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diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/A.html b/lib/ebooks/devils/A.html new file mode 100644 index 00000000..e4faf69c --- /dev/null +++ b/lib/ebooks/devils/A.html @@ -0,0 +1,586 @@ +<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "+//ISBN 0-9673008-1-9//DTD OEB 1.0 Document//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: A</title> +</head> + +<body lang="en-us"> + +<h1>A</h1> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">abasement,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> A decent and customary +mental attitude in the presence of wealth of power. Peculiarly appropriate in an employee when addressing +an employer.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">abatis,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> Rubbish in front of a fort, +to prevent the rubbish outside from molesting the rubbish inside.</p> + +<p class="entry" id="abdication"><span class="def">abdication,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> An act +whereby a sovereign attests his sense of the high temperature of the throne.</p> + +<blockquote> +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="po">Poor Isabella’s Dead, whose abdication</p> +<p class="po">Set all tongues wagging in the Spanish nation.</p> +<p class="po">For that performance ’twere unfair to scold her:</p> +<p class="po">She wisely left a throne too hot to hold her.</p> +<p class="po">To History she’ll be no royal riddle—</p> +<p class="po">Merely a plain parched pea that jumped the griddle.</p> +<p class="citepoet">G. J.</p> +</div> +</blockquote> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">abdomen,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> The temple of the god +Stomach, in whose worship, with sacrificial rights, all true men engage. From women this ancient faith commands but a +stammering assent. They sometimes minister at the altar in a half-hearted and ineffective way, but true reverence +for the one deity that men really adore they know not. If woman had a free hand in the world’s +marketing the race would become graminivorous.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">ability,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> The natural equipment to accomplish +some small part of the meaner ambitions distinguishing able men from dead ones. In the last analysis ability is commonly +found to consist mainly in a high degree of solemnity. Perhaps, however, this impressive quality is +rightly appraised; it is no easy task to be solemn.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">abnormal,</span> <span class="pos">adj.</span> Not conforming to +standard. In matters of thought and conduct, to be independent is to be abnormal, to be abnormal is to +be detested. Wherefore the lexicographer adviseth a striving toward the straiter resemblance of the +Average Man than he hath to himself. Whoso attaineth thereto shall have peace, the prospect of death +and the hope of Hell.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">aboriginies,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> Persons of little worth found +cumbering the soil of a newly discovered country. They soon cease to cumber; they fertilize.</p> + +<p class="entry" id="abracadabra"><span class="def">abracadabra.</span></p> + +<blockquote> +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="poem">By <i>Abracadabra</i> we signify<br /> +<span class="ind1">An infinite number of things.</span><br /> +’Tis the answer to What? and How? and Why?<br /> +And Whence? and Whither?—a word whereby<br /> +<span class="ind1">The Truth (with the comfort it brings)</span><br /> +Is open to all who grope in night,<br /> +Crying for Wisdom’s holy light.</p> +</div> + +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="poem">Whether the word is a verb or a noun<br /> +<span class="ind1">Is knowledge beyond my reach.</span><br /> +I only know that ’tis handed down.<br /> +<span class="ind3">From sage to sage,</span><br /> +<span class="ind3">From age to age—</span><br /> +<span class="ind1">An immortal part of speech!</span></p> +</div> + +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="poem">Of an ancient man the tale is told<br /> +That he lived to be ten centuries old,<br /> +<span class="ind1">In a cave on a mountain side.</span><br /> +<span class="ind1">(True, he finally died.)</span><br /> +The fame of his wisdom filled the land,<br /> +For his head was bald, and you’ll understand<br /> +<span class="ind1">His beard was long and white</span><br /> +<span class="ind1">And his eyes uncommonly bright.</span></p> +</div> + +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="poem">Philosophers gathered from far and near<br /> +To sit at his feat and hear and hear,<br /> +<span class="ind3">Though he never was heard</span><br /> +<span class="ind3">To utter a word</span><br /> +<span class="ind1">But “<i>Abracadabra</i>, abracadab,</span><br /> +<span class="ind3">Abracada, abracad,</span><br /> +<span class="ind1">Abraca, abrac, abra, ab!”