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diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/A.html b/lib/ebooks/devils/A.html new file mode 100644 index 00000000..e4faf69c --- /dev/null +++ b/lib/ebooks/devils/A.html @@ -0,0 +1,586 @@ +<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "+//ISBN 0-9673008-1-9//DTD OEB 1.0 Document//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: A</title> +</head> + +<body lang="en-us"> + +<h1>A</h1> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">abasement,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> A decent and customary +mental attitude in the presence of wealth of power. Peculiarly appropriate in an employee when addressing +an employer.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">abatis,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> Rubbish in front of a fort, +to prevent the rubbish outside from molesting the rubbish inside.</p> + +<p class="entry" id="abdication"><span class="def">abdication,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> An act +whereby a sovereign attests his sense of the high temperature of the throne.</p> + +<blockquote> +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="po">Poor Isabella’s Dead, whose abdication</p> +<p class="po">Set all tongues wagging in the Spanish nation.</p> +<p class="po">For that performance ’twere unfair to scold her:</p> +<p class="po">She wisely left a throne too hot to hold her.</p> +<p class="po">To History she’ll be no royal riddle—</p> +<p class="po">Merely a plain parched pea that jumped the griddle.</p> +<p class="citepoet">G. J.</p> +</div> +</blockquote> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">abdomen,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> The temple of the god +Stomach, in whose worship, with sacrificial rights, all true men engage. From women this ancient faith commands but a +stammering assent. They sometimes minister at the altar in a half-hearted and ineffective way, but true reverence +for the one deity that men really adore they know not. If woman had a free hand in the world’s +marketing the race would become graminivorous.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">ability,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> The natural equipment to accomplish +some small part of the meaner ambitions distinguishing able men from dead ones. In the last analysis ability is commonly +found to consist mainly in a high degree of solemnity. Perhaps, however, this impressive quality is +rightly appraised; it is no easy task to be solemn.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">abnormal,</span> <span class="pos">adj.</span> Not conforming to +standard. In matters of thought and conduct, to be independent is to be abnormal, to be abnormal is to +be detested. Wherefore the lexicographer adviseth a striving toward the straiter resemblance of the +Average Man than he hath to himself. Whoso attaineth thereto shall have peace, the prospect of death +and the hope of Hell.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">aboriginies,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> Persons of little worth found +cumbering the soil of a newly discovered country. They soon cease to cumber; they fertilize.</p> + +<p class="entry" id="abracadabra"><span class="def">abracadabra.</span></p> + +<blockquote> +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="poem">By <i>Abracadabra</i> we signify<br /> +<span class="ind1">An infinite number of things.</span><br /> +’Tis the answer to What? and How? and Why?<br /> +And Whence? and Whither?—a word whereby<br /> +<span class="ind1">The Truth (with the comfort it brings)</span><br /> +Is open to all who grope in night,<br /> +Crying for Wisdom’s holy light.</p> +</div> + +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="poem">Whether the word is a verb or a noun<br /> +<span class="ind1">Is knowledge beyond my reach.</span><br /> +I only know that ’tis handed down.<br /> +<span class="ind3">From sage to sage,</span><br /> +<span class="ind3">From age to age—</span><br /> +<span class="ind1">An immortal part of speech!</span></p> +</div> + +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="poem">Of an ancient man the tale is told<br /> +That he lived to be ten centuries old,<br /> +<span class="ind1">In a cave on a mountain side.</span><br /> +<span class="ind1">(True, he finally died.)</span><br /> +The fame of his wisdom filled the land,<br /> +For his head was bald, and you’ll understand<br /> +<span class="ind1">His beard was long and white</span><br /> +<span class="ind1">And his eyes uncommonly bright.</span></p> +</div> + +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="poem">Philosophers gathered from far and near<br /> +To sit at his feat and hear and hear,<br /> +<span class="ind3">Though he never was heard</span><br /> +<span class="ind3">To utter a word</span><br /> +<span class="ind1">But “<i>Abracadabra</i>, abracadab,</span><br /> +<span class="ind3">Abracada, abracad,</span><br /> +<span class="ind1">Abraca, abrac, abra, ab!”</span><br /> +<span class="ind3">’Twas all he had,</span><br /> +’Twas all they wanted to hear, and each<br /> +Made copious notes of the mystical speech,<br /> +<span class="ind3">Which they published next—</span><br /> +<span class="ind3">A trickle of text</span><br /> +In the meadow of commentary.<br /> +<span class="ind1">Mighty big books were these,</span><br /> +<span class="ind1">In a number, as leaves of trees;</span><br /> +In learning, remarkably—very!</p> +</div> + +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="poem"><span class="ind3">He’s dead,</span><br /> +<span class="ind3">As I said,</span><br /> +And the books of the sages have perished,<br /> +But his wisdom is sacredly cherished.<br /> +In <i>Abracadabra</i> it solemnly rings,<br /> +Like an ancient bell that forever swings.<br /> +<span class="poind3">O, I love to hear</span><br /> +<span class="poind3">That word make clear</span><br /> +Humanity’s General Sense of Things.</p> +<p class="citepoet">Jamrach Holobom.</p> +</div> +</blockquote> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">abridge,</span> <span class="pos">v.t.</span> To shorten.</p> + +<p class="quote">When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for people to abridge their +king, a decent respect for the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the +causes which impel them to the separation.—<i>Oliver Cromwell</i></p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">abrupt,</span> <span class="pos">adj.</span> Sudden, without +ceremony, like the arrival of a cannon-shot and the departure of the soldier whose interests are most +affected by it. Dr. Samuel Johnson beautifully said of another author’s ideas that they were] +“concatenated without abruption.”</p> + +<p class="entry" id="abscond"><span class="def">abscond,</span> <span class="pos">v.i.</span> To “move +in a mysterious way,” commonly with the property of another.</p> + +<blockquote> +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="poem">Spring beckons! All things to the call respond;<br /> +The trees are leaving and cashiers abscond.</p> +<p class="citepoet">Phela Orm.</p> +</div> +</blockquote> + +<p class="entry" id="absent"><span class="def">absent,</span> <span class="pos">adj.</span> Peculiarly +exposed to the tooth of detraction; vilifed; hopelessly in the wrong; superseded in the consideration +and affection of another.</p> + +<blockquote> +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="poem">To men a man is but a mind. Who cares<br /> +What face he carries or what form he wears?<br /> +But woman’s body is the woman. O,<br /> +Stay thou, my sweetheart, and do never go,<br /> +But heed the warning words the sage hath said:<br /> +A woman absent is a woman dead.<br /> +</p> +<p class="citepoet">Jogo Tyree.</p> +</div> +</blockquote> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">absentee,</span><span class="pos">n.</span> A person +with an <a href="I.html#income">income</a> who has had the forethought to remove himself from the sphere of exaction.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">absolute,</span> <span class="pos">adj.</span> Independent, irresponsible. +An absolute monarchy is one in which the sovereign does as he pleases so long as he pleases the assassins. +Not many absolute monarchies are left, most of them having been replaced by limited monarchies, where the +sovereign’s power for evil (and for good) is greatly curtailed, and by republics, which are +governed by chance.</p> + +<p class="entry" id="abstainer"><span class="def">abstainer,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> A weak +person who yields to the temptation of denying himself a <a href="P.html#pleasure">pleasure</a>. A total abstainer is one who abstains +from everything but abstention, and especially from inactivity in the affairs of others.</p> + +<blockquote> +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="poem">Said a man to a crapulent youth: “I thought<br /> +<span class="ind1">You a total abstainer, my son.”</span><br /> +“So I am, so I am,” said the scrapgrace caught—<br /> +<span class="ind1">“But not, sir, a bigoted one.”</span></p> +<p class="citepoet">G. J.</p> +</div> +</blockquote> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">absurdity,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> A statement or belief +manifestly inconsistent with one’s own opinion.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">academe,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> An ancient school where +morality and philosophy were taught.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">academy,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> +(from academe). A modern school where football is taught.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">accident,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> An inevitable +occurrence due to the action of immutable natural laws.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">accomplice,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> One associated +with another in a crime, having guilty knowledge and complicity, as an <a href="L.html#lawyer">attorney</a> who defends a +criminal, knowing him guilty. This view of the attorney’s position in the matter has not hitherto +commanded the assent of attorneys, no one having offered them a fee for assenting.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">accord,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> Harmony.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">accordion,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> An instrument +in harmony with the sentiments of an assassin.</p> + +<p class="entry" id="accountability"><span class="def">accountability,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> The +mother of caution.</p> + +<blockquote> +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="poem">“My accountability, bear in mind,”<br /> +<span class="ind1">Said the Grand Vizier: “Yes, yes,”</span><br /> +Said the Shah: “I do—’tis the only kind<br /> +<span class="ind1">Of ability you possess.”</span></p> +<p class="citepoet">Joram Tate.</p> +</div> +</blockquote> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">accuse,</span> <span class="pos">v.t.</span> To affirm another’s guilt +or unworth; most commonly as a justification of ourselves for having wronged him.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">acephalous,</span> <span class="pos">adj.</span> In the surprising condition of the +Crusader who absently pulled at his forelock some hours after a Saracen scimitar had, unconsciously to him, +passed through his neck, as related by de Joinville.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">achievement,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> The death of endeavor +and the birth of disgust.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">acknowledge,</span> <span class="pos">v.t.</span> To confess. +Acknowledgement of one another’s faults is the highest duty imposed by our love of +<a href="T.html#truth">truth</a>.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">acquaintance,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> A person whom we +know well enough to borrow from, but not well enough to lend to. A degree of friendship called slight when +its object is poor or obscure, and intimate when he is <a href="R.html#rich">rich</a> or +<a href="F.html#famous">famous.</a></p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">actually,</span> <span class="pos">adv.</span> Perhaps; possibly.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">adage,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> Boned wisdom for weak teeth.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">adamant,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> A mineral frequently found +beneath a corset. Soluble in solicitate of gold.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">adder,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> A species of snake. So called +from its habit of adding <a href="F.html#funeral">funeral</a> outlays to the other expenses of living.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">adherent,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> A follower who has not +yet obtained all that he expects to get.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">administration,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> An ingenious +abstraction in <a href="P.html#politics">politics</a>, designed to receive the kicks and cuffs due to +the premier or <a href="P.html#president">president</a>. A man of straw, proof against bad-egging +and dead-catting.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">admiral,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> That part of a war-ship +which does the talking while the figure-head does the thinking.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">admiration,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> Our polite recognition of +another’s resemblance to ourselves.</p> + +<p class="entry" id="admonition"><span class="def">admonition,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> Gentle +reproof, as with a meat-axe. Friendly warning.</p> + +<blockquote> +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="poem">Consigned by way of admonition,<br /> +His soul foever to perdition.</p> +<p class="citepoet">Judibras.</p> +</div> +</blockquote> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">adore,</span> <span class="pos">v.t.</span> To venerate expectantly.</p> + +<p class="entry" id="advice"><span class="def">advice,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> The smallest +current coin.</p> + +<blockquote> +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="poem">“The man was in such deep distress,”<br /> +Said Tom, “that I could do no less<br /> +Than give him good advice.” Said Jim:<br /> +“If less could have been done for him<br /> +I know you well enough, my son,<br /> +To know that’s what you would have done.”</p> +</div> +</blockquote> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">affianced,</span> <span class="pos">pp.</span> Fitted with an +ankle-ring for the ball-and-chain.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">affliction,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> An acclimatizing +process preparing the <a href="S.html#soul">soul</a> for another and bitter world.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">African,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> A nigger that votes our way.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">age,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> That period of life in which +we compound for the vices that we still cherish by reviling those that we have no longer the +enterprise to commit.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">agitator,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> A statesman who shakes +the fruit trees of his neighbors—to dislodge the worms.</p> + +<p class="entry" id="aim"><span class="def">aim,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> The task we set our wishes to.</p> + +<blockquote> +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="poem">“Cheer up! Have you no aim in life?”<br /> +<span class="ind1">She tenderly inquired.</span><br /> +“An aim? Well, no, I haven’t, wife;<br /> +<span class="ind1">The fact is—I have fired.”</span></p> +<p class="citepoet">G. J.</p> +</div> +</blockquote> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">air,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> A nutritious substance supplied by a +bountiful Providence for the fattening of the poor.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">alderman,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> An ingenious criminal +who covers his secret thieving with a pretence of open marauding.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">alien,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> An American sovereign +in his probationary state.</p> + +<p class="entry" id="allah"><span class="def">Allah,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> The Mahometan +Supreme Being, as distinguished from the Christian, Jewish, and so forth.</p> + +<blockquote> +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="poem">Allah’s good laws I faithfully have kept,<br /> +And ever for the sins of man have wept;<br /> +<span class="ind1">And sometimes kneeling in the temple I</span><br /> +Have reverently crossed my hands and slept.</p> +<p class="citepoet">Junker Barlow.</p> +</div> +</blockquote> + +<p class="entry" id="allegiance"><span class="def">allegiance,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> </p> + +<blockquote> +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="poem">This thing Allegiance, as I suppose,<br /> +Is a ring fitted in the subject’s nose,<br /> +Whereby that organ is kept rightly pointed<br /> +To smell the sweetness of the Lord’s anointed.</p> +<p class="citepoet">G. J.</p> +</div> +</blockquote> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">alliance,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> In international politics, +the union of two thieves who have their hands so deeply inserted in each other’s pockets that +they cannot separately plunder a third.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">alligator,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> The crocodile of +America, superior in every detail to the crocodile of the effete monarchies of the Old World. +Herodotus says the Indus is, with one exception, the only river that produces crocodiles, but they +appear to have gone West and grown up with the other rivers. From the notches on his back the +alligator is called a sawrian.</p> + +<p class="entry" id="alone"><span class="def">alone,</span> <span class="pos">adj.</span> In bad company.</p> + +<blockquote> +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="poem">In contact, lo! the flint and steel,<br /> +By spark and flame, the thought reveal<br /> +That he the metal, she the stone,<br /> +Had cherished secretly alone.</p> +</div> +</blockquote> + +<p class="entry" id="altar"><span class="def">altar,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> The place whereupon +the priest formerly raveled out the small intestine of the sacrificial victim for purposes of divination and +cooked its flesh for the gods. The word is now seldom used, except with reference to the sacrifice of +their liberty and peace by a male and a female tool.</p> + +<blockquote> +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="poem">They stood before the altar and supplied<br /> +The fire themselves in which their fat was fried.<br /> +In vain the sacrifice!—no god will claim<br /> +An offering burnt with an unholy flame.</p> +<p class="citepoet">M. P. Nopput.</p> +</div> +</blockquote> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">ambidextrous,</span> <span class="pos">adj.</span> Able to pick +with equal skill a right-hand pocket or a left.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">ambition,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> An overmastering +desire to be vilified by enemies while living and made ridiculous by friends when dead.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">amnesty,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> The state’s +magnanimity to those offenders whom it would be too expensive to punish.</p> + +<p class="entry" id="anoint"><span class="def">anoint,</span> <span class="pos">v.t.</span> To grease a +<a href="K.html#king">king</a> or other great functionary already sufficiently slippery.</p> + +<blockquote> +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="poem">As sovereigns are anointed by the priesthood,<br /> +So pigs to lead the populace are greased good.</p> +<p class="citepoet">Judibras.</p> +</div> +</blockquote> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">antipathy,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> The sentiment +inspired by one’s friend’s friend.</p> + +<p class="entry" id="aphorism"><span class="def">aphorism,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> Predigested wisdom.</p> + +<blockquote> +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="poem">The flabby wine-skin of his brain<br /> +Yields to some pathologic strain,<br /> +And voids from its unstored abysm<br /> +The driblet of an aphorism.</p> +<p class="citepoet"> “The Mad Philosopher,”<span style="font-style: normal"> 1697.</span></p> +</div> +</blockquote> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">apologize,</span> <span class="pos">v.i.</span> To lay the foundation for a future +offence.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">apostate,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> A leech who, having +penetrated the shell of a turtle only to find that the creature has long been dead, deems it expedient +to form a new attachment to a fresh turtle.</p> + +<p class="entry" id="apothecary"><span class="def">apothecary,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> The +physician’s accomplice, undertaker’s benefactor and grave worm’s provider.</p> + +<blockquote> +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="poem">When Jove sent blessings to all men that are,<br /> +And Mercury conveyed them in a jar,<br /> +That friend of tricksters introduced by stealth<br /> +Disease for the apothecary’s health,<br /> +Whose gratitude impelled him to proclaim:<br /> +“My deadliest drug shall bear my patron’s name!”</p> +<p class="citepoet">G. J.</p> +</div> +</blockquote> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">appeal,</span> <span class="pos">v.t.</span> In <a href="L.html#law">law</a>, +to put the dice into the box for another throw.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">appetite,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> An instinct thoughtfully +implanted by Providence as a solution to the labor question.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">applause,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> The echo of +a <a href="P.html#platitude">platitude</a>.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">April Fool,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> The March +<a href="F.html#fool">fool</a> with another month added to his folly.</p> + +<p class="entry" id="archbishop"><span class="def">archbishop,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> An ecclesiastical +dignitary one point holier than a bishop.</p> + +<blockquote> +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="poem">If I were a jolly archbishop,<br /> +On Fridays I’d eat all the fish up—<br /> +Salmon and flounders and smelts;<br /> +On other days everything else.<br /> +</p> +<p class="citepoet">Jodo Rem.</p> +</div> +</blockquote> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">architect,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> One who drafts a plan +of your <a href="H.html#house">house</a>, and plans a draft of your money.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">ardor,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> The quality that distinguishes +love without knowledge.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">arena,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> In politics, an imaginary rat-pit +in which the statesman wrestles with his record.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">aristocracy,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> Government by the +best men. (In this sense the word is obsolete; so is that kind of government.) Fellows that wear downy hats +and clean shirts—guilty of education and suspected of bank accounts.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">armor,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> The kind of clothing worn +by a man whose tailor is a blacksmith.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">arrayed,</span> <span class="pos">pp.</span> Drawn up and given an +orderly disposition, as a rioter hanged to a lamppost.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">arrest,</span> <span class="pos">v.t.</span> Formally to detain one +accused of unusualness.</p> + +<p class="quote">God made the world in six days and was arrested on the +seventh.—<i>The Unauthorized Version</i></p> + +<p class="entry" id="arsenic"><span class="def">arsenic,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> A kind of +cosmetic greatly affected by the ladies, whom it greatly affects in turn.</p> + +<blockquote> +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="poem">“Eat arsenic? Yes, all you get,”<br /> +<span class="ind1">Consenting, he did speak up;</span><br /> +“’Tis better you should eat it, pet,<br /> +<span class="ind1">Than put it in my teacup.”</span></p> +<p class="citepoet">Joel Huck.</p> +</div> +</blockquote> + +<p class="entry" id="art"><span class="def">art,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> This word has no +definition. Its origin is related as follows by the ingenious Father Gassalasca Jape, S. J.</p> + +<blockquote> +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="poem">One day a wag—what would the wretch be at?—<br /> +Shifted a letter of the cipher RAT,<br /> +And said it was a god’s name! Straight arose<br /> +Fantastic priests and postulants (with shows,<br /> +And mysteries, and mummeries, and hymns,<br /> +And disputations dire that lamed their limbs)<br /> +To serve his temple and maintain the fires,<br /> +Expound the law, manipulate the wires.<br /> +Amazed, the populace that rites attend,<br /> +Believe whate’er they cannot comprehend,<br /> +And, inly edified to learn that two<br /> +Half-hairs joined so and so (as Art can do)<br /> +Have sweeter values and a grace more fit<br /> +Than Nature’s hairs that never have been split,<br /> +Bring cates and wines for sacrificial feasts,<br /> +And sell their garments to support the priests.</p> +</div> +</blockquote> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">artlessness,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> A certain engaging +quality to which women attain by long study and severe practice upon the admiring <a href="M.html#male">male</a>, +who is pleased to fancy it resembles the candid simplicity of his young.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">asperse,</span> <span class="pos">v.t.</span> Maliciously to ascribe +to another vicious actions which one has not had the temptation and opportunity to commit.</p> + +<p class="entry" id="ass"><span class="def">ass,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> A public singer with +a good voice but no ear. In Virginia City, Nevada, he is called the Washoe Canary, in Dakota, the Senator, +and everywhere the Donkey. The animal is widely and variously celebrated in the literature, <a href="#art">art</a> +and <a href="R.html#religion">religion</a> of every age and country; no other so engages and fires the human +imagination as this noble vertebrate. Indeed, it is doubted by some (Ramasilus, <span xml:lang="la"><i>lib. II., +De Clem.</i></span>, and C. Stantatus, <span xml:lang="la"><i>De Temperamente</i></span>) +if it is not a god; and as such we know it was worshiped by the Etruscans, and, if we may believe Macrobious, +by the Cupasians also. Of the only two animals admitted into the Mahometan Paradise along with the souls of +men, the ass that carried Balaam is one, the <a href="D.html#dog">dog</a> of the Seven Sleepers the other. +This is no small distinction. From what has been written about this beast might be compiled a library of great +splendor and magnitude, rivalling that of the Shakespearean cult, and that which clusters about the Bible. It +may be said, generally, that all literature is more or less Asinine.</p> + +<blockquote> +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="poem">“Hail, holy Ass!”the quiring angels sing;<br /> +“Priest of Unreason, and of Discords King!”<br /> +Great co-Creator, let Thy glory shine:<br /> +God made all else, the Mule, the Mule is thine!”</p> +<p class="citepoet">G. J.</p> +</div> +</blockquote> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">auctioneer,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> The man who proclaims +with a hammer that he has picked a pocket with his tongue.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">Australia,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> A country lying in the +South Sea, whose industrial and commercial development has been unspeakably retarded by an unfortunate +dispute among geographers as to whether it is a continent or an island.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">avernus,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> The lake by which the +ancients entered the infernal regions. The fact that access to the infernal regions was obtained by a lake +is believed by the learned Marcus Ansello Scrutator to have suggested the <a href="C.html#christian">Christian</a> +rite of <a href="B.html#baptism">baptism</a> by immersion. This, however, has been shown by Lactantius to be +an error.</p> + +<blockquote> +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="poem" xml:lang="la"><i>Facilis descensus Averni,</i><br /> +<span class="ind1">The poet remarks; and the sense</span><br /> +Of it is that when down-hill I turn I<br /> +<span class="ind1">Will get more of punches than pence.</span></p> +<p class="citepoet">Jehal Dai Lupe.</p> +</div> +</blockquote> + +</body> +</html>
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From Babel comes our English word +“babble.” Under whatever name worshiped, +Baal is the Sun-god. As Beelzebub he is the god of flies, which are begotten +of the sun’s rays on the stagnant water. In Physicia Baal is still +worshiped as Bolus, and as Belly he is adored and served with abundant +sacrifice by the priests of Guttledom.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">babe</span> or <span class="def">baby,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> A +misshapen creature of no particular age, sex, or +condition, chiefly remarkable for the violence of the sympathies and +antipathies it excites in others, itself without sentiment or emotion. There +have been famous babes; for example, little Moses, from whose adventure in the +bulrushes the Egyptian hierophants of seven centuries before doubtless derived +their idle tale of the child Osiris being preserved on a floating lotus leaf.</p> + +<blockquote class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="poind3">Ere babes were invented</p> +<p class="poind3">The girls were contended.</p> +<p class="poind3">Now man is tormented</p> +<p class="po">Until to buy babes he has squandered</p> +<p class="po">His money. And so I have pondered</p> +<p class="poind3">This thing, and thought may be</p> +<p class="poind3">’T were better that Baby</p> +<p class="po">The First had been eagled or condored.</p> +<p class="citeauth">Ro Amil.</p> +</div> +</blockquote> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">Bacchus,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> A convenient +deity invented by the ancients as an excuse for getting drunk.</p> + +<blockquote class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="po">Is public worship, then, a sin,</p> +<p class="poind2">That for devotions paid to Bacchus</p> +<p class="po">The lictors dare to run us in,</p> +<p class="poind2">And resolutely thump and whack us?</p> +<p class="citeauth">Jorace.</p> +</div> +</blockquote> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">back,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> That part of your +friend which it is your privilege to contemplate in your adversity.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">backbite,</span> <span class="pos">v.t.</span> To speak of a man as +you find him when he can’t find you.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">bait,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> A preparation +that renders the hook more palatable. The best kind is beauty.</p> + +<p id="baptism" class="entry"><span class="def">baptism,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> A sacred rite of +such efficacy that he who finds himself in heaven without having undergone it will be unhappy forever. +It is performed with water in two ways by immersion, or plunging, and by aspersion, or sprinkling.</p> + +<blockquote class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="po">But whether the plan of immersion</p> +<p class="po">Is better than simple aspersion</p> +<p class="poind1">Let those immersed</p> +<p class="poind1">And those aspersed</p> +<p class="po">Decide by the Authorized Version,</p> +<p class="po">And by matching their agues tertian.</p> +<p class="citeauth">G. J.</p> +</div> +</blockquote> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">barometer,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> An ingenious +instrument which indicates what kind of weather we are having.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">barrack,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> A house in which +soldiers enjoy a portion of that of which it is their business to deprive others.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">basilisk,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> The cockatrice. +A sort of serpent hatched form the egg of a cock. The basilisk had a bad eye, and its glance was +fatal. Many infidels deny this creature’s existence, but Semprello Aurator saw and handled one +that had been blinded by lightning as a punishment for having fatally gazed on +a lady of rank whom Jupiter loved. Juno afterward restored the reptile’s +sight and hid it in a cave. Nothing is so well attested by the ancients as +the existence of the basilisk, but the cocks have stopped laying.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">bastinado,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> The act of walking +on wood without exertion.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">bath,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> A kind of mystic ceremony +substituted for religious worship, with what spiritual efficacy has not been determined.</p> + +<blockquote class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="po">The man who taketh a steam bath</p> +<p class="po">He loseth all the skin he hath,</p> +<p class="po">And, for he’s boiled a brilliant red,</p> +<p class="po">Thinketh to cleanliness he’s wed,</p> +<p class="po">Forgetting that his lungs he’s soiling</p> +<p class="po">With dirty vapors of the boiling.</p> +<p class="citeauth">Richard Gwow.</p> +</div> +</blockquote> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">battle,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> A method of untying +with the teeth of a political knot that would not yield to the tongue.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">beard,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> The hair that is commonly +cut off by those who justly execrate the absurd Chinese custom of shaving the head.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">beauty,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> The power by which a woman +charms a lover and terrifies a husband.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">befriend,</span> <span class="pos">v.t.</span> To make an ingrate.</p> + +<p class="entry" id="beg"><span class="def">beg,</span> <span class="pos">v.</span> To ask for something with +an earnestness proportioned to the belief that it will not be given.</p> + +<blockquote class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="po">Who is that, father?</p> +</div> + +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="po" style="text-align: right">A mendicant, child,</p> +<p class="po">Haggard, morose, and unaffable—wild!</p> +<p class="po">See how he glares through the bars of his cell!</p> +<p class="po">With Citizen Mendicant all is not well.</p> +</div> + +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="po">Why did they put him there, father?</p> +</div> + +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="po" style="text-align: right">Because</p> +<p class="po">Obeying his belly he struck at the laws.</p> +</div> + +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="po">His belly?</p> +</div> + +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="po" style="text-align: right">Oh, well, he was starving, my boy—</p> +<p class="po">A state in which, doubtless, there’s little of joy.</p> +<p class="po">No bite had he eaten for days, and his cry</p> +<p class="po">Was “Bread!” ever “Bread!”</p> +</div> + +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="po" style="text-align: right">What’s the matter with pie?</p> +</div> + +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="po">With little to wear, he had nothing to sell;</p> +<p class="po">To beg was unlawful—improper as well.</p> +</div> + +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="po">Why didn’t he work?</p> +</div> + +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="po" style="text-align: right">He would even have done that,</p> +<p class="po">But men said: “Get out!” and the State remarked:</p> +<p class="po">“Scat!”</p> +<p class="po">I mention these incidents merely to show</p> +<p class="po">That the vengeance he took was uncommonly low.</p> +<p class="po">Revenge, at the best, is the act of a Siou,</p> +<p class="po">But for trifles—</p> +</div> + +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="po" style="text-align: right">Pray what did bad Mendicant do?</p> +</div> + +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="po">Stole two loaves of bread to replenish his lack</p> +<p class="po">And tuck out the belly that clung to his back.</p> +</div> + +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="po">Is that <i>all</i> father dear?</p> +</div> + +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="po" style="text-align: right">There’s little to tell:</p> +<p class="po">They sent him to jail, and they’ll send him to—well,</p> +<p class="po">The company’s better than here we can boast,</p> +<p class="po">And there’s—</p> +</div> + +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="po" style="text-align: center">Bread for the needy, dear father?</p> +</div> + +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="po" style="text-align: right">Um—toast.</p> +<p class="citeauth">Atka Mip.</p> +</div> +</blockquote> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">beggar,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> One who has relied +on the assistance of his friends.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">behavior,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> Conduct, as determined, +not by principle, but by breeding. The word seems to be somewhat loosely used in Dr. Jamrach Holobom’s +translation of the following lines from the <i>Dies Iræ</i>:</p> + +<blockquote class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<div xml:lang="la"> +<p class="poind2">Recordare, Jesu pie,</p> +<p class="poind2">Quod sum causa tuae viæ.</p> +<p class="poind2">Ne me perdas illa die.</p></div> +</div> + +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="po">Pray remember, sacred Savior,</p> +<p class="po">Whose the thoughtless hand that gave your</p> +<p class="po">Death-blow. Pardon such behavior.</p> +</div> +</blockquote> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">Belladonna,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> In Italian a beautiful +lady; in English a deadly poison. A striking example of the essential identity of the two tongues.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">Benedictines,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> An order of monks +otherwise known as black friars.</p> + +<blockquote class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="po">She thought it a crow, but it turn out to be</p> +<p class="poind1">A monk of St. Benedict croaking a text.</p> +<p class="po">“Here’s one of an order of cooks,” said she—</p> +<p class="poind1">“Black friars in this world, fried black in the next.”</p> +<p class="citeauth">“The Devil on Earth” <span style="font-style: normal">(<i>London</i>, 1712.)</span></p> +</div> +</blockquote> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">benefactor,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> One who makes +heavy purchases of ingratitude, without, however, materially affecting the price, which is still within +the means of all.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">Berenice’s Hair,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> A constellation +(<span xml:lang="la"><i>Coma Berenices</i></span>) named in honor of one who sacrificed her hair to +save her husband.</p> + +<blockquote class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="po">Her locks an ancient lady gave</p> +<p class="po">Her loving husband’s life to save;</p> +<p class="po">And men—they honored so the dame—</p> +<p class="po">Upon some stars bestowed her name.</p> +</div> + +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="po">But to our modern married fair,</p> +<p class="po">Who’d give their lords to save their hair,</p> +<p class="po">No stellar recognition’s given.</p> +<p class="po">There are not stars enough in heaven.</p> +<p class="citeauth">G. J.</p> +</div> +</blockquote> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">bigamy,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> A mistake in taste +for which the wisdom of the future will adjudge a punishment called trigamy.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">bigot,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> One who is obstinately +and zealously attached to an opinion that you do not entertain.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">billingsgate,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> The invective of +an opponent.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">birth,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> The first and direst of +all disasters. As to the nature of it there appears to be no uniformity. Castor and Pollux were born +from the egg. Pallas came out of a skull. Galatea was once a block of stone. Peresilis, who wrote in +the tenth century, avers that he grew up out of the ground where a priest had spilled holy water. It +is known that Arimaxus was derived from a hole in the earth, made by a stroke of lightning. Leucomedon +was the son of a cavern in Mount Ætna, and I have myself seen a man come out of a wine cellar.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">blackguard,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> A man whose qualities, +prepared for display like a box of berries in a market—the fine ones on top—have been opened on the wrong +side. An inverted gentleman.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">blank-verse,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> Unrhymed iambic +pentameters—the most difficult kind of English verse to write acceptably; a kind, therefore, much affected +by those who cannot acceptably write any kind.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">body-snatcher,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> A robber of grave-worms. +One who supplies the young physicians with that with which the old physicians have supplied the undertaker. +The hyena.</p> + +<blockquote class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="po">“One night,” a doctor said, “last fall,</p> +<p class="po">I and my comrades, four in all,</p> +<p class="poind1">When visiting a graveyard stood</p> +<p class="po">Within the shadow of a wall.</p> +</div> + +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="po">“While waiting for the moon to sink</p> +<p class="po">We saw a wild hyena slink</p> +<p class="poind1">About a new-made grave, and then</p> +<p class="po">Begin to excavate its brink!</p> +</div> + +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="po">“Shocked by the horrid act, we made</p> +<p class="po">A sally from our ambuscade,</p> +<p class="poind1">And, falling on the unholy beast,</p> +<p class="po">Dispatched him with a pick and spade.”</p> +<p class="citeauth">Bettel K. Jhones.</p> +</div> +</blockquote> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">bondsman,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> A fool who, having +property of his own, undertakes to become responsible for that entrusted to another to a third.</p> + +<p class="indentpara">Philippe of Orleans wishing to appoint one of his favorites, a dissolute +nobleman, to a high office, asked him what security he would be able to give. “I need no +bondsmen,” he replied, “for I can give you my word of honor.” “And +pray what may be the value of that?” inquired the amused Regent. “Monsieur, it +is worth its weight in gold.”</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">bore,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> A person who talks +when you wish him to listen.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">botany,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> The science of +vegetables—those that are not good to eat, as well as those that are. It deals largely with +their flowers, which are commonly badly designed, inartistic in color, and ill-smelling.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">bottle-nosed,</span> <span class="pos">adj.</span> Having a +nose created in the image of its maker.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">boundary,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> In political +geography, an imaginary line between two nations, separating the imaginary rights of one from +the imaginary rights of the other.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">bounty,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> The liberality +of one who has much, in permitting one who has nothing to get all that he can.</p> + +<p class="quote">A single swallow, it is said, devours ten millions of insects every year. The +supplying of these insects I take to be a signal instance of the Creator’s bounty in providing +for the lives of His creatures.—<i>Henry Ward Beecher</i></p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">brahma,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> He who created +the Hindoos, who are preserved by Vishnu and destroyed by Siva—a rather neater division of labor +than is found among the deities of some other nations. The Abracadabranese, for example, are created +by Sin, maintained by Theft and destroyed by Folly. The priests of Brahma, like those of Abracadabranese, +are holy and learned men who are never naughty.</p> + +<blockquote class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="po">O Brahma, thou rare old Divinity,</p> +<p class="po">First Person of the Hindoo Trinity,</p> +<p class="po">You sit there so calm and securely,</p> +<p class="po">With feet folded up so demurely—</p> +<p class="po">You’re the First Person Singular, surely.</p> +<p class="citeauth">Polydore Smith.</p> +</div> +</blockquote> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">brain,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> An apparatus with which +we think what we think. That which distinguishes the man who is content to <i>be</i> something from +the man who wishes to <i>do</i> something. A man of great wealth, or one who has been pitchforked +into high station, has commonly such a headful of brain that his neighbors cannot keep their hats on. +In our civilization, and under our republican form of government, brain is so highly honored that it is +rewarded by exemption from the cares of office.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">brandy,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> A cordial composed of +one part thunder-and-lightning, one part remorse, two parts bloody murder, one part death-hell-and-the-grave +and four parts clarified Satan. Dose, a headful all the time. Brandy is said by Dr. Johnson to be the drink of +heroes. Only a hero will venture to drink it.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">bride,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> A woman with a fine prospect +of happiness behind her.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">brute,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> See +<a href="H.html#husband"><span class="def">husband</span></a>.</p> + +</body> +</html>
