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diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/I.html b/lib/ebooks/devils/I.html new file mode 100644 index 00000000..508ded63 --- /dev/null +++ b/lib/ebooks/devils/I.html @@ -0,0 +1,681 @@ +<?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: I</title> +</head> +<body lang="en-US"> + + +<h1>I</h1> + + +<p>I is the first letter of the alphabet, the first word of the language, the first thought of +the mind, the first object of affection. In grammar it is a pronoun of the +first person and singular number. Its plural is said to be <i>We</i>, but how there can be more than one +myself is doubtless clearer the grammarians than it is to the author of this +incomparable dictionary. Conception of two myselfs is difficult, but fine. The +frank yet graceful use of “I” distinguishes a good writer from a bad; the +latter carries it with the manner of a thief trying to cloak his loot.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">Ichor</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A fluid that serves the gods and goddesses in place of blood.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">Fair Venus, speared by Diomed,</p> +<p class="poetry">Restrained the raging chief and said:</p> +<p class="poetry">“Behold, rash mortal, whom you’ve bled—</p> +<p class="poetry">Your soul’s stained white with ichorshed!”</p> +<p class="citeauth">Mary Doke</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">iconoclast</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A breaker of idols, the worshipers whereof are imperfectly gratified by the +performance, and most strenuously protest that he unbuildeth but doth not +reedify, that he pulleth down but pileth not up. For the poor things would have +other idols in place of those he thwacketh upon the mazzard and dispelleth. But +the iconoclast saith: “Ye shall have none at all, for ye need them not; and if +the rebuilder fooleth round hereabout, behold I will depress the head of him +and sit thereon till he squawk it.”</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">idiot</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A member of a large and powerful tribe whose influence in human affairs has always been +dominant and controlling. The Idiot’s activity is not confined to any special +field of thought or action, but “pervades and regulates the whole.” He has the +last word in everything; his decision is unappealable. He sets the fashions and +opinion of taste, dictates the limitations of speech and circumscribes conduct +with a dead-line.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">idleness</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A model farm where the +devil experiments with seeds of new sins and promotes the growth of staple vices.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">ignoramus</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A person unacquainted with certain kinds of knowledge familiar to yourself, and +having certain other kinds that you know nothing about.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">Dumble was an ignoramus,</p> +<p class="poetry">Mumble was for learning famous.</p> +<p class="poetry">Mumble said one day to Dumble:</p> +<p class="poetry">“Ignorance should be more humble.</p> +<p class="poetry">Not a spark have you of knowledge</p> +<p class="poetry">That was got in any college.”</p> +<p class="poetry">Dumble said to Mumble: “Truly</p> +<p class="poetry">You’re self-satisfied unduly.</p> +<p class="poetry">Of things in college I’m denied</p> +<p class="poetry">A knowledge—you of all beside.”</p> +<p class="citeauth">Borelli</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">illuminati</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A sect of Spanish heretics of the latter part of the sixteenth century; so called +because they were light weights—<i>cunctationes illuminati</i>.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">illustrious</span>, <span class="pos">adj.</span> Suitably placed for the shafts of malice, envy and detraction.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">imagination</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A warehouse of facts, with poet and liar in joint ownership.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">imbecility</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A kind of divine inspiration, or sacred fire affecting censorious critics of this dictionary.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">immigrant</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> An unenlightened person who thinks one country better than another.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">immodest</span>, <span class="pos">adj.</span> Having a strong sense of one’s own merit, coupled with a feeble conception of worth in others.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">There was once a man in Ispahan</p> +<p class="poetry">Ever and ever so long ago,</p> +<p class="poetry">And he had a head, the phrenologists said,</p> +<p class="poetry">That fitted him for a show.