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diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/L.html b/lib/ebooks/devils/L.html new file mode 100644 index 00000000..8f9f79de --- /dev/null +++ b/lib/ebooks/devils/L.html @@ -0,0 +1,525 @@ +<?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: L</title> +</head> +<body lang="en-US"> + +<h1>L</h1> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">labor</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> One of +the processes by which A acquires property for B.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">land</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A part of +the earth’s surface, considered as property. The theory that land is property +subject to private ownership and control is the foundation of modern society, +and is eminently worthy of the superstructure. Carried to its logical +conclusion, it means that some have the right to prevent others from living; +for the right to own implies the right exclusively to occupy; and in fact laws +of trespass are enacted wherever property in land is recognized. It follows +that if the whole area of <i>terra firma</i> +is owned by A, B and C, there will be no place for D, E, F and G to be born, +or, born as trespassers, to exist.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">A life on the ocean wave,</p> +<p class="poetry">A home on the rolling deep,</p> +<p class="poetry">For the spark the nature gave</p> +<p class="poetry">I have there the right to keep.</p> +<p class="poetry">They give me the cat-o’-nine</p> +<p class="poetry">Whenever I go ashore.</p> +<p class="poetry">Then ho! for the flashing brine—</p> +<p class="poetry">I’m a natural commodore!</p> +<p class="citeauth">Dodle</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">language</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The +music with which we charm the serpents guarding another’s treasure.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">Laocoon</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +famous piece of antique scripture representing a priest of that name and his +two sons in the folds of two enormous serpents. The skill and diligence with +which the old man and lads support the serpents and keep them up to their work +have been justly regarded as one of the noblest artistic illustrations of the +mastery of human intelligence over brute inertia.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">lap</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> One of the +most important organs of the female system—an admirable provision of nature for +the repose of infancy, but chiefly useful in rural festivities to support +plates of cold chicken and heads of adult males. The male of our species has a +rudimentary lap, imperfectly developed and in no way contributing to the +animal’s substantial welfare.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">last</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +shoemaker’s implement, named by a frowning Providence as opportunity to the +maker of puns.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">Ah, punster, would my lot were cast,</p> +<p class="poetry">Where the cobbler is unknown,</p> +<p class="poetry">So that I might forget his last</p> +<p class="poetry">And hear your own.</p> +<p class="citeauth">Gargo Repsky</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">laughter</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> An +interior convulsion, producing a distortion of the features and accompanied by +inarticulate noises. It is infectious and, though intermittent, incurable. Liability +to attacks of laughter is one of the characteristics distinguishing man from +the animals—these being not only inaccessible to the provocation of his +example, but impregnable to the microbes having original jurisdiction in +bestowal of the disease. Whether laughter could be imparted to animals by +inoculation from the human patient is a question that has not been answered by +experimentation. Dr. Meir Witchell holds that the infection character of +laughter is due to the instantaneous fermentation of <i>sputa</i> diffused in a spray. From this peculiarity he names +the disorder <i>Convulsio spargens</i>.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">laureate</span>, <span class="pos">adj.</span> Crowned +with leaves of the laurel. In England the Poet Laureate is an officer of the +sovereign’s court, acting as dancing skeleton at every royal feast and +singing-mute at every royal funeral. Of all incumbents of that high office, +Robert Southey had the most notable knack at drugging the Samson of public joy +and cutting his hair to the quick; and he had an artistic color-sense which +enabled him so to blacken a public grief as to give it the aspect of a national +crime.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">laurel</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The <i>laurus</i>, a vegetable dedicated to Apollo, +and formerly defoliated to wreathe the brows of victors and such poets as had +influence at court. (<i>Vide supra.