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/B.html.annot b/lib/ebooks/devils/B.html.annot new file mode 100644 index 00000000..e69de29b --- /dev/null +++ b/lib/ebooks/devils/B.html.annot diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/B.html.i b/lib/ebooks/devils/B.html.i new file mode 100644 index 00000000..590d2215 --- /dev/null +++ b/lib/ebooks/devils/B.html.i @@ -0,0 +1,23 @@ +9 pages +size 400 552 +length 18309 +400 2 11 body html +0 +1681 2 34 body html +117 +4008 2 89 body html +0 +6365 2 132 body html +0 +6365 2 132 body html +547 +10201 2 245 body html +13 +12195 2 289 body html +90 +14590 2 335 body html +0 +16688 2 368 body html +13 +baptism 1 +beg 2 diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/C.html b/lib/ebooks/devils/C.html new file mode 100644 index 00000000..3c679342 --- /dev/null +++ b/lib/ebooks/devils/C.html @@ -0,0 +1,528 @@ +<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "+//ISBN 0-9673008-1-9//DTD OEB 1.0 Document//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: C</title> +</head> + +<body lang="en-us"> + +<h1>C</h1> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">Caaba,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> A large stone +presented by the archangel Gabriel to the patriarch Abraham, and preserved at Mecca. The +patriarch had perhaps asked the archangel for bread.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">cabbage,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> A familiar +kitchen-garden vegetable about as large and wise as a man’s head.</p> + +<p class="indentpara">The cabbage is so called from Cabagius, a prince who on ascending +the throne issued a decree appointing a High Council of Empire consisting of the members of his +predecessor’s Ministry and the cabbages in the royal garden. When any of his Majesty’s measures +of state policy miscarried conspicuously it was gravely announced that several members +of the High Council had been beheaded, and his murmuring subjects were appeased.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">calamity,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> A more than commonly +plain and unmistakable reminder that the affairs of this life are not of our own ordering. Calamities are +of two kinds: misfortune to ourselves, and good fortune to others.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">callous,</span> <span class="pos">adj.</span> Gifted with great +fortitude to bear the evils afflicting another.</p> + +<p class="indentpara">When Zeno was told that one of his enemies was no more he was observed to +be deeply moved. “What!” said one of his disciples, “you weep at the death of an +enemy?” “Ah, ’tis true,” +replied the great Stoic; “but you should see me smile at the death of a friend.”</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">calumnus,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> A graduate of the School +for Scandal.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">camel,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> A quadruped (the <i>Splaypes +humpidorsus</i>) of great value to the show business. There are two kinds of camels—the camel proper and +the camel improper. It is the latter that is always exhibited.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">cannibal,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> A gastronome of the old +school who preserves the simple tastes and adheres to the natural diet of the pre-pork period.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">cannon,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> An instrument employed +in the rectification of national boundaries.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">canonicals,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> The motley worm by +Jesters of the Court of Heaven.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">capital,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> The seat of misgovernment. +That which provides the fire, the pot, the dinner, the table and the knife and fork for the anarchist; the +part of the repast that himself supplies is the disgrace before meat. <i>Capital Punishment</i>, a penalty +regarding the justice and expediency of which many worthy persons—including all the assassins—entertain +grave misgivings.</p> + +<p class="entry" id="carmelite"><span class="def">carmelite,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> A mendicant friar of +the order of Mount Carmel.</p> + +<table class="poem"> +<tr><td class="poem"> +<p class="po">As Death was a-rising out one day,</p> +<p class="po">Across Mount Camel he took his way,</p> +<p class="poind1">Where he met a mendicant monk,</p> +<p class="poind1">Some three or four quarters drunk,</p> +<p class="po">With a holy leer and a pious grin,</p> +<p class="po">Ragged and fat and as saucy as sin,</p> +<p class="poind1">Who held out his hands and cried:</p> +<p class="po">“Give, give in Charity’s name, I pray.</p> +<p class="po">Give in the name of the Church. O give,</p> +<p class="po">Give that her holy sons may live!”</p> +<p class="poind1">And Death replied,</p> +<p class="poind1">Smiling long and wide:</p> +<p class="poind1">“I’ll give, holy father, I’ll give thee—a ride.”</p> +</td></tr> +<tr><td class="poem"> +<p class="poind1">With a rattle and bang</p> +<p class="poind1">Of his bones, he sprang</p> +<p class="po">From his famous Pale Horse, with his spear;</p> +<p class="poind1">By the neck and the foot</p> +<p class="poind1">Seized the fellow, and put</p> +<p class="po">Him astride with his face to the rear.</p> +</td></tr> +<tr><td class="poem"> +<p class="po">The Monarch laughed loud with a sound that fell</p> +<p class="po">Like clods on the coffin’s sounding shell:</p> +<p class="po">“Ho, ho! A beggar on horseback, they say,</p> +<p class="poind1">Will ride to the devil!”—and thump</p> +<p class="poind1">Fell the flat of his dart on the rump</p> +<p class="po">Of the charger, which galloped away.</p> +</td></tr> +<tr><td class="poem"> +<p class="po">Faster and faster and faster it flew,</p> +<p class="po">Till the rocks and the flocks and the trees that grew</p> +<p class="po">By the road were dim and blended and blue</p> +<p class="poind1">To the wild, wild eyes</p> +<p class="poind1">Of the rider—in size</p> +</td></tr> +<tr><td class="poem"> +<p class="poind1">Resembling a couple of blackberry pies.</p> +<p class="po">Death laughed again, as a tomb might laugh</p> +<p class="poind1">At a burial service spoiled,</p> +<p class="poind1">And the mourners’ intentions foiled</p> +<p class="poind1">By the body erecting</p> +<p class="poind1">Its head and objecting</p> +<p class="po">To further proceedings in its behalf.</p> +</td></tr> +<tr><td class="poem"> +<p class="poind1">Resembling a couple of blackberry pies.</p> +<p class="po">Death laughed again, as a tomb might laugh</p> +<p class="poind1">At a burial service spoiled,</p> +<p class="poind1">And the mourners’ intentions foiled</p> +<p class="poind1">By the body erecting</p> +<p class="poind1">Its head and objecting</p> +<p class="po">To further proceedings in its behalf.</p> +</td></tr> +<tr><td class="poem"> +<p class="po">Many a year and many a day</p> +<p class="po">Have passed since these events away.</p> +<p class="po">The monk has long been a dusty corse,</p> +<p class="po">And Death has never recovered his horse.</p> +<p class="poind1">For the friar got hold of its tail,</p> +<p class="poind1">And steered it within the pale</p> +<p class="po">Of the monastery gray,</p> +<p class="po">Where the beast was stabled and fed</p> +<p class="po">With barley and oil and bread</p> +<p class="po">Till fatter it grew than the fattest friar,</p> +<p class="po">And so in due course was appointed Prior.</p> +<p class="citeauth">G. J.</p> +</td></tr> +</table> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">carnivorous,</span> <span class="pos">adj.</span> Addicted to the +cruelty of devouring the timorous vegetarian, his heirs and assigns.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">cartesian,</span> <span class="pos">adj.</span> Relating to Descartes, +a famous philosopher, author of the celebrated dictum, <span xml:lang="la"><i>Cogito ergo sum</i></span>—whereby +he was pleased to suppose he demonstrated the reality of human existence. The dictum might be improved, +however, thus: <i>Cogito cogito ergo cogito sum</i>—“I think that I think, therefore I think that I am;” as +close an approach to certainty as any philosopher has yet made.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">cat,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> A soft, indestructible automaton +provided by nature to be kicked when things go wrong in the domestic circle.</p> + +<table class="poem"> +<tr><td class="poem"> +<p class="po">This is a dog,</p> +<p class="poind1">This is a cat.</p> +<p class="po">This is a frog,</p> +<p class="poind1">This is a rat.</p> +<p class="po">Run, dog, mew, cat.</p> +<p class="po">Jump, frog, gnaw, rat.</p> +<p class="citeauth">Elevenson.</p> +</td></tr> +</table> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">caviler,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> A critic of our own work.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">cemetery,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> An isolated suburban +spot where mourners match lies, poets write at a target and stone-cutters spell for a wager. The +inscriptions following will serve to illustrate the success attained in these Olympian games:</p> + +<p class="quote">His virtues were so conspicuous that his enemies, unable to overlook them, denied +them, and his friends, to whose loose lives they were a rebuke, represented them as vices. They are +here commemorated by his family, who shared them.</p> + +<table class="poem"> +<tr><td class="poem"> +<p class="po">In the earth we here prepare a</p> +<p class="po">Place to lay our little Clara.</p> +<p class="citepoet">Thomas M. and Mary Frazer</p> +<p class="po">P.S.—Gabriel will raise her.</p> +</td></tr> +</table> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">centaur,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> One of a race of +persons who lived before the division of labor had been carried to such a pitch of differentiation, and +who followed the primitive economic maxim, “Every man his own horse.” The best of the lot was Chiron, +who to the wisdom and virtues of the horse added the fleetness of man. The scripture story of the head +of John the Baptist on a charger shows that pagan myths have somewhat sophisticated sacred history.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">Cerberus,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> The watch-dog of +Hades, whose duty it was to guard the entrance—against whom or what does not clearly appear; +everybody, sooner or later, had to go there, and nobody wanted to carry off the entrance. Cerberus +is known to have had three heads, and some of the poets have credited him with as many as a hundred. +Professor Graybill, whose clerky erudition and profound knowledge of Greek give his opinion great weight, +has averaged all the estimates, and makes the number twenty-seven—a judgment that would be entirely +conclusive is Professor Graybill had known (<i>a</i>) something about dogs, and (<i>b</i>) something about +arithmetic.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">childhood,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> The period of human +life intermediate between the idiocy of infancy and the folly of youth—two removes from the sin of +manhood and three from the remorse of age.</p> + +<p id="christian" class="entry"><span class="def">Christian,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> One who believes that +the New Testament is a divinely inspired book admirably suited to the spiritual needs of his neighbor. One +who follows the teachings of Christ in so far as they are not inconsistent with a life of sin.</p> + +<table class="poem"> +<tr><td class="poem"> +<p class="po">I dreamed I stood upon a hill, and, lo!</p> +<p class="po">The godly multitudes walked to and fro</p> +<p class="po">Beneath, in Sabbath garments fitly clad,</p> +<p class="po">With pious mien, appropriately sad,</p> +<p class="po">While all the church bells made a solemn din—</p> +<p class="po">A fire-alarm to those who lived in sin.</p> +<p class="po">Then saw I gazing thoughtfully below,</p> +<p class="po">With tranquil face, upon that holy show</p> +<p class="po">A tall, spare figure in a robe of white,</p> +<p class="po">Whose eyes diffused a melancholy light.</p> +<p class="po">“God keep you, strange,” I exclaimed. “You are</p> +<p class="po">No doubt (your habit shows it) from afar;</p> +<p class="po">And yet I entertain the hope that you,</p> +<p class="po">Like these good people, are a Christian too.”</p> +<p class="po">He raised his eyes and with a look so stern</p> +<p class="po">It made me with a thousand blushes burn</p> +<p class="po">Replied—his manner with disdain was spiced:</p> +<p class="po">“What! I a Christian? No, indeed! I’m Christ.”</p> +<p class="citeauth">G. J.</p> +</td></tr> +</table> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">circus,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> A place where horses, +ponies and elephants are permitted to see men, women and children acting the fool.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">clairvoyant,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> A person, commonly +a woman, who has the power of seeing that which is invisible to her patron, namely, that he is a blockhead.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">clarionet,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> An instrument of torture +operated by a person with cotton in his ears. There are two instruments that are worse than a clarionet—two +clarionets.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">clergyman,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> A man who undertakes +the management of our spiritual affairs as a method of better his temporal ones.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">Clio,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> One of the nine Muses. Clio’s +function was to preside over history—which she did with great dignity, many of the prominent citizens of +Athens occupying seats on the platform, the meetings being addressed by Messrs. Xenophon, Herodotus and +other popular speakers.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">clock,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> A machine of great moral +value to man, allaying his concern for the future by reminding him what a lot of time remains to him.</p> + +<table class="poem"> +<tr><td class="poem"> +<p class="po">A busy man complained one day:</p> +<p class="po">“I get no time!” “What’s that you say?”</p> +<p class="po">Cried out his friend, a lazy quiz;</p> +<p class="po">“You have, sir, all the time there is.</p> +<p class="po">There’s plenty, too, and don’t you doubt it—</p> +<p class="po">We’re never for an hour without it.”</p> +<p class="citeauth">Purzil Crofe.</p> +</td></tr> +</table> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">close-fisted,</span> <span class="pos">adj.</span> Unduly desirous +of keeping that which many meritorious persons wish to obtain.</p> + +<table class="poem"> +<tr><td class="poem"> +<p class="po">“Close-fisted Scotchman!” Johnson cried</p> +<p class="poind1">To thrifty J. Macpherson;</p> +<p class="po">“See me—I’m ready to divide</p> +<p class="poind1">With any worthy person.”</p> +<p class="po">Sad Jamie: “That is very true—</p> +<p class="poind1">The boast requires no backing;</p> +<p class="po">And all are worthy, sir, to you,</p> +<p class="poind1">Who have what you are lacking.”</p> +<p class="citeauth">Anita M. Bobe.</p> +</td></tr> +</table> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">cœnobite,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> A man who piously +shuts himself up to meditate upon the sin of wickedness; and to keep it fresh in his mind joins a brotherhood +of awful examples.</p> + +<table class="poem"> +<tr><td class="poem"> +<p class="po">O Cœnobite, O cœnobite,</p> +<p class="poind1">Monastical gregarian,</p> +<p class="po">You differ from the anchorite,</p> +<p class="poind1">That solitudinarian:</p> +<p class="po">With vollied prayers you wound Old Nick;</p> +<p class="po">With dropping shots he makes him sick.</p> +<p class="citeauth">Quincy Giles.</p> +</td></tr> +</table> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">comfort,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> A state of mind +produced by contemplation of a neighbor’s uneasiness.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">commendation,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> The tribute +that we pay to achievements that resembles, but do not equal, our own.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">commerce,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> A kind of +transaction in which A plunders from B the goods of C, and for compensation B picks the pocket of D +of money belonging to E.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">commonwealth,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> An administrative +entity operated by an incalculable multitude of political parasites, logically active but fortuitously efficient.</p> + +<table class="poem"> +<tr><td class="poem"> +<p class="po">This commonwealth’s capitol’s corridors view,</p> +<p class="po">So thronged with a hungry and indolent crew</p> +<p class="po">Of clerks, pages, porters and all attaches</p> +<p class="po">Whom rascals appoint and the populace pays</p> +<p class="po">That a cat cannot slip through the thicket of shins</p> +<p class="po">Nor hear its own shriek for the noise of their chins.</p> +<p class="po">On clerks and on pages, and porters, and all,</p> +<p class="po">Misfortune attend and disaster befall!</p> +<p class="po">May life be to them a succession of hurts;</p> +<p class="po">May fleas by the bushel inhabit their shirts;</p> +<p class="po">May aches and diseases encamp in their bones,</p> +<p class="po">Their lungs full of tubercles, bladders of stones;</p> +<p class="po">May microbes, bacilli, their tissues infest,</p> +<p class="po">And tapeworms securely their bowels digest;</p> +<p class="po">May corn-cobs be snared without hope in their hair,</p> +<p class="po">And frequent impalement their pleasure impair.</p> +<p class="po">Disturbed be their dreams by the awful discourse</p> +<p class="po">Of audible sofas sepulchrally hoarse,</p> +<p class="po">By chairs acrobatic and wavering floors—</p> +<p class="po">The mattress that kicks and the pillow that snores!</p> +<p class="po">Sons of cupidity, cradled in sin!</p> +<p class="po">Your criminal ranks may the death angel thin,</p> +<p class="po">Avenging the friend whom I couldn’t work in.</p> +<p class="citeauth">K. Q.</p> +</td></tr> +</table> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">compromise,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> Such an adjustment +of conflicting interests as gives each adversary the satisfaction of thinking he has got what he ought not +to have, and is deprived of nothing except what was justly his due.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">compulsion,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> The eloquence of power.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">condole,</span> <span class="pos">v.i.</span> To show that bereavement +is a smaller evil than sympathy.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">confidant,</span> <span class="def">confidante,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> One +entrusted by A with the secrets of B, confided by <i>him </i>to C.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">congratulation,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> The civility of envy.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">congress,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> A body of men who meet to repeal laws.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">connoisseur,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> A specialist who knows everything +about something and nothing about anything else.</p> + +<p class="indentpara">An old wine-bibber having been smashed in a railway collision, some wine was pouted on his lips to +revive him. “Pauillac, 1873,” he murmured and died.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">conservative,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> A statesman who is enamored of +existing evils, as distinguished from the Liberal, who wishes to replace them +with others.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">consolation,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> The knowledge that a better man is +more unfortunate than yourself.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">consul,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> In American politics, a person who having +failed to secure and office from the people is given one by the Administration +on condition that he leave the country.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">consult,</span> <span class="pos">v.i.</span> To seek another’s disapproval of a course already decided on.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">contempt,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> The feeling of a prudent man for an enemy who is too formidable safely to be opposed.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">controversy,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> A battle in which spittle or ink replaces the injurious cannon-ball and the inconsiderate bayonet.</p> + +<table class="poem"> +<tr><td class="poem"> +<p class="po">In controversy with the facile tongue—</p> +<p class="po">That bloodless warfare of the old and young—</p> +<p class="po">So seek your adversary to engage</p> +<p class="po">That on himself he shall exhaust his rage,</p> +<p class="po">And, like a snake that’s fastened to the ground,</p> +<p class="po">With his own fangs inflict the fatal wound.</p> +<p class="po">You ask me how this miracle is done?</p> +<p class="po">Adopt his own opinions, one by one,</p> +<p class="po">And taunt him to refute them; in his wrath</p> +<p class="po">He’ll sweep them pitilessly from his path.</p> +<p class="po">Advance then gently all you wish to prove,</p> +<p class="po">Each proposition prefaced with, “As you’ve</p> +<p class="po">So well remarked,” or, “As you wisely say,</p> +<p class="po">And I cannot dispute,” or, “By the way,</p> +<p class="po">This view of it which, better far expressed,</p> +<p class="po">Runs through your argument.” Then leave the rest</p> +<p class="po">To him, secure that he’ll perform his trust</p> +<p class="po">And prove your views intelligent and just.</p> +<p class="citeauth">Conmore Apel Brune.</p> +</td></tr> +</table> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">convent,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> A place of retirement for woman who wish for leisure to meditate upon the vice of idleness.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">conversation,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> A fair to the display of the minor +mental commodities, each exhibitor being too intent upon the arrangement of his +own wares to observe those of his neighbor.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">coronation,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> The ceremony of investing a +sovereign with the outward and visible signs of his divine right to be blown +skyhigh with a dynamite bomb.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">corporal,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> A man who occupies the lowest rung of the military ladder.</p> + +<table class="poem"> +<tr><td class="poem"> +<p class="po">Fiercely the battle raged and, sad to tell,</p> +<p class="po">Our corporal heroically fell!</p> +<p class="po">Fame from her height looked down upon the brawl</p> +<p class="po">And said: “He hadn’t very far to fall.”</p> +<p class="citeauth">Giacomo Smith.</p> +</td></tr> +</table> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">corporation,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">Corsair,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> A politician of the seas.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">court fool,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> The plaintiff.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">coward,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> One who in a perilous emergency thinks with his legs.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">crayfish,</span> n. A small crustacean very much resembling the lobster, but less indigestible.</p> + +<p class="quote">In this small fish I take it that human wisdom is admirably figured and symbolized; for whereas +the crayfish doth move only backward, and can have only retrospection, seeing +naught but the perils already passed, so the wisdom of man doth not enable him +to avoid the follies that beset his course, but only to apprehend their nature afterward.—<i>Sir James Merivale</i></p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">creditor,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> One of a tribe of savages dwelling beyond the Financial Straits and dreaded for their desolating incursions.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">Cremona,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> A high-priced violin made in Connecticut.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">critic,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> A person who boasts himself hard to please +because nobody tries to please him.</p> + +<table class="poem"> +<tr><td class="poem"> +<p class="po">There is a land of pure delight,</p> +<p class="poind1">Beyond the Jordan’s flood,</p> +<p class="po">Where saints, apparelled all in white,</p> +<p class="poind1">Fling back the critic’s mud.</p> +</td></tr> +<tr><td class="poem"> +<p class="po">And as he legs it through the skies,</p> +<p class="poind1">His pelt a sable hue,</p> +<p class="po">He sorrows sore to recognize</p> +<p class="poind1">The missiles that he threw.</p> +<p class="citeauth">Orrin Goof.</p> +</td></tr> +</table> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">cross,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> An ancient religious symbol erroneously +supposed to owe its significance to the most solemn event in the history of +Christianity, but really antedating it by thousands of years. By many it has been believed to be identical +with the <span xml:lang="la"><i>crux ansata</i></span> of the +ancient phallic worship, but it has been traced even beyond all that we know of +that, to the rites of primitive peoples. We have to-day the White Cross as a symbol of chastity, and the Red +Cross as a badge of benevolent neutrality in war. Having in mind the former, the reverend Father Gassalasca Jape +smites the lyre to the effect following:</p> + + +<table class="poem"> +<tr><td class="poem"> +<p class="po">“Be good, be good!” the sisterhood</p> +<p class="poind1">Cry out in holy chorus,</p> +<p class="po">And, to dissuade from sin, parade</p> +<p class="poind1">Their various charms before us.</p> +</td></tr> + +<tr><td class="poem"> +<p class="po">But why, O why, has ne’er an eye</p> +<p class="poind1">Seen her of winsome manner</p> +<p class="po">And youthful grace and pretty face</p> +<p class="poind1">Flaunting the White Cross banner?</p> +</td></tr> + +<tr><td class="poem"> +<p class="po">Now where’s the need of speech and screed</p> +<p class="poind1">To better our behaving?</p> +<p class="po">A simpler plan for saving man</p> +<p class="poind1">(But, first, is he worth saving?)</p> +</td></tr> + +<tr><td class="poem"> +<p class="po">Is, dears, when he declines to flee</p> +<p class="poind1">From bad thoughts that beset him,</p> +<p class="po">Ignores the Law as ’t were a straw,</p> +<p class="poind1">And wants to sin—don’t let him.</p> +</td></tr> +</table> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def" lang="la">Cui Bono?</span> (Latin). What good would that do <i>me</i>?</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">cunning,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> The faculty that distinguishes +a weak animal or person from a strong one. It brings its possessor much mental satisfaction and great material +adversity. An Italian proverb says: “The furrier gets the skins of more foxes than asses.”</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">Cupid,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> The so-called god of love. This bastard creation of a barbarous fancy +was no doubt inflicted upon mythology for the sins of its deities. Of all unbeautiful and inappropriate +conceptions this is the most reasonless and offensive. The notion of symbolizing sexual love by a +semisexless babe, and comparing the pains of passion to the wounds of an +arrow—of introducing this pudgy homunculus into art grossly to materialize the +subtle spirit and suggestion of the work—this is eminently worthy of the age +that, giving it birth, laid it on the doorstep of prosperity.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">curiosity,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> An objectionable quality of the female +mind. The desire to know whether or not +a woman is cursed with curiosity is one of the most active and insatiable +passions of the masculine soul.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">curse,</span> <span class="pos">v.t.</span> Energetically to belabor with a verbal +slap-stick. This is an operation which +in literature, particularly in the drama, is commonly fatal to the victim. Nevertheless, the liability to a cursing is +a risk that cuts but a small figure in fixing the rates of life insurance.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">cynic,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> A blackguard whose faulty vision sees things +as they are, not as they ought to be. Hence the custom among the Scythians of plucking out a cynic’s eyes to +improve his vision.</p> + +</body> +</html>
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/C.html.annot b/lib/ebooks/devils/C.html.annot new file mode 100644 index 00000000..e69de29b --- /dev/null +++ b/lib/ebooks/devils/C.html.annot diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/C.html.i b/lib/ebooks/devils/C.html.i new file mode 100644 index 00000000..3f61cbb3 --- /dev/null +++ b/lib/ebooks/devils/C.html.i @@ -0,0 +1,33 @@ +14 pages +size 400 552 +length 28562 +397 2 11 body html +0 +1712 2 35 body html +85 +3565 2 65 body html +0 +3565 2 65 body html +552 +8255 2 164 body html +22 +10580 2 200 body html +0 +12955 2 241 body html +22 +14994 2 282 body html +0 +16175 2 307 body html +0 +18725 2 352 body html +0 +20230 2 375 body html +0 +22655 2 421 body html +0 +24758 2 459 body html +90 +26978 2 505 body html +141 +carmelite 1 +christian 4 diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/D.html b/lib/ebooks/devils/D.html new file mode 100644 index 00000000..6bd08ff1 --- /dev/null +++ b/lib/ebooks/devils/D.html @@ -0,0 +1,536 @@ +<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "+//ISBN 0-9673008-1-9//DTD OEB 1.0 Document//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: D</title> +</head> + +<body lang="en-us"> + + +<h1>D</h1> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">damn,</span> <span class="pos">v.</span> A word formerly much used by the +Paphlagonians, the meaning of which is lost. By the learned Dr. Dolabelly Gak it is believed to have been a term of +satisfaction, implying the highest possible degree of mental tranquillity. +Professor Groke, on the contrary, thinks it +expressed an emotion of tumultuous delight, because it so frequently occurs in +combination with the word <i>jod</i> or <i>god</i>, meaning “joy.” It would be with great diffidence that I +should advance an opinion conflicting with that of either of these formidable +authorities.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">dance,</span> <span class="pos">v.i.</span> To leap about to the sound of tittering +music, preferably with arms about your neighbor’s wife or daughter. There are many kinds of dances, but all +those requiring the participation of the two sexes have two characteristics in +common: they are conspicuously innocent, and warmly loved by the vicious.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">danger,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span></p> + + <table align="center" border="0"> + <tr> + <td valign="top" align="left"> + +<p class="poetry">A savage beast which, when it sleeps,<br /> +<span class="ind1"> +Man girds at and despises,</span><br /> +But takes himself away by leaps<br /> +<span class="ind1"> +And bounds when it arises.</span></p> + +<p class="citeauth">Ambat Delaso.</p> + + </td> + </tr> + </table> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">daring,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> One of the most conspicuous qualities of a man in security.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">datary,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> A high ecclesiastic official of the Roman +Catholic Church, whose important function is to brand the Pope’s bulls with the +words <i>Datum Romae</i>.He enjoys a princely revenue and the friendship of God.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">dawn,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> The time when men of reason go to +bed. Certain old men prefer to rise at about that +time, taking a cold bath and a long walk with an empty stomach, and otherwise +mortifying the flesh. They then point +with pride to these practices as the cause of their sturdy health and ripe +years; the truth being that they are hearty and old, not because of their +habits, but in spite of them. The +reason we find only robust persons doing this thing is that it has killed all +the others who have tried it.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">day,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> A period of twenty-four hours, mostly +misspent. This period is divided into +two parts, the day proper and the night, or day improper—the former devoted to +sins of business, the latter consecrated to the other sort. These two kinds of social activity overlap.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">dead,</span> <span class="pos">adj.</span></p> + + <table align="center" border="0"> + <tr> + <td valign="top" align="left"> + +<p class="poetry"> +Done with the work of breathing; +done<br /> + +With all the world; the mad race +run<br /> + +Though to the end; the golden goal<br /> + +Attained and found to be a hole!</p> + +<p class="citeauth">Squatol Johnes.</p> + + </td> + </tr> + </table> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">debauchee,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> One who has so earnestly pursued pleasure +that he has had the misfortune to overtake it.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">debt,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> An ingenious substitute for the chain and +whip of the slave-driver.</p> + + <table align="center" border="0"> + <tr> + <td valign="top" align="left"> + +<p class="poetry">As, pent in an aquarium, the troutlet<br /> + +Swims round and round his tank to find an outlet,<br /> +Pressing his nose against the glass that +holds him,<br /> +Nor ever sees the prison that enfolds him;<br /> + +So the poor debtor, seeing naught around him,<br /> +Yet feels the narrow limits that impound him,<br /> +Grieves at his debt and studies to evade it,<br /> +And finds at last he might as well +have paid it.</p> + +<p class="citeauth">Barlow S. Vode.</p> + + </td> + </tr> + </table> + + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">decalogue,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> A series of commandments, ten in number—just +enough to permit an intelligent selection for observance, but not enough to +embarrass the choice. Following is the +revised edition of the Decalogue, calculated for this meridian.</p> + + <table align="center" border="0"> + <tr> + <td valign="top" align="left"> + +<p class="poetry">Thou shalt no God but me adore:<br /> + +‘Twere too expensive to have more.</p> + +<p class="poetry">No images nor idols make<br /> + +For Robert Ingersoll to break.</p> + +<p class="poetry">Take not God’s name in vain; select<br /> +A time when it will have effect.</p> + +<p class="poetry">Work not on Sabbath days at all,<br /> +But go to see the teams play ball.</p> + +<p class="poetry">Honor thy parents. That creates<br /> +For life insurance lower rates.</p> + +<p class="poetry">Kill not, abet not those who kill;<br /> +Thou shalt not pay thy butcher’s bill.</p> + +<p class="poetry">Kiss not thy neighbor’s wife, unless<br /> +Thine own thy neighbor doth caress</p> + +<p class="poetry">Don’t steal; thou’lt never thus compete<br /> +Successfully in business. Cheat.</p> + +<p class="poetry">Bear not false witness—that is low—<br /> +But “hear ‘tis rumored so and so.”</p> + +<p class="poetry">Covet thou naught that thou hast not<br /> +By hook or crook, or somehow, got.</p> + +<p class="citeauth">G. J.</p> + + </td> + </tr> + </table> + + + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">decide,</span> <span class="pos">v.i.</span> To succumb to the preponderance of one set +of influences over another set.</p> + + <table align="center" border="0"> + <tr> + <td valign="top" align="left"> + +<p class="poetry">A leaf was riven from a tree,<br /> +“I mean to fall to earth,” said he.</p> + +<p class="poetry">The west wind, rising, made him veer.<br /> +“Eastward,” said he, “I now shall steer.”</p> + +<p class="poetry">The east wind rose with greater force.<br /> +Said he: “’Twere wise to change my course.”</p> + +<p class="poetry">With equal power they contend.<br /> +He said: “My judgment I suspend.”</p> + +<p class="poetry">Down died the winds; the leaf, elate,<br /> +Cried: “I’ve decided to fall straight.”</p> + +<p class="poetry">“First thoughts are best?” That’s not the moral;<br /> +Just choose your own and we’ll not quarrel.</p> + +<p class="poetry">Howe’er your choice may chance to fall,<br /> +You’ll have no hand in it at all.</p> + +<p class="citeauth">G. J.</p> + + </td> + </tr> + </table> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">defame,</span> <span class="pos">v.t.</span> To lie about +another. To tell the truth about another.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">defenceless,</span> <span class="pos">adj. </span>Unable to attack.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">degenerate,</span> <span class="pos">adj. </span>Less conspicuously admirable than +one’s ancestors. The contemporaries of +Homer were striking examples of degeneracy; it required ten of them to raise a +rock or a riot that one of the heroes of the Trojan war could have raised with +ease. Homer never tires of sneering at +“men who live in these degenerate days,” which is perhaps why they suffered him +to beg his bread—a marked instance of returning good for evil, by the way, for +if they had forbidden him he would certainly have starved.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">degradation,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> One of the stages of moral and +social progress from private station to political preferment.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">deinotherium,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> An extinct pachyderm that flourished +when the Pterodactyl was in fashion. The latter was a native of Ireland, its name being pronounced Terry +Dactyl or Peter O’Dactyl, as the man pronouncing it may chance to have heard it spoken or seen it printed.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">dejeuner,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> The breakfast of an American who has been in +Paris. Variously pronounced.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">delegation,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> In American politics, an article of +merchandise that comes in sets.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">deliberation,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> The act of examining one’s bread to +determine which side it is buttered on.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">deluge,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> A notable first experiment in baptism which +washed away the sins (and sinners) of the world.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">delusion,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> The father of a most respectable family, +comprising Enthusiasm, Affection, Self-denial, Faith, Hope, Charity and many +other goodly sons and daughters.</p> + + <table align="center" border="0"> + <tr> + <td valign="top" align="left"> + +<p class="poetry">All hail, Delusion! Were it not for thee<br /> +The world turned topsy-turvy we should see;<br /> +For Vice, respectable with cleanly fancies,<br /> +Would fly abandoned Virtue’s gross advances.</p> + +<p class="citeauth">Mumfrey Mappel.</p> + + </td> + </tr> + </table> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">dentist,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> A prestidigitator who, putting metal into +your mouth, pulls coins out of your pocket.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">dependent,</span> <span class="pos">adj.</span> Reliant upon another’s generosity +for the support which you are not in a position to exact from his fears.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">deputy,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> A male relative of an office-holder, or of +his bondsman. The deputy is commonly a beautiful young man, with a red necktie and an intricate system of cobwebs +extending from his nose to his desk. When accidentally struck by the janitor’s broom, he gives off a cloud of dust.</p> + + <table align="center" border="0"> + <tr> + <td valign="top" align="left"> + +<p class="poetry">“Chief Deputy,” the Master cried,<br /> +“To-day the books are to be tried<br /> +By experts and accountants who<br /> +Have been commissioned to go through<br /> +Our office here, to see if we<br /> +Have stolen injudiciously.<br /> +Please have the proper entries made,<br /> +The proper balances displayed,<br /> +Conforming to the whole amount<br /> +Of cash on hand—which they will count.<br /> +I’ve long admired your punctual way—<br /> +Here at the break and close of day,<br /> +Confronting in your chair the crowd<br /> +Of business men, whose voices loud<br /> +And gestures violent you quell<br /> +By some mysterious, calm spell—<br /> +Some magic lurking in your look<br /> +That brings the noisiest to book<br /> +And spreads a holy and profound<br /> +Tranquillity o’er all around.<br /> +So orderly all’s done that they<br /> +Who came to draw remain to pay.<br /> +But now the time demands, at last,<br /> +That you employ your genius vast<br /> +In energies more active. Rise<br /> +And shake the lightnings from your eyes;<br /> +Inspire your underlings, and fling<br /> +Your spirit into everything!”<br /> +The Master’s hand here dealt a whack<br /> +Upon the Deputy’s bent back,<br /> +When straightway to the floor there fell<br /> +A shrunken globe, a rattling shell<br /> +A blackened, withered, eyeless head!<br /> +The man had been a twelvemonth dead.</p> +<p class="citeauth">Jamrach Holobom.</p> + + </td> + </tr> + </table> + + + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">destiny,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> A tyrant’s authority for crime and fool’s excuse for failure.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">diagnosis,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> A physician’s forecast of the disease by the +patient’s pulse and purse.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">diaphragm,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> A muscular partition separating disorders of +the chest from disorders of the bowels.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">diary,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> A daily record of that part of one’s life, +which he can relate to himself without blushing.</p> + + <table align="center" border="0"> + <tr> + <td valign="top" align="left"> + +<p class="poetry">Hearst kept a diary wherein were writ<br /> +All that he had of wisdom and of wit.<br /> +So the Recording Angel, when Hearst died,<br /> +Erased all entries of his own and cried:<br /> +“I’ll judge you by your diary.” Said Hearst:<br /> +“Thank you; ‘twill show you I am Saint the First”—<br /> +Straightway producing, jubilant and proud,<br /> +That record from a pocket in his shroud.<br /> +The Angel slowly turned the pages o’er,<br /> +Each stupid line of which he knew before,<br /> +Glooming and +gleaming as by turns he hit<br /> +On Shallow sentiment and stolen wit;<br /> +Then gravely closed the book and gave it back.<br /> +“My friend, you’ve wandered from your proper track:<br /> +You’d never be content this side the tomb—<br /> +For big ideas Heaven has little room,<br /> +And Hell’s no latitude for making mirth,”<br /> +He said, and +kicked the fellow back to earth.</p> + +<p class="citeauth">“The Mad Philosopher.”</p> + + </td> + </tr> + </table> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">dictator,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> The chief of a nation that prefers the +pestilence of despotism to the plague of anarchy.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">dictionary,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> A malevolent literary device for cramping the growth of a language +and making it hard and inelastic. This dictionary, however, is a most useful work.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">die,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> The singular of “dice.” +We seldom hear the word, because there is a +prohibitory proverb, “Never say die.” At long intervals, however, some one says: +“The die is cast,” which is not true, for it is cut. The word is found in an immortal couplet by +that eminent poet and domestic economist, Senator Depew:</p> + + <table align="center" border="0"> + <tr> + <td valign="top" align="left"> + +<p class="poetry">A cube of cheese no larger than a die</p> + May bait the trap to catch a nibbling mie. + + </td> + </tr> + </table> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">digestion,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> The conversion of victuals into +virtues. When the process is imperfect, +vices are evolved instead—a circumstance from which that wicked writer, Dr. +Jeremiah Blenn, infers that the ladies are the greater sufferers from dyspepsia.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">diplomacy,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> The patriotic art of lying for one’s country.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">disabuse,</span> <span class="pos">v.t.</span> The present your neighbor with another and better error than the one +which he has deemed it advantageous to embrace.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">discriminate,</span> <span class="pos">v.i.</span> To note the particulars in which +one person or thing is, if possible, more objectionable than another.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">discussion,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> A method of confirming others in their errors.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">disobedience,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> The silver lining to the cloud of servitude.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">disobey,</span> <span class="pos">v.t.</span> To celebrate with an appropriate ceremony the maturity of a command.</p> + + <table align="center" border="0"> + <tr> + <td valign="top" align="left"> + +<p class="poetry">His right to govern me is clear as day,<br /> +My duty manifest to disobey;<br /> +And if that fit observance e’er I shut<br /> +May I and duty be alike undone.</p> + +<p class="citeauth">Israfel Brown.</p> + + </td> + </tr> + </table> + + + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">dissemble,</span> <span class="pos">v.i.</span> To put a clean shirt upon the character.</p> + +<p class="quote" style="text-align: center">Let us dissemble.—<i>Adam.</i></p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">distance,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> The only thing that the rich are willing for +the poor to call theirs, and keep.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">distress,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> A disease incurred by exposure to the prosperity of a friend.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">divination,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> The art of nosing out the +occult. Divination is of as many kinds +as there are fruit-bearing varieties of the flowering dunce and the early fool.</p> + +<p id="dog" class="entry"><span class="def">dog,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> A kind of additional or subsidiary Deity +designed to catch the overflow and surplus of the world’s worship. This Divine Being in some of his smaller and +silkier incarnations takes, in the affection of Woman, the place to which there +is no human male aspirant. The Dog is a survival—an anachronism. He toils not, +neither does he spin, yet Solomon in all his glory never lay upon a door-mat +all day long, sun-soaked and fly-fed and fat, while his master worked for the +means wherewith to purchase the idle wag of the Solomonic tail, seasoned with a +look of tolerant recognition.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">dragoon,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> A soldier who combines dash and steadiness in so equal measure +that he makes his advances on foot and his retreats on horseback.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">dramatist,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> One who adapts plays from the French.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">druids,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> Priests and ministers of an ancient Celtic +religion which did not disdain to employ the humble allurement of human +sacrifice. Very little is now known +about the Druids and their faith. Pliny +says their religion, originating in Britain, spread eastward as far as +Persia. Caesar says those who desired +to study its mysteries went to Britain. Caesar himself went to Britain, but does not appear to have obtained any +high preferment in the Druidical Church, although his talent for human sacrifice +was considerable.</p> + +<p class="indentpara">Druids performed their +religious rites in groves, and knew nothing of church mortgages and the +season-ticket system of pew rents. They +were, in short, heathens and—as they were once complacently catalogued by a +distinguished prelate of the Church of England—<i>Dissenters.</i></p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">duck-bill,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> Your account at your restaurant during the canvas-back season.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">duel,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> A formal ceremony preliminary to the +reconciliation of two enemies. Great skill is necessary to its satisfactory observance; if awkwardly performed the +most unexpected and deplorable consequences sometimes ensue. A long time ago a man lost his life in a duel.</p> + + <table align="center" border="0"> + <tr> + <td valign="top" align="left"> + +<p class="poetry">That dueling’s a gentlemanly vice<br /> +<span class="ind1"> +I hold; and wish that it had been my lot</span><br /> +<span class="ind1"> +To live my life out in some favored spot—</span><br /> +Some country where it is considered nice<br /> +To split a rival like a fish, or slice<br /> +<span class="ind1"> +A husband like a spud, or with a shot</span><br /> +<span class="ind1"> +Bring down a debtor doubled in a knot</span><br /> +And ready to be put upon the ice.<br /> +Some miscreants there are, whom I do long<br /> +<span class="ind1"> +To shoot, to stab, or some such way reclaim</span><br /> +The scurvy rogues to better lives and manners,<br /> +I seem +to see them now—a mighty throng.<br /> +<span class="ind1"> +It looks as if to challenge me they came,</span><br /> +Jauntily marching with brass bands and banners!</p> + +<p class="citeauth">Xamba Q. Dar.</p> + + </td> + </tr> + </table> + + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">Dullard,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> A member of the reigning dynasty in letters +and life. The Dullards came in with +Adam, and being both numerous and sturdy have overrun the habitable world. The secret of their power is their +insensibility to blows; tickle them with a bludgeon and they laugh with a +platitude. The Dullards came originally +from Boeotia, whence they were driven by stress of starvation, their dullness +having blighted the crops. For some +centuries they infested Philistia, and many of them are called Philistines to +this day. In the turbulent times of the +Crusades they withdrew thence and gradually overspread all Europe, occupying +most of the high places in politics, art, literature, science and +theology. Since a detachment of +Dullards came over with the Pilgrims in the <i>Mayflower</i> +and made a favorable report of the country, their increase by birth, immigration, +and conversion has been rapid and steady. According to the most trustworthy statistics the number of adult +Dullards in the United States is but little short of thirty millions, including +the statisticians. The intellectual +centre of the race is somewhere about Peoria, Illinois, but the New England +Dullard is the most shockingly moral.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">duty,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> That which sternly impels us in the direction of profit, along the line of desire.</p> + + <table align="center" border="0"> + <tr> + <td valign="top" align="left"> + +<p class="poetry">Sir Lavender Portwine, in favor at court,</p> +Was wroth at his master, who’d kissed Lady Port.<br /> +His anger provoked him to take the king’s head,<br /> +But duty prevailed, and he took the king’s bread,<br /> +<span class="ind3"> +Instead.</span> +<p class="citeauth">G. J.</p> + + </td> + </tr> + </table> + +</body> +</html>