</p> +<p class="poetry">For his modesty’s bump was so large a lump</p> +<p class="poetry">(Nature, they said, had taken a freak)</p> +<p class="poetry">That its summit stood far above the wood</p> +<p class="poetry">Of his hair, like a mountain peak.</p> +<p class="poetry">So modest a man in all Ispahan,</p> +<p class="poetry">Over and over again they swore—</p> +<p class="poetry">So humble and meek, you would vainly seek;</p> +<p class="poetry">None ever was found before.</p> +<p class="poetry">Meantime the hump of that awful bump</p> +<p class="poetry">Into the heavens contrived to get</p> +<p class="poetry">To so great a height that they called the wight</p> +<p class="poetry">The man with the minaret.</p> +<p class="poetry">There wasn’t a man in all Ispahan</p> +<p class="poetry">Prouder, or louder in praise of his chump:</p> +<p class="poetry">With a tireless tongue and a brazen lung</p> +<p class="poetry">He bragged of that beautiful bump</p> +<p class="poetry">Till the Shah in a rage sent a trusty page</p> +<p class="poetry">Bearing a sack and a bow-string too,</p> +<p class="poetry">And that gentle child explained as he smiled:</p> +<p class="poetry">“A little present for you.”</p> +<p class="poetry">The saddest man in all Ispahan,</p> +<p class="poetry">Sniffed at the gift, yet accepted the same.</p> +<p class="poetry">“If I’d lived,” said he, “my humility</p> +<p class="poetry">Had given me deathless fame!”</p> +<p class="citeauth">Sukker Uffro</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">immoral</span>, <span class="pos">adj.</span> Inexpedient. Whatever in the long run and with regard to the greater number of instances men +find to be generally inexpedient comes to be considered wrong, wicked, immoral. +If man’s notions of right and wrong have any other basis than this of +expediency; if they originated, or could have originated, in any other way; if +actions have in themselves a moral character apart from, and nowise dependent +on, their consequences—then all philosophy is a lie and reason a disorder of the mind.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">immorality</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span></p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">A toy which people cry for,</p> +<p class="poetry">And on their knees apply for,</p> +<p class="poetry">Dispute, contend and lie for,</p> +<p class="poetry">And if allowed</p> +<p class="poetry">Would be right proud</p> +<p class="poetry">Eternally to die for.</p> +<p class="citeauth">G. J.</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">impale</span>, <span class="pos">v.t.</span> In popular usage to pierce with any weapon which remains fixed in the wound. This, +however, is inaccurate; to imaple is, properly, to put to death by thrusting an +upright sharp stake into the body, the victim being left in a sitting position. +This was a common mode of punishment among many of the nations of antiquity, +and is still in high favor in China and other parts of Asia. Down to the +beginning of the fifteenth century it was widely employed in “churching” +heretics and schismatics. Wolecraft calls it the “stoole of repentynge,” and +among the common people it was jocularly known as “riding the one legged +horse.” Ludwig Salzmann informs us that in Thibet impalement is considered the +most appropriate punishment for crimes against religion; and although in China +it is sometimes awarded for secular offences, it is most frequently adjudged in +cases of sacrilege. To the person in actual experience of impalement it must be +a matter of minor importance by what kind of civil or religious dissent he was +made acquainted with its discomforts; but doubtless he would feel a certain +satisfaction if able to contemplate himself in the character of a weather-cock +on the spire of the True Church.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">impartial</span>, <span class="pos">adj.</span> Unable to perceive any promise of personal advantage from espousing either side of a +controversy or adopting either of two conflicting opinions.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">impenitence</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A state of mind intermediate in point of time between sin and punishment.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">impiety</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Your irreverence toward my deity.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">imposition</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The act of blessing +or consecrating by the laying on of hands—a ceremony common to many ecclesiastical systems, but performed +with the frankest sincerity by the sect known as Thieves.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">“Lo! by the laying on of hands,”</p> +<p class="poetry">Say parson, priest and dervise,</p> +<p class="poetry">“We consecrate your cash and lands</p> +<p class="poetry">To ecclesiastical service.</p> +<p class="poetry">No doubt you’ll swear till all is blue</p> +<p class="poetry">At such an imposition. Do.”</p> +<p class="poetry">Pollo Doncas</p> +<p class="poetry">impostor n. A rival aspirant to public honors.</p> +<p class="poetry">improbability, <span class="pos">n.