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diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/T.html b/lib/ebooks/devils/T.html new file mode 100644 index 00000000..72479e6d --- /dev/null +++ b/lib/ebooks/devils/T.html @@ -0,0 +1,397 @@ +<?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: T</title> +</head> +<body lang="en-US"> + + + +<h1>T</h1> + +<p class="entry">T, the twentieth letter of the English alphabet, was by the Greeks absurdly +called <i>tau</i>. In the alphabet whence ours comes it +had the form of the rude corkscrew of the period, and when it stood alone +(which was more than the Phoenicians could always do) signified <i>Tallegal</i>, translated by the learned Dr. +Brownrigg, “tanglefoot.”</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">Table D’Hote</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +caterer’s thrifty concession to the universal passion for irresponsibility.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">Old Paunchinello, freshly wed,<br /> +Took Madam P. to table,<br /> +And there deliriously fed<br /> +As fast as he was able.<br /> +“I dote upon good grub,” he cried,<br /> +Intent upon its throatage.<br /> +“Ah, yes,” said the neglected bride,<br /> +“You’re in your <i>table d’hotage</i>.”</p> + +<p class="citeauth">Associated Poets</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">tail</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The part +of an animal’s spine that has transcended its natural limitations to set up an +independent existence in a world of its own. Excepting in its foetal state, Man +is without a tail, a privation of which he attests an hereditary and uneasy +consciousness by the coat-skirt of the male and the train of the female, and by +a marked tendency to ornament that part of his attire where the tail should be, +and indubitably once was. This tendency is most observable in the female of the +species, in whom the ancestral sense is strong and persistent. The tailed men +described by Lord Monboddo are now generally regarded as a product of an +imagination unusually susceptible to influences generated in the golden age of +our pithecan past.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">take</span>, <span class="pos">v.t.</span> To +acquire, frequently by force but preferably by stealth.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">talk</span>, <span class="pos">v.t.</span> To +commit an indiscretion without temptation, from an impulse without purpose.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">tariff</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A scale +of taxes on imports, designed to protect the domestic producer against the +greed of his consumer.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">The Enemy of Human Souls<br /> +Sat grieving at the cost of coals;<br /> +For Hell had been annexed of late,<br /> +And was a sovereign Southern State.</p> + +<p class="poetry">“It were no more than right,” said he,<br /> +“That I should get my fuel free.<br /> +The duty, neither just nor wise,<br /> +Compels me to economize—<br /> +Whereby my broilers, every one,<br /> +Are execrably underdone.<br /> +What would they have?—although I yearn<br /> +To do them nicely to a turn,<br /> +I can’t afford an honest heat.<br /> +This tariff makes even devils cheat!<br /> +I’m ruined, and my humble trade<br /> +All rascals may at will invade:<br /> +Beneath my nose the public press<br /> +Outdoes me in sulphureousness;<br /> +The bar ingeniously applies<br /> +To my undoing my own lies;<br /> +My medicines the doctors use<br /> +(Albeit vainly) to refuse<br /> +To me my fair and rightful prey<br /> +And keep their own in shape to pay;<br /> +The preachers by example teach<br /> +What, scorning to perform, I teach;<br /> +And statesmen, aping me, all make<br /> +More promises than they can break.<br /> +Against such competition I<br /> +Lift up a disregarded cry.<br /> +Since all ignore my just complaint,<br /> +By Hokey-Pokey! I’ll turn saint!”<br /> +Now, the Republicans, who all<br /> +Are saints, began at once to bawl<br /> +Against <i>his</i> competition; so<br /> +There was a devil of a go!<br /> +They locked horns with him, tete-a-tete<br /> +In acrimonious debate,<br /> +Till Democrats, forlorn and lone,<br /> +Had hopes of coming by their own.<br /> +That evil to avert, in haste<br /> +The two belligerents embraced;<br /> +But since ‘twere wicked to relax<br /> +A tittle of the Sacred Tax,<br /> +‘Twas finally agreed to grant<br /> +The bold Insurgent-protestant<br /> +A bounty on each soul that fell<br /> +Into his ineffectual Hell.</p> +<p class="citeauth">Edam Smith</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">technicality</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> In +an English court a man named Home was tried for slander in having accused his +neighbor of murder. His exact words were: “Sir Thomas Holt hath taken a cleaver +and stricken his cook upon the head, so that one side of the head fell upon one +shoulder and the other side upon the other shoulder.” The defendant was +acquitted by instruction of the court, the learned judges holding that the +words did not charge murder, for they did not affirm the death of the cook, +that being only an inference.