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+<dc-metadata xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.0/"
+ xmlns:oebpackage="http://openebook.org/namespaces/oeb-package/1.0">
+<dc:Title>The Devil's Dictionary</dc:Title>
+<dc:Type>Essay</dc:Type>
+<dc:Identifier scheme="none">123456789X</dc:Identifier>
+<dc:Creator role="aut" file-as="Bierce, Ambrose">Ambrose Bierce</dc:Creator>
+<dc:Subject>acidic commentary</dc:Subject>
+<dc:Publisher>PetesGuide.com</dc:Publisher>
+<dc:Contributor>Peter K. Sheerin</dc:Contributor>
+<dc:Contributor>Peter K. Sheerin</dc:Contributor>
+<dc:Date event="creation">1911</dc:Date>
+<dc:Date event="electronic publication">2000/07/21</dc:Date>
+<dc:Rights>This work is now in the public domain. This edition is based on the Project Guttenberg plain ASCII edition.</dc:Rights>
+<dc:Language>en-us</dc:Language>
+<dc:Coverage>Commentary on the use of language in the early 1900’s</dc:Coverage>
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+<tours>
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+<site title="Abracadabra" href="A.html#abracadabra"/>
+<site title="Spring Beckons!" href="A.html#abscond"/>
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diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/E.html b/lib/ebooks/devils/E.html new file mode 100644 index 00000000..ed43e176 --- /dev/null +++ b/lib/ebooks/devils/E.html @@ -0,0 +1,629 @@ +<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-16"?> +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "+//ISBN 0-9673008-1-9//DTD OEB 1.0 Document//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: E</title> +</head> + +<body lang="en-us"> + +<h1>E</h1> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">eat,</span> <span class="pos">v.i.</span> To perform +successively (and successfully) the functions of mastication, humectation, and deglutition.</p> + +<p class="indentpara">“I was in the drawing-room, enjoying my dinner,” said Brillat-Savarin, beginning +an anecdote. “What!” interrupted Rochebriant; “eating dinner in a drawing-room?” “I must beg you to +observe, monsieur,” explained the great gastronome, “that I did not say I was eating my dinner, but enjoying it. I +had dined an hour before.”</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">eavesdrop,</span> <span class="pos">v.i.</span> Secretly +to overhear a catalogue +of the crimes and vices of another or yourself.</p> + + <table align="center" border="0"> + <tr> + <td valign="top" align="left"> + +<p class="poetry">A lady with one of her ears applied<br /> +To an open keyhole heard, inside,<br /> +Two female gossips in converse +free—<br /> +The subject engaging them was she.<br /> +“I think,” said +one, “and my husband thinks<br /> +That she’s a prying, inquisitive minx!”<br /> +As soon as no more of it she could +hear<br /> +The lady, indignant, removed her +ear.<br /> +“I will not stay,” +she said, with a pout,<br /> +“To hear my character lied about!”</p> + +<p class="citeauth">Gopete Sherany.</p> + + </td> + </tr> + </table> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">eccentricity,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> A method of distinction so cheap +that fools employ it to accentuate their incapacity.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">economy,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> Purchasing +the barrel of whiskey that you do +not need for the price of the cow that you cannot afford.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">edible,</span> <span class="pos">adj.</span> Good to eat, +and wholesome to digest, as a +worm to a toad, a toad to a snake, a snake to a pig, a pig to a man, and a man +to a worm.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">editor,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> A person who combines the judicial functions +of Minos, Rhadamanthus and Aeacus, but is placable with an obolus; a severely +virtuous censor, but so charitable withal that he tolerates the virtues of +others and the vices of himself; who flings about him the splintering lightning +and sturdy thunders of admonition till he resembles a bunch of firecrackers +petulantly uttering his mind at the tail of a dog; then straightway murmurs a +mild, melodious lay, soft as the cooing of a donkey intoning its prayer to the +evening star. Master of mysteries and +lord of law, high-pinnacled upon the throne of thought, his face suffused with +the dim splendors of the Transfiguration, his legs intertwisted and his tongue +a-cheek, the editor spills his will along the paper and cuts it off in lengths +to suit. And at intervals from behind +the veil of the temple is heard the voice of the foreman demanding three inches +of wit and six lines of religious meditation, or bidding him turn off the wisdom +and whack up some pathos.</p> + + <table align="center" border="0"> + <tr> + <td valign="top" align="left"> + +<p class="poetry">O, the Lord of Law +on the Throne of Thought,<br /> +<span class="ind1">A gilded impostor is he.</span><br /> +Of shreds and +patches his robes are wrought,<br /> +<span class="ind3"> +His crown is brass,</span><br /> +<span class="ind3"> +Himself an ass,</span><br /> +<span class="ind1"> +And his power is fiddle-dee-dee.</span><br /> +Prankily, crankily prating of +naught,<br /> +Silly old quilly old Monarch of +Thought.<br /> +<span class="ind1"> +Public opinion’s +camp-follower he,</span><br /> +<span class="ind1">Thundering, blundering, plundering free.</span><br /> +<span class="ind3"> +Affected,</span><br /> +<span class="ind6"> +Ungracious,</span><br /> +<span class="ind3"> +Suspected,</span><br /> +<span class="ind6"> +Mendacious,</span><br /> +Respected contemporaree!</p> + +<p class="citeauth">J.H. Bumbleshook.</p> + + </td> + </tr> + </table> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">education,</span> <span class="pos"> n.</span> That +which discloses to the wise and disguises from the foolish their lack of +understanding.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">effect,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> The second of two phenomena which always +occur together in the same order. The +first, called a Cause, is said to generate the other—which is no more sensible +than it would be for one who has never seen a dog except in the pursuit of a +rabbit to declare the rabbit the cause of a dog.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">egotist,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> A +person of low taste, more interested in himself than in me.</p> + + <table align="center" border="0"> + <tr> + <td valign="top" align="left"> + +<p class="poetry">Megaceph, chosen to serve the State<br /> +In the halls of legislative debate,<br /> +One day with all his credentials +came<br /> +To the capitol’s door and announced +his name.<br /> +The doorkeeper looked, with a +comical twist<br /> +Of the face, at the eminent +egotist,<br /> +And said: “Go away, for we settle here<br /> +All manner of questions, knotty and +queer,<br /> +And we cannot have, when the +speaker demands<br /> +To be told how every member stands,<br /> +A man who to all things under the +sky<br /> +Assents by eternally voting ‘I’.” + </p> + </td> + </tr> + </table> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">ejection,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> An approved remedy for the disease of +garrulity. It is also much used in +cases of extreme poverty.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">elector,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> One who enjoys the sacred privilege of +voting for the man of another man’s choice.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">electricity,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> The power that causes all natural +phenomena not known to be caused by something else. It is the same thing as lightning, and its famous attempt to +strike Dr. Franklin is one of the most picturesque incidents in that great and +good man’s career. The memory of Dr. +Franklin is justly held in great reverence, particularly in France, where a +waxen effigy of him was recently on exhibition, bearing the following touching +account of his life and services to science:</p> + +<p class="quote">“Monsieur +Franqulin, inventor of electricity. +This illustrious savant, after having made several voyages around the +world, died on the Sandwich Islands and was devoured by savages, of whom not a +single fragment was ever recovered.”</p> + +<p class="indentpara">Electricity seems +destined to play a most important part in the arts and industries. The question of its economical application +to some purposes is still unsettled, but experiment has already proved that it +will propel a street car better than a gas jet and give more light than a +horse.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">elegy,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> A composition in verse, in which, without +employing any of the methods of humor, the writer aims to produce in the +reader’s mind the dampest kind of dejection. +The most famous English example begins somewhat like this:</p> + + <table align="center" border="0"> + <tr> + <td valign="top" align="left"> + +<p class="poetry">The cur foretells +the knell of parting day;<br /> +<span class="ind1"> +The loafing herd +winds slowly o’er the lea;</span><br /> +The wise man +homeward plods; I only stay<br /> +<span class="ind1"> +To fiddle-faddle +in a minor key.</span> + </p> + </td> + </tr> + </table> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">eloquence,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> +The art of orally persuading fools that white +is the color that it appears to be. It +includes the gift of making any color appear white.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">elysium,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> An imaginary delightful country which the +ancients foolishly believed to be inhabited by the spirits of the good. This ridiculous and mischievous fable was +swept off the face of the earth by the early Christians—may their souls be +happy in Heaven!</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">emancipation,</span> <span class="pos"> +n.</span> A bondman’s change from the tyranny +of another to the despotism of himself.</p> + + <table align="center" border="0"> + <tr> + <td valign="top" align="left"> + +<p class="poetry">He was a +slave: at word he went and came;<br /> +<span class="ind1"> +His iron collar cut +him to the bone.</span><br /> +Then Liberty +erased his owner’s name,<br /> +<span class="ind1"> +Tightened the +rivets and inscribed his own.</span></p> + +<p class="citeauth">G. J.</p> + + </td> + </tr> + </table> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">embalm,</span> <span class="pos">v.i.</span> To cheat vegetation by locking up the gases +upon which it feeds. By embalming their +dead and thereby deranging the natural balance between animal and vegetable +life, the Egyptians made their once fertile and populous country barren and +incapable of supporting more than a meagre crew. The modern metallic burial casket is a step in the same direction, +and many a dead man who ought now to be ornamenting his neighbor’s lawn as a +tree, or enriching his table as a bunch of radishes, is doomed to a long +inutility. We shall get him after +awhile if we are spared, but in the meantime the violet and rose are +languishing for a nibble at his <i>glutoeus +maximus</i>.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">emotion,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> A prostrating disease caused by a +determination of the heart to the head. +It is sometimes accompanied by a copious discharge of hydrated chloride +of sodium from the eyes.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">encomiast,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> A special (but not particular) kind of liar.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">end,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> The position farthest removed on either hand +from the Interlocutor.</p> + + <table align="center" border="0"> + <tr> + <td valign="top" align="left"> + +<p class="poetry">The man was +perishing apace<br /> +<span class="ind1"> +Who played the +tambourine;</span><br /> +The seal of death +was on his face—<br /> +<span class="ind1"> +‘Twas pallid, for +‘twas clean.</span></p> + +<p class="poetry">“This is the end,” +the sick man said<br /> +<span class="ind1"> +In faint and +failing tones.</span><br /> +A moment later he +was dead,<br /> +<span class="ind1"> +And Tambourine was +Bones.</span></p> + +<p class="citeauth">Tinley Roquot.</p> + + </td> + </tr> + </table> + +<p></p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">enough,</span> <span class="pos">pro.</span> All there is in the world if you like it.</p> + + <table align="center" border="0"> + <tr> + <td valign="top" align="left"> + +<p class="poetry">Enough is as good +as a feast—for that matter<br /> +Enougher’s as good as a feast for the platter.</p> +<p class="citeauth">Arbely C. Strunk. </p> + + </td> + </tr> + </table> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">entertainment,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> Any kind of amusement whose inroads +stop short of death by injection.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">enthusiasm,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> A distemper of youth, curable by +small doses of repentance in connection with outward applications of +experience. Byron, who recovered long +enough to call it “entuzy-muzy,” had a relapse, which carried him off—to +Missolonghi.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">envelope,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> The coffin of a document; the scabbard of a +bill; the husk of a remittance; the bed-gown of a love-letter.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">envy,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> Emulation adapted to the meanest capacity.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">epaulet,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> An ornamented badge, serving to distinguish +a military officer from the enemy—that is to say, from the officer of lower +rank to whom his death would give promotion.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">epicure,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> An opponent of Epicurus, an abstemious +philosopher who, holding that pleasure should be the chief aim of man, wasted +no time in gratification from the senses.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">epigram,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> A short, sharp saying in prose or verse, +frequently characterize by acidity or acerbity and sometimes by wisdom. Following are some of the more notable +epigrams of the learned and ingenious Dr. Jamrach Holobom:</p> + + <blockquote> +<p>We know better the +needs of ourselves than of others. To +serve oneself is economy of administration.</p> +<p>In each human +heart are a tiger, a pig, an ass and a nightingale. Diversity of character is due to their unequal activity.</p> +<p>There are three +sexes; males, females and girls.</p> +<p>Beauty in women +and distinction in men are alike in this: +they seem to be +the unthinking a kind of credibility.</p> +<p>Women in love are +less ashamed than men. They have less +to be ashamed of.</p> +<p>While your friend +holds you affectionately by both your hands you are safe, for you can watch +both his.</p> + </blockquote> + + + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">epitaph,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> An inscription on a tomb, showing that +virtues acquired by death have a retroactive effect. Following is a touching example:</p> + + <table align="center" border="0"> + <tr> + <td valign="top" align="left"> + +<p class="poetry">Here lie the bones of Parson Platt,<br /> +Wise, pious, humble and all that,<br /> +Who showed us life as all should +live it;<br /> +Let that be said—and God forgive +it! </p> + + </td> + </tr> + </table> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">erudition,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> Dust shaken out of a book into an empty +skull.</p> + + <table align="center" border="0"> + <tr> + <td valign="top" align="left"> + +<p class="poetry">So wide his erudition’s mighty +span,<br /> +He knew Creation’s origin and plan<br /> +And only came by accident to grief—<br /> +He thought, poor man, ‘twas right +to be a thief.</p> + +<p></p> + +<p class="citeauth">Romach Pute.</p> + + </td> + </tr> + </table> + +<p></p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">esoteric,</span> <span class="pos">adj.</span> Very particularly abstruse and +consummately occult. The ancient +philosophies were of two kinds,<i>—exoteric</i>, +those that the philosophers themselves could partly understand, and <i>esoteric</i>, those that nobody could +understand. It is the latter that have +most profoundly affected modern thought and found greatest acceptance in our +time.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">ethnology,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> The science that treats of the various +tribes of Man, as robbers, thieves, swindlers, dunces, lunatics, idiots and +ethnologists.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">Eucharist,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> A sacred feast of the religious sect of +Theophagi.</p> + +<p class="indentpara">A dispute once +unhappily arose among the members of this sect as to what it was that they +ate. In this controversy some five +hundred thousand have already been slain, and the question is still unsettled.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">eulogy,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> Praise of a person who has either the +advantages of wealth and power, or the consideration to be dead.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">evangelist,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> A bearer of good tidings, +particularly (in a religious sense) such as assure us of our own salvation and +the damnation of our neighbors.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">everlasting,</span> <span class="pos">adj.</span> Lasting forever. It is with no small diffidence that I +venture to offer this brief and elementary definition, for I am not unaware of +the existence of a bulky volume by a sometime Bishop of Worcester, entitled, <i>A +Partial Definition of the Word “Everlasting,” as Used in the Authorized Version +of the Holy Scriptures</i>. His book was +once esteemed of great authority in the Anglican Church, and is still, I +understand, studied with pleasure to the mind and profit of the soul.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">exception,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> A thing which takes the liberty to differ +from other things of its class, as an honest man, a truthful woman, etc. “The exception proves the rule” is an +expression constantly upon the lips of the ignorant, who parrot it from one +another with never a thought of its absurdity. +In the Latin, “<i>Exceptio probat regulam</i>” means that the exception <i>tests</i> the rule, puts it to the proof, not <i>confirms</i> it. +The malefactor who drew the meaning from this excellent dictum +and substituted a contrary one of his own exerted an evil power which appears +to be immortal.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">excess,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> In morals, an indulgence that enforces by +appropriate penalties the law of moderation.</p> + + <table align="center" border="0"> + <tr> + <td valign="top" align="left"> + +<p class="poetry"> + +Hail, high +Excess—especially in wine,<br /> +<span class="ind1"> +To thee in worship +do I bend the knee</span><br /> +<span class="ind1"> + Who preach abstemiousness unto me—</span><br /> +My skull thy +pulpit, as my paunch thy shrine.<br /> +Precept on +precept, aye, and line on line,<br /> +<span class="ind1"> +Could ne’er +persuade so sweetly to agree</span><br /> +<span class="ind1"> +With reason as thy +touch, exact and free,</span><br /> +Upon my forehead +and along my spine.<br /> +At thy command +eschewing pleasure’s cup,<br /> +<span class="ind1"> +With the hot grape +I warm no more my wit;</span><br /> +<span class="ind1"> +When on thy stool +of penitence I sit</span><br /> +I’m quite converted, for I can’t +get up.<br /> +Ungrateful he who afterward would +falter<br /> +To make new sacrifices at thine +altar!</p> + + </td> + </tr> + </table> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">excommunication,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span></p> + + <table align="center" border="0"> + <tr> + <td valign="top" align="left"> + +<p class="poetry">This “excommunication” is a word<br /> +In speech ecclesiastical oft heard,<br /> +And means the +damning, with bell, book and candle,<br /> +Some sinner whose opinions are a scandal—<br /> +A rite permitting +Satan to enslave him<br /> +Forever, and forbidding Christ to save him.</p> + +<p class="citeauth">Gat Huckle.</p> + + </td> + </tr> + </table> + +<p></p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">executive,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> An officer of the Government, whose duty it +is to enforce the wishes of the legislative power until such time as the +judicial department shall be pleased to pronounce them invalid and of no +effect. Following is an extract from an +old book entitled, <i>The Lunarian Astonished—</i>Pfeiffer & Co., Boston, +1803:</p> +<blockquote> +<p>Lunarian: Then when your Congress has passed a law it +goes directly to the Supreme Court in order that it may at once be known whether it is constitutional?</p> + +<p>Terrestrain: O no; it does not require the approval of +the Supreme Court until having perhaps been enforced for many years somebody objects to its +operation against himself—I mean his client. +The President, if he approves it, begins to execute it at once.</p> + +<p>Lunarian: Ah, the executive power is a part of the legislative.</p> + +<p>Do your policemen also have to approve the local ordinances that they enforce?</p> + +<p>Terrestrian: Not yet—at least not in their character of constables. +Generally speaking, though, all laws require the approval of those whom they are intended to restrain.</p> + +<p>Lunarian: I see. The death warrant is not valid until signed by the murderer.</p> + +<p>Terrestrian: My friend, you put it too strongly; we are not so consistent.</p> + +<p>Lunarian: But this system of maintaining an expensive +judicial machinery to pass upon the validity of laws only after they have long been executed, and then +only when brought before the court by some private person—does it not cause great confusion?</p> + +<p>Terrestrian: It does.</p> + +<p>Lunarian: Why then should not your laws, previously to +being executed, be validated, not by the signature of your President, but by that of the Chief +Justice of the Supreme Court?</p> + +<p>Terrestrian: There is no precedent for any such course.</p> + +<p>Lunarian: Precedent. What is that?</p> + +<p>Terrestrian: It has been defined by five hundred lawyers +in three volumes each. So how can any one know?</p> +</blockquote> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">exhort,</span> <span class="pos">v.t.</span> In +religious affairs, to put the conscience of another upon the spit and roast it +to a nut-brown discomfort.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">exile,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> One who serves his country by residing +abroad, yet is not an ambassador.</p> + +<p class="indentpara">An English +sea-captain being asked if he had read “The Exile of Erin,” replied: “No, sir, but I should like to anchor on +it.” Years afterwards, when he had been +hanged as a pirate after a career of unparalleled atrocities, the following +memorandum was found in the ship’s log that he had kept at the time of his +reply:</p> + +<p class="quote">Aug. 3d, +1842. Made a joke on the ex-Isle of Erin. Coldly received. War with the whole world!</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">existence,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span></p> + + <table align="center" border="0"> + <tr> + <td valign="top" align="left"> + +<p class="poetry">A transient, +horrible, fantastic dream,<br /> +Wherein is nothing yet all things do seem:<br /> +From which we’re +wakened by a friendly nudge<br /> +Of our bedfellow Death, and cry: “O fudge!”</p> + + </td> + </tr> + </table> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">experience,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> The wisdom that enables us to recognize +as an undesirable old acquaintance the folly that we have already embraced.</p> + + <table align="center" border="0"> + <tr> + <td valign="top" align="left"> + +<p class="poetry">To one who, +journeying through night and fog,<br /> +Is mired neck-deep in an unwholesome bog,<br /> +Experience, like the rising of the dawn,<br /> +Reveals the path that he should not +have gone.</p> + +<p class="citeauth">Joel Frad Bink.</p> + + </td> + </tr> + </table> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">expostulation,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> One of the many methods by which +fools prefer to lose their friends.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">extinction,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> The raw material out of which +theology created the future state.</p> + + +</body> + +</html> diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/E.html.annot b/lib/ebooks/devils/E.html.annot new file mode 100644 index 00000000..e69de29b --- /dev/null +++ b/lib/ebooks/devils/E.html.annot diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/E.html.i b/lib/ebooks/devils/E.html.i new file mode 100644 index 00000000..0d208de6 --- /dev/null +++ b/lib/ebooks/devils/E.html.i @@ -0,0 +1,31 @@ +14 pages +size 400 552 +length 26246 +397 2 11 body html +0 +2053 2 56 body html +0 +3718 2 81 body html +0 +5641 2 133 body html +0 +7742 2 182 body html +51 +10267 2 247 body html +39 +12629 2 305 body html +0 +14666 2 344 body html +118 +16609 2 408 body html +22 +18788 2 443 body html +56 +20989 2 501 body html +0 +21978 2 528 body html +284 +21978 2 528 body html +823 +25433 2 603 body html +0 diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/F.html b/lib/ebooks/devils/F.html new file mode 100644 index 00000000..2760de3d --- /dev/null +++ b/lib/ebooks/devils/F.html @@ -0,0 +1,578 @@ +<?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/css" href="devil.css" /> +<title>The Devil’s Dictionary: F</title> +</head> + +<body lang="en-US"> + +<h1>F</h1> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">fairy,</span> <span class="pos"> n.</span> A creature, variously fashioned and endowed, +that formerly inhabited the meadows and forests. It was nocturnal in its habits, +and somewhat addicted to dancing and the theft of children. The fairies +are now believed by naturalist to be extinct, though a clergyman of the Church +of England saw three near Colchester as lately as 1855, while passing through a +park after dining with the lord of the manor. +The sight greatly staggered him, and he was so affected that his account +of it was incoherent. In the year 1807 +a troop of fairies visited a wood near Aix and carried off the daughter of a +peasant, who had been seen to enter it with a bundle of clothing. The son of a wealthy +<i>bourgeois</i> disappeared about the same time, +but afterward returned. He had seen the +abduction been in pursuit of the fairies. +Justinian Gaux, a writer of the fourteenth century, avers that so great +is the fairies’ power of transformation that he saw one change itself into two +opposing armies and fight a battle with great slaughter, and that the next day, +after it had resumed its original shape and gone away, there were seven hundred +bodies of the slain which the villagers had to bury. He does not say if any of the +wounded recovered. In the time of Henry III, of England, a law +was made which prescribed the death penalty for “Kyllynge, wowndynge, or +mamynge” a fairy, and it was universally respected.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">faith,</span> <span class="pos"> n.</span> Belief without evidence in what is told by +one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel.</p> + +<p id="famous" class="entry"><span class="def">famous,</span> <span class="pos">adj.</span> Conspicuously miserable.</p> + + <table align="center" border="0"> + <tr> + <td valign="top" align="left"> + +<p class="poetry">Done to a turn on +the iron, behold<br /> +Him who to be +famous aspired.<br /> +Content? Well, his grill has a plating of gold,<br /> +And his twistings +are greatly admired.</p> + +<p class="citeauth">Hassan Brubuddy.</p> + + </td> + </tr> + </table> + +<p class="entry"> </p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">fashion,</span> <span class="pos"> n.</span> A despot whom the wise ridicule and obey.</p> + + <table align="center" border="0"> + <tr> + <td valign="top" align="left"> + +<p class="poetry">A king there was +who lost an eye<br /> +In some excess of +passion;<br /> +And straight his +courtiers all did try<br /> +To follow the new +fashion.<br /> +Each dropped one +eyelid when before<br /> +The throne he +ventured, thinking<br /> +‘Twould please the +king. That monarch swore<br /> +He’d slay them all +for winking.<br /> +What should they +do? They were not hot<br /> +To hazard such +disaster;<br /> +They dared not +close an eye—dared not<br /> +See better than +their master.<br /> +Seeing them +lacrymose and glum,<br /> +A leech consoled +the weepers:<br /> +He spread small +rags with liquid gum<br /> +And covered half +their peepers.<br /> +The court all wore +the stuff, the flame<br /> +Of royal anger +dying.<br /> +That’s how +court-plaster got its name<br /> +Unless I’m greatly +lying.</p> + +<p class="citeauth">Naramy Oof.</p> + + </td> + </tr> + </table> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">feast,</span> <span class="pos"> n.</span> A festival. +A religious celebration usually signalized by gluttony and drunkenness, frequently +in honor of some holy person distinguished for abstemiousness. In the Roman Catholic +Church feasts are +“movable” and “immovable,” but the celebrants are uniformly immovable until +they are full. In their earliest +development these entertainments took the form of feasts for the dead; such +were held by the Greeks, under the name <i>Nemeseia</i>, +by the Aztecs and Peruvians, as in modern times they are popular with the +Chinese; though it is believed that the ancient dead, like the modern, were +light eaters. Among the many feasts of +the Romans was the <i>Novemdiale</i>, +which was held, according to Livy, whenever stones fell from heaven.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">felon,</span> <span class="pos"> n.</span> A person of greater enterprise than +discretion, who in embracing an opportunity has formed an unfortunate +attachment.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">female,</span> <span class="pos"> n.</span> One of the opposing, or unfair, sex.</p> + + <table align="center" border="0"> + <tr> + <td valign="top" align="left"> + +<p class="poetry">The Maker, at Creation’s birth,<br /> +With living things had stocked the +earth.<br /> +From elephants to bats and snails,<br /> +They all were good, for all were +males.<br /> +But when the Devil came and saw<br /> +He said: “By Thine eternal law<br /> +Of growth, maturity, decay,<br /> +These all must quickly pass away<br /> +And leave untenanted the earth<br /> +Unless Thou dost establish birth”—<br /> +Then tucked his head beneath his +wing<br /> +To laugh—he had no sleeve—the thing<br /> +With deviltry did so accord,<br /> +That he’d suggested to the Lord.<br /> +The Master pondered this advice,<br /> +Then shook and threw the fateful +dice<br /> +Wherewith all matters here below<br /> +Are ordered, and observed the +throw;<br /> +Then bent His head in awful state,<br /> +Confirming the decree of Fate.<br /> +From every part of earth anew<br /> +The conscious dust consenting flew,<br /> +While rivers from their courses rolled<br /> +To make it plastic for the mould.<br /> +Enough collected (but no more,<br /> +For niggard Nature hoards her store)<br /> +He kneaded it to flexible clay,<br /> +While Nick unseen threw some away.<br /> +And then the various forms He cast,<br /> +Gross organs first and finer last;<br /> +No one at once evolved, but all<br /> +By even touches grew and small<br /> +Degrees advanced, till, shade by shade,<br /> +To match all living things He’d made<br /> +Females, complete in all their parts<br /> +Except (His clay gave out) thec hearts.<br /> +“No matter,” Satan cried; “with speed<br /> +I’ll fetch the very hearts they need”—<br /> +So flew away and soon brought back<br /> +The number needed, in a sack.<br /> +That night earth range with sounds of strife—<br /> +Ten million males each had a wife;<br /> +That night sweet Peace her pinions spread<br /> +O’er Hell—ten million devils dead!</p> + +<p class="citeauth">G. J.</p> + + + + </td> + </tr> + </table> + + + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">fib,</span> <span class="pos"> n.</span> A lie that has not cut its teeth. An habitual liar’s +nearest approach to truth: the perigee of his eccentric orbit.</p> + + <table align="center" border="0"> + <tr> + <td valign="top" align="left"> + +<p class="poetry">When David said: “All men are liars,” Dave,<br /> +Himself a liar, fibbed like any thief.<br /> +Perhaps he thought to weaken disbelief<br /> +By proof that even himself was not a slave<br /> +To Truth; though I suspect the aged knave<br /> +Had been of all her servitors the chief<br /> +Had he but known a fig’s reluctant leaf<br /> +Is more than e’er she wore on land or wave.<br /> +No, David served not Naked Truth when he<br /> +Struck that sledge-hammer blow at all his race;<br /> +Nor did he hit the nail upon the head:<br /> +For reason shows that it could never be,<br /> +And the facts contradict him to his face.<br /> +Men are not liars all, for some are dead.</p> + +<p class="citeauth">Bartle Quinker.</p> + + </td> + </tr> + </table> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">fickleness,</span> <span class="pos"> n.</span> The iterated satiety of an +enterprising affection.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">fiddle,</span> <span class="pos"> n.</span> An instrument to tickle human ears by +friction of a horse’s tail on the entrails of a cat.</p> + +<p class="quote">To Rome said +Nero: “If to smoke you turn I shall not +cease to fiddle while you burn.” To Nero Rome replied: “Pray do your worst, +‘Tis my excuse that you were fiddling first.”—<i>Orm Pludge</i></p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">fidelity,</span> <span class="pos"> n.</span> A virtue peculiar to those who are about to +be betrayed.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">finance,</span> <span class="pos"> n.</span> The art or science of managing revenues and resources +for the best advantage of the manager. +The pronunciation of this word with the i long and the accent on the +first syllable is one of America’s most precious discoveries and possessions.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">flag,</span> <span class="pos"> n.</span> A colored rag borne above troops and hoisted +on forts and ships. It appears to serve +the same purpose as certain signs that one sees and vacant lots in +London—“Rubbish may be shot here.”</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">flesh,</span> <span class="pos"> n.</span> The Second Person of the secular Trinity.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">flop,</span> <span class="pos"> v.</span> Suddenly to change one’s opinions and go +over to another party. The most notable +flop on record was that of Saul of Tarsus, who has been severely criticised as +a turn-coat by some of our partisan journals.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">fly-speck,</span> <span class="pos"> n.</span> The prototype of punctuation. It is observed by +Garvinus that the systems +of punctuation in use by the various literary nations depended originally upon +the social habits and general diet of the flies infesting the several +countries. These creatures, which have +always been distinguished for a neighborly and companionable familiarity with +authors, liberally or niggardly embellish the manuscripts in process of growth +under the pen, according to their bodily habit, bringing out the sense of the +work by a species of interpretation superior to, and independent of, the +writer’s powers. The “old masters” of +literature—that is to say, the early writers whose work is so esteemed by later +scribes and critics in the same language—never punctuated at all, but worked +right along free-handed, without that abruption of the thought which comes from +the use of points. (We observe the same +thing in children to-day, whose usage in this particular is a striking and +beautiful instance of the law that the infancy of individuals reproduces the +methods and stages of development characterizing the infancy of races.) +In the work of these primitive scribes all +the punctuation is found, by the modern investigator with his optical +instruments and chemical tests, to have been inserted by the writers’ ingenious +and serviceable collaborator, the common house-fly—<i>Musca maledicta</i>. +In transcribing these ancient MSS, for the purpose of either +making the work their own or preserving what they naturally regard as divine +revelations, later writers reverently and accurately copy whatever marks they +find upon the papyrus or parchment, to the unspeakable enhancement of the +lucidity of the thought and value of the work. +Writers contemporary with the copyists naturally avail themselves of the +obvious advantages of these marks in their own work, and with such assistance +as the flies of their own household may be willing to grant, frequently rival +and sometimes surpass the older compositions, in respect at least of +punctuation, which is no small glory. +Fully to understand the important services that flies perform to +literature it is only necessary to lay a page of some popular novelist +alongside a saucer of cream-and-molasses in a sunny room and observe “how the +wit brightens and the style refines” in accurate proportion to the duration of +exposure.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">folly,</span> <span class="pos"> n.</span> That “gift and faculty divine” whose +creative and controlling energy inspires Man’s mind, guides his actions and +adorns his life.</p> + + <table align="center" border="0"> + <tr> + <td valign="top" align="left"> + +<p class="poetry">Folly! although Erasmus praised thee once<br /> +In a thick volume, and all authors known,<br /> +If not thy glory yet thy power have shown,<br /> +Deign to take homage from thy son who hunts<br /> +Through all thy maze his brothers, fool and dunce,<br /> +To mend their lives and to sustain his own,<br /> +However feebly be his arrows thrown,<br /> +Howe’er each hide the flying weapons blunts.<br /> +All-Father Folly! be it mine to raise,<br /> +With lusty lung, here on his western strand<br /> +With all thine offspring thronged from every land,<br /> +Thyself inspiring me, the song of praise.<br /> +And if too weak, I’ll hire, to help me bawl,<br /> +Dick Watson Gilder, gravest of us all.</p> + +<p class="citeauth">Aramis Loto Frope.</p> + + </td> + </tr> + </table> + +<p id="fool" class="entry"><span class="def">fool,</span> <span class="pos"> n.</span> A person who pervades the domain of +intellectual speculation and diffuses himself through the channels of moral +activity. He is omnific, omniform, +omnipercipient, omniscience, omnipotent. +He it was who invented letters, printing, the railroad, the steamboat, +the telegraph, the platitude and the circle of the sciences. He created +patriotism and taught the nations +war—founded theology, philosophy, law, medicine and Chicago. He established +monarchical and republican +government. He is from everlasting to +everlasting—such as creation’s dawn beheld he fooleth now. In the morning +of time he sang upon +primitive hills, and in the noonday of existence headed the procession of +being. His grandmotherly hand was +warmly tucked-in the set sun of civilization, and in the twilight he prepares +Man’s evening meal of milk-and-morality and turns down the covers of the +universal grave. And after the rest of +us shall have retired for the night of eternal oblivion he will sit up to write +a history of human civilization.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">force,</span> <span class="pos"> n.</span></p> + + <table align="center" border="0"> + <tr> + <td valign="top" align="left"> + +<p class="poetry">“Force is but might,” the teacher said—<br /> +“That definition’s just.”<br /> +The boy said naught but through instead,<br /> +Remembering his pounded head:<br /> +“Force is not might but must!”</p> + + </td> + </tr> + </table> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">forefinger,</span> <span class="pos"> n.</span> The finger commonly used in pointing out two malefactors.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">foreordination,</span> <span class="pos"> n.</span> This looks like an easy word to +define, but when I consider that pious and learned theologians have spent long +lives in explaining it, and written libraries to explain their explanations; +when I remember the nations have been divided and bloody battles caused by the +difference between foreordination and predestination, and that millions of +treasure have been expended in the effort to prove and disprove its +compatibility with freedom of the will and the efficacy of prayer, praise, and +a religious life,𔃐recalling these awful facts in the history of the word, I +stand appalled before the mighty problem of its signification, abase my +spiritual eyes, fearing to contemplate its portentous magnitude, reverently +uncover and humbly refer it to His Eminence Cardinal Gibbons and His Grace +Bishop Potter.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">forgetfulness,</span> <span class="pos"> n.</span> A gift of God bestowed upon doctors +in compensation for their destitution of conscience.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">fork,</span> <span class="pos"> n.</span> An instrument used chiefly for the purpose +of putting dead animals into the mouth. +Formerly the knife was employed for this purpose, and by many worthy +persons is still thought to have many advantages over the other tool, which, +however, they do not altogether reject, but use to assist in charging the +knife. The immunity of these persons +from swift and awful death is one of the most striking proofs of God’s mercy to +those that hate Him.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">forma pauperis.</span> <span class="pos"> [Latin]</span> In the character of a poor person—a method +by which a litigant without money for lawyers is considerately permitted to +lose his case.</p> + + <table align="center" border="0"> + <tr> + <td valign="top" align="left"> + +<p class="poetry">When Adam long ago in Cupid’s awful court<br /> +(For Cupid ruled ere Adam was invented)<br /> +Sued for Eve’s favor, says an ancient law report,<br /> +He stood and pleaded unhabilimented.<br /> +“You sue <i>in forma pauperis</i>, I see,” Eve cried;<br /> +“Actions can’t here be that way prosecuted.”<br /> +So all poor Adam’s motions coldly were denied:<br /> +He went away—as he had come—nonsuited.</p> + +<p class="citeauth">G. J.</p> + + </td> + </tr> + </table> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">Frankalmoigne,</span> <span class="pos"> n.</span> The tenure by which a religious +corporation holds lands on condition of praying for the soul of the donor. +In mediaeval times many of the wealthiest +fraternities obtained their estates in this simple and cheap manner, and once +when Henry VIII of England sent an officer to confiscate certain vast +possessions which a fraternity of monks held by frankalmoigne, “What!” said the +Prior, “would you master stay our benefactor’s soul in Purgatory?” “Ay,” +said the officer, coldly, “an ye will +not pray him thence for naught he must e’en roast.” “But look you, my son,” +persisted the good man, “this act hath +rank as robbery of God!” “Nay, nay, +good father, my master the king doth but deliver him from the manifold +temptations of too great wealth.”</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">freebooter,</span> <span class="pos"> n.</span> A conqueror in a small way of +business, whose annexations lack of the sanctifying merit of magnitude.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">freedom,</span> <span class="pos"> n.</span> Exemption from the stress of authority in a +beggarly half dozen of restraint’s infinite multitude of methods. A political +condition that every nation +supposes itself to enjoy in virtual monopoly. +Liberty. The distinction between +freedom and liberty is not accurately known; naturalists have never been able +to find a living specimen of either.</p> + + <table align="center" border="0"> + <tr> + <td valign="top" align="left"> + +<p class="poetry">Freedom, as every schoolboy knows,<br /> +Once shrieked as Kosciusko fell;<br /> +On every wind, indeed, that blows<br /> +I hear her yell.<br /> +She screams whenever monarchs meet,<br /> +And parliaments as well,<br /> +To bind the chains about her feet<br /> +And toll her knell.<br /> +And when the sovereign people cast<br /> +The votes they cannot spell,<br /> +Upon the pestilential blast<br /> +Her clamors swell.<br /> +For all to whom the power’s given<br /> +To sway or to compel,<br /> +Among themselves apportion Heaven<br /> +And give her Hell.</p> + +<p class="citeauth">Blary O’Gary.</p> + + </td> + </tr> + </table> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">Freemasons,</span> <span class="pos"> n.</span> An order with secret rites, +grotesque ceremonies and fantastic costumes, which, originating in the reign of +Charles II, among working artisans of London, has been joined successively by +the dead of past centuries in unbroken retrogression until now it embraces all +the generations of man on the hither side of Adam and is drumming up +distinguished recruits among the pre-Creational inhabitants of Chaos and +Formless Void. The order was founded at +different times by Charlemagne, Julius Caesar, Cyrus, Solomon, Zoroaster, +Confucious, Thothmes, and Buddha. Its +emblems and symbols have been found in the Catacombs of Paris and Rome, on the +stones of the Parthenon and the Chinese Great Wall, among the temples of Karnak +and Palmyra and in the Egyptian Pyramids—always by a Freemason.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">friendless,</span> <span class="pos"> adj.</span> Having no favors to bestow. Destitute of fortune. +Addicted to utterance of truth and common sense. </p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">friendship,</span> <span class="pos"> n.</span> A ship big enough to carry two in fair weather, but only one in foul.</p> + + <table align="center" border="0"> + <tr> + <td valign="top" align="left"> + +<p class="poetry">The sea was calm and the sky was blue;<br /> +Merrily, merrily sailed we two.<br /> +(High barometer maketh glad.)<br /> +On the tipsy ship, with a dreadful shout,<br /> +The tempest descended and we fell out.<br /> +(O the walking is nasty bad!)</p> + +<p class="citeauth">Armit Huff Bettle.</p> + + </td> + </tr> + </table> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">frog,</span> <span class="pos"> n.</span> A reptile with edible legs. The first mention of frogs in profane +literature is in Homer’s narrative of the war between them and the mice. +Skeptical persons have doubted Homer’s +authorship of the work, but the learned, ingenious and industrious Dr. Schliemann +has set the question forever at rest by uncovering the bones of the slain +frogs. One of the forms of moral +suasion by which Pharaoh was besought to favor the Israelities was a plague of +frogs, but Pharaoh, who liked them <i>fricasees</i>, +remarked, with truly oriental stoicism, that he could stand it as long as the +frogs and the Jews could; so the programme was changed. The frog is a +diligent songster, having a +good voice but no ear. The libretto of +his favorite opera, as written by Aristophanes, is brief, simple and +effective—“brekekex-koax”; the music is apparently by that eminent composer, +Richard Wagner. Horses have a frog in +each hoof—a thoughtful provision of nature, enabling them to shine in a hurdle +race.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">frying-pan,</span> <span class="pos"> n.</span> One part of the penal apparatus +employed in that punitive institution, a woman’s kitchen. The frying-pan was +invented by Calvin, and +by him used in cooking span-long infants that had died without baptism; and +observing one day the horrible torment of a tramp who had incautiously pulled a +fried babe from the waste-dump and devoured it, it occurred to the great divine +to rob death of its terrors by introducing the frying-pan into every household +in Geneva. Thence it spread to all +corners of the world, and has been of invaluable assistance in the propagation +of his sombre faith. The following +lines (said to be from the pen of his Grace Bishop Potter) seem to imply that +the usefulness of this utensil is not limited to this world; but as the +consequences of its employment in this life reach over into the life to come, +so also itself may be found on the other side, rewarding its devotees:</p> + + <table align="center" border="0"> + <tr> + <td valign="top" align="left"> + +<p class="poetry">Old Nick was summoned to the skies.<br /> +Said Peter: “Your intentions<br /> +Are good, but you lack enterprise<br /> +Concerning new inventions.<br /> +“Now, broiling in an ancient plan<br /> +Of torment, but I hear it<br /> +Reported that the frying-pan<br /> +Sears best the wicked spirit.<br /> +“Go get one—fill it up with fat—<br /> +Fry sinners brown and good in’t.”<br /> +“I know a trick worth two o’ that,”<br /> +Said Nick—“I’ll cook their food in’t.”</p> + +<p class="citeauth"> </p> + + </td> + </tr> + </table> + +<p id="funeral" class="entry"><span class="def">funeral,</span> <span class="pos"> n.</span> A pageant whereby we attest our respect for +the dead by enriching the undertaker, and strengthen our grief by an +expenditure that deepens our groans and doubles our tears.</p> + + <table align="center" border="0"> + <tr> + <td valign="top" align="left"> + +<p class="poetry">The savage dies—they sacrifice a horse<br /> +To bear to happy hunting-grounds the corse.<br /> +Our friends expire—we make the money fly<br /> +In +hope their souls will chase it to the sky.</p> + +<p class="citeauth">Jex Wopley.</p> + + </td> + </tr> + </table> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">future,</span> <span class="pos"> n.</span> That period of time in which our affairs +prosper, our friends are true and our happiness is assured.</p> + +</body> + +</html>
