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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/P.html b/lib/ebooks/devils/P.html new file mode 100644 index 00000000..347a3e1f --- /dev/null +++ b/lib/ebooks/devils/P.html @@ -0,0 +1,653 @@ +<?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: P</title> +</head> +<body lang="en-US"> + + +<h1>P</h1> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">pain</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> An +uncomfortable frame of mind that may have a physical basis in something that is +being done to the body, or may be purely mental, caused by the good fortune of +another.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">painting</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The +art of protecting flat surfaces from the weather and exposing them to the critic.</p> + +<p>Formerly, painting and sculpture were combined in the same work: </p> + +<p>the ancients painted their statues. The only present alliance between the two arts is that +the modern painter chisels his patrons.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">palace</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A fine +and costly residence, particularly that of a great official. The residence of a +high dignitary of the Christian Church is called a palace; that of the Founder +of his religion was known as a field, or wayside. There is progress.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">palm</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A species +of tree having several varieties, of which the familiar “itching palm” (<i>Palma +hominis</i>) is most widely distributed and sedulously cultivated. This noble +vegetable exudes a kind of invisible gum, which may be detected by applying to +the bark a piece of gold or silver. The metal will adhere with remarkable +tenacity. The fruit of the itching palm is so bitter and unsatisfying that a +considerable percentage of it is sometimes given away in what are known as +“benefactions.”</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">palmistry</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The +947<sup>th</sup> method (according to Mimbleshaw’s classification) of obtaining +money by false pretences. It consists in “reading character” in the wrinkles +made by closing the hand. The pretence is not altogether false; character can +really be read very accurately in this way, for the wrinkles in every hand +submitted plainly spell the word “dupe.” The imposture consists in not reading +it aloud.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">pandemonium </span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Literally, +the Place of All the Demons. Most of them have escaped into politics and +finance, and the place is now used as a lecture hall by the Audible Reformer. When +disturbed by his voice the ancient echoes clamor appropriate responses most +gratifying to his pride of distinction.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">pantaloons</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +nether habiliment of the adult civilized male. The garment is tubular and +unprovided with hinges at the points of flexion. Supposed to have been invented +by a humorist. Called “trousers” by the enlightened and “pants” by the +unworthy.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">pantheism</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The +doctrine that everything is God, in contradistinction to the doctrine that God is everything.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">pantomime</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +play in which the story is told without violence to the language. The least +disagreeable form of dramatic action.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">pardon</span>, <span class="pos">v.</span> To +remit a penalty and restore to the life of crime. To add to the lure of crime +the temptation of ingratitude.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">passport</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +document treacherously inflicted upon a citizen going abroad, exposing him as +an alien and pointing him out for special reprobation and outrage.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">past</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> That part +of Eternity with some small fraction of which we have a slight and regrettable +acquaintance. A moving line called the Present parts it from an imaginary +period known as the Future. These two grand divisions of Eternity, of which the +one is continually effacing the other, are entirely unlike. The one is dark +with sorrow and disappointment, the other bright with prosperity and joy. The +Past is the region of sobs, the Future is the realm of song. In the one +crouches Memory, clad in sackcloth and ashes, mumbling penitential prayer; in +the sunshine of the other Hope flies with a free wing, beckoning to temples of +success and bowers of ease. Yet the Past is the Future of yesterday, the Future +is the Past of to-morrow. They are one—the knowledge and the dream.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">pastime</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +device for promoting dejection. Gentle exercise for intellectual debility.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">patience</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +minor form of despair, disguised as a virtue.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">patriot</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> One to +whom the interests of a part seem superior to those of the whole. The dupe of +statesmen and the tool of conquerors.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">patriotism</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Combustible +rubbish read to the torch of any one ambitious to illuminate his name.</p> + +<p>In Dr. Johnson’s famous dictionary patriotism is defined as the last resort of a scoundrel. With +all due respect to an enlightened but inferior lexicographer I beg to submit +that it is the first.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">peace</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> In +international affairs, a period of cheating between two periods of fighting.