</span><br /> +<span class="ind3">’Twas all he had,</span><br /> +’Twas all they wanted to hear, and each<br /> +Made copious notes of the mystical speech,<br /> +<span class="ind3">Which they published next—</span><br /> +<span class="ind3">A trickle of text</span><br /> +In the meadow of commentary.<br /> +<span class="ind1">Mighty big books were these,</span><br /> +<span class="ind1">In a number, as leaves of trees;</span><br /> +In learning, remarkably—very!</p> +</div> + +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="poem"><span class="ind3">He’s dead,</span><br /> +<span class="ind3">As I said,</span><br /> +And the books of the sages have perished,<br /> +But his wisdom is sacredly cherished.<br /> +In <i>Abracadabra</i> it solemnly rings,<br /> +Like an ancient bell that forever swings.<br /> +<span class="poind3">O, I love to hear</span><br /> +<span class="poind3">That word make clear</span><br /> +Humanity’s General Sense of Things.</p> +<p class="citepoet">Jamrach Holobom.</p> +</div> +</blockquote> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">abridge,</span> <span class="pos">v.t.</span> To shorten.</p> + +<p class="quote">When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for people to abridge their +king, a decent respect for the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the +causes which impel them to the separation.—<i>Oliver Cromwell</i></p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">abrupt,</span> <span class="pos">adj.</span> Sudden, without +ceremony, like the arrival of a cannon-shot and the departure of the soldier whose interests are most +affected by it. Dr. Samuel Johnson beautifully said of another author’s ideas that they were] +“concatenated without abruption.”</p> + +<p class="entry" id="abscond"><span class="def">abscond,</span> <span class="pos">v.i.</span> To “move +in a mysterious way,” commonly with the property of another.</p> + +<blockquote> +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="poem">Spring beckons! All things to the call respond;<br /> +The trees are leaving and cashiers abscond.</p> +<p class="citepoet">Phela Orm.</p> +</div> +</blockquote> + +<p class="entry" id="absent"><span class="def">absent,</span> <span class="pos">adj.</span> Peculiarly +exposed to the tooth of detraction; vilifed; hopelessly in the wrong; superseded in the consideration +and affection of another.</p> + +<blockquote> +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="poem">To men a man is but a mind. Who cares<br /> +What face he carries or what form he wears?<br /> +But woman’s body is the woman. O,<br /> +Stay thou, my sweetheart, and do never go,<br /> +But heed the warning words the sage hath said:<br /> +A woman absent is a woman dead.<br /> +</p> +<p class="citepoet">Jogo Tyree.</p> +</div> +</blockquote> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">absentee,</span><span class="pos">n.</span> A person +with an <a href="I.html#income">income</a> who has had the forethought to remove himself from the sphere of exaction.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">absolute,</span> <span class="pos">adj.</span> Independent, irresponsible. +An absolute monarchy is one in which the sovereign does as he pleases so long as he pleases the assassins. +Not many absolute monarchies are left, most of them having been replaced by limited monarchies, where the +sovereign’s power for evil (and for good) is greatly curtailed, and by republics, which are +governed by chance.</p> + +<p class="entry" id="abstainer"><span class="def">abstainer,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> A weak +person who yields to the temptation of denying himself a <a href="P.html#pleasure">pleasure</a>. A total abstainer is one who abstains +from everything but abstention, and especially from inactivity in the affairs of others.</p> + +<blockquote> +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="poem">Said a man to a crapulent youth: “I thought<br /> +<span class="ind1">You a total abstainer, my son.”</span><br /> +“So I am, so I am,” said the scrapgrace caught—<br /> +<span class="ind1">“But not, sir, a bigoted one.”</span></p> +<p class="citepoet">G. J.</p> +</div> +</blockquote> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">absurdity,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> A statement or belief +manifestly inconsistent with one’s own opinion.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">academe,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> An ancient school where +morality and philosophy were taught.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">academy,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> +(from academe). A modern school where football is taught.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">accident,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> An inevitable +occurrence due to the action of immutable natural laws.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">accomplice,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> One associated +with another in a crime, having guilty knowledge and complicity, as an <a href="L.html#lawyer">attorney</a> who defends a +criminal, knowing him guilty. This view of the attorney’s position in the matter has not hitherto +commanded the assent of attorneys, no one having offered them a fee for assenting.