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Among the Jews observance of the day was +enforced by a Commandment of which this is the Christian version: “Remember the +seventh day to make thy neighbor keep it wholly.” To the Creator it seemed fit +and expedient that the Sabbath should be the last day of the week, but the +Early Fathers of the Church held other views. So great is the sanctity of the +day that even where the Lord holds a doubtful and precarious jurisdiction over +those who go down to (and down into) the sea it is reverently recognized, as is +manifest in the following deep-water version of the Fourth Commandment:</p> + +<p>Six days shalt thou labor and do all thou art able, And on the seventh holystone the deck and +scrape the cable.</p> + +<p>Decks are no longer holystoned, but the cable still supplies the captain with opportunity to +attest a pious respect for the divine ordinance.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">sacerdotalist</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> One +who holds the belief that a clergyman is a priest. Denial of this momentous +doctrine is the hardest challenge that is now flung into the teeth of the +Episcopalian church by the Neo-Dictionarians.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">sacrament</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +solemn religious ceremony to which several degrees of authority and +significance are attached. Rome has seven sacraments, but the Protestant +churches, being less prosperous, feel that they can afford only two, and these +of inferior sanctity. Some of the smaller sects have no sacraments at all—for +which mean economy they will indubitable be damned.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">sacred</span>, <span class="pos">adj.</span> Dedicated +to some religious purpose; having a divine character; inspiring solemn thoughts +or emotions; as, the Dalai Lama of Thibet; the Moogum of M’bwango; the temple +of Apes in Ceylon; the Cow in India; the Crocodile, the Cat and the Onion of +ancient Egypt; the Mufti of Moosh; the hair of the dog that bit Noah, etc.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">All things are either sacred or profane.</p> +<p class="poetry">The former to ecclesiasts bring gain;</p> +<p class="poetry">The latter to the devil appertain.</p> +<p class="citeauth">Dumbo Omohundro</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">sandlotter</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +vertebrate mammal holding the political views of Denis Kearney, a notorious +demagogue of San Francisco, whose audiences gathered in the open spaces +(sandlots) of the town. True to the traditions of his species, this leader of +the proletariat was finally bought off by his law-and-order enemies, living +prosperously silent and dying impenitently rich. But before his treason he +imposed upon California a constitution that was a confection of sin in a +diction of solecisms. The similarity between the words “sandlotter” and +“sansculotte” is problematically significant, but indubitably suggestive.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">safety-clutch</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +mechanical device acting automatically to prevent the fall of an elevator, or +cage, in case of an accident to the hoisting apparatus.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">Once I seen a human ruin</p> +<p class="poetry">In an elevator-well,</p> +<p class="poetry">And his members was bestrewin’</p> +<p class="poetry">All the place where he had fell.</p> +<p class="poetry">And I says, apostrophisin’</p> +<p class="poetry">That uncommon woful wreck:</p> +<p class="poetry">“Your position’s so surprisin’</p> +<p class="poetry">That I tremble for your neck!”</p> +<p class="poetry">Then that ruin, smilin’ sadly</p> +<p class="poetry">And impressive, up and spoke:</p> +<p class="poetry">“Well, I wouldn’t tremble badly,</p> +<p class="poetry">For it’s been a fortnight broke.”</p> +<p class="poetry">Then, for further comprehension</p> +<p class="poetry">Of his attitude, he begs</p> +<p class="poetry">I will focus my attention</p> +<p class="poetry">On his various arms and legs—</p> +<p class="poetry">How they all are contumacious;</p> +<p class="poetry">Where they each, respective, lie;</p> +<p class="poetry">How one trotter proves ungracious,</p> +<p class="poetry">T’other one an <i>alibi</i>.</p> +<p class="poetry">These particulars is mentioned</p> +<p class="poetry">For to show his dismal state,</p> +<p class="poetry">Which I wasn’t first intentioned</p> +<p class="poetry">To specifical relate.</p> +<p class="poetry">None is worser to be dreaded</p> +<p class="poetry">That I ever have heard tell</p> +<p class="poetry">Than the gent’s who there was spreaded</p> +<p class="poetry">In that elevator-well.</p> +<p class="poetry">Now this tale is allegoric—</p> +<p class="poetry">It is figurative all,</p> +<p class="poetry">For the well is metaphoric</p> +<p class="poetry">And the feller didn’t fall.</p> +<p class="poetry">I opine it isn’t moral</p> +<p class="poetry">For a writer-man to cheat,</p> +<p class="poetry">And despise to wear a laurel</p> +<p class="poetry">As was gotten by deceit.</p> +<p class="poetry">For ‘tis Politics intended</p> +<p class="poetry">By the elevator, mind,</p> +<p class="poetry">It will boost a person splendid</p> +<p class="poetry">If his talent is the kind.</p> +<p class="poetry">Col. Bryan had the talent</p> +<p class="poetry">(For the busted man is him)</p> +<p class="poetry">And it shot him up right gallant</p> +<p class="poetry">Till his head begun to swim.