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In this country the gallows is chiefly remarkable for the +number of persons who escape it.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">Whether on the gallows high</p> +<p class="poetry">Or where blood flows the reddest, The noblest place for man to die—</p> +<p class="poetry">Is where he died the deadest.</p> +<p class="citeauth">(Old play)</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">gargoyle</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A rain-pout projecting from the eaves of mediaeval buildings, commonly fashioned +into a grotesque caricature of some personal enemy of the architect or owner of +the building. This was especially the case in churches and ecclesiastical +structures generally, in which the gargoyles presented a perfect rogues’ +gallery of local heretics and controversialists. Sometimes when a new dean and +chapter were installed the old gargoyles were removed and others substituted +having a closer relation to the private animosities of the new incumbents.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">garther</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> An elastic band intended to keep a woman from coming out of her stockings and +desolating the country.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">generous</span>, <span class="pos">adj.</span> Originally this word meant noble by birth and was rightly applied to a great multitude of +persons. It now means noble by nature and is taking a bit of a rest.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">genealogy</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> An account of one’s descent from an ancestor who did not particularly care to trace his own.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">genteel</span>, <span class="pos">adj.</span> Refined, after the fashion of a gent.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">Observe with care, my son, the distinction I reveal:</p> +<p class="poetry">A gentleman is gentle and a gent genteel.</p> +<p class="poetry">Heed not the definitions your “Unabridged” presents,</p> +<p class="poetry">For dictionary makers are generally gents.</p> +<p class="citeauth">G. J.</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">geographer</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A chap who can tell you offhand the difference between the outside of the world and the inside.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">Habeam, geographer of wide reknown,</p> +<p class="poetry">Native of Abu-Keber’s ancient town,</p> +<p class="poetry">In passing thence along the river Zam</p> +<p class="poetry">To the adjacent village of Xelam,</p> +<p class="poetry">Bewildered by the multitude of roads,</p> +<p class="poetry">Got lost, lived long on migratory toads,</p> +<p class="poetry">Then from exposure miserably died,</p> +<p class="poetry">And grateful travelers bewailed their guide.</p> +<p class="citeauth">Henry Haukhorn</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">geology</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The science of the earth’s crust—to which, doubtless, will be added that of its +interior whenever a man shall come up garrulous out of a well. The geological +formations of the globe already noted are catalogued thus: The Primary, or +lower one, consists of rocks, bones or mired mules, gas-pipes, miners’ tools, +antique statues minus the nose, Spanish doubloons and ancestors. The Secondary +is largely made up of red worms and moles. The Tertiary comprises railway +tracks, patent pavements, grass, snakes, mouldy boots, beer bottles, tomato +cans, intoxicated citizens, garbage, anarchists, snap-dogs and fools.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">ghost</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The outward and visible sign of an inward fear.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">He saw a ghost.</p> +<p class="poetry">It occupied—that dismal thing!—</p> +<p class="poetry">The path that he was following.</p> +<p class="poetry">Before he’d time to stop and fly,</p> +<p class="poetry">An earthquake trifled with the eye</p> +<p class="poetry">That saw a ghost.</p> +<p class="poetry">He fell as fall the early good;</p> +<p class="poetry">Unmoved that awful vision stood.</p> +<p class="poetry">The stars that danced before his ken</p> +<p class="poetry">He wildly brushed away, and then</p> +<p class="poetry">He saw a post.</p> +<p class="citeauth">Jared Macphester</p> +</div> + +<p class="indentpara">Accounting for the uncommon behavior of ghosts, Heine mentions somebody’s ingenious theory to the +effect that they are as much afraid of us as we of them. Not quite, if I may +judge from such tables of comparative speed as I am able to compile from +memories of my own experience.</p> + +<p class="indentpara">There is one insuperable obstacle to a belief in ghosts. A ghost never comes naked: he +appears either in a winding-sheet or “in his habit as he lived.” To believe in +him, then, is to believe that not only have the dead the power to make +themselves visible after there is nothing left of them, but that the same power +inheres in textile fabrics. Supposing the products of the loom to have this +ability, what object would they have in exercising it? And why does not the +apparition of a suit of clothes sometimes walk abroad without a ghost in it? These +be riddles of significance. They reach away down and get a convulsive grip on +the very tap-root of this flourishing faith.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">ghoul</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A demon addicted to the reprehensible habit of devouring the dead. The existence of +ghouls has been disputed by that class of controversialists who are more +concerned to deprive the world of comforting beliefs than to give it anything +good in their place. In 1640 Father Secchi saw one in a cemetery near Florence +and frightened it away with the sign of the cross. He describes it as gifted +with many heads an an uncommon allowance of limbs, and he saw it in more than +one place at a time. The good man was coming away from dinner at the time and +explains that if he had not been “heavy with eating” he would have seized the +demon at all hazards. Atholston relates that a ghoul was caught by some sturdy +peasants in a churchyard at Sudbury and ducked in a horsepond. (He appears to +think that so distinguished a criminal should have been ducked in a tank of +rosewater.) The water turned at once to blood “and so contynues unto ys daye.” The +pond has since been bled with a ditch. As late as the beginning of the +fourteenth century a ghoul was cornered in the crypt of the cathedral at Amiens +and the whole population surrounded the place. Twenty armed men with a priest +at their head, bearing a crucifix, entered and captured the ghoul, which, +thinking to escape by the stratagem, had transformed itself to the semblance of +a well known citizen, but was nevertheless hanged, drawn and quartered in the +midst of hideous popular orgies. The citizen whose shape the demon had assumed +was so affected by the sinister occurrence that he never again showed himself +in Amiens and his fate remains a mystery.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">glutton</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A person who escapes the evils of moderation by committing dyspepsia.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">gnome</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> In North-European mythology, a dwarfish imp inhabiting the interior parts of the +earth and having special custody of mineral treasures. Bjorsen, who died in +1765, says gnomes were common enough in the southern parts of Sweden in his +boyhood, and he frequently saw them scampering on the hills in the evening +twilight. Ludwig Binkerhoof saw three as recently as 1792, in the Black Forest, +and Sneddeker avers that in 1803 they drove a party of miners out of a Silesian +mine. Basing our computations upon data supplied by these statements, we find +that the gnomes were probably extinct as early as 1764.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">gnostics</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A sect of philosophers who tried to engineer a fusion between the early +Christians and the Platonists. The former would not go into the caucus and the +combination failed, greatly to the chagrin of the fusion managers.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">gnu</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> An animal of South Africa, which in its domesticated state resembles a horse, a buffalo +and a stag. In its wild condition it is something like a thunderbolt, an +earthquake and a cyclone.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">A hunter from Kew caught a distant view</p> +<p class="poetry">Of a peacefully meditative gnu,</p> +<p class="poetry">And he said: “I’ll pursue, and my hands imbrue</p> +<p class="poetry">In its blood at a closer interview.”</p> +<p class="poetry">But that beast did ensue and the hunter it threw</p> +<p class="poetry">O’er the top of a palm that adjacent grew;</p> +<p class="poetry">And he said as he flew: “It is well I withdrew</p> +<p class="poetry">Ere, losing my temper, I wickedly slew That really meritorious gnu.”</p> +<p class="citeauth">Jarn Leffer</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">good</span>, <span class="pos">adj.</span> Sensible, madam, +to the worth of this present writer.</p> + +<p>Alive, sir, to the advantages of letting him alone.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">goose</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A bird that supplies quills for writing. These, by some occult process of nature, are +penetrated and suffused with various degrees of the bird’s intellectual +energies and emotional character, so that when inked and drawn mechanically +across paper by a person called an “author,” there results a very fair and +accurate transcript of the fowl’s thought and feeling. The difference in geese, +as discovered by this ingenious method, is considerable: many are found to have +only trivial and insignificant powers, but some are seen to be very great geese +indeed.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">gorgon</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span></p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">The Gorgon was a maiden bold</p> +<p class="poetry">Who turned to stone the Greeks of old</p> +<p class="poetry">That looked upon her awful brow.</p> +<p class="poetry">We dig them out of ruins now,</p> +<p class="poetry">And swear that workmanship so bad</p> +<p class="poetry">Proves all the ancient sculptors mad.</p> +</div> +<p class="entry"><span class="def">gout</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A physician’s name for the rheumatism of a rich patient.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">graces</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Three beautiful goddesses, Aglaia, Thalia and Euphrosyne, who attended upon Venus, +serving without salary. They were at no expense for board and clothing, for +they ate nothing to speak of and dressed according to the weather, wearing +whatever breeze happened to be blowing.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">grammar</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A system of pitfalls thoughtfully prepared for the feet for the self-made man, +along the path by which he advances to distinction.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">grape</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span></p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">Hail noble fruit!—by Homer sung,</p> +<p class="poetry">Anacreon and Khayyam;</p> +<p class="poetry">Thy praise is ever on the tongue</p> +<p class="poetry">Of better men than I am.</p> +<p class="poetry">The lyre in my hand has never swept,</p> +<p class="poetry">The song I cannot offer:</p> +<p class="poetry">My humbler service pray accept—</p> +<p class="poetry">I’ll help to kill the scoffer.</p> +<p class="poetry">The water-drinkers and the cranks</p> +<p class="poetry">Who load their skins with liquor—</p> +<p class="poetry">I’ll gladly bear their belly-tanks</p> +<p class="poetry">And tap them with my sticker.</p> +<p class="poetry">Fill up, fill up, for wisdom cools</p> +<p class="poetry">When e’er we let the wine rest.</p> +<p class="poetry">Here’s death to Prohibition’s fools,</p> +<p class="poetry">And every kind of vine-pest!</p> +<p class="citeauth">Jamrach Holobom</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">grapeshot</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> An argument which the future is preparing in answer to the demands of American Socialism.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">grave</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A place in which the dead are laid to await the coming of the medical student.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">Beside a lonely grave I stood—</p> +<p class="poetry">With brambles ‘twas encumbered;</p> +<p class="poetry">The winds were moaning in the wood,</p> +<p class="poetry">Unheard by him who slumbered,</p> +<p class="poetry">A rustic standing near, I said:</p> +<p class="poetry">“He cannot hear it blowing!”</p> +<p class="poetry">“’Course not,” said he: “the feller’s dead—</p> +<p class="poetry">He can’t hear nowt [sic] that’s going.”</p> +<p class="poetry">“Too true,” I said; “alas, too true—</p> +<p class="poetry">No sound his sense can quicken!”</p> +<p class="poetry">“Well, mister, wot is that to you?—</p> +<p class="poetry">The deadster ain’t a-kickin’.”</p> +<p class="poetry">I knelt and prayed: “O Father, smile</p> +<p class="poetry">On him, and mercy show him!”</p> +<p class="poetry">That countryman looked on the while,</p> +<p class="poetry">And said: “Ye didn’t know him.”</p> +<p class="citeauth">Pobeter Dunko</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">gravitation</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The tendency of all bodies to approach one another with a strength proportion to +the quantity of matter they contain—the quantity of matter they contain being +ascertained by the strength of their tendency to approach one another. This is +a lovely and edifying illustration of how science, having made A the proof of +B, makes B the proof of A.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">great</span>, <span class="pos">adj.</span></p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">“I’m great,” the Lion said—“I reign</p> +<p class="poetry">The monarch of the wood and plain!”</p> +<p class="poetry">The Elephant replied: “I’m great—</p> +<p class="poetry">No quadruped can match my weight!”</p> +<p class="poetry">“I’m great—no animal has half</p> +<p class="poetry">So long a neck!” said the Giraffe.</p> +<p class="poetry">“I’m great,” the Kangaroo said—“see</p> +<p class="poetry">My femoral muscularity!”</p> +<p class="poetry">The ‘Possum said: “I’m great—behold,</p> +<p class="poetry">My tail is lithe and bald and cold!”</p> +<p class="poetry">An Oyster fried was understood</p> +<p class="poetry">To say: “I’m great because I’m good!”</p> +<p class="poetry">Each reckons greatness to consist</p> +<p class="poetry">In that in which he heads the list,</p> +<p class="poetry">And Vierick thinks he tops his class</p> +<p class="poetry">Because he is the greatest ass.</p> +<p class="citeauth">Arion Spurl Doke</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">guillotine</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A machine which makes a Frenchman shrug his shoulders with good reason.</p> + +<p>In his great work on <i>Divergent Lines of Racial Evolution</i>, +the learned Professor Brayfugle argues from the prevalence of this gesture— +the shrug—among Frenchmen, that they are descended from turtles and it is +simply a survival of the habit of retracing the head inside the shell. It is +with reluctance that I differ with so eminent an authority, but in my judgment +(as more elaborately set forth and enforced in my work entitled <i>Hereditary Emotions</i>—lib. II, c. XI) the +shrug is a poor foundation upon which to build so important a theory, for +previously to the Revolution the gesture was unknown. I have not a doubt that +it is directly referable to the terror inspired by the guillotine during the +period of that instrument’s activity.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">gunpowder</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> An agency employed by civilized nations for the settlement of disputes which might +become troublesome if left unadjusted. By most writers the invention of +gunpowder is ascribed to the Chinese, but not upon very convincing evidence. Milton +says it was invented by the devil to dispel angels with, and this opinion seems +to derive some support from the scarcity of angels. Moreover, it has the hearty +concurrence of the Hon. James Wilson, Secretary of Agriculture.</p> + +<p>Secretary Wilson became interested in gunpowder through an event that occurred on the Government +experimental farm in the District of Columbia. One day, several years ago, a +rogue imperfectly reverent of the Secretary’s profound attainments and personal +character presented him with a sack of gunpowder, representing it as the sed of +the <i>Flashawful flabbergastor</i>, a +Patagonian cereal of great commercial value, admirably adapted to this climate. +The good Secretary was instructed to spill it along in a furrow and afterward +inhume it with soil. This he at once proceeded to do, and had made a continuous +line of it all the way across a ten-acre field, when he was made to look +backward by a shout from the generous donor, who at once dropped a lighted +match into the furrow at the starting-point. Contact with the earth had +somewhat dampened the powder, but the startled functionary saw himself pursued +by a tall moving pillar of fire and smoke and fierce evolution. He stood for a +moment paralyzed and speechless, then he recollected an engagement and, +dropping all, absented himself thence with such surprising celerity that to the +eyes of spectators along the route selected he appeared like a long, dim streak +prolonging itself with inconceivable rapidity through seven villages, and +audibly refusing to be comforted. “Great Scott! what is that?” cried a +surveyor’s chainman, shading his eyes and gazing at the fading line of +agriculturist which bisected his visible horizon. “That,” said the surveyor, +carelessly glancing at the phenomenon and again centering his attention upon +his instrument, “is the Meridian of Washington.”</p> + + +</body> +</html>
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Indeed, +the Elysian Fields themselves were a part of Hades, though they have since been +removed to Paris. When the Jacobean version of the New Testament was in process +of evolution the pious and learned men engaged in the work insisted by a +majority vote on translating the Greek word “Aides” as “Hell”; but a +conscientious minority member secretly possessed himself of the record and +struck out the objectional word wherever he could find it. At the next meeting, +the Bishop of Salisbury, looking over the work, suddenly sprang to his feet and +said with considerable excitement: “Gentlemen, somebody has been razing ‘Hell’ +here!” Years afterward the good prelate’s death was made sweet by the +reflection that he had been the means (under Providence) of making an +important, serviceable and immortal addition to the phraseology of the English +tongue.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">hag</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> An elderly lady whom you do not happen to like; sometimes called, also, a hen, or cat. Old +witches, sorceresses, etc., were called hags from the belief that their heads +were surrounded by a kind of baleful lumination or nimbus—hag being the popular +name of that peculiar electrical light sometimes observed in the hair. At one +time hag was not a word of reproach: Drayton speaks of a “beautiful hag, all +smiles,” much as Shakespeare said, “sweet wench.” It would not now be proper to +call your sweetheart a hag—that compliment is reserved for the use of her +grandchildren.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">half</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> One of two equal parts into which a thing may be divided, or considered as divided. In +the fourteenth century a heated discussion arose among theologists and +philosophers as to whether Omniscience could part an object into three halves; +and the pious Father Aldrovinus publicly prayed in the cathedral at Rouen that +God would demonstrate the affirmative of the proposition in some signal and +unmistakable way, and particularly (if it should please Him) upon the body of +that hardy blasphemer, Manutius Procinus, who maintained the negative. Procinus, +however, was spared to die of the bite of a viper.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">halo</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Properly, a luminous ring encircling an astronomical body, but not infrequently +confounded with “aureola,” or “nimbus,” a somewhat similar phenomenon worn as a +head-dress by divinities and saints. The halo is a purely optical illusion, +produced by moisture in the air, in the manner of a rainbow; but the aureola is +conferred as a sign of superior sanctity, in the same way as a bishop’s mitre, +or the Pope’s tiara. In the painting of the Nativity, by Szedgkin, a pious artist +of Pesth, not only do the Virgin and the Child wear the nimbus, but an ass +nibbling hay from the sacred manger is similarly decorated and, to his lasting +honor be it said, appears to bear his unaccustomed dignity with a truly saintly +grace.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">hand</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A singular instrument worn at the end of the human arm and commonly thrust into +somebody’s pocket.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">handkerchief</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A small square of silk or linen, used in various ignoble offices about the face +and especially serviceable at funerals to conceal the lack of tears. The +handkerchief is of recent invention; our ancestors knew nothing of it and +intrusted its duties to the sleeve. Shakespeare’s introducing it into the play +of “Othello” is an anachronism: Desdemona dried her nose with her skirt, as Dr. +Mary Walker and other reformers have done with their coattails in our own +day—an evidence that revolutions sometimes go backward.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">hangman</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> An officer of the law charged with duties of the highest dignity and utmost +gravity, and held in hereditary disesteem by a populace having a criminal +ancestry. In some of the American States his functions are now performed by an +electrician, as in New Jersey, where executions by electricity have recently +been ordered—the first instance known to this lexicographer of anybody +questioning the expediency of hanging Jerseymen.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">happiness</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> An agreeable sensation arising from contemplating the misery of another.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">harangue</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A speech by an opponent, who is known as an harrangue- outang.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">harbor</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A place where ships taking shelter from stores are exposed to the fury of the customs.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">harmonists</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A sect of Protestants, now extinct, who came from Europe in the beginning of the +last century and were distinguished for the bitterness of their internal controversies and dissensions.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">hash,</span> <span class="pos">x.</span> There is no definition for this word—nobody knows what hash is.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">hatchet</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A young axe, known among Indians as a Thomashawk.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">“O bury the hatchet, irascible Red,</p> +<p class="poetry">For peace is a blessing,” the White Man said.</p> +<p class="poetry">The Savage concurred, and that weapon interred, With imposing rites, in the White Man’s head.</p> +<p class="poetry">John Lukkus</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">hatred</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A sentiment appropriate to the occasion of another’s superiority.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">head-money</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A capitation tax, or poll-tax.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">In ancient times there lived a king</p> +<p class="poetry">Whose tax-collectors could not wring</p> +<p class="poetry">From all his subjects gold enough</p> +<p class="poetry">To make the royal way less rough.</p> +<p class="poetry">For pleasure’s highway, like the dames</p> +<p class="poetry">Whose premises adjoin it, claims</p> +<p class="poetry">Perpetual repairing. So</p> +<p class="poetry">The tax-collectors in a row</p> +<p class="poetry">Appeared before the throne to pray</p> +<p class="poetry">Their master to devise some way</p> +<p class="poetry">To swell the revenue. “So great,”</p> +<p class="poetry">Said they, “are the demands of state</p> +<p class="poetry">A tithe of all that we collect</p> +<p class="poetry">Will scarcely meet them. Pray reflect:</p> +<p class="poetry">How, if one-tenth we must resign,</p> +<p class="poetry">Can we exist on t’other nine?”</p> +<p class="poetry">The monarch asked them in reply:</p> +<p class="poetry">“Has it occurred to you to try</p> +<p class="poetry">The advantage of economy?”</p> +<p class="poetry">“It has,” the spokesman said: “we sold</p> +<p class="poetry">All of our gray garrotes of gold;</p> +<p class="poetry">With plated-ware we now compress</p> +<p class="poetry">The necks of those whom we assess.</p> +<p class="poetry">Plain iron forceps we employ</p> +<p class="poetry">To mitigate the miser’s joy</p> +<p class="poetry">Who hoards, with greed that never tires,</p> +<p class="poetry">That which your Majesty requires.”</p> +<p class="poetry">Deep lines of thought were seen to plow</p> +<p class="poetry">Their way across the royal brow.</p> +<p class="poetry">“Your state is desperate, no question;</p> +<p class="poetry">Pray favor me with a suggestion.”</p> +<p class="poetry">“O King of Men,” the spokesman said,</p> +<p class="poetry">“If you’ll impose upon each head</p> +<p class="poetry">A tax, the augmented revenue</p> +<p class="poetry">We’ll cheerfully divide with you.”</p> +<p class="poetry">As flashes of the sun illume</p> +<p class="poetry">The parted storm-cloud’s sullen gloom,</p> +<p class="poetry">The king smiled grimly. “I decree</p> +<p class="poetry">That it be so—and, not to be</p> +<p class="poetry">In generosity outdone,</p> +<p class="poetry">Declare you, each and every one,</p> +<p class="poetry">Exempted from the operation</p> +<p class="poetry">Of this new law of capitation.</p> +<p class="poetry">But lest the people censure me</p> +<p class="poetry">Because they’re bound and you are free,</p> +<p class="poetry">‘Twere well some clever scheme were laid</p> +<p class="poetry">By you this poll-tax to evade.</p> +<p class="poetry">I’ll leave you now while you confer</p> +<p class="poetry">With my most trusted minister.”</p> +<p class="poetry">The monarch from the throne-room walked</p> +<p class="poetry">And straightway in among them stalked</p> +<p class="poetry">A silent man, with brow concealed,</p> +<p class="poetry">Bare-armed—his gleaming axe revealed!</p> +<p class="citeauth">G. J.</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">hearse</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Death’s baby-carriage.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">heart</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> An automatic, muscular blood-pump. Figuratively, this useful organ is said to be +the esat of emotions and sentiments—a very pretty fancy which, however, is +nothing but a survival of a once universal belief. It is now known that the +sentiments and emotions reside in the stomach, being evolved from food by +chemical action of the gastric fluid. The exact process by which a beefsteak +becomes a feeling—tender or not, according to the age of the animal from which +it was cut; the successive stages of elaboration through which a caviar +sandwich is transmuted to a quaint fancy and reappears as a pungent epigram; +the marvelous functional methods of converting a hard-boiled egg into religious +contrition, or a cream-puff into a sigh of sensibility—these things have been +patiently ascertained by M. Pasteur, and by him expounded with convincing +lucidity. (See, also, my monograph, <i>The Essential Identity of the Spiritual +Affections and Certain Intestinal Gases Freed in Digestion</i>—4to, 687 pp.) In +a scientific work entitled, I believe, <i>Delectatio +Demonorum</i> (John Camden Hotton, London, 1873) this view of the +sentiments receives a striking illustration; and for further light consult +Professor Dam’s famous treatise on <i>Love as a +Product of Alimentary Maceration</i>.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">heat</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span></p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">Heat, says Professor Tyndall, is a mode</p> +<p class="poetry">Of motion, but I know now how he’s proving</p> +<p class="poetry">His point; but this I know—hot words bestowed</p> +<p class="poetry">With skill will set the human fist a-moving, And where it stops the stars burn free and wild. <i>Crede expertum</i>—I have seen them, child.</p> +<p class="citeauth">Gorton Swope</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">heathen</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A benighted creature who has the folly to worship something that he can see and +feel. According to Professor Howison, of the California State University, +Hebrews are heathens.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">“The Hebrews are heathens!” says Howison. He’s</p> +<p class="poetry">A Christian philosopher. I’m</p> +<p class="poetry">A scurril agnostical chap, if you please,</p> +<p class="poetry">Addicted too much to the crime</p> +<p class="poetry">Of religious discussion in my rhyme.</p> +<p class="poetry">Though Hebrew and Howison cannot agree</p> +<p class="poetry">On a <i>modus vivendi</i>—not they!—</p> +<p class="poetry">Yet Heaven has had the designing of me,</p> +<p class="poetry">And I haven’t been reared in a way</p> +<p class="poetry">To joy in the thick of the fray.</p> +<p class="poetry">For this of my creed is the soul and the gist,</p> +<p class="poetry">And the truth of it I aver:</p> +<p class="poetry">Who differs from me in his faith is an ‘ist,</p> +<p class="poetry">And ‘ite, an ‘ie, or an ‘er—</p> +<p class="poetry">And I’m down upon him or her!</p> +<p class="poetry">Let Howison urge with perfunctory chin</p> +<p class="poetry">Toleration—that’s all very well,</p> +<p class="poetry">But a roast is “nuts” to his nostril thin,</p> +<p class="poetry">And he’s running—I know by the smell—</p> +<p class="poetry">A secret and personal Hell!</p> +<p class="citeauth">Bissell Gip</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">heaven</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A place where the wicked cease from troubling you with talk of their personal affairs, +and the good listen with attention while you expound your own.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">hebrew</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A male Jew, as distinguished from the Shebrew, an altogether superior creation.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">helpmate</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A wife, or bitter half.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">“Now, why is yer wife called a helpmate, Pat?”</p> +<p class="poetry">Says the priest. “Since the time ‘o yer wooin’ She’s niver [sic] assisted in what ye were at—</p> +<p class="poetry">For it’s naught ye are ever doin’.”</p> +<p class="poetry">“That’s true of yer Riverence [sic],” Patrick replies,</p> +<p class="poetry">And no sign of contrition envices;</p> +<p class="poetry">“But, bedad, it’s a fact which the word implies,</p> +<p class="poetry">For she helps to mate the expinses [sic]!”</p> +<p class="citeauth">Marley Wottel</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">hemp</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A plant from whose fibrous bark is made an article of neckwear which is frequently put +on after public speaking in the open air and prevents the wearer from taking cold.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">hermit</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A person whose vices and follies are not sociable.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">hers,</span> <span class="pos">pron.</span> His.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">hibernate</span>, <span class="pos">v.i.</span> To pass the winter season in domestic seclusion. There have been many singular +popular notions about the hibernation of various animals. Many believe that the +bear hibernates during the whole winter and subsists by mechanically sucking +its paws. It is admitted that it comes out of its retirement in the spring so +lean that it had to try twice before it can cast a shadow. Three or four centuries +ago, in England, no fact was better attested than that swallows passed the +winter months in the mud at the bottom of their brooks, clinging together in +globular masses. They have apparently been compelled to give up the custom and +account of the foulness of the brooks. Sotus Ecobius discovered in Central Asia +a whole nation of people who hibernate. By some investigators, the fasting of +Lent is supposed to have been originally a modified form of hibernation, to +which the Church gave a religious significance; but this view was strenuously +opposed by that eminent authority, Bishop Kip, who did not wish any honors +denied to the memory of the Founder of his family.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">hippogriff</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> An animal (now extinct) which was half horse and half griffin. The griffin was +itself a compound creature, half lion and half eagle. The hippogriff was +actually, therefore, a one-quarter eagle, which is two dollars and fifty cents +in gold. The study of zoology is full of surprises.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">historian</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A broad-gauge gossip.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">history</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> An account mostly false, of events mostly unimportant, which are brought about by +rulers mostly knaves, and soldiers mostly fools.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">Of Roman history, great Niebuhr’s shown</p> +<p class="poetry">‘Tis nine-tenths lying.<br /> +Faith, I wish ‘twere known, Ere we accept great Niebuhr as a guide,<br /> +Wherein he blundered and how much he lied.</p> +<p class="citeauth">Salder Bupp</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">hog</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A bird remarkable for the catholicity of its appetite and serving to illustrate that +of ours. Among the Mahometans and Jews, the hog is not in favor as an article +of diet, but is respected for the delicacy and the melody of its voice. It is +chiefly as a songster that the fowl is esteemed; the cage of him in full chorus +has been known to draw tears from two persons at once. The scientific name of +this dicky-bird is <i>Porcus Rockefelleri</i>. +Mr. Rockefeller did not discover the hog, but it is considered his by right of +resemblance.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">homoeopathist</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The humorist of the medical profession.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">homoeopathy</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A school of medicine midway between Allopathy and Christian Science. To the last +both the others are distinctly inferior, for Christian Science will cure +imaginary diseases, and they can not.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">homicide</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The slaying of one human being by another. There are four kinds of homocide: felonious, +excusable, justifiable, and praiseworthy, but it makes no great difference to +the person slain whether he fell by one kind or another—the classification is +for advantage of the lawyers.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">homiletics</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The science of adapting sermons to the spiritual needs, capacities and conditions +of the congregation.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">So skilled the parson was in homiletics</p> +<p class="poetry">That all his normal purges and emetics</p> +<p class="poetry">To medicine the spirit were compounded</p> +<p class="poetry">With a most just discrimination founded</p> +<p class="poetry">Upon a rigorous examination</p> +<p class="poetry">Of tongue and pulse and heart and respiration.</p> +<p class="poetry">Then, having diagnosed each one’s condition,</p> +<p class="poetry">His scriptural specifics this physician</p> +<p class="poetry">Administered—his pills so efficacious</p> +<p class="poetry">And pukes of disposition so vivacious</p> +<p class="poetry">That souls afflicted with ten kinds of Adam<br /> +Were convalescent ere they knew they had ‘em.<br /> +But Slander’s tongue—itself all coated—uttered<br /> +Her bilious mind and scandalously muttered<br /> +That in the case of patients having money<br /> +The pills were sugar and the pukes were honey.</p> +<p class="citeauth"><i>Biography of Bishop Potter</i></p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">honorable</span>, <span class="pos">adj.</span> Afflicted with an impediment in one’s reach. In legislative bodies it is customary to +mention all members as honorable; as, “the honorable gentleman is a scurvy cur.”</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">hope</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Desire and expectation rolled into one.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">Delicious Hope! when naught to man it left—</p> +<p class="poetry">Of fortune destitute, of friends bereft;</p> +<p class="poetry">When even his dog deserts him, and his goat +With tranquil disaffection chews his coat +While yet it hangs upon his back; then thou, +The star far-flaming on thine angel brow, +Descendest, radiant, from the skies to hint +The promise of a clerkship in the Mint.</p> +<p class="citeauth"><span class="def">Fogarty Weffing</span></p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">hospitality</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The virtue which induces us to feed and lodge certain persons who are not in need +of food and lodging.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">hostility</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A peculiarly sharp and specially applied sense of the earth’s overpopulation. Hostility +is classified as active and passive; as (respectively) the feeling of a woman +for her female friends, and that which she entertains for all the rest of her sex.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">Houri</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A comely female inhabiting the Mohammedan Paradise to make things cheery for the good +Mussulman, whose belief in her existence marks a noble discontent with his +earthly spouse, whom he denies a soul. By that good lady the Houris are said to +be held in deficient esteem.</p> + +<p id="house" class="entry"><span class="def">house</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A hollow edifice erected for the habitation of man, rat, mouse, beelte, cockroach, fly, +mosquito, flea, bacillus and microbe. <i>House +of Correction</i>, a place of reward for political and personal service, +and for the detention of offenders and appropriations. <i>House of God</i>, a building with a steeple +and a mortgage on it. <i>House-dog</i>, +a pestilent beast kept on domestic premises to insult persons passing by and +appal the hardy visitor. <i>House-maid</i>, +a youngerly person of the opposing sex employed to be variously disagreeable +and ingeniously unclean in the station in which it has pleased God to place her.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">houseless</span>, <span class="pos">adj.</span> Having paid all taxes on household goods.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">hovel</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The fruit of a flower called the Palace.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">Twaddle had a hovel,</p> +<p class="poetry">Twiddle had a palace;</p> +<p class="poetry">Twaddle said: “I’ll grovel</p> +<p class="poetry">Or he’ll think I bear him malice”—</p> +<p class="poetry">A sentiment as novel</p> +<p class="poetry">As a castor on a chalice.</p> +<p class="poetry">Down upon the middle</p> +<p class="poetry">Of his legs fell Twaddle</p> +<p class="poetry">And astonished Mr. Twiddle,</p> +<p class="poetry">Who began to lift his noddle.</p> +<p class="poetry">Feed upon the fiddle—</p> +<p class="poetry">Faddle flummery, unswaddle</p> +<p class="poetry">A new-born self-sufficiency and think himself a [mockery.]</p> +<p class="citeauth">G. J.</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">humanity</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The human race, collectively, exclusive of the anthropoid poets.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">humorist</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A plague that would have softened down the hoar austerity of Pharaoh’s heart and +persuaded him to dismiss Israel with his best wishes, cat-quick.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">Lo! the poor humorist, whose tortured mind</p> +<p class="poetry">See jokes in crowds, though still to gloom inclined—</p> +<p class="poetry">Whose simple appetite, untaught to stray, His brains, renewed by night, consumes by day.</p> +<p class="poetry">He thinks, admitted to an equal sty,</p> +<p class="poetry">A graceful hog would bear his company.</p> +<p class="citeauth">Alexander Poke</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">hurricane</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> An atmospheric demonstration once very common but now generally abandoned for the +tornado and cyclone. The hurricane is still in popular use in the West Indies +and is preferred by certain old-fashioned sea-captains. It is also used in the +construction of the upper decks of steamboats, but generally speaking, the +hurricane’s usefulness has outlasted it.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">hurry</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The dispatch of bunglers.</p> + +<p id="husband" class="entry"><span class="def">husband</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> One who, having dined, is charged with the care of the plate.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">hybrid</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A pooled issue.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">hydra</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A kind of animal that the ancients catalogued under many heads.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">hyena</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A beast held in reverence by some oriental nations from its habit of frequenting at +night the burial-places of the dead. But the medical student does that.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">hypochondriasis</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Depression of one’s own spirits.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">Some heaps of trash upon a vacant lot<br /> +Where long the village rubbish had been shot<br /> +Displayed a sign among the stuff and stumps—<br /> +“Hypochondriasis.” It meant The Dumps.</p> +<p class="citeauth">Bogul S. Purvy</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">hypocrite</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> One who, profession virtues that he does not respect secures the advantage of +seeming to be what he depises.</p> + + +</body> +</html>
