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| author | Charles.Forsyth <devnull@localhost> | 2006-12-22 20:52:35 +0000 |
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| committer | Charles.Forsyth <devnull@localhost> | 2006-12-22 20:52:35 +0000 |
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diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/M.html b/lib/ebooks/devils/M.html new file mode 100644 index 00000000..dae028a0 --- /dev/null +++ b/lib/ebooks/devils/M.html @@ -0,0 +1,580 @@ +<?xml version="1.0"?> +<!DOCTYPE package PUBLIC "+//ISBN 0-9673008-1-9//DTD OEB 1.0 Package//EN" + "http://openebook.org/dtds/oeb-1.0/oebdoc1.dtd"> +<html> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/x-oeb1-document; charset=utf-8" /> +<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/x-oeb1-css" href="devil.css" /> +<title>The Devil’s Dictionary: M</title> +</head> +<body lang="en-US"> + + +<h1>M</h1> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">mace</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A staff +of office signifying authority. Its form, that of a heavy club, indicates its +original purpose and use in dissuading from dissent.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">machination</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The +method employed by one’s opponents in baffling one’s open and honorable efforts +to do the right thing.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">So plain the advantages of machination</p> +<p class="poetry">It constitutes a moral obligation,</p> +<p class="poetry">And honest wolves who think upon’t with loathing</p> +<p class="poetry">Feel bound to don the sheep’s deceptive clothing.</p> +<p class="poetry">So prospers still the diplomatic art,</p> +<p class="poetry">And Satan bows, with hand upon his heart.</p> +<p class="citeauth">R. S. K.</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">macrobian</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> One +forgotten of the gods and living to a great age. History is abundantly supplied +with examples, from Methuselah to Old Parr, but some notable instances of +longevity are less well known. A Calabrian peasant named Coloni, born in 1753, +lived so long that he had what he considered a glimpse of the dawn of universal +peace. Scanavius relates that he knew an archbishop who was so old that he +could remember a time when he did not deserve hanging. In 1566 a linen draper +of Bristol, England, declared that he had lived five hundred years, and that in +all that time he had never told a lie. There are instances of longevity +(<i>macrobiosis</i>) in our own country. Senator Chauncey Depew is old enough to +know better. The editor of <i>The American</i>, +a newspaper in New York City, has a memory that goes back to the time when he +was a rascal, but not to the fact. The President of the United States was born +so long ago that many of the friends of his youth have risen to high political +and military preferment without the assistance of personal merit. The verses +following were written by a macrobian:</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">When I was young the world was fair</p> +<p class="poetry">And amiable and sunny.</p> +<p class="poetry">A brightness was in all the air,</p> +<p class="poetry">In all the waters, honey.</p> +<p class="poetry">The jokes were fine and funny,</p> +<p class="poetry">The statesmen honest in their views,</p> +<p class="poetry">And in their lives, as well,</p> +<p class="poetry">And when you heard a bit of news</p> +<p class="poetry">‘Twas true enough to tell.</p> +<p class="poetry">Men were not ranting, shouting, reeking,</p> +<p class="poetry">Nor women “generally speaking.”</p> +<p class="poetry">The Summer then was long indeed:</p> +<p class="poetry">It lasted one whole season!</p> +<p class="poetry">The sparkling Winter gave no heed</p> +<p class="poetry">When ordered by Unreason</p> +<p class="poetry">To bring the early peas on.</p> +<p class="poetry">Now, where the dickens is the sense</p> +<p class="poetry"> In calling that a year</p> +<p class="poetry">Which does no more than just commence</p> +<p class="poetry">Before the end is near?</p> +<p class="poetry">When I was young the year extended</p> +<p class="poetry">From month to month until it ended.</p> +<p class="poetry">I know not why the world has changed</p> +<p class="poetry">To something dark and dreary,</p> +<p class="poetry">And everything is now arranged</p> +<p class="poetry">To make a fellow weary.</p> +<p class="poetry">The Weather Man—I fear he</p> +<p class="poetry">Has much to do with it, for, sure,</p> +<p class="poetry">The air is not the same:</p> +<p class="poetry">It chokes you when it is impure,</p> +<p class="poetry">When pure it makes you lame.</p> +<p class="poetry">With windows closed you are asthmatic;</p> +<p class="poetry">Open, neuralgic or sciatic.</p> +<p class="poetry">Well, I suppose this new regime</p> +<p class="poetry">Of dun degeneration</p> +<p class="poetry">Seems eviler than it would seem</p> +<p class="poetry">To a better observation,</p> +<p class="poetry">And has for compensation</p> +<p class="poetry">Some blessings in a deep disguise</p> +<p class="poetry">Which mortal sight has failed</p> +<p class="poetry">To pierce, although to angels’ eyes</p> +<p class="poetry">They’re visible unveiled.</p> +<p class="poetry">If Age is such a boon, good land!</p> +<p class="poetry">He’s costumed by a master hand!</p> +<p class="citeauth">Venable Strigg</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">mad</span>, <span class="pos">adj.