</p> +<p class="poetry">Then the rope it broke above him</p> +<p class="poetry">And he painful come to earth</p> +<p class="poetry">Where there’s nobody to love him</p> +<p class="poetry">For his detrimented worth.</p> +<p class="poetry">Though he’s livin’ none would know him,</p> +<p class="poetry">Or at leastwise not as such.</p> +<p class="poetry">Moral of this woful poem:</p> +<p class="poetry">Frequent oil your safety-clutch.</p> +<p class="citeauth">Porfer Poog</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">saint</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A dead +sinner revised and edited.</p> + +<p class="indentpara">The Duchess of Orleans relates that the irreverent old calumniator, Marshal Villeroi, who in +his youth had known St. Francis de Sales, said, on hearing him called saint: “I +am delighted to hear that Monsieur de Sales is a saint. He was fond of saying +indelicate things, and used to cheat at cards. In other respects he was a +perfect gentleman, though a fool.”</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">salacity</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +certain literary quality frequently observed in popular novels, especially in +those written by women and young girls, who give it another name and think that +in introducing it they are occupying a neglected field of letters and reaping +an overlooked harvest. If they have the misfortune to live long enough they are +tormented with a desire to burn their sheaves.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">salamander</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Originally +a reptile inhabiting fire; later, an anthropomorphous immortal, but still a pyrophile. +Salamanders are now believed to be extinct, the last one of which we have an +account having been seen in Carcassonne by the Abbe Belloc, who exorcised it +with a bucket of holy water.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">sarcophagus</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Among +the Greeks a coffin which being made of a certain kind of carnivorous stone, +had the peculiar property of devouring the body placed in it. The sarcophagus +known to modern obsequiographers is commonly a product of the carpenter’s art.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">Satan</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> One of +the Creator’s lamentable mistakes, repented in sashcloth and axes. Being +instated as an archangel, Satan made himself multifariously objectionable and +was finally expelled from Heaven. Halfway in his descent he paused, bent his +head in thought a moment and at last went back. “There is one favor that I +should like to ask,” said he.</p> +<p>“Name it.”</p> +<p>“Man, I understand, is about to be created. He will need laws.”</p> +<p>“What, wretch! you his appointed adversary, charged from the dawn </p> +<p>of eternity with hatred of his soul—you ask for the right to make his laws?”</p> +<p>“Pardon; what I have to ask is that he be permitted to make them himself.”</p> +<p>It was so ordered.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">satiety</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The +feeling that one has for the plate after he has eaten its contents, madam.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">satire</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> An +obsolete kind of literary composition in which the vices and follies of the +author’s enemies were expounded with imperfect tenderness. In this country +satire never had more than a sickly and uncertain existence, for the soul of it +is wit, wherein we are dolefully deficient, the humor that we mistake for it, +like all humor, being tolerant and sympathetic. Moreover, although Americans +are “endowed by their Creator” with abundant vice and folly, it is not +generally known that these are reprehensible qualities, wherefore the satirist +is popularly regarded as a soul-spirited knave, and his ever victim’s outcry +for codefendants evokes a national assent.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">Hail Satire! be thy praises ever sung</p> +In the dead language of a mummy’s tongue,<br /> +For thou thyself art dead, and damned as well—<br /> +Thy spirit (usefully employed) in Hell.<br /> +Had it been such as consecrates the Bible<br /> +Thou hadst not perished by the law of libel.<br /> +<p class="citeauth">Barney Stims</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">satyr</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> One of +the few characters of the Grecian mythology accorded recognition in the Hebrew. +(Leviticus, xvii, 7.) The satyr was at first a member of the dissolute +community acknowledging a loose allegiance with Dionysius, but underwent many +transformations and improvements. Not infrequently he is confounded with the +faun, a later and decenter creation of the Romans, who was less like a man and more +like a goat.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">sauce</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The one +infallible sign of civilization and enlightenment. A people with no sauces has +one thousand vices; a people with one sauce has only nine hundred and +ninety-nine. For every sauce invented and accepted a vice is renounced and +forgiven.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">saw</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A trite +popular saying, or proverb. (Figurative and colloquial.) So called because it +makes its way into a wooden head. Following are examples of old saws fitted +with new teeth.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">A penny saved is a penny to squander.</p> +<p class="poetry">A man is known by the company that he organizes.</p> +<p class="poetry">A bad workman quarrels with the man who calls him that.