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In grammar it is a pronoun of the +first person and singular number. Its plural is said to be <i>We</i>, but how there can be more than one +myself is doubtless clearer the grammarians than it is to the author of this +incomparable dictionary. Conception of two myselfs is difficult, but fine. The +frank yet graceful use of “I” distinguishes a good writer from a bad; the +latter carries it with the manner of a thief trying to cloak his loot.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">Ichor</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A fluid that serves the gods and goddesses in place of blood.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">Fair Venus, speared by Diomed,</p> +<p class="poetry">Restrained the raging chief and said:</p> +<p class="poetry">“Behold, rash mortal, whom you’ve bled—</p> +<p class="poetry">Your soul’s stained white with ichorshed!”</p> +<p class="citeauth">Mary Doke</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">iconoclast</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A breaker of idols, the worshipers whereof are imperfectly gratified by the +performance, and most strenuously protest that he unbuildeth but doth not +reedify, that he pulleth down but pileth not up. For the poor things would have +other idols in place of those he thwacketh upon the mazzard and dispelleth. But +the iconoclast saith: “Ye shall have none at all, for ye need them not; and if +the rebuilder fooleth round hereabout, behold I will depress the head of him +and sit thereon till he squawk it.”</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">idiot</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A member of a large and powerful tribe whose influence in human affairs has always been +dominant and controlling. The Idiot’s activity is not confined to any special +field of thought or action, but “pervades and regulates the whole.” He has the +last word in everything; his decision is unappealable. He sets the fashions and +opinion of taste, dictates the limitations of speech and circumscribes conduct +with a dead-line.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">idleness</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A model farm where the +devil experiments with seeds of new sins and promotes the growth of staple vices.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">ignoramus</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A person unacquainted with certain kinds of knowledge familiar to yourself, and +having certain other kinds that you know nothing about.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">Dumble was an ignoramus,</p> +<p class="poetry">Mumble was for learning famous.</p> +<p class="poetry">Mumble said one day to Dumble:</p> +<p class="poetry">“Ignorance should be more humble.</p> +<p class="poetry">Not a spark have you of knowledge</p> +<p class="poetry">That was got in any college.”</p> +<p class="poetry">Dumble said to Mumble: “Truly</p> +<p class="poetry">You’re self-satisfied unduly.</p> +<p class="poetry">Of things in college I’m denied</p> +<p class="poetry">A knowledge—you of all beside.”</p> +<p class="citeauth">Borelli</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">illuminati</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A sect of Spanish heretics of the latter part of the sixteenth century; so called +because they were light weights—<i>cunctationes illuminati</i>.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">illustrious</span>, <span class="pos">adj.</span> Suitably placed for the shafts of malice, envy and detraction.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">imagination</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A warehouse of facts, with poet and liar in joint ownership.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">imbecility</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A kind of divine inspiration, or sacred fire affecting censorious critics of this dictionary.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">immigrant</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> An unenlightened person who thinks one country better than another.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">immodest</span>, <span class="pos">adj.</span> Having a strong sense of one’s own merit, coupled with a feeble conception of worth in others.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">There was once a man in Ispahan</p> +<p class="poetry">Ever and ever so long ago,</p> +<p class="poetry">And he had a head, the phrenologists said,</p> +<p class="poetry">That fitted him for a show.</p> +<p class="poetry">For his modesty’s bump was so large a lump</p> +<p class="poetry">(Nature, they said, had taken a freak)</p> +<p class="poetry">That its summit stood far above the wood</p> +<p class="poetry">Of his hair, like a mountain peak.</p> +<p class="poetry">So modest a man in all Ispahan,</p> +<p class="poetry">Over and over again they swore—</p> +<p class="poetry">So humble and meek, you would vainly seek;</p> +<p class="poetry">None ever was found before.</p> +<p class="poetry">Meantime the hump of that awful bump</p> +<p class="poetry">Into the heavens contrived to get</p> +<p class="poetry">To so great a height that they called the wight</p> +<p class="poetry">The man with the minaret.</p> +<p class="poetry">There wasn’t a man in all Ispahan</p> +<p class="poetry">Prouder, or louder in praise of his chump:</p> +<p class="poetry">With a tireless tongue and a brazen lung</p> +<p class="poetry">He bragged of that beautiful bump</p> +<p class="poetry">Till the Shah in a rage sent a trusty page</p> +<p class="poetry">Bearing a sack and a bow-string too,</p> +<p class="poetry">And that gentle child explained as he smiled:</p> +<p class="poetry">“A little present for you.”</p> +<p class="poetry">The saddest man in all Ispahan,</p> +<p class="poetry">Sniffed at the gift, yet accepted the same.</p> +<p class="poetry">“If I’d lived,” said he, “my humility</p> +<p class="poetry">Had given me deathless fame!”</p> +<p class="citeauth">Sukker Uffro</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">immoral</span>, <span class="pos">adj.</span> Inexpedient. Whatever in the long run and with regard to the greater number of instances men +find to be generally inexpedient comes to be considered wrong, wicked, immoral. +If man’s notions of right and wrong have any other basis than this of +expediency; if they originated, or could have originated, in any other way; if +actions have in themselves a moral character apart from, and nowise dependent +on, their consequences—then all philosophy is a lie and reason a disorder of the mind.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">immorality</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span></p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">A toy which people cry for,</p> +<p class="poetry">And on their knees apply for,</p> +<p class="poetry">Dispute, contend and lie for,</p> +<p class="poetry">And if allowed</p> +<p class="poetry">Would be right proud</p> +<p class="poetry">Eternally to die for.</p> +<p class="citeauth">G. J.</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">impale</span>, <span class="pos">v.t.</span> In popular usage to pierce with any weapon which remains fixed in the wound. This, +however, is inaccurate; to imaple is, properly, to put to death by thrusting an +upright sharp stake into the body, the victim being left in a sitting position. +This was a common mode of punishment among many of the nations of antiquity, +and is still in high favor in China and other parts of Asia. Down to the +beginning of the fifteenth century it was widely employed in “churching” +heretics and schismatics. Wolecraft calls it the “stoole of repentynge,” and +among the common people it was jocularly known as “riding the one legged +horse.” Ludwig Salzmann informs us that in Thibet impalement is considered the +most appropriate punishment for crimes against religion; and although in China +it is sometimes awarded for secular offences, it is most frequently adjudged in +cases of sacrilege. To the person in actual experience of impalement it must be +a matter of minor importance by what kind of civil or religious dissent he was +made acquainted with its discomforts; but doubtless he would feel a certain +satisfaction if able to contemplate himself in the character of a weather-cock +on the spire of the True Church.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">impartial</span>, <span class="pos">adj.</span> Unable to perceive any promise of personal advantage from espousing either side of a +controversy or adopting either of two conflicting opinions.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">impenitence</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A state of mind intermediate in point of time between sin and punishment.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">impiety</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Your irreverence toward my deity.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">imposition</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The act of blessing +or consecrating by the laying on of hands—a ceremony common to many ecclesiastical systems, but performed +with the frankest sincerity by the sect known as Thieves.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">“Lo! by the laying on of hands,”</p> +<p class="poetry">Say parson, priest and dervise,</p> +<p class="poetry">“We consecrate your cash and lands</p> +<p class="poetry">To ecclesiastical service.</p> +<p class="poetry">No doubt you’ll swear till all is blue</p> +<p class="poetry">At such an imposition. Do.”</p> +<p class="poetry">Pollo Doncas</p> +<p class="poetry">impostor n. A rival aspirant to public honors.</p> +<p class="poetry">improbability, <span class="pos">n.</span></p> +<p class="poetry">His tale he told with a solemn face</p> +<p class="poetry">And a tender, melancholy grace.</p> +<p class="poetry">Improbable ‘twas, no doubt,</p> +<p class="poetry">When you came to think it out,</p> +<p class="poetry">But the fascinated crowd</p> +<p class="poetry">Their deep surprise avowed</p> +<p class="poetry">And all with a single voice averred ‘Twas the most amazing thing they’d heard—</p> +<p class="poetry">All save one who spake never a word,</p> +<p class="poetry">But sat as mum</p> +<p class="poetry">As if deaf and dumb,</p> +<p class="poetry">Serene, indifferent and unstirred.</p> +<p class="poetry">Then all the others turned to him And scrutinized him limb from limb—</p> +<p class="poetry">Scanned him alive;</p> +<p class="poetry">But he seemed to thrive</p> +<p class="poetry">And tranquiler grow each minute,</p> +<p class="poetry">As if there were nothing in it.</p> +<p class="poetry">“What! what!” cried one, “are you not amazed</p> +<p class="poetry">At what our friend has told?” He raised</p> +<p class="poetry">Soberly then his eyes and gazed</p> +<p class="poetry">In a natural way</p> +<p class="poetry">And proceeded to say,</p> +<p class="poetry">As he crossed his feet on the mantel-shelf:</p> +<p class="poetry">“O no—not at all; I’m a liar myself.”</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">improvidence</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Provision for the needs of to-day from the revenues of to-morrow.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">impunity</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Wealth.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">inadmissible</span>, <span class="pos">adj.</span> Not competent to be considered. Said of certain kinds of testimony which juries +are supposed to be unfit to be entrusted with, and which judges, therefore, +rule out, even of proceedings before themselves alone. Hearsay evidence is +inadmissible because the person quoted was unsworn and is not before the court +for examination; yet most momentous actions, military, political, commercial +and of every other kind, are daily undertaken on hearsay evidence. There is no +religion in the world that has any other basis than hearsay evidence. Revelation +is hearsay evidence; that the Scriptures are the word of God we have only the +testimony of men long dead whose identity is not clearly established and who +are not known to have been sworn in any sense. Under the rules of evidence as +they now exist in this country, no single assertion in the Bible has in its +support any evidence admissible in a court of law. It cannot be proved that the +battle of Blenheim ever was fought, that there was such as person as Julius +Caesar, such an empire as Assyria.</p> + +<p>But as records of courts of justice are admissible, it can easily be proved that powerful and +malevolent magicians once existed and were a scourge to mankind. The evidence +(including confession) upon which certain women were convicted of witchcraft +and executed was without a flaw; it is still unimpeachable. The judges’ +decisions based on it were sound in logic and in law. Nothing in any existing +court was ever more thoroughly proved than the charges of witchcraft and +sorcery for which so many suffered death. If there were no witches, human +testimony and human reason are alike destitute of value.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">inauspiciously</span>, <span class="pos">adv.</span> In an unpromising manner, the auspices being unfavorable. Among the Romans +it was customary before undertaking any important action or enterprise to +obtain from the augurs, or state prophets, some hint of its probable outcome; +and one of their favorite and most trustworthy modes of divination consisted in +observing the flight of birds—the omens thence derived being called <i>auspices</i>. Newspaper reporters and certain +miscreant lexicographers have decided that the word—always in the plural—shall +mean “patronage” or “management”; as, “The festivities were under the auspices +of the Ancient and Honorable Order of Body-Snatchers”; or, “The hilarities were +auspicated by the Knights of Hunger.”</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">A Roman slave appeared one day</p> +<p class="poetry">Before the Augur. “Tell me, pray,</p> +<p class="poetry">If—“ here the Augur, smiling, made</p> +<p class="poetry">A checking gesture and displayed</p> +<p class="poetry">His open palm, which plainly itched,</p> +<p class="poetry">For visibly its surface twitched.</p> +<p class="poetry">A <i>denarius</i> (the Latin nickel)</p> +<p class="poetry">Successfully allayed the tickle,</p> +<p class="poetry">And then the slave proceeded: “Please</p> +<p class="poetry">Inform me whether Fate decrees</p> +<p class="poetry">Success or failure in what I</p> +<p class="poetry">To-night (if it be dark) shall try.</p> +<p class="poetry">Its nature? Never mind—I think</p> +<p class="poetry">‘Tis writ on this”—and with a wink</p> +<p class="poetry">Which darkened half the earth, he drew</p> +<p class="poetry">Another denarius to view,</p> +<p class="poetry">Its shining face attentive scanned,</p> +<p class="poetry">Then slipped it into the good man’s hand,</p> +<p class="poetry">Who with great gravity said: “Wait</p> +<p class="poetry">While I retire to question Fate.”</p> +<p class="poetry">That holy person then withdrew</p> +<p class="poetry">His scared clay and, passing through</p> +<p class="poetry">The temple’s rearward gate, cried “Shoo!”</p> +<p class="poetry">Waving his robe of office. Straight</p> +<p class="poetry">Each sacred peacock and its mate</p> +<p class="poetry">(Maintained for Juno’s favor) fled</p> +<p class="poetry">With clamor from the trees o’erhead,</p> +<p class="poetry">Where they were perching for the night.</p> +<p class="poetry">The temple’s roof received their flight,</p> +<p class="poetry">For thither they would always go,</p> +<p class="poetry">When danger threatened them below.</p> +<p class="poetry">Back to the slave the Augur went:</p> +<p class="poetry">“My son, forecasting the event</p> +<p class="poetry">By flight of birds, I must confess</p> +<p class="poetry">The auspices deny success.”</p> +<p class="poetry">That slave retired, a sadder man,</p> +<p class="poetry">Abandoning his secret plan—</p> +<p class="poetry">Which was (as well the craft seer</p> +<p class="poetry">Had from the first divined) to clear</p> +<p class="poetry">The wall and fraudulently seize</p> +<p class="poetry">On Juno’s poultry in the trees.</p> +<p class="citeauth">G. J.</p> +</div> + +<p id="income" class="entry"><span class="def">income</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The natural and rational gauge and measure of respectability, the commonly accepted +standards being artificial, arbitrary and fallacious; for, as “Sir Sycophas +Chrysolater” in the play has justly remarked, “the true use and function of +property (in whatsoever it consisteth—coins, or land, or houses, or merchant-stuff, +or anything which may be named as holden of right to one’s own +subservience) as also of honors, titles, preferments and place, and all favor +and acquaintance of persons of quality or ableness, are but to get money. Hence +it followeth that all things are truly to be rated as of worth in measure of +their serviceableness to that end; and their possessors should take rank in +agreement thereto, neither the lord of an unproducing manor, howsoever broad +and ancient, nor he who bears an unremunerate dignity, nor yet the pauper +favorite of a king, being esteemed of level excellency with him whose riches +are of daily accretion; and hardly should they whose wealth is barren claim and +rightly take more honor than the poor and unworthy.”</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">incompatibility</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> In matrimony a similarity of tastes, particularly the taste for domination. Incompatibility +may, however, consist of a meek-eyed matron living just around the corner. It +has even been known to wear a moustache.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">incompossible</span>, <span class="pos">adj.</span> Unable to exist if something else exists. Two things are incompossible +when the world of being has scope enough for one of them, but not enough for +both—as Walt Whitman’s poetry and God’s mercy to man. Incompossibility, it will +be seen, is only incompatibility let loose. Instead of such low language as “Go +heel yourself—I mean to kill you on sight,” the words, “Sir, we are +incompossible,” would convey and equally significant intimation and in stately +courtesy are altogether superior.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">Incubus</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> One of a race of highly improper demons who, though probably not wholly extinct, may +be said to have seen their best nights. For a complete account of <i>incubi</i> and <i>succubi</i>, including <i>incubae</i> +and <i>succubae</i>, see the <i>Liber Demonorum</i> of Protassus (Paris, +1328), which contains much curious information that would be out of place in a +dictionary intended as a text-book for the public schools.</p> + +<p>Victor Hugo relates that in the Channel Islands Satan himself—tempted more than elsewhere +by the beauty of the women, doubtless—sometimes plays at <i>incubus</i>, greatly to the inconvenience and +alarm of the good dames who wish to be loyal to their marriage vows, generally +speaking. A certain lady applied to the parish priest to learn how they might, +in the dark, distinguish the hardy intruder from their husbands. The holy man +said they must feel his brown for horns; but Hugo is ungallant enough to hint a +doubt of the efficacy of the test.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">incumbent</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +person of the liveliest interest to the outcumbents.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">indecision</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The +chief element of success; “for whereas,” saith Sir Thomas Brewbold, “there is +but one way to do nothing and divers way to do something, whereof, to a surety, +only one is the right way, it followeth that he who from indecision standeth +still hath not so many chances of going astray as he who pusheth forwards”—a +most clear and satisfactory exposition on the matter.</p> + +<p class="dialog">“Your prompt decision to attack,” said Genera Grant +on a certain occasion to General Gordon Granger, “was admirable; you had but five minutes +to make up your mind in.”</p> + +<p class="dialog">“Yes, sir,” answered the victorious subordinate, +“it is a great thing to be know exactly what to do in an emergency. When in doubt +whether to attack or retreat I never hesitate a moment—I toss us a copper.”</p> + +<p class="dialog">“Do you mean to say that’s what you did this time?”</p> +<p class="dialog">“Yes, General; but for Heaven’s sake don’t reprimand me: I disobeyed the coin.”</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">indifferent</span>, <span class="pos">adj.</span> Imperfectly +sensible to distinctions among things.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">“You tiresome man!” cried Indolentio’s wife,<br /> +“You’ve grown indifferent to all in life.”<br /> +“Indifferent?” he drawled with a slow smile;<br /> +“I would be, dear, but it is not worth while.”</p> +<p class="citeauth">Apuleius M. Gokul</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">indigestion</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +disease which the patient and his friends frequently mistake for deep religious +conviction and concern for the salvation of mankind. As the simple Red Man of +the western wild put it, with, it must be confessed, a certain force: “Plenty +well, no pray; big bellyache, heap God.”</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">indiscretion</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The guilt of woman.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">inexpedient</span>, <span class="pos">adj.</span> Not calculated +to advance one’s interests.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">infancy</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The +period of our lives when, according to Wordsworth, “Heaven lies about us.” The +world begins lying about us pretty soon afterward.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">Inferiae,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> [Latin] Among the Greeks and Romans, sacrifices +for propitation of the <i>Dii Manes</i>, or souls of the dead heroes; +for the pious ancients could not invent enough gods to satisfy their spiritual +needs, and had to have a number of makeshift deities, or, as a sailor might +say, jury-gods, which they made out of the most unpromising materials. It was +while sacrificing a bullock to the spirit of Agamemnon that Laiaides, a priest +of Aulis, was favored with an audience of that illustrious warrior’s shade, who +prophetically recounted to him the birth of Christ and the triumph of +Christianity, giving him also a rapid but tolerably complete review of events +down to the reign of Saint Louis. The narrative ended abruptly at the point, +owing to the inconsiderate crowing of a cock, which compelled the ghosted King +of Men to scamper back to Hades. There is a fine mediaeval flavor to this +story, and as it has not been traced back further than Pere Brateille, a pious +but obscure writer at the court of Saint Louis, we shall probably not err on +the side of presumption in considering it apocryphal, though Monsignor Capel’s +judgment of the matter might be different; and to that I bow—wow.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">infidel</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> In New +York, one who does not believe in the Christian religion; in Constantinople, +one who does. (See GIAOUR.) A kind of scoundrel imperfectly reverent of, and +niggardly contributory to, divines, ecclesiastics, popes, parsons, canons, +monks, mollahs, voodoos, presbyters, hierophants, prelates, obeah-men, abbes, +nuns, missionaries, exhorters, deacons, friars, hadjis, high-priests, muezzins, +brahmins, medicine-men, confessors, eminences, elders, primates, prebendaries, +pilgrims, prophets, imaums, beneficiaries, clerks, vicars-choral, archbishops, +bishops, abbots, priors, preachers, padres, abbotesses, caloyers, palmers, +curates, patriarchs, bonezs, santons, beadsmen, canonesses, residentiaries, +diocesans, deans, subdeans, rural deans, abdals, charm-sellers, archdeacons, +hierarchs, class-leaders, incumbents, capitulars, sheiks, talapoins, +postulants, scribes, gooroos, precentors, beadles, fakeers, sextons, +reverences, revivalists, cenobites, perpetual curates, chaplains, mudjoes, +readers, novices, vicars, pastors, rabbis, ulemas, lamas, sacristans, vergers, +dervises, lectors, church wardens, cardinals, prioresses, suffragans, acolytes, +rectors, cures, sophis, mutifs and pumpums.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">influence</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> In politics, +a visionary <i>quo</i> given in exchange for a substantial <i>quid</i>.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">Infalapsarian</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> One +who ventures to believe that Adam need not have sinned unless he had a mind +to—in opposition to the Supralapsarians, who hold that that luckless person’s +fall was decreed from the beginning. Infralapsarians are sometimes called +Sublapsarians without material effect upon the importance and lucidity of their +views about Adam.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">Two theologues once, as they wended their way</p> +<p class="poetry">To chapel, engaged in colloquial fray—</p> +<p class="poetry">An earnest logomachy, bitter as gall,</p> +<p class="poetry">Concerning poor Adam and what made him fall.<br /> +“’Twas Predestination,” cried one—“for the Lord<br /> +Decreed he should fall of his own accord.”<br /> +“Not so—‘twas Free will,” the other maintained,<br /> +“Which led him to choose what the Lord had ordained.”<br /> +So fierce and so fiery grew the debate<br /> +That nothing but bloodshed their dudgeon could sate;</p> +<p class="poetry">So off flew their +cassocks and caps to the ground And, moved by the spirit, their hands went +round. Ere either had proved his theology right By winning, or even beginning, +the fight, A gray old professor of Latin came by, A staff in his hand and a +scowl in his eye, And learning the cause of their quarrel (for still As they +clumsily sparred they disputed with skill Of foreordination freedom of will)</p> +<p class="poetry">Cried: “Sirrahs! this reasonless warfare compose:</p> +<p class="poetry">Atwixt ye’s no +difference worthy of blows. The sects ye belong to—I’m ready to swear Ye +wrongly interpret the names that they bear. <i>You</i> +—Infralapsarian son of a clown!—</p> +<p class="poetry">Should only contend that Adam slipped down;</p> +<p class="poetry">While <i>you</i>—you Supralapsarian pup!—</p> +<p class="poetry">Should nothing aver but that Adam slipped up.</p> +<p class="poetry">It’s all the same whether up or down</p> +<p class="poetry">You slip on a peel of banana brown.</p> +<p class="poetry">Even Adam analyzed not his blunder,</p> +<p class="poetry">But thought he had slipped on a peal of thunder!</p> +<p class="citeauth">G. J.</p> +</div> +<p class="entry"><span class="def">ingrate</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> One +who receives a benefit from another, or is otherwise an object of charity.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">“All men are ingrates,” sneered the cynic. “Nay,”</p> +<p class="poetry">The good philanthropist replied;</p> +<p class="poetry">“I did great service to a man one day</p> +<p class="poetry">Who never since has cursed me to repay,</p> +<p class="poetry">Nor vilified.”</p> +<p class="poetry">“Ho!” cried the cynic, “lead me to him straight—</p> +<p class="poetry">With veneration I am overcome,</p> +<p class="poetry">And fain would have his blessing.” “Sad your fate—</p> +<p class="poetry">He cannot bless you, for AI grieve to state</p> +<p class="poetry">This man is dumb.”</p> +<p class="citeauth">Ariel Selp</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">injury</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> An +offense next in degree of enormity to a slight.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">injustice</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +burden which of all those that we load upon others and carry ourselves is +lightest in the hands and heaviest upon the back.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">ink</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +villainous compound of tannogallate of iron, gum-arabic and water, chiefly used +to facilitate the infection of idiocy and promote intellectual crime. The +properties of ink are peculiar and contradictory: it may be used to make +reputations and unmake them; to blacken them and to make them white; but it is +most generally and acceptably employed as a mortar to bind together the stones +of an edifice of fame, and as a whitewash to conceal afterward the rascal +quality of the material. There are men called journalists who have established +ink baths which some persons pay money to get into, others to get out of. Not +infrequently it occurs that a person who has paid to get in pays twice as much +to get out.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">innate</span>, <span class="pos">adj.</span> Natural, +inherent—as innate ideas, that is to say, ideas that we are born with, having +had them previously imparted to us. The doctrine of innate ideas is one of the +most admirable faiths of philosophy, being itself an innate idea and therefore +inaccessible to disproof, though Locke foolishly supposed himself to have given +it “a black eye.” Among innate ideas may be mentioned the belief in one’s +ability to conduct a newspaper, in the greatness of one’s country, in the +superiority of one’s civilization, in the importance of one’s personal affairs +and in the interesting nature of one’s diseases.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">in’ards</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The +stomach, heart, soul and other bowels. Many eminent investigators do not class +the soul as an in’ard, but that acute observer and renowned authority, Dr. +Gunsaulus, is persuaded that the mysterious organ known as the spleen is +nothing less than our important part. To the contrary, Professor Garrett P. +Servis holds that man’s soul is that prolongation of his spinal marrow which +forms the pith of his no tail; and for demonstration of his faith points +confidently to the fact that no tailed animals have no souls. Concerning these +two theories, it is best to suspend judgment by believing both.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">inscription</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Something +written on another thing. Inscriptions are of many kinds, but mostly memorial, +intended to commemorate the fame of some illustrious person and hand down to +distant ages the record of his services and virtues. To this class of +inscriptions belongs the name of John Smith, penciled on the Washington +monument. Following are examples of memorial inscriptions on tombstones: (See +EPITAPH.)</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">“In the sky my soul is found,</p> +<p class="poetry">And my body in the ground.</p> +<p class="poetry">By and by my body’ll rise</p> +<p class="poetry">To my spirit in the skies,</p> +<p class="poetry">Soaring up to Heaven’s gate.</p> +<p class="poetry">1878.”</p> +<p class="poetry">“Sacred to the memory of Jeremiah Tree. Cut down May 9<sup>th</sup>, 1862, aged 27 yrs. 4 mos. +and 12 ds. Indigenous.”</p> +<p class="poetry">“Affliction sore long time she boar,</p> +<p class="poetry">Phisicians was in vain,</p> +<p class="poetry">Till Deth released the dear deceased</p> +<p class="poetry">And left her a remain.</p> +<p class="poetry">Gone to join Ananias in the regions of bliss.”</p> +<p class="poetry">“The clay that rests beneath this stone</p> +<p class="poetry">As Silas Wood was widely known.</p> +<p class="poetry">Now, lying here, I ask what good</p> +<p class="poetry">It was to let me be S. Wood.</p> +<p class="poetry">O Man, let not ambition trouble you,</p> +<p class="poetry">Is the advice of Silas W.”</p> +<p class="citeauth">“Richard Haymon, of Heaven. Fell to Earth Jan. 20, 1807, and had the dust brushed off him Oct. +3, 1874.”</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">insectivora</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span></p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">“See,” cries the chorus of admiring preachers, “How Providence provides for all His creatures!”</p> +<p class="poetry">“His care,” the gnat said, “even the insects follows:</p> +<p class="poetry">For us He has provided wrens and swallows.”</p> +<p class="citeauth">Sempen Railey</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">insurance</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> An +ingenious modern game of chance in which the player is permitted to enjoy the +comfortable conviction that he is beating the man who keeps the table.</p> + +<p class="dialog">INSURANCE AGENT: My +dear sir, that is a fine house—pray let me insure it.</p> + +<p class="dialog">HOUSE OWNER: With pleasure. Please make the annual premium so low that by the +time when, according to the tables of your actuary, it will probably be +destroyed by fire I will have paid you considerably less than the face of the policy.</p> + +<p class="dialog">INSURANCE AGENT: O dear, no—we could not afford to do that. </p> + +<p class="dialog">We must fix the premium so that you will have paid more.</p> + +<p class="dialog">HOUSE OWNER: How, then, can <i>I</i> afford <i>that</i>?</p> + +<p class="dialog">INSURANCE AGENT: Why, your house may burn down at any time. </p> + +<p class="dialog">There was Smith’s house, for example, which—</p> + +<p class="dialog">HOUSE OWNER: Spare me—there were Brown’s house, on the contrary, and +Jones’s house, and Robinson’s house, which—</p> + +<p class="dialog">INSURANCE AGENT: Spare <i>me</i>!</p> + +<p class="dialog">HOUSE OWNER: Let us understand each other. You want me to pay you money on the +supposition that something will occur previously to the time set by yourself +for its occurrence. In other words, you expect me to bet that my house will not +last so long as you say that it will probably last.</p> + +<p class="dialog">INSURANCE AGENT: But if your house burns without insurance it will be a total loss.</p> + +<p class="dialog">HOUSE OWNER: Beg your pardon—by your own actuary’s tables I shall probably +have saved, when it burns, all the premiums I would otherwise have paid to +you—amounting to more than the face of the policy they would have bought. But +suppose it to burn, uninsured, before the time upon which your figures are +based. If I could not afford that, how could you if it were insured?</p> + +<p class="dialog">INSURANCE AGENT: O, we should make ourselves whole from our luckier ventures +with other clients. Virtually, they pay your loss.</p> + +<p class="dialog">HOUSE OWNER: And virtually, then, don’t I help to pay their losses? Are not +their houses as likely as mine to burn before they have paid you as much as you +must pay them? The case stands this way: you expect to take more money from +your clients than you pay to them, do you not?</p> + +<p class="dialog">INSURANCE AGENT: Certainly; if we did not—</p> + +<p class="dialog">HOUSE OWNER: I would not trust you with my money. Very well then. If it is <i>certain</i>, with +reference to the whole body of your clients, that they lose money on you it is <i>probable</i>, with +reference to any one of them, that <i>he</i> will. It is these individual +probabilities that make the aggregate certainty.</p> + +<p class="dialog">INSURANCE AGENT: I will not deny it—but look at the figures in this pamph—</p> + +<p class="dialog">HOUSE OWNER: Heaven forbid!</p> + +<p class="dialog">INSURANCE AGENT: You spoke of saving the premiums which you would otherwise pay to +me. Will you not be more likely to squander them? We offer you an incentive to thrift.</p> + +<p class="dialog">HOUSE OWNER: The willingness of A to take care of B’s money is not peculiar to +insurance, but as a charitable institution you command esteem. Deign to accept +its expression from a Deserving Object.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">insurrection</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> An +unsuccessful revolution. Disaffection’s failure to substitute misrule for bad government.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">intention</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The +mind’s sense of the prevalence of one set of influences over another set; an +effect whose cause is the imminence, immediate or remote, of the performance of +an involuntary act.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">interpreter</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> One +who enables two persons of different languages to understand each other by +repeating to each what it would have been to the interpreter’s advantage for +the other to have said.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">interregnum</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The +period during which a monarchical country is governed by a warm spot on the +cushion of the throne. The experiment of letting the spot grow cold has +commonly been attended by most unhappy results from the zeal of many worthy +persons to make it warm again.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">intimacy</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +relation into which fools are providentially drawn for their mutual destruction.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">Two Seidlitz powders, one in blue</p> +<p class="poetry">And one in white, together drew</p> +<p class="poetry">And having each a pleasant sense</p> +<p class="poetry">Of t’other powder’s excellence,</p> +<p class="poetry">Forsook their jackets for the snug</p> +<p class="poetry">Enjoyment of a common mug.</p> +<p class="poetry">So close their intimacy grew</p> +<p class="poetry">One paper would have held the two.</p> +<p class="poetry">To confidences straight they fell,</p> +<p class="poetry">Less anxious each to hear than tell;</p> +<p class="poetry">Then each remorsefully confessed</p> +<p class="poetry">To all the virtues he possessed,</p> +<p class="poetry">Acknowledging he had them in</p> +<p class="poetry">So high degree it was a sin.</p> +<p class="poetry">The more they said, the more they felt</p> +<p class="poetry">Their spirits with emotion melt,</p> +<p class="poetry">Till tears of sentiment expressed</p> +<p class="poetry">Their feelings. Then they effervesced!</p> +<p class="poetry">So Nature executes her feats</p> +<p class="poetry">Of wrath on friends and sympathetes</p> +<p class="poetry">The good old rule who don’t apply,</p> +<p class="poetry">That you are you and I am I.</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">introduction</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +social ceremony invented by the devil for the gratification of his servants and +the plaguing of his enemies. The introduction attains its most malevolent +development in this century, being, indeed, closely related to our political +system. Every American being the equal of every other American, it follows that +everybody has the right to know everybody else, which implies the right to +introduce without request or permission. The Declaration of Independence should +have read thus:</p> + +<p class="quote">“We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are +endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are +life, and the right to make that of another miserable by thrusting upon him an +incalculable quantity of acquaintances; liberty, particularly the liberty to +introduce persons to one another without first ascertaining if they are not +already acquainted as enemies; and the pursuit of another’s happiness with a +running pack of strangers.”</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">inventor</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +person who makes an ingenious arrangement of wheels, levers and springs, and +believes it civilization.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">irreligion</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The +principal one of the great faiths of the world.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">itch</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The +patriotism of a Scotchman.</p> + + +</body> +</html>
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/I.html.annot b/lib/ebooks/devils/I.html.annot new file mode 100644 index 00000000..e69de29b --- /dev/null +++ b/lib/ebooks/devils/I.html.annot diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/I.html.i b/lib/ebooks/devils/I.html.i new file mode 100644 index 00000000..5e4a45c8 --- /dev/null +++ b/lib/ebooks/devils/I.html.i @@ -0,0 +1,62 @@ +29 pages +size 400 552 +length 40130 +396 2 10 body html +0 +1452 2 34 body html +56 +2967 2 55 body html +216 +4626 2 82 body html +108 +4626 2 82 body html +648 +6344 2 114 body html +141 +7343 2 133 body html +243 +9427 2 161 body html +252 +9427 2 161 body html +790 +11521 2 200 body html +73 +13272 2 224 body html +124 +14087 2 234 body html +451 +14087 2 234 body html +991 +16500 2 279 body html +0 +18562 2 306 body html +0 +20433 2 334 body html +0 +22151 2 367 body html +0 +23431 2 384 body html +209 +25306 2 412 body html +246 +27137 2 443 body html +0 +28326 2 467 body html +22 +30507 2 499 body html +0 +30991 2 507 body html +413 +32627 2 540 body html +39 +34139 2 571 body html +0 +35615 2 596 body html +0 +37320 2 627 body html +36 +37320 2 627 body html +576 +39859 2 673 body html +0 +income 12 diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/J.html b/lib/ebooks/devils/J.html new file mode 100644 index 00000000..68d56c2c --- /dev/null +++ b/lib/ebooks/devils/J.html @@ -0,0 +1,74 @@ +<?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: J</title> +</head> +<body lang="en-US"> + +<h1>J</h1> + +<p class="firstpara">J is a consonant in English, but some nations use it as a vowel—than which nothing could be more +absurd. Its original form, which has been but slightly modified, was that of +the tail of a subdued dog, and it was not a letter but a character, standing +for a Latin verb, <i>jacere</i>, “to throw,” because when a stone is thrown at a dog the dog’s tail assumes that +shape. This is the origin of the letter, as expounded by the renowned Dr. +Jocolpus Bumer, of the University of Belgrade, who established his conclusions +on the subject in a work of three quarto volumes and committed suicide on being +reminded that the j in the Roman alphabet had originally no curl.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">jealous</span>, <span class="pos">adj.</span> Unduly +concerned about the preservation of that which can be lost only if not worth keeping.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">jester</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> An +officer formerly attached to a king’s household, whose business it was to amuse +the court by ludicrous actions and utterances, the absurdity being attested by +his motley costume. The king himself being attired with dignity, it took the +world some centuries to discover that his own conduct and decrees were +sufficiently ridiculous for the amusement not only of his court but of all +mankind. The jester was commonly called a fool, but the poets and romancers have +ever delighted to represent him as a singularly wise and witty person. In the +circus of to-day the melancholy ghost of the court fool effects the dejection +of humbler audiences with the same jests wherewith in life he gloomed the +marble hall, panged the patrician sense of humor and tapped the tank of royal tears.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">The widow-queen of Portugal</p> +<p class="poetry">Had an audacious jester</p> +<p class="poetry">Who entered the confessional</p> +<p class="poetry">Disguised, and there confessed her.</p> +<p class="poetry">“Father,” she said, “thine ear bend down—</p> +<p class="poetry">My sins are more than scarlet:</p> +<p class="poetry">I love my fool—blaspheming clown,</p> +<p class="poetry">And common, base-born varlet.”</p> +<p class="poetry">“Daughter,” the mimic priest replied,</p> +<p class="poetry">“That sin, indeed, is awful:</p> +<p class="poetry">The church’s pardon is denied</p> +<p class="poetry"> To love that is unlawful.</p> +<p class="poetry">“But since thy stubborn heart will be</p> +<p class="poetry">For him forever pleading,</p> +<p class="poetry">Thou’dst better make him, by decree,</p> +<p class="poetry">A man of birth and breeding.”</p> +<p class="poetry">She made the fool a duke, in hope</p> +<p class="poetry">With Heaven’s taboo to palter;</p> +<p class="poetry">Then told a priest, who told the Pope,</p> +<p class="poetry">Who damned her from the altar!</p> +<p class="citeauth">Barel Dort</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">Jews-harp</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> An +unmusical instrument, played by holding it fast with the teeth and trying to brush it away with the finger.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">Joss-sticks</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Small +sticks burned by the Chinese in their pagan tomfoolery, in imitation of certain sacred rites of our holy religion.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">justice</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +commodity which is a more or less adulterated condition the State sells to the +citizen as a reward for his allegiance, taxes and personal service.</p> + + +</body> +</html>
