competitor\nover the way had displayed the motto \"_Mens conscia recti_,\"\nemblazoned his own front with the words \"Men's, women's and children's\nconscia recti.\"\n\nMINE, adj.  Belonging to me if I can hold or seize it.\n\nMINISTER, n.  An agent of a higher power with a lower responsibility.\nIn diplomacy an officer sent into a foreign country as the visible\nembodiment of his sovereign's hostility.  His principal qualification\nis a degree of plausible inveracity next below that of an ambassador.\n\nMINOR, adj.  Less objectionable.\n\nMINSTREL, adj.  Formerly a poet, singer or musician; now a nigger with\na color less than skin deep and a humor more than flesh and blood can\nbear.\n\nMIRACLE, n.  An act or event out of the order of nature and\nunaccountable, as beating a normal hand of four kings and an ace with\nfour aces and a king.\n\nMISCREANT, n.  A person of the highest degree of unworth.\nEtymologically, the word means unbeliever, and its present\nsignification may be regarded as theology's noblest contribution to\nthe development of our language.\n\nMISDEMEANOR, n.  An infraction of the law having less dignity than a\nfelony and constituting no claim to admittance into the best criminal\nsociety.\n\n  By misdemeanors he essays to climb\n  Into the aristocracy of crime.\n  O, woe was him!--with manner chill and grand\n  \"Captains of industry\" refused his hand,\n  \"Kings of finance\" denied him recognition\n  And \"railway magnates\" jeered his low condition.\n  He robbed a bank to make himself respected.\n  They still rebuffed him, for he was detected.\n\nS.V. Hanipur\n\n\nMISERICORDE, n.  A dagger which in mediaeval warfare was used by the\nfoot soldier to remind an unhorsed knight that he was mortal.\n\nMISFORTUNE, n.  The kind of fortune that never misses.\n\nMISS, n.  The title with which we brand unmarried women to indicate\nthat they are in the market.  Miss, Missis (Mrs.) and Mister (Mr.) are\nthe three most distinctly disagreeable words in the language, in sound\nand sense.  Two are corruptions of Mistress, the other of Master.  In\nthe general abolition of social titles in this our country they\nmiraculously escaped to plague us.  If we must have them let us be\nconsistent and give one to the unmarried man.  I venture to suggest\nMush, abbreviated to Mh.\n\nMOLECULE, n.  The ultimate, indivisible unit of matter.  It is\ndistinguished from the corpuscle, also the ultimate, indivisible unit\nof matter, by a closer resemblance to the atom, also the ultimate,\nindivisible unit of matter.  Three great scientific theories of the\nstructure of the universe are the molecular, the corpuscular and the\natomic.  A fourth affirms, with Haeckel, the condensation of\nprecipitation of matter from ether--whose existence is proved by the\ncondensation of precipitation.  The present trend of scientific\nthought is toward the theory of ions.  The ion differs from the\nmolecule, the corpuscle and the atom in that it is an ion.  A fifth\ntheory is held by idiots, but it is doubtful if they know any more\nabout the matter than the others.\n\nMONAD, n.  The ultimate, indivisible unit of matter.  (See\n_Molecule_.)  According to Leibnitz, as nearly as he seems willing to\nbe understood, the monad has body without bulk, and mind without\nmanifestation--Leibnitz knows him by the innate power of\nconsidering.  He has founded upon him a theory of the universe, which\nthe creature bears without resentment, for the monad is a gentleman.\nSmall as he is, the monad contains all the powers and possibilities\nneedful to his evolution into a German philosopher of the first class\n--altogether a very capable little fellow.  He is not to be\nconfounded with the microbe, or bacillus; by its inability to discern\nhim, a good microscope shows him to be of an entirely distinct\nspecies.\n\nMONARCH, n.  A person engaged in reigning.  Formerly the monarch\nruled, as the derivation of the word attests, and as many subjects\nhave had occasion to learn.  In Russia and the Orient the monarch has\nstill a considerable influence in public affairs and in the\ndisposition of the human head, but in western Europe political\nadministration is mostly entrusted to his ministers, he being\nsomewhat preoccupied with reflections relating to the status of his\nown head.\n\nMONARCHICAL GOVERNMENT, n.  Government.\n\nMONDAY, n.  In Christian countries, the day after the baseball game.\n\nMONEY, n.  A blessing that is of no advantage to us excepting when we\npart with it.  An evidence of culture and a passport to polite\nsociety.  Supportable property.\n\nMONKEY, n.  An arboreal animal which makes itself at home in\ngenealogical trees.\n\nMONOSYLLABIC, adj.  Composed of words of one syllable, for literary\nbabes who never tire of testifying their delight in the vapid compound\nby appropriate googoogling.  The words are commonly Saxon--that is\nto say, words of a barbarous people destitute of ideas and incapable\nof any but the most elementary sentiments and emotions.\n\n  The man who writes in Saxon\n  Is the man to use an ax on\n\nJudibras\n\n\nMONSIGNOR, n.  A high ecclesiastical title, of which the Founder of\nour religion overlooked the advantages.\n\nMONUMENT, n.  A structure intended to commemorate something which\neither needs no commemoration or cannot be commemorated.\n\n  The bones of Agammemnon are a show,\n  And ruined is his royal monument,\n\nbut Agammemnon's fame suffers no diminution in consequence.  The\nmonument custom has its _reductiones ad absurdum_ in monuments \"to the\nunknown dead\"--that is to say, monuments to perpetuate the memory of\nthose who have left no memory.\n\nMORAL, adj.  Conforming to a local and mutable standard of right.\nHaving the quality of general expediency.\n\n  It is sayd there be a raunge of mountaynes in the Easte, on\n  one syde of the which certayn conducts are immorall, yet on the other\n  syde they are holden in good esteeme; wherebye the mountayneer is much\n  conveenyenced, for it is given to him to goe downe eyther way and act\n  as it shall suite his moode, withouten offence.\n\n  _Gooke's Meditations_\n\n\nMORE, adj.  The comparative degree of too much.\n\nMOUSE, n.  An animal which strews its path with fainting women.  As in\nRome Christians were thrown to the lions, so centuries earlier in\nOtumwee, the most ancient and famous city of the world, female\nheretics were thrown to the mice.  Jakak-Zotp, the historian, the only\nOtumwump whose writings have descended to us, says that these martyrs\nmet their death with little dignity and much exertion.  He even\nattempts to exculpate the mice (such is the malice of bigotry) by\ndeclaring that the unfortunate women perished, some from exhaustion,\nsome of broken necks from falling over their own feet, and some from\nlack of restoratives.  The mice, he avers, enjoyed the pleasures of\nthe chase with composure.  But if \"Roman history is nine-tenths\nlying,\" we can hardly expect a smaller proportion of that rhetorical\nfigure in the annals of a people capable of so incredible cruelty to\nlovely women; for a hard heart has a false tongue.\n\nMOUSQUETAIRE, n.  A long glove covering a part of the arm.  Worn in\nNew Jersey.  But \"mousquetaire\" is a might poor way to spell\nmuskeeter.\n\nMOUTH, n.  In man, the gateway to the soul; in woman, the outlet of\nthe heart.\n\nMUGWUMP, n.  In politics one afflicted with self-respect and addicted\nto the vice of independence.  A term of contempt.\n\nMULATTO, n.  A child of two races, ashamed of both.\n\nMULTITUDE, n.  A crowd; the source of political wisdom and virtue.  In\na republic, the object of the statesman's adoration.  \"In a multitude\nof counsellors there is wisdom,\" saith the proverb.  If many men of\nequal individual wisdom are wiser than any one of them, it must be\nthat they acquire the excess of wisdom by the mere act of getting\ntogether.  Whence comes it?  Obviously from nowhere--as well say\nthat a range of mountains is higher than the single mountains\ncomposing it.  A multitude is as wise as its wisest member if it obey\nhim; if not, it is no wiser than its most foolish.\n\nMUMMY, n.  An ancient Egyptian, formerly in universal use among modern\ncivilized nations as medicine, and now engaged in supplying art with\nan excellent pigment.  He is handy, too, in museums in gratifying the\nvulgar curiosity that serves to distinguish man from the lower\nanimals.\n\n  By means of the Mummy, mankind, it is said,\n  Attests to the gods its respect for the dead.\n  We plunder his tomb, be he sinner or saint,\n  Distil him for physic and grind him for paint,\n  Exhibit for money his poor, shrunken frame,\n  And with levity flock to the scene of the shame.\n  O, tell me, ye gods, for the use of my rhyme:\n  For respecting the dead what's the limit of time?\n\nScopas Brune\n\n\nMUSTANG, n.  An indocile horse of the western plains.  In English\nsociety, the American wife of an English nobleman.\n\nMYRMIDON, n.  A follower of Achilles--particularly when he didn't\nlead.\n\nMYTHOLOGY, n.  The body of a primitive people's beliefs concerning its\norigin, early history, heroes, deities and so forth, as distinguished\nfrom the true accounts which it invents later.\n\n\n\n\nN\n\n\n\nNECTAR, n.  A drink served at banquets of the Olympian deities.  The\nsecret of its preparation is lost, but the modern Kentuckians believe\nthat they come pretty near to a knowledge of its chief ingredient.\n\n  Juno drank a cup of nectar,\n  But the draught did not affect her.\n  Juno drank a cup of rye--\n  Then she bad herself good-bye.\n\nJ.G.\n\n\nNEGRO, n.  The _piece de resistance_ in the American political\nproblem.  Representing him by the letter n, the Republicans begin to\nbuild their equation thus:  \"Let n = the white man.\"  This, however,\nappears to give an unsatisfactory solution.\n\nNEIGHBOR, n.  One whom we are commanded to love as ourselves, and who\ndoes all he knows how to make us disobedient.\n\nNEPOTISM, n.  Appointing your grandmother to office for the good of\nthe party.\n\nNEWTONIAN, adj.  Pertaining to a philosophy of the universe invented\nby Newton, who discovered that an apple will fall to the ground, but\nwas unable to say why.  His successors and disciples have advanced so\nfar as to be able to say when.\n\nNIHILIST, n.  A Russian who denies the existence of anything but\nTolstoi.  The leader of the school is Tolstoi.\n\nNIRVANA, n.  In the Buddhist religion, a state of pleasurable\nannihilation awarded to the wise, particularly to those wise enough to\nunderstand it.\n\nNOBLEMAN, n.  Nature's provision for wealthy American minds ambitious\nto incur social distinction and suffer high life.\n\nNOISE, n.  A stench in the ear.  Undomesticated music.  The chief\nproduct and authenticating sign of civilization.\n\nNOMINATE, v.  To designate for the heaviest political assessment.  To\nput forward a suitable person to incur the mudgobbing and deadcatting\nof the opposition.\n\nNOMINEE, n.  A modest gentleman shrinking from the distinction of\nprivate life and diligently seeking the honorable obscurity of public\noffice.\n\nNON-COMBATANT, n.  A dead Quaker.\n\nNONSENSE, n.  The objections that are urged against this excellent\ndictionary.\n\nNOSE, n.  The extreme outpost of the face.  From the circumstance that\ngreat conquerors have great noses, Getius, whose writings antedate the\nage of humor, calls the nose the organ of quell.  It has been observed\nthat one's nose is never so happy as when thrust into the affairs of\nothers, from which some physiologists have drawn the inference that\nthe nose is devoid of the sense of smell.\n\n      There's a man with a Nose,\n      And wherever he goes\n  The people run from him and shout:\n      \"No cotton have we\n      For our ears if so be\n  He blow that interminous snout!\"\n\n      So the lawyers applied\n      For injunction.  \"Denied,\"\n  Said the Judge:  \"the defendant prefixion,\n      Whate'er it portend,\n      Appears to transcend\n  The bounds of this court's jurisdiction.\"\n\nArpad Singiny\n\n\nNOTORIETY, n.  The fame of one's competitor for public honors.  The\nkind of renown most accessible and acceptable to mediocrity.  A\nJacob's-ladder leading to the vaudeville stage, with angels ascending\nand descending.\n\nNOUMENON, n.  That which exists, as distinguished from that which\nmerely seems to exist, the latter being a phenomenon.  The noumenon is\na bit difficult to locate; it can be apprehended only be a process of\nreasoning--which is a phenomenon.  Nevertheless, the discovery and\nexposition of noumena offer a rich field for what Lewes calls \"the\nendless variety and excitement of philosophic thought.\"  Hurrah\n(therefore) for the noumenon!\n\nNOVEL, n.  A short story padded.  A species of composition bearing the\nsame relation to literature that the panorama bears to art.  As it is\ntoo long to be read at a sitting the impressions made by its\nsuccessive parts are successively effaced, as in the panorama.  Unity,\ntotality of effect, is impossible; for besides the few pages last read\nall that is carried in mind is the mere plot of what has gone before.\nTo the romance the novel is what photography is to painting.  Its\ndistinguishing principle, probability, corresponds to the literal\nactuality of the photograph and puts it distinctly into the category\nof reporting; whereas the free wing of the romancer enables him to\nmount to such altitudes of imagination as he may be fitted to attain;\nand the first three essentials of the literary art are imagination,\nimagination and imagination.  The art of writing novels, such as it\nwas, is long dead everywhere except in Russia, where it is new.  Peace\nto its ashes--some of which have a large sale.\n\nNOVEMBER, n.  The eleventh twelfth of a weariness.\n\n\n\n\nO\n\n\n\nOATH, n.  In law, a solemn appeal to the Deity, made binding upon the\nconscience by a penalty for perjury.\n\nOBLIVION, n.  The state or condition in which the wicked cease from\nstruggling and the dreary are at rest.  Fame's eternal dumping ground.\nCold storage for high hopes.  A place where ambitious authors meet\ntheir works without pride and their betters without envy.  A dormitory\nwithout an alarm clock.\n\nOBSERVATORY, n.  A place where astronomers conjecture away the guesses\nof their predecessors.\n\nOBSESSED, p.p.  Vexed by an evil spirit, like the Gadarene swine and\nother critics.  Obsession was once more common than it is now.\nArasthus tells of a peasant who was occupied by a different devil for\nevery day in the week, and on Sundays by two.  They were frequently\nseen, always walking in his shadow, when he had one, but were finally\ndriven away by the village notary, a holy man; but they took the\npeasant with them, for he vanished utterly.  A devil thrown out of a\nwoman by the Archbishop of Rheims ran through the trees, pursued by a\nhundred persons, until the open country was reached, where by a leap\nhigher than a church spire he escaped into a bird.  A chaplain in\nCromwell's army exorcised a soldier's obsessing devil by throwing the\nsoldier into the water, when the devil came to the surface.  The\nsoldier, unfortunately, did not.\n\nOBSOLETE, adj.  No longer used by the timid.  Said chiefly of words.\nA word which some lexicographer has marked obsolete is ever thereafter\nan object of dread and loathing to the fool writer, but if it is a\ngood word and has no exact modern equivalent equally good, it is good\nenough for the good writer.  Indeed, a writer's attitude toward\n\"obsolete\" words is as true a measure of his literary ability as\nanything except the character of his work.  A dictionary of obsolete\nand obsolescent words would not only be singularly rich in strong and\nsweet parts of speech; it would add large possessions to the\nvocabulary of every competent writer who might not happen to be a\ncompetent reader.\n\nOBSTINATE, adj.  Inaccessible to the truth as it is manifest in the\nsplendor and stress of our advocacy.\n\nThe popular type and exponent of obstinacy is the mule, a most\nintelligent animal.\n\nOCCASIONAL, adj.  Afflicting us with greater or less frequency.  That,\nhowever, is not the sense in which the word is used in the phrase\n\"occasional verses,\" which are verses written for an \"occasion,\" such\nas an anniversary, a celebration or other event.  True, they afflict\nus a little worse than other sorts of verse, but their name has no\nreference to irregular recurrence.\n\nOCCIDENT, n.  The part of the world lying west (or east) of the\nOrient.  It is largely inhabited by Christians, a powerful subtribe of\nthe Hypocrites, whose principal industries are murder and cheating,\nwhich they are pleased to call \"war\" and \"commerce.\"  These, also, are\nthe principal industries of the Orient.\n\nOCEAN, n.  A body of water occupying about two-thirds of a world made\nfor man--who has no gills.\n\nOFFENSIVE, adj.  Generating disagreeable emotions or sensations, as\nthe advance of an army against its enemy.\n\n\"Were the enemy's tactics offensive?\" the king asked.  \"I should\nsay so!\" replied the unsuccessful general.  \"The blackguard wouldn't\ncome out of his works!\"\n\nOLD, adj.  In that stage of usefulness which is not inconsistent with\ngeneral inefficiency, as an _old man_.  Discredited by lapse of time\nand offensive to the popular taste, as an _old_ book.\n\n  \"Old books?  The devil take them!\" Goby said.\n  \"Fresh every day must be my books and bread.\"\n  Nature herself approves the Goby rule\n  And gives us every moment a fresh fool.\n\nHarley Shum\n\n\nOLEAGINOUS, adj.  Oily, smooth, sleek.\n\nDisraeli once described the manner of Bishop Wilberforce as\n\"unctuous, oleaginous, saponaceous.\"  And the good prelate was ever\nafterward known as Soapy Sam.  For every man there is something in the\nvocabulary that would stick to him like a second skin.  His enemies\nhave only to find it.\n\nOLYMPIAN, adj.  Relating to a mountain in Thessaly, once inhabited by\ngods, now a repository of yellowing newspapers, beer bottles and\nmutilated sardine cans, attesting the presence of the tourist and his\nappetite.\n\n  His name the smirking tourist scrawls\n  Upon Minerva's temple walls,\n  Where thundered once Olympian Zeus,\n  And marks his appetite's abuse.\n\nAveril Joop\n\n\nOMEN, n.  A sign that something will happen if nothing happens.\n\nONCE, adv.  Enough.\n\nOPERA, n.  A play representing life in another world, whose\ninhabitants have no speech but song, no motions but gestures and no\npostures but attitudes.  All acting is simulation, and the word\n_simulation_ is from _simia_, an ape; but in opera the actor takes for\nhis model _Simia audibilis_ (or _Pithecanthropos stentor_)--the ape\nthat howls.\n\n  The actor apes a man--at least in shape;\n  The opera performer apes an ape.\n\nOPIATE, n.  An unlocked door in the prison of Identity.  It leads into\nthe jail yard.\n\nOPPORTUNITY, n.  A favorable occasion for grasping a disappointment.\n\nOPPOSE, v.  To assist with obstructions and objections.\n\n  How lonely he who thinks to vex\n  With bandinage the Solemn Sex!\n  Of levity, Mere Man, beware;\n  None but the Grave deserve the Unfair.\n\nPercy P. Orminder\n\n\nOPPOSITION, n.  In politics the party that prevents the Government from\nrunning amuck by hamstringing it.\n\nThe King of Ghargaroo, who had been abroad to study the science of\ngovernment, appointed one hundred of his fattest subjects as members\nof a parliament to make laws for the collection of revenue.  Forty of\nthese he named the Party of Opposition and had his Prime Minister\ncarefully instruct them in their duty of opposing every royal measure.\nNevertheless, the first one that was submitted passed unanimously.\nGreatly displeased, the King vetoed it, informing the Opposition that\nif they did that again they would pay for their obstinacy with their\nheads.  The entire forty promptly disemboweled themselves.\n\n\"What shall we do now?\" the King asked.  \"Liberal institutions\ncannot be maintained without a party of Opposition.