</p> +<p class="poetry">A bird in the hand is worth what it will bring.</p> +<p class="poetry">Better late than before anybody has invited you.</p> +<p class="poetry">Example is better than following it.</p> +<p class="poetry">Half a loaf is better than a whole one if there is much else.</p> +<p class="poetry">Think twice before you speak to a friend in need.</p> +<p class="poetry">What is worth doing is worth the trouble of asking somebody to do it.</p> +<p class="poetry">Least said is soonest disavowed.</p> +<p class="poetry">He laughs best who laughs least.</p> +<p class="poetry">Speak of the Devil and he will hear about it.</p> +<p class="poetry">Of two evils choose to be the least.</p> +<p class="poetry">Strike while your employer has a big contract.</p> +<p class="poetry">Where there’s a will there’s a won’t.</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">Sacrabaeus</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The +sacred beetle of the ancient Egyptians, allied to our familiar “tumble-bug.” It +was supposed to symbolize immortality, the fact that God knew why giving it its +peculiar sanctity. Its habit of incubating its eggs in a ball of ordure may +also have commended it to the favor of the priesthood, and may some day assure +it an equal reverence among ourselves. True, the American beetle is an inferior +beetle, but the American priest is an inferior priest.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">Scarabee</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The +same as scarabaeus.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">He fell by his own hand<br /> +Beneath the great oak tree.<br /> +He’d traveled in a foreign land.<br /> +He tried to make her understand<br /> +The dance that’s called the Saraband,<br /> +But he called it Scarabee.<br /> +He had called it so through an afternoon,<br /> +And she, the light of his harem if so might be,<br /> +Had smiled and said naught. O the body was fair to see,<br /> +All frosted there in the shine o’ the moon—<br /> +Dead for a Scarabee And a recollection that came too late.<br /> +O Fate!<br /> +They buried him where he lay,<br /> +He sleeps awaiting the Day,<br /> +In state, And two Possible Puns, moon-eyed and wan,<br /> +Gloom over the grave and then move on.<br /> +Dead for a Scarabee!</p> +<p class="citeauth">Fernando Tapple</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">scarification</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +form of penance practised by the mediaeval pious. The rite was performed, +sometimes with a knife, sometimes with a hot iron, but always, says Arsenius +Asceticus, acceptably if the penitent spared himself no pain nor harmless +disfigurement. Scarification, with other crude penances, has now been +superseded by benefaction. The founding of a library or endowment of a +university is said to yield to the penitent a sharper and more lasting pain +than is conferred by the knife or iron, and is therefore a surer means of +grace. There are, however, two grave objections to it as a penitential method: the +good that it does and the taint of justice.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">scepter</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +king’s staff of office, the sign and symbol of his authority. It was originally +a mace with which the sovereign admonished his jester and vetoed ministerial +measures by breaking the bones of their proponents.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">scimetar</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +curved sword of exceeding keenness, in the conduct of which certain Orientals +attain a surprising proficiency, as the incident here related will serve to +show. The account is translated from the Japanese by Shusi Itama, a famous +writer of the thirteenth century.</p> + +<p class="indentpara">When the great Gichi-Kuktai was Mikado he condemned to decapitation Jijiji Ri, a high officer +of the Court. Soon after the hour appointed for performance of the rite what +was his Majesty’s surprise to see calmly approaching the throne the man who +should have been at that time ten minutes dead!</p> + +<p class="indentpara">“Seventeen hundred impossible dragons!” shouted the enraged monarch. “Did I not sentence you to +stand in the market-place and have your head struck off by the public +executioner at three o’clock? And is it not now 3:10?”</p> + +<p class="indentpara">“Son of a thousand illustrious deities,” answered the condemned minister, “all that you say is so +true that the truth is a lie in comparison. But your heavenly Majesty’s sunny +and vitalizing wishes have been pestilently disregarded. With joy I ran and +placed my unworthy body in the market-place. The executioner appeared with his +bare scimetar, ostentatiously whirled it in air, and then, tapping me lightly +upon the neck, strode away, pelted by the populace, with whom I was ever a +favorite. I am come to pray for justice upon his own dishonorable and +treasonous head.”</p> + +<p class="indentpara">“To what regiment +of executioners does the black-boweled caitiff belong?” asked the Mikado.</p> + +<p class="indentpara">“To the gallant Ninety-eight Hundred and Thirty-seventh—I know the man. His name is +Sakko-Samshi.”</p> + +<p class="indentpara">“Let him be +brought before me,” said the Mikado to an attendant, and a half-hour later the +culprit stood in the Presence.</p> + +<p class="indentpara">“Thou bastard son +of a three-legged hunchback without thumbs!” roared the sovereign—“why didst +thou but lightly tap the neck that it should have been thy pleasure to sever?”</p> + +<p class="indentpara">“Lord of Cranes of +Cherry Blooms,” replied the executioner, unmoved, “command him to blow his nose +with his fingers.”