</i>)</p> + +<p id="law" class="entry"><span class="def">law</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span></p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">Once Law was sitting on the bench,</p> +<p class="poetry">And Mercy knelt a-weeping.</p> +<p class="poetry">“Clear out!” he cried, “disordered wench!</p> +<p class="poetry">Nor come before me creeping.</p> +<p class="poetry">Upon your knees if you appear,</p> +<p class="poetry">‘Tis plain your have no standing here.”</p> +<p class="poetry">Then Justice came. His Honor cried:</p> +<p class="poetry">“<i>Your</i> status?—devil seize you!”</p> +<p class="poetry">“<i>Amica curiae,</i>” she replied—</p> +<p class="poetry">“Friend of the court, so please you.”</p> +<p class="poetry">“Begone!” he shouted—“there’s the door—</p> +<p class="poetry">I never saw your face before!”</p> +<p class="citeauth">G. J.</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">lawful</span>, <span class="pos">adj.</span> Compatible +with the will of a judge having jurisdiction.</p> + +<p id="lawyer" class="entry"><span class="def">lawyer</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> One +skilled in circumvention of the law.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">laziness</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Unwarranted +repose of manner in a person of low degree.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">lead</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A heavy +blue-gray metal much used in giving stability to light lovers—particularly to +those who love not wisely but other men’s wives. Lead is also of great service +as a counterpoise to an argument of such weight that it turns the scale of +debate the wrong way. An interesting fact in the chemistry of international +controversy is that at the point of contact of two patriotisms lead is +precipitated in great quantities.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">Hail, holy Lead!—of human feuds the great</p> +<p class="poetry">And universal arbiter; endowed</p> +<p class="poetry">With penetration to pierce any cloud</p> +<p class="poetry">Fogging the field of controversial hate,</p> +<p class="poetry">And with a sift, inevitable, straight,</p> +<p class="poetry">Searching precision find the unavowed</p> +<p class="poetry">But vital point. Thy judgment, when allowed</p> +<p class="poetry">By the chirurgeon, settles the debate.</p> +<p class="poetry">O useful metal!—were it not for thee</p> +<p class="poetry">We’d grapple one another’s ears alway:</p> +<p class="poetry">But when we hear thee buzzing like a bee</p> +<p class="poetry">We, like old Muhlenberg, “care not to stay.”</p> +<p class="poetry">And when the quick have run away like pellets</p> +<p class="poetry">Jack Satan smelts the dead to make new bullets.</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">learning</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The +kind of ignorance distinguishing the studious.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">lecturer</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> One +with his hand in your pocket, his tongue in your ear and his faith in your patience.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">legacy</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A gift +from one who is legging it out of this vale of tears.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">leonine</span>, <span class="pos">adj.</span> Unlike +a menagerie lion. Leonine verses are those in which a word in the middle of a +line rhymes with a word at the end, as in this famous passage from Bella Peeler Silcox:</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">The electric light invades the dunnest deep of Hades.</p> +<p class="poetry">Cries Pluto, ‘twixt his snores: “O tempora! O mores!”</p> +<p class="poetry">It should be explained that Mrs. Silcox does not undertake to teach pronunciation of the +Greek and Latin tongues. Leonine verses are so called in honor of a poet named +Leo, whom prosodists appear to find a pleasure in believing to have been the +first to discover that a rhyming couplet could be run into a single line.</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">lettuce</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> An +herb of the genus <i>Lactuca</i>, “Wherewith,” says that pious gastronome, Hengist Pelly, “God has been pleased +to reward the good and punish the wicked. For by his inner light the righteous +man has discerned a manner of compounding for it a dressing to the appetency +whereof a multitude of gustible condiments conspire, being reconciled and +ameliorated with profusion of oil, the entire comestible making glad the heart +of the godly and causing his face to shine. But the person of spiritual unworth +is successfully tempted to the Adversary to eat of lettuce with destitution of +oil, mustard, egg, salt and garlic, and with a rascal bath of vinegar polluted +with sugar. Wherefore the person of spiritual unworth suffers an intestinal +pang of strange complexity and raises the song.”