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">accord,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> Harmony.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">accordion,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> An instrument +in harmony with the sentiments of an assassin.</p> + +<p class="entry" id="accountability"><span class="def">accountability,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> The +mother of caution.</p> + +<blockquote> +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="poem">“My accountability, bear in mind,”<br /> +<span class="ind1">Said the Grand Vizier: “Yes, yes,”</span><br /> +Said the Shah: “I do—’tis the only kind<br /> +<span class="ind1">Of ability you possess.”</span></p> +<p class="citepoet">Joram Tate.</p> +</div> +</blockquote> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">accuse,</span> <span class="pos">v.t.</span> To affirm another’s guilt +or unworth; most commonly as a justification of ourselves for having wronged him.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">acephalous,</span> <span class="pos">adj.</span> In the surprising condition of the +Crusader who absently pulled at his forelock some hours after a Saracen scimitar had, unconsciously to him, +passed through his neck, as related by de Joinville.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">achievement,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> The death of endeavor +and the birth of disgust.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">acknowledge,</span> <span class="pos">v.t.</span> To confess. +Acknowledgement of one another’s faults is the highest duty imposed by our love of +<a href="T.html#truth">truth</a>.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">acquaintance,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> A person whom we +know well enough to borrow from, but not well enough to lend to. A degree of friendship called slight when +its object is poor or obscure, and intimate when he is <a href="R.html#rich">rich</a> or +<a href="F.html#famous">famous.</a></p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">actually,</span> <span class="pos">adv.</span> Perhaps; possibly.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">adage,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> Boned wisdom for weak teeth.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">adamant,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> A mineral frequently found +beneath a corset. Soluble in solicitate of gold.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">adder,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> A species of snake. So called +from its habit of adding <a href="F.html#funeral">funeral</a> outlays to the other expenses of living.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">adherent,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> A follower who has not +yet obtained all that he expects to get.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">administration,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> An ingenious +abstraction in <a href="P.html#politics">politics</a>, designed to receive the kicks and cuffs due to +the premier or <a href="P.html#president">president</a>. A man of straw, proof against bad-egging +and dead-catting.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">admiral,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> That part of a war-ship +which does the talking while the figure-head does the thinking.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">admiration,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> Our polite recognition of +another’s resemblance to ourselves.</p> + +<p class="entry" id="admonition"><span class="def">admonition,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> Gentle +reproof, as with a meat-axe. Friendly warning.</p> + +<blockquote> +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="poem">Consigned by way of admonition,<br /> +His soul foever to perdition.</p> +<p class="citepoet">Judibras.</p> +</div> +</blockquote> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">adore,</span> <span class="pos">v.t.</span> To venerate expectantly.</p> + +<p class="entry" id="advice"><span class="def">advice,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> The smallest +current coin.</p> + +<blockquote> +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="poem">“The man was in such deep distress,”<br /> +Said Tom, “that I could do no less<br /> +Than give him good advice.” Said Jim:<br /> +“If less could have been done for him<br /> +I know you well enough, my son,<br /> +To know that’s what you would have done.”</p> +</div> +</blockquote> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">affianced,</span> <span class="pos">pp.</span> Fitted with an +ankle-ring for the ball-and-chain.