</span></p> +<p class="poetry">His tale he told with a solemn face</p> +<p class="poetry">And a tender, melancholy grace.</p> +<p class="poetry">Improbable ‘twas, no doubt,</p> +<p class="poetry">When you came to think it out,</p> +<p class="poetry">But the fascinated crowd</p> +<p class="poetry">Their deep surprise avowed</p> +<p class="poetry">And all with a single voice averred ‘Twas the most amazing thing they’d heard—</p> +<p class="poetry">All save one who spake never a word,</p> +<p class="poetry">But sat as mum</p> +<p class="poetry">As if deaf and dumb,</p> +<p class="poetry">Serene, indifferent and unstirred.</p> +<p class="poetry">Then all the others turned to him And scrutinized him limb from limb—</p> +<p class="poetry">Scanned him alive;</p> +<p class="poetry">But he seemed to thrive</p> +<p class="poetry">And tranquiler grow each minute,</p> +<p class="poetry">As if there were nothing in it.</p> +<p class="poetry">“What! what!” cried one, “are you not amazed</p> +<p class="poetry">At what our friend has told?” He raised</p> +<p class="poetry">Soberly then his eyes and gazed</p> +<p class="poetry">In a natural way</p> +<p class="poetry">And proceeded to say,</p> +<p class="poetry">As he crossed his feet on the mantel-shelf:</p> +<p class="poetry">“O no—not at all; I’m a liar myself.”</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">improvidence</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Provision for the needs of to-day from the revenues of to-morrow.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">impunity</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Wealth.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">inadmissible</span>, <span class="pos">adj.</span> Not competent to be considered. Said of certain kinds of testimony which juries +are supposed to be unfit to be entrusted with, and which judges, therefore, +rule out, even of proceedings before themselves alone. Hearsay evidence is +inadmissible because the person quoted was unsworn and is not before the court +for examination; yet most momentous actions, military, political, commercial +and of every other kind, are daily undertaken on hearsay evidence. There is no +religion in the world that has any other basis than hearsay evidence. Revelation +is hearsay evidence; that the Scriptures are the word of God we have only the +testimony of men long dead whose identity is not clearly established and who +are not known to have been sworn in any sense. Under the rules of evidence as +they now exist in this country, no single assertion in the Bible has in its +support any evidence admissible in a court of law. It cannot be proved that the +battle of Blenheim ever was fought, that there was such as person as Julius +Caesar, such an empire as Assyria.</p> + +<p>But as records of courts of justice are admissible, it can easily be proved that powerful and +malevolent magicians once existed and were a scourge to mankind. The evidence +(including confession) upon which certain women were convicted of witchcraft +and executed was without a flaw; it is still unimpeachable. The judges’ +decisions based on it were sound in logic and in law. Nothing in any existing +court was ever more thoroughly proved than the charges of witchcraft and +sorcery for which so many suffered death. If there were no witches, human +testimony and human reason are alike destitute of value.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">inauspiciously</span>, <span class="pos">adv.</span> In an unpromising manner, the auspices being unfavorable. Among the Romans +it was customary before undertaking any important action or enterprise to +obtain from the augurs, or state prophets, some hint of its probable outcome; +and one of their favorite and most trustworthy modes of divination consisted in +observing the flight of birds—the omens thence derived being called <i>auspices</i>. Newspaper reporters and certain +miscreant lexicographers have decided that the word—always in the plural—shall +mean “patronage” or “management”; as, “The festivities were under the auspices +of the Ancient and Honorable Order of Body-Snatchers”; or, “The hilarities were +auspicated by the Knights of Hunger.”</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">A Roman slave appeared one day</p> +<p class="poetry">Before the Augur. “Tell me, pray,</p> +<p class="poetry">If—“ here the Augur, smiling, made</p> +<p class="poetry">A checking gesture and displayed</p> +<p class="poetry">His open palm, which plainly itched,</p> +<p class="poetry">For visibly its surface twitched.</p> +<p class="poetry">A <i>denarius</i> (the Latin nickel)</p> +<p class="poetry">Successfully allayed the tickle,</p> +<p class="poetry">And then the slave proceeded: “Please</p> +<p class="poetry">Inform me whether Fate decrees</p> +<p class="poetry">Success or failure in what I</p> +<p class="poetry">To-night (if it be dark) shall try.</p> +<p class="poetry">Its nature? Never mind—I think</p> +<p class="poetry">‘Tis writ on this”—and with a wink</p> +<p class="poetry">Which darkened half the earth, he drew</p> +<p class="poetry">Another denarius to view,</p> +<p class="poetry">Its shining face attentive scanned,</p> +<p class="poetry">Then slipped it into the good man’s hand,</p> +<p class="poetry">Who with great gravity said: “Wait</p> +<p class="poetry">While I retire to question Fate.”