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/J.html.annot b/lib/ebooks/devils/J.html.annot new file mode 100644 index 00000000..e69de29b --- /dev/null +++ b/lib/ebooks/devils/J.html.annot diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/J.html.i b/lib/ebooks/devils/J.html.i new file mode 100644 index 00000000..c1a1c9ec --- /dev/null +++ b/lib/ebooks/devils/J.html.i @@ -0,0 +1,9 @@ +3 pages +size 400 552 +length 3986 +396 2 10 body html +0 +1286 2 26 body html +209 +2152 2 38 body html +523 diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/K.html b/lib/ebooks/devils/K.html new file mode 100644 index 00000000..71c6f2d2 --- /dev/null +++ b/lib/ebooks/devils/K.html @@ -0,0 +1,137 @@ +<?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: K</title> +</head> +<body lang="en-US"> + + +<h1>K</h1> + +<p class="firstpara">K is a consonant that we get from the Greeks, but it can be traced away back beyond them to the +Cerathians, a small commercial nation inhabiting the peninsula of Smero. In +their tongue it was called <i>Klatch</i>, which means “destroyed.” The form of the letter was originally precisely that +of our H, but the erudite Dr. Snedeker explains that it was altered to its +present shape to commemorate the destruction of the great temple of Jarute by +an earthquake, <i>circa</i> 730 B.C. This building was famous for the two lofty columns of its portico, one of which was +broken in half by the catastrophe, the other remaining intact. As the earlier +form of the letter is supposed to have been suggested by these pillars, so, it +is thought by the great antiquary, its later was adopted as a simple and +natural—not to say touching—means of keeping the calamity ever in the national +memory. It is not known if the name of the letter was altered as an additional +mnemonic, or if the name was always <i>Klatch</i> and the destruction one of nature’s pums. As each theory seems probable enough, +I see no objection to believing both—and Dr. Snedeker arrayed himself on that side of the question.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">keep</span>, <span class="pos">v.t.</span></p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">He willed away his whole estate,</p> +<p class="poetry">And then in death he fell asleep,</p> +<p class="poetry">Murmuring: “Well, at any rate,</p> +<p class="poetry">My name unblemished I shall keep.”</p> +<p class="poetry">But when upon the tomb ‘twas wrought Whose was it?—for the dead keep naught.</p> +<p class="citeauth">Durang Gophel Arn</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">kill</span>, <span class="pos">v.t.</span> To +create a vacancy without nominating a successor.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">kilt</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A costume +sometimes worn by Scotchmen in America and Americans in Scotland.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">kindness</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +brief preface to ten volumes of exaction.</p> + +<p id="king" class="entry"><span class="def">king</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A male +person commonly known in America as a “crowned head,” although he never wears a +crown and has usually no head to speak of.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">A king, in times long, long gone by,</p> +<p class="poetry">Said to his lazy jester:</p> +<p class="poetry">“If I were you and you were I</p> +<p class="poetry">My moments merrily would fly—</p> +<p class="poetry">Nor care nor grief to pester.”</p> +<p class="poetry">“The reason, Sire, that you would thrive,”</p> +<p class="poetry">The fool said—“if you’ll hear it—</p> +<p class="poetry">Is that of all the fools alive</p> +<p class="poetry">Who own you for their sovereign, I’ve</p> +<p class="poetry">The most forgiving spirit.”</p> +<p class="citeauth">Oogum Bem</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">King’s Evil</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +malady that was formerly cured by the touch of the sovereign, but has now to be +treated by the physicians. Thus ‘the most pious Edward” of England used to lay +his royal hand upon the ailing subjects and make them whole—</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">a crowd of wretched souls</p> +<p class="poetry">That stay his cure: their malady convinces</p> +<p class="poetry">The great essay of art; but at his touch,</p> +<p class="poetry">Such sanctity hath Heaven given his hand,</p> +<p class="poetry">They presently amend,</p> +<p class="poetry">as the “Doctor” in <i>Macbeth</i> hath it. This useful property of the </p> +<p class="poetry">royal hand could, it appears, be transmitted along with other crown </p> +<p class="poetry">properties; for according to “Malcolm,”</p> +<p class="poetry">‘tis spoken To the succeeding royalty he leaves The healing benediction.</p> +<p class="poetry">But the gift somewhere dropped out of the line of succession: the later sovereigns of +England have not been tactual healers, and the disease once honored with the +name “king’s evil” now bears the humbler one of “scrofula,” from <i>scrofa</i>, a sow. The date and author of the +following epigram are known only to the author of this dictionary, but it is +old enough to show that the jest about Scotland’s national disorder is not a +thing of yesterday.</p> +<p class="poetry">Ye Kynge his evill in me laye,</p> +<p class="poetry">Wh. he of Scottlande charmed awaye.</p> +<p class="poetry">He layde his hand on mine and sayd:</p> +<p class="poetry">“Be gone!” Ye ill no longer stayd.</p> +<p class="poetry">But O ye wofull plyght in wh.</p> +<p class="poetry">I’m now y-pight: I have ye itche!</p> +<p class="poetry">The superstitionth at maladies can be cured by royal taction is </p> +<p class="poetry">dead, but like many a departed conviction it has left a monument of </p> +<p class="poetry">custom to keep its memory green. The practice of forming a line and </p> +<p class="poetry">shaking the President’s hand had no other origin, and when that great </p> +<p class="poetry">dignitary bestows his healing salutation on</p> +<p class="poetry">strangely visited people,</p> +<p class="poetry">All swoln and ulcerous, pitiful to the eye,</p> +<p class="poetry">The mere despair of surgery,</p> +<p class="poetry">he and his patients are handing along an extinguished torch which once was kindled at the +altar-fire of a faith long held by all classes of men. It is a beautiful and +edifying “survival”—one which brings the sainted past close home in our “business and bosoms.”</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">kiss</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A word +invented by the poets as a rhyme for “bliss.” It is supposed to signify, in a +general way, some kind of rite or ceremony appertaining to a good +understanding; but the manner of its performance is unknown to this lexicographer.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">kleptomaniac</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +rich thief.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">knight</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span></p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">Once a warrior gentle of birth,</p> +<p class="poetry">Then a person of civic worth,</p> +<p class="poetry">Now a fellow to move our mirth.</p> +<p class="poetry">Warrior, person, and fellow—no more:</p> +<p class="poetry">We must knight our dogs to get any lower.</p> +<p class="poetry">Brave Knights Kennelers then shall be,</p> +<p class="poetry">Noble Knights of the Golden Flea,</p> +<p class="poetry">Knights of the Order of St. Steboy,</p> +<p class="poetry">Knights of St. Gorge and Sir Knights Jawy.</p> +<p class="poetry">God speed the day when this knighting fad</p> +<p class="poetry">Shall go to the dogs and the dogs go mad.</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">Koran</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A book +which the Mohammedans foolishly believe to have been written by divine +inspiration, but which Christians know to be a wicked imposture, contradictory +to the Holy Scriptures.</p> + +</body> +</html>
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/K.html.annot b/lib/ebooks/devils/K.html.annot new file mode 100644 index 00000000..e69de29b --- /dev/null +++ b/lib/ebooks/devils/K.html.annot diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/K.html.i b/lib/ebooks/devils/K.html.i new file mode 100644 index 00000000..c6593bc6 --- /dev/null +++ b/lib/ebooks/devils/K.html.i @@ -0,0 +1,16 @@ +6 pages +size 400 552 +length 7556 +396 2 10 body html +0 +1716 2 31 body html +91 +2763 2 53 body html +252 +3711 2 72 body html +305 +3711 2 72 body html +854 +6594 2 117 body html +91 +king 1 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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Its form, that of a heavy club, indicates its +original purpose and use in dissuading from dissent.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">machination</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The +method employed by one’s opponents in baffling one’s open and honorable efforts +to do the right thing.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">So plain the advantages of machination</p> +<p class="poetry">It constitutes a moral obligation,</p> +<p class="poetry">And honest wolves who think upon’t with loathing</p> +<p class="poetry">Feel bound to don the sheep’s deceptive clothing.</p> +<p class="poetry">So prospers still the diplomatic art,</p> +<p class="poetry">And Satan bows, with hand upon his heart.</p> +<p class="citeauth">R. S. K.</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">macrobian</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> One +forgotten of the gods and living to a great age. History is abundantly supplied +with examples, from Methuselah to Old Parr, but some notable instances of +longevity are less well known. A Calabrian peasant named Coloni, born in 1753, +lived so long that he had what he considered a glimpse of the dawn of universal +peace. Scanavius relates that he knew an archbishop who was so old that he +could remember a time when he did not deserve hanging. In 1566 a linen draper +of Bristol, England, declared that he had lived five hundred years, and that in +all that time he had never told a lie. There are instances of longevity +(<i>macrobiosis</i>) in our own country. Senator Chauncey Depew is old enough to +know better. The editor of <i>The American</i>, +a newspaper in New York City, has a memory that goes back to the time when he +was a rascal, but not to the fact. The President of the United States was born +so long ago that many of the friends of his youth have risen to high political +and military preferment without the assistance of personal merit. The verses +following were written by a macrobian:</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">When I was young the world was fair</p> +<p class="poetry">And amiable and sunny.</p> +<p class="poetry">A brightness was in all the air,</p> +<p class="poetry">In all the waters, honey.</p> +<p class="poetry">The jokes were fine and funny,</p> +<p class="poetry">The statesmen honest in their views,</p> +<p class="poetry">And in their lives, as well,</p> +<p class="poetry">And when you heard a bit of news</p> +<p class="poetry">‘Twas true enough to tell.</p> +<p class="poetry">Men were not ranting, shouting, reeking,</p> +<p class="poetry">Nor women “generally speaking.”</p> +<p class="poetry">The Summer then was long indeed:</p> +<p class="poetry">It lasted one whole season!</p> +<p class="poetry">The sparkling Winter gave no heed</p> +<p class="poetry">When ordered by Unreason</p> +<p class="poetry">To bring the early peas on.</p> +<p class="poetry">Now, where the dickens is the sense</p> +<p class="poetry"> In calling that a year</p> +<p class="poetry">Which does no more than just commence</p> +<p class="poetry">Before the end is near?</p> +<p class="poetry">When I was young the year extended</p> +<p class="poetry">From month to month until it ended.</p> +<p class="poetry">I know not why the world has changed</p> +<p class="poetry">To something dark and dreary,</p> +<p class="poetry">And everything is now arranged</p> +<p class="poetry">To make a fellow weary.</p> +<p class="poetry">The Weather Man—I fear he</p> +<p class="poetry">Has much to do with it, for, sure,</p> +<p class="poetry">The air is not the same:</p> +<p class="poetry">It chokes you when it is impure,</p> +<p class="poetry">When pure it makes you lame.</p> +<p class="poetry">With windows closed you are asthmatic;</p> +<p class="poetry">Open, neuralgic or sciatic.</p> +<p class="poetry">Well, I suppose this new regime</p> +<p class="poetry">Of dun degeneration</p> +<p class="poetry">Seems eviler than it would seem</p> +<p class="poetry">To a better observation,</p> +<p class="poetry">And has for compensation</p> +<p class="poetry">Some blessings in a deep disguise</p> +<p class="poetry">Which mortal sight has failed</p> +<p class="poetry">To pierce, although to angels’ eyes</p> +<p class="poetry">They’re visible unveiled.</p> +<p class="poetry">If Age is such a boon, good land!</p> +<p class="poetry">He’s costumed by a master hand!</p> +<p class="citeauth">Venable Strigg</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">mad</span>, <span class="pos">adj.</span> Affected +with a high degree of intellectual independence; not conforming to standards of +thought, speech and action derived by the conformants from study of themselves; +at odds with the majority; in short, unusual. It is noteworthy that persons are +pronounced mad by officials destitute of evidence that themselves are sane. For +illustration, this present (and illustrious) lexicographer is no firmer in the +faith of his own sanity than is any inmate of any madhouse in the land; yet for +aught he knows to the contrary, instead of the lofty occupation that seems to +him to be engaging his powers he may really be beating his hands against the +window bars of an asylum and declaring himself Noah Webster, to the innocent +delight of many thoughtless spectators.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">Magdalene</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> An +inhabitant of Magdala. Popularly, a woman found out. This definition of the +word has the authority of ignorance, Mary of Magdala being another person than +the penitent woman mentioned by St. Luke. It has also the official sanction of +the governments of Great Britain and the United States. In England the word is +pronounced Maudlin, whence maudlin, adjective, unpleasantly sentimental. With +their Maudlin for Magdalene, and their Bedlam for Bethlehem, the English may +justly boast themselves the greatest of revisers.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">magic</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> An art +of converting superstition into coin. There are other arts serving the same +high purpose, but the discreet lexicographer does not name them.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">magnet</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Something +acted upon by magnetism.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">magnetism</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Something +acting upon a magnet.</p> + +<p class="indentpara">The two definitions immediately foregoing are condensed from the works of one thousand +eminent scientists, who have illuminated the subject with a great white light, +to the inexpressible advancement of human knowledge.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">magnificient</span>, <span class="pos">adj.</span> Having +a grandeur or splendor superior to that to which the spectator is accustomed, +as the ears of an ass, to a rabbit, or the glory of a glowworm, to a maggot.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">magnitude</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Size. +Magnitude being purely relative, nothing is large and nothing small. If +everything in the universe were increased in bulk one thousand diameters +nothing would be any larger than it was before, but if one thing remain +unchanged all the others would be larger than they had been. To an +understanding familiar with the relativity of magnitude and distance the spaces +and masses of the astronomer would be no more impressive than those of the +microscopist. For anything we know to the contrary, the visible universe may be +a small part of an atom, with its component ions, floating in the life- fluid +(luminiferous ether) of some animal. Possibly the wee creatures peopling the +corpuscles of our own blood are overcome with the proper emotion when +contemplating the unthinkable distance from one of these to another.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">magpie</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A bird +whose thievish disposition suggested to someone that it might be taught to talk.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">maiden</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A young +person of the unfair sex addicted to clewless conduct and views that madden to +crime. The genus has a wide geographical distribution, being found wherever +sought and deplored wherever found. The maiden is not altogether unpleasing to +the eye, nor (without her piano and her views) insupportable to the ear, though +in respect to comeliness distinctly inferior to the rainbow, and, with regard +to the part of her that is audible, bleating out of the field by the +canary—which, also, is more portable.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">A lovelorn maiden she sat and sang—</p> +<p class="poetry">This quaint, sweet song sang she;</p> +<p class="poetry">“It’s O for a youth with a football bang</p> +<p class="poetry">And a muscle fair to see!</p> +<p class="poetry">The Captain he</p> +<p class="poetry">Of a team to be!</p> +<p class="poetry">On the gridiron he shall shine,</p> +<p class="poetry">A monarch by right divine,</p> +<p class="poetry">And never to roast on it—me!”</p> +<p class="citeauth">Opoline Jones</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">majesty</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The +state and title of a king. Regarded with a just contempt by the Most Eminent +Grand Masters, Grand Chancellors, Great Incohonees and Imperial Potentates of +the ancient and honorable orders of republican America.</p> + +<p id="male" class="entry"><span class="def">male</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A member +of the unconsidered, or negligible sex. The male of the human race is commonly +known (to the female) as Mere Man. The genus has two varieties: good providers +and bad providers.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">malefactor</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The +chief factor in the progress of the human race.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">malthusian</span>, <span class="pos">adj.</span> Pertaining +to Malthus and his doctrines. Malthus believed in artificially limiting +population, but found that it could not be done by talking. One of the most +practical exponents of the Malthusian idea was Herod of Judea, though all the +famous soldiers have been of the same way of thinking.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">mammalia</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span>pl. A +family of vertebrate animals whose females in a state of nature suckle their +young, but when civilized and enlightened put them out to nurse, or use the bottle.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">Mammon</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The god +of the world’s leading religion. The chief temple is in the holy city of New York.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">He swore that all other religions were</p> +<p class="poetry">gammon, And wore out his knees in the worship of Mammon.</p> +<p class="citeauth">Jared Oopf</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">man</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> An animal +so lost in rapturous contemplation of what he thinks he is as to overlook what +he indubitably ought to be. His chief occupation is extermination of other +animals and his own species, which, however, multiplies with such insistent +rapidity as to infest the whole habitable earh and Canada.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">When the world was young and Man was new,</p> +<p class="poetry">And everything was pleasant,</p> +<p class="poetry">Distinctions Nature never drew</p> +<p class="poetry">‘Mongst kings and priest and peasant.</p> +<p class="poetry">We’re not that way at present,</p> +<p class="poetry">Save here in this Republic, where</p> +<p class="poetry">We have that old regime,</p> +<p class="poetry">For all are kings, however bare</p> +<p class="poetry">Their backs, howe’er extreme</p> +<p class="poetry">Their hunger. And, indeed, each has a voice</p> +<p class="poetry">To accept the tyrant of his party’s choice.</p> +<p class="poetry">A citizen who would not vote,</p> +<p class="poetry">And, therefore, was detested,</p> +<p class="poetry">Was one day with a tarry coat</p> +<p class="poetry">(With feathers backed and breasted)</p> +<p class="poetry">By patriots invested.</p> +<p class="poetry">“It is your duty,” cried the crowd,</p> +<p class="poetry">“Your ballot true to cast</p> +<p class="poetry">For the man o’ your choice.” He humbly bowed,</p> +<p class="poetry">And explained his wicked past:</p> +<p class="poetry">“That’s what I very gladly would have done, Dear patriots, but he has never run.”</p> +<p class="citeauth">Apperton Duke</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">manes</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The +immortal parts of dead Greeks and Romans. They were in a state of dull +discomfort until the bodies from which they had exhaled were buried and burned; +and they seem not to have been particularly happy afterward.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">Manicheism</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The +ancient Persian doctrine of an incessant warfare between Good and Evil. When +Good gave up the fight the Persians joined the victorious Opposition.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">Manna</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A food +miraculously given to the Israelites in the wilderness. When it was no longer +supplied to them they settled down and tilled the soil, fertilizing it, as a +rule, with the bodies of the original occupants.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">marriage</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The +state or condition of a community consisting of a master, a mistress and two +slaves, making in all, two.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">martyr</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> One who +moves along the line of least reluctance to a desired death.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">material</span>, <span class="pos">adj.</span> Having +an actual existence, as distinguished from an imaginary one. Important.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">Material things I know, or fell, or see;</p> +<p class="poetry">All else is immaterial to me.</p> +<p class="citeauth">Jamrach Holobom</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">mausoleum</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The +final and funniest folly of the rich.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">mayonnaise</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> One +of the sauces which serve the French in place of a state religion.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">me,</span> <span class="pos">pro.</span> The +objectionable case of I. The personal pronoun in English has three cases, the +dominative, the objectionable and the oppressive. Each is all three.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">meander</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> To +proceed sinuously and aimlessly. The word is the ancient name of a river about +one hundred and fifty miles south of Troy, which turned and twisted in the +effort to get out of hearing when the Greeks and Trojans boasted of their prowess.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">medal</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A small +metal disk given as a reward for virtues, attainments or services more or less +authentic.</p> + +<p class="indentpara">It is related of Bismark, who had been awarded a medal for gallantly rescuing a drowning person, +that, being asked the meaning of the medal, he replied: “I save lives +sometimes.” And sometimes he didn’t.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">medicine</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A stone +flung down the Bowery to kill a dog in Broadway.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">meekness</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Uncommon +patience in planning a revenge that is worth while.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">M is for Moses,</p> +<p class="poetry">Who slew the Egyptian.</p> +<p class="poetry">As sweet as a rose is</p> +<p class="poetry">The meekness of Moses.</p> +<p class="poetry">No monument shows his</p> +<p class="poetry">Post-mortem inscription,</p> +<p class="poetry">But M is for Moses</p> +<p class="poetry">Who slew the Egyptian.</p> +<p class="citeauth"><i>The Biographical Alphabet</i></p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">meerschaum</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> (Literally, +seafoam, and by many erroneously supposed to be made of it.) A fine white clay, +which for convenience in coloring it brown is made into tobacco pipes and smoked +by the workmen engaged in that industry. The purpose of coloring it has not +been disclosed by the manufacturers.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">There was a youth (you’ve heard before,</p> +<p class="poetry">This woeful tale, may be),</p> +<p class="poetry">Who bought a meerschaum pipe and swore</p> +<p class="poetry">That color it would he!</p> +<p class="poetry">He shut himself from the world away,</p> +<p class="poetry">Nor any soul he saw.</p> +<p class="poetry">He smoke by night, he smoked by day,</p> +<p class="poetry">As hard as he could draw.</p> +<p class="poetry">His dog died moaning in the wrath</p> +<p class="poetry">Of winds that blew aloof;</p> +<p class="poetry">The weeds were in the gravel path,</p> +<p class="poetry">The owl was on the roof.</p> +<p class="poetry">“He’s gone afar, he’ll come no more,”</p> +<p class="poetry">The neighbors sadly say.</p> +<p class="poetry">And so they batter in the door</p> +<p class="poetry">To take his goods away.</p> +<p class="poetry">Dead, pipe in mouth, the youngster lay,</p> +<p class="poetry">Nut-brown in face and limb.</p> +<p class="poetry">“That pipe’s a lovely white,” they say,</p> +<p class="poetry">“But it has colored him!”</p> +<p class="poetry">The moral there’s small need to sing—</p> +<p class="poetry">‘Tis plain as day to you:</p> +<p class="poetry">Don’t play your game on any thing</p> +<p class="poetry">That is a gamester too.</p> +<p class="citeauth">Martin Bulstrode</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">mendacious</span>, <span class="pos">adj.</span> Addicted to rhetoric.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">merchant</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> One +engaged in a commercial pursuit. A commercial pursuit is one in which the thing +pursued is a dollar.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">mercy</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> An +attribute beloved of detected offenders.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">mesmerism</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Hypnotism +before it wore good clothes, kept a carriage and asked Incredulity to dinner.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">metropolis</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +stronghold of provincialism.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">millennium</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The +period of a thousand years when the lid is to be screwed down, with all reformers on the under side.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">mind</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +mysterious form of matter secreted by the brain. Its chief activity consists in +the endeavor to ascertain its own nature, the futility of the attempt being due +to the fact that it has nothing but itself to know itself with. From the Latin <i>mens</i>, a fact unknown to that honest +shoe-seller, who, observing that his learned competitor over the way had +displayed the motto “<i>Mens conscia recti</i>,” emblazoned his own front with the +words “Men’s, women’s and children’s conscia recti.”</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">mine</span>, <span class="pos">adj.</span> Belonging +to me if I can hold or seize it.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">minister</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> An +agent of a higher power with a lower responsibility. In diplomacy and officer +sent into a foreign country as the visible embodiment of his sovereign’s +hostility. His principal qualification is a degree of plausible inveracity next +below that of an ambassador.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">minor</span>, <span class="pos">adj.</span> Less +objectionable.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">minstrel</span>, <span class="pos">adj.</span> Formerly +a poet, singer or musician; now a nigger with a color less than skin deep and a +humor more than flesh and blood can bear.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">miracle</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> An act +or event out of the order of nature and unaccountable, as beating a normal hand +of four kings and an ace with four aces and a king.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">miscreant</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +person of the highest degree of unworth. Etymologically, the word means +unbeliever, and its present signification may be regarded as theology’s noblest +contribution to the development of our language.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">misdemeanor</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> An +infraction of the law having less dignity than a felony and constituting no +claim to admittance into the best criminal society.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">By misdemeanors he essays to climb</p> +<p class="poetry">Into the aristocracy of crime.</p> +<p class="poetry">O, woe was him!—with manner chill and grand “Captains of industry” refused his hand, “Kings of +finance” denied him recognition And “railway magnates” jeered his low +condition. He robbed a bank to make himself respected.</p> +<p class="poetry">They still rebuffed him, for he was detected.</p> +<p class="citeauth">S. V. Hanipur</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">misericorde</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +dagger which in mediaeval warfare was used by the foot soldier to remind an +unhorsed knight that he was mortal.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">misfortune</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The +kind of fortune that never misses.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">miss</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The title +with which we brand unmarried women to indicate that they are in the market. Miss, +Missis (Mrs.) and Mister (Mr.) are the three most distinctly disagreeable words +in the language, in sound and sense. Two are corruptions of Mistress, the other +of Master. In the general abolition of social titles in this our country they +miraculously escaped to plague us. If we must have them let us be consistent +and give one to the unmarried man. I venture to suggest Mush, abbreviated to +Mh.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">molecule</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The +ultimate, indivisible unit of matter. It is distinguished from the corpuscle, +also the ultimate, indivisible unit of matter, by a closer resemblance to the +atom, also the ultimate, indivisible unit of matter. Three great scientific +theories of the structure of the universe are the molecular, the corpuscular +and the atomic. A fourth affirms, with Haeckel, the condensation of +precipitation of matter from ether—whose existence is proved by the +condensation of precipitation. The present trend of scientific thought is +toward the theory of ions. The ion differs from the molecule, the corpuscle and +the atom in that it is an ion. A fifth theory is held by idiots, but it is +doubtful if they know any more about the matter than the others.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">monad</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The +ultimate, indivisible unit of matter. (See <i>Molecule</i>.) +According to Leibnitz, as nearly as he seems willing to be understood, the +monad has body without bulk, and mind without manifestation—Leibnitz knows him +by the innate power of considering. He has founded upon him a theory of the +universe, which the creature bears without resentment, for the monad is a +gentlmean. Small as he is, the monad contains all the powers and possibilities +needful to his evolution into a German philosopher of the first class— +altogether a very capable little fellow. He is not to be confounded with the +microbe, or bacillus; by its inability to discern him, a good microscope shows +him to be of an entirely distinct species.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">monarch</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +person engaged in reigning. Formerly the monarch ruled, as the derivation of +the word attests, and as many subjects have had occasion to learn. In Russia +and the Orient the monarch has still a considerable influence in public affairs +and in the disposition of the human head, but in western Europe political +administration is mostly entrusted to his ministers, he being somewhat +preoccupied with reflections relating to the status of his own head.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">monarchical government</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Government.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">Monday</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> In +Christian countries, the day after the baseball game.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">money</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +blessing that is of no advantage to us excepting when we part with it. An +evidence of culture and a passport to polite society. Supportable property.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">monkey</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> An +arboreal animal which makes itself at home in genealogical trees.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">monosyllabic</span>, <span class="pos">adj.</span> +Composed of words of one syllable, for literary babes who never tire of +testifying their delight in the vapid compound by appropriate googoogling. The +words are commonly Saxon—that is to say, words of a barbarous people destitute +of ideas and incapable of any but the most elementary sentiments and emotions.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">The man who writes in Saxon</p> +<p class="poetry">Is the man to use an ax on</p> +<p class="citeauth">Judibras</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">monsignor</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +high ecclesiastical title, of which the Founder of our religion overlooked the advantages.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">monument</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +structure intended to commemorate something which either needs no commemoration +or cannot be commemorated.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">The bones of Agammemnon are a show,</p> +<p class="poetry">And ruined is his royal monument,</p> +<p class="poetry">but Agammemnon’s +fame suffers no diminution in consequence. The monument custom has its <i>reductiones ad absurdum</i> in monuments “to +the unknown dead”—that is to say, monuments to perpetuate the memory of those +who have left no memory.</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">moral</span>, <span class="pos">adj.</span> Conforming +to a local and mutable standard of right. </p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">Having the quality of general expediency.</p> +<p class="poetry">It is sayd there +be a raunge of mountaynes in the Easte, on one syde of the which certayn +conducts are immorall, yet on the other syde they are holden in good esteeme; +wherebye the mountayneer is much conveenyenced, for it is given to him to goe +downe eyther way and act as it shall suite his moode, withouten offence.</p> +<p class="citeauth"><i>Gooke’s Meditations</i></p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">more</span>, <span class="pos">adj.</span> The +comparative degree of too much.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">mouse</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> An +animal which strews its path with fainting women. As in Rome Christians were +thrown to the lions, so centuries earlier in Otumwee, the most ancient and +famous city of the world, female heretics were thrown to the mice. Jakak-Zotp, +the historian, the only Otumwump whose writings have descended to us, says that +these martyrs met their death with little dignity and much exertion. He even +attempts to exculpate the mice (such is the malice of bigotry) by declaring +that the unfortunate women perished, some from exhaustion, some of broken necks +from falling over their own feet, and some from lack of restoratives. The mice, +he avers, enjoyed the pleasures of the chase with composure. But if “Roman +history is nine-tenths lying,” we can hardly expect a smaller proportion of +that rhetorical figure in the annals of a people capable of so incredible +cruelty to a lovely women; for a hard heart has a false tongue.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">mousquetaire</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +long glove covering a part of the arm. Worn in New Jersey. But “mousquetaire” +is a might poor way to spell muskeeter.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">mouth</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> In man, +the gateway to the soul; in woman, the outlet of the heart.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">mugwump</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> In +politics one afflicted with self-respect and addicted to the vice of +independence. A term of contempt.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">mulatto</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +child of two races, ashamed of both.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">multitude</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +crowd; the source of political wisdom and virtue. In a republic, the object of +the statesman’s adoration. “In a multitude of consellors there is wisdom,” +saith the proverb. If many men of equal individual wisdom are wiser than any +one of them, it must be that they acquire the excess of wisdom by the mere act +of getting together. Whence comes it? Obviously from nowhere—as well say that a +range of mountains is higher than the single mountains composing it. A +multitude is as wise as its wisest member if it obey him; if not, it is no +wiser than its most foolish.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">mummy</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> An +ancient Egyptian, formerly in universal use among modern civilized nations as +medicine, and now engaged in supplying art with an excellent pigment. He is +handy, too, in museums in gratifying the vulgar curiosity that serves to +distinguish man from the lower animals.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">By means of the +Mummy, mankind, it is said, Attests to the gods its respect for the dead. We +plunder his tomb, be he sinner or saint, Distil him for physic and grind him +for paint, Exhibit for money his poor, shrunken frame, And with levity flock to +the scene of the shame.</p> +<p class="poetry">O, tell me, ye gods, for the use of my rhyme:</p> +<p class="poetry">For respecting the dead what’s the limit of time?</p> +<p class="citeauth">Scopas Brune</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">mustang</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> An +indocile horse of the western plains. In English society, the American wife of +an English nobleman.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">myrmidon</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +follower of Achilles—particularly when he didn’t lead.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">mythology</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The +body of a primitive people’s beliefs concerning its origin, early history, +heroes, deities and so forth, as distinguished from the true accounts which it +invents later.</p> + +</body> +</html>
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/M.html.annot b/lib/ebooks/devils/M.html.annot new file mode 100644 index 00000000..e69de29b --- /dev/null +++ b/lib/ebooks/devils/M.html.annot diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/M.html.i b/lib/ebooks/devils/M.html.i new file mode 100644 index 00000000..033f6e87 --- /dev/null +++ b/lib/ebooks/devils/M.html.i @@ -0,0 +1,46 @@ +21 pages +size 400 552 +length 31261 +396 2 10 body html +0 +1279 2 33 body html +90 +2468 2 50 body html +324 +2468 2 50 body html +864 +2468 2 50 body html +1404 +5710 2 110 body html +90 +7282 2 137 body html +226 +8950 2 162 body html +324 +11206 2 207 body html +0 +11585 2 213 body html +451 +13420 2 247 body html +39 +15429 2 287 body html +34 +16387 2 309 body html +73 +16760 2 315 body html +523 +18848 2 358 body html +0 +20940 2 394 body html +39 +22560 2 424 body html +56 +24843 2 458 body html +22 +26303 2 487 body html +108 +27455 2 512 body html +226 +30146 2 556 body html +87 +male 7 diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/N.html b/lib/ebooks/devils/N.html new file mode 100644 index 00000000..06a84161 --- /dev/null +++ b/lib/ebooks/devils/N.html @@ -0,0 +1,130 @@ +<?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: N</title> +</head> +<body lang="en-US"> + + +<h1>N</h1> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">nectar</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A drink +served at banquets of the Olympian deities. The secret of its preparation is +lost, but the modern Kentuckians believe that they come pretty near to a +knowledge of its chief ingredient.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">Juno drank a cup of nectar,</p> +<p class="poetry">But the draught did not affect her.</p> +<p class="poetry">Juno drank a cup of rye—</p> +<p class="poetry">Then she bad herself good-bye.</p> +<p class="citeauth">J. G.</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">negro</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The <i>piece de resistance</i> in the American +political problem. Representing him by the letter n, the Republicans begin to +build their equation thus: “Let n = the white man.” This, however, appears to +give an unsatisfactory solution.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">neighbor</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> One +whom we are commanded to love as ourselves, and who does all he knows how to +make us disobedient.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">nepotism</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Appointing +your grandmother to office for the good of the party.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">Newtonian</span>, <span class="pos">adj.</span> Pertaining +to a philosophy of the universe invented by Newton, who discovered that an +apple will fall to the ground, but was unable to say why. His successors and +disciples have advanced so far as to be able to say when.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">nihilist</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +Russian who denies the existence of anything but Tolstoi. The leader of the +school is Tolstoi.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">Nirvana</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> In the +Buddhist religion, a state of pleasurable annihilation awarded to the wise, +particularly to those wise enough to understand it.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">nobleman</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Nature’s +provision for wealthy American minds ambitious to incur social distinction and +suffer high life.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">noise</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A stench +in the ear. Undomesticated music. The chief product and authenticating sign of +civilization.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">nominate</span>, <span class="pos">v.</span> To +designate for the heaviest political assessment. To put forward a suitable +person to incur the mudgobbling and deadcatting of the opposition.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">nominee</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +modest gentleman shrinking from the distinction of private life and diligently +seeking the honorable obscurity of public office.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">non-combatant</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +dead Quaker.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">nonsense</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The +objections that are urged against this excellent dictionary.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">nose</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The +extreme outpost of the face. From the circumstance that great conquerors have +great noses, Getius, whose writings antedate the age of humor, calls the nose +the organ of quell. It has been observed that one’s nose is never so happy as +when thrust into the affairs of others, from which some physiologists have +drawn the inference that the nose is devoid of the sense of smell.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">There’s a man with a Nose,</p> +<p class="poetry">And wherever he goes</p> +<p class="poetry">The people run from him and shout:</p> +<p class="poetry">“No cotton have we</p> +<p class="poetry">For our ears if so be</p> +<p class="poetry">He blow that interminous snout!”</p> +<p class="poetry">So the lawyers applied</p> +<p class="poetry">For injunction. “Denied,”</p> +<p class="poetry">Said the Judge: “the defendant prefixion,</p> +<p class="poetry">Whate’er it portend,</p> +<p class="poetry">Appears to transcend</p> +<p class="poetry">The bounds of this court’s jurisdiction.”</p> +<p class="citeauth">Arpad Singiny</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">notoriety</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The +fame of one’s competitor for public honors. The kind of renown most accessible +and acceptable to mediocrity. A Jacob’s-ladder leading to the vaudeville stage, +with angels ascending and descending.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">noumenon</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> That +which exists, as distinguished from that which merely seems to exist, the +latter being a phenomenon. The noumenon is a bit difficult to locate; it can be +apprehended only be a process of reasoning—which is a phenomenon. Nevertheless, +the discovery and exposition of noumena offer a rich field for what Lewes calls +“the endless variety and excitement of philosophic thought.” Hurrah (therefore) +for the noumenon!</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">novel</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A short +story padded. A species of composition bearing the same relation to literature +that the panorama bears to art. As it is too long to be read at a sitting the +impressions made by its successive parts are successively effaced, as in the +panorama. Unity, totality of effect, is impossible; for besides the few pages +last read all that is carried in mind is the mere plot of what has gone before. +To the romance the novel is what photography is to painting. Its distinguishing +principle, probability, corresponds to the literal actuality of the photograph +and puts it distinctly into the category of reporting; whereas the free wing of +the romancer enables him to mount to such altitudes of imagination as he may be +fitted to attain; and the first three essentials of the literary art are +imagination, imagination and imagination. The art of writing novels, such as it +was, is long dead everywhere except in Russia, where it is new. Peace to its +ashes—some of which have a large sale.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">November</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The +eleventh twelfth of a weariness.</p> + +</body> +</html>