</p> + +<p class="indentpara">Being commanded, +Jijiji Ri laid hold of his nose and trumpeted like an elephant, all expecting +to see the severed head flung violently from him. Nothing occurred: the +performance prospered peacefully to the close, without incident.</p> + +<p class="indentpara">All eyes were now +turned on the executioner, who had grown as white as the snows on the summit of +Fujiama. His legs trembled and his breath came in gasps of terror.</p> + +<p class="indentpara">“Several kinds of +spike-tailed brass lions!” he cried; “I am a ruined and disgraced swordsman! I +struck the villain feebly because in flourishing the scimetar I had +accidentally passed it through my own neck! Father of the Moon, I resign my office.”</p> + +<p class="indentpara">So saying, he +gasped his top-knot, lifted off his head, and advancing to the throne laid it +humbly at the Mikado’s feet.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">scrap-book</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +book that is commonly edited by a fool. Many persons of some small distinction +compile scrap-books containing whatever they happen to read about themselves or +employ others to collect. One of these egotists was addressed in the lines +following, by Agamemnon Melancthon Peters:</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">Dear Frank, that scrap-book where you boast<br /> +You keep a record true<br /> +Of every kind of peppered roast<br /> +That’s made of you;<br /> +Wherein you paste the printed gibes<br /> +That revel round your name,<br /> +Thinking the laughter of the scribes<br /> +Attests your fame;<br /> +Where all the pictures you arrange<br /> +That comic pencils trace—<br /> +Your funny figure and your strange<br /> +Semitic face—<br /> +Pray lend it me. Wit I have not,<br /> +Nor art, but there I’ll list<br /> +The daily drubbings you’d have got<br /> +Had God a fist.</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">scribbler</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +professional writer whose views are antagonistic to one’s own.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">scriptures</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The +sacred books of our holy religion, as distinguished from the false and profane +writings on which all other faiths are based.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">seal</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A mark +impressed upon certain kinds of documents to attest their authenticity and +authority. Sometimes it is stamped upon wax, and attached to the paper, +sometimes into the paper itself. Sealing, in this sense, is a survival of an +ancient custom of inscribing important papers with cabalistic words or signs to +give them a magical efficacy independent of the authority that they represent. In +the British museum are preserved many ancient papers, mostly of a sacerdotal +character, validated by necromantic pentagrams and other devices, frequently +initial letters of words to conjure with; and in many instances these are +attached in the same way that seals are appended now. As nearly every +reasonless and apparently meaningless custom, rite or observance of modern +times had origin in some remote utility, it is pleasing to note an example of +ancient nonsense evolving in the process of ages into something really useful. Our +word “sincere” is derived from <i>sine cero</i>, +without wax, but the learned are not in agreement as to whether this refers to +the absence of the cabalistic signs, or to that of the wax with which letters +were formerly closed from public scrutiny. Either view of the matter will serve +one in immediate need of an hypothesis. The initials L.S., commonly appended to +signatures of legal documents, mean <i>locum sigillis</i>, the place of the seal, +although the seal is no longer used—an admirable example of conservatism +distinguishing Man from the beasts that perish. The words <i>locum sigillis</i> are humbly suggested as a +suitable motto for the Pribyloff Islands whenever they shall take their place +as a sovereign State of the American Union.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">seine</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A kind +of net for effecting an involuntary change of environment. For fish it is made +strong and coarse, but women are more easily taken with a singularly delicate +fabric weighted with small, cut stones.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">The devil casting a seine of lace,<br /> +(With precious stones ‘twas weighted)<br /> +Drew it into the landing place<br /> +And its contents calculated.<br /> +All souls of women were in that sack—<br /> +A draft miraculous, precious!<br /> +But ere he could throw it across his back<br /> +They’d all escaped through the meshes.</p> +<p class="citeauth">Baruch de Loppis</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">self-esteem</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> An +erroneous appraisement.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">self-evident</span>, <span class="pos">adj.</span> +Evident to one’s self and to nobody else.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">selfish</span>, <span class="pos">adj.</span> Devoid +of consideration for the selfishness of others.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">senate</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A body +of elderly gentlemen charged with high duties and misdemeanors.