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">O, what’s the loud uproar assailing</p> +<p class="poetry">Mine ears without cease?</p> +<p class="poetry">‘Tis the voice of the hopeful, all-hailing</p> +<p class="poetry">The horrors of peace.</p> +<p class="poetry">Ah, Peace Universal; they woo it—</p> +<p class="poetry">Would marry it, too.</p> +<p class="poetry">If only they knew how to do it</p> +<p class="poetry">‘Twere easy to do.</p> +<p class="poetry">They’re working by night and by day</p> +<p class="poetry">On their problem, like moles.</p> +<p class="poetry">Have mercy, O Heaven, I pray,</p> +<p class="poetry">On their meddlesome souls!</p> +<p class="citeauth">Ro Amil</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">pedestrian</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The +variable (an audible) part of the roadway for an automobile.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">pedigree</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The +known part of the route from an arboreal ancestor with a swim bladder to an +urban descendant with a cigarette.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">penitentN</span>, <span class="pos">adj.</span> Undergoing +or awaiting punishment.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">perfection</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> An +imaginary state of quality distinguished from the actual by an element known as +excellence; an attribute of the critic.</p> + +<p class="indentpara">The editor of an English magazine having received a letter pointing out the erroneous nature of +his views and style, and signed “Perfection,” promptly wrote at the foot of the +letter: “I don’t agree with you,” and mailed it to Matthew Arnold.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">peripatetic</span>, <span class="pos">adj.</span> Walking +about. Relating to the philosophy of Aristotle, who, while expounding it, moved +from place to place in order to avoid his pupil’s objections. A needless +precaution—they knew no more of the matter than he.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">peroration</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The +explosion of an oratorical rocket. It dazzles, but to an observer having the +wrong kind of nose its most conspicuous peculiarity is the smell of the several +kinds of powder used in preparing it.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">perseverance</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +lowly virtue whereby mediocrity achieves an inglorious success.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">“Persevere, persevere!” cry the homilists all,<br /> +Themselves, day and night, persevering to bawl.<br /> +“Remember the fable of tortoise and hare—</p> +<p class="poetry">The one at the goal while the other is—where?”<br /> +Why, back there in Dreamland, renewing his lease<br /> +Of life, all his muscles preserving the peace,<br /> +The goal and the rival forgotten alike,<br /> +And the long fatigue of the needless hike.</p> +<p class="poetry">His spirit a-squat in the grass and the dew</p> +<p class="poetry">Of the dogless Land beyond the Stew,</p> +<p class="poetry">He sleeps, like a saint in a holy place,</p> +<p class="poetry">A winner of all that is good in a race.</p> +<p class="citeauth">Sukker Uffro</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">pessimism</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +philosophy forced upon the convictions of the observer by the disheartening +prevalence of the optimist with his scarecrow hope and his unsightly smile.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">philanthropist</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> +A rich (and usually bald) old gentleman who has trained himself to grin while +his conscience is picking his pocket.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">philistine</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> One +whose mind is the creature of its environment, following the fashion in +thought, feeling and sentiment. He is sometimes learned, frequently prosperous, +commonly clean and always solemn.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">philosophy</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +route of many roads leading from nowhere to nothing.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">Phoenix</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The classical +prototype of the modern “small hot bird.”</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">phonograph</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> An +irritating toy that restores life to dead noises.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">photograph</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +picture painted by the sun without instruction in art. It is a little better +than the work of an Apache, but not quite so good as that of a Cheyenne.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">phrenology</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The +science of picking the pocket through the scalp. It consists in locating and +exploiting the organ that one is a dupe with.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">physician</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> One +upon whom we set our hopes when ill and our dogs when well.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">physiognomy</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The +art of determining the character of another by the resemblances and differences +between his face and our own, which is the standard of excellence.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">“There is no art,” says Shakespeare, foolish man,</p> +<p class="poetry">“To read the mind’s construction in the face.”</p> +<p class="poetry">The physiognomists his portrait scan,</p> +<p class="poetry">And say: “How little wisdom here we trace! He knew his face disclosed his mind and heart, So, +in his own defence, denied our art.”