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">affliction,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> An acclimatizing +process preparing the <a href="S.html#soul">soul</a> for another and bitter world.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">African,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> A nigger that votes our way.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">age,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> That period of life in which +we compound for the vices that we still cherish by reviling those that we have no longer the +enterprise to commit.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">agitator,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> A statesman who shakes +the fruit trees of his neighbors—to dislodge the worms.</p> + +<p class="entry" id="aim"><span class="def">aim,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> The task we set our wishes to.</p> + +<blockquote> +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="poem">“Cheer up! Have you no aim in life?”<br /> +<span class="ind1">She tenderly inquired.</span><br /> +“An aim? Well, no, I haven’t, wife;<br /> +<span class="ind1">The fact is—I have fired.”</span></p> +<p class="citepoet">G. J.</p> +</div> +</blockquote> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">air,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> A nutritious substance supplied by a +bountiful Providence for the fattening of the poor.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">alderman,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> An ingenious criminal +who covers his secret thieving with a pretence of open marauding.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">alien,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> An American sovereign +in his probationary state.</p> + +<p class="entry" id="allah"><span class="def">Allah,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> The Mahometan +Supreme Being, as distinguished from the Christian, Jewish, and so forth.</p> + +<blockquote> +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="poem">Allah’s good laws I faithfully have kept,<br /> +And ever for the sins of man have wept;<br /> +<span class="ind1">And sometimes kneeling in the temple I</span><br /> +Have reverently crossed my hands and slept.</p> +<p class="citepoet">Junker Barlow.</p> +</div> +</blockquote> + +<p class="entry" id="allegiance"><span class="def">allegiance,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> </p> + +<blockquote> +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="poem">This thing Allegiance, as I suppose,<br /> +Is a ring fitted in the subject’s nose,<br /> +Whereby that organ is kept rightly pointed<br /> +To smell the sweetness of the Lord’s anointed.</p> +<p class="citepoet">G. J.</p> +</div> +</blockquote> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">alliance,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> In international politics, +the union of two thieves who have their hands so deeply inserted in each other’s pockets that +they cannot separately plunder a third.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">alligator,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> The crocodile of +America, superior in every detail to the crocodile of the effete monarchies of the Old World. +Herodotus says the Indus is, with one exception, the only river that produces crocodiles, but they +appear to have gone West and grown up with the other rivers. From the notches on his back the +alligator is called a sawrian.</p> + +<p class="entry" id="alone"><span class="def">alone,</span> <span class="pos">adj.</span> In bad company.</p> + +<blockquote> +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="poem">In contact, lo! the flint and steel,<br /> +By spark and flame, the thought reveal<br /> +That he the metal, she the stone,<br /> +Had cherished secretly alone.</p> +</div> +</blockquote> + +<p class="entry" id="altar"><span class="def">altar,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> The place whereupon +the priest formerly raveled out the small intestine of the sacrificial victim for purposes of divination and +cooked its flesh for the gods. The word is now seldom used, except with reference to the sacrifice of +their liberty and peace by a male and a female tool.</p> + +<blockquote> +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="poem">They stood before the altar and supplied<br /> +The fire themselves in which their fat was fried.<br /> +In vain the sacrifice!—no god will claim<br /> +An offering burnt with an unholy flame.</p> +<p class="citepoet">M. P. Nopput.</p> +</div> +</blockquote> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">ambidextrous,</span> <span class="pos">adj.</span> Able to pick +with equal skill a right-hand pocket or a left.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">ambition,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> An overmastering +desire to be vilified by enemies while living and made ridiculous by friends when dead.