</p> +<p class="poetry">That holy person then withdrew</p> +<p class="poetry">His scared clay and, passing through</p> +<p class="poetry">The temple’s rearward gate, cried “Shoo!”</p> +<p class="poetry">Waving his robe of office. Straight</p> +<p class="poetry">Each sacred peacock and its mate</p> +<p class="poetry">(Maintained for Juno’s favor) fled</p> +<p class="poetry">With clamor from the trees o’erhead,</p> +<p class="poetry">Where they were perching for the night.</p> +<p class="poetry">The temple’s roof received their flight,</p> +<p class="poetry">For thither they would always go,</p> +<p class="poetry">When danger threatened them below.</p> +<p class="poetry">Back to the slave the Augur went:</p> +<p class="poetry">“My son, forecasting the event</p> +<p class="poetry">By flight of birds, I must confess</p> +<p class="poetry">The auspices deny success.”</p> +<p class="poetry">That slave retired, a sadder man,</p> +<p class="poetry">Abandoning his secret plan—</p> +<p class="poetry">Which was (as well the craft seer</p> +<p class="poetry">Had from the first divined) to clear</p> +<p class="poetry">The wall and fraudulently seize</p> +<p class="poetry">On Juno’s poultry in the trees.</p> +<p class="citeauth">G. J.</p> +</div> + +<p id="income" class="entry"><span class="def">income</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The natural and rational gauge and measure of respectability, the commonly accepted +standards being artificial, arbitrary and fallacious; for, as “Sir Sycophas +Chrysolater” in the play has justly remarked, “the true use and function of +property (in whatsoever it consisteth—coins, or land, or houses, or merchant-stuff, +or anything which may be named as holden of right to one’s own +subservience) as also of honors, titles, preferments and place, and all favor +and acquaintance of persons of quality or ableness, are but to get money. Hence +it followeth that all things are truly to be rated as of worth in measure of +their serviceableness to that end; and their possessors should take rank in +agreement thereto, neither the lord of an unproducing manor, howsoever broad +and ancient, nor he who bears an unremunerate dignity, nor yet the pauper +favorite of a king, being esteemed of level excellency with him whose riches +are of daily accretion; and hardly should they whose wealth is barren claim and +rightly take more honor than the poor and unworthy.”</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">incompatibility</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> In matrimony a similarity of tastes, particularly the taste for domination. Incompatibility +may, however, consist of a meek-eyed matron living just around the corner. It +has even been known to wear a moustache.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">incompossible</span>, <span class="pos">adj.</span> Unable to exist if something else exists. Two things are incompossible +when the world of being has scope enough for one of them, but not enough for +both—as Walt Whitman’s poetry and God’s mercy to man. Incompossibility, it will +be seen, is only incompatibility let loose. Instead of such low language as “Go +heel yourself—I mean to kill you on sight,” the words, “Sir, we are +incompossible,” would convey and equally significant intimation and in stately +courtesy are altogether superior.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">Incubus</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> One of a race of highly improper demons who, though probably not wholly extinct, may +be said to have seen their best nights. For a complete account of <i>incubi</i> and <i>succubi</i>, including <i>incubae</i> +and <i>succubae</i>, see the <i>Liber Demonorum</i> of Protassus (Paris, +1328), which contains much curious information that would be out of place in a +dictionary intended as a text-book for the public schools.</p> + +<p>Victor Hugo relates that in the Channel Islands Satan himself—tempted more than elsewhere +by the beauty of the women, doubtless—sometimes plays at <i>incubus</i>, greatly to the inconvenience and +alarm of the good dames who wish to be loyal to their marriage vows, generally +speaking. A certain lady applied to the parish priest to learn how they might, +in the dark, distinguish the hardy intruder from their husbands. The holy man +said they must feel his brown for horns; but Hugo is ungallant enough to hint a +doubt of the efficacy of the test.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">incumbent</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +person of the liveliest interest to the outcumbents.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">indecision</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The +chief element of success; “for whereas,” saith Sir Thomas Brewbold, “there is +but one way to do nothing and divers way to do something, whereof, to a surety, +only one is the right way, it followeth that he who from indecision standeth +still hath not so many chances of going astray as he who pusheth forwards”—a +most clear and satisfactory exposition on the matter.