</span> Affected +with a high degree of intellectual independence; not conforming to standards of +thought, speech and action derived by the conformants from study of themselves; +at odds with the majority; in short, unusual. It is noteworthy that persons are +pronounced mad by officials destitute of evidence that themselves are sane. For +illustration, this present (and illustrious) lexicographer is no firmer in the +faith of his own sanity than is any inmate of any madhouse in the land; yet for +aught he knows to the contrary, instead of the lofty occupation that seems to +him to be engaging his powers he may really be beating his hands against the +window bars of an asylum and declaring himself Noah Webster, to the innocent +delight of many thoughtless spectators.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">Magdalene</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> An +inhabitant of Magdala. Popularly, a woman found out. This definition of the +word has the authority of ignorance, Mary of Magdala being another person than +the penitent woman mentioned by St. Luke. It has also the official sanction of +the governments of Great Britain and the United States. In England the word is +pronounced Maudlin, whence maudlin, adjective, unpleasantly sentimental. With +their Maudlin for Magdalene, and their Bedlam for Bethlehem, the English may +justly boast themselves the greatest of revisers.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">magic</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> An art +of converting superstition into coin. There are other arts serving the same +high purpose, but the discreet lexicographer does not name them.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">magnet</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Something +acted upon by magnetism.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">magnetism</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Something +acting upon a magnet.</p> + +<p class="indentpara">The two definitions immediately foregoing are condensed from the works of one thousand +eminent scientists, who have illuminated the subject with a great white light, +to the inexpressible advancement of human knowledge.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">magnificient</span>, <span class="pos">adj.</span> Having +a grandeur or splendor superior to that to which the spectator is accustomed, +as the ears of an ass, to a rabbit, or the glory of a glowworm, to a maggot.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">magnitude</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Size. +Magnitude being purely relative, nothing is large and nothing small. If +everything in the universe were increased in bulk one thousand diameters +nothing would be any larger than it was before, but if one thing remain +unchanged all the others would be larger than they had been. To an +understanding familiar with the relativity of magnitude and distance the spaces +and masses of the astronomer would be no more impressive than those of the +microscopist. For anything we know to the contrary, the visible universe may be +a small part of an atom, with its component ions, floating in the life- fluid +(luminiferous ether) of some animal. Possibly the wee creatures peopling the +corpuscles of our own blood are overcome with the proper emotion when +contemplating the unthinkable distance from one of these to another.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">magpie</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A bird +whose thievish disposition suggested to someone that it might be taught to talk.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">maiden</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A young +person of the unfair sex addicted to clewless conduct and views that madden to +crime. The genus has a wide geographical distribution, being found wherever +sought and deplored wherever found. The maiden is not altogether unpleasing to +the eye, nor (without her piano and her views) insupportable to the ear, though +in respect to comeliness distinctly inferior to the rainbow, and, with regard +to the part of her that is audible, bleating out of the field by the +canary—which, also, is more portable.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">A lovelorn maiden she sat and sang—</p> +<p class="poetry">This quaint, sweet song sang she;</p> +<p class="poetry">“It’s O for a youth with a football bang</p> +<p class="poetry">And a muscle fair to see!</p> +<p class="poetry">The Captain he</p> +<p class="poetry">Of a team to be!</p> +<p class="poetry">On the gridiron he shall shine,</p> +<p class="poetry">A monarch by right divine,</p> +<p class="poetry">And never to roast on it—me!”</p> +<p class="citeauth">Opoline Jones</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">majesty</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The +state and title of a king. Regarded with a just contempt by the Most Eminent +Grand Masters, Grand Chancellors, Great Incohonees and Imperial Potentates of +the ancient and honorable orders of republican America.</p> + +<p id="male" class="entry"><span class="def">male</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A member +of the unconsidered, or negligible sex. The male of the human race is commonly +known (to the female) as Mere Man. The genus has two varieties: good providers +and bad providers.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">malefactor</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The +chief factor in the progress of the human race.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">malthusian</span>, <span class="pos">adj.