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">amnesty,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> The state’s +magnanimity to those offenders whom it would be too expensive to punish.</p> + +<p class="entry" id="anoint"><span class="def">anoint,</span> <span class="pos">v.t.</span> To grease a +<a href="K.html#king">king</a> or other great functionary already sufficiently slippery.</p> + +<blockquote> +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="poem">As sovereigns are anointed by the priesthood,<br /> +So pigs to lead the populace are greased good.</p> +<p class="citepoet">Judibras.</p> +</div> +</blockquote> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">antipathy,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> The sentiment +inspired by one’s friend’s friend.</p> + +<p class="entry" id="aphorism"><span class="def">aphorism,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> Predigested wisdom.</p> + +<blockquote> +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="poem">The flabby wine-skin of his brain<br /> +Yields to some pathologic strain,<br /> +And voids from its unstored abysm<br /> +The driblet of an aphorism.</p> +<p class="citepoet"> “The Mad Philosopher,”<span style="font-style: normal"> 1697.</span></p> +</div> +</blockquote> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">apologize,</span> <span class="pos">v.i.</span> To lay the foundation for a future +offence.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">apostate,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> A leech who, having +penetrated the shell of a turtle only to find that the creature has long been dead, deems it expedient +to form a new attachment to a fresh turtle.</p> + +<p class="entry" id="apothecary"><span class="def">apothecary,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> The +physician’s accomplice, undertaker’s benefactor and grave worm’s provider.</p> + +<blockquote> +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="poem">When Jove sent blessings to all men that are,<br /> +And Mercury conveyed them in a jar,<br /> +That friend of tricksters introduced by stealth<br /> +Disease for the apothecary’s health,<br /> +Whose gratitude impelled him to proclaim:<br /> +“My deadliest drug shall bear my patron’s name!”</p> +<p class="citepoet">G. J.</p> +</div> +</blockquote> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">appeal,</span> <span class="pos">v.t.</span> In <a href="L.html#law">law</a>, +to put the dice into the box for another throw.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">appetite,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> An instinct thoughtfully +implanted by Providence as a solution to the labor question.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">applause,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> The echo of +a <a href="P.html#platitude">platitude</a>.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">April Fool,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> The March +<a href="F.html#fool">fool</a> with another month added to his folly.</p> + +<p class="entry" id="archbishop"><span class="def">archbishop,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> An ecclesiastical +dignitary one point holier than a bishop.</p> + +<blockquote> +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="poem">If I were a jolly archbishop,<br /> +On Fridays I’d eat all the fish up—<br /> +Salmon and flounders and smelts;<br /> +On other days everything else.<br /> +</p> +<p class="citepoet">Jodo Rem.</p> +</div> +</blockquote> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">architect,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> One who drafts a plan +of your <a href="H.html#house">house</a>, and plans a draft of your money.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">ardor,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> The quality that distinguishes +love without knowledge.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">arena,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> In politics, an imaginary rat-pit +in which the statesman wrestles with his record.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">aristocracy,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> Government by the +best men. (In this sense the word is obsolete; so is that kind of government.) Fellows that wear downy hats +and clean shirts—guilty of education and suspected of bank accounts.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">armor,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> The kind of clothing worn +by a man whose tailor is a blacksmith.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">arrayed,</span> <span class="pos">pp.</span> Drawn up and given an +orderly disposition, as a rioter hanged to a lamppost.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">arrest,</span> <span class="pos">v.t.</span> Formally to detain one +accused of unusualness.</p> + +<p class="quote">God made the world in six days and was arrested on the +seventh.—<i>The Unauthorized Version</i></p> + +<p class="entry" id="arsenic"><span class="def">arsenic,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> A kind of +cosmetic greatly affected by the ladies, whom it greatly affects in turn.