</p> + +<p class="dialog">“Your prompt decision to attack,” said Genera Grant +on a certain occasion to General Gordon Granger, “was admirable; you had but five minutes +to make up your mind in.”</p> + +<p class="dialog">“Yes, sir,” answered the victorious subordinate, +“it is a great thing to be know exactly what to do in an emergency. When in doubt +whether to attack or retreat I never hesitate a moment—I toss us a copper.”</p> + +<p class="dialog">“Do you mean to say that’s what you did this time?”</p> +<p class="dialog">“Yes, General; but for Heaven’s sake don’t reprimand me: I disobeyed the coin.”</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">indifferent</span>, <span class="pos">adj.</span> Imperfectly +sensible to distinctions among things.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">“You tiresome man!” cried Indolentio’s wife,<br /> +“You’ve grown indifferent to all in life.”<br /> +“Indifferent?” he drawled with a slow smile;<br /> +“I would be, dear, but it is not worth while.”</p> +<p class="citeauth">Apuleius M. Gokul</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">indigestion</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +disease which the patient and his friends frequently mistake for deep religious +conviction and concern for the salvation of mankind. As the simple Red Man of +the western wild put it, with, it must be confessed, a certain force: “Plenty +well, no pray; big bellyache, heap God.”</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">indiscretion</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The guilt of woman.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">inexpedient</span>, <span class="pos">adj.</span> Not calculated +to advance one’s interests.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">infancy</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The +period of our lives when, according to Wordsworth, “Heaven lies about us.” The +world begins lying about us pretty soon afterward.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">Inferiae,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> [Latin] Among the Greeks and Romans, sacrifices +for propitation of the <i>Dii Manes</i>, or souls of the dead heroes; +for the pious ancients could not invent enough gods to satisfy their spiritual +needs, and had to have a number of makeshift deities, or, as a sailor might +say, jury-gods, which they made out of the most unpromising materials. It was +while sacrificing a bullock to the spirit of Agamemnon that Laiaides, a priest +of Aulis, was favored with an audience of that illustrious warrior’s shade, who +prophetically recounted to him the birth of Christ and the triumph of +Christianity, giving him also a rapid but tolerably complete review of events +down to the reign of Saint Louis. The narrative ended abruptly at the point, +owing to the inconsiderate crowing of a cock, which compelled the ghosted King +of Men to scamper back to Hades. There is a fine mediaeval flavor to this +story, and as it has not been traced back further than Pere Brateille, a pious +but obscure writer at the court of Saint Louis, we shall probably not err on +the side of presumption in considering it apocryphal, though Monsignor Capel’s +judgment of the matter might be different; and to that I bow—wow.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">infidel</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> In New +York, one who does not believe in the Christian religion; in Constantinople, +one who does. (See GIAOUR.) A kind of scoundrel imperfectly reverent of, and +niggardly contributory to, divines, ecclesiastics, popes, parsons, canons, +monks, mollahs, voodoos, presbyters, hierophants, prelates, obeah-men, abbes, +nuns, missionaries, exhorters, deacons, friars, hadjis, high-priests, muezzins, +brahmins, medicine-men, confessors, eminences, elders, primates, prebendaries, +pilgrims, prophets, imaums, beneficiaries, clerks, vicars-choral, archbishops, +bishops, abbots, priors, preachers, padres, abbotesses, caloyers, palmers, +curates, patriarchs, bonezs, santons, beadsmen, canonesses, residentiaries, +diocesans, deans, subdeans, rural deans, abdals, charm-sellers, archdeacons, +hierarchs, class-leaders, incumbents, capitulars, sheiks, talapoins, +postulants, scribes, gooroos, precentors, beadles, fakeers, sextons, +reverences, revivalists, cenobites, perpetual curates, chaplains, mudjoes, +readers, novices, vicars, pastors, rabbis, ulemas, lamas, sacristans, vergers, +dervises, lectors, church wardens, cardinals, prioresses, suffragans, acolytes, +rectors, cures, sophis, mutifs and pumpums.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">influence</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> In politics, +a visionary <i>quo</i> given in exchange for a substantial <i>quid</i>.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">Infalapsarian</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> One +who ventures to believe that Adam need not have sinned unless he had a mind +to—in opposition to the Supralapsarians, who hold that that luckless person’s +fall was decreed from the beginning. Infralapsarians are sometimes called +Sublapsarians without material effect upon the importance and lucidity of their +views about Adam.