</span> Pertaining +to Malthus and his doctrines. Malthus believed in artificially limiting +population, but found that it could not be done by talking. One of the most +practical exponents of the Malthusian idea was Herod of Judea, though all the +famous soldiers have been of the same way of thinking.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">mammalia</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span>pl. A +family of vertebrate animals whose females in a state of nature suckle their +young, but when civilized and enlightened put them out to nurse, or use the bottle.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">Mammon</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The god +of the world’s leading religion. The chief temple is in the holy city of New York.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">He swore that all other religions were</p> +<p class="poetry">gammon, And wore out his knees in the worship of Mammon.</p> +<p class="citeauth">Jared Oopf</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">man</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> An animal +so lost in rapturous contemplation of what he thinks he is as to overlook what +he indubitably ought to be. His chief occupation is extermination of other +animals and his own species, which, however, multiplies with such insistent +rapidity as to infest the whole habitable earh and Canada.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">When the world was young and Man was new,</p> +<p class="poetry">And everything was pleasant,</p> +<p class="poetry">Distinctions Nature never drew</p> +<p class="poetry">‘Mongst kings and priest and peasant.</p> +<p class="poetry">We’re not that way at present,</p> +<p class="poetry">Save here in this Republic, where</p> +<p class="poetry">We have that old regime,</p> +<p class="poetry">For all are kings, however bare</p> +<p class="poetry">Their backs, howe’er extreme</p> +<p class="poetry">Their hunger. And, indeed, each has a voice</p> +<p class="poetry">To accept the tyrant of his party’s choice.</p> +<p class="poetry">A citizen who would not vote,</p> +<p class="poetry">And, therefore, was detested,</p> +<p class="poetry">Was one day with a tarry coat</p> +<p class="poetry">(With feathers backed and breasted)</p> +<p class="poetry">By patriots invested.</p> +<p class="poetry">“It is your duty,” cried the crowd,</p> +<p class="poetry">“Your ballot true to cast</p> +<p class="poetry">For the man o’ your choice.” He humbly bowed,</p> +<p class="poetry">And explained his wicked past:</p> +<p class="poetry">“That’s what I very gladly would have done, Dear patriots, but he has never run.”</p> +<p class="citeauth">Apperton Duke</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">manes</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The +immortal parts of dead Greeks and Romans. They were in a state of dull +discomfort until the bodies from which they had exhaled were buried and burned; +and they seem not to have been particularly happy afterward.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">Manicheism</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The +ancient Persian doctrine of an incessant warfare between Good and Evil. When +Good gave up the fight the Persians joined the victorious Opposition.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">Manna</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A food +miraculously given to the Israelites in the wilderness. When it was no longer +supplied to them they settled down and tilled the soil, fertilizing it, as a +rule, with the bodies of the original occupants.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">marriage</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The +state or condition of a community consisting of a master, a mistress and two +slaves, making in all, two.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">martyr</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> One who +moves along the line of least reluctance to a desired death.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">material</span>, <span class="pos">adj.</span> Having +an actual existence, as distinguished from an imaginary one. Important.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">Material things I know, or fell, or see;</p> +<p class="poetry">All else is immaterial to me.</p> +<p class="citeauth">Jamrach Holobom</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">mausoleum</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The +final and funniest folly of the rich.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">mayonnaise</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> One +of the sauces which serve the French in place of a state religion.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">me,</span> <span class="pos">pro.</span> The +objectionable case of I. The personal pronoun in English has three cases, the +dominative, the objectionable and the oppressive. Each is all three.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">meander</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> To +proceed sinuously and aimlessly. The word is the ancient name of a river about +one hundred and fifty miles south of Troy, which turned and twisted in the +effort to get out of hearing when the Greeks and Trojans boasted of their prowess.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">medal</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A small +metal disk given as a reward for virtues, attainments or services more or less +authentic.