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diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/Z.html b/lib/ebooks/devils/Z.html new file mode 100644 index 00000000..3f3917aa --- /dev/null +++ b/lib/ebooks/devils/Z.html @@ -0,0 +1,96 @@ +<?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: Z</title> +</head> +<body lang="en-US"> + + +<h1>Z</h1> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">zany</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A popular +character in old Italian plays, who imitated with ludicrous incompetence the <i>buffone</i>, or clown, and was therefore the +ape of an ape; for the clown himself imitated the serious characters of the +play. The zany was progenitor to the specialist in humor, as we to-day have the +unhappiness to know him. In the zany we see an example of creation; in the +humorist, of transmission. Another excellent specimen of the modern zany is the +curate, who apes the rector, who apes the bishop, who apes the archbishop, who +apes the devil.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">Zanzibari</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> An +inhabitant of the Sultanate of Zanzibar, off the eastern coast of Africa. The +Zanzibaris, a warlike people, are best known in this country through a +threatening diplomatic incident that occurred a few years ago. The American +consul at the capital occupied a dwelling that faced the sea, with a sandy +beach between. Greatly to the scandal of this official’s family, and against +repeated remonstrances of the official himself, the people of the city +persisted in using the beach for bathing. One day a woman came down to the edge +of the water and was stooping to remove her attire (a pair of sandals) when the +consul, incensed beyond restraint, fired a charge of bird-shot into the most +conspicuous part of her person. Unfortunately for the existing <i>entente cordiale</i> between two great +nations, she was the Sultana.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">zeal</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A certain +nervous disorder afflicting the young and inexperienced. A passion that goeth +before a sprawl.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">When Zeal sought Gratitude for his reward<br /> +He went away exclaiming: “O my Lord!”<br /> +“What do you want?” the Lord asked, bending down.<br /> +“An ointment for my cracked and bleeding crown.”</p> + +<p class="citeauth">Jum Coople</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">zenith</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The +point in the heavens directly overhead to a man standing or a growing cabbage. A +man in bed or a cabbage in the pot is not considered as having a zenith, though +from this view of the matter there was once a considerably dissent among the +learned, some holding that the posture of the body was immaterial. These were +called Horizontalists, their opponents, Verticalists. The Horizontalist heresy +was finally extinguished by Xanobus, the philosopher-king of Abara, a zealous +Verticalist. Entering an assembly of philosophers who were debating the matter, +he cast a severed human head at the feet of his opponents and asked them to +determine its zenith, explaining that its body was hanging by the heels +outside. Observing that it was the head of their leader, the Horizontalists +hastened to profess themselves converted to whatever opinion the Crown might be +pleased to hold, and Horizontalism took its place among <i>fides defuncti</i>.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">Zeus</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The chief +of Grecian gods, adored by the Romans as Jupiter and by the modern Americans as +God, Gold, Mob and Dog. Some explorers who have touched upon the shores of +America, and one who professes to have penetrated a considerable distance to +the interior, have thought that these four names stand for as many distinct +deities, but in his monumental work on Surviving Faiths, Frumpp insists that +the natives are monotheists, each having no other god than himself, whom he +worships under many sacred names.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">zigzag</span>, <span class="pos">v.t.</span> To +move forward uncertainly, from side to side, as one carrying the white man’s +burden. (From <i>zed</i>, <i>z</i>, and <i>jag</i>, +an Icelandic word of unknown meaning.)</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">He zedjagged so uncomen wyde<br /> +Thet non coude pas on eyder syde;<br /> +So, to com saufly thruh, I been<br /> +Constreynet for to doodge betwene.</p> + +<p class="citeauth">Munwele</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">zoology</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The science +and history of the animal kingdom, including its king, the House Fly (<i>Musca +maledicta</i>). The father of Zoology was Aristotle, as is universally conceded, +but the name of its mother has not come down to us. Two of the science’s most +illustrious expounders were Buffon and Oliver Goldsmith, from both of whom we +learn (<i>L’Histoire generale des animaux</i> and <i>A History of Animated Nature</i>) +that the domestic cow sheds its horn every two years.</p> + +</body> +</html>
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