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">serial</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +literary work, usually a story that is not true, creeping through several issues +of a newspaper or magazine. Frequently appended to each installment is a +“synposis of preceding chapters” for those who have not read them, but a direr +need is a synposis of succeeding chapters for those who do not intend to read <i>them</i>. A synposis of the entire work would +be still better.</p> + +<p class="indentpara">The late James F. Bowman was writing a serial tale for a weekly paper in collaboration with a +genius whose name has not come down to us. They wrote, not jointly but +alternately, Bowman supplying the installment for one week, his friend for the +next, and so on, world without end, they hoped. Unfortunately they quarreled, +and one Monday morning when Bowman read the paper to prepare himself for his +task, he found his work cut out for him in a way to surprise and pain him. His +collaborator had embarked every character of the narrative on a ship and sunk +them all in the deepest part of the Atlantic.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">severalty</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Separateness, +as, lands in severalty, i.e., lands held individually, not in joint ownership. Certain +tribes of Indians are believed now to be sufficiently civilized to have in +severalty the lands that they have hitherto held as tribal organizations, and +could not sell to the Whites for waxen beads and potato whiskey.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">Lo! the poor Indian whose unsuited mind<br /> +Saw death before, hell and the grave behind;<br /> +Whom thrifty settler ne’er besought to stay—<br /> +His small belongings their appointed prey;<br /> +Whom Dispossession, with alluring wile,<br /> +Persuaded elsewhere every little while!<br /> +His fire unquenched and his undying worm<br /> +By “land in severalty” (charming term!)<br /> +Are cooled and killed, respectively, at last,<br /> +And he to his new holding anchored fast!</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">sheriff</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> In +America the chief executive office of a country, whose most characteristic +duties, in some of the Western and Southern States, are the catching and +hanging of rogues.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">John Elmer Pettibone Cajee<br /> +(I write of him with little glee)<br /> +Was just as bad as he could be.</p> + +<p class="poetry">‘Twas frequently remarked: “I swon!<br /> +The sun has never looked upon<br /> +So bad a man as Neighbor John.”</p> + +<p class="poetry">A sinner through and through, he had<br /> +This added fault: it made him mad<br /> +To know another man was bad.</p> + +<p class="poetry">In such a case he thought it right<br /> +To rise at any hour of night<br /> +And quench that wicked person’s light.</p> + +<p class="poetry">Despite the town’s entreaties, he<br /> +Would hale him to the nearest tree<br /> +And leave him swinging wide and free.</p> + +<p class="poetry">Or sometimes, if the humor came,<br /> +A luckless wight’s reluctant frame<br /> +Was given to the cheerful flame.</p> + +<p class="poetry">While it was turning nice and brown,<br /> +All unconcerned John met the frown<br /> +Of that austere and righteous town.</p> + +<p class="poetry">“How sad,” his neighbors said, “that he<br /> +So scornful of the law should be—<br /> +An anar c, h, i, s, t.”</p> + +<p class="poetry">(That is the way that they preferred<br /> +To utter the abhorrent word,<br /> +So strong the aversion that it stirred.)</p> + +<p class="poetry">“Resolved,” they said, continuing,<br /> +“That Badman John must cease this thing<br /> +Of having his unlawful fling.</p> + +<p class="poetry">“Now, by these sacred relics”—here<br /> +Each man had out a souvenir<br /> +Got at a lynching yesteryear—</p> + +<p class="poetry">“By these we swear he shall forsake<br /> +His ways, nor cause our hearts to ache<br /> +By sins of rope and torch and stake.</p> + +<p class="poetry">“We’ll tie his red right hand until<br /> +He’ll have small freedom to fulfil<br /> +The mandates of his lawless will.”</p> + +<p class="poetry">So, in convention then and there,<br /> +They named him Sheriff. The affair<br /> +Was opened, it is said, with prayer.</p> +<p class="citeauth">J. Milton Sloluck</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">siren</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> One of several +musical prodigies famous for a vain attempt to dissuade Odysseus from a life on +the ocean wave. Figuratively, any lady of splendid promise, dissembled purpose +and disappointing performance.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">slang</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The +grunt of the human hog (<i>Pignoramus intolerabilis</i>) with an audible memory. The +speech of one who utters with his tongue what he thinks with his ear, and feels +the pride of a creator in accomplishing the feat of a parrot. A means (under +Providence) of setting up as a wit without a capital of sense.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">smithareen</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +fragment, a decomponent part, a remain. The word is used variously, but in the +following verse on a noted female reformer who opposed bicycle-riding by women +because it “led them to the devil” it is seen at its best:</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">The wheels go round without a sound—<br /> +The maidens hold high revel;<br /> +In sinful mood, insanely gay,<br /> +True spinsters spin adown the way<br /> +From duty to the devil!<br /> +They laugh, they sing, and—ting-a-ling!<br /> +Their bells go all the morning;<br /> +Their lanterns bright bestar the night<br /> +Pedestrians a-warning.