</p> +<p class="poetry">Lavatar Shunk</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">piano</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A parlor +utensil for subduing the impenitent visitor. It is operated by pressing the +keys of the machine and the spirits of the audience.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">pickaninny</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The +young of the <i>Procyanthropos</i>, or <i>Americanus dominans</i>. It is small, black and charged with political +fatalities.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">picture</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +representation in two dimensions of something wearisome in three.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">“Behold great Daubert’s picture here on view—</p> +<p class="poetry">Taken from Life.” If that description’s true, Grant, heavenly Powers, that I be taken, too.</p> +<p class="citeauth">Jali Hane</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">pie</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> An advance +agent of the reaper whose name is Indigestion.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">Cold pie was highly esteemed by the remains.</p> +<p class="poetry">Rev. Dr. Mucker</p> +<p class="poetry">(in a funeral sermon over a British nobleman)</p> +<p class="poetry">Cold pie is a detestable</p> +<p class="poetry">American comestible.</p> +<p class="poetry">That’s why I’m done—or undone—</p> +<p class="poetry">So far from that dear London.</p> +<p class="citeauth">(from the headstone of a British nobleman in Kalamazoo)</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">piety</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Reverence +for the Supreme Being, based upon His supposed resemblance to man.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">The pig is taught by sermons and epistles<br /> +To think the God of Swine has snout and bristles.</p> +<p class="citeauth">Judibras</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">pig</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> An animal +(<i>Porcus omnivorus</i>) closely allied to the human race by the splendor and +vivacity of its appetite, which, however, is inferior in scope, for it sticks +at pig.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">pigmy</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> One of a +tribe of very small men found by ancient travelers in many parts of the world, +but by modern in Central Africa only. The Pigmies are so called to distinguish +them from the bulkier Caucasians—who are Hogmies.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">Pilgrim</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +traveler that is taken seriously. A Pilgrim Father was one who, leaving Europe +in 1620 because not permitted to sing psalms through his nose, followed it to +Massachusetts, where he could personate God according to the dictates of his +conscience.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">pillory</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +mechanical device for inflicting personal distinction—prototype of the +modern newspaper conducted by persons of austere virtues and blameless lives.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">piracy</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Commerce +without its folly-swaddles, just as God made it.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">pitiful</span>, <span class="pos">adj.</span> The +state of an enemy of opponent after an imaginary encounter with oneself.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">pity</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A failing +sense of exemption, inspired by contrast.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">plagiarism</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +literary coincidence compounded of a discreditable priority and an honorable subsequence.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">plagiarize</span>, <span class="pos">v.</span> To +take the thought or style of another writer whom one has never, never read.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">plague</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> In +ancient times a general punishment of the innocent for admonition of their +ruler, as in the familiar instance of Pharaoh the Immune. The plague as we of +to-day have the happiness to know it is merely Nature’s fortuitous +manifestation of her purposeless objectionableness.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">plan</span>, <span class="pos">v.t.</span> To +bother about the best method of accomplishing an accidental result.</p> + +<p id="platitude" class="entry"><span class="def">platitude</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The +fundamental element and special glory of popular literature. A thought that +snores in words that smoke. The wisdom of a million fools in the diction of a +dullard. A fossil sentiment in artificial rock. A moral without the fable. All +that is mortal of a departed truth. A demi-tasse of milk-and-mortality. The +Pope’s-nose of a featherless peacock. A jelly-fish withering on the shore of +the sea of thought. The cackle surviving the egg. A desiccated epigram.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">platonic</span>, <span class="pos">adj.</span> Pertaining +to the philosophy of Socrates. Platonic Love is a fool’s name for the affection +between a disability and a frost.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">plaudits</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Coins +with which the populace pays those who tickle and devour it.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">please</span>, <span class="pos">v.</span> To lay +the foundation for a superstructure of imposition.</p> + +<p id="pleasure" class="entry"><span class="def">pleasure</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The +least hateful form of dejection.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">plebeian</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> An +ancient Roman who in the blood of his country stained nothing but his hands. Distinguished +from the Patrician, who was a saturated solution.