</p> + +<blockquote> +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="poem">“Eat arsenic? Yes, all you get,”<br /> +<span class="ind1">Consenting, he did speak up;</span><br /> +“’Tis better you should eat it, pet,<br /> +<span class="ind1">Than put it in my teacup.”</span></p> +<p class="citepoet">Joel Huck.</p> +</div> +</blockquote> + +<p class="entry" id="art"><span class="def">art,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> This word has no +definition. Its origin is related as follows by the ingenious Father Gassalasca Jape, S. J.</p> + +<blockquote> +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="poem">One day a wag—what would the wretch be at?—<br /> +Shifted a letter of the cipher RAT,<br /> +And said it was a god’s name! Straight arose<br /> +Fantastic priests and postulants (with shows,<br /> +And mysteries, and mummeries, and hymns,<br /> +And disputations dire that lamed their limbs)<br /> +To serve his temple and maintain the fires,<br /> +Expound the law, manipulate the wires.<br /> +Amazed, the populace that rites attend,<br /> +Believe whate’er they cannot comprehend,<br /> +And, inly edified to learn that two<br /> +Half-hairs joined so and so (as Art can do)<br /> +Have sweeter values and a grace more fit<br /> +Than Nature’s hairs that never have been split,<br /> +Bring cates and wines for sacrificial feasts,<br /> +And sell their garments to support the priests.</p> +</div> +</blockquote> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">artlessness,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> A certain engaging +quality to which women attain by long study and severe practice upon the admiring <a href="M.html#male">male</a>, +who is pleased to fancy it resembles the candid simplicity of his young.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">asperse,</span> <span class="pos">v.t.</span> Maliciously to ascribe +to another vicious actions which one has not had the temptation and opportunity to commit.</p> + +<p class="entry" id="ass"><span class="def">ass,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> A public singer with +a good voice but no ear. In Virginia City, Nevada, he is called the Washoe Canary, in Dakota, the Senator, +and everywhere the Donkey. The animal is widely and variously celebrated in the literature, <a href="#art">art</a> +and <a href="R.html#religion">religion</a> of every age and country; no other so engages and fires the human +imagination as this noble vertebrate. Indeed, it is doubted by some (Ramasilus, <span xml:lang="la"><i>lib. II., +De Clem.</i></span>, and C. Stantatus, <span xml:lang="la"><i>De Temperamente</i></span>) +if it is not a god; and as such we know it was worshiped by the Etruscans, and, if we may believe Macrobious, +by the Cupasians also. Of the only two animals admitted into the Mahometan Paradise along with the souls of +men, the ass that carried Balaam is one, the <a href="D.html#dog">dog</a> of the Seven Sleepers the other. +This is no small distinction. From what has been written about this beast might be compiled a library of great +splendor and magnitude, rivalling that of the Shakespearean cult, and that which clusters about the Bible. It +may be said, generally, that all literature is more or less Asinine.</p> + +<blockquote> +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="poem">“Hail, holy Ass!”the quiring angels sing;<br /> +“Priest of Unreason, and of Discords King!”<br /> +Great co-Creator, let Thy glory shine:<br /> +God made all else, the Mule, the Mule is thine!”</p> +<p class="citepoet">G. J.</p> +</div> +</blockquote> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">auctioneer,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> The man who proclaims +with a hammer that he has picked a pocket with his tongue.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">Australia,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> A country lying in the +South Sea, whose industrial and commercial development has been unspeakably retarded by an unfortunate +dispute among geographers as to whether it is a continent or an island.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">avernus,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> The lake by which the +ancients entered the infernal regions. The fact that access to the infernal regions was obtained by a lake +is believed by the learned Marcus Ansello Scrutator to have suggested the <a href="C.html#christian">Christian</a> +rite of <a href="B.html#baptism">baptism</a> by immersion. This, however, has been shown by Lactantius to be +an error.</p> + +<blockquote> +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="poem" xml:lang="la"><i>Facilis descensus Averni,</i><br /> +<span class="ind1">The poet remarks; and the sense</span><br /> +Of it is that when down-hill I turn I<br /> +<span class="ind1">Will get more of punches than pence.</span></p> +<p class="citepoet">Jehal Dai Lupe.</p> +</div> +</blockquote> + +</body> +</html>
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