<br /> +With lifted hands Miss Charlotte stands,<br /> +Good-Lording and O-mying,<br /> +Her rheumatism forgotten quite,<br /> +Her fat with anger frying.<br /> +She blocks the path that leads to wrath,<br /> +Jack Satan’s power defying.<br /> +The wheels go round without a sound<br /> +The lights burn red and blue and green.<br /> +What’s this that’s found upon the ground?<br /> +Poor Charlotte Smith’s a smithareen!</p> +<p class="citeauth">John William Yope</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">sophistry</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The +controversial method of an opponent, distinguished from one’s own by superior +insincerity and fooling. This method is that of the later Sophists, a Grecian +sect of philosophers who began by teaching wisdom, prudence, science, art and, +in brief, whatever men ought to know, but lost themselves in a maze of quibbles +and a fog of words.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">His bad opponent’s “facts” he sweeps away, And drags his sophistry to light of day;<br /> +Then swears they’re pushed to madness who resort To falsehood of so desperate a sort.<br /> +Not so; like sods upon a dead man’s breast, He lies most lightly who the least is pressed.</p> +<p class="citeauth">Polydore Smith</p> +</div> +<p class="entry"><span class="def">sorcery</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The +ancient prototype and forerunner of political influence. It was, however, +deemed less respectable and sometimes was punished by torture and death. Augustine +Nicholas relates that a poor peasant who had been accused of sorcery was put to +the torture to compel a confession. After enduring a few gentle agonies the +suffering simpleton admitted his guilt, but naively asked his tormentors if it +were not possible to be a sorcerer without knowing it.</p> + +<p id="soul" class="entry"><span class="def">soul</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +spiritual entity concerning which there hath been brave disputation. Plato held +that those souls which in a previous state of existence (antedating Athens) had +obtained the clearest glimpses of eternal truth entered into the bodies of +persons who became philosophers. Plato himself was a philosopher. The souls +that had least contemplated divine truth animated the bodies of usurpers and +despots. Dionysius I, who had threatened to decapitate the broad- browed +philosopher, was a usurper and a despot. Plato, doubtless, was not the first to +construct a system of philosophy that could be quoted against his enemies; +certainly he was not the last.</p> + +<p class="indentpara">“Concerning the nature of the soul,” saith the renowned author +of <i>Diversiones Sanctorum</i>, “there hath been hardly more argument +than that of its place in the body. Mine own belief is that the soul hath her +seat in the abdomen—in which faith we may discern and interpret a truth +hitherto unintelligible, namely that the glutton is of all men most devout. He +is said in the Scripture to ‘make a god of his belly’—why, then, should he +not be pious, having ever his Deity with him to freshen his faith? Who so well +as he can know the might and majesty that he shrines? Truly and soberly, the +soul and the stomach are one Divine Entity; and such was the belief of Promasius, +who nevertheless erred in denying it immortality. He had observed that its +visible and material substance failed and decayed with the rest of the body +after death, but of its immaterial essence he knew nothing. This is what we +call the Appetite, and it survives the wreck and reek of mortality, to be +rewarded or punished in another world, according to what it hath demanded in +the flesh. The Appetite whose coarse clamoring was for the unwholesome viands +of the general market and the public refectory shall be cast into eternal +famine, whilst that which firmly through civilly insisted on ortolans, caviare, +terrapin, anchovies, <i>pates de foie gras</i> +and all such Christian comestibles shall flesh its spiritual tooth in the souls +of them forever and ever, and wreak its divine thirst upon the immortal parts +of the rarest and richest wines ever quaffed here below. Such is my religious +faith, though I grieve to confess that neither His Holiness the Pope nor His +Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury (whom I equally and profoundly revere) will +assent to its dissemination.”</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">spooker</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +writer whose imagination concerns itself with supernatural phenomena, +especially in the doings of spooks. One of the most illustrious spookers of our +time is Mr. William D. Howells, who introduces a well-credentialed reader to as +respectable and mannerly a company of spooks as one could wish to meet. To the +terror that invests the chairman of a district school board, the Howells ghost +adds something of the mystery enveloping a farmer from another township.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">story</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +narrative, commonly untrue. The truth of the stories here following has, +however, not been successfully impeached.</p> + +<p>One evening Mr. Rudolph Block, of New York, found himself seated at dinner alongside Mr. +Percival Pollard, the distinguished critic.</p> + +<p>“Mr. Pollard,” said he, “my book, <i>The Biography of a Dead +Cow</i>, is published anonymously, but you can hardly be ignorant of its +authorship. Yet in reviewing it you speak of it as the work of the Idiot of the +Century. Do you think that fair criticism?”