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">plebiscite</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +popular vote to ascertain the will of the sovereign.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">plenipotentiary,</span> <span class="pos">adj.</span> Having full power. +A Minister Plenipotentiary is a diplomatist possessing +absolute authority on condition that he never exert it.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">pleonasm</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> An +army of words escorting a corporal of thought.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">plow</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> An +implement that cries aloud for hands accustomed to the pen.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">plunder</span>, <span class="pos">v.</span> To +take the property of another without observing the decent and customary +reticences of theft. To effect a change of ownership with the candid +concomitance of a brass band. To wrest the wealth of A from B and leave C +lamenting a vanishing opportunity.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">pocket</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The +cradle of motive and the grave of conscience. In woman this organ is lacking; +so she acts without motive, and her conscience, denied burial, remains ever +alive, confessing the sins of others.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">poetry</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A form +of expression peculiar to the Land beyond the Magazines.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">poker</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A game +said to be played with cards for some purpose to this lexicographer unknown.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">police</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> An +armed force for protection and participation.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">politeness</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The +most acceptable hypocrisy.</p> + +<p id="politics" class="entry"><span class="def">politics</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of +public affairs for private advantage.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">politician</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> An +eel in the fundamental mud upon which the superstructure of organized society +is reared. When we wriggles he mistakes the agitation of his tail for the +trembling of the edifice. As compared with the statesman, he suffers the +disadvantage of being alive.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">polygamy</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +house of atonement, or expiatory chapel, fitted with several stools of +repentance, as distinguished from monogamy, which has but one.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">populist</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +fossil patriot of the early agricultural period, found in the old red soapstone +underlying Kansas; characterized by an uncommon spread of ear, which some +naturalists contend gave him the power of flight, though Professors Morse and +Whitney, pursuing independent lines of thought, have ingeniously pointed out +that had he possessed it he would have gone elsewhere. In the picturesque +speech of his period, some fragments of which have come down to us, he was +known as “The Matter with Kansas.”</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">portable</span>, <span class="pos">adj.</span> Exposed +to a mutable ownership through vicissitudes of possession.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">His light estate, if neither he did make it<br /> +Nor yet its former guardian forsake it,<br /> +Is portable improperly, I take it.</p> +<p class="citeauth">Worgum Slupsky</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">Portuguese</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span>pl. A +species of geese indigenous to Portugal. They are mostly without feathers and +imperfectly edible, even when stuffed with garlic.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">positive</span>, <span class="pos">adj.</span> Mistaken +at the top of one’s voice.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">positivism</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +philosophy that denies our knowledge of the Real and affirms our ignorance of +the Apparent. Its longest exponent is Comte, its broadest Mill and its thickest +Spencer.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">posterity</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> An +appellate court which reverses the judgment of a popular author’s +contemporaries, the appellant being his obscure competitor.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">potable</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Suitable +for drinking. Water is said to be potable; indeed, some declare it our natural +beverage, although even they find it palatable only when suffering from the +recurrent disorder known as thirst, for which it is a medicine. Upon nothing +has so great and diligent ingenuity been brought to bear in all ages and in all +countries, except the most uncivilized, as upon the invention of substitutes +for water. To hold that this general aversion to that liquid has no basis in +the preservative instinct of the race is to be unscientific—and without science +we are as the snakes and toads.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">poverty</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A file +provided for the teeth of the rats of reform. The number of plans for its +abolition equals that of the reformers who suffer from it, plus that of the +philosophers who know nothing about it. Its victims are distinguished by +possession of all the virtues and by their faith in leaders seeking to conduct +them into a prosperity where they believe these to be unknown.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">pray</span>, <span class="pos">v.</span> To ask +that the laws of the universe be annulled in behalf of a single petitioner +confessedly unworthy.