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/N.html.annot b/lib/ebooks/devils/N.html.annot new file mode 100644 index 00000000..e69de29b --- /dev/null +++ b/lib/ebooks/devils/N.html.annot diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/N.html.i b/lib/ebooks/devils/N.html.i new file mode 100644 index 00000000..48c06abd --- /dev/null +++ b/lib/ebooks/devils/N.html.i @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +4 pages +size 400 552 +length 6554 +396 2 10 body html +0 +1613 2 40 body html +22 +3863 2 82 body html +19 +4833 2 103 body html +0 diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/O.html b/lib/ebooks/devils/O.html new file mode 100644 index 00000000..ce553be6 --- /dev/null +++ b/lib/ebooks/devils/O.html @@ -0,0 +1,304 @@ +<?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: O</title> +</head> +<body lang="en-US"> + + +<h1>O</h1> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">oath</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> In law, a +solemn appeal to the Deity, made binding upon the conscience by a penalty for +perjury.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">oblivion</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The +state or condition in which the wicked cease from struggling and the dreary are +at rest. Fame’s eternal dumping ground. Cold storage for high hopes. A place +where ambitious authors meet their works without pride and their betters +without envy. A dormitory without an alarm clock.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">observatory</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +place where astronomers conjecture away the guesses of their predecessors.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">obsessed,</span> <span class="pos">p.p.</span> Vexed +by an evil spirit, like the Gadarene swine and other critics. Obsession was once +more common than it is now. Arasthus tells of a peasant who was occupied by a +different devil for every day in the week, and on Sundays by two. They were +frequently seen, always walking in his shadow, when he had one, but were +finally driven away by the village notary, a holy man; but they took the +peasant with them, for he vanished utterly. A devil thrown out of a woman by +the Archbishop of Rheims ran through the trees, pursued by a hundred persons, +until the open country was reached, where by a leap higher than a church spire +he escaped into a bird. A chaplain in Cromwell’s army exorcised a soldier’s +obsessing devil by throwing the soldier into the water, when the devil came to +the surface. The soldier, unfortunately, did not.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">obsolete</span>, <span class="pos">adj.</span> No longer +used by the timid. Said chiefly of words. A word which some lexicographer has +marked obsolete is ever thereafter an object of dread and loathing to the fool +writer, but if it is a good word and has no exact modern equivalent equally +good, it is good enough for the good writer. Indeed, a writer’s attitude toward +“obsolete” words is as true a measure of his literary ability as anything +except the character of his work. A dictionary of obsolete and obsolescent +words would not only be singularly rich in strong and sweet parts of speech; it +would add large possessions to the vocabulary of every competent writer who +might not happen to be a competent reader.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">obstinate</span>, <span class="pos">adj.</span> Inaccessible +to the truth as it is manifest in the splendor and stress of our advocacy.</p> + +<p>The popular type and exponent of obstinacy is the mule, a most intelligent animal.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">occasional</span>, <span class="pos">adj.</span> Afflicting us with +greater or less frequency. That, however, is not the sense in which the word is used in the phrase +“occasional verses,” which are verses written for an “occasion,” such as an anniversary, a celebration or +other event. True, they afflict us a little worse than other sorts of verse, but their name has no reference to +irregular recurrence.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">occident</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The +part of the world lying west (or east) of the Orient. It is largely inhabited +by Christians, a powerful subtribe of the Hypocrites, whose principal +industries are murder and cheating, which they are pleased to call “war” and +“commerce.” These, also, are the principal industries of the Orient.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">ocean</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A body +of water occupying about two-thirds of a world made for man—who has no gills.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">offensive</span>, <span class="pos">adj.</span> Generating +disagreeable emotions or sensations, as the advance of an army against its enemy.</p> + +<p>“Were the enemy’s tactics offensive?” the king asked. “I should say so!” replied the unsuccessful +general. “The blackguard wouldn’t come out of his works!”</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">old</span>, <span class="pos">adj.</span> In that +stage of usefulness which is not inconsistent with general inefficiency, as an <i>old man</i>. Discredited by lapse of time and +offensive to the popular taste, as an <i>old</i> +book.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">“Old books? The devil take them!” Goby said.</p> +<p class="poetry">“Fresh every day must be my books and bread.”</p> +<p class="poetry">Nature herself approves the Goby rule</p> +<p class="poetry">And gives us every moment a fresh fool.</p> +<p class="citeauth">Harley Shum</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">oleginous</span>, <span class="pos">adj.</span> Oily, +smooth, sleek.</p> + +<p>Disraeli once described the manner of Bishop Wilberforce as “unctuous, oleaginous, +saponaceous.” And the good prelate was ever afterward known as Soapy Sam. For +every man there is something in the vocabulary that would stick to him like a +second skin. His enemies have only to find it.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">Olympian</span>, <span class="pos">adj.</span> Relating +to a mountain in Thessaly, once inhabited by gods, now a repository of +yellowing newspapers, beer bottles and mutilated sardine cans, attesting the +presence of the tourist and his appetite.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">His name the smirking tourist scrawls</p> +<p class="poetry">Upon Minerva’s temple walls,</p> +<p class="poetry">Where thundered once Olympian Zeus,</p> +<p class="poetry">And marks his appetite’s abuse.</p> +<p class="citeauth">Averil Joop</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">omen</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A sign +that something will happen if nothing happens.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">once</span>, <span class="pos">adv.</span> Enough.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">opera</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A play +representing life in another world, whose inhabitants have no speech but song, +no motions but gestures and no postures but attitudes. All acting is +simulation, and the word <i>simulation</i> is from <i>simia</i>, an ape; but in +opera the actor takes for his model <i>Simia audibilis</i> (or <i>Pithecanthropos +stentor</i>)—the ape that howls.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">The actor apes a man—at least in shape;</p> +<p class="poetry">The opera performer apes and ape.</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">Opiate</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> An +unlocked door in the prison of Identity. It leads into the jail yard.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">opportunity</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +favorable occasion for grasping a disappointment.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">oppose</span>, <span class="pos">v.</span> To +assist with obstructions and objections.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">How lonely he who thinks to vex</p> +<p class="poetry">With bandinage the Solemn Sex!</p> +<p class="poetry">Of levity, Mere Man, beware;</p> +<p class="poetry">None but the Grave deserve the Unfair.</p> +<p class="citeauth">Percy P. Orminder</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">opposition</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> In +politics the party that prevents the Government from running amuck by hamstringing it.</p> + +<p>The King of Ghargaroo, who had been abroad to study the science of government, appointed +one hundred of his fattest subjects as members of a parliament to make laws for +the collection of revenue. Forty of these he named the Party of Opposition and +had his Prime Minister carefully instruct them in their duty of opposing every +royal measure. Nevertheless, the first one that was submitted passed unanimously. +Greatly displeased, the King vetoed it, informing the Opposition that if they +did that again they would pay for their obstinacy with their heads. The entire +forty promptly disemboweled themselves.</p> + +<p>“What shall we do now?” the King asked. “Liberal institutions cannot be maintained without a +party of Opposition.”</p> + +<p>“Splendor of the universe,” replied the Prime Minister, “it is true these dogs of darkness have +no longer their credentials, but all is not lost. Leave the matter to this worm of the dust.”</p> + +<p>So the Minister had the bodies of his Majesty’s Opposition embalmed and stuffed with straw, put +back into the seats of power and nailed there. Forty votes were recorded +against every bill and the nation prospered. But one day a bill imposing a tax +on warts was defeated—the members of the Government party had not been nailed +to their seats! This so enraged the King that the Prime Minister was put to +death, the parliament was dissolved with a battery of artillery, and government +of the people, by the people, for the people perished from Ghargaroo.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">optimism</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The +doctrine, or belief, that everything is beautiful, including what is ugly, +everything good, especially the bad, and everything right that is wrong. It is +held with greatest tenacity by those most accustomed to the mischance of +falling into adversity, and is most acceptably expounded with the grin that +apes a smile. Being a blind faith, it is inaccessible to the light of +disproof—an intellectual disorder, yielding to no treatment but death. It is +hereditary, but fortunately not contagious.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">optimist</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A proponent of the +doctrine that black is white.</p> + +<p>A pessimist applied to God for relief.</p> +<p>“Ah, you wish me to restore your hope and cheerfulness,” said God.</p> +<p>“No,” replied the petitioner, “I wish you to create something that would justify them.”</p> +<p>“The world is all created,” said God, “but you have overlooked something—the mortality of the optimist.”</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">oratory</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +conspiracy between speech and action to cheat the understanding. A tyranny +tempered by stenography.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">orphan</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +living person whom death has deprived of the power of filial ingratitude—a +privation appealing with a particular eloquence to all that is sympathetic in +human nature. When young the orphan is commonly sent to an asylum, where by +careful cultivation of its rudimentary sense of locality it is taught to know +its place. It is then instructed in the arts of dependence and servitude and +eventually turned loose to prey upon the world as a bootblack or scullery maid.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">orthodox</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> An ox +wearing the popular religious joke.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">orthography</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The +science of spelling by the eye instead of the ear. Advocated with more heat +than light by the outmates of every asylum for the insane. They have had to +concede a few things since the time of Chaucer, but are none the less hot in +defence of those to be conceded hereafter.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">A spelling reformer indicted</p> +<p class="poetry">For fudge was before the court cicted.</p> +<p class="poetry">The judge said: “Enough—</p> +<p class="poetry">His candle we’ll snough,</p> +<p class="poetry">And his sepulchre shall not be whicted.”</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">ostrich</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A large +bird to which (for its sins, doubtless) nature has denied that hinder toe in +which so many pious naturalists have seen a conspicuous evidence of design. The +absence of a good working pair of wings is no defect, for, as has been +ingeniously pointed out, the ostrich does not fly.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">otherwise</span>, <span class="pos">adv.</span> No better.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">outcome</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +particular type of disappointment. By the kind of intelligence that sees in an +exception a proof of the rule the wisdom of an act is judged by the outcome, +the result. This is immortal nonsense; the wisdom of an act is to be juded by +the light that the doer had when he performed it.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">outdo</span>, <span class="pos">v.t.</span> To +make an enemy.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">out-of-doors</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> That +part of one’s environment upon which no government has been able to collect +taxes. Chiefly useful to inspire poets.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">I climbed to the top of a mountain one day</p> +<p class="poetry">To see the sun setting in glory,</p> +<p class="poetry">And I thought, as I looked at his vanishing ray,</p> +<p class="poetry">Of a perfectly splendid story.</p> +<p class="poetry">‘Twas about an old man and the ass he bestrode</p> +<p class="poetry">Till the strength of the beast was o’ertested;</p> +<p class="poetry">Then the man would carry him miles on the road</p> +<p class="poetry">Till Neddy was pretty well rested.</p> +<p class="poetry">The moon rising solemnly over the crest</p> +<p class="poetry">Of the hills to the east of my station</p> +<p class="poetry">Displayed her broad disk to the darkening west</p> +<p class="poetry">Like a visible new creation.</p> +<p class="poetry">And I thought of a joke (and I laughed till I cried)</p> +<p class="poetry">Of an idle young woman who tarried</p> +<p class="poetry">About a church-door for a look at the bride,</p> +<p class="poetry">Although ‘twas herself that was married.</p> +<p class="poetry">To poets all Nature is pregnant with grand</p> +<p class="poetry">Ideas—with thought and emotion.</p> +<p class="poetry">I pity the dunces who don’t understand</p> +<p class="poetry">The speech of earth, heaven and ocean.</p> +<p class="citeauth">Stromboli Smith</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">ovation</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> n +ancient Rome, a definite, formal pageant in honor of one who had been +disserviceable to the enemies of the nation. A lesser “triumph.” In modern +English the word is improperly used to signify any loose and spontaneous +expression of popular homage to the hero of the hour and place.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">“I had an ovation!” the actor man said,</p> +<p class="poetry">But I thought it uncommonly queer,</p> +<p class="poetry">That people and critics by him had been led</p> +<p class="poetry">By the ear.</p> +<p class="poetry">The Latin lexicon makes his absurd</p> +<p class="poetry">Assertion as plain as a peg;</p> +<p class="poetry">In “ovum” we find the true root of the word.</p> +<p class="poetry">It means egg.</p> +<p class="citeauth">Dudley Spink</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">overeat</span>, <span class="pos">v.</span> To +dine.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">Hail, Gastronome, Apostle of Excess, Well skilled to overeat without distress!</p> +<p class="poetry">Thy great invention, the unfatal feast,</p> +<p class="poetry">Shows Man’s superiority to Beast.</p> +<p class="citeauth">John Boop</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">overwork</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +dangerous disorder affecting high public functionaries who want to go fishing.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">owe</span>, <span class="pos">v.</span> To have +(and to hold) a debt. The word formerly signified not indebtedness, but possession; +it meant “own,” and in the minds of debtors there is still a good deal of +confusion between assets and liabilities.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">oyster</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +slimy, gobby shellfish which civilization gives men the hardihood to eat +without removing its entrails! The shells are sometimes given to the poor.</p> + +</body> +</html>
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The only present alliance between the two arts is that +the modern painter chisels his patrons.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">palace</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A fine +and costly residence, particularly that of a great official. The residence of a +high dignitary of the Christian Church is called a palace; that of the Founder +of his religion was known as a field, or wayside. There is progress.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">palm</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A species +of tree having several varieties, of which the familiar “itching palm” (<i>Palma +hominis</i>) is most widely distributed and sedulously cultivated. This noble +vegetable exudes a kind of invisible gum, which may be detected by applying to +the bark a piece of gold or silver. The metal will adhere with remarkable +tenacity. The fruit of the itching palm is so bitter and unsatisfying that a +considerable percentage of it is sometimes given away in what are known as +“benefactions.”</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">palmistry</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The +947<sup>th</sup> method (according to Mimbleshaw’s classification) of obtaining +money by false pretences. It consists in “reading character” in the wrinkles +made by closing the hand. The pretence is not altogether false; character can +really be read very accurately in this way, for the wrinkles in every hand +submitted plainly spell the word “dupe.” The imposture consists in not reading +it aloud.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">pandemonium </span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Literally, +the Place of All the Demons. Most of them have escaped into politics and +finance, and the place is now used as a lecture hall by the Audible Reformer. When +disturbed by his voice the ancient echoes clamor appropriate responses most +gratifying to his pride of distinction.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">pantaloons</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +nether habiliment of the adult civilized male. The garment is tubular and +unprovided with hinges at the points of flexion. Supposed to have been invented +by a humorist. Called “trousers” by the enlightened and “pants” by the +unworthy.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">pantheism</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The +doctrine that everything is God, in contradistinction to the doctrine that God is everything.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">pantomime</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +play in which the story is told without violence to the language. The least +disagreeable form of dramatic action.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">pardon</span>, <span class="pos">v.</span> To +remit a penalty and restore to the life of crime. To add to the lure of crime +the temptation of ingratitude.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">passport</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +document treacherously inflicted upon a citizen going abroad, exposing him as +an alien and pointing him out for special reprobation and outrage.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">past</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> That part +of Eternity with some small fraction of which we have a slight and regrettable +acquaintance. A moving line called the Present parts it from an imaginary +period known as the Future. These two grand divisions of Eternity, of which the +one is continually effacing the other, are entirely unlike. The one is dark +with sorrow and disappointment, the other bright with prosperity and joy. The +Past is the region of sobs, the Future is the realm of song. In the one +crouches Memory, clad in sackcloth and ashes, mumbling penitential prayer; in +the sunshine of the other Hope flies with a free wing, beckoning to temples of +success and bowers of ease. Yet the Past is the Future of yesterday, the Future +is the Past of to-morrow. They are one—the knowledge and the dream.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">pastime</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +device for promoting dejection. Gentle exercise for intellectual debility.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">patience</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +minor form of despair, disguised as a virtue.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">patriot</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> One to +whom the interests of a part seem superior to those of the whole. The dupe of +statesmen and the tool of conquerors.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">patriotism</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Combustible +rubbish read to the torch of any one ambitious to illuminate his name.</p> + +<p>In Dr. Johnson’s famous dictionary patriotism is defined as the last resort of a scoundrel. With +all due respect to an enlightened but inferior lexicographer I beg to submit +that it is the first.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">peace</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> In +international affairs, a period of cheating between two periods of fighting.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">O, what’s the loud uproar assailing</p> +<p class="poetry">Mine ears without cease?</p> +<p class="poetry">‘Tis the voice of the hopeful, all-hailing</p> +<p class="poetry">The horrors of peace.</p> +<p class="poetry">Ah, Peace Universal; they woo it—</p> +<p class="poetry">Would marry it, too.</p> +<p class="poetry">If only they knew how to do it</p> +<p class="poetry">‘Twere easy to do.</p> +<p class="poetry">They’re working by night and by day</p> +<p class="poetry">On their problem, like moles.</p> +<p class="poetry">Have mercy, O Heaven, I pray,</p> +<p class="poetry">On their meddlesome souls!</p> +<p class="citeauth">Ro Amil</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">pedestrian</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The +variable (an audible) part of the roadway for an automobile.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">pedigree</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The +known part of the route from an arboreal ancestor with a swim bladder to an +urban descendant with a cigarette.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">penitentN</span>, <span class="pos">adj.</span> Undergoing +or awaiting punishment.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">perfection</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> An +imaginary state of quality distinguished from the actual by an element known as +excellence; an attribute of the critic.</p> + +<p class="indentpara">The editor of an English magazine having received a letter pointing out the erroneous nature of +his views and style, and signed “Perfection,” promptly wrote at the foot of the +letter: “I don’t agree with you,” and mailed it to Matthew Arnold.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">peripatetic</span>, <span class="pos">adj.</span> Walking +about. Relating to the philosophy of Aristotle, who, while expounding it, moved +from place to place in order to avoid his pupil’s objections. A needless +precaution—they knew no more of the matter than he.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">peroration</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The +explosion of an oratorical rocket. It dazzles, but to an observer having the +wrong kind of nose its most conspicuous peculiarity is the smell of the several +kinds of powder used in preparing it.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">perseverance</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +lowly virtue whereby mediocrity achieves an inglorious success.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">“Persevere, persevere!” cry the homilists all,<br /> +Themselves, day and night, persevering to bawl.<br /> +“Remember the fable of tortoise and hare—</p> +<p class="poetry">The one at the goal while the other is—where?”<br /> +Why, back there in Dreamland, renewing his lease<br /> +Of life, all his muscles preserving the peace,<br /> +The goal and the rival forgotten alike,<br /> +And the long fatigue of the needless hike.</p> +<p class="poetry">His spirit a-squat in the grass and the dew</p> +<p class="poetry">Of the dogless Land beyond the Stew,</p> +<p class="poetry">He sleeps, like a saint in a holy place,</p> +<p class="poetry">A winner of all that is good in a race.</p> +<p class="citeauth">Sukker Uffro</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">pessimism</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +philosophy forced upon the convictions of the observer by the disheartening +prevalence of the optimist with his scarecrow hope and his unsightly smile.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">philanthropist</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> +A rich (and usually bald) old gentleman who has trained himself to grin while +his conscience is picking his pocket.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">philistine</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> One +whose mind is the creature of its environment, following the fashion in +thought, feeling and sentiment. He is sometimes learned, frequently prosperous, +commonly clean and always solemn.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">philosophy</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +route of many roads leading from nowhere to nothing.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">Phoenix</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The classical +prototype of the modern “small hot bird.”</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">phonograph</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> An +irritating toy that restores life to dead noises.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">photograph</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +picture painted by the sun without instruction in art. It is a little better +than the work of an Apache, but not quite so good as that of a Cheyenne.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">phrenology</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The +science of picking the pocket through the scalp. It consists in locating and +exploiting the organ that one is a dupe with.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">physician</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> One +upon whom we set our hopes when ill and our dogs when well.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">physiognomy</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The +art of determining the character of another by the resemblances and differences +between his face and our own, which is the standard of excellence.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">“There is no art,” says Shakespeare, foolish man,</p> +<p class="poetry">“To read the mind’s construction in the face.”</p> +<p class="poetry">The physiognomists his portrait scan,</p> +<p class="poetry">And say: “How little wisdom here we trace! He knew his face disclosed his mind and heart, So, +in his own defence, denied our art.”</p> +<p class="poetry">Lavatar Shunk</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">piano</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A parlor +utensil for subduing the impenitent visitor. It is operated by pressing the +keys of the machine and the spirits of the audience.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">pickaninny</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The +young of the <i>Procyanthropos</i>, or <i>Americanus dominans</i>. It is small, black and charged with political +fatalities.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">picture</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +representation in two dimensions of something wearisome in three.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">“Behold great Daubert’s picture here on view—</p> +<p class="poetry">Taken from Life.” If that description’s true, Grant, heavenly Powers, that I be taken, too.</p> +<p class="citeauth">Jali Hane</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">pie</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> An advance +agent of the reaper whose name is Indigestion.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">Cold pie was highly esteemed by the remains.</p> +<p class="poetry">Rev. Dr. Mucker</p> +<p class="poetry">(in a funeral sermon over a British nobleman)</p> +<p class="poetry">Cold pie is a detestable</p> +<p class="poetry">American comestible.</p> +<p class="poetry">That’s why I’m done—or undone—</p> +<p class="poetry">So far from that dear London.</p> +<p class="citeauth">(from the headstone of a British nobleman in Kalamazoo)</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">piety</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Reverence +for the Supreme Being, based upon His supposed resemblance to man.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">The pig is taught by sermons and epistles<br /> +To think the God of Swine has snout and bristles.</p> +<p class="citeauth">Judibras</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">pig</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> An animal +(<i>Porcus omnivorus</i>) closely allied to the human race by the splendor and +vivacity of its appetite, which, however, is inferior in scope, for it sticks +at pig.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">pigmy</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> One of a +tribe of very small men found by ancient travelers in many parts of the world, +but by modern in Central Africa only. The Pigmies are so called to distinguish +them from the bulkier Caucasians—who are Hogmies.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">Pilgrim</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +traveler that is taken seriously. A Pilgrim Father was one who, leaving Europe +in 1620 because not permitted to sing psalms through his nose, followed it to +Massachusetts, where he could personate God according to the dictates of his +conscience.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">pillory</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +mechanical device for inflicting personal distinction—prototype of the +modern newspaper conducted by persons of austere virtues and blameless lives.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">piracy</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Commerce +without its folly-swaddles, just as God made it.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">pitiful</span>, <span class="pos">adj.</span> The +state of an enemy of opponent after an imaginary encounter with oneself.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">pity</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A failing +sense of exemption, inspired by contrast.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">plagiarism</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +literary coincidence compounded of a discreditable priority and an honorable subsequence.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">plagiarize</span>, <span class="pos">v.</span> To +take the thought or style of another writer whom one has never, never read.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">plague</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> In +ancient times a general punishment of the innocent for admonition of their +ruler, as in the familiar instance of Pharaoh the Immune. The plague as we of +to-day have the happiness to know it is merely Nature’s fortuitous +manifestation of her purposeless objectionableness.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">plan</span>, <span class="pos">v.t.</span> To +bother about the best method of accomplishing an accidental result.</p> + +<p id="platitude" class="entry"><span class="def">platitude</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The +fundamental element and special glory of popular literature. A thought that +snores in words that smoke. The wisdom of a million fools in the diction of a +dullard. A fossil sentiment in artificial rock. A moral without the fable. All +that is mortal of a departed truth. A demi-tasse of milk-and-mortality. The +Pope’s-nose of a featherless peacock. A jelly-fish withering on the shore of +the sea of thought. The cackle surviving the egg. A desiccated epigram.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">platonic</span>, <span class="pos">adj.</span> Pertaining +to the philosophy of Socrates. Platonic Love is a fool’s name for the affection +between a disability and a frost.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">plaudits</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Coins +with which the populace pays those who tickle and devour it.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">please</span>, <span class="pos">v.</span> To lay +the foundation for a superstructure of imposition.</p> + +<p id="pleasure" class="entry"><span class="def">pleasure</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The +least hateful form of dejection.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">plebeian</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> An +ancient Roman who in the blood of his country stained nothing but his hands. Distinguished +from the Patrician, who was a saturated solution.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">plebiscite</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +popular vote to ascertain the will of the sovereign.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">plenipotentiary,</span> <span class="pos">adj.</span> Having full power. +A Minister Plenipotentiary is a diplomatist possessing +absolute authority on condition that he never exert it.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">pleonasm</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> An +army of words escorting a corporal of thought.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">plow</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> An +implement that cries aloud for hands accustomed to the pen.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">plunder</span>, <span class="pos">v.</span> To +take the property of another without observing the decent and customary +reticences of theft. To effect a change of ownership with the candid +concomitance of a brass band. To wrest the wealth of A from B and leave C +lamenting a vanishing opportunity.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">pocket</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The +cradle of motive and the grave of conscience. In woman this organ is lacking; +so she acts without motive, and her conscience, denied burial, remains ever +alive, confessing the sins of others.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">poetry</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A form +of expression peculiar to the Land beyond the Magazines.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">poker</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A game +said to be played with cards for some purpose to this lexicographer unknown.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">police</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> An +armed force for protection and participation.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">politeness</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The +most acceptable hypocrisy.</p> + +<p id="politics" class="entry"><span class="def">politics</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of +public affairs for private advantage.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">politician</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> An +eel in the fundamental mud upon which the superstructure of organized society +is reared. When we wriggles he mistakes the agitation of his tail for the +trembling of the edifice. As compared with the statesman, he suffers the +disadvantage of being alive.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">polygamy</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +house of atonement, or expiatory chapel, fitted with several stools of +repentance, as distinguished from monogamy, which has but one.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">populist</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +fossil patriot of the early agricultural period, found in the old red soapstone +underlying Kansas; characterized by an uncommon spread of ear, which some +naturalists contend gave him the power of flight, though Professors Morse and +Whitney, pursuing independent lines of thought, have ingeniously pointed out +that had he possessed it he would have gone elsewhere. In the picturesque +speech of his period, some fragments of which have come down to us, he was +known as “The Matter with Kansas.”</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">portable</span>, <span class="pos">adj.</span> Exposed +to a mutable ownership through vicissitudes of possession.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">His light estate, if neither he did make it<br /> +Nor yet its former guardian forsake it,<br /> +Is portable improperly, I take it.</p> +<p class="citeauth">Worgum Slupsky</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">Portuguese</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span>pl. A +species of geese indigenous to Portugal. They are mostly without feathers and +imperfectly edible, even when stuffed with garlic.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">positive</span>, <span class="pos">adj.</span> Mistaken +at the top of one’s voice.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">positivism</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +philosophy that denies our knowledge of the Real and affirms our ignorance of +the Apparent. Its longest exponent is Comte, its broadest Mill and its thickest +Spencer.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">posterity</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> An +appellate court which reverses the judgment of a popular author’s +contemporaries, the appellant being his obscure competitor.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">potable</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Suitable +for drinking. Water is said to be potable; indeed, some declare it our natural +beverage, although even they find it palatable only when suffering from the +recurrent disorder known as thirst, for which it is a medicine. Upon nothing +has so great and diligent ingenuity been brought to bear in all ages and in all +countries, except the most uncivilized, as upon the invention of substitutes +for water. To hold that this general aversion to that liquid has no basis in +the preservative instinct of the race is to be unscientific—and without science +we are as the snakes and toads.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">poverty</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A file +provided for the teeth of the rats of reform. The number of plans for its +abolition equals that of the reformers who suffer from it, plus that of the +philosophers who know nothing about it. Its victims are distinguished by +possession of all the virtues and by their faith in leaders seeking to conduct +them into a prosperity where they believe these to be unknown.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">pray</span>, <span class="pos">v.</span> To ask +that the laws of the universe be annulled in behalf of a single petitioner +confessedly unworthy.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">Pre-Adamite</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> One +of an experimental and apparently unsatisfactory race of antedated Creation and +lived under conditions not easily conceived. Melsius believed them to have +inhabited “the Void” and to have been something intermediate between fishes and +birds. Little its known of them beyond the fact that they supplied Cain with a +wife and theologians with a controversy.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">precedent</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> In +Law, a previous decision, rule or practice which, in the absence of a definite +statute, has whatever force and authority a Judge may choose to give it, +thereby greatly simplifying his task of doing as he pleases. As there are +precedents for everything, he has only to ignore those that make against his +interest and accentuate those in the line of his desire. Invention of the +precedent elevates the trial-at-law from the low estate of a fortuitous ordeal +to the noble attitude of a dirigible arbitrament.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">precipitate</span>, <span class="pos">adj.</span> Anteprandial.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">Precipitate in all, this sinner</p> +<p class="poetry">Took action first, and then his dinner.</p> +<p class="citeauth">Judibras</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">predestination</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> +The doctrine that all things occur according to programme. This doctrine should +not be confused with that of foreordination, which means that all things are +programmed, but does not affirm their occurrence, that being only an +implication from other doctrines by which this is entailed. The difference is +great enough to have deluged Christendom with ink, to say nothing of the gore. With +the distinction of the two doctrines kept well in mind, and a reverent belief +in both, one may hope to escape perdition if spared.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">predicament</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The +wage of consistency.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">predilection</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The +preparatory stage of disillusion.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">pre-existence</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> An +unnoted factor in creation.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">preference</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +sentiment, or frame of mind, induced by the erroneous belief that one thing is +better than another.</p> + +<p>An ancient philosopher, expounding his conviction that life is no better than death, was +asked by a disciple why, then, he did not die. “Because,” he replied, “death is +no better than life.” It is longer.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">prehistoric</span>, <span class="pos">adj.</span> Belonging +to an early period and a museum. </p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">Antedating the art and practice of perpetuating falsehood.</p> +<p class="poetry">He lived in a period prehistoric,</p> +<p class="poetry">When all was absurd and phantasmagoric.</p> +<p class="poetry">Born later, when Clio, celestial recorded,</p> +<p class="poetry">Set down great events in succession and order,</p> +<p class="poetry">He surely had seen nothing droll or fortuitous</p> +<p class="poetry">In anything here but the lies that she threw at us.</p> +<p class="citeauth">Orpheus Bowen</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">prejudice</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +vagrant opinion without visible means of support.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">prelate</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +church officer having a superior degree of holiness and a fat preferment. One +of Heaven’s aristocracy. A gentleman of God.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">prerogative</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +sovereign’s right to do wrong.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">Presbyterian</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> One +who holds the conviction that the government authorities of the Church should +be called presbyters.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">prescription</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +physician’s guess at what will best prolong the situation with least harm to the patient.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">present</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> That +part of eternity dividing the domain of disappointment from the realm of hope.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">presentable</span>, <span class="pos">adj.</span> Hideously +appareled after the manner of the time and place.</p> + +<p>In Boorioboola-Gha a man is presentable on occasions of ceremony if he have his abdomen painted a +bright blue and wear a cow’s tail; in New York he may, if it please him, omit +the paint, but after sunset he must wear two tails made of the wool of a sheep +and dyed black.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">preside</span>, <span class="pos">v.</span> To +guide the action of a deliberative body to a desirable result. In Journalese, +to perform upon a musical instrument; as, “He presided at the piccolo.”</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">The Headliner, holding the copy in hand,</p> +<p class="poetry">Read with a solemn face:</p> +<p class="poetry">“The music was very uncommonly grand—</p> +<p class="poetry">The best that was every provided,</p> +<p class="poetry">For our townsman Brown presided</p> +<p class="poetry">At the organ with skill and grace.”</p> +<p class="poetry">The Headliner discontinued to read,</p> +<p class="poetry">And, spread the paper down</p> +<p class="poetry">On the desk, he dashed in at the top of the screed:</p> +<p class="poetry">“Great playing by President Brown.”</p> +<p class="citeauth">Orpheus Bowen</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">presidency</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The +greased pig in the field game of American politics.</p> + +<p id="president" class="entry"><span class="def">president</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The +leading figure in a small group of men of whom—and of whom only—it is +positively known that immense numbers of their countrymen did not want any of +them for President.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">If that’s an honor surely ‘tis a greater<br /> +To have been a simple and undamned spectator.</p> +<p class="poetry">Behold in me a man of mark and note</p> +<p class="poetry">Whom no elector e’er denied a vote!—</p> +<p class="poetry">An undiscredited, unhooted gent</p> +<p class="poetry">Who might, for all we know, be President</p> +<p class="poetry">By acclimation. Cheer, ye varlets, cheer—</p> +<p class="poetry">I’m passing with a wide and open ear!</p> +<p class="citeauth">Jonathan Fomry</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">prevaricator</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +liar in the caterpillar estate.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">price</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Value, +plus a reasonable sum for the wear and tear of conscience in demanding it.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">primate</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The +head of a church, especially a State church supported by involuntary +contributions. The Primate of England is the Archbishop of Canterbury, an +amiable old gentleman, who occupies Lambeth Palace when living and Westminster +Abbey when dead. He is commonly dead.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">prisonu</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A place +of punishments and rewards. The poet assures us that—</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">“Stone walls do not a prison make,”</p> +<p class="poetry">but a combination of the stone wall, the political parasite and the moral instructor is no garden +of sweets.</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">private</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +military gentleman with a field-marshal’s baton in his knapsack and an +impediment in his hope.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">proboscis</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The +rudimentary organ of an elephant which serves him in place of the +knife-and-fork that Evolution has as yet denied him. For purposes of humor it +is popularly called a trunk.</p> + +<p>Asked how he knew that an elephant was going on a journey, the illustrious Jo. Miller cast a +reproachful look upon his tormentor, and answered, absently: “When it is ajar,” +and threw himself from a high promontory into the sea. Thus perished in his +pride the most famous humorist of antiquity, leaving to mankind a heritage of +woe! No successor worthy of the title has appeared, though Mr. Edward bok, of <i>The Ladies’ Home Journal</i>, is much +respected for the purity and sweetness of his personal character.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">projectile</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The +final arbiter in international disputes. Formerly these disputes were settled +by physical contact of the disputants, with such simple arguments as the +rudimentary logic of the times could supply—the sword, the spear, and so forth. +With the growth of prudence in military affairs the projectile came more and +more into favor, and is now held in high esteem by the most courageous. Its +capital defect is that it requires personal attendance at the point of +propulsion.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">proof</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Evidence +having a shade more of plausibility than of unlikelihood. The testimony of two +credible witnesses as opposed to that of only one.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">proof-reader</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +malefactor who atones for making your writing nonsense by permitting the +compositor to make it unintelligible.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">property</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Any +material thing, having no particular value, that may be held by A against the +cupidity of B. Whatever gratifies the passion for possession in one and +disappoints it in all others. The object of man’s brief rapacity and long indifference.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">prophecy</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The +art and practice of selling one’s credibility for future delivery.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">prospect</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> An +outlook, usually forbidding. An expectation, usually forbidden.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">Blow, blow, ye spicy breezes—</p> +<p class="poetry">O’er Ceylon blow your breath,</p> +<p class="poetry">Where every prospect pleases,</p> +<p class="poetry">Save only that of death.</p> +<p class="citeauth">Bishop Sheber</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">providential</span>, <span class="pos">adj.</span> +Unexpectedly and conspicuously beneficial to the person so describing it.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">prude</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A bawd +hiding behind the back of her demeanor.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">publish</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> In +literary affairs, to become the fundamental element in a cone of critics.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">push</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> One of +the two things mainly conducive to success, especially in politics. The other is Pull.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">pyrrhonism</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> An +ancient philosophy, named for its inventor. It consisted of an absolute +disbelief in everything but Pyrrhonism. Its modern professors have added that.</p> + +</body> +</html>