</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">leviathan</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> An +enormous aquatic animal mentioned by Job. Some suppose it to have been the +whale, but that distinguished ichthyologer, Dr. Jordan, of Stanford University, +maintains with considerable heat that it was a species of gigantic Tadpole +(<i>Thaddeus Polandensis</i>) or Polliwig—<i>Maria +pseudo-hirsuta</i>. For an exhaustive description and history of the +Tadpole consult the famous monograph of Jane Potter, <i>Thaddeus of Warsaw</i>.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">lexicographer</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +pestilent fellow who, under the pretense of recording some particular stage in +the development of a language, does what he can to arrest its growth, stiffen +its flexibility and mechanize its methods. For your lexicographer, having +written his dictionary, comes to be considered “as one having authority,” +whereas his function is only to make a record, not to give a law. The natural +servility of the human understanding having invested him with judicial power, +surrenders its right of reason and submits itself to a chronicle as if it were +a statue. Let the dictionary (for example) mark a good word as “obsolete” or +“obsolescent” and few men thereafter venture to use it, whatever their need of +it and however desirable its restoration to favor—whereby the process of +improverishment is accelerated and speech decays. On the contrary, recognizing +the truth that language must grow by innovation if it grow at all, makes new +words and uses the old in an unfamiliar sense, has no following and is tartly +reminded that “it isn’t in the dictionary”—although down to the time of the +first lexicographer (Heaven forgive him!) no author ever had used a word that <i>was</i> in the dictionary. In the golden prime +and high noon of English speech; when from the lips of the great Elizabethans +fell words that made their own meaning and carried it in their very sound; when +a Shakespeare and a Bacon were possible, and the language now rapidly perishing +at one end and slowly renewed at the other was in vigorous growth and hardy +preservation—sweeter than honey and stronger than a lion—the lexicographer was +a person unknown, the dictionary a creation which his Creator had not created +him to create.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">God said: “Let Spirit perish into Form,”</p> +<p class="poetry">And lexicographers arose, a swarm!</p> +<p class="poetry">Thought fled and left her clothing, which they took,</p> +<p class="poetry">And catalogued each garment in a book.</p> +<p class="poetry">Now, from her leafy covert when she cries:</p> +<p class="poetry">“Give me my clothes and I’ll return,” they rise</p> +<p class="poetry">And scan the list, and say without compassion:</p> +<p class="poetry">“Excuse us—they are mostly out of fashion.”</p> +<p class="citeauth">Sigismund Smith</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">liar</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A lawyer +with a roving commission.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">liberty</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> One of +Imagination’s most precious possessions.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">The rising People, hot and out of breath,</p> +<p class="poetry">Roared around the palace: “Liberty or death!”</p> +<p class="poetry">“If death will do,” the King said, “let me reign;</p> +<p class="poetry">You’ll have, I’m sure, no reason to complain.”</p> +<p class="citeauth">Martha Braymance</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">lickspittle</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +useful functionary, not infrequently found editing a newspaper. In his +character of editor he is closely allied to the blackmailer by the tie of +occasional identity; for in truth the lickspittle is only the blackmailer under +another aspect, although the latter is frequently found as an independent +species. Lickspittling is more detestable than blackmailing, precisely as the +business of a confidence man is more detestable than that of a highway robber; +and the parallel maintains itself throughout, for whereas few robbers will +cheat, every sneak will plunder if he dare.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">life</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +spiritual pickle preserving the body from decay. We live in daily apprehension +of its loss; yet when lost it is not missed. The question, “Is life worth +living?” has been much discussed; particularly by those who think it is not, +many of whom have written at great length in support of their view and by +careful observance of the laws of health enjoyed for long terms of years the +honors of successful controversy.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">“Life’s not worth living, and that’s the truth,”</p> +<p class="poetry">Carelessly caroled the golden youth.</p> +<p class="poetry">In manhood still he maintained that view</p> +<p class="poetry">And held it more strongly the older he grew.