</p> + +<p class="indentpara">It is related of Bismark, who had been awarded a medal for gallantly rescuing a drowning person, +that, being asked the meaning of the medal, he replied: “I save lives +sometimes.” And sometimes he didn’t.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">medicine</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A stone +flung down the Bowery to kill a dog in Broadway.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">meekness</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Uncommon +patience in planning a revenge that is worth while.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">M is for Moses,</p> +<p class="poetry">Who slew the Egyptian.</p> +<p class="poetry">As sweet as a rose is</p> +<p class="poetry">The meekness of Moses.</p> +<p class="poetry">No monument shows his</p> +<p class="poetry">Post-mortem inscription,</p> +<p class="poetry">But M is for Moses</p> +<p class="poetry">Who slew the Egyptian.</p> +<p class="citeauth"><i>The Biographical Alphabet</i></p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">meerschaum</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> (Literally, +seafoam, and by many erroneously supposed to be made of it.) A fine white clay, +which for convenience in coloring it brown is made into tobacco pipes and smoked +by the workmen engaged in that industry. The purpose of coloring it has not +been disclosed by the manufacturers.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">There was a youth (you’ve heard before,</p> +<p class="poetry">This woeful tale, may be),</p> +<p class="poetry">Who bought a meerschaum pipe and swore</p> +<p class="poetry">That color it would he!</p> +<p class="poetry">He shut himself from the world away,</p> +<p class="poetry">Nor any soul he saw.</p> +<p class="poetry">He smoke by night, he smoked by day,</p> +<p class="poetry">As hard as he could draw.</p> +<p class="poetry">His dog died moaning in the wrath</p> +<p class="poetry">Of winds that blew aloof;</p> +<p class="poetry">The weeds were in the gravel path,</p> +<p class="poetry">The owl was on the roof.</p> +<p class="poetry">“He’s gone afar, he’ll come no more,”</p> +<p class="poetry">The neighbors sadly say.</p> +<p class="poetry">And so they batter in the door</p> +<p class="poetry">To take his goods away.</p> +<p class="poetry">Dead, pipe in mouth, the youngster lay,</p> +<p class="poetry">Nut-brown in face and limb.</p> +<p class="poetry">“That pipe’s a lovely white,” they say,</p> +<p class="poetry">“But it has colored him!”</p> +<p class="poetry">The moral there’s small need to sing—</p> +<p class="poetry">‘Tis plain as day to you:</p> +<p class="poetry">Don’t play your game on any thing</p> +<p class="poetry">That is a gamester too.</p> +<p class="citeauth">Martin Bulstrode</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">mendacious</span>, <span class="pos">adj.</span> Addicted to rhetoric.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">merchant</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> One +engaged in a commercial pursuit. A commercial pursuit is one in which the thing +pursued is a dollar.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">mercy</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> An +attribute beloved of detected offenders.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">mesmerism</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Hypnotism +before it wore good clothes, kept a carriage and asked Incredulity to dinner.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">metropolis</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +stronghold of provincialism.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">millennium</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The +period of a thousand years when the lid is to be screwed down, with all reformers on the under side.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">mind</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +mysterious form of matter secreted by the brain. Its chief activity consists in +the endeavor to ascertain its own nature, the futility of the attempt being due +to the fact that it has nothing but itself to know itself with. From the Latin <i>mens</i>, a fact unknown to that honest +shoe-seller, who, observing that his learned competitor over the way had +displayed the motto “<i>Mens conscia recti</i>,” emblazoned his own front with the +words “Men’s, women’s and children’s conscia recti.”</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">mine</span>, <span class="pos">adj.</span> Belonging +to me if I can hold or seize it.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">minister</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> An +agent of a higher power with a lower responsibility. In diplomacy and officer +sent into a foreign country as the visible embodiment of his sovereign’s +hostility. His principal qualification is a degree of plausible inveracity next +below that of an ambassador.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">minor</span>, <span class="pos">adj.</span> Less +objectionable.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">minstrel</span>, <span class="pos">adj.</span> Formerly +a poet, singer or musician; now a nigger with a color less than skin deep and a +humor more than flesh and blood can bear.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">miracle</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> An act +or event out of the order of nature and unaccountable, as beating a normal hand +of four kings and an ace with four aces and a king.