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">Two theologues once, as they wended their way</p> +<p class="poetry">To chapel, engaged in colloquial fray—</p> +<p class="poetry">An earnest logomachy, bitter as gall,</p> +<p class="poetry">Concerning poor Adam and what made him fall.<br /> +“’Twas Predestination,” cried one—“for the Lord<br /> +Decreed he should fall of his own accord.”<br /> +“Not so—‘twas Free will,” the other maintained,<br /> +“Which led him to choose what the Lord had ordained.”<br /> +So fierce and so fiery grew the debate<br /> +That nothing but bloodshed their dudgeon could sate;</p> +<p class="poetry">So off flew their +cassocks and caps to the ground And, moved by the spirit, their hands went +round. Ere either had proved his theology right By winning, or even beginning, +the fight, A gray old professor of Latin came by, A staff in his hand and a +scowl in his eye, And learning the cause of their quarrel (for still As they +clumsily sparred they disputed with skill Of foreordination freedom of will)</p> +<p class="poetry">Cried: “Sirrahs! this reasonless warfare compose:</p> +<p class="poetry">Atwixt ye’s no +difference worthy of blows. The sects ye belong to—I’m ready to swear Ye +wrongly interpret the names that they bear. <i>You</i> +—Infralapsarian son of a clown!—</p> +<p class="poetry">Should only contend that Adam slipped down;</p> +<p class="poetry">While <i>you</i>—you Supralapsarian pup!—</p> +<p class="poetry">Should nothing aver but that Adam slipped up.</p> +<p class="poetry">It’s all the same whether up or down</p> +<p class="poetry">You slip on a peel of banana brown.</p> +<p class="poetry">Even Adam analyzed not his blunder,</p> +<p class="poetry">But thought he had slipped on a peal of thunder!</p> +<p class="citeauth">G. J.</p> +</div> +<p class="entry"><span class="def">ingrate</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> One +who receives a benefit from another, or is otherwise an object of charity.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">“All men are ingrates,” sneered the cynic. “Nay,”</p> +<p class="poetry">The good philanthropist replied;</p> +<p class="poetry">“I did great service to a man one day</p> +<p class="poetry">Who never since has cursed me to repay,</p> +<p class="poetry">Nor vilified.”</p> +<p class="poetry">“Ho!” cried the cynic, “lead me to him straight—</p> +<p class="poetry">With veneration I am overcome,</p> +<p class="poetry">And fain would have his blessing.” “Sad your fate—</p> +<p class="poetry">He cannot bless you, for AI grieve to state</p> +<p class="poetry">This man is dumb.”</p> +<p class="citeauth">Ariel Selp</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">injury</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> An +offense next in degree of enormity to a slight.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">injustice</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +burden which of all those that we load upon others and carry ourselves is +lightest in the hands and heaviest upon the back.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">ink</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +villainous compound of tannogallate of iron, gum-arabic and water, chiefly used +to facilitate the infection of idiocy and promote intellectual crime. The +properties of ink are peculiar and contradictory: it may be used to make +reputations and unmake them; to blacken them and to make them white; but it is +most generally and acceptably employed as a mortar to bind together the stones +of an edifice of fame, and as a whitewash to conceal afterward the rascal +quality of the material. There are men called journalists who have established +ink baths which some persons pay money to get into, others to get out of. Not +infrequently it occurs that a person who has paid to get in pays twice as much +to get out.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">innate</span>, <span class="pos">adj.</span> Natural, +inherent—as innate ideas, that is to say, ideas that we are born with, having +had them previously imparted to us. The doctrine of innate ideas is one of the +most admirable faiths of philosophy, being itself an innate idea and therefore +inaccessible to disproof, though Locke foolishly supposed himself to have given +it “a black eye.” Among innate ideas may be mentioned the belief in one’s +ability to conduct a newspaper, in the greatness of one’s country, in the +superiority of one’s civilization, in the importance of one’s personal affairs +and in the interesting nature of one’s diseases.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">in’ards</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The +stomach, heart, soul and other bowels. Many eminent investigators do not class +the soul as an in’ard, but that acute observer and renowned authority, Dr. +Gunsaulus, is persuaded that the mysterious organ known as the spleen is +nothing less than our important part. To the contrary, Professor Garrett P. +Servis holds that man’s soul is that prolongation of his spinal marrow which +forms the pith of his no tail; and for demonstration of his faith points +confidently to the fact that no tailed animals have no souls. Concerning these +two theories, it is best to suspend judgment by believing both.