\"\n\n\"Splendor of the universe,\" replied the Prime Minister, \"it is\ntrue these dogs of darkness have no longer their credentials, but all\nis not lost.  Leave the matter to this worm of the dust.\"\n\nSo the Minister had the bodies of his Majesty's Opposition\nembalmed and stuffed with straw, put back into the seats of power and\nnailed there.  Forty votes were recorded against every bill and the\nnation prospered.  But one day a bill imposing a tax on warts was\ndefeated--the members of the Government party had not been nailed to\ntheir seats!  This so enraged the King that the Prime Minister was put\nto death, the parliament was dissolved with a battery of artillery,\nand government of the people, by the people, for the people perished\nfrom Ghargaroo.\n\nOPTIMISM, n.  The doctrine, or belief, that everything is beautiful,\nincluding what is ugly, everything good, especially the bad, and\neverything right that is wrong.  It is held with greatest tenacity by\nthose most accustomed to the mischance of falling into adversity, and\nis most acceptably expounded with the grin that apes a smile.  Being a\nblind faith, it is inaccessible to the light of disproof--an\nintellectual disorder, yielding to no treatment but death.  It is\nhereditary, but fortunately not contagious.\n\nOPTIMIST, n.  A proponent of the doctrine that black is white.\n\nA pessimist applied to God for relief.\n\n\"Ah, you wish me to restore your hope and cheerfulness,\" said God.\n\n\"No,\" replied the petitioner, \"I wish you to create something that\nwould justify them.\"\n\n\"The world is all created,\" said God, \"but you have overlooked\nsomething--the mortality of the optimist.\"\n\nORATORY, n.  A conspiracy between speech and action to cheat the\nunderstanding.  A tyranny tempered by stenography.\n\nORPHAN, n.  A living person whom death has deprived of the power of\nfilial ingratitude--a privation appealing with a particular\neloquence to all that is sympathetic in human nature.  When young the\norphan is commonly sent to an asylum, where by careful cultivation of\nits rudimentary sense of locality it is taught to know its place.  It\nis then instructed in the arts of dependence and servitude and\neventually turned loose to prey upon the world as a bootblack or\nscullery maid.\n\nORTHODOX, n.  An ox wearing the popular religious yoke.\n\nORTHOGRAPHY, n.  The science of spelling by the eye instead of the\near.  Advocated with more heat than light by the outmates of every\nasylum for the insane.  They have had to concede a few things since\nthe time of Chaucer, but are none the less hot in defence of those to\nbe conceded hereafter.\n\n  A spelling reformer indicted\n  For fudge was before the court cicted.\n      The judge said:  \"Enough--\n      His candle we'll snough,\n  And his sepulchre shall not be whicted.\"\n\nOSTRICH, n.  A large bird to which (for its sins, doubtless) nature\nhas denied that hinder toe in which so many pious naturalists have\nseen a conspicuous evidence of design.  The absence of a good working\npair of wings is no defect, for, as has been ingeniously pointed out,\nthe ostrich does not fly.\n\nOTHERWISE, adv.  No better.\n\nOUTCOME, n.  A particular type of disappointment.  By the kind of\nintelligence that sees in an exception a proof of the rule the wisdom\nof an act is judged by the outcome, the result.  This is immortal\nnonsense; the wisdom of an act is to be juded by the light that the\ndoer had when he performed it.\n\nOUTDO, v.t.  To make an enemy.\n\nOUT-OF-DOORS, n.  That part of one's environment upon which no\ngovernment has been able to collect taxes.  Chiefly useful to inspire\npoets.\n\n  I climbed to the top of a mountain one day\n      To see the sun setting in glory,\n  And I thought, as I looked at his vanishing ray,\n      Of a perfectly splendid story.\n\n  'Twas about an old man and the ass he bestrode\n      Till the strength of the beast was o'ertested;\n  Then the man would carry him miles on the road\n      Till Neddy was pretty well rested.\n\n  The moon rising solemnly over the crest\n      Of the hills to the east of my station\n  Displayed her broad disk to the darkening west\n      Like a visible new creation.\n\n  And I thought of a joke (and I laughed till I cried)\n      Of an idle young woman who tarried\n  About a church-door for a look at the bride,\n      Although 'twas herself that was married.\n\n  To poets all Nature is pregnant with grand\n      Ideas--with thought and emotion.\n  I pity the dunces who don't understand\n      The speech of earth, heaven and ocean.\n\nStromboli Smith\n\n\nOVATION, n.  In ancient Rome, a definite, formal pageant in honor of\none who had been disserviceable to the enemies of the nation.  A\nlesser \"triumph.\"  In modern English the word is improperly used to\nsignify any loose and spontaneous expression of popular homage to the\nhero of the hour and place.\n\n  \"I had an ovation!\" the actor man said,\n      But I thought it uncommonly queer,\n  That people and critics by him had been led\n          By the ear.\n\n  The Latin lexicon makes his absurd\n      Assertion as plain as a peg;\n  In \"ovum\" we find the true root of the word.\n          It means egg.\n\nDudley Spink\n\n\nOVEREAT, v.  To dine.\n\n  Hail, Gastronome, Apostle of Excess,\n  Well skilled to overeat without distress!\n  Thy great invention, the unfatal feast,\n  Shows Man's superiority to Beast.\n\nJohn Boop\n\n\nOVERWORK, n.  A dangerous disorder affecting high public functionaries\nwho want to go fishing.\n\nOWE, v.  To have (and to hold) a debt.  The word formerly signified\nnot indebtedness, but possession; it meant \"own,\" and in the minds of\ndebtors there is still a good deal of confusion between assets and\nliabilities.\n\nOYSTER, n.  A slimy, gobby shellfish which civilization gives men the\nhardihood to eat without removing its entrails!  The shells are\nsometimes given to the poor.\n\n\n\n\nP\n\n\n\nPAIN, n.  An uncomfortable frame of mind that may have a physical\nbasis in something that is being done to the body, or may be purely\nmental, caused by the good fortune of another.\n\nPAINTING, n.  The art of protecting flat surfaces from the weather and\nexposing them to the critic.\n\nFormerly, painting and sculpture were combined in the same work:\nthe ancients painted their statues.  The only present alliance between\nthe two arts is that the modern painter chisels his patrons.\n\nPALACE, n.  A fine and costly residence, particularly that of a great\nofficial.  The residence of a high dignitary of the Christian Church\nis called a palace; that of the Founder of his religion was known as a\nfield, or wayside.  There is progress.\n\nPALM, n.  A species of tree having several varieties, of which the\nfamiliar \"itching palm\" (_Palma hominis_) is most widely distributed\nand sedulously cultivated.  This noble vegetable exudes a kind of\ninvisible gum, which may be detected by applying to the bark a piece\nof gold or silver.  The metal will adhere with remarkable tenacity.\nThe fruit of the itching palm is so bitter and unsatisfying that a\nconsiderable percentage of it is sometimes given away in what are known\nas \"benefactions.\"\n\nPALMISTRY, n.  The 947th method (according to Mimbleshaw's\nclassification) of obtaining money by false pretences.  It consists in\n\"reading character\" in the wrinkles made by closing the hand.  The\npretence is not altogether false; character can really be read very\naccurately in this way, for the wrinkles in every hand submitted\nplainly spell the word \"dupe.\"  The imposture consists in not reading\nit aloud.\n\nPANDEMONIUM, n.  Literally, the Place of All the Demons.  Most of them\nhave escaped into politics and finance, and the place is now used as a\nlecture hall by the Audible Reformer.  When disturbed by his voice the\nancient echoes clamor appropriate responses most gratifying to his\npride of distinction.\n\nPANTALOONS, n.  A nether habiliment of the adult civilized male.  The\ngarment is tubular and unprovided with hinges at the points of\nflexion.  Supposed to have been invented by a humorist.  Called\n\"trousers\" by the enlightened and \"pants\" by the unworthy.\n\nPANTHEISM, n.  The doctrine that everything is God, in\ncontradistinction to the doctrine that God is everything.\n\nPANTOMIME, n.  A play in which the story is told without violence to\nthe language.  The least disagreeable form of dramatic action.\n\nPARDON, v.  To remit a penalty and restore to the life of crime.  To\nadd to the lure of crime the temptation of ingratitude.\n\nPASSPORT, n.  A document treacherously inflicted upon a citizen going\nabroad, exposing him as an alien and pointing him out for special\nreprobation and outrage.\n\nPAST, n.  That part of Eternity with some small fraction of which we\nhave a slight and regrettable acquaintance.  A moving line called the\nPresent parts it from an imaginary period known as the Future.  These\ntwo grand divisions of Eternity, of which the one is continually\neffacing the other, are entirely unlike.  The one is dark with sorrow\nand disappointment, the other bright with prosperity and joy.  The\nPast is the region of sobs, the Future is the realm of song.  In the\none crouches Memory, clad in sackcloth and ashes, mumbling penitential\nprayer; in the sunshine of the other Hope flies with a free wing,\nbeckoning to temples of success and bowers of ease.  Yet the Past is\nthe Future of yesterday, the Future is the Past of to-morrow.  They\nare one--the knowledge and the dream.\n\nPASTIME, n.  A device for promoting dejection.  Gentle exercise for\nintellectual debility.\n\nPATIENCE, n.  A minor form of despair, disguised as a virtue.\n\nPATRIOT, n.  One to whom the interests of a part seem superior to\nthose of the whole.  The dupe of statesmen and the tool of conquerors.\n\nPATRIOTISM, n.  Combustible rubbish ready to the torch of any one\nambitious to illuminate his name.\n\nIn Dr. Johnson's famous dictionary patriotism is defined as the\nlast resort of a scoundrel.  With all due respect to an enlightened\nbut inferior lexicographer I beg to submit that it is the first.\n\nPEACE, n.  In international affairs, a period of cheating between two\nperiods of fighting.\n\n  O, what's the loud uproar assailing\n      Mine ears without cease?\n  'Tis the voice of the hopeful, all-hailing\n      The horrors of peace.\n\n  Ah, Peace Universal; they woo it--\n      Would marry it, too.\n  If only they knew how to do it\n      'Twere easy to do.\n\n  They're working by night and by day\n      On their problem, like moles.\n  Have mercy, O Heaven, I pray,\n      On their meddlesome souls!\n\nRo Amil\n\n\nPEDESTRIAN, n.  The variable (an audible) part of the roadway for an\nautomobile.\n\nPEDIGREE, n.  The known part of the route from an arboreal ancestor\nwith a swim bladder to an urban descendant with a cigarette.\n\nPENITENT, adj.  Undergoing or awaiting punishment.\n\nPERFECTION, n.  An imaginary state of quality distinguished from the\nactual by an element known as excellence; an attribute of the critic.\n\nThe editor of an English magazine having received a letter\npointing out the erroneous nature of his views and style, and signed\n\"Perfection,\" promptly wrote at the foot of the letter:  \"I don't\nagree with you,\" and mailed it to Matthew Arnold.\n\nPERIPATETIC, adj.  Walking about.  Relating to the philosophy of\nAristotle, who, while expounding it, moved from place to place in\norder to avoid his pupil's objections.  A needless precaution--they\nknew no more of the matter than he.\n\nPERORATION, n.  The explosion of an oratorical rocket.  It dazzles,\nbut to an observer having the wrong kind of nose its most conspicuous\npeculiarity is the smell of the several kinds of powder used in\npreparing it.\n\nPERSEVERANCE, n.  A lowly virtue whereby mediocrity achieves an\ninglorious success.\n\n  \"Persevere, persevere!\" cry the homilists all,\n  Themselves, day and night, persevering to bawl.\n  \"Remember the fable of tortoise and hare--\n  The one at the goal while the other is--where?\"\n  Why, back there in Dreamland, renewing his lease\n  Of life, all his muscles preserving the peace,\n  The goal and the rival forgotten alike,\n  And the long fatigue of the needless hike.\n  His spirit a-squat in the grass and the dew\n  Of the dogless Land beyond the Stew,\n  He sleeps, like a saint in a holy place,\n  A winner of all that is good in a race.\n\nSukker Uffro\n\n\nPESSIMISM, n.  A philosophy forced upon the convictions of the\nobserver by the disheartening prevalence of the optimist with his\nscarecrow hope and his unsightly smile.\n\nPHILANTHROPIST, n.  A rich (and usually bald) old gentleman who has\ntrained himself to grin while his conscience is picking his pocket.\n\nPHILISTINE, n.  One whose mind is the creature of its environment,\nfollowing the fashion in thought, feeling and sentiment.  He is\nsometimes learned, frequently prosperous, commonly clean and always\nsolemn.\n\nPHILOSOPHY, n.  A route of many roads leading from nowhere to nothing.\n\nPHOENIX, n.  The classical prototype of the modern \"small hot bird.\"\n\nPHONOGRAPH, n.  An irritating toy that restores life to dead noises.\n\nPHOTOGRAPH, n.  A picture painted by the sun without instruction in\nart.  It is a little better than the work of an Apache, but not quite\nso good as that of a Cheyenne.\n\nPHRENOLOGY, n.  The science of picking the pocket through the scalp.\nIt consists in locating and exploiting the organ that one is a dupe\nwith.\n\nPHYSICIAN, n.  One upon whom we set our hopes when ill and our dogs\nwhen well.\n\nPHYSIOGNOMY, n.  The art of determining the character of another by\nthe resemblances and differences between his face and our own, which\nis the standard of excellence.\n\n  \"There is no art,\" says Shakespeare, foolish man,\n      \"To read the mind's construction in the face.\"\n  The physiognomists his portrait scan,\n      And say:  \"How little wisdom here we trace!\n  He knew his face disclosed his mind and heart,\n  So, in his own defence, denied our art.\"\n\nLavatar Shunk\n\n\nPIANO, n.  A parlor utensil for subduing the impenitent visitor.  It\nis operated by depressing the keys of the machine and the spirits of the\naudience.\n\nPICKANINNY, n.  The young of the _Procyanthropos_, or _Americanus\ndominans_.  It is small, black and charged with political fatalities.\n\nPICTURE, n.  A representation in two dimensions of something wearisome\nin three.\n\n  \"Behold great Daubert's picture here on view--\n  Taken from Life.\"  If that description's true,\n  Grant, heavenly Powers, that I be taken, too.\n\nJali Hane\n\n\nPIE, n.  An advance agent of the reaper whose name is Indigestion.\n\n  Cold pie was highly esteemed by the remains.\n\nRev. Dr. Mucker\n\n(in a funeral sermon over a British nobleman)\n\n  Cold pie is a detestable\n  American comestible.\n  That's why I'm done--or undone--\n  So far from that dear London.\n\n(from the headstone of a British nobleman in Kalamazoo)\n\n\nPIETY, n.  Reverence for the Supreme Being, based upon His supposed\nresemblance to man.\n\n  The pig is taught by sermons and epistles\n  To think the God of Swine has snout and bristles.\n\nJudibras\n\n\nPIG, n.  An animal (_Porcus omnivorus_) closely allied to the human\nrace by the splendor and vivacity of its appetite, which, however, is\ninferior in scope, for it sticks at pig.\n\nPIGMY, n.  One of a tribe of very small men found by ancient travelers\nin many parts of the world, but by modern in Central Africa only.  The\nPigmies are so called to distinguish them from the bulkier Caucasians\n--who are Hogmies.\n\nPILGRIM, n.  A traveler that is taken seriously.  A Pilgrim Father was\none who, leaving Europe in 1620 because not permitted to sing psalms\nthrough his nose, followed it to Massachusetts, where he could\npersonate God according to the dictates of his conscience.\n\nPILLORY, n.  A mechanical device for inflicting personal distinction\n--prototype of the modern newspaper conducted by persons of austere\nvirtues and blameless lives.\n\nPIRACY, n.  Commerce without its folly-swaddles, just as God made it.\n\nPITIFUL, adj.  The state of an enemy or opponent after an imaginary\nencounter with oneself.\n\nPITY, n.  A failing sense of exemption, inspired by contrast.\n\nPLAGIARISM, n.  A literary coincidence compounded of a discreditable\npriority and an honorable subsequence.\n\nPLAGIARIZE, v.  To take the thought or style of another writer whom\none has never, never read.\n\nPLAGUE, n.  In ancient times a general punishment of the innocent for\nadmonition of their ruler, as in the familiar instance of Pharaoh the\nImmune.  The plague as we of to-day have the happiness to know it is\nmerely Nature's fortuitous manifestation of her purposeless\nobjectionableness.\n\nPLAN, v.t.  To bother about the best method of accomplishing an\naccidental result.\n\nPLATITUDE, n.  The fundamental element and special glory of popular\nliterature. A thought that snores in words that smoke.  The wisdom of\na million fools in the diction of a dullard.  A fossil sentiment in\nartificial rock.  A moral without the fable.  All that is mortal of a\ndeparted truth.  A demi-tasse of milk-and-mortality.  The Pope's-nose\nof a featherless peacock.  A jelly-fish withering on the shore of the\nsea of thought.  The cackle surviving the egg.  A desiccated epigram.\n\nPLATONIC, adj.  Pertaining to the philosophy of Socrates.  Platonic\nLove is a fool's name for the affection between a disability and a\nfrost.\n\nPLAUDITS, n.  Coins with which the populace pays those who tickle and\ndevour it.\n\nPLEASE, v.  To lay the foundation for a superstructure of imposition.\n\nPLEASURE, n.  The least hateful form of dejection.\n\nPLEBEIAN, n.  An ancient Roman who in the blood of his country stained\nnothing but his hands.  Distinguished from the Patrician, who was a\nsaturated solution.\n\nPLEBISCITE, n.  A popular vote to ascertain the will of the sovereign.\n\nPLENIPOTENTIARY, adj.  Having full power.  A Minister Plenipotentiary\nis a diplomatist possessing absolute authority on condition that he\nnever exert it.\n\nPLEONASM, n.  An army of words escorting a corporal of thought.\n\nPLOW, n.  An implement that cries aloud for hands accustomed to the\npen.\n\nPLUNDER, v.  To take the property of another without observing the\ndecent and customary reticences of theft.  To effect a change of\nownership with the candid concomitance of a brass band.  To wrest the\nwealth of A from B and leave C lamenting a vanished opportunity.\n\nPOCKET, n.  The cradle of motive and the grave of conscience.  In\nwoman this organ is lacking; so she acts without motive, and her\nconscience, denied burial, remains ever alive, confessing the sins of\nothers.\n\nPOETRY, n.  A form of expression peculiar to the Land beyond the\nMagazines.\n\nPOKER, n.  A game said to be played with cards for some purpose to\nthis lexicographer unknown.\n\nPOLICE, n.  An armed force for protection and participation.\n\nPOLITENESS, n.  The most acceptable hypocrisy.\n\nPOLITICS, n.  A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of\nprinciples.  The conduct of public affairs for private advantage.\n\nPOLITICIAN, n.  An eel in the fundamental mud upon which the\nsuperstructure of organized society is reared.  When he wriggles he\nmistakes the agitation of his tail for the trembling of the edifice.\nAs compared with the statesman, he suffers the disadvantage of being\nalive.\n\nPOLYGAMY, n.  A house of atonement, or expiatory chapel, fitted with\nseveral stools of repentance, as distinguished from monogamy, which\nhas but one.\n\nPOPULIST, n.  A fossil patriot of the early agricultural period, found\nin the old red soapstone underlying Kansas; characterized by an\nuncommon spread of ear, which some naturalists contend gave him the\npower of flight, though Professors Morse and Whitney, pursuing\nindependent lines of thought, have ingeniously pointed out that had he\npossessed it he would have gone elsewhere.  In the picturesque speech\nof his period, some fragments of which have come down to us, he was\nknown as \"The Matter with Kansas.