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">tedium</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Ennui, +the state or condition of one that is bored. Many fanciful derivations of the +word have been affirmed, but so high an authority as Father Jape says that it +comes from a very obvious source—the first words of the ancient Latin hymn <i>Te +Deum Laudamus</i>. In this apparently natural derivation there is something that +saddens.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">teetotaler</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> One +who abstains from strong drink, sometimes totally, sometimes tolerably totally.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">telephone</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> An +invention of the devil which abrogates some of the advantages of making a +disagreeable person keep his distance.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">telescope</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +device having a relation to the eye similar to that of the telephone to the +ear, enabling distant objects to plague us with a multitude of needless +details. Luckily it is unprovided with a bell summoning us to the sacrifice.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">tenacity</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +certain quality of the human hand in its relation to the coin of the realm. It +attains its highest development in the hand of authority and is considered a +serviceable equipment for a career in politics. The following illustrative +lines were written of a Californian gentleman in high political preferment, who +has passed to his accounting:</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">Of such tenacity his grip<br /> +That nothing from his hand can slip.<br /> +Well-buttered eels you may o’erwhelm<br /> +In tubs of liquid slippery-elm<br /> +In vain—from his detaining pinch<br /> +They cannot struggle half an inch!<br /> +‘Tis lucky that he so is planned<br /> +That breath he draws not with his hand,<br /> +For if he did, so great his greed<br /> +He’d draw his last with eager speed.<br /> +Nay, that were well, you say. Not so<br /> +He’d draw but never let it go!</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">theosophy</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> An +ancient faith having all the certitude of religion and all the mystery of +science. The modern Theosophist holds, with the Buddhists, that we live an +incalculable number of times on this earth, in as many several bodies, because +one life is not long enough for our complete spiritual development; that is, a +single lifetime does not suffice for us to become as wise and good as we choose +to wish to become. To be absolutely wise and good—that is perfection; and the +Theosophist is so keen-sighted as to have observed that everything desirous of +improvement eventually attains perfection. Less competent observers are +disposed to except cats, which seem neither wiser nor better than they were +last year. The greatest and fattest of recent Theosophists was the late Madame +Blavatsky, who had no cat.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">tights</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> An +habiliment of the stage designed to reinforce the general acclamation of the +press agent with a particular publicity. Public attention was once somewhat +diverted from this garment to Miss Lillian Russell’s refusal to wear it, and +many were the conjectures as to her motive, the guess of Miss Pauline Hall +showing a high order of ingenuity and sustained reflection. It was Miss Hall’s +belief that nature had not endowed Miss Russell with beautiful legs. This +theory was impossible of acceptance by the male understanding, but the +conception of a faulty female leg was of so prodigious originality as to rank +among the most brilliant feats of philosophical speculation! It is strange that +in all the controversy regarding Miss Russell’s aversion to tights no one seems +to have thought to ascribe it to what was known among the ancients as +“modesty.” The nature of that sentiment is now imperfectly understood, and +possibly incapable of exposition with the vocabulary that remains to us. The +study of lost arts has, however, been recently revived and some of the arts +themselves recovered. This is an epoch of <i>renaissances</i>, +and there is ground for hope that the primitive “blush” may be dragged from its +hiding-place amongst the tombs of antiquity and hissed on to the stage.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">tomb</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The House +of Indifference. Tombs are now by common consent invested with a certain +sanctity, but when they have been long tenanted it is considered no sin to +break them open and rifle them, the famous Egyptologist, Dr. Huggyns, +explaining that a tomb may be innocently “glened” as soon as its occupant is +done “smellynge,” the soul being then all exhaled. This reasonable view is now +generally accepted by archaeologists, whereby the noble science of Curiosity +has been greatly dignified.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">tope</span>, <span class="pos">v.