</p> +<p class="poetry">When kicked by a jackass at eighty-three,</p> +<p class="poetry">“Go fetch me a surgeon at once!” cried he.</p> +<p class="citeauth">Han Soper</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">lighthouse</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +tall building on the seashore in which the government maintains a lamp and the friend of a politician.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">limb</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The +branch of a tree or the leg of an American woman.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">‘Twas a pair of boots that the lady bought,</p> +<p class="poetry">And the salesman laced them tight</p> +<p class="poetry">To a very remarkable height—</p> +<p class="poetry">Higher, indeed, than I think he ought—</p> +<p class="poetry">Higher than <i>can</i> be right.</p> +<p class="poetry">For the Bible declares—but never mind:</p> +<p class="poetry">It is hardly fit</p> +<p class="poetry">To censure freely and fault to find</p> +<p class="poetry">With others for sins that I’m not inclined</p> +<p class="poetry">Myself to commit.</p> +<p class="poetry">Each has his weakness, and though my own</p> +<p class="poetry">Is freedom from every sin,</p> +<p class="poetry">It still were unfair to pitch in,</p> +<p class="poetry">Discharging the first censorious stone.</p> +<p class="poetry">Besides, the truth compels me to say,</p> +<p class="poetry">The boots in question were <i>made</i> that way.</p> +<p class="poetry">As he drew the lace she made a grimace,</p> +<p class="poetry">And blushingly said to him:</p> +<p class="poetry">“This boot, I’m sure, is too high to endure, It hurts my—hurts my—limb.”</p> +<p class="poetry">The salesman smiled in a manner mild,</p> +<p class="poetry">Like an artless, undesigning child;</p> +<p class="poetry">Then, checking himself, to his face he gave</p> +<p class="poetry">A look as sorrowful as the grave,</p> +<p class="poetry">Though he didn’t care two figs</p> +<p class="poetry">For her paints and throes,</p> +<p class="poetry">As he stroked her toes,</p> +<p class="poetry">Remarking with speech and manner just</p> +<p class="poetry">Befitting his calling: “Madam, I trust</p> +<p class="poetry">That it doesn’t hurt your twigs.”</p> +<p class="citeauth">B. Percival Dike</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">linen</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> “A kind +of cloth the making of which, when made of hemp, entails a great waste of +hemp.”—Calcraft the Hangman.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">litigant</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +person about to give up his skin for the hope of retaining his bones.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">litigation</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +machine which you go into as a pig and come out of as a sausage.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">liver</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A large +red organ thoughtfully provided by nature to be bilious with. The sentiments +and emotions which every literary anatomist now knows to haunt the heart were +anciently believed to infest the liver; and even Gascoygne, speaking of the +emotional side of human nature, calls it “our hepaticall parte.” It was at one +time considered the seat of life; hence its name—liver, the thing we live with. +The liver is heaven’s best gift to the goose; without it that bird would be +unable to supply us with the Strasbourg <i>pate</i>.</p> + +<p>LL.D. Letters indicating the degree <i>Legumptionorum Doctor</i>, +one learned in laws, gifted with legal gumption. Some suspicion is cast upon +this derivation by the fact that the title was formerly <i>LL.d.</i>, and conferred only upon gentlemen +distinguished for their wealth. At the date of this writing Columbia University +is considering the expediency of making another degree for clergymen, in place +of the old D.D.—<i>Damnator Diaboli</i>. +The new honor will be known as <i>Sanctorum Custus</i>, and written <i>$$c</i>. The name of the Rev. John Satan has +been suggested as a suitable recipient by a lover of consistency, who points +out that Professor Harry Thurston Peck has long enjoyed the advantage of a +degree.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">lock-and-key</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The +distinguishing device of civilization and enlightenment.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">Lodger</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A less +popular name for the Second Person of that delectable newspaper Trinity, the +Roomer, the Bedder, and the Mealer.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">logic</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The art +of thinking and reasoning in strict accordance with the limitations and +incapacities of the human misunderstanding. The basic of logic is the +syllogism, consisting of a major and a minor premise and a conclusion—thus:</p> + +<p><i>Major Premise</i>: Sixty men can do a piece of work sixty times as quickly as one man.