\"\n\nPORTABLE, adj.  Exposed to a mutable ownership through vicissitudes of\npossession.\n\n  His light estate, if neither he did make it\n  Nor yet its former guardian forsake it,\n  Is portable improperty, I take it.\n\nWorgum Slupsky\n\n\nPORTUGUESE, n.pl.  A species of geese indigenous to Portugal.  They\nare mostly without feathers and imperfectly edible, even when stuffed\nwith garlic.\n\nPOSITIVE, adj.  Mistaken at the top of one's voice.\n\nPOSITIVISM, n.  A philosophy that denies our knowledge of the Real and\naffirms our ignorance of the Apparent.  Its longest exponent is Comte,\nits broadest Mill and its thickest Spencer.\n\nPOSTERITY, n.  An appellate court which reverses the judgment of a\npopular author's contemporaries, the appellant being his obscure\ncompetitor.\n\nPOTABLE, n.  Suitable for drinking.  Water is said to be potable;\nindeed, some declare it our natural beverage, although even they find\nit palatable only when suffering from the recurrent disorder known as\nthirst, for which it is a medicine.  Upon nothing has so great and\ndiligent ingenuity been brought to bear in all ages and in all\ncountries, except the most uncivilized, as upon the invention of\nsubstitutes for water.  To hold that this general aversion to that\nliquid has no basis in the preservative instinct of the race is to be\nunscientific--and without science we are as the snakes and toads.\n\nPOVERTY, n.  A file provided for the teeth of the rats of reform.  The\nnumber of plans for its abolition equals that of the reformers who\nsuffer from it, plus that of the philosophers who know nothing about\nit.  Its victims are distinguished by possession of all the virtues\nand by their faith in leaders seeking to conduct them into a\nprosperity where they believe these to be unknown.\n\nPRAY, v.  To ask that the laws of the universe be annulled in behalf\nof a single petitioner confessedly unworthy.\n\nPRE-ADAMITE, n.  One of an experimental and apparently unsatisfactory\nrace of antedated Creation and lived under conditions not easily\nconceived.  Melsius believed them to have inhabited \"the Void\" and to\nhave been something intermediate between fishes and birds.  Little its\nknown of them beyond the fact that they supplied Cain with a wife and\ntheologians with a controversy.\n\nPRECEDENT, n.  In Law, a previous decision, rule or practice which, in\nthe absence of a definite statute, has whatever force and authority a\nJudge may choose to give it, thereby greatly simplifying his task of\ndoing as he pleases.  As there are precedents for everything, he has\nonly to ignore those that make against his interest and accentuate\nthose in the line of his desire.  Invention of the precedent elevates\nthe trial-at-law from the low estate of a fortuitous ordeal to the\nnoble attitude of a dirigible arbitrament.\n\nPRECIPITATE, adj.  Anteprandial.\n\n  Precipitate in all, this sinner\n  Took action first, and then his dinner.\n\nJudibras\n\n\nPREDESTINATION, n.  The doctrine that all things occur according to\nprogramme.  This doctrine should not be confused with that of\nforeordination, which means that all things are programmed, but does\nnot affirm their occurrence, that being only an implication from other\ndoctrines by which this is entailed.  The difference is great enough\nto have deluged Christendom with ink, to say nothing of the gore.\nWith the distinction of the two doctrines kept well in mind, and a\nreverent belief in both, one may hope to escape perdition if spared.\n\nPREDICAMENT, n.  The wage of consistency.\n\nPREDILECTION, n.  The preparatory stage of disillusion.\n\nPRE-EXISTENCE, n.  An unnoted factor in creation.\n\nPREFERENCE, n.  A sentiment, or frame of mind, induced by the\nerroneous belief that one thing is better than another.\n\nAn ancient philosopher, expounding his conviction that life is no\nbetter than death, was asked by a disciple why, then, he did not die.\n\"Because,\" he replied, \"death is no better than life.\"\n\nIt is longer.\n\nPREHISTORIC, adj.  Belonging to an early period and a museum.\nAntedating the art and practice of perpetuating falsehood.\n\n  He lived in a period prehistoric,\n  When all was absurd and phantasmagoric.\n  Born later, when Clio, celestial recorder,\n  Set down great events in succession and order,\n  He surely had seen nothing droll or fortuitous\n  In anything here but the lies that she threw at us.\n\nOrpheus Bowen\n\n\nPREJUDICE, n.  A vagrant opinion without visible means of support.\n\nPRELATE, n.  A church officer having a superior degree of holiness and\na fat preferment.  One of Heaven's aristocracy.  A gentleman of God.\n\nPREROGATIVE, n.  A sovereign's right to do wrong.\n\nPRESBYTERIAN, n.  One who holds the conviction that the government\nauthorities of the Church should be called presbyters.\n\nPRESCRIPTION, n.  A physician's guess at what will best prolong the\nsituation with least harm to the patient.\n\nPRESENT, n.  That part of eternity dividing the domain of\ndisappointment from the realm of hope.\n\nPRESENTABLE, adj.  Hideously appareled after the manner of the time\nand place.\n\nIn Boorioboola-Gha a man is presentable on occasions of ceremony\nif he have his abdomen painted a bright blue and wear a cow's tail; in\nNew York he may, if it please him, omit the paint, but after sunset he\nmust wear two tails made of the wool of a sheep and dyed black.\n\nPRESIDE, v.  To guide the action of a deliberative body to a desirable\nresult.  In Journalese, to perform upon a musical instrument; as, \"He\npresided at the piccolo.\"\n\n  The Headliner, holding the copy in hand,\n      Read with a solemn face:\n  \"The music was very uncommonly grand--\n          The best that was every provided,\n          For our townsman Brown presided\n      At the organ with skill and grace.\"\n  The Headliner discontinued to read,\n      And, spread the paper down\n  On the desk, he dashed in at the top of the screed:\n      \"Great playing by President Brown.\"\n\nOrpheus Bowen\n\n\nPRESIDENCY, n.  The greased pig in the field game of American\npolitics.\n\nPRESIDENT, n.  The leading figure in a small group of men of whom--\nand of whom only--it is positively known that immense numbers of\ntheir countrymen did not want any of them for President.\n\n  If that's an honor surely 'tis a greater\n  To have been a simple and undamned spectator.\n  Behold in me a man of mark and note\n  Whom no elector e'er denied a vote!--\n  An undiscredited, unhooted gent\n  Who might, for all we know, be President\n  By acclamation.  Cheer, ye varlets, cheer--\n  I'm passing with a wide and open ear!\n\nJonathan Fomry\n\n\nPREVARICATOR, n.  A liar in the caterpillar state.\n\nPRICE, n.  Value, plus a reasonable sum for the wear and tear of\nconscience in demanding it.\n\nPRIMATE, n.  The head of a church, especially a State church supported\nby involuntary contributions.  The Primate of England is the\nArchbishop of Canterbury, an amiable old gentleman, who occupies\nLambeth Palace when living and Westminster Abbey when dead.  He is\ncommonly dead.\n\nPRISON, n.  A place of punishments and rewards.  The poet assures us\nthat--\n\n  \"Stone walls do not a prison make,\"\n\nbut a combination of the stone wall, the political parasite and the\nmoral instructor is no garden of sweets.\n\nPRIVATE, n.  A military gentleman with a field-marshal's baton in his\nknapsack and an impediment in his hope.\n\nPROBOSCIS, n.  The rudimentary organ of an elephant which serves him\nin place of the knife-and-fork that Evolution has as yet denied him.\nFor purposes of humor it is popularly called a trunk.\n\nAsked how he knew that an elephant was going on a journey, the\nillustrious Jo. Miller cast a reproachful look upon his tormentor, and\nanswered, absently:  \"When it is ajar,\" and threw himself from a high\npromontory into the sea.  Thus perished in his pride the most famous\nhumorist of antiquity, leaving to mankind a heritage of woe!  No\nsuccessor worthy of the title has appeared, though Mr. Edward Bok, of\n_The Ladies' Home Journal_, is much respected for the purity and\nsweetness of his personal character.\n\nPROJECTILE, n.  The final arbiter in international disputes.  Formerly\nthese disputes were settled by physical contact of the disputants,\nwith such simple arguments as the rudimentary logic of the times could\nsupply--the sword, the spear, and so forth.  With the growth of\nprudence in military affairs the projectile came more and more into\nfavor, and is now held in high esteem by the most courageous.  Its\ncapital defect is that it requires personal attendance at the point of\npropulsion.\n\nPROOF, n.  Evidence having a shade more of plausibility than of\nunlikelihood.  The testimony of two credible witnesses as opposed to\nthat of only one.\n\nPROOF-READER, n.  A malefactor who atones for making your writing\nnonsense by permitting the compositor to make it unintelligible.\n\nPROPERTY, n.  Any material thing, having no particular value, that may\nbe held by A against the cupidity of B.  Whatever gratifies the\npassion for possession in one and disappoints it in all others.  The\nobject of man's brief rapacity and long indifference.\n\nPROPHECY, n.  The art and practice of selling one's credibility for\nfuture delivery.\n\nPROSPECT, n.  An outlook, usually forbidding.  An expectation, usually\nforbidden.\n\n  Blow, blow, ye spicy breezes--\n      O'er Ceylon blow your breath,\n  Where every prospect pleases,\n      Save only that of death.\n\nBishop Sheber\n\n\nPROVIDENTIAL, adj.  Unexpectedly and conspicuously beneficial to the\nperson so describing it.\n\nPRUDE, n.  A bawd hiding behind the back of her demeanor.\n\nPUBLISH, n.  In literary affairs, to become the fundamental element in\na cone of critics.\n\nPUSH, n.  One of the two things mainly conducive to success,\nespecially in politics.  The other is Pull.\n\nPYRRHONISM, n.  An ancient philosophy, named for its inventor.  It\nconsisted of an absolute disbelief in everything but Pyrrhonism.  Its\nmodern professors have added that.\n\n\n\n\nQ\n\n\n\nQUEEN, n.  A woman by whom the realm is ruled when there is a king,\nand through whom it is ruled when there is not.\n\nQUILL, n.  An implement of torture yielded by a goose and commonly\nwielded by an ass.  This use of the quill is now obsolete, but its\nmodern equivalent, the steel pen, is wielded by the same everlasting\nPresence.\n\nQUIVER, n.  A portable sheath in which the ancient statesman and the\naboriginal lawyer carried their lighter arguments.\n\n  He extracted from his quiver,\n      Did the controversial Roman,\n  An argument well fitted\n  To the question as submitted,\n  Then addressed it to the liver,\n      Of the unpersuaded foeman.\n\nOglum P. Boomp\n\n\nQUIXOTIC, adj.  Absurdly chivalric, like Don Quixote.  An insight into\nthe beauty and excellence of this incomparable adjective is unhappily\ndenied to him who has the misfortune to know that the gentleman's name\nis pronounced Ke-ho-tay.\n\n  When ignorance from out of our lives can banish\n  Philology, 'tis folly to know Spanish.\n\nJuan Smith\n\n\nQUORUM, n.  A sufficient number of members of a deliberative body to\nhave their own way and their own way of having it.  In the United\nStates Senate a quorum consists of the chairman of the Committee on\nFinance and a messenger from the White House; in the House of\nRepresentatives, of the Speaker and the devil.\n\nQUOTATION, n.  The act of repeating erroneously the words of another.\nThe words erroneously repeated.\n\n  Intent on making his quotation truer,\n  He sought the page infallible of Brewer,\n  Then made a solemn vow that he would be\n  Condemned eternally.  Ah, me, ah, me!\n\nStumpo Gaker\n\n\nQUOTIENT, n.  A number showing how many times a sum of money belonging\nto one person is contained in the pocket of another--usually about\nas many times as it can be got there.\n\n\n\n\nR\n\n\n\nRABBLE, n.  In a republic, those who exercise a supreme authority\ntempered by fraudulent elections.  The rabble is like the sacred\nSimurgh, of Arabian fable--omnipotent on condition that it do\nnothing.  (The word is Aristocratese, and has no exact equivalent in\nour tongue, but means, as nearly as may be, \"soaring swine.\")\n\nRACK, n.  An argumentative implement formerly much used in persuading\ndevotees of a false faith to embrace the living truth.  As a call to\nthe unconverted the rack never had any particular efficacy, and is now\nheld in light popular esteem.\n\nRANK, n.  Relative elevation in the scale of human worth.\n\n  He held at court a rank so high\n  That other noblemen asked why.\n  \"Because,\" 'twas answered, \"others lack\n  His skill to scratch the royal back.\"\n\nAramis Jukes\n\n\nRANSOM, n.  The purchase of that which neither belongs to the seller,\nnor can belong to the buyer.  The most unprofitable of investments.\n\nRAPACITY, n.  Providence without industry.  The thrift of power.\n\nRAREBIT, n.  A Welsh rabbit, in the speech of the humorless, who point\nout that it is not a rabbit.  To whom it may be solemnly explained\nthat the comestible known as toad-in-a-hole is really not a toad, and\nthat _riz-de-veau a la financiere_ is not the smile of a calf prepared\nafter the recipe of a she banker.\n\nRASCAL, n.  A fool considered under another aspect.\n\nRASCALITY, n.  Stupidity militant.  The activity of a clouded\nintellect.\n\nRASH, adj.  Insensible to the value of our advice.\n\n  \"Now lay your bet with mine, nor let\n      These gamblers take your cash.\"\n  \"Nay, this child makes no bet.\"  \"Great snakes!\n      How can you be so rash?\"\n\nBootle P. Gish\n\n\nRATIONAL, adj.  Devoid of all delusions save those of observation,\nexperience and reflection.\n\nRATTLESNAKE, n.  Our prostrate brother, _Homo ventrambulans_.\n\nRAZOR, n.  An instrument used by the Caucasian to enhance his beauty,\nby the Mongolian to make a guy of himself, and by the Afro-American to\naffirm his worth.\n\nREACH, n.  The radius of action of the human hand.  The area within\nwhich it is possible (and customary) to gratify directly the\npropensity to provide.\n\n  This is a truth, as old as the hills,\n      That life and experience teach:\n  The poor man suffers that keenest of ills,\n      An impediment in his reach.\n\nG.J.\n\n\nREADING, n.  The general body of what one reads.  In our country it\nconsists, as a rule, of Indiana novels, short stories in \"dialect\" and\nhumor in slang.\n\n  We know by one's reading\n  His learning and breeding;\n  By what draws his laughter\n  We know his Hereafter.\n  Read nothing, laugh never--\n  The Sphinx was less clever!\n\nJupiter Muke\n\n\nRADICALISM, n.  The conservatism of to-morrow injected into the\naffairs of to-day.\n\nRADIUM, n.  A mineral that gives off heat and stimulates the organ\nthat a scientist is a fool with.\n\nRAILROAD, n.  The chief of many mechanical devices enabling us to get\naway from where we are to where we are no better off.  For this purpose\nthe railroad is held in highest favor by the optimist, for it permits\nhim to make the transit with great expedition.\n\nRAMSHACKLE, adj.  Pertaining to a certain order of architecture,\notherwise known as the Normal American.  Most of the public buildings\nof the United States are of the Ramshackle order, though some of our\nearlier architects preferred the Ironic.  Recent additions to the\nWhite House in Washington are Theo-Doric, the ecclesiastic order of\nthe Dorians.  They are exceedingly fine and cost one hundred dollars a\nbrick.\n\nREALISM, n.  The art of depicting nature as it is seen by toads.  The\ncharm suffusing a landscape painted by a mole, or a story written by a\nmeasuring-worm.\n\nREALITY, n.  The dream of a mad philosopher.  That which would remain\nin the cupel if one should assay a phantom.  The nucleus of a vacuum.\n\nREALLY, adv.  Apparently.\n\nREAR, n.  In American military matters, that exposed part of the army\nthat is nearest to Congress.\n\nREASON, v.i.  To weigh probabilities in the scales of desire.\n\nREASON, n.  Propensitate of prejudice.\n\nREASONABLE, adj.  Accessible to the infection of our own opinions.\nHospitable to persuasion, dissuasion and evasion.\n\nREBEL, n.  A proponent of a new misrule who has failed to establish\nit.\n\nRECOLLECT, v.  To recall with additions something not previously\nknown.\n\nRECONCILIATION, n.  A suspension of hostilities.  An armed truce for\nthe purpose of digging up the dead.\n\nRECONSIDER, v.  To seek a justification for a decision already made.\n\nRECOUNT, n.  In American politics, another throw of the dice, accorded\nto the player against whom they are loaded.\n\nRECREATION, n.  A particular kind of dejection to relieve a general\nfatigue.\n\nRECRUIT, n.  A person distinguishable from a civilian by his uniform\nand from a soldier by his gait.\n\n  Fresh from the farm or factory or street,\n  His marching, in pursuit or in retreat,\n      Were an impressive martial spectacle\n  Except for two impediments--his feet.\n\nThompson Johnson\n\n\nRECTOR, n.  In the Church of England, the Third Person of the\nparochial Trinity, the Curate and the Vicar being the other two.\n\nREDEMPTION, n.  Deliverance of sinners from the penalty of their sin,\nthrough their murder of the deity against whom they sinned.  The\ndoctrine of Redemption is the fundamental mystery of our holy\nreligion, and whoso believeth in it shall not perish, but have\neverlasting life in which to try to understand it.\n\n  We must awake Man's spirit from his sin,\n      And take some special measure for redeeming it;\n  Though hard indeed the task to get it in\n      Among the angels any way but teaming it,\n      Or purify it otherwise than steaming it.\n  I'm awkward at Redemption--a beginner:\n  My method is to crucify the sinner.\n\nGolgo Brone\n\n\nREDRESS, n.  Reparation without satisfaction.\n\nAmong the Anglo-Saxon a subject conceiving himself wronged by the\nking was permitted, on proving his injury, to beat a brazen image of\nthe royal offender with a switch that was afterward applied to his own\nnaked back.  The latter rite was performed by the public hangman, and\nit assured moderation in the plaintiff's choice of a switch.\n\nRED-SKIN, n.  A North American Indian, whose skin is not red--at\nleast not on the outside.\n\nREDUNDANT, adj.  Superfluous; needless; _de trop_.\n\n  The Sultan said:  \"There's evidence abundant\n  To prove this unbelieving dog redundant.\"\n  To whom the Grand Vizier, with mien impressive,\n  Replied:  \"His head, at least, appears excessive.\"\n\nHabeeb Suleiman\n\n\n  Mr. Debs is a redundant citizen.\n\nTheodore Roosevelt\n\n\nREFERENDUM, n.  A law for submission of proposed legislation to a\npopular vote to learn the nonsensus of public opinion.\n\nREFLECTION, n.  An action of the mind whereby we obtain a clearer view\nof our relation to the things of yesterday and are able to avoid the\nperils that we shall not again encounter.\n\nREFORM, v.  A thing that mostly satisfies reformers opposed to\nreformation.\n\nREFUGE, n.  Anything assuring protection to one in peril.  Moses and\nJoshua provided six cities of refuge--Bezer, Golan, Ramoth, Kadesh,\nSchekem and Hebron--to which one who had taken life inadvertently\ncould flee when hunted by relatives of the deceased.  This admirable\nexpedient supplied him with wholesome exercise and enabled them to\nenjoy the pleasures of the chase; whereby the soul of the dead man was\nappropriately honored by observances akin to the funeral games of\nearly Greece.\n\nREFUSAL, n.  Denial of something desired; as an elderly maiden's hand\nin marriage, to a rich and handsome suitor; a valuable franchise to a\nrich corporation, by an alderman; absolution to an impenitent king, by\na priest, and so forth.  Refusals are graded in a descending scale of\nfinality thus:  the refusal absolute, the refusal conditional, the\nrefusal tentative and the refusal feminine.  The last is called by\nsome casuists the refusal assentive.\n\nREGALIA, n.  