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">Pre-Adamite</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> One +of an experimental and apparently unsatisfactory race of antedated Creation and +lived under conditions not easily conceived. Melsius believed them to have +inhabited “the Void” and to have been something intermediate between fishes and +birds. Little its known of them beyond the fact that they supplied Cain with a +wife and theologians with a controversy.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">precedent</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> In +Law, a previous decision, rule or practice which, in the absence of a definite +statute, has whatever force and authority a Judge may choose to give it, +thereby greatly simplifying his task of doing as he pleases. As there are +precedents for everything, he has only to ignore those that make against his +interest and accentuate those in the line of his desire. Invention of the +precedent elevates the trial-at-law from the low estate of a fortuitous ordeal +to the noble attitude of a dirigible arbitrament.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">precipitate</span>, <span class="pos">adj.</span> Anteprandial.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">Precipitate in all, this sinner</p> +<p class="poetry">Took action first, and then his dinner.</p> +<p class="citeauth">Judibras</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">predestination</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> +The doctrine that all things occur according to programme. This doctrine should +not be confused with that of foreordination, which means that all things are +programmed, but does not affirm their occurrence, that being only an +implication from other doctrines by which this is entailed. The difference is +great enough to have deluged Christendom with ink, to say nothing of the gore. With +the distinction of the two doctrines kept well in mind, and a reverent belief +in both, one may hope to escape perdition if spared.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">predicament</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The +wage of consistency.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">predilection</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The +preparatory stage of disillusion.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">pre-existence</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> An +unnoted factor in creation.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">preference</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +sentiment, or frame of mind, induced by the erroneous belief that one thing is +better than another.</p> + +<p>An ancient philosopher, expounding his conviction that life is no better than death, was +asked by a disciple why, then, he did not die. “Because,” he replied, “death is +no better than life.” It is longer.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">prehistoric</span>, <span class="pos">adj.</span> Belonging +to an early period and a museum. </p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">Antedating the art and practice of perpetuating falsehood.</p> +<p class="poetry">He lived in a period prehistoric,</p> +<p class="poetry">When all was absurd and phantasmagoric.</p> +<p class="poetry">Born later, when Clio, celestial recorded,</p> +<p class="poetry">Set down great events in succession and order,</p> +<p class="poetry">He surely had seen nothing droll or fortuitous</p> +<p class="poetry">In anything here but the lies that she threw at us.</p> +<p class="citeauth">Orpheus Bowen</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">prejudice</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +vagrant opinion without visible means of support.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">prelate</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +church officer having a superior degree of holiness and a fat preferment. One +of Heaven’s aristocracy. A gentleman of God.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">prerogative</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +sovereign’s right to do wrong.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">Presbyterian</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> One +who holds the conviction that the government authorities of the Church should +be called presbyters.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">prescription</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +physician’s guess at what will best prolong the situation with least harm to the patient.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">present</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> That +part of eternity dividing the domain of disappointment from the realm of hope.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">presentable</span>, <span class="pos">adj.</span> Hideously +appareled after the manner of the time and place.</p> + +<p>In Boorioboola-Gha a man is presentable on occasions of ceremony if he have his abdomen painted a +bright blue and wear a cow’s tail; in New York he may, if it please him, omit +the paint, but after sunset he must wear two tails made of the wool of a sheep +and dyed black.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">preside</span>, <span class="pos">v.</span> To +guide the action of a deliberative body to a desirable result. In Journalese, +to perform upon a musical instrument; as, “He presided at the piccolo.”</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">The Headliner, holding the copy in hand,</p> +<p class="poetry">Read with a solemn face:</p> +<p class="poetry">“The music was very uncommonly grand—</p> +<p class="poetry">The best that was every provided,</p> +<p class="poetry">For our townsman Brown presided</p> +<p class="poetry">At the organ with skill and grace.”</p> +<p class="poetry">The Headliner discontinued to read,</p> +<p class="poetry">And, spread the paper down</p> +<p class="poetry">On the desk, he dashed in at the top of the screed:</p> +<p class="poetry">“Great playing by President Brown.”</p> +<p class="citeauth">Orpheus Bowen</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">presidency</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The +greased pig in the field game of American politics.