</span> To tipple, +booze, swill, soak, guzzle, lush, bib, or swig. In the individual, toping is +regarded with disesteem, but toping nations are in the forefront of +civilization and power. When pitted against the hard-drinking Christians the +absemious Mahometans go down like grass before the scythe. In India one hundred +thousand beef-eating and brandy-and-soda guzzling Britons hold in subjection +two hundred and fifty million vegetarian abstainers of the same Aryan race. With +what an easy grace the whisky-loving American pushed the temperate Spaniard out +of his possessions! From the time when the Berserkers ravaged all the coasts of +western Europe and lay drunk in every conquered port it has been the same way: everywhere +the nations that drink too much are observed to fight rather well and not too +righteously. Wherefore the estimable old ladies who abolished the canteen from +the American army may justly boast of having materially augmented the nation’s +military power.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">tortoise</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +creature thoughtfully created to supply occasion for the following lines by the +illustrious Ambat Delaso:</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">TO MY PET TORTOISE</p> + +<p class="poetry">My friend, you are not graceful—not at all;<br /> +Your gait’s between a stagger and a sprawl.<br /> +Nor are you beautiful: your head’s a snake’s<br /> +To look at, and I do not doubt it aches.<br /> +As to your feet, they’d make an angel weep.<br /> +‘Tis true you take them in whene’er you sleep.<br /> +No, you’re not pretty, but you have, I own,<br /> +A certain firmness—mostly you’re [sic] backbone.<br /> +Firmness and strength (you have a giant’s thews)<br /> +Are virtues that the great know how to use—<br /> +I wish that they did not; yet, on the whole,<br /> +You lack—excuse my mentioning it—Soul.<br /> +So, to be candid, unreserved and true,<br /> +I’d rather you were I than I were you.</p> + +<p class="poetry">Perhaps, however, in a time to be,<br /> +When Man’s extinct, a better world may see<br /> +Your progeny in power and control,<br /> +Due to the genesis and growth of Soul.</p> + +<p class="poetry">So I salute you as a reptile grand<br /> +Predestined to regenerate the land.</p> + +<p class="poetry">Father of Possibilities, O deign<br /> +To accept the homage of a dying reign!<br /> +In the far region of the unforeknown<br /> +I dream a tortoise upon every throne.</p> + +<p class="poetry">I see an Emperor his head withdraw<br /> +Into his carapace for fear of Law;</p> + +<p class="poetry">A King who carries something else than fat,<br /> +Howe’er acceptably he carries that;<br /> +A President not strenuously bent<br /> +On punishment of audible dissent—</p> + +<p class="poetry">Who never shot (it were a vain attack)<br /> +An armed or unarmed tortoise in the back;<br /> +Subject and citizens that feel no need<br /> +To make the March of Mind a wild stampede;<br /> +All progress slow, contemplative, sedate,<br /> +And “Take your time” the word, in Church and State.<br /> +O Tortoise, ‘tis a happy, happy dream,<br /> +My glorious testudinous regime!</p> + +<p class="poetry">I wish in Eden you’d brought this about<br /> +By slouching in and chasing Adam out.</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">tree</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A tall +vegetable intended by nature to serve as a penal apparatus, though through a +miscarriage of justice most trees bear only a negligible fruit, or none at all. +When naturally fruited, the tree is a beneficient agency of civilization and an +important factor in public morals. In the stern West and the sensitive South +its fruit (white and black respectively) though not eaten, is agreeable to the +public taste and, though not exported, profitable to the general welfare. That +the legitimate relation of the tree to justice was no discovery of Judge Lynch +(who, indeed, conceded it no primacy over the lamp-post and the bridge-girder) +is made plain by the following passage from Morryster, who antedated him by two +centuries:</p> + +<p>While in yt londe +I was carried to see ye Ghogo tree, whereof I had hearde moch talk; but sayynge +yt I saw naught remarkabyll in it, ye hed manne of ye villayge where it grewe +made answer as followeth:</p> + +<p>“Ye tree is not nowe in fruite, but in his seasonne you shall see dependynge fr. his braunches +all soch as have affroynted ye King his Majesty.”</p> + +<p>And I was furder tolde yt ye worde “Ghogo” sygnifyeth in yr tong ye same as “rapscal” in our +owne.</p> + +<p><i>Trauvells in ye Easte</i></p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">trial</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A formal +inquiry designed to prove and put upon record the blameless characters of +judges, advocates and jurors. In order to effect this purpose it is necessary +to supply a contrast in the person of one who is called the defendant, the +prisoner, or the accused. If the contrast is made sufficiently clear this +person is made to undergo such an affliction as will give the virtuous +gentlemen a comfortable sense of their immunity, added to that of their worth. In +our day the accused is usually a human being, or a socialist, but in mediaeval +times, animals, fishes, reptiles and insects were brought to trial. A beast +that had taken human life, or practiced sorcery, was duly arrested, tried and, +if condemned, put to death by the public executioner. Insects ravaging grain +fields, orchards or vineyards were cited to appeal by counsel before a civil +tribunal, and after testimony, argument and condemnation, if they continued <i>in +contumaciam</i> the matter was taken to a high ecclesiastical court, where they +were solemnly excommunicated and anathematized. In a street of Toledo, some +pigs that had wickedly run between the viceroy’s legs, upsetting him, were arrested +on a warrant, tried and punished. In Naples and ass was condemned to be burned +at the stake, but the sentence appears not to have been executed. D’Addosio +relates from the court records many trials of pigs, bulls, horses, cocks, dogs, +goats, etc., greatly, it is believed, to the betterment of their conduct and +morals. In 1451 a suit was brought against the leeches infesting some ponds +about Berne, and the Bishop of Lausanne, instructed by the faculty of +Heidelberg University, directed that some of “the aquatic worms” be brought +before the local magistracy. This was done and the leeches, both present and +absent, were ordered to leave the places that they had infested within three +days on pain of incurring “the malediction of God.” In the voluminous records +of this <i>cause celebre</i> nothing is +found to show whether the offenders braved the punishment, or departed +forthwith out of that inhospitable jurisdiction.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">trichinosis</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The +pig’s reply to proponents of porcophagy.</p> + +<p class="indentpara">Moses Mendlessohn +having fallen ill sent for a Christian physician, who at once diagnosed the +philosopher’s disorder as trichinosis, but tactfully gave it another name. “You +need and immediate change of diet,” he said; “you must eat six ounces of pork +every other day.”</p> + +<p class="dialog">“Pork?” shrieked the patient—“pork? Nothing shall induce me to touch it!”</p> + +<p class="dialog">“Do you mean that?” the doctor gravely asked.</p> + +<p class="dialog">“I swear it!”</p> + +<p class="dialog">“Good!—then I will undertake to cure you.”</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">Trinity</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> In the +multiplex theism of certain Christian churches, three entirely distinct deities +consistent with only one. Subordinate deities of the polytheistic faith, such +as devils and angels, are not dowered with the power of combination, and must +urge individually their clames to adoration and propitiation. The Trinity is +one of the most sublime mysteries of our holy religion. In rejecting it because +it is incomprehensible, Unitarians betray their inadequate sense of theological +fundamentals. In religion we believe only what we do not understand, except in +the instance of an intelligible doctrine that contradicts an incomprehensible +one. In that case we believe the former as a part of the latter.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">Troglodyte</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Specifically, +a cave-dweller of the paleolithic period, after the Tree and before the Flat. A +famous community of troglodytes dwelt with David in the Cave of Adullam. The +colony consisted of “every one that was in distress, and every one that was in +debt, and every one that was discontented”—in brief, all the Socialists of +Judah.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">truce</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Friendship.</p> + +<p id="truth" class="entry"><span class="def">truth</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> An +ingenious compound of desirability and appearance. Discovery of truth is the +sole purpose of philosophy, which is the most ancient occupation of the human +mind and has a fair prospect of existing with increasing activity to the end of time.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">truthful</span>, <span class="pos">adj.</span> Dumb +and illiterate.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">trust</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> In +American politics, a large corporation composed in greater part of thrifty +working men, widows of small means, orphans in the care of guardians and the +courts, with many similar malefactors and public enemies.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">turkey</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A large +bird whose flesh when eaten on certain religious anniversaries has the peculiar +property of attesting piety and gratitude. Incidentally, it is pretty good eating.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">twice</span>, <span class="pos">adv.</span> Once +too often.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">type</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Pestilent +bits of metal suspected of destroying civilization and enlightenment, despite +their obvious agency in this incomparable dictionary.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">Tzetze (or Tsetse) Fly</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> An African +insect (<i>Glossina morsitans</i>) whose bite is commonly +regarded as nature’s most efficacious remedy for insomnia, though some patients +prefer that of the American novelist (<i>Mendax interminabilis</i>).</p> + +</body> +</html>
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