Distinguishing insignia, jewels and costume of such\nancient and honorable orders as Knights of Adam; Visionaries of\nDetectable Bosh; the Ancient Order of Modern Troglodytes; the League\nof Holy Humbug; the Golden Phalanx of Phalangers; the Genteel Society\nof Expurgated Hoodlums; the Mystic Alliances of Gorgeous Regalians;\nKnights and Ladies of the Yellow Dog; the Oriental Order of Sons of\nthe West; the Blatherhood of Insufferable Stuff; Warriors of the Long\nBow; Guardians of the Great Horn Spoon; the Band of Brutes; the\nImpenitent Order of Wife-Beaters; the Sublime Legion of Flamboyant\nConspicuants; Worshipers at the Electroplated Shrine; Shining\nInaccessibles; Fee-Faw-Fummers of the Inimitable Grip; Jannissaries of\nthe Broad-Blown Peacock; Plumed Increscencies of the Magic Temple; the\nGrand Cabal of Able-Bodied Sedentarians; Associated Deities of the\nButter Trade; the Garden of Galoots; the Affectionate Fraternity of\nMen Similarly Warted; the Flashing Astonishers; Ladies of Horror;\nCooperative Association for Breaking into the Spotlight; Dukes of Eden;\nDisciples Militant of the Hidden Faith; Knights-Champions of the\nDomestic Dog; the Holy Gregarians; the Resolute Optimists; the Ancient\nSodality of Inhospitable Hogs; Associated Sovereigns of Mendacity;\nDukes-Guardian of the Mystic Cess-Pool; the Society for Prevention of\nPrevalence; Kings of Drink; Polite Federation of Gents-Consequential;\nthe Mysterious Order of the Undecipherable Scroll; Uniformed Rank of\nLousy Cats; Monarchs of Worth and Hunger; Sons of the South Star;\nPrelates of the Tub-and-Sword.\n\nRELIGION, n.  A daughter of Hope and Fear, explaining to Ignorance the\nnature of the Unknowable.\n\n  \"What is your religion my son?\" inquired the Archbishop of Rheims.\n  \"Pardon, monseigneur,\" replied Rochebriant; \"I am ashamed of it.\"\n  \"Then why do you not become an atheist?\"\n  \"Impossible!  I should be ashamed of atheism.\"\n  \"In that case, monsieur, you should join the Protestants.\"\n\nRELIQUARY, n.  A receptacle for such sacred objects as pieces of the\ntrue cross, short-ribs of the saints, the ears of Balaam's ass, the\nlung of the cock that called Peter to repentance and so forth.\nReliquaries are commonly of metal, and provided with a lock to prevent\nthe contents from coming out and performing miracles at unseasonable\ntimes.  A feather from the wing of the Angel of the Annunciation once\nescaped during a sermon in Saint Peter's and so tickled the noses of\nthe congregation that they woke and sneezed with great vehemence three\ntimes each.  It is related in the \"Gesta Sanctorum\" that a sacristan\nin the Canterbury cathedral surprised the head of Saint Dennis in the\nlibrary.  Reprimanded by its stern custodian, it explained that it was\nseeking a body of doctrine.  This unseemly levity so raged the\ndiocesan that the offender was publicly anathematized, thrown into the\nStour and replaced by another head of Saint Dennis, brought from Rome.\n\nRENOWN, n.  A degree of distinction between notoriety and fame--a\nlittle more supportable than the one and a little more intolerable\nthan the other.  Sometimes it is conferred by an unfriendly and\ninconsiderate hand.\n\n  I touched the harp in every key,\n      But found no heeding ear;\n  And then Ithuriel touched me\n      With a revealing spear.\n\n  Not all my genius, great as 'tis,\n      Could urge me out of night.\n  I felt the faint appulse of his,\n      And leapt into the light!\n\nW.J. Candleton\n\n\nREPARATION, n.  Satisfaction that is made for a wrong and deducted\nfrom the satisfaction felt in committing it.\n\nREPARTEE, n.  Prudent insult in retort.  Practiced by gentlemen with a\nconstitutional aversion to violence, but a strong disposition to\noffend.  In a war of words, the tactics of the North American Indian.\n\nREPENTANCE, n.  The faithful attendant and follower of Punishment.  It\nis usually manifest in a degree of reformation that is not\ninconsistent with continuity of sin.\n\n  Desirous to avoid the pains of Hell,\n  You will repent and join the Church, Parnell?\n  How needless!--Nick will keep you off the coals\n  And add you to the woes of other souls.\n\nJomater Abemy\n\n\nREPLICA, n.  A reproduction of a work of art, by the artist that made\nthe original.  It is so called to distinguish it from a \"copy,\" which\nis made by another artist.  When the two are made with equal skill the\nreplica is the more valuable, for it is supposed to be more beautiful\nthan it looks.\n\nREPORTER, n.  A writer who guesses his way to the truth and dispels it\nwith a tempest of words.\n\n  \"More dear than all my bosom knows, O thou\n  Whose 'lips are sealed' and will not disavow!\"\n  So sang the blithe reporter-man as grew\n  Beneath his hand the leg-long \"interview.\"\n\nBarson Maith\n\n\nREPOSE, v.i.  To cease from troubling.\n\nREPRESENTATIVE, n.  In national politics, a member of the Lower House\nin this world, and without discernible hope of promotion in the next.\n\nREPROBATION, n.  In theology, the state of a luckless mortal\nprenatally damned.  The doctrine of reprobation was taught by Calvin,\nwhose joy in it was somewhat marred by the sad sincerity of his\nconviction that although some are foredoomed to perdition, others are\npredestined to salvation.\n\nREPUBLIC, n.  A nation in which, the thing governing and the thing\ngoverned being the same, there is only a permitted authority to\nenforce an optional obedience.  In a republic, the foundation of\npublic order is the ever lessening habit of submission inherited from\nancestors who, being truly governed, submitted because they had to.\nThere are as many kinds of republics as there are graduations between\nthe despotism whence they came and the anarchy whither they lead.\n\nREQUIEM, n.  A mass for the dead which the minor poets assure us the\nwinds sing o'er the graves of their favorites.  Sometimes, by way of\nproviding a varied entertainment, they sing a dirge.\n\nRESIDENT, adj.  Unable to leave.\n\nRESIGN, v.t.  To renounce an honor for an advantage.  To renounce an\nadvantage for a greater advantage.\n\n  'Twas rumored Leonard Wood had signed\n      A true renunciation\n  Of title, rank and every kind\n      Of military station--\n      Each honorable station.\n\n  By his example fired--inclined\n      To noble emulation,\n  The country humbly was resigned\n      To Leonard's resignation--\n      His Christian resignation.\n\nPolitian Greame\n\n\nRESOLUTE, adj.  Obstinate in a course that we approve.\n\nRESPECTABILITY, n.  The offspring of a _liaison_ between a bald head\nand a bank account.\n\nRESPIRATOR, n.  An apparatus fitted over the nose and mouth of an\ninhabitant of London, whereby to filter the visible universe in its\npassage to the lungs.\n\nRESPITE, n.  A suspension of hostilities against a sentenced assassin,\nto enable the Executive to determine whether the murder may not have\nbeen done by the prosecuting attorney.  Any break in the continuity of\na disagreeable expectation.\n\n  Altgeld upon his incandescent bed\n  Lay, an attendant demon at his head.\n\n  \"O cruel cook, pray grant me some relief--\n  Some respite from the roast, however brief.\"\n\n  \"Remember how on earth I pardoned all\n  Your friends in Illinois when held in thrall.\"\n\n  \"Unhappy soul! for that alone you squirm\n  O'er fire unquenched, a never-dying worm.\n\n  \"Yet, for I pity your uneasy state,\n  Your doom I'll mollify and pains abate.\n\n  \"Naught, for a season, shall your comfort mar,\n  Not even the memory of who you are.\"\n\n  Throughout eternal space dread silence fell;\n  Heaven trembled as Compassion entered Hell.\n\n  \"As long, sweet demon, let my respite be\n  As, governing down here, I'd respite thee.\"\n\n  \"As long, poor soul, as any of the pack\n  You thrust from jail consumed in getting back.\"\n\n  A genial chill affected Altgeld's hide\n  While they were turning him on t'other side.\n\nJoel Spate Woop\n\n\nRESPLENDENT, adj.  Like a simple American citizen beduking himself in\nhis lodge, or affirming his consequence in the Scheme of Things as an\nelemental unit of a parade.\n\n      The Knights of Dominion were so resplendent in their velvet-\n  and-gold that their masters would hardly have known them.\n\n\"Chronicles of the Classes\"\n\n\nRESPOND, v.i.  To make answer, or disclose otherwise a consciousness\nof having inspired an interest in what Herbert Spencer calls \"external\ncoexistences,\" as Satan \"squat like a toad\" at the ear of Eve,\nresponded to the touch of the angel's spear.  To respond in damages is\nto contribute to the maintenance of the plaintiff's attorney and,\nincidentally, to the gratification of the plaintiff.\n\nRESPONSIBILITY, n.  A detachable burden easily shifted to the\nshoulders of God, Fate, Fortune, Luck or one's neighbor.  In the days\nof astrology it was customary to unload it upon a star.\n\n  Alas, things ain't what we should see\n  If Eve had let that apple be;\n  And many a feller which had ought\n  To set with monarchses of thought,\n  Or play some rosy little game\n  With battle-chaps on fields of fame,\n  Is downed by his unlucky star\n  And hollers:  \"Peanuts!--here you are!\"\n\n\"The Sturdy Beggar\"\n\n\nRESTITUTION, n.  The founding or endowing of universities and public\nlibraries by gift or bequest.\n\nRESTITUTOR, n.  Benefactor; philanthropist.\n\nRETALIATION, n.  The natural rock upon which is reared the Temple of\nLaw.\n\nRETRIBUTION, n.  A rain of fire-and-brimstone that falls alike upon\nthe just and such of the unjust as have not procured shelter by\nevicting them.\n\nIn the lines following, addressed to an Emperor in exile by Father\nGassalasca Jape, the reverend poet appears to hint his sense of the\nimprudence of turning about to face Retribution when it is taking\nexercise:\n\n  What, what! Dom Pedro, you desire to go\n      Back to Brazil to end your days in quiet?\n  Why, what assurance have you 'twould be so?\n      'Tis not so long since you were in a riot,\n      And your dear subjects showed a will to fly at\n  Your throat and shake you like a rat.  You know\n  That empires are ungrateful; are you certain\n  Republics are less handy to get hurt in?\n\nREVEILLE, n.  A signal to sleeping soldiers to dream of battlefields\nno more, but get up and have their blue noses counted.  In the\nAmerican army it is ingeniously called \"rev-e-lee,\" and to that\npronunciation our countrymen have pledged their lives, their\nmisfortunes and their sacred dishonor.\n\nREVELATION, n.  A famous book in which St. John the Divine concealed\nall that he knew.  The revealing is done by the commentators, who know\nnothing.\n\nREVERENCE, n.  The spiritual attitude of a man to a god and a dog to a\nman.\n\nREVIEW, v.t.\n\n  To set your wisdom (holding not a doubt of it,\n      Although in truth there's neither bone nor skin to it)\n  At work upon a book, and so read out of it\n      The qualities that you have first read into it.\n\nREVOLUTION, n.  In politics, an abrupt change in the form of\nmisgovernment.  Specifically, in American history, the substitution of\nthe rule of an Administration for that of a Ministry, whereby the\nwelfare and happiness of the people were advanced a full half-inch.\nRevolutions are usually accompanied by a considerable effusion of\nblood, but are accounted worth it--this appraisement being made by\nbeneficiaries whose blood had not the mischance to be shed.  The\nFrench revolution is of incalculable value to the Socialist of to-day;\nwhen he pulls the string actuating its bones its gestures are\ninexpressibly terrifying to gory tyrants suspected of fomenting law\nand order.\n\nRHADOMANCER, n.  One who uses a divining-rod in prospecting for\nprecious metals in the pocket of a fool.\n\nRIBALDRY, n.  Censorious language by another concerning oneself.\n\nRIBROASTER, n.  Censorious language by oneself concerning another.\nThe word is of classical refinement, and is even said to have been\nused in a fable by Georgius Coadjutor, one of the most fastidious\nwriters of the fifteenth century--commonly, indeed, regarded as the\nfounder of the Fastidiotic School.\n\nRICE-WATER, n.  A mystic beverage secretly used by our most popular\nnovelists and poets to regulate the imagination and narcotize the\nconscience.  It is said to be rich in both obtundite and lethargine,\nand is brewed in a midnight fog by a fat witch of the Dismal Swamp.\n\nRICH, adj.  Holding in trust and subject to an accounting the property\nof the indolent, the incompetent, the unthrifty, the envious and the\nluckless.  That is the view that prevails in the underworld, where the\nBrotherhood of Man finds its most logical development and candid\nadvocacy.  To denizens of the midworld the word means good and wise.\n\nRICHES, n.\n\n      A gift from Heaven signifying, \"This is my beloved son, in\n  whom I am well pleased.\"\n\nJohn D. Rockefeller\n\n\n      The reward of toil and virtue.\n\nJ.P. Morgan\n\n\n      The savings of many in the hands of one.\n\nEugene Debs\n\nTo these excellent definitions the inspired lexicographer feels\nthat he can add nothing of value.\n\nRIDICULE, n.  Words designed to show that the person of whom they are\nuttered is devoid of the dignity of character distinguishing him who\nutters them.  It may be graphic, mimetic or merely rident.\nShaftesbury is quoted as having pronounced it the test of truth--a\nridiculous assertion, for many a solemn fallacy has undergone\ncenturies of ridicule with no abatement of its popular acceptance.\nWhat, for example, has been more valorously derided than the doctrine\nof Infant Respectability?\n\nRIGHT, n.  Legitimate authority to be, to do or to have; as the right\nto be a king, the right to do one's neighbor, the right to have\nmeasles, and the like.  The first of these rights was once universally\nbelieved to be derived directly from the will of God; and this is\nstill sometimes affirmed _in partibus infidelium_ outside the\nenlightened realms of Democracy; as the well known lines of Sir\nAbednego Bink, following:\n\n      By what right, then, do royal rulers rule?\n          Whose is the sanction of their state and pow'r?\n      He surely were as stubborn as a mule\n          Who, God unwilling, could maintain an hour\n  His uninvited session on the throne, or air\n  His pride securely in the Presidential chair.\n\n      Whatever is is so by Right Divine;\n          Whate'er occurs, God wills it so.  Good land!\n      It were a wondrous thing if His design\n          A fool could baffle or a rogue withstand!\n  If so, then God, I say (intending no offence)\n  Is guilty of contributory negligence.\n\nRIGHTEOUSNESS, n.  A sturdy virtue that was once found among the\nPantidoodles inhabiting the lower part of the peninsula of Oque.  Some\nfeeble attempts were made by returned missionaries to introduce it\ninto several European countries, but it appears to have been\nimperfectly expounded.  An example of this faulty exposition is found\nin the only extant sermon of the pious Bishop Rowley, a characteristic\npassage from which is here given:\n\n      \"Now righteousness consisteth not merely in a holy state of\n  mind, nor yet in performance of religious rites and obedience to\n  the letter of the law.  It is not enough that one be pious and\n  just:  one must see to it that others also are in the same state;\n  and to this end compulsion is a proper means.  Forasmuch as my\n  injustice may work ill to another, so by his injustice may evil be\n  wrought upon still another, the which it is as manifestly my duty\n  to estop as to forestall mine own tort.  Wherefore if I would be\n  righteous I am bound to restrain my neighbor, by force if needful,\n  in all those injurious enterprises from which, through a better\n  disposition and by the help of Heaven, I do myself refrain.\"\n\nRIME, n.  Agreeing sounds in the terminals of verse, mostly bad.  The\nverses themselves, as distinguished from prose, mostly dull.  Usually\n(and wickedly) spelled \"rhyme.\"\n\nRIMER, n.  A poet regarded with indifference or disesteem.\n\n  The rimer quenches his unheeded fires,\n  The sound surceases and the sense expires.\n  Then the domestic dog, to east and west,\n  Expounds the passions burning in his breast.\n  The rising moon o'er that enchanted land\n  Pauses to hear and yearns to understand.\n\nMowbray Myles\n\n\nRIOT, n.  A popular entertainment given to the military by innocent\nbystanders.\n\nR.I.P.  A careless abbreviation of _requiescat in pace_, attesting an\nindolent goodwill to the dead.  According to the learned Dr. Drigge,\nhowever, the letters originally meant nothing more than _reductus in\npulvis_.\n\nRITE, n.  A religious or semi-religious ceremony fixed by law, precept\nor custom, with the essential oil of sincerity carefully squeezed out\nof it.\n\nRITUALISM, n.  A Dutch Garden of God where He may walk in rectilinear\nfreedom, keeping off the grass.\n\nROAD, n.  A strip of land along which one may pass from where it is\ntoo tiresome to be to where it is futile to go.\n\n  All roads, howsoe'er they diverge, lead to Rome,\n  Whence, thank the good Lord, at least one leads back home.\n\nBorey the Bald\n\n\nROBBER, n.  A candid man of affairs.\n  It is related of Voltaire that one night he and some traveling\ncompanion lodged at a wayside inn.  The surroundings were suggestive,\nand after supper they agreed to tell robber stories in turn.  \"Once\nthere was a Farmer-General of the Revenues.\"  Saying nothing more, he\nwas encouraged to continue.  \"That,\" he said, \"is the story.\"\n\nROMANCE, n.  Fiction that owes no allegiance to the God of Things as\nThey Are.  In the novel the writer's thought is tethered to\nprobability, as a domestic horse to the hitching-post, but in romance\nit ranges at will over the entire region of the imagination--free,\nlawless, immune to bit and rein.  Your novelist is a poor creature, as\nCarlyle might say--a mere reporter.  He may invent his characters\nand plot, but he must not imagine anything taking place that might not\noccur, albeit his entire narrative is candidly a lie.  Why he imposes\nthis hard condition on himself, and \"drags at each remove a\nlengthening chain\" of his own forging he can explain in ten thick\nvolumes without illuminating by so much as a candle's ray the black\nprofound of his own ignorance of the matter.  There are great novels,\nfor great writers have \"laid waste their powers\" to write them, but it\nremains true that far and away the most fascinating fiction that we\nhave is \"The Thousand and One Nights.\"\n\nROPE, n.  An obsolescent appliance for reminding assassins that they\ntoo are mortal.  It is put about the neck and remains in place one's\nwhole life long.  It has been largely superseded by a more complex\nelectrical device worn upon another part of the person; and this is\nrapidly giving place to an apparatus known as the preachment.\n\nROSTRUM, n.  In Latin, the beak of a bird or the prow of a ship.  In\nAmerica, a place from which a candidate for office energetically\nexpounds the wisdom, virtue and power of the rabble.\n\nROUNDHEAD, n.  A member of the Parliamentarian party in the English\ncivil war--so called from his habit of wearing his hair short,\nwhereas his enemy, the Cavalier, wore his long.  There were other\npoints of difference between them, but the fashion in hair was the\nfundamental cause of quarrel.  The Cavaliers were royalists because\nthe king, an indolent fellow, found it more convenient to let his hair\ngrow than to wash his neck.  This the Roundheads, who were mostly\nbarbers and soap-boilers, deemed an injury to trade, and the royal\nneck was therefore the object of their particular indignation.\nDescendants of the belligerents now wear their hair all alike, but the\nfires of animosity enkindled in that ancient strife smoulder to this\nday beneath the snows of British civility.\n\nRUBBISH, n.  Worthless matter, such as the religions, philosophies,\nliteratures, arts and sciences of the tribes infesting the regions\nlying due south from Boreaplas.\n\nRUIN, v.  To destroy.  Specifically, to destroy a maid's belief in the\nvirtue of maids.