</p> + +<p>“I am very sorry, sir,” replied the critic, amiably, “but it did not occur to me that you really +might not wish the public to know who wrote it.”</p> + +<p>Mr. W.C. Morrow, who used to live in San Jose, California, was addicted to writing ghost stories +which made the reader feel as if a stream of lizards, fresh from the ice, were +streaking it up his back and hiding in his hair. San Jose was at that time +believed to be haunted by the visible spirit of a noted bandit named Vasquez, +who had been hanged there. The town was not very well lighted, and it is +putting it mildly to say that San Jose was reluctant to be out o’ nights. One +particularly dark night two gentlemen were abroad in the loneliest spot within +the city limits, talking loudly to keep up their courage, when they came upon +Mr. J.J. Owen, a well-known journalist.</p> + +<p>“Why, Owen,” said one, “what brings you here on such a night as this? You told me that this is +one of Vasquez’ favorite haunts! And you are a believer. Aren’t you afraid to be out?”</p> + +<p>“My dear fellow,” the journalist replied with a drear autumnal cadence in his speech, like the +moan of a leaf-laden wind, “I am afraid to be in. I have one of Will Morrow’s +stories in my pocket and I don’t dare to go where there is light enough to read it.”</p> + +<p>Rear-Admiral Schley and Representative Charles F. Joy were standing near the Peace Monument, +in Washington, discussing the question, Is success a failure? Mr. Joy suddenly +broke off in the middle of an eloquent sentence, exclaiming: “Hello! I’ve heard +that band before. Santlemann’s, I think.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t hear any band,” said Schley.</p> + +<p>“Come to think, I don’t either,” said Joy; “but I see General </p> + +<p>Miles coming down the avenue, and that pageant always affects me in the same way as a brass band. One has to +scrutinize one’s impressions pretty closely, or one will mistake their origin.”</p> + +<p>While the Admiral was digesting this hasty meal of philosophy General Miles passed in review, a +spectacle of impressive dignity. When the tail of the seeming procession had +passed and the two observers had recovered from the transient blindness caused +by its effulgence—</p> + +<p>“He seems to be enjoying himself,” said the Admiral.</p> + +<p>“There is nothing,” assented Joy, thoughtfully, “that he enjoys one-half so well.”</p> + +<p>The illustrious statesman, Champ Clark, once lived about a mile from the village of Jebigue, in +Missouri. One day he rode into town on a favorite mule, and, hitching the beast +on the sunny side of a street, in front of a saloon, he went inside in his +character of teetotaler, to apprise the barkeeper that wine is a mocker. It was +a dreadfully hot day. Pretty soon a neighbor came in and seeing Clark, said:</p> + +<p>“Champ, it is not right to leave that mule out there in the sun. </p> + +<p>He’ll roast, sure!—he was smoking as I passed him.”</p> + +<p>“O, he’s all right,” said Clark, lightly; “he’s an inveterate smoker.”</p> + +<p>The neighbor took a lemonade, but shook his head and repeated that it was not right.</p> + +<p>He was a conspirator. There had been a fire the night before: a stable just around the +corner had burned and a number of horses had put on their immortality, among +them a young colt, which was roasted to a rich nut-brown. Some of the boys had +turned Mr. Clark’s mule loose and substituted the mortal part of the colt. Presently +another man entered the saloon.</p> + +<p>“For mercy’s sake!” he said, taking it with sugar, “do remove that mule, barkeeper: it smells.”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” interposed Clark, “that animal has the best nose in Missouri. But if he doesn’t mind, you +shouldn’t.”</p> + +<p>In the course of human events Mr. Clark went out, and there, apparently, lay the incinerated and +shrunken remains of his charger. The boys idd not have any fun out of Mr. +Clarke, who looked at the body and, with the non-committal expression to which +he owes so much of his political preferment, went away. But walking home late +that night he saw his mule standing silent and solemn by the wayside in the +misty moonlight. Mentioning the name of Helen Blazes with uncommon emphasis, +Mr. Clark took the back track as hard as ever he could hook it, and passed the +night in town.</p> + +<p>General H.H. Wotherspoon, president of the Army War College, has a pet rib-nosed baboon, an +animal of uncommon intelligence but imperfectly beautiful. Returning to his +apartment one evening, the General was surprised and pained to find Adam (for +so the creature is named, the general being a Darwinian) sitting up for him and +wearing his master’s best uniform coat, epaulettes and all.</p> + +<p>“You confounded remote ancestor!” thundered the great strategist, “what do you mean by being +out of bed after naps?—and with my coat on!”</p> + +<p>Adam rose and with a reproachful look got down on all fours in the manner of his kind and, +scuffling across the room to a table, returned with a visiting-card: General +Barry had called and, judging by an empty champagne bottle and several +cigar-stumps, had been hospitably entertained while waiting. The general +apologized to his faithful progenitor and retired. The next day he met General +Barry, who said:</p> + +<p>“Spoon, old man, when leaving you last evening I forgot to ask you about those excellent cigars. +Where did you get them?”</p> + +<p>General Wotherspoon did not deign to reply, but walked away.</p> + +<p>“Pardon me, please,” said Barry, moving after him; “I was joking of course. Why, I knew it was not +you before I had been in the room fifteen minutes.”