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">inscription</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Something +written on another thing. Inscriptions are of many kinds, but mostly memorial, +intended to commemorate the fame of some illustrious person and hand down to +distant ages the record of his services and virtues. To this class of +inscriptions belongs the name of John Smith, penciled on the Washington +monument. Following are examples of memorial inscriptions on tombstones: (See +EPITAPH.)</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">“In the sky my soul is found,</p> +<p class="poetry">And my body in the ground.</p> +<p class="poetry">By and by my body’ll rise</p> +<p class="poetry">To my spirit in the skies,</p> +<p class="poetry">Soaring up to Heaven’s gate.</p> +<p class="poetry">1878.”</p> +<p class="poetry">“Sacred to the memory of Jeremiah Tree. Cut down May 9<sup>th</sup>, 1862, aged 27 yrs. 4 mos. +and 12 ds. Indigenous.”</p> +<p class="poetry">“Affliction sore long time she boar,</p> +<p class="poetry">Phisicians was in vain,</p> +<p class="poetry">Till Deth released the dear deceased</p> +<p class="poetry">And left her a remain.</p> +<p class="poetry">Gone to join Ananias in the regions of bliss.”</p> +<p class="poetry">“The clay that rests beneath this stone</p> +<p class="poetry">As Silas Wood was widely known.</p> +<p class="poetry">Now, lying here, I ask what good</p> +<p class="poetry">It was to let me be S. Wood.</p> +<p class="poetry">O Man, let not ambition trouble you,</p> +<p class="poetry">Is the advice of Silas W.”</p> +<p class="citeauth">“Richard Haymon, of Heaven. Fell to Earth Jan. 20, 1807, and had the dust brushed off him Oct. +3, 1874.”</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">insectivora</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span></p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">“See,” cries the chorus of admiring preachers, “How Providence provides for all His creatures!”</p> +<p class="poetry">“His care,” the gnat said, “even the insects follows:</p> +<p class="poetry">For us He has provided wrens and swallows.”</p> +<p class="citeauth">Sempen Railey</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">insurance</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> An +ingenious modern game of chance in which the player is permitted to enjoy the +comfortable conviction that he is beating the man who keeps the table.</p> + +<p class="dialog">INSURANCE AGENT: My +dear sir, that is a fine house—pray let me insure it.</p> + +<p class="dialog">HOUSE OWNER: With pleasure. Please make the annual premium so low that by the +time when, according to the tables of your actuary, it will probably be +destroyed by fire I will have paid you considerably less than the face of the policy.</p> + +<p class="dialog">INSURANCE AGENT: O dear, no—we could not afford to do that. </p> + +<p class="dialog">We must fix the premium so that you will have paid more.</p> + +<p class="dialog">HOUSE OWNER: How, then, can <i>I</i> afford <i>that</i>?</p> + +<p class="dialog">INSURANCE AGENT: Why, your house may burn down at any time. </p> + +<p class="dialog">There was Smith’s house, for example, which—</p> + +<p class="dialog">HOUSE OWNER: Spare me—there were Brown’s house, on the contrary, and +Jones’s house, and Robinson’s house, which—</p> + +<p class="dialog">INSURANCE AGENT: Spare <i>me</i>!</p> + +<p class="dialog">HOUSE OWNER: Let us understand each other. You want me to pay you money on the +supposition that something will occur previously to the time set by yourself +for its occurrence. In other words, you expect me to bet that my house will not +last so long as you say that it will probably last.</p> + +<p class="dialog">INSURANCE AGENT: But if your house burns without insurance it will be a total loss.</p> + +<p class="dialog">HOUSE OWNER: Beg your pardon—by your own actuary’s tables I shall probably +have saved, when it burns, all the premiums I would otherwise have paid to +you—amounting to more than the face of the policy they would have bought. But +suppose it to burn, uninsured, before the time upon which your figures are +based. If I could not afford that, how could you if it were insured?</p> + +<p class="dialog">INSURANCE AGENT: O, we should make ourselves whole from our luckier ventures +with other clients. Virtually, they pay your loss.</p> + +<p class="dialog">HOUSE OWNER: And virtually, then, don’t I help to pay their losses? Are not +their houses as likely as mine to burn before they have paid you as much as you +must pay them? The case stands this way: you expect to take more money from +your clients than you pay to them, do you not?