\n\nRUM, n.  Generically, fiery liquors that produce madness in total\nabstainers.\n\nRUMOR, n.  A favorite weapon of the assassins of character.\n\n  Sharp, irresistible by mail or shield,\n      By guard unparried as by flight unstayed,\n  O serviceable Rumor, let me wield\n      Against my enemy no other blade.\n  His be the terror of a foe unseen,\n      His the inutile hand upon the hilt,\n  And mine the deadly tongue, long, slender, keen,\n      Hinting a rumor of some ancient guilt.\n  So shall I slay the wretch without a blow,\n  Spare me to celebrate his overthrow,\n  And nurse my valor for another foe.\n\nJoel Buxter\n\n\nRUSSIAN, n.  A person with a Caucasian body and a Mongolian soul.  A\nTartar Emetic.\n\n\n\n\nS\n\n\n\nSABBATH, n.  A weekly festival having its origin in the fact that God\nmade the world in six days and was arrested on the seventh.  Among the\nJews observance of the day was enforced by a Commandment of which this\nis the Christian version:  \"Remember the seventh day to make thy\nneighbor keep it wholly.\"  To the Creator it seemed fit and expedient\nthat the Sabbath should be the last day of the week, but the Early\nFathers of the Church held other views.  So great is the sanctity of\nthe day that even where the Lord holds a doubtful and precarious\njurisdiction over those who go down to (and down into) the sea it is\nreverently recognized, as is manifest in the following deep-water\nversion of the Fourth Commandment:\n\n  Six days shalt thou labor and do all thou art able,\n  And on the seventh holystone the deck and scrape the cable.\n\nDecks are no longer holystoned, but the cable still supplies the\ncaptain with opportunity to attest a pious respect for the divine\nordinance.\n\nSACERDOTALIST, n.  One who holds the belief that a clergyman is a\npriest.  Denial of this momentous doctrine is the hardest challenge\nthat is now flung into the teeth of the Episcopalian church by the\nNeo-Dictionarians.\n\nSACRAMENT, n.  A solemn religious ceremony to which several degrees of\nauthority and significance are attached.  Rome has seven sacraments,\nbut the Protestant churches, being less prosperous, feel that they can\nafford only two, and these of inferior sanctity.  Some of the smaller\nsects have no sacraments at all--for which mean economy they will\nindubitable be damned.\n\nSACRED, adj.  Dedicated to some religious purpose; having a divine\ncharacter; inspiring solemn thoughts or emotions; as, the Dalai Lama\nof Thibet; the Moogum of M'bwango; the temple of Apes in Ceylon; the\nCow in India; the Crocodile, the Cat and the Onion of ancient Egypt;\nthe Mufti of Moosh; the hair of the dog that bit Noah, etc.\n\n  All things are either sacred or profane.\n  The former to ecclesiasts bring gain;\n  The latter to the devil appertain.\n\nDumbo Omohundro\n\n\nSANDLOTTER, n.  A vertebrate mammal holding the political views of\nDenis Kearney, a notorious demagogue of San Francisco, whose audiences\ngathered in the open spaces (sandlots) of the town.  True to the\ntraditions of his species, this leader of the proletariat was finally\nbought off by his law-and-order enemies, living prosperously silent\nand dying impenitently rich.  But before his treason he imposed upon\nCalifornia a constitution that was a confection of sin in a diction of\nsolecisms.  The similarity between the words \"sandlotter\" and\n\"sansculotte\" is problematically significant, but indubitably\nsuggestive.\n\nSAFETY-CLUTCH, n.  A mechanical device acting automatically to prevent\nthe fall of an elevator, or cage, in case of an accident to the\nhoisting apparatus.\n\n  Once I seen a human ruin\n      In an elevator-well,\n  And his members was bestrewin'\n      All the place where he had fell.\n\n  And I says, apostrophisin'\n      That uncommon woful wreck:\n  \"Your position's so surprisin'\n      That I tremble for your neck!\"\n\n  Then that ruin, smilin' sadly\n      And impressive, up and spoke:\n  \"Well, I wouldn't tremble badly,\n      For it's been a fortnight broke.\"\n\n  Then, for further comprehension\n      Of his attitude, he begs\n  I will focus my attention\n      On his various arms and legs--\n\n  How they all are contumacious;\n      Where they each, respective, lie;\n  How one trotter proves ungracious,\n      T'other one an _alibi_.\n\n  These particulars is mentioned\n      For to show his dismal state,\n  Which I wasn't first intentioned\n      To specifical relate.\n\n  None is worser to be dreaded\n      That I ever have heard tell\n  Than the gent's who there was spreaded\n      In that elevator-well.\n\n  Now this tale is allegoric--\n      It is figurative all,\n  For the well is metaphoric\n      And the feller didn't fall.\n\n  I opine it isn't moral\n      For a writer-man to cheat,\n  And despise to wear a laurel\n      As was gotten by deceit.\n\n  For 'tis Politics intended\n      By the elevator, mind,\n  It will boost a person splendid\n      If his talent is the kind.\n\n  Col. Bryan had the talent\n      (For the busted man is him)\n  And it shot him up right gallant\n      Till his head begun to swim.\n\n  Then the rope it broke above him\n      And he painful come to earth\n  Where there's nobody to love him\n      For his detrimented worth.\n\n  Though he's livin' none would know him,\n      Or at leastwise not as such.\n  Moral of this woful poem:\n      Frequent oil your safety-clutch.\n\nPorfer Poog\n\n\nSAINT, n.  A dead sinner revised and edited.\n\nThe Duchess of Orleans relates that the irreverent old\ncalumniator, Marshal Villeroi, who in his youth had known St. Francis\nde Sales, said, on hearing him called saint:  \"I am delighted to hear\nthat Monsieur de Sales is a saint.  He was fond of saying indelicate\nthings, and used to cheat at cards.  In other respects he was a\nperfect gentleman, though a fool.\"\n\nSALACITY, n.  A certain literary quality frequently observed in\npopular novels, especially in those written by women and young girls,\nwho give it another name and think that in introducing it they are\noccupying a neglected field of letters and reaping an overlooked\nharvest.  If they have the misfortune to live long enough they are\ntormented with a desire to burn their sheaves.\n\nSALAMANDER, n.  Originally a reptile inhabiting fire; later, an\nanthropomorphous immortal, but still a pyrophile.  Salamanders are now\nbelieved to be extinct, the last one of which we have an account\nhaving been seen in Carcassonne by the Abbe Belloc, who exorcised it\nwith a bucket of holy water.\n\nSARCOPHAGUS, n.  Among the Greeks a coffin which being made of a\ncertain kind of carnivorous stone, had the peculiar property of\ndevouring the body placed in it.  The sarcophagus known to modern\nobsequiographers is commonly a product of the carpenter's art.\n\nSATAN, n.  One of the Creator's lamentable mistakes, repented in\nsashcloth and axes.  Being instated as an archangel, Satan made\nhimself multifariously objectionable and was finally expelled from\nHeaven.  Halfway in his descent he paused, bent his head in thought a\nmoment and at last went back.  \"There is one favor that I should like\nto ask,\" said he.\n\n\"Name it.\"\n\n\"Man, I understand, is about to be created.  He will need laws.\"\n\n\"What, wretch! you his appointed adversary, charged from the dawn\nof eternity with hatred of his soul--you ask for the right to make\nhis laws?\"\n\n\"Pardon; what I have to ask is that he be permitted to make them\nhimself.\"\n\nIt was so ordered.\n\nSATIETY, n.  The feeling that one has for the plate after he has eaten\nits contents, madam.\n\nSATIRE, n.  An obsolete kind of literary composition in which the\nvices and follies of the author's enemies were expounded with\nimperfect tenderness.  In this country satire never had more than a\nsickly and uncertain existence, for the soul of it is wit, wherein we\nare dolefully deficient, the humor that we mistake for it, like all\nhumor, being tolerant and sympathetic.  Moreover, although Americans\nare \"endowed by their Creator\" with abundant vice and folly, it is not\ngenerally known that these are reprehensible qualities, wherefore the\nsatirist is popularly regarded as a sour-spirited knave, and his ever\nvictim's outcry for codefendants evokes a national assent.\n\n  Hail Satire! be thy praises ever sung\n  In the dead language of a mummy's tongue,\n  For thou thyself art dead, and damned as well--\n  Thy spirit (usefully employed) in Hell.\n  Had it been such as consecrates the Bible\n  Thou hadst not perished by the law of libel.\n\nBarney Stims\n\n\nSATYR, n.  One of the few characters of the Grecian mythology accorded\nrecognition in the Hebrew.  (Leviticus, xvii, 7.)  The satyr was at\nfirst a member of the dissolute community acknowledging a loose\nallegiance with Dionysius, but underwent many transformations and\nimprovements.  Not infrequently he is confounded with the faun, a\nlater and decenter creation of the Romans, who was less like a man and\nmore like a goat.\n\nSAUCE, n.  The one infallible sign of civilization and enlightenment.\nA people with no sauces has one thousand vices; a people with one\nsauce has only nine hundred and ninety-nine.  For every sauce invented\nand accepted a vice is renounced and forgiven.\n\nSAW, n.  A trite popular saying, or proverb.  (Figurative and\ncolloquial.)  So called because it makes its way into a wooden head.\nFollowing are examples of old saws fitted with new teeth.\n\n      A penny saved is a penny to squander.\n\n      A man is known by the company that he organizes.\n\n      A bad workman quarrels with the man who calls him that.\n\n      A bird in the hand is worth what it will bring.\n\n      Better late than before anybody has invited you.\n\n      Example is better than following it.\n\n      Half a loaf is better than a whole one if there is much else.\n\n      Think twice before you speak to a friend in need.\n\n      What is worth doing is worth the trouble of asking somebody to do it.\n\n      Least said is soonest disavowed.\n\n      He laughs best who laughs least.\n\n      Speak of the Devil and he will hear about it.\n\n      Of two evils choose to be the least.\n\n      Strike while your employer has a big contract.\n\n      Where there's a will there's a won't.\n\nSCARABAEUS, n.  The sacred beetle of the ancient Egyptians, allied to\nour familiar \"tumble-bug.\"  It was supposed to symbolize immortality,\nthe fact that God knew why giving it its peculiar sanctity.  Its habit\nof incubating its eggs in a ball of ordure may also have commended it\nto the favor of the priesthood, and may some day assure it an equal\nreverence among ourselves.  True, the American beetle is an inferior\nbeetle, but the American priest is an inferior priest.\n\nSCARABEE, n.  The same as scarabaeus.\n\n              He fell by his own hand\n                  Beneath the great oak tree.\n              He'd traveled in a foreign land.\n              He tried to make her understand\n              The dance that's called the Saraband,\n                  But he called it Scarabee.\n  He had called it so through an afternoon,\n      And she, the light of his harem if so might be,\n      Had smiled and said naught.  O the body was fair to see,\n  All frosted there in the shine o' the moon--\n                      Dead for a Scarabee\n  And a recollection that came too late.\n                          O Fate!\n                  They buried him where he lay,\n                  He sleeps awaiting the Day,\n                          In state,\n  And two Possible Puns, moon-eyed and wan,\n  Gloom over the grave and then move on.\n                      Dead for a Scarabee!\n                                                     Fernando Tapple\n\nSCARIFICATION, n.  A form of penance practised by the mediaeval pious.\nThe rite was performed, sometimes with a knife, sometimes with a hot\niron, but always, says Arsenius Asceticus, acceptably if the penitent\nspared himself no pain nor harmless disfigurement.  Scarification,\nwith other crude penances, has now been superseded by benefaction.\nThe founding of a library or endowment of a university is said to\nyield to the penitent a sharper and more lasting pain than is\nconferred by the knife or iron, and is therefore a surer means of\ngrace.  There are, however, two grave objections to it as a\npenitential method:  the good that it does and the taint of justice.\n\nSCEPTER, n.  A king's staff of office, the sign and symbol of his\nauthority.  It was originally a mace with which the sovereign\nadmonished his jester and vetoed ministerial measures by breaking the\nbones of their proponents.\n\nSCIMITAR, n.  A curved sword of exceeding keenness, in the conduct of\nwhich certain Orientals attain a surprising proficiency, as the\nincident here related will serve to show.  The account is translated\nfrom the Japanese of Shusi Itama, a famous writer of the thirteenth\ncentury.\n\n      When the great Gichi-Kuktai was Mikado he condemned to\n  decapitation Jijiji Ri, a high officer of the Court.  Soon after\n  the hour appointed for performance of the rite what was his\n  Majesty's surprise to see calmly approaching the throne the man\n  who should have been at that time ten minutes dead!\n      \"Seventeen hundred impossible dragons!\" shouted the enraged\n  monarch.  \"Did I not sentence you to stand in the market-place and\n  have your head struck off by the public executioner at three\n  o'clock?  And is it not now 3:10?\"\n      \"Son of a thousand illustrious deities,\" answered the\n  condemned minister, \"all that you say is so true that the truth is\n  a lie in comparison.  But your heavenly Majesty's sunny and\n  vitalizing wishes have been pestilently disregarded.  With joy I\n  ran and placed my unworthy body in the market-place.  The\n  executioner appeared with his bare scimitar, ostentatiously\n  whirled it in air, and then, tapping me lightly upon the neck,\n  strode away, pelted by the populace, with whom I was ever a\n  favorite.  I am come to pray for justice upon his own dishonorable\n  and treasonous head.\"\n      \"To what regiment of executioners does the black-boweled\n  caitiff belong?\" asked the Mikado.\n      \"To the gallant Ninety-eight Hundred and Thirty-seventh--I\n  know the man.  His name is Sakko-Samshi.\"\n      \"Let him be brought before me,\" said the Mikado to an\n  attendant, and a half-hour later the culprit stood in the\n  Presence.\n      \"Thou bastard son of a three-legged hunchback without thumbs!\"\n  roared the sovereign--\"why didst thou but lightly tap the neck\n  that it should have been thy pleasure to sever?\"\n      \"Lord of Cranes an Cherry Blooms,\" replied the executioner,\n  unmoved, \"command him to blow his nose with his fingers.\"\n      Being commanded, Jijiji Ri laid hold of his nose and trumpeted\n  like an elephant, all expecting to see the severed head flung\n  violently from him.  Nothing occurred:  the performance prospered\n  peacefully to the close, without incident.\n      All eyes were now turned on the executioner, who had grown as\n  white as the snows on the summit of Fujiama.  His legs trembled\n  and his breath came in gasps of terror.\n      \"Several kinds of spike-tailed brass lions!\" he cried; \"I am a\n  ruined and disgraced swordsman!  I struck the villain feebly\n  because in flourishing the scimitar I had accidentally passed it\n  through my own neck!  Father of the Moon, I resign my office.\"\n      So saying, he gasped his top-knot, lifted off his head, and\n  advancing to the throne laid it humbly at the Mikado's feet.\n\nSCRAP-BOOK, n.  A book that is commonly edited by a fool.  Many\npersons of some small distinction compile scrap-books containing\nwhatever they happen to read about themselves or employ others to\ncollect.  One of these egotists was addressed in the lines following,\nby Agamemnon Melancthon Peters:\n\n  Dear Frank, that scrap-book where you boast\n      You keep a record true\n  Of every kind of peppered roast\n          That's made of you;\n\n  Wherein you paste the printed gibes\n      That revel round your name,\n  Thinking the laughter of the scribes\n          Attests your fame;\n\n  Where all the pictures you arrange\n      That comic pencils trace--\n  Your funny figure and your strange\n          Semitic face--\n\n  Pray lend it me.  Wit I have not,\n      Nor art, but there I'll list\n  The daily drubbings you'd have got\n          Had God a fist.\n\nSCRIBBLER, n.  A professional writer whose views are antagonistic to\none's own.\n\nSCRIPTURES, n.  The sacred books of our holy religion, as\ndistinguished from the false and profane writings on which all other\nfaiths are based.\n\nSEAL, n.  A mark impressed upon certain kinds of documents to attest\ntheir authenticity and authority.  Sometimes it is stamped upon wax,\nand attached to the paper, sometimes into the paper itself.  Sealing,\nin this sense, is a survival of an ancient custom of inscribing\nimportant papers with cabalistic words or signs to give them a magical\nefficacy independent of the authority that they represent.  In the\nBritish museum are preserved many ancient papers, mostly of a\nsacerdotal character, validated by necromantic pentagrams and other\ndevices, frequently initial letters of words to conjure with; and in\nmany instances these are attached in the same way that seals are\nappended now.  As nearly every reasonless and apparently meaningless\ncustom, rite or observance of modern times had origin in some remote\nutility, it is pleasing to note an example of ancient nonsense\nevolving in the process of ages into something really useful.  Our\nword \"sincere\" is derived from _sine cero_, without wax, but the\nlearned are not in agreement as to whether this refers to the absence\nof the cabalistic signs, or to that of the wax with which letters were\nformerly closed from public scrutiny.  Either view of the matter will\nserve one in immediate need of an hypothesis.  The initials L.S.,\ncommonly appended to signatures of legal documents, mean _locum\nsigillis_, the place of the seal, although the seal is no longer used\n--an admirable example of conservatism distinguishing Man from the\nbeasts that perish.  The words _locum sigillis_ are humbly suggested\nas a suitable motto for the Pribyloff Islands whenever they shall take\ntheir place as a sovereign State of the American Union.\n\nSEINE, n.  A kind of net for effecting an involuntary change of\nenvironment.  For fish it is made strong and coarse, but women are\nmore easily taken with a singularly delicate fabric weighted with\nsmall, cut stones.\n\n  The devil casting a seine of lace,\n      (With precious stones 'twas weighted)\n  Drew it into the landing place\n      And its contents calculated.\n\n  All souls of women were in that sack--\n      A draft miraculous, precious!\n  But ere he could throw it across his back\n      They'd all escaped through the meshes.\n\nBaruch de Loppis\n\n\nSELF-ESTEEM, n.  An erroneous appraisement.\n\nSELF-EVIDENT, adj.  Evident to one's self and to nobody else.\n\nSELFISH, adj.  Devoid of consideration for the selfishness of others.\n\nSENATE, n.  A body of elderly gentlemen charged with high duties and\nmisdemeanors.\n\nSERIAL, n.  A literary work, usually a story that is not true,\ncreeping through several issues of a newspaper or magazine.\nFrequently appended to each installment is a \"synposis of preceding\nchapters\" for those who have not read them, but a direr need is a\nsynposis of succeeding chapters for those who do not intend to read\n_them_.  A synposis of the entire work would be still better.\n\nThe late James F. Bowman was writing a serial tale for a weekly\npaper in collaboration with a genius whose name has not come down to\nus.  They wrote, not jointly but alternately, Bowman supplying the\ninstallment for one week, his friend for the next, and so on, world\nwithout end, they hoped.  Unfortunately they quarreled, and one Monday\nmorning when Bowman read the paper to prepare himself for his task, he\nfound his work cut out for him in a way to surprise and pain him.  