</p> + +<p><i>Minor Premise</i>: One man can dig a posthole in sixty seconds; therefore—</p> + +<p><i>Conclusion</i>: Sixty men can dig a posthole in one second.</p> + +<p>This may be called the syllogism arithmetical, in which, by combining logic and mathematics, we +obtain a double certainty and are twice blessed.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">logomachy</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +war in which the weapons are words and the wounds punctures in the swim-bladder +of self-esteem—a kind of contest in which, the vanquished being unconscious of +defeat, the victor is denied the reward of success.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">‘Tis said by divers of the scholar-men That poor Salmasius died of Milton’s pen.</p> +<p class="poetry">Alas! we cannot know if this is true,</p> +<p class="poetry">For reading Milton’s wit we perish too.</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">loganimity</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The +disposition to endure injury with meek forbearance while maturing a plan of revenge.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">longevity</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Uncommon +extension of the fear of death.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">looking-glass</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +vitreous plane upon which to display a fleeting show for man’s disillusion given.</p> + +<p class="cite">The King of +Manchuria had a magic looking-glass, whereon whoso looked saw, not his own +image, but only that of the king. A certain courtier who had long enjoyed the +king’s favor and was thereby enriched beyond any other subject of the realm, +said to the king: </p> + +<p class="cite">“Give me, I pray, +thy wonderful mirror, so that when absent out of thine august presence I may +yet do homage before thy visible shadow, prostrating myself night and morning +in the glory of thy benign countenance, as which nothing has so divine +splendor, O Noonday Sun of the Universe!”</p> + +<p class="cite">Please with the +speech, the king commanded that the mirror be conveyed to the courtier’s +palace; but after, having gone thither without apprisal, he found it in an +apartment where was naught but idle lumber. And the mirror was dimmed with dust +and overlaced with cobwebs. This so angered him that he fisted it hard, +shattering the glass, and was sorely hurt. Enraged all the more by this +mischance, he commanded that the ungrateful courtier be thrown into prison, and +that the glass be repaired and taken back to his own palace; and this was done. +But when the king looked again on the mirror he saw not his image as before, +but only the figure of a crowned ass, having a bloody bandage on one of its +hinder hooves—as the artificers and all who had looked upon it had before +discerned but feared to report. Taught wisdom and charity, the king restored +his courtier to liberty, had the mirror set into the back of the throne and +reigned many years with justice and humility; and one day when he fell asleep +in death while on the throne, the whole court saw in the mirror the luminous +figure of an angel, which remains to this day.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">loquacity</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +disorder which renders the sufferer unable to curb his tongue when you wish to +talk.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">lord</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> In +American society, an English tourist above the state of a costermonger, as, +lord ‘Aberdasher, Lord Hartisan and so forth. The traveling Briton of lesser +degree is addressed as “Sir,” as, Sir ‘Arry Donkiboi, or ‘Amstead ‘Eath. The +word “Lord” is sometimes used, also, as a title of the Supreme Being; but this +is thought to be rather flattery than true reverence.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">Miss Sallie Ann Splurge, of her own accord,<br /> +Wedded a wandering English lord—</p> +<p class="poetry">Wedded and took him to dwell with her “paw,”<br /> +A parent who throve by the practice of Draw.</p> +<p class="poetry">Lord Cadde I don’t hesitate to declare</p> +<p class="poetry">Unworthy the father-in-legal care</p> +<p class="poetry">Of that elderly sport, notwithstanding the truth<br /> +That Cadde had renounced all the follies of youth;</p> +<p class="poetry">For, sad to relate, he’d arrived at the stage<br /> +Of existence that’s marked by the vices of age.<br /> +Among them, cupidity caused him to urge<br /> +Repeated demands on the pocket of Splurge,<br /> +Till, wrecked in his fortune, that gentleman saw<br /> +Inadequate aid in the practice of Draw,<br /> +And took, as a means of augmenting his pelf,<br /> +To the business of being a lord himself.</p> +<p class="poetry">His neat-fitting garments he wilfully shed<br /> +And sacked himself strangely in checks instead;</p> +<p class="poetry">Denuded his chin, but retained at each ear<br /> +A whisker that looked like a blasted career.