</p> + +<p id="president" class="entry"><span class="def">president</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The +leading figure in a small group of men of whom—and of whom only—it is +positively known that immense numbers of their countrymen did not want any of +them for President.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">If that’s an honor surely ‘tis a greater<br /> +To have been a simple and undamned spectator.</p> +<p class="poetry">Behold in me a man of mark and note</p> +<p class="poetry">Whom no elector e’er denied a vote!—</p> +<p class="poetry">An undiscredited, unhooted gent</p> +<p class="poetry">Who might, for all we know, be President</p> +<p class="poetry">By acclimation. Cheer, ye varlets, cheer—</p> +<p class="poetry">I’m passing with a wide and open ear!</p> +<p class="citeauth">Jonathan Fomry</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">prevaricator</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +liar in the caterpillar estate.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">price</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Value, +plus a reasonable sum for the wear and tear of conscience in demanding it.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">primate</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The +head of a church, especially a State church supported by involuntary +contributions. The Primate of England is the Archbishop of Canterbury, an +amiable old gentleman, who occupies Lambeth Palace when living and Westminster +Abbey when dead. He is commonly dead.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">prisonu</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A place +of punishments and rewards. The poet assures us that—</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">“Stone walls do not a prison make,”</p> +<p class="poetry">but a combination of the stone wall, the political parasite and the moral instructor is no garden +of sweets.</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">private</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +military gentleman with a field-marshal’s baton in his knapsack and an +impediment in his hope.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">proboscis</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The +rudimentary organ of an elephant which serves him in place of the +knife-and-fork that Evolution has as yet denied him. For purposes of humor it +is popularly called a trunk.</p> + +<p>Asked how he knew that an elephant was going on a journey, the illustrious Jo. Miller cast a +reproachful look upon his tormentor, and answered, absently: “When it is ajar,” +and threw himself from a high promontory into the sea. Thus perished in his +pride the most famous humorist of antiquity, leaving to mankind a heritage of +woe! No successor worthy of the title has appeared, though Mr. Edward bok, of <i>The Ladies’ Home Journal</i>, is much +respected for the purity and sweetness of his personal character.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">projectile</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The +final arbiter in international disputes. Formerly these disputes were settled +by physical contact of the disputants, with such simple arguments as the +rudimentary logic of the times could supply—the sword, the spear, and so forth. +With the growth of prudence in military affairs the projectile came more and +more into favor, and is now held in high esteem by the most courageous. Its +capital defect is that it requires personal attendance at the point of +propulsion.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">proof</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Evidence +having a shade more of plausibility than of unlikelihood. The testimony of two +credible witnesses as opposed to that of only one.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">proof-reader</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +malefactor who atones for making your writing nonsense by permitting the +compositor to make it unintelligible.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">property</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Any +material thing, having no particular value, that may be held by A against the +cupidity of B. Whatever gratifies the passion for possession in one and +disappoints it in all others. The object of man’s brief rapacity and long indifference.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">prophecy</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The +art and practice of selling one’s credibility for future delivery.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">prospect</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> An +outlook, usually forbidding. An expectation, usually forbidden.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">Blow, blow, ye spicy breezes—</p> +<p class="poetry">O’er Ceylon blow your breath,</p> +<p class="poetry">Where every prospect pleases,</p> +<p class="poetry">Save only that of death.</p> +<p class="citeauth">Bishop Sheber</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">providential</span>, <span class="pos">adj.</span> +Unexpectedly and conspicuously beneficial to the person so describing it.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">prude</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A bawd +hiding behind the back of her demeanor.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">publish</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> In +literary affairs, to become the fundamental element in a cone of critics.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">push</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> One of +the two things mainly conducive to success, especially in politics. The other is Pull.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">pyrrhonism</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> An +ancient philosophy, named for its inventor. It consisted of an absolute +disbelief in everything but Pyrrhonism. Its modern professors have added that.</p> + +</body> +</html>
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