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">miscreant</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +person of the highest degree of unworth. Etymologically, the word means +unbeliever, and its present signification may be regarded as theology’s noblest +contribution to the development of our language.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">misdemeanor</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> An +infraction of the law having less dignity than a felony and constituting no +claim to admittance into the best criminal society.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">By misdemeanors he essays to climb</p> +<p class="poetry">Into the aristocracy of crime.</p> +<p class="poetry">O, woe was him!—with manner chill and grand “Captains of industry” refused his hand, “Kings of +finance” denied him recognition And “railway magnates” jeered his low +condition. He robbed a bank to make himself respected.</p> +<p class="poetry">They still rebuffed him, for he was detected.</p> +<p class="citeauth">S. V. Hanipur</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">misericorde</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +dagger which in mediaeval warfare was used by the foot soldier to remind an +unhorsed knight that he was mortal.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">misfortune</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The +kind of fortune that never misses.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">miss</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The title +with which we brand unmarried women to indicate that they are in the market. Miss, +Missis (Mrs.) and Mister (Mr.) are the three most distinctly disagreeable words +in the language, in sound and sense. Two are corruptions of Mistress, the other +of Master. In the general abolition of social titles in this our country they +miraculously escaped to plague us. If we must have them let us be consistent +and give one to the unmarried man. I venture to suggest Mush, abbreviated to +Mh.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">molecule</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The +ultimate, indivisible unit of matter. It is distinguished from the corpuscle, +also the ultimate, indivisible unit of matter, by a closer resemblance to the +atom, also the ultimate, indivisible unit of matter. Three great scientific +theories of the structure of the universe are the molecular, the corpuscular +and the atomic. A fourth affirms, with Haeckel, the condensation of +precipitation of matter from ether—whose existence is proved by the +condensation of precipitation. The present trend of scientific thought is +toward the theory of ions. The ion differs from the molecule, the corpuscle and +the atom in that it is an ion. A fifth theory is held by idiots, but it is +doubtful if they know any more about the matter than the others.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">monad</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The +ultimate, indivisible unit of matter. (See <i>Molecule</i>.) +According to Leibnitz, as nearly as he seems willing to be understood, the +monad has body without bulk, and mind without manifestation—Leibnitz knows him +by the innate power of considering. He has founded upon him a theory of the +universe, which the creature bears without resentment, for the monad is a +gentlmean. Small as he is, the monad contains all the powers and possibilities +needful to his evolution into a German philosopher of the first class— +altogether a very capable little fellow. He is not to be confounded with the +microbe, or bacillus; by its inability to discern him, a good microscope shows +him to be of an entirely distinct species.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">monarch</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +person engaged in reigning. Formerly the monarch ruled, as the derivation of +the word attests, and as many subjects have had occasion to learn. In Russia +and the Orient the monarch has still a considerable influence in public affairs +and in the disposition of the human head, but in western Europe political +administration is mostly entrusted to his ministers, he being somewhat +preoccupied with reflections relating to the status of his own head.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">monarchical government</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Government.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">Monday</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> In +Christian countries, the day after the baseball game.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">money</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +blessing that is of no advantage to us excepting when we part with it. An +evidence of culture and a passport to polite society. Supportable property.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">monkey</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> An +arboreal animal which makes itself at home in genealogical trees.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">monosyllabic</span>, <span class="pos">adj.</span> +Composed of words of one syllable, for literary babes who never tire of +testifying their delight in the vapid compound by appropriate googoogling. The +words are commonly Saxon—that is to say, words of a barbarous people destitute +of ideas and incapable of any but the most elementary sentiments and emotions.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">The man who writes in Saxon</p> +<p class="poetry">Is the man to use an ax on</p> +<p class="citeauth">Judibras</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">monsignor</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +high ecclesiastical title, of which the Founder of our religion overlooked the advantages.