His\ncollaborator had embarked every character of the narrative on a ship\nand sunk them all in the deepest part of the Atlantic.\n\nSEVERALTY, n.  Separateness, as, lands in severalty, i.e., lands held\nindividually, not in joint ownership.  Certain tribes of Indians are\nbelieved now to be sufficiently civilized to have in severalty the\nlands that they have hitherto held as tribal organizations, and could\nnot sell to the Whites for waxen beads and potato whiskey.\n\n  Lo! the poor Indian whose unsuited mind\n  Saw death before, hell and the grave behind;\n  Whom thrifty settler ne'er besought to stay--\n  His small belongings their appointed prey;\n  Whom Dispossession, with alluring wile,\n  Persuaded elsewhere every little while!\n  His fire unquenched and his undying worm\n  By \"land in severalty\" (charming term!)\n  Are cooled and killed, respectively, at last,\n  And he to his new holding anchored fast!\n\nSHERIFF, n.  In America the chief executive officer of a county, whose\nmost characteristic duties, in some of the Western and Southern\nStates, are the catching and hanging of rogues.\n\n  John Elmer Pettibone Cajee\n  (I write of him with little glee)\n  Was just as bad as he could be.\n\n  'Twas frequently remarked:  \"I swon!\n  The sun has never looked upon\n  So bad a man as Neighbor John.\"\n\n  A sinner through and through, he had\n  This added fault:  it made him mad\n  To know another man was bad.\n\n  In such a case he thought it right\n  To rise at any hour of night\n  And quench that wicked person's light.\n\n  Despite the town's entreaties, he\n  Would hale him to the nearest tree\n  And leave him swinging wide and free.\n\n  Or sometimes, if the humor came,\n  A luckless wight's reluctant frame\n  Was given to the cheerful flame.\n\n  While it was turning nice and brown,\n  All unconcerned John met the frown\n  Of that austere and righteous town.\n\n  \"How sad,\" his neighbors said, \"that he\n  So scornful of the law should be--\n  An anar c, h, i, s, t.\"\n\n  (That is the way that they preferred\n  To utter the abhorrent word,\n  So strong the aversion that it stirred.)\n\n  \"Resolved,\" they said, continuing,\n  \"That Badman John must cease this thing\n  Of having his unlawful fling.\n\n  \"Now, by these sacred relics\"--here\n  Each man had out a souvenir\n  Got at a lynching yesteryear--\n\n  \"By these we swear he shall forsake\n  His ways, nor cause our hearts to ache\n  By sins of rope and torch and stake.\n\n  \"We'll tie his red right hand until\n  He'll have small freedom to fulfil\n  The mandates of his lawless will.\"\n\n  So, in convention then and there,\n  They named him Sheriff.  The affair\n  Was opened, it is said, with prayer.\n\nJ. Milton Sloluck\n\n\nSIREN, n.  One of several musical prodigies famous for a vain attempt\nto dissuade Odysseus from a life on the ocean wave.  Figuratively, any\nlady of splendid promise, dissembled purpose and disappointing\nperformance.\n\nSLANG, n.  The grunt of the human hog (_Pignoramus intolerabilis_)\nwith an audible memory.  The speech of one who utters with his tongue\nwhat he thinks with his ear, and feels the pride of a creator in\naccomplishing the feat of a parrot.  A means (under Providence) of\nsetting up as a wit without a capital of sense.\n\nSMITHAREEN, n.  A fragment, a decomponent part, a remain.  The word is\nused variously, but in the following verse on a noted female reformer\nwho opposed bicycle-riding by women because it \"led them to the devil\"\nit is seen at its best:\n\n  The wheels go round without a sound--\n      The maidens hold high revel;\n  In sinful mood, insanely gay,\n  True spinsters spin adown the way\n      From duty to the devil!\n  They laugh, they sing, and--ting-a-ling!\n      Their bells go all the morning;\n  Their lanterns bright bestar the night\n      Pedestrians a-warning.\n  With lifted hands Miss Charlotte stands,\n      Good-Lording and O-mying,\n  Her rheumatism forgotten quite,\n      Her fat with anger frying.\n  She blocks the path that leads to wrath,\n      Jack Satan's power defying.\n  The wheels go round without a sound\n      The lights burn red and blue and green.\n  What's this that's found upon the ground?\n      Poor Charlotte Smith's a smithareen!\n\nJohn William Yope\n\n\nSOPHISTRY, n.  The controversial method of an opponent, distinguished\nfrom one's own by superior insincerity and fooling.  This method is\nthat of the later Sophists, a Grecian sect of philosophers who began\nby teaching wisdom, prudence, science, art and, in brief, whatever men\nought to know, but lost themselves in a maze of quibbles and a fog of\nwords.\n\n  His bad opponent's \"facts\" he sweeps away,\n  And drags his sophistry to light of day;\n  Then swears they're pushed to madness who resort\n  To falsehood of so desperate a sort.\n  Not so; like sods upon a dead man's breast,\n  He lies most lightly who the least is pressed.\n\nPolydore Smith\n\n\nSORCERY, n.  The ancient prototype and forerunner of political\ninfluence.  It was, however, deemed less respectable and sometimes was\npunished by torture and death.  Augustine Nicholas relates that a poor\npeasant who had been accused of sorcery was put to the torture to\ncompel a confession.  After enduring a few gentle agonies the\nsuffering simpleton admitted his guilt, but naively asked his\ntormentors if it were not possible to be a sorcerer without knowing\nit.\n\nSOUL, n.  A spiritual entity concerning which there hath been brave\ndisputation.  Plato held that those souls which in a previous state of\nexistence (antedating Athens) had obtained the clearest glimpses of\neternal truth entered into the bodies of persons who became\nphilosophers.  Plato himself was a philosopher.  The souls that had\nleast contemplated divine truth animated the bodies of usurpers and\ndespots.  Dionysius I, who had threatened to decapitate the\nbroad-browed philosopher, was a usurper and a despot.  Plato, doubtless,\nwas not the first to construct a system of philosophy that could be\nquoted against his enemies; certainly he was not the last.\n\n\"Concerning the nature of the soul,\" saith the renowned author of\n_Diversiones Sanctorum_, \"there hath been hardly more argument than\nthat of its place in the body.  Mine own belief is that the soul hath\nher seat in the abdomen--in which faith we may discern and interpret\na truth hitherto unintelligible, namely that the glutton is of all men\nmost devout.  He is said in the Scripture to 'make a god of his belly'\n--why, then, should he not be pious, having ever his Deity with him\nto freshen his faith?  Who so well as he can know the might and\nmajesty that he shrines?  Truly and soberly, the soul and the stomach\nare one Divine Entity; and such was the belief of Promasius, who\nnevertheless erred in denying it immortality.  He had observed that\nits visible and material substance failed and decayed with the rest of\nthe body after death, but of its immaterial essence he knew nothing.\nThis is what we call the Appetite, and it survives the wreck and reek\nof mortality, to be rewarded or punished in another world, according\nto what it hath demanded in the flesh.  The Appetite whose coarse\nclamoring was for the unwholesome viands of the general market and the\npublic refectory shall be cast into eternal famine, whilst that which\nfirmly though civilly insisted on ortolans, caviare, terrapin,\nanchovies, _pates de foie gras_ and all such Christian comestibles\nshall flesh its spiritual tooth in the souls of them forever and ever,\nand wreak its divine thirst upon the immortal parts of the rarest and\nrichest wines ever quaffed here below.  Such is my religious faith,\nthough I grieve to confess that neither His Holiness the Pope nor His\nGrace the Archbishop of Canterbury (whom I equally and profoundly\nrevere) will assent to its dissemination.\"\n\nSPOOKER, n.  A writer whose imagination concerns itself with\nsupernatural phenomena, especially in the doings of spooks.  One of\nthe most illustrious spookers of our time is Mr. William D. Howells,\nwho introduces a well-credentialed reader to as respectable and\nmannerly a company of spooks as one could wish to meet.  To the terror\nthat invests the chairman of a district school board, the Howells\nghost adds something of the mystery enveloping a farmer from another\ntownship.\n\nSTORY, n.  A narrative, commonly untrue.  The truth of the stories\nhere following has, however, not been successfully impeached.\n\nOne evening Mr. Rudolph Block, of New York, found himself seated\nat dinner alongside Mr. Percival Pollard, the distinguished critic.\n\n\"Mr. Pollard,\" said he, \"my book, _The Biography of a Dead Cow_,\nis published anonymously, but you can hardly be ignorant of its\nauthorship.  Yet in reviewing it you speak of it as the work of the\nIdiot of the Century.  Do you think that fair criticism?\"\n\n\"I am very sorry, sir,\" replied the critic, amiably, \"but it did\nnot occur to me that you really might not wish the public to know who\nwrote it.\"\n\nMr. W.C. Morrow, who used to live in San Jose, California, was\naddicted to writing ghost stories which made the reader feel as if a\nstream of lizards, fresh from the ice, were streaking it up his back\nand hiding in his hair.  San Jose was at that time believed to be\nhaunted by the visible spirit of a noted bandit named Vasquez, who had\nbeen hanged there.  The town was not very well lighted, and it is\nputting it mildly to say that San Jose was reluctant to be out o'\nnights.  One particularly dark night two gentlemen were abroad in the\nloneliest spot within the city limits, talking loudly to keep up their\ncourage, when they came upon Mr. J.J. Owen, a well-known journalist.\n\n\"Why, Owen,\" said one, \"what brings you here on such a night as\nthis?  You told me that this is one of Vasquez' favorite haunts!  And\nyou are a believer.  Aren't you afraid to be out?\"\n\n\"My dear fellow,\" the journalist replied with a drear autumnal\ncadence in his speech, like the moan of a leaf-laden wind, \"I am\nafraid to be in.  I have one of Will Morrow's stories in my pocket and\nI don't dare to go where there is light enough to read it.\"\n\nRear-Admiral Schley and Representative Charles F. Joy were\nstanding near the Peace Monument, in Washington, discussing the\nquestion, Is success a failure?  Mr. Joy suddenly broke off in the\nmiddle of an eloquent sentence, exclaiming:  \"Hello!  I've heard that\nband before.  Santlemann's, I think.\"\n\n\"I don't hear any band,\" said Schley.\n\n\"Come to think, I don't either,\" said Joy; \"but I see General\nMiles coming down the avenue, and that pageant always affects me in\nthe same way as a brass band.  One has to scrutinize one's impressions\npretty closely, or one will mistake their origin.\"\n\nWhile the Admiral was digesting this hasty meal of philosophy\nGeneral Miles passed in review, a spectacle of impressive dignity.\nWhen the tail of the seeming procession had passed and the two\nobservers had recovered from the transient blindness caused by its\neffulgence--\n\n\"He seems to be enjoying himself,\" said the Admiral.\n\n\"There is nothing,\" assented Joy, thoughtfully, \"that he enjoys\none-half so well.\"\n\n\nThe illustrious statesman, Champ Clark, once lived about a mile\nfrom the village of Jebigue, in Missouri.  One day he rode into town\non a favorite mule, and, hitching the beast on the sunny side of a\nstreet, in front of a saloon, he went inside in his character of\nteetotaler, to apprise the barkeeper that wine is a mocker.  It was a\ndreadfully hot day.  Pretty soon a neighbor came in and seeing Clark,\nsaid:\n\n\"Champ, it is not right to leave that mule out there in the sun.\nHe'll roast, sure!--he was smoking as I passed him.\"\n\n\"O, he's all right,\" said Clark, lightly; \"he's an inveterate\nsmoker.\"\n\nThe neighbor took a lemonade, but shook his head and repeated that\nit was not right.\n\nHe was a conspirator.  There had been a fire the night before:  a\nstable just around the corner had burned and a number of horses had\nput on their immortality, among them a young colt, which was roasted\nto a rich nut-brown.  Some of the boys had turned Mr. Clark's mule\nloose and substituted the mortal part of the colt.  Presently another\nman entered the saloon.\n\n\"For mercy's sake!\" he said, taking it with sugar, \"do remove that\nmule, barkeeper:  it smells.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" interposed Clark, \"that animal has the best nose in\nMissouri.  But if he doesn't mind, you shouldn't.\"\n\nIn the course of human events Mr. Clark went out, and there,\napparently, lay the incinerated and shrunken remains of his charger.\nThe boys did not have any fun out of Mr. Clarke, who looked at the\nbody and, with the non-committal expression to which he owes so much\nof his political preferment, went away.  But walking home late that\nnight he saw his mule standing silent and solemn by the wayside in the\nmisty moonlight.  Mentioning the name of Helen Blazes with uncommon\nemphasis, Mr. Clark took the back track as hard as ever he could hook\nit, and passed the night in town.\n\nGeneral H.H. Wotherspoon, president of the Army War College, has a\npet rib-nosed baboon, an animal of uncommon intelligence but\nimperfectly beautiful.  Returning to his apartment one evening, the\nGeneral was surprised and pained to find Adam (for so the creature is\nnamed, the general being a Darwinian) sitting up for him and wearing\nhis master's best uniform coat, epaulettes and all.\n\n\"You confounded remote ancestor!\" thundered the great strategist,\n\"what do you mean by being out of bed after naps?--and with my coat\non!\"\n\nAdam rose and with a reproachful look got down on all fours in the\nmanner of his kind and, scuffling across the room to a table, returned\nwith a visiting-card:  General Barry had called and, judging by an\nempty champagne bottle and several cigar-stumps, had been hospitably\nentertained while waiting.  The general apologized to his faithful\nprogenitor and retired.  The next day he met General Barry, who said:\n\n\"Spoon, old man, when leaving you last evening I forgot to ask you\nabout those excellent cigars.  Where did you get them?\"\n\nGeneral Wotherspoon did not deign to reply, but walked away.\n\n\"Pardon me, please,\" said Barry, moving after him; \"I was joking\nof course.  Why, I knew it was not you before I had been in the room\nfifteen minutes.\"\n\nSUCCESS, n.  The one unpardonable sin against one's fellows.  In\nliterature, and particularly in poetry, the elements of success are\nexceedingly simple, and are admirably set forth in the following lines\nby the reverend Father Gassalasca Jape, entitled, for some mysterious\nreason, \"John A. Joyce.\"\n\n  The bard who would prosper must carry a book,\n      Do his thinking in prose and wear\n  A crimson cravat, a far-away look\n      And a head of hexameter hair.\n  Be thin in your thought and your body'll be fat;\n  If you wear your hair long you needn't your hat.\n\nSUFFRAGE, n.  Expression of opinion by means of a ballot.  The right\nof suffrage (which is held to be both a privilege and a duty) means,\nas commonly interpreted, the right to vote for the man of another\nman's choice, and is highly prized.  Refusal to do so has the bad name\nof \"incivism.\"  The incivilian, however, cannot be properly arraigned\nfor his crime, for there is no legitimate accuser.  If the accuser is\nhimself guilty he has no standing in the court of opinion; if not, he\nprofits by the crime, for A's abstention from voting gives greater\nweight to the vote of B.  By female suffrage is meant the right of a\nwoman to vote as some man tells her to.  It is based on female\nresponsibility, which is somewhat limited.  The woman most eager to\njump out of her petticoat to assert her rights is first to jump back\ninto it when threatened with a switching for misusing them.\n\nSYCOPHANT, n.  One who approaches Greatness on his belly so that he\nmay not be commanded to turn and be kicked.  He is sometimes an\neditor.\n\n  As the lean leech, its victim found, is pleased\n  To fix itself upon a part diseased\n  Till, its black hide distended with bad blood,\n  It drops to die of surfeit in the mud,\n  So the base sycophant with joy descries\n  His neighbor's weak spot and his mouth applies,\n  Gorges and prospers like the leech, although,\n  Unlike that reptile, he will not let go.\n  Gelasma, if it paid you to devote\n  Your talent to the service of a goat,\n  Showing by forceful logic that its beard\n  Is more than Aaron's fit to be revered;\n  If to the task of honoring its smell\n  Profit had prompted you, and love as well,\n  The world would benefit at last by you\n  And wealthy malefactors weep anew--\n  Your favor for a moment's space denied\n  And to the nobler object turned aside.\n  Is't not enough that thrifty millionaires\n  Who loot in freight and spoliate in fares,\n  Or, cursed with consciences that bid them fly\n  To safer villainies of darker dye,\n  Forswearing robbery and fain, instead,\n  To steal (they call it \"cornering\") our bread\n  May see you groveling their boots to lick\n  And begging for the favor of a kick?\n  Still must you follow to the bitter end\n  Your sycophantic disposition's trend,\n  And in your eagerness to please the rich\n  Hunt hungry sinners to their final ditch?\n  In Morgan's praise you smite the sounding wire,\n  And sing hosannas to great Havemeyer!\n  What's Satan done that him you should eschew?\n  He too is reeking rich--deducting _you_.\n\nSYLLOGISM, n.  A logical formula consisting of a major and a minor\nassumption and an inconsequent.  (See LOGIC.)\n\nSYLPH, n.  An immaterial but visible being that inhabited the air when\nthe air was an element and before it was fatally polluted with factory\nsmoke, sewer gas and similar products of civilization.  Sylphs were\nallied to gnomes, nymphs and salamanders, which dwelt, respectively,\nin earth, water and fire, all now insalubrious.  Sylphs, like fowls of\nthe air, were male and female, to no purpose, apparently, for if they\nhad progeny they must have nested in inaccessible places, none of the\nchicks having ever been seen.\n\nSYMBOL, n.  Something that is supposed to typify or stand for\nsomething else.  Many symbols are mere \"survivals\"--things which\nhaving no longer any utility continue to exist because we have\ninherited the tendency to make them; as funereal urns carved on\nmemorial monuments.  They were once real urns holding the ashes of the\ndead.  We cannot stop making them, but we can give them a name that\nconceals our helplessness.\n\nSYMBOLIC, adj.  Pertaining to symbols and the use and interpretation\nof symbols.\n\n  They say 'tis conscience feels compunction;\n  I hold that that's the stomach's function,\n  For of the sinner I have noted\n  That when he's sinned he's somewhat bloated,\n  Or ill some other ghastly fashion\n  Within that bowel of compassion.\n  True, I believe the only sinner\n  Is he that eats a shabby dinner.\n  You know how Adam with good reason,\n  For eating apples out of season,\n  Was \"cursed.\"  But that is all symbolic:\n  The truth is, Adam had the colic.\n\nG.J.\n\n\n\n\n\nT\n\n\n\nT, the twentieth letter of the English alphabet, was by the Greeks\nabsurdly called _tau_.  In the alphabet whence ours comes it had the\nform of the rude corkscrew of the period, and when it stood alone\n(which was more than the Phoenicians could always do) signified\n_Tallegal_, translated by the learned Dr. Brownrigg, \"tanglefoot.\"\n\nTABLE D'HOTE, n.  A caterer's thrifty concession to the universal\npassion for irresponsibility.\n\n  Old Paunchinello, freshly wed,\n      Took Madam P. to table,\n  And there deliriously fed\n      As fast as he was able.\n\n  \"I dote upon good grub,\" he cried,\n      Intent upon its throatage.\n  \"Ah, yes,\" said the neglected bride,\n      \"You're in your _table d'hotage_.\"\n\nAssociated Poets\n\n\nTAIL, n.  