</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">success</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The +one unpardonable sin against one’s fellows. In literature, and particularly in +poetry, the elements of success are exceedingly simple, and are admirably set +forth in the following lines by the reverend Father Gassalasca Jape, entitled, +for some mysterious reason, “John A. Joyce.”</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">The bard who would prosper must carry a book,<br /> +Do his thinking in prose and wear<br /> +A crimson cravat, a far-away look<br /> +And a head of hexameter hair.<br /> +Be thin in your thought and your body’ll be fat;<br /> +If you wear your hair long you needn’t your hat.</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">suffrage</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Expression +of opinion by means of a ballot. The right of suffrage (which is held to be +both a privilege and a duty) means, as commonly interpreted, the right to vote +for the man of another man’s choice, and is highly prized. Refusal to do so has +the bad name of “incivism.” The incivilian, however, cannot be properly +arraigned for his crime, for there is no legitimate accuser. If the accuser is +himself guilty he has no standing in the court of opinion; if not, he profits +by the crime, for A’s abstention from voting gives greater weight to the vote +of B. By female suffrage is meant the right of a woman to vote as some man +tells her to. It is based on female responsibility, which is somewhat limited. The +woman most eager to jump out of her petticoat to assert her rights is first to +jump back into it when threatened with a switching for misusing them.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">sycophant</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> One +who approaches Greatness on his belly so that he may not be commanded to turn +and be kicked. He is sometimes an editor.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">As the lean leech, its victim found, is pleased<br /> +To fix itself upon a part diseased<br /> +Till, its black hide distended with bad blood,<br /> +It drops to die of surfeit in the mud,<br /> +So the base sycophant with joy descries<br /> +His neighbor’s weak spot and his mouth applies,<br /> +Gorges and prospers like the leech, although, +Unlike that reptile, he will not let go.<br /> +Gelasma, if it paid you to devote<br /> +Your talent to the service of a goat,<br /> +Showing by forceful logic that its beard<br /> +Is more than Aaron’s fit to be revered;<br /> +If to the task of honoring its smell<br /> +Profit had prompted you, and love as well,<br /> +The world would benefit at last by you<br /> +And wealthy malefactors weep anew—<br /> +Your favor for a moment’s space denied<br /> +And to the nobler object turned aside.<br /> +Is’t not enough that thrifty millionaires<br /> +Who loot in freight and spoliate in fares,<br /> +Or, cursed with consciences that bid them fly<br /> +To safer villainies of darker dye,<br /> +Forswearing robbery and fain, instead,<br /> +To steal (they call it “cornering”) our bread<br /> +May see you groveling their boots to lick<br /> +And begging for the favor of a kick?<br /> +Still must you follow to the bitter end<br /> +Your sycophantic disposition’s trend,<br /> +And in your eagerness to please the rich<br /> +Hunt hungry sinners to their final ditch?<br /> +In Morgan’s praise you smite the sounding wire, +And sing hosannas to great Havemeyher!<br /> +What’s Satan done that him you should eschew?<br /> +He too is reeking rich—deducting <i>you</i>.</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">syllogism</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +logical formula consisting of a major and a minor assumption and an +inconsequent. (See logic.)</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">sylph</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> An +immaterial but visible being that inhabited the air when the air was an element +and before it was fatally polluted with factory smoke, sewer gas and similar +products of civilization. Sylphs were allied to gnomes, nymphs and salamanders, +which dwelt, respectively, in earth, water and fire, all now insalubrious. Sylphs, +like fowls of the air, were male and female, to no purpose, apparently, for if +they had progeny they must have nested in accessible places, none of the chicks +having ever been seen.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">symbol</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Something +that is supposed to typify or stand for something else. Many symbols are mere +“survivals”—things which having no longer any utility continue to exist because +we have inherited the tendency to make them; as funereal urns carved on +memorial monuments. They were once real urns holding the ashes of the dead. We +cannot stop making them, but we can give them a name that conceals our helplessness.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">symbolic</span>, <span class="pos">adj.</span> Pertaining +to symbols and the use and interpretation of symbols.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">They say ‘tis conscience feels compunction;<br /> +I hold that that’s the stomach’s function,<br /> +For of the sinner I have noted<br /> +<br />That when he’s sinned he’s somewhat bloated,<br /> +Or ill some other ghastly fashion<br /> +Within that bowel of compassion.<br /> +True, I believe the only sinner<br /> +Is he that eats a shabby dinner.<br /> +You know how Adam with good reason,<br /> +For eating apples out of season,<br /> +Was “cursed.” But that is all symbolic:<br /> +The truth is, Adam had the colic.</p> +<p class="poetry">G. J.</p> +</div> + +</body> +</html>
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