</p> + +<p class="dialog">INSURANCE AGENT: Certainly; if we did not—</p> + +<p class="dialog">HOUSE OWNER: I would not trust you with my money. Very well then. If it is <i>certain</i>, with +reference to the whole body of your clients, that they lose money on you it is <i>probable</i>, with +reference to any one of them, that <i>he</i> will. It is these individual +probabilities that make the aggregate certainty.</p> + +<p class="dialog">INSURANCE AGENT: I will not deny it—but look at the figures in this pamph—</p> + +<p class="dialog">HOUSE OWNER: Heaven forbid!</p> + +<p class="dialog">INSURANCE AGENT: You spoke of saving the premiums which you would otherwise pay to +me. Will you not be more likely to squander them? We offer you an incentive to thrift.</p> + +<p class="dialog">HOUSE OWNER: The willingness of A to take care of B’s money is not peculiar to +insurance, but as a charitable institution you command esteem. Deign to accept +its expression from a Deserving Object.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">insurrection</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> An +unsuccessful revolution. Disaffection’s failure to substitute misrule for bad government.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">intention</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The +mind’s sense of the prevalence of one set of influences over another set; an +effect whose cause is the imminence, immediate or remote, of the performance of +an involuntary act.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">interpreter</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> One +who enables two persons of different languages to understand each other by +repeating to each what it would have been to the interpreter’s advantage for +the other to have said.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">interregnum</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The +period during which a monarchical country is governed by a warm spot on the +cushion of the throne. The experiment of letting the spot grow cold has +commonly been attended by most unhappy results from the zeal of many worthy +persons to make it warm again.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">intimacy</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +relation into which fools are providentially drawn for their mutual destruction.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">Two Seidlitz powders, one in blue</p> +<p class="poetry">And one in white, together drew</p> +<p class="poetry">And having each a pleasant sense</p> +<p class="poetry">Of t’other powder’s excellence,</p> +<p class="poetry">Forsook their jackets for the snug</p> +<p class="poetry">Enjoyment of a common mug.</p> +<p class="poetry">So close their intimacy grew</p> +<p class="poetry">One paper would have held the two.</p> +<p class="poetry">To confidences straight they fell,</p> +<p class="poetry">Less anxious each to hear than tell;</p> +<p class="poetry">Then each remorsefully confessed</p> +<p class="poetry">To all the virtues he possessed,</p> +<p class="poetry">Acknowledging he had them in</p> +<p class="poetry">So high degree it was a sin.</p> +<p class="poetry">The more they said, the more they felt</p> +<p class="poetry">Their spirits with emotion melt,</p> +<p class="poetry">Till tears of sentiment expressed</p> +<p class="poetry">Their feelings. Then they effervesced!</p> +<p class="poetry">So Nature executes her feats</p> +<p class="poetry">Of wrath on friends and sympathetes</p> +<p class="poetry">The good old rule who don’t apply,</p> +<p class="poetry">That you are you and I am I.</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">introduction</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +social ceremony invented by the devil for the gratification of his servants and +the plaguing of his enemies. The introduction attains its most malevolent +development in this century, being, indeed, closely related to our political +system. Every American being the equal of every other American, it follows that +everybody has the right to know everybody else, which implies the right to +introduce without request or permission. The Declaration of Independence should +have read thus:</p> + +<p class="quote">“We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are +endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are +life, and the right to make that of another miserable by thrusting upon him an +incalculable quantity of acquaintances; liberty, particularly the liberty to +introduce persons to one another without first ascertaining if they are not +already acquainted as enemies; and the pursuit of another’s happiness with a +running pack of strangers.”</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">inventor</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +person who makes an ingenious arrangement of wheels, levers and springs, and +believes it civilization.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">irreligion</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The +principal one of the great faiths of the world.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">itch</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The +patriotism of a Scotchman.</p> + + +</body> +</html>
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