The part of an animal's spine that has transcended its\nnatural limitations to set up an independent existence in a world of\nits own.  Excepting in its foetal state, Man is without a tail, a\nprivation of which he attests an hereditary and uneasy consciousness\nby the coat-skirt of the male and the train of the female, and by a\nmarked tendency to ornament that part of his attire where the tail\nshould be, and indubitably once was.  This tendency is most observable\nin the female of the species, in whom the ancestral sense is strong\nand persistent.  The tailed men described by Lord Monboddo are now\ngenerally regarded as a product of an imagination unusually\nsusceptible to influences generated in the golden age of our pithecan\npast.\n\nTAKE, v.t.  To acquire, frequently by force but preferably by stealth.\n\nTALK, v.t.  To commit an indiscretion without temptation, from an\nimpulse without purpose.\n\nTARIFF, n.  A scale of taxes on imports, designed to protect the\ndomestic producer against the greed of his consumer.\n\n  The Enemy of Human Souls\n  Sat grieving at the cost of coals;\n  For Hell had been annexed of late,\n  And was a sovereign Southern State.\n\n  \"It were no more than right,\" said he,\n  \"That I should get my fuel free.\n  The duty, neither just nor wise,\n  Compels me to economize--\n  Whereby my broilers, every one,\n  Are execrably underdone.\n  What would they have?--although I yearn\n  To do them nicely to a turn,\n  I can't afford an honest heat.\n  This tariff makes even devils cheat!\n  I'm ruined, and my humble trade\n  All rascals may at will invade:\n  Beneath my nose the public press\n  Outdoes me in sulphureousness;\n  The bar ingeniously applies\n  To my undoing my own lies;\n  My medicines the doctors use\n  (Albeit vainly) to refuse\n  To me my fair and rightful prey\n  And keep their own in shape to pay;\n  The preachers by example teach\n  What, scorning to perform, I teach;\n  And statesmen, aping me, all make\n  More promises than they can break.\n  Against such competition I\n  Lift up a disregarded cry.\n  Since all ignore my just complaint,\n  By Hokey-Pokey!  I'll turn saint!\"\n  Now, the Republicans, who all\n  Are saints, began at once to bawl\n  Against _his_ competition; so\n  There was a devil of a go!\n  They locked horns with him, tete-a-tete\n  In acrimonious debate,\n  Till Democrats, forlorn and lone,\n  Had hopes of coming by their own.\n  That evil to avert, in haste\n  The two belligerents embraced;\n  But since 'twere wicked to relax\n  A tittle of the Sacred Tax,\n  'Twas finally agreed to grant\n  The bold Insurgent-protestant\n  A bounty on each soul that fell\n  Into his ineffectual Hell.\n\nEdam Smith\n\n\nTECHNICALITY, n.  In an English court a man named Home was tried for\nslander in having accused his neighbor of murder.  His exact words\nwere:  \"Sir Thomas Holt hath taken a cleaver and stricken his cook\nupon the head, so that one side of the head fell upon one shoulder and\nthe other side upon the other shoulder.\"  The defendant was acquitted\nby instruction of the court, the learned judges holding that the words\ndid not charge murder, for they did not affirm the death of the cook,\nthat being only an inference.\n\nTEDIUM, n.  Ennui, the state or condition of one that is bored.  Many\nfanciful derivations of the word have been affirmed, but so high an\nauthority as Father Jape says that it comes from a very obvious\nsource--the first words of the ancient Latin hymn _Te Deum\nLaudamus_.  In this apparently natural derivation there is something\nthat saddens.\n\nTEETOTALER, n.  One who abstains from strong drink, sometimes totally,\nsometimes tolerably totally.\n\nTELEPHONE, n.  An invention of the devil which abrogates some of the\nadvantages of making a disagreeable person keep his distance.\n\nTELESCOPE, n.  A device having a relation to the eye similar to that\nof the telephone to the ear, enabling distant objects to plague us\nwith a multitude of needless details.  Luckily it is unprovided with a\nbell summoning us to the sacrifice.\n\nTENACITY, n.  A certain quality of the human hand in its relation to\nthe coin of the realm.  It attains its highest development in the hand\nof authority and is considered a serviceable equipment for a career in\npolitics.  The following illustrative lines were written of a\nCalifornian gentleman in high political preferment, who has passed to\nhis accounting:\n\n  Of such tenacity his grip\n  That nothing from his hand can slip.\n  Well-buttered eels you may o'erwhelm\n  In tubs of liquid slippery-elm\n  In vain--from his detaining pinch\n  They cannot struggle half an inch!\n  'Tis lucky that he so is planned\n  That breath he draws not with his hand,\n  For if he did, so great his greed\n  He'd draw his last with eager speed.\n  Nay, that were well, you say.  Not so\n  He'd draw but never let it go!\n\nTHEOSOPHY, n.  An ancient faith having all the certitude of religion\nand all the mystery of science.  The modern Theosophist holds, with\nthe Buddhists, that we live an incalculable number of times on this\nearth, in as many several bodies, because one life is not long enough\nfor our complete spiritual development; that is, a single lifetime\ndoes not suffice for us to become as wise and good as we choose to\nwish to become.  To be absolutely wise and good--that is perfection;\nand the Theosophist is so keen-sighted as to have observed that\neverything desirous of improvement eventually attains perfection.\nLess competent observers are disposed to except cats, which seem\nneither wiser nor better than they were last year.  The greatest and\nfattest of recent Theosophists was the late Madame Blavatsky, who had\nno cat.\n\nTIGHTS, n.  An habiliment of the stage designed to reinforce the\ngeneral acclamation of the press agent with a particular publicity.\nPublic attention was once somewhat diverted from this garment to Miss\nLillian Russell's refusal to wear it, and many were the conjectures as\nto her motive, the guess of Miss Pauline Hall showing a high order of\ningenuity and sustained reflection.  It was Miss Hall's belief that\nnature had not endowed Miss Russell with beautiful legs.  This theory\nwas impossible of acceptance by the male understanding, but the\nconception of a faulty female leg was of so prodigious originality as\nto rank among the most brilliant feats of philosophical speculation!\nIt is strange that in all the controversy regarding Miss Russell's\naversion to tights no one seems to have thought to ascribe it to what\nwas known among the ancients as \"modesty.\"  The nature of that\nsentiment is now imperfectly understood, and possibly incapable of\nexposition with the vocabulary that remains to us.  The study of lost\narts has, however, been recently revived and some of the arts\nthemselves recovered.  This is an epoch of _renaissances_, and there\nis ground for hope that the primitive \"blush\" may be dragged from its\nhiding-place amongst the tombs of antiquity and hissed on to the\nstage.\n\nTOMB, n.  The House of Indifference.  Tombs are now by common consent\ninvested with a certain sanctity, but when they have been long\ntenanted it is considered no sin to break them open and rifle them,\nthe famous Egyptologist, Dr. Huggyns, explaining that a tomb may be\ninnocently \"glened\" as soon as its occupant is done \"smellynge,\" the\nsoul being then all exhaled.  This reasonable view is now generally\naccepted by archaeologists, whereby the noble science of Curiosity has\nbeen greatly dignified.\n\nTOPE, v.  To tipple, booze, swill, soak, guzzle, lush, bib, or swig.\nIn the individual, toping is regarded with disesteem, but toping\nnations are in the forefront of civilization and power.  When pitted\nagainst the hard-drinking Christians the abstemious Mahometans go down\nlike grass before the scythe.  In India one hundred thousand\nbeef-eating and brandy-and-soda guzzling Britons hold in subjection two\nhundred and fifty million vegetarian abstainers of the same Aryan race.\nWith what an easy grace the whisky-loving American pushed the temperate\nSpaniard out of his possessions!  From the time when the Berserkers\nravaged all the coasts of western Europe and lay drunk in every\nconquered port it has been the same way:  everywhere the nations that\ndrink too much are observed to fight rather well and not too\nrighteously.  Wherefore the estimable old ladies who abolished the\ncanteen from the American army may justly boast of having materially\naugmented the nation's military power.\n\nTORTOISE, n.  A creature thoughtfully created to supply occasion for\nthe following lines by the illustrious Ambat Delaso:\n\n\nTO MY PET TORTOISE\n\n\n  My friend, you are not graceful--not at all;\n  Your gait's between a stagger and a sprawl.\n\n  Nor are you beautiful:  your head's a snake's\n  To look at, and I do not doubt it aches.\n\n  As to your feet, they'd make an angel weep.\n  'Tis true you take them in whene'er you sleep.\n\n  No, you're not pretty, but you have, I own,\n  A certain firmness--mostly you're [sic] backbone.\n\n  Firmness and strength (you have a giant's thews)\n  Are virtues that the great know how to use--\n\n  I wish that they did not; yet, on the whole,\n  You lack--excuse my mentioning it--Soul.\n\n  So, to be candid, unreserved and true,\n  I'd rather you were I than I were you.\n\n  Perhaps, however, in a time to be,\n  When Man's extinct, a better world may see\n\n  Your progeny in power and control,\n  Due to the genesis and growth of Soul.\n\n  So I salute you as a reptile grand\n  Predestined to regenerate the land.\n\n  Father of Possibilities, O deign\n  To accept the homage of a dying reign!\n\n  In the far region of the unforeknown\n  I dream a tortoise upon every throne.\n\n  I see an Emperor his head withdraw\n  Into his carapace for fear of Law;\n\n  A King who carries something else than fat,\n  Howe'er acceptably he carries that;\n\n  A President not strenuously bent\n  On punishment of audible dissent--\n\n  Who never shot (it were a vain attack)\n  An armed or unarmed tortoise in the back;\n\n  Subject and citizens that feel no need\n  To make the March of Mind a wild stampede;\n\n  All progress slow, contemplative, sedate,\n  And \"Take your time\" the word, in Church and State.\n\n  O Tortoise, 'tis a happy, happy dream,\n  My glorious testudinous regime!\n\n  I wish in Eden you'd brought this about\n  By slouching in and chasing Adam out.\n\nTREE, n.  A tall vegetable intended by nature to serve as a penal\napparatus, though through a miscarriage of justice most trees bear\nonly a negligible fruit, or none at all.  When naturally fruited, the\ntree is a beneficient agency of civilization and an important factor\nin public morals.  In the stern West and the sensitive South its fruit\n(white and black respectively) though not eaten, is agreeable to the\npublic taste and, though not exported, profitable to the general\nwelfare.  That the legitimate relation of the tree to justice was no\ndiscovery of Judge Lynch (who, indeed, conceded it no primacy over the\nlamp-post and the bridge-girder) is made plain by the following\npassage from Morryster, who antedated him by two centuries:\n\n      While in yt londe I was carried to see ye Ghogo tree, whereof\n  I had hearde moch talk; but sayynge yt I saw naught remarkabyll in\n  it, ye hed manne of ye villayge where it grewe made answer as\n  followeth:\n      \"Ye tree is not nowe in fruite, but in his seasonne you shall\n  see dependynge fr. his braunches all soch as have affroynted ye\n  King his Majesty.\"\n      And I was furder tolde yt ye worde \"Ghogo\" sygnifyeth in yr\n  tong ye same as \"rapscal\" in our owne.\n\n_Trauvells in ye Easte_\n\n\nTRIAL, n.  A formal inquiry designed to prove and put upon record the\nblameless characters of judges, advocates and jurors.  In order to\neffect this purpose it is necessary to supply a contrast in the person\nof one who is called the defendant, the prisoner, or the accused.  If\nthe contrast is made sufficiently clear this person is made to undergo\nsuch an affliction as will give the virtuous gentlemen a comfortable\nsense of their immunity, added to that of their worth.  In our day the\naccused is usually a human being, or a socialist, but in mediaeval\ntimes, animals, fishes, reptiles and insects were brought to trial.  A\nbeast that had taken human life, or practiced sorcery, was duly\narrested, tried and, if condemned, put to death by the public\nexecutioner.  Insects ravaging grain fields, orchards or vineyards\nwere cited to appeal by counsel before a civil tribunal, and after\ntestimony, argument and condemnation, if they continued _in\ncontumaciam_ the matter was taken to a high ecclesiastical court,\nwhere they were solemnly excommunicated and anathematized.  In a\nstreet of Toledo, some pigs that had wickedly run between the\nviceroy's legs, upsetting him, were arrested on a warrant, tried and\npunished.  In Naples an ass was condemned to be burned at the stake,\nbut the sentence appears not to have been executed.  D'Addosio relates\nfrom the court records many trials of pigs, bulls, horses, cocks,\ndogs, goats, etc., greatly, it is believed, to the betterment of their\nconduct and morals.  In 1451 a suit was brought against the leeches\ninfesting some ponds about Berne, and the Bishop of Lausanne,\ninstructed by the faculty of Heidelberg University, directed that some\nof \"the aquatic worms\" be brought before the local magistracy.  This\nwas done and the leeches, both present and absent, were ordered to\nleave the places that they had infested within three days on pain of\nincurring \"the malediction of God.\"  In the voluminous records of this\n_cause celebre_ nothing is found to show whether the offenders braved\nthe punishment, or departed forthwith out of that inhospitable\njurisdiction.\n\nTRICHINOSIS, n.  The pig's reply to proponents of porcophagy.\n\nMoses Mendlessohn having fallen ill sent for a Christian\nphysician, who at once diagnosed the philosopher's disorder as\ntrichinosis, but tactfully gave it another name.  \"You need an\nimmediate change of diet,\" he said; \"you must eat six ounces of pork\nevery other day.\"\n\n\"Pork?\" shrieked the patient--\"pork?  Nothing shall induce me to\ntouch it!\"\n\n\"Do you mean that?\" the doctor gravely asked.\n\n\"I swear it!\"\n\n\"Good!--then I will undertake to cure you.\"\n\nTRINITY, n.  In the multiplex theism of certain Christian churches,\nthree entirely distinct deities consistent with only one.  Subordinate\ndeities of the polytheistic faith, such as devils and angels, are not\ndowered with the power of combination, and must urge individually\ntheir claims to adoration and propitiation.  The Trinity is one of the\nmost sublime mysteries of our holy religion.  In rejecting it because\nit is incomprehensible, Unitarians betray their inadequate sense of\ntheological fundamentals.  In religion we believe only what we do not\nunderstand, except in the instance of an intelligible doctrine that\ncontradicts an incomprehensible one.  In that case we believe the\nformer as a part of the latter.\n\nTROGLODYTE, n.  Specifically, a cave-dweller of the paleolithic\nperiod, after the Tree and before the Flat.  A famous community of\ntroglodytes dwelt with David in the Cave of Adullam.  The colony\nconsisted of \"every one that was in distress, and every one that was\nin debt, and every one that was discontented\"--in brief, all the\nSocialists of Judah.\n\nTRUCE, n.  Friendship.\n\nTRUTH, n.  An ingenious compound of desirability and appearance.\nDiscovery of truth is the sole purpose of philosophy, which is the\nmost ancient occupation of the human mind and has a fair prospect of\nexisting with increasing activity to the end of time.\n\nTRUTHFUL, adj.  Dumb and illiterate.\n\nTRUST, n.  In American politics, a large corporation composed in\ngreater part of thrifty working men, widows of small means, orphans in\nthe care of guardians and the courts, with many similar malefactors\nand public enemies.\n\nTURKEY, n.  A large bird whose flesh when eaten on certain religious\nanniversaries has the peculiar property of attesting piety and\ngratitude.  Incidentally, it is pretty good eating.\n\nTWICE, adv.  Once too often.\n\nTYPE, n.  Pestilent bits of metal suspected of destroying\ncivilization and enlightenment, despite their obvious agency in this\nincomparable dictionary.\n\nTZETZE (or TSETSE) FLY, n.  An African insect (_Glossina morsitans_)\nwhose bite is commonly regarded as nature's most efficacious remedy\nfor insomnia, though some patients prefer that of the American\nnovelist (_Mendax interminabilis_).\n\n\n\n\nU\n\n\n\nUBIQUITY, n.  The gift or power of being in all places at one time,\nbut not in all places at all times, which is omnipresence, an\nattribute of God and the luminiferous ether only.  This important\ndistinction between ubiquity and omnipresence was not clear to the\nmediaeval Church and there was much bloodshed about it.  Certain\nLutherans, who affirmed the presence everywhere of Christ's body were\nknown as Ubiquitarians.  For this error they were doubtless damned,\nfor Christ's body is present only in the eucharist, though that\nsacrament may be performed in more than one place simultaneously.  In\nrecent times ubiquity has not always been understood--not even by\nSir Boyle Roche, for example, who held that a man cannot be in two\nplaces at once unless he is a bird.\n\nUGLINESS, n.  A gift of the gods to certain women, entailing virtue\nwithout humility.\n\nULTIMATUM, n.  In diplomacy, a last demand before resorting to\nconcessions.\n\nHaving received an ultimatum from Austria, the Turkish Ministry\nmet to consider it.\n\n\"O servant of the Prophet,\" said the Sheik of the Imperial Chibouk\nto the Mamoosh of the Invincible Army, \"how many unconquerable\nsoldiers have we in arms?\"\n\n\"Upholder of the Faith,\" that dignitary replied after examining\nhis memoranda, \"they are in numbers as the leaves of the forest!\"\n\n\"And how many impenetrable battleships strike terror to the hearts\nof all Christian swine?\" he asked the Imaum of the Ever Victorious\nNavy.\n\n\"Uncle of the Full Moon,\" was the reply, \"deign to know that they\nare as the waves of the ocean, the sands of the desert and the stars\nof Heaven!\"\n\nFor eight hours the broad brow of the Sheik of the Imperial\nChibouk was corrugated with evidences of deep thought:  he was\ncalculating the chances of war.  Then, \"Sons of angels,\" he said, \"the\ndie is cast!  I shall suggest to the Ulema of the Imperial Ear that he\nadvise inaction.  In the name of Allah, the council is adjourned.\"\n\nUN-AMERICAN, adj.  Wicked, intolerable, heathenish.\n\nUNCTION, n.  An oiling, or greasing.  The rite of extreme unction\nconsists in touching with oil consecrated by a bishop several parts of\nthe body of one engaged in dying.  Marbury relates that after the rite\nhad been administered to a certain wicked English nobleman it was\ndiscovered that the oil had not been properly consecrated and no other\ncould be obtained.  When informed of this the sick man said in anger:\n\"Then I'll be damned if I die!\"\n\n\"My son,\" said the priest, \"this is what we fear.\"\n\nUNDERSTANDING, n.  A cerebral secretion that enables one having it to\nknow a house from a horse by the roof on the house.  Its nature and\nlaws have been exhaustively expounded by Locke, who rode a house, and\nKant, who lived in a horse.\n\n  His understanding was so keen\n  That all things which he'd felt, heard, seen,\n  He could interpret without fail\n  If he was in or out of jail.\n  He wrote at Inspiration's call\n  Deep disquisitions on them all,\n  Then, pent at last in an asylum,\n  Performed the service to compile 'em.\n  So great a writer, all men swore,\n  They never had not read before.\n\nJorrock Wormley\n\n\nUNITARIAN, n.  One who denies the divinity of a Trinitarian.\n\nUNIVERSALIST, n.  One who forgoes the advantage of a Hell for persons\nof another faith.\n\nURBANITY, n.  The kind of civility that urban observers ascribe to\ndwellers in all cities but New York.  