<br /> +He painted his neck an incarnadine hue<br /> +Each morning and varnished it all that he knew.</p> +<p class="poetry">The moony monocular set in his eye</p> +<p class="poetry">Appeared to be scanning the Sweet Bye-and-Bye.<br /> +His head was enroofed with a billycock hat, And +his low-necked shoes were aduncous and flat.</p> +<p class="poetry">In speech he eschewed his American ways,</p> +<p class="poetry">Denying his nose to the use of his A’s</p> +<p class="poetry">And dulling their edge till the delicate sense<br /> +Of a babe at their temper could take no offence.<br /> +His H’s—‘twas most inexpressibly sweet,<br /> +The patter they made as they fell at his feet!</p> +<p class="poetry">Re-outfitted thus, Mr. Splurge without fear</p> +<p class="poetry">Began as Lord Splurge his recouping career.</p> +<p class="poetry">Alas, the Divinity shaping his end</p> +<p class="poetry">Entertained other views and decided to send</p> +<p class="poetry">His lordship in horror, despair and dismay</p> +<p class="poetry">From the land of the nobleman’s natural prey.</p> +<p class="poetry">For, smit with his Old World ways,</p> +<p class="poetry">Lady Cadde Fell—suffering Caesar!—in love with her dad!</p> +<p class="citeauth">G. J.</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">lore</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Learning—particularly +that sort which is not derived from a regular course of instruction but comes +of the reading of occult books, or by nature. This latter is commonly +designated as folk-lore and embraces popularly myths and superstitions. In +Baring-Gould’s <i>Curious Myths of the Middle +Ages</i> the reader will find many of these traced backward, through +various people son converging lines, toward a common origin in remote +antiquity. Among these are the fables of “Teddy the Giant Killer,” “The +Sleeping John Sharp Williams,” “Little Red Riding Hood and the Sugar Trust,” +“Beauty and the Brisbane,” “The Seven Aldermen of Ephesus,” “Rip Van +Fairbanks,” and so forth. The fable with Goethe so affectingly relates under +the title of “The Erl- King” was known two thousand years ago in Greece as “The +Demos and the Infant Industry.” One of the most general and ancient of these +myths is that Arabian tale of “Ali Baba and the Forty Rockefellers.”</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">loss</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Privation +of that which we had, or had not. Thus, in the latter sense, it is said of a +defeated candidate that he “lost his election”; and of that eminent man, the +poet Gilder, that he has “lost his mind.” It is in the former and more +legitimate sense, that the word is used in the famous epitaph:</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">Here Huntington’s ashes long have lain</p> +<p class="poetry">Whose loss is our eternal gain,</p> +<p class="poetry">For while he exercised all his powers</p> +<p class="poetry">Whatever he gained, the loss was ours.</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">love</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +temporary insanity curable by marriage or by removal of the patient from the +influences under which he incurred the disorder. This disease, like <i>caries</i> and many other ailments, is +prevalent only among civilized races living under artificial conditions; +barbarous nations breathing pure air and eating simple food enjoy immunity from +its ravages. It is sometimes fatal, but more frequently to the physician than to the patient.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">low-bred</span>, <span class="pos">adj.</span> “Raised” +instead of brought up.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">luminary</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> One +who throws light upon a subject; as an editor by not writing about it.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">lunarian</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> An +inhabitant of the moon, as distinguished from Lunatic, one whom the moon +inhabits. The Lunarians have been described by Lucian, Locke and other +observers, but without much agreement. For example, Bragellos avers their +anatomical identity with Man, but Professor Newcomb says they are more like the +hill tribes of Vermont.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">lyre</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> An +ancient instrument of torture. The word is now used in a figurative sense to +denote the poetic faculty, as in the following fiery lines of our great poet, +Ella Wheeler Wilcox:</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">I sit astride Parnassus with my lyre,</p> +<p class="poetry">And pick with care the disobedient wire.</p> +<p class="poetry">That stupid shepherd lolling on his crook With deaf attention scarcely deigns to look. I +bide my time, and it shall come at length, When, with a Titan’s energy and +strength, I’ll grab a fistful of the strings, and O, The word shall suffer when +I let them go!</p> +<p class="citeauth">Farquharson Harris</p> +</div> + + +</body> +</html>
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