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">monument</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +structure intended to commemorate something which either needs no commemoration +or cannot be commemorated.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">The bones of Agammemnon are a show,</p> +<p class="poetry">And ruined is his royal monument,</p> +<p class="poetry">but Agammemnon’s +fame suffers no diminution in consequence. The monument custom has its <i>reductiones ad absurdum</i> in monuments “to +the unknown dead”—that is to say, monuments to perpetuate the memory of those +who have left no memory.</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">moral</span>, <span class="pos">adj.</span> Conforming +to a local and mutable standard of right. </p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">Having the quality of general expediency.</p> +<p class="poetry">It is sayd there +be a raunge of mountaynes in the Easte, on one syde of the which certayn +conducts are immorall, yet on the other syde they are holden in good esteeme; +wherebye the mountayneer is much conveenyenced, for it is given to him to goe +downe eyther way and act as it shall suite his moode, withouten offence.</p> +<p class="citeauth"><i>Gooke’s Meditations</i></p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">more</span>, <span class="pos">adj.</span> The +comparative degree of too much.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">mouse</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> An +animal which strews its path with fainting women. As in Rome Christians were +thrown to the lions, so centuries earlier in Otumwee, the most ancient and +famous city of the world, female heretics were thrown to the mice. Jakak-Zotp, +the historian, the only Otumwump whose writings have descended to us, says that +these martyrs met their death with little dignity and much exertion. He even +attempts to exculpate the mice (such is the malice of bigotry) by declaring +that the unfortunate women perished, some from exhaustion, some of broken necks +from falling over their own feet, and some from lack of restoratives. The mice, +he avers, enjoyed the pleasures of the chase with composure. But if “Roman +history is nine-tenths lying,” we can hardly expect a smaller proportion of +that rhetorical figure in the annals of a people capable of so incredible +cruelty to a lovely women; for a hard heart has a false tongue.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">mousquetaire</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +long glove covering a part of the arm. Worn in New Jersey. But “mousquetaire” +is a might poor way to spell muskeeter.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">mouth</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> In man, +the gateway to the soul; in woman, the outlet of the heart.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">mugwump</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> In +politics one afflicted with self-respect and addicted to the vice of +independence. A term of contempt.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">mulatto</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +child of two races, ashamed of both.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">multitude</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +crowd; the source of political wisdom and virtue. In a republic, the object of +the statesman’s adoration. “In a multitude of consellors there is wisdom,” +saith the proverb. If many men of equal individual wisdom are wiser than any +one of them, it must be that they acquire the excess of wisdom by the mere act +of getting together. Whence comes it? Obviously from nowhere—as well say that a +range of mountains is higher than the single mountains composing it. A +multitude is as wise as its wisest member if it obey him; if not, it is no +wiser than its most foolish.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">mummy</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> An +ancient Egyptian, formerly in universal use among modern civilized nations as +medicine, and now engaged in supplying art with an excellent pigment. He is +handy, too, in museums in gratifying the vulgar curiosity that serves to +distinguish man from the lower animals.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">By means of the +Mummy, mankind, it is said, Attests to the gods its respect for the dead. We +plunder his tomb, be he sinner or saint, Distil him for physic and grind him +for paint, Exhibit for money his poor, shrunken frame, And with levity flock to +the scene of the shame.</p> +<p class="poetry">O, tell me, ye gods, for the use of my rhyme:</p> +<p class="poetry">For respecting the dead what’s the limit of time?</p> +<p class="citeauth">Scopas Brune</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">mustang</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> An +indocile horse of the western plains. In English society, the American wife of +an English nobleman.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">myrmidon</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +follower of Achilles—particularly when he didn’t lead.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">mythology</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The +body of a primitive people’s beliefs concerning its origin, early history, +heroes, deities and so forth, as distinguished from the true accounts which it +invents later.</p> + +</body> +</html>
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