Its commonest expression is\nheard in the words, \"I beg your pardon,\" and it is not inconsistent with\ndisregard of the rights of others.\n\n  The owner of a powder mill\n  Was musing on a distant hill--\n      Something his mind foreboded--\n  When from the cloudless sky there fell\n  A deviled human kidney!  Well,\n      The man's mill had exploded.\n  His hat he lifted from his head;\n  \"I beg your pardon, sir,\" he said;\n      \"I didn't know 'twas loaded.\"\n\nSwatkin\n\n\nUSAGE, n.  The First Person of the literary Trinity, the Second and\nThird being Custom and Conventionality.  Imbued with a decent\nreverence for this Holy Triad an industrious writer may hope to\nproduce books that will live as long as the fashion.\n\nUXORIOUSNESS, n.  A perverted affection that has strayed to one's own\nwife.\n\n\n\n\nV\n\n\n\nVALOR, n.  A soldierly compound of vanity, duty and the gambler's\nhope.\n\n\"Why have you halted?\" roared the commander of a division and\nChickamauga, who had ordered a charge; \"move forward, sir, at once.\"\n\n\"General,\" said the commander of the delinquent brigade, \"I am\npersuaded that any further display of valor by my troops will bring\nthem into collision with the enemy.\"\n\nVANITY, n.  The tribute of a fool to the worth of the nearest ass.\n\n  They say that hens do cackle loudest when\n      There's nothing vital in the eggs they've laid;\n      And there are hens, professing to have made\n  A study of mankind, who say that men\n  Whose business 'tis to drive the tongue or pen\n      Make the most clamorous fanfaronade\n      O'er their most worthless work; and I'm afraid\n  They're not entirely different from the hen.\n  Lo! the drum-major in his coat of gold,\n      His blazing breeches and high-towering cap--\n  Imperiously pompous, grandly bold,\n      Grim, resolute, an awe-inspiring chap!\n  Who'd think this gorgeous creature's only virtue\n  Is that in battle he will never hurt you?\n\nHannibal Hunsiker\n\n\nVIRTUES, n.pl.  Certain abstentions.\n\nVITUPERATION, n.  Satire, as understood by dunces and all such as\nsuffer from an impediment in their wit.\n\nVOTE, n.  The instrument and symbol of a freeman's power to make a\nfool of himself and a wreck of his country.\n\n\n\n\nW\n\n\n\nW (double U) has, of all the letters in our alphabet, the only\ncumbrous name, the names of the others being monosyllabic.  This\nadvantage of the Roman alphabet over the Grecian is the more valued\nafter audibly spelling out some simple Greek word, like\n_epixoriambikos_.  Still, it is now thought by the learned that other\nagencies than the difference of the two alphabets may have been\nconcerned in the decline of \"the glory that was Greece\" and the rise\nof \"the grandeur that was Rome.\"  There can be no doubt, however, that\nby simplifying the name of W (calling it \"wow,\" for example) our\ncivilization could be, if not promoted, at least better endured.\n\nWALL STREET, n.  A symbol of sin for every devil to rebuke.  That\nWall Street is a den of thieves is a belief that serves every\nunsuccessful thief in place of a hope in Heaven.  Even the great and\ngood Andrew Carnegie has made his profession of faith in the matter.\n\n  Carnegie the dauntless has uttered his call\n  To battle:  \"The brokers are parasites all!\"\n  Carnegie, Carnegie, you'll never prevail;\n  Keep the wind of your slogan to belly your sail,\n  Go back to your isle of perpetual brume,\n  Silence your pibroch, doff tartan and plume:\n  Ben Lomond is calling his son from the fray--\n  Fly, fly from the region of Wall Street away!\n  While still you're possessed of a single baubee\n  (I wish it were pledged to endowment of me)\n  'Twere wise to retreat from the wars of finance\n  Lest its value decline ere your credit advance.\n  For a man 'twixt a king of finance and the sea,\n  Carnegie, Carnegie, your tongue is too free!\n\nAnonymus Bink\n\n\nWAR, n.  A by-product of the arts of peace.  The most menacing\npolitical condition is a period of international amity.  The student\nof history who has not been taught to expect the unexpected may justly\nboast himself inaccessible to the light.  \"In time of peace prepare\nfor war\" has a deeper meaning than is commonly discerned; it means,\nnot merely that all things earthly have an end--that change is the\none immutable and eternal law--but that the soil of peace is thickly\nsown with the seeds of war and singularly suited to their germination\nand growth.  It was when Kubla Khan had decreed his \"stately pleasure\ndome\"--when, that is to say, there were peace and fat feasting in\nXanadu--that he\n\n                      heard from afar\n  Ancestral voices prophesying war.\n\nOne of the greatest of poets, Coleridge was one of the wisest of\nmen, and it was not for nothing that he read us this parable.  Let us\nhave a little less of \"hands across the sea,\" and a little more of\nthat elemental distrust that is the security of nations.  War loves to\ncome like a thief in the night; professions of eternal amity provide\nthe night.\n\nWASHINGTONIAN, n.  A Potomac tribesman who exchanged the privilege of\ngoverning himself for the advantage of good government.  In justice to\nhim it should be said that he did not want to.\n\n  They took away his vote and gave instead\n  The right, when he had earned, to _eat_ his bread.\n  In vain--he clamors for his \"boss,\" pour soul,\n  To come again and part him from his roll.\n\nOffenbach Stutz\n\n\nWEAKNESSES, n.pl.  Certain primal powers of Tyrant Woman wherewith she\nholds dominion over the male of her species, binding him to the\nservice of her will and paralyzing his rebellious energies.\n\nWEATHER, n.  The climate of the hour.  A permanent topic of\nconversation among persons whom it does not interest, but who have\ninherited the tendency to chatter about it from naked arboreal\nancestors whom it keenly concerned.  The setting up official weather\nbureaus and their maintenance in mendacity prove that even governments\nare accessible to suasion by the rude forefathers of the jungle.\n\n  Once I dipt into the future far as human eye could see,\n  And I saw the Chief Forecaster, dead as any one can be--\n  Dead and damned and shut in Hades as a liar from his birth,\n  With a record of unreason seldom paralleled on earth.\n  While I looked he reared him solemnly, that incandescent youth,\n  From the coals that he'd preferred to the advantages of truth.\n  He cast his eyes about him and above him; then he wrote\n  On a slab of thin asbestos what I venture here to quote--\n  For I read it in the rose-light of the everlasting glow:\n  \"Cloudy; variable winds, with local showers; cooler; snow.\"\n\nHalcyon Jones\n\n\nWEDDING, n.  A ceremony at which two persons undertake to become one,\none undertakes to become nothing, and nothing undertakes to become\nsupportable.\n\nWEREWOLF, n.  A wolf that was once, or is sometimes, a man.  All\nwerewolves are of evil disposition, having assumed a bestial form to\ngratify a beastial appetite, but some, transformed by sorcery, are as\nhumane as is consistent with an acquired taste for human flesh.\n\nSome Bavarian peasants having caught a wolf one evening, tied it\nto a post by the tail and went to bed.  The next morning nothing was\nthere!  Greatly perplexed, they consulted the local priest, who told\nthem that their captive was undoubtedly a werewolf and had resumed its\nhuman form during the night.  \"The next time that you take a wolf,\" the\ngood man said, \"see that you chain it by the leg, and in the morning\nyou will find a Lutheran.\"\n\nWHANGDEPOOTENAWAH, n.  In the Ojibwa tongue, disaster; an unexpected\naffliction that strikes hard.\n\n  Should you ask me whence this laughter,\n  Whence this audible big-smiling,\n  With its labial extension,\n  With its maxillar distortion\n  And its diaphragmic rhythmus\n  Like the billowing of an ocean,\n  Like the shaking of a carpet,\n  I should answer, I should tell you:\n  From the great deeps of the spirit,\n  From the unplummeted abysmus\n  Of the soul this laughter welleth\n  As the fountain, the gug-guggle,\n  Like the river from the canon [sic],\n  To entoken and give warning\n  That my present mood is sunny.\n  Should you ask me further question--\n  Why the great deeps of the spirit,\n  Why the unplummeted abysmus\n  Of the soule extrudes this laughter,\n  This all audible big-smiling,\n  I should answer, I should tell you\n  With a white heart, tumpitumpy,\n  With a true tongue, honest Injun:\n  William Bryan, he has Caught It,\n  Caught the Whangdepootenawah!\n\n  Is't the sandhill crane, the shankank,\n  Standing in the marsh, the kneedeep,\n  Standing silent in the kneedeep\n  With his wing-tips crossed behind him\n  And his neck close-reefed before him,\n  With his bill, his william, buried\n  In the down upon his bosom,\n  With his head retracted inly,\n  While his shoulders overlook it?\n  Does the sandhill crane, the shankank,\n  Shiver grayly in the north wind,\n  Wishing he had died when little,\n  As the sparrow, the chipchip, does?\n  No 'tis not the Shankank standing,\n  Standing in the gray and dismal\n  Marsh, the gray and dismal kneedeep.\n  No, 'tis peerless William Bryan\n  Realizing that he's Caught It,\n  Caught the Whangdepootenawah!\n\nWHEAT, n.  A cereal from which a tolerably good whisky can with some\ndifficulty be made, and which is used also for bread.  The French are\nsaid to eat more bread _per capita_ of population than any other\npeople, which is natural, for only they know how to make the stuff\npalatable.\n\nWHITE, adj. and n.  Black.\n\nWIDOW, n.  A pathetic figure that the Christian world has agreed to\ntake humorously, although Christ's tenderness towards widows was one\nof the most marked features of his character.\n\nWINE, n.  Fermented grape-juice known to the Women's Christian Union\nas \"liquor,\" sometimes as \"rum.\"  Wine, madam, is God's next best gift\nto man.\n\nWIT, n.  The salt with which the American humorist spoils his\nintellectual cookery by leaving it out.\n\nWITCH, n.  (1)  Any ugly and repulsive old woman, in a wicked league\nwith the devil.  (2)  A beautiful and attractive young woman, in\nwickedness a league beyond the devil.\n\nWITTICISM, n.  A sharp and clever remark, usually quoted, and seldom\nnoted; what the Philistine is pleased to call a \"joke.\"\n\nWOMAN, n.\n\n      An animal usually living in the vicinity of Man, and having a\n  rudimentary susceptibility to domestication.  It is credited by\n  many of the elder zoologists with a certain vestigial docility\n  acquired in a former state of seclusion, but naturalists of the\n  postsusananthony period, having no knowledge of the seclusion,\n  deny the virtue and declare that such as creation's dawn beheld,\n  it roareth now.  The species is the most widely distributed of all\n  beasts of prey, infesting all habitable parts of the globe, from\n  Greenland's spicy mountains to India's moral strand.  The popular\n  name (wolfman) is incorrect, for the creature is of the cat kind.\n  The woman is lithe and graceful in its movement, especially the\n  American variety (_felis pugnans_), is omnivorous and can be\n  taught not to talk.\n\nBalthasar Pober\n\n\nWORMS'-MEAT, n.  The finished product of which we are the raw\nmaterial.  The contents of the Taj Mahal, the Tombeau Napoleon and the\nGrantarium.  Worms'-meat is usually outlasted by the structure that\nhouses it, but \"this too must pass away.\"  Probably the silliest work\nin which a human being can engage is construction of a tomb for\nhimself.  The solemn purpose cannot dignify, but only accentuates by\ncontrast the foreknown futility.\n\n  Ambitious fool! so mad to be a show!\n  How profitless the labor you bestow\n      Upon a dwelling whose magnificence\n  The tenant neither can admire nor know.\n\n  Build deep, build high, build massive as you can,\n  The wanton grass-roots will defeat the plan\n      By shouldering asunder all the stones\n  In what to you would be a moment's span.\n\n  Time to the dead so all unreckoned flies\n  That when your marble is all dust, arise,\n      If wakened, stretch your limbs and yawn--\n  You'll think you scarcely can have closed your eyes.\n\n  What though of all man's works your tomb alone\n  Should stand till Time himself be overthrown?\n      Would it advantage you to dwell therein\n  Forever as a stain upon a stone?\n\nJoel Huck\n\n\nWORSHIP, n.  Homo Creator's testimony to the sound construction and\nfine finish of Deus Creatus.  A popular form of abjection, having an\nelement of pride.\n\nWRATH, n.  Anger of a superior quality and degree, appropriate to\nexalted characters and momentous occasions; as, \"the wrath of God,\"\n\"the day of wrath,\" etc.  Amongst the ancients the wrath of kings was\ndeemed sacred, for it could usually command the agency of some god for\nits fit manifestation, as could also that of a priest.  The Greeks\nbefore Troy were so harried by Apollo that they jumped out of the\nfrying-pan of the wrath of Chryses into the fire of the wrath of\nAchilles, though Agamemnon, the sole offender, was neither fried nor\nroasted.  A similar noted immunity was that of David when he incurred\nthe wrath of Yahveh by numbering his people, seventy thousand of whom\npaid the penalty with their lives.  God is now Love, and a director of\nthe census performs his work without apprehension of disaster.\n\n\n\n\nX\n\n\n\nX in our alphabet being a needless letter has an added invincibility\nto the attacks of the spelling reformers, and like them, will\ndoubtless last as long as the language.  X is the sacred symbol of ten\ndollars, and in such words as Xmas, Xn, etc., stands for Christ, not,\nas is popular supposed, because it represents a cross, but because the\ncorresponding letter in the Greek alphabet is the initial of his name\n--_Xristos_.  If it represented a cross it would stand for St.\nAndrew, who \"testified\" upon one of that shape.  In the algebra of\npsychology x stands for Woman's mind.  Words beginning with X are\nGrecian and will not be defined in this standard English dictionary.\n\n\n\n\nY\n\n\n\nYANKEE, n.  In Europe, an American.  In the Northern States of our\nUnion, a New Englander.  In the Southern States the word is unknown.\n(See DAMNYANK.)\n\nYEAR, n.  A period of three hundred and sixty-five disappointments.\n\nYESTERDAY, n.  The infancy of youth, the youth of manhood, the entire\npast of age.\n\n  But yesterday I should have thought me blest\n      To stand high-pinnacled upon the peak\n      Of middle life and look adown the bleak\n  And unfamiliar foreslope to the West,\n  Where solemn shadows all the land invest\n      And stilly voices, half-remembered, speak\n      Unfinished prophecy, and witch-fires freak\n  The haunted twilight of the Dark of Rest.\n  Yea, yesterday my soul was all aflame\n      To stay the shadow on the dial's face\n  At manhood's noonmark!  Now, in God His name\n      I chide aloud the little interspace\n  Disparting me from Certitude, and fain\n  Would know the dream and vision ne'er again.\n\nBaruch Arnegriff\n\n\nIt is said that in his last illness the poet Arnegriff was\nattended at different times by seven doctors.\n\nYOKE, n.  An implement, madam, to whose Latin name, _jugum_, we owe\none of the most illuminating words in our language--a word that\ndefines the matrimonial situation with precision, point and poignancy.\nA thousand apologies for withholding it.\n\nYOUTH, n.  The Period of Possibility, when Archimedes finds a fulcrum,\nCassandra has a following and seven cities compete for the honor of\nendowing a living Homer.\n\n      Youth is the true Saturnian Reign, the Golden Age on earth\n  again, when figs are grown on thistles, and pigs betailed with\n  whistles and, wearing silken bristles, live ever in clover, and\n  cows fly over, delivering milk at every door, and Justice never\n  is heard to snore, and every assassin is made a ghost and,\n  howling, is cast into Baltimost!\n\nPolydore Smith\n\n\n\n\nZ\n\n\n\nZANY, n.  A popular character in old Italian plays, who imitated with\nludicrous incompetence the _buffone_, or clown, and was therefore the\nape of an ape; for the clown himself imitated the serious characters\nof the play.  The zany was progenitor to the specialist in humor, as\nwe to-day have the unhappiness to know him.  In the zany we see an\nexample of creation; in the humorist, of transmission.  Another\nexcellent specimen of the modern zany is the curate, who apes the\nrector, who apes the bishop, who apes the archbishop, who apes the\ndevil.\n\nZANZIBARI, n.  An inhabitant of the Sultanate of Zanzibar, off the\neastern coast of Africa.  The Zanzibaris, a warlike people, are best\nknown in this country through a threatening diplomatic incident that\noccurred a few years ago.  The American consul at the capital occupied\na dwelling that faced the sea, with a sandy beach between.  Greatly to\nthe scandal of this official's family, and against repeated\nremonstrances of the official himself, the people of the city\npersisted in using the beach for bathing.  One day a woman came down\nto the edge of the water and was stooping to remove her attire (a pair\nof sandals) when the consul, incensed beyond restraint, fired a charge\nof bird-shot into the most conspicuous part of her person.\nUnfortunately for the existing _entente cordiale_ between two great\nnations, she was the Sultana.\n\nZEAL, n.  A certain nervous disorder afflicting the young and\ninexperienced.  A passion that goeth before a sprawl.\n\n  When Zeal sought Gratitude for his reward\n  He went away exclaiming:  \"O my Lord!\"\n  \"What do you want?\" the Lord asked, bending down.\n  \"An ointment for my cracked and bleeding crown.\"\n\nJum Coople\n\n\nZENITH, n.  The point in the heavens directly overhead to a man\nstanding or a growing cabbage.  A man in bed or a cabbage in the pot\nis not considered as having a zenith, though from this view of the\nmatter there was once a considerably dissent among the learned, some\nholding that the posture of the body was immaterial.  These were\ncalled Horizontalists, their opponents, Verticalists.  The\nHorizontalist heresy was finally extinguished by Xanobus, the\nphilosopher-king of Abara, a zealous Verticalist.  Entering an\nassembly of philosophers who were debating the matter, he cast a\nsevered human head at the feet of his opponents and asked them to\ndetermine its zenith, explaining that its body was hanging by the\nheels outside.  Observing that it was the head of their leader, the\nHorizontalists hastened to profess themselves converted to whatever\nopinion the Crown might be pleased to hold, and Horizontalism took its\nplace among _fides defuncti_.\n\nZEUS, n.  The chief of Grecian gods, adored by the Romans as Jupiter\nand by the modern Americans as God, Gold, Mob and Dog.  Some explorers\nwho have touched upon the shores of America, and one who professes to\nhave penetrated a considerable distance to the interior, have thought\nthat these four names stand for as many distinct deities, but in his\nmonumental work on Surviving Faiths, Frumpp insists that the natives\nare monotheists, each having no other god than himself, whom he\nworships under many sacred names.\n\nZIGZAG, v.t.  To move forward uncertainly, from side to side, as one\ncarrying the white man's burden.  (From _zed_, _z_, and _jag_, an\nIcelandic word of unknown meaning.)\n\n  He zedjagged so uncomen wyde\n  Thet non coude pas on eyder syde;\n  So, to com saufly thruh, I been\n  Constreynet for to doodge betwene.\n\nMunwele\n\n\nZOOLOGY, n.  The science and history of the animal kingdom, including\nits king, the House Fly (_Musca maledicta_).  The father of Zoology\nwas Aristotle, as is universally conceded, but the name of its mother\nhas not come down to us.  Two of the science's most illustrious\nexpounders were Buffon and Oliver Goldsmith, from both of whom we\nlearn (_L'Histoire generale des animaux_ and _A History of Animated\nNature_) that the domestic cow sheds its horn every two years."