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/P.html.annot b/lib/ebooks/devils/P.html.annot new file mode 100644 index 00000000..e69de29b --- /dev/null +++ b/lib/ebooks/devils/P.html.annot diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/P.html.i b/lib/ebooks/devils/P.html.i new file mode 100644 index 00000000..a0ba7695 --- /dev/null +++ b/lib/ebooks/devils/P.html.i @@ -0,0 +1,47 @@ +20 pages +size 400 552 +length 34265 +396 2 10 body html +0 +1944 2 42 body html +22 +3960 2 77 body html +90 +5856 2 109 body html +127 +7228 2 139 body html +0 +8256 2 156 body html +265 +10628 2 202 body html +22 +12036 2 229 body html +89 +13249 2 258 body html +22 +15524 2 299 body html +22 +17760 2 340 body html +22 +19719 2 377 body html +90 +21495 2 412 body html +124 +23959 2 451 body html +36 +25650 2 486 body html +72 +27357 2 520 body html +0 +27879 2 529 body html +379 +29793 2 569 body html +22 +31481 2 600 body html +39 +33103 2 628 body html +176 +president 16 +platitude 9 +politics 10 +pleasure 9 diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/Q.html b/lib/ebooks/devils/Q.html new file mode 100644 index 00000000..33c73023 --- /dev/null +++ b/lib/ebooks/devils/Q.html @@ -0,0 +1,71 @@ +<?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: Q</title> +</head> +<body lang="en-US"> + + +<h1>Q</h1> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">queen</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A woman +by whom the realm is ruled when there is a king, and through whom it is ruled +when there is not.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">quill</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> An +implement of torture yielded by a goose and commonly wielded by an ass. This +use of the quill is now obsolete, but its modern equivalent, the steel pen, is +wielded by the same everlasting Presence.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">quiver</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +portable sheath in which the ancient statesman and the aboriginal lawyer +carried their lighter arguments.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">He extracted from his quiver,</p> +<p class="poetry">Did the controversial Roman,</p> +<p class="poetry">An argument well fitted</p> +<p class="poetry">To the question as submitted,</p> +<p class="poetry">Then addressed it to the liver,</p> +<p class="poetry">Of the unpersuaded foeman.</p> +<p class="citeauth">Oglum P. Boomp</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">quixotic</span>, <span class="pos">adj.</span> Absurdly +chivalric, like Don Quixote. An insight into the beauty and excellence of this +incomparable adjective is unhappily denied to him who has the misfortune to +know that the gentleman’s name is pronounced Ke-ho-tay.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">When ignorance from out of our lives can banish Philology, ‘tis folly to know Spanish.</p> +<p class="citeauth">Juan Smith</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">quorum</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +sufficient number of members of a deliberative body to have their own way and +their own way of having it. In the United States Senate a quorum consists of +the chairman of the Committee on Finance and a messenger from the White House; +in the House of Representatives, of the Speaker and the devil.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">quotation</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The +act of repeating erroneously the words of another. </p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">The words erroneously repeated.</p> +<p class="poetry">Intent on making his quotation truer,</p> +<p class="poetry">He sought the page infallible of Brewer,</p> +<p class="poetry">Then made a solemn vow that we would be</p> +<p class="poetry">Condemned eternally. Ah, me, ah, me!</p> +<p class="citeauth">Stumpo Gaker</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">quotient</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +number showing how many times a sum of money belonging to one person is +contained in the pocket of another—usually about as many times as it can be got there.</p> + +</body> +</html>
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/Q.html.annot b/lib/ebooks/devils/Q.html.annot new file mode 100644 index 00000000..e69de29b --- /dev/null +++ b/lib/ebooks/devils/Q.html.annot diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/Q.html.i b/lib/ebooks/devils/Q.html.i new file mode 100644 index 00000000..b9a953ce --- /dev/null +++ b/lib/ebooks/devils/Q.html.i @@ -0,0 +1,7 @@ +2 pages +size 400 552 +length 3077 +396 2 10 body html +0 +1442 2 38 body html +39 diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/R.html b/lib/ebooks/devils/R.html new file mode 100644 index 00000000..915a3506 --- /dev/null +++ b/lib/ebooks/devils/R.html @@ -0,0 +1,728 @@ +<?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: R</title> +</head> +<body lang="en-US"> + + + +<h1>R</h1> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">rabble</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> In a +republic, those who exercise a supreme authority tempered by fraudulent +elections. The rabble is like the sacred Simurgh, of Arabian fable—omnipotent +on condition that it do nothing. (The word is Aristocratese, and has no exact +equivalent in our tongue, but means, as nearly as may be, “soaring swine.”)</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">rack</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> An +argumentative implement formerly much used in persuading devotees of a false +faith to embrace the living truth. As a call to the unconverted the rack never +had any particular efficacy, and is now held in light popular esteem.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">rank</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Relative +elevation in the scale of human worth.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">He held at court a rank so high</p> +<p class="poetry">That other noblemen asked why.</p> +<p class="poetry">“Because,” ‘twas answered, “others lack</p> +<p class="poetry">His skill to scratch the royal back.”</p> +<p class="citeauth">Aramis Jukes</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">ransom</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The +purchase of that which neither belongs to the seller, nor can belong to the +buyer. The most unprofitable of investments.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">rapacity</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Providence +without industry. The thrift of power.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">rarebit</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +Welsh rabbit, in the speech of the humorless, who point out that it is not a +rabbit. To whom it may be solemnly explained that the comestible known as +toad-in-a-hole is really not a toad, and that <i>riz-de-veau +a la financiere</i> is not the smile of a calf prepared after the recipe +of a she banker.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">rascal</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A fool +considered under another aspect.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">rascality</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Stupidity +militant. The activity of a clouded intellect.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">rash</span>, <span class="pos">adj.</span> Insensible +to the value of our advice.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">“Now lay your bet with mine, nor let</p> +<p class="poetry">These gamblers take your cash.”</p> +<p class="poetry">“Nay, this child makes no bet.” “Great snakes!</p> +<p class="poetry">How can you be so rash?”</p> +<p class="citeauth">Bootle P. Gish</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">rational</span>, <span class="pos">adj.</span> Devoid +of all delusions save those of observation, experience and reflection.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">rattlesnake</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Our +prostrate brother, <i>Homo ventrambulans</i>.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">razor</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> An +instrument used by the Caucasian to enhance his beauty, by the Mongolian to make +a guy of himself, and by the Afro-American to affirm his worth.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">reach</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The +radius of action of the human hand. The area within which it is possible (and +customary) to gratify directly the propensity to provide.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">This is a truth, as old as the hills,</p> +<p class="poetry">That life and experience teach:</p> +<p class="poetry">The poor man suffers that keenest of ills,</p> +<p class="poetry">An impediment of his reach.</p> +<p class="citeauth">G. J.</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">reading</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The +general body of what one reads. In our country it consists, as a rule, of +Indiana novels, short stories in “dialect” and humor in slang.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">We know by one’s reading</p> +<p class="poetry">His learning and breeding;</p> +<p class="poetry">By what draws his laughter</p> +<p class="poetry">We know his Hereafter.</p> +<p class="poetry">Read nothing, laugh never—</p> +<p class="poetry">The Sphinx was less clever!</p> +<p class="citeauth">Jupiter Muke</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">radicalsim</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The +conservatism of to-morrow injected into the affairs of to-day.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">radium</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +mineral that gives off heat and stimulates the organ that a scientist is a fool +with.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">railroad</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The +chief of many mechanical devices enabling us to get away from where we are to +wher we are no better off. For this purpose the railroad is held in highest +favor by the optimist, for it permits him to make the transit with great expedition.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">ramshackle</span>, <span class="pos">adj.</span> Pertaining +to a certain order of architecture, otherwise known as the Normal American. Most +of the public buildings of the United States are of the Ramshackle order, +though some of our earlier architects preferred the Ironic. Recent additions to +the White House in Washington are Theo-Doric, the ecclesiastic order of the +Dorians. They are exceedingly fine and cost one hundred dollars a brick.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">realism</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The +art of depicting nature as it is seem by toads. The charm suffusing a landscape +painted by a mole, or a story written by a measuring-worm.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">reality</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The +dream of a mad philosopher. That which would remain in the cupel if one should +assay a phantom. The nucleus of a vacuum.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">really</span>, <span class="pos">adv.</span> Apparently.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">rear</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> In +American military matters, that exposed part of the army that is nearest to Congress.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">reason</span>, <span class="pos">v.i.</span> To +weight probabilities in the scales of desire.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">reason</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Propensitate of prejudice.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">reasonable</span>, <span class="pos">adj.</span> Accessible +to the infection of our own opinions. </p> + +<p>Hospitable to persuasion, dissuasion and evasion.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">rebel</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +proponent of a new misrule who has failed to establish it.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">recollect</span>, <span class="pos">v.</span> To +recall with additions something not previously known.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">reconciliation</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> +A suspension of hostilities. An armed truce for the purpose of digging up the dead.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">reconsider</span>, <span class="pos">v.</span> To +seek a justification for a decision already made.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">recount</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> In +American politics, another throw of the dice, accorded to the player against +whom they are loaded.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">recreation</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +particular kind of dejection to relieve a general fatigue.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">recruit</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +person distinguishable from a civilian by his uniform and from a soldier by his gait.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">Fresh from the farm or factory or street,</p> + +<p class="poetry">His marching, in pursuit or in retreat,</p> +<p class="poetry">Were an impressive martial spectacle</p> +<p class="poetry">Except for two impediments—his feet.</p> + +<p class="citeauth">Thompson Johnson</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">rector</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> In the +Church of England, the Third Person of the parochial Trinity, the Cruate and +the Vicar being the other two.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">redemption</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Deliverance +of sinners from the penalty of their sin, through their murder of the deity +against whom they sinned. The doctrine of Redemption is the fundamental mystery +of our holy religion, and whoso believeth in it shall not perish, but have +everlasting life in which to try to understand it.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">We must awake Man’s spirit from his sin,</p> +<p class="poetry">And take some special measure for redeeming it;</p> +<p class="poetry">Though hard indeed the task to get it in</p> +<p class="poetry">Among the angels any way but teaming it,</p> +<p class="poetry">Or purify it otherwise than steaming it.</p> +<p class="poetry">I’m awkward at Redemption—a beginner:</p> +<p class="poetry">My method is to crucify the sinner.</p> +<p class="citeauth">Golgo Brone</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">redress</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Reparation +without satisfaction.</p> + +<p>Among the Anglo-Saxon a subject conceiving himself wronged by the king was permitted, on +proving his injury, to beat a brazen image of the royal offender with a switch +that was afterward applied to his own naked back. The latter rite was performed +by the public hangman, and it assured moderation in the plaintiff’s choice of a switch.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">red-skin</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +North American Indian, whose skin is not red—at least not on the outside.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">redundant</span>, <span class="pos">adj.</span> Superfluous; +needless; <i>de trop</i>.</p> + +<div class="poem">The Sultan said: “There’s evidence abundant<br /> +To prove this unbelieving dog redundant.”<br /> +To whom the Grand Vizier, with mien impressive,<br /> +Replied: “His head, at least, appears excessive.”<br /> +<p class="citeauth">Habeeb Suleiman</p> +</div> + +<p class="quote">Mr. Debs is a redundant citizen. Theodore Roosevelt</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">referendum</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +law for submission of proposed legislation to a popular vote to learn the +nonsensus of public opinion.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">reflection</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> An +action of the mind whereby we obtain a clearer view of our relation to the +things of yesterday and are able to avoid the perils that we shall not again encounter.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">reform</span>, <span class="pos">v.</span> A thing +that mostly satisfies reformers opposed to reformation.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">refuge</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Anything +assuring protection to one in peril. Moses and Joshua provided six cities of +refuge—Bezer, Golan, Ramoth, Kadesh, Schekem and Hebron—to which one who had +taken life inadvertently could flee when hunted by relatives of the deceased. This +admirable expedient supplied him with wholesome exercise and enabled them to +enjoy the pleasures of the chase; whereby the soul of the dead man was +appropriately honored by observations akin to the funeral games of early +Greece.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">refusal</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Denial +of something desired; as an elderly maiden’s hand in marriage, to a rich and +handsome suitor; a valuable franchise to a rich corporation, by an alderman; +absolution to an impenitent king, by a priest, and so forth. Refusals are +graded in a descending scale of finality thus: the refusal absolute, the +refusal condition, the refusal tentative and the refusal feminine. The last is +called by some casuists the refusal assentive.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">regalia</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Distinguishing +insignia, jewels and costume of such ancient and honorable orders as Knights of +Adam; Visionaries of Detectable Bosh; the Ancient Order of Modern Troglodytes; +the League of Holy Humbug; the Golden Phalanx of Phalangers; the Genteel +Society of Expurgated Hoodlums; the Mystic Alliances of Georgeous Regalians; Knights and Ladies +of the Yellow Dog; the Oriental Order of Sons of the West; the Blatherhood of +Insufferable Stuff; Warriors of the Long Bow; Guardians of the Great Horn +Spoon; the Band of Brutes; the Impenitent Order of Wife-Beaters; the Sublime Legion +of Flamboyant Conspicuants; Worshipers at the Electroplated Shrine; Shining +Inaccessibles; Fee-Faw-Fummers of the inimitable Grip; Jannissaries of the +Broad-Blown Peacock; Plumed Increscencies of the Magic Temple; the Grand Cabal +of Able-Bodied Sedentarians; Associated Deities of the Butter Trade; the Garden +of Galoots; the Affectionate Fraternity of Men Similarly Warted; the Flashing +Astonishers; Ladies of Horror; Cooperative Association for Breaking into the Spotlight; Dukes of Eden; +Disciples Militant of the Hidden Faith; Knights-Champions of the Domestic Dog; the Holy +Gregarians; the Resolute Optimists; the Ancient Sodality of Inhospitable Hogs; +Associated Sovereigns of Mendacity; Dukes-Guardian of the Mystic Cess-Pool; the Society for +Prevention of Prevalence; Kings of Drink; +Polite Federation of Gents-Consequential; the Mysterious Order of the +Undecipherable Scroll; Uniformed Rank of Lousy Cats; Monarchs of Worth and +Hunger; Sons of the South Star; Prelates of the Tub-and-Sword.</p> + +<p id="religion" class="entry"><span class="def">religion</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +daughter of Hope and Fear, explaining to Ignorance the nature of the Unknowable.</p> + +<span class="dialoge"> +<p>“What is your religion my son?” inquired the Archbishop of Rheims.</p> +<p>“Pardon, monseigneur,” replied Rochebriant; “I am ashamed of it.”</p> +<p>“Then why do you not become an atheist?”</p> +<p>“Impossible! I should be ashamed of atheism.”</p> +<p>“In that case, monseiegneur, you should join the Protestants.”</p> +</span> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">reliquary</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +receptacle for such sacred objects as pieces of the true cross, short-ribs of +the saints, the ears of Balaam’s ass, the lung of the cock that called Peter to +repentance and so forth. Reliquaries are commonly of metal, and provided with a +lock to prevent the contents from coming out and performing miracles at +unseasonable times. A feather from the wing of the Angel of the Annunciation +once escaped during a sermon in Saint Peter’s and so tickled the noses of the +congregation that they woke and sneezed with great vehemence three times each. It +is related in the “Gesta Sanctorum” that a sacristan in the Canterbury +cathedral surprised the head of Saint Dennis in the library. Reprimanded by its +stern custodian, it explained that it was seeking a body of doctrine. This +unseemly levity so raged the diocesan that the offender was publicly +anathematized, thrown into the Stour and replaced by another head of Saint +Dennis, brought from Rome.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">renown</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +degree of distinction between notoriety and fame—a little more supportable than +the one and a little more intolerable than the other. Sometimes it is conferred +by an unfriendly and inconsiderate hand.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">I touched the harp in every key,</p> +<p class="poetry">But found no heeding ear;</p> +<p class="poetry">And then Ithuriel touched me</p> +<p class="poetry">With a revealing spear.</p> +<p class="poetry">Not all my genius, great as ‘tis,</p> +<p class="poetry">Could urge me out of night.</p> +<p class="poetry">I felt the faint appulse of his,</p> +<p class="poetry">And leapt into the light!</p> +<p class="citeauth">W. J. Candleton</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">reparation</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Satisfaction +that is made for a wrong and deducted from the satisfaction felt in committing it.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">repartee</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Prudent +insult in retort. Practiced by gentlemen with a constitutional aversion to +violence, but a strong disposition to offend. In a war of words, the tactics of +the North American Indian.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">repentance</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The +faithful attendant and follower of Punishment. It is usually manifest in a +degree of reformation that is not inconsistent with continuity of sin.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">Desirous to avoid the pains of Hell,</p> +<p class="poetry">You will repent and join the Church, Parnell?</p> +<p class="poetry">How needless!—Nick will keep you off the coals +And add you to the woes of other souls.</p> +<p class="citeauth">Jomater Abemy</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">replica</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +reproduction of a work of art, by the artist that made the original. It is so +called to distinguish it from a “copy,” which is made by another artist. When +the two are mae with equal skill the replica is the more valuable, for it is +supposed to be more beautiful than it looks.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">reporter</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +writer who guesses his way to the truth and dispels it with a tempest of words.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">“More dear than all my bosom knows, O thou Whose ‘lips are sealed’ and will not disavow!” So +sang the blithe reporter-man as grew Beneath his hand the leg-long “interview.”</p> +<p class="citeauth">Barson Maith</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">repose</span>, <span class="pos">v.i.</span> To +cease from troubling.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">representative</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> +In national politics, a member of the Lower House in this world, and without +discernible hope of promotion in the next.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">reprobation</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> In +theology, the state of a luckless mortal prenatally damned. The doctrine of +reprobation was taught by Calvin, whose joy in it was somewhat marred by the +sad sincerity of his conviction that although some are foredoomed to perdition, +others are predestined to salvation.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">republic</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +nation in which, the thing governing and the thing governed being the same, +there is only a permitted authority to enforce an optional obedience. In a +republic, the foundation of public order is the ever lessening habit of +submission inherited from ancestors who, being truly governed, submitted +because they had to. There are as many kinds of republics as there are +graduations between the despotism whence they came and the anarchy whither they +lead.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">requiem</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A mass +for the dead which the minor poets assure us the winds sing o’er the graves of +their favorites. Sometimes, by way of providing a varied entertainment, they sing a dirge.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">resident</span>, <span class="pos">adj.</span> Unable +to leave.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">resign</span>, <span class="pos">v.t.</span> To +renounce an honor for an advantage. To renounce an advantage for a greater advantage.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">‘Twas rumored Leonard Wood had signed</p> +<p class="poetry">A true renunciation</p> +<p class="poetry">Of title, rank and every kind</p> +<p class="poetry">Of military station—</p> +<p class="poetry">Each honorable station.</p> +<p class="poetry">By his example fired—inclined</p> +<p class="poetry">To noble emulation,</p> +<p class="poetry">The country humbly was resigned</p> +<p class="poetry">To Leonard’s resignation—</p> +<p class="poetry">His Christian resignation.</p> +<p class="citeauth">Politian Greame</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">resolute</span>, <span class="pos">adj.</span> Obstinate +in a course that we approve.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">respectability</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> +The offspring of a <i>liaison</i> between a bald head and a bank account.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">respirator</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> An +apparatus fitted over the nose and mouth of an inhabitant of London, whereby to +filter the visible universe in its passage to the lungs.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">respite</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +suspension of hostilities against a sentenced assassin, to enable the Executive +to determine whether the murder may not have been done by the prosecuting +attorney. Any break in the continuity of a disagreeable expectation.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">Altgeld upon his incandescend bed</p> +<p class="poetry">Lay, an attendant demon at his head.</p> +<p class="poetry">“O cruel cook, pray grant me some relief—</p> +<p class="poetry">Some respite from the roast, however brief.”</p> +<p class="poetry">“Remember how on earth I pardoned all Your friends in Illinois when held in thrall.”</p> +<p class="poetry">“Unhappy soul! for that alone you squirm O’er fire unquenched, a never-dying worm.</p> +<p class="poetry">“Yet, for I pity your uneasy state,</p> +<p class="poetry">Your doom I’ll mollify and pains abate.</p> +<p class="poetry">“Naught, for a season, shall your comfort mar,</p> +<p class="poetry">Not even the memory of who you are.”</p> +<p class="poetry">Throughout eternal space dread silence fell;</p> +<p class="poetry">Heaven trembled as Compassion entered Hell.</p> +<p class="poetry">“As long, sweet demon, let my respite be As, governing down here, I’d respite thee.”</p> +<p class="poetry">“As long, poor soul, as any of the pack You thrust from jail consumed in getting back.”</p> +<p class="poetry">A genial chill affected Altgeld’s hide While they were turning him on t’other side.</p> +<p class="citeauth">Joel Spate Woop</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">resplendent</span>, <span class="pos">adj.</span> Like +a simple American citizen beduking himself in his lodge, or affirming his +consequence in the Scheme of Things as an elemental unit of a parade.</p> + +<p class="cite">The Knights of +Dominion were so resplendent in their velvet- and-gold that their masters would +hardly have known them. “Chronicles of the Classes”</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">respond</span>, <span class="pos">v.i.</span> To +make answer, or disclose otherwise a consciousness of having inspired an interest +in what Herbert Spencer calls “external coexistences,” as Satan “squat like a +toad” at the ear of Eve, responded to the touch of the angel’s spear. To +respond in damages is to contribute to the maintenance of the plaintiff’s +attorney and, incidentally, to the gratification of the plaintiff.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">responsibility</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> +A detachable burden easily shifted to the shoulders of God, Fate, Fortune, Luck +or one’s neighbor. In the days of astrology it was customary to unload it upon a star.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">Alas, things ain’t what we should see</p> +<p class="poetry">If Eve had let that apple be;</p> +<p class="poetry">And many a feller which had ought</p> +<p class="poetry">To set with monarchses of thought,</p> +<p class="poetry">Or play some rosy little game</p> +<p class="poetry">With battle-chaps on fields of fame,</p> +<p class="poetry">Is downed by his unlucky star</p> +<p class="poetry">And hollers: “Peanuts!—here you are!”</p> +<p class="citeauth">“The Sturdy Beggar”</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">restitutions</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The +founding or endowing of universities and public libraries by gift or bequest.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">restitutor</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Benefactor; +philanthropist.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">retaliation</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The +natural rock upon which is reared the Temple of Law.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">retribution</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +rain of fire-and-brimstone that falls alike upon the just and such of the +unjust as have not procured shelter by evicting them.</p> + +<p>In the lines following, addressed to an Emperor in exile by Father Gassalasca Jape, the +reverend poet appears to hint his sense of the improduence of turning about to +face Retribution when it is talking exercise:</p> + +<p>What, what! Dom Pedro, you desire to go</p> + +<p>Back to Brazil to end your days in quiet?</p> + +<p>Why, what assurance have you ‘twould be so?</p> + +<p>‘Tis not so long since you were in a riot,</p> + +<p>And your dear subjects showed a will to fly at</p> + +<p>Your throat and shake you like a rat. You know That empires are ungrateful; are you certain +Republics are less handy to get hurt in?</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">reveille</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +signal to sleeping soldiers to dream of battlefields no more, but get up and +have their blue noses counted. In the American army it is ingeniously called +“rev-e-lee,” and to that pronunciation our countrymen have pledged their lives, +their misfortunes and their sacred dishonor.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">revelation</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +famous book in which St. John the Divine concealed all that he knew. The +revealing is done by the commentators, who know nothing.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">reverence</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The +spiritual attitude of a man to a god and a dog to a man.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">review</span>, <span class="pos">v.t.</span></p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">To set your wisdom (holding not a doubt of it,</p> +<p class="poetry">Although in truth there’s neither bone nor skin to it)</p> +<p class="poetry">At work upon a book, and so read out of it</p> +<p class="poetry">The qualities that you have first read into it.</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">revolution</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> In +politics, an abrupt change in the form of misgovernment. Specifically, in +American history, the substitution of the rule of an Administration for that of +a Ministry, whereby the welfare and happiness of the people were advanced a +full half-inch. Revolutions are usually accompanied by a considerable effusion +of blood, but are accounted worth it—this appraisement being made by +beneficiaries whose blood had not the mischance to be shed. The French +revolution is of incalculable value to the Socialist of to-day; when he pulls +the string actuating its bones its gestures are inexpressibly terrifying to +gory tyrants suspected of fomenting law and order.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">rhadomancer</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> One +who uses a divining-rod in prospecting for precious metals in the pocket of a fool.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">ribaldry</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Censorious +language by another concerning oneself.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">ribroaster</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Censorious +language by oneself concerning another. The word is of classical refinement, +and is even said to have been used in a fable by Georgius Coadjutor, one of the +most fastidious writers of the fifteenth century—commonly, indeed, regarded as +the founder of the Fastidiotic School.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">rice-water</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +mystic beverage secretly used by our most popular novelists and poets to +regulate the imagination and narcotize the conscience. It is said to be rich in +both obtundite and lethargine, and is brewed in a midnight fog by a fat which +of the Dismal Swamp.</p> + +<p id="rich" class="entry"><span class="def">rich</span>, <span class="pos">adj.</span> Holding +in trust and subject to an accounting the property of the indolent, the +incompetent, the unthrifty, the envious and the luckless. That is the view that +prevails in the underworld, where the Brotherhood of Man finds its most logical +development and candid advocacy. To denizens of the midworld the word means +good and wise.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">riches</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span></p> + +<p class="cite">A gift from Heaven signifying, “This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased.” John D. Rockefeller</p> + +<p class="cite">The reward of toil and virtue. J.P. Morgan</p> + +<p class="cite">The sayings of many in the hands of one. Eugene Debs</p> + +<p class="indentpara">To these excellent definitions the inspired lexicographer feels that he can add nothing of value.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">ridicule</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Words +designed to show that the person of whom they are uttered is devoid of the +dignity of character distinguishing him who utters them. It may be graphic, +mimetic or merely rident. Shaftesbury is quoted as having pronounced it the +test of truth—a ridiculous assertion, for many a solemn fallacy has undergone +centuries of ridicule with no abatement of its popular acceptance. What, for +example, has been more valorously derided than the doctrine of Infant +Respectability?</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">right</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Legitimate +authority to be, to do or to have; as the right to be a king, the right to do +one’s neighbor, the right to have measles, and the like. The first of these +rights was once universally believed to be derived directly from the will of +God; and this is still sometimes affirmed <i>in +partibus infidelium</i> outside the enlightened realms of Democracy; as +the well known lines of Sir Abednego Bink, following:</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">By what right, then, do royal rulers rule?</p> +<p class="poetry">Whose is the sanction of their state and pow’r?</p> +<p class="poetry">He surely were as stubborn as a mule</p> +<p class="poetry">Who, God unwilling, could maintain an hour +His uninvited session on the throne, or air +His pride securely in the Presidential chair.</p> +<p class="poetry">Whatever is is so by Right Divine;</p> +<p class="poetry">Whate’er occurs, God wills it so. Good land!</p> +<p class="poetry">It were a wondrous thing if His design</p> +<p class="poetry">A fool could baffle or a rogue withstand!</p> +<p class="poetry">If so, then God, Isay (intending no offence)</p> +<p class="poetry">Is guilty of contributory negligence.</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">righteousness</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +sturdy virtue that was once found among the Pantidoodles inhabiting the lower +part of the peninsula of Oque. Some feeble attempts were made by returned +missionaries to introduce it into several European countries, but it appears to +have been imperfectly expounded. An example of this faulty exposition is found +in the only extant sermon of the pious Bishop Rowley, a characteristic passage +from which is here given:</p> + +<p>“Now righteousness consisteth not merely in a holy state of mind, nor yet in performance of +religious rites and obedience to the letter of the law. It is not enough that +one be pious and just: one must see to it that others also are in the same +state; and to this end compulsion is a proper means. Forasmuch as my injustice +may work ill to another, so by his injustice may evil be wrought upon still +another, the which it is as manifestly my duty to estop as to forestall mine +own tort. Wherefore if I would be righteous I am bound to restrain my neighbor, +by force if needful, in all those injurious enterprises from which, through a +better disposition and by the help of Heaven, I do myself restrain.”</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">rime</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Agreeing +sounds in the terminals of verse, mostly bad. The verses themselves, as +distinguished from prose, mostly dull. Usually (and wickedly) spelled “rhyme.”</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="entry"><span class="def">rimer</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A poet +regarded with indifference or disesteem.</p> +<p class="poetry">The rimer quenches his unheeded fires,<br /> +The sound surceases and the sense expires.<br /> +Then the domestic dog, to east and west,<br /> +Expounds the passions burning in his breast.</p> +<p class="poetry">The rising moon o’er that enchanted land</p> +<p class="poetry">Pauses to hear and yearns to understand.</p> +<p class="citeauth">Mowbray Myles</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">riot</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A popular +entertainment given to the military by innocent bystanders.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">R.I.P.</span> A careless abbreviation of <i>requiescat in pace</i>, +attesting to indolent goodwill to the dead. According to the learned Dr. +Drigge, however, the letters originally meant nothing more than <i>reductus in pulvis</i>.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">riteE</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +religious or semi-religious ceremony fixed by law, precept or custom, with the +essential oil of sincerity carefully squeezed out of it.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">ritualism</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +Dutch Garden of God where He may walk in rectilinear freedom, keeping off the +grass.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">road</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A strip +of land along which one may pass from where it is too tiresome to be to where +it is futile to go.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">All roads, howsoe’er they diverge, lead to Rome,<br /> +Whence, thank the good Lord, at least one leads back home.</p> +<p class="citeauth">Borey the Bald</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">robber</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +candid man of affairs.</p> + +<p class="indentpara">It is related of Voltaire that one night he and some traveling companion lodged at a wayside +inn. The surroundings were suggestive, and after supper they agreed to tell +robber stories in turn. “Once there was a Farmer-General of the Revenues.” Saying +nothing more, he was encouraged to continue. “That,” he said, “is the story.”</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">romance</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Fiction +that owes no allegiance to the God of Things as They Are. In the novel the +writer’s thought is tethered to probability, as a domestic horse to the +hitching-post, but in romance it ranges at will over the entire region of the +imagination—free, lawless, immune to bit and rein. Your novelist is a poor +creature, as Carlyle might say—a mere reporter. He may invent his characters +and plot, but he must not imagine anything taking place that might not occur, +albeit his entire narrative is candidly a lie. Why he imposes this hard +condition on himself, and “drags at each remove a lengthening chain” of his own +forging he can explain in ten thick volumes without illuminating by so much as +a candle’s ray the black profound of his own ignorance of the matter. There are +great novels, for great writers have “laid waste their powers” to write them, +but it remains true that far and away the most fascinating fiction that we have +is “The Thousand and One Nights.”</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">rope</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> An +obsolescent appliance for reminding assassins that they too are mortal. It is +put about the neck and remains in place one’s whole life long. It has been +largely superseded by a more complex electrical device worn upon another part +of the person; and this is rapidly giving place to an apparatus known as the +preachment.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">rostrum</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> In +Latin, the beak of a bird or the prow of a ship. In America, a place from which +a candidate for office energetically expounds the wisdom, virtue and power of +the rabble.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">roundhead</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +member of the Parliamentarian party in the English civil war—so called from his +habit of wearing his hair short, whereas his enemy, the Cavalier, wore his +long. There were other points of difference between them, but the fashion in +hair was the fundamental cause of quarrel. The Cavaliers were royalists because +the king, an indolent fellow, found it more convenient to let his hair grow +than to wash his neck. This the Roundheads, who were mostly barbers and +soap-boilers, deemed an injury to trade, and the royal neck was therefore the +object of their particular indignation. Descendants of the belligerents now +wear their hair all alike, but the fires of animosity enkindled in that ancient +strife smoulder to this day beneath the snows of British civility.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">rubbish</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Worthless +matter, such as the religions, philosophies, literatures, arts and sciences of +the tribes infesting the regions lying due south from Boreaplas.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">ruin</span>, <span class="pos">v.</span> To +destroy. Specifically, to destroy a maid’s belief in the virtue of maids.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">rum</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Generically, +fiery liquors that produce madness in total abstainers.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">rumor</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +favorite weapon of the assassins of character.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">Sharp, irresistible by mail or shield,</p> +<p class="poetry">By guard unparried as by flight unstayed,</p> +<p class="poetry">O serviceable Rumor, let me wield</p> +<p class="poetry">Against my enemy no other blade.</p> +<p class="poetry">His be the terror of a foe unseen,</p> +<p class="poetry">His the inutile hand upon the hilt,</p> +<p class="poetry">And mine the deadly tongue, long, slender, keen,</p> +<p class="poetry">Hinting a rumor of some ancient guilt. So shall I slay the wretch without a blow, Spare me to +celebrate his overthrow, And nurse my valor for another foe.</p> +<p class="citeauth">Joel Buxter</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">Russian</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +person with a Caucasian body and a Mongolian soul. A Tartar Emetic.</p> + +</body> +</html>
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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>
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/S.html.annot b/lib/ebooks/devils/S.html.annot new file mode 100644 index 00000000..e69de29b --- /dev/null +++ b/lib/ebooks/devils/S.html.annot diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/S.html.i b/lib/ebooks/devils/S.html.i new file mode 100644 index 00000000..79015d2a --- /dev/null +++ b/lib/ebooks/devils/S.html.i @@ -0,0 +1,64 @@ +30 pages +size 400 552 +length 44914 +396 2 10 body html +0 +1760 2 37 body html +39 +3547 2 67 body html +39 +3773 2 71 body html +523 +3773 2 71 body html +1063 +3773 2 71 body html +1603 +7045 2 136 body html +73 +8967 2 165 body html +0 +10281 2 191 body html +90 +11355 2 210 body html +360 +13065 2 239 body html +172 +15249 2 282 body html +0 +16848 2 310 body html +0 +18464 2 342 body html +36 +19444 2 368 body html +175 +21497 2 397 body html +187 +23557 2 437 body html +90 +24748 2 461 body html +263 +24748 2 461 body html +806 +27777 2 536 body html +70 +29053 2 566 body html +121 +30698 2 591 body html +170 +33246 2 628 body html +34 +34990 2 656 body html +0 +36077 2 677 body html +119 +37436 2 702 body html +153 +39361 2 735 body html +0 +41224 2 767 body html +19 +41224 2 767 body html +563 +44294 2 827 body html +138 +soul 20 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>
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/T.html.annot b/lib/ebooks/devils/T.html.annot new file mode 100644 index 00000000..e69de29b --- /dev/null +++ b/lib/ebooks/devils/T.html.annot diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/T.html.i b/lib/ebooks/devils/T.html.i new file mode 100644 index 00000000..136e8ee5 --- /dev/null +++ b/lib/ebooks/devils/T.html.i @@ -0,0 +1,30 @@ +13 pages +size 400 552 +length 20645 +396 2 10 body html +0 +1344 2 38 body html +107 +2653 2 60 body html +327 +2653 2 60 body html +873 +6271 2 141 body html +73 +8124 2 176 body html +22 +10082 2 204 body html +39 +11331 2 223 body html +242 +11331 2 223 body html +781 +14716 2 298 body html +0 +14753 2 300 body html +498 +17685 2 347 body html +175 +20307 2 391 body html +56 +truth 11 diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/TitlePage.html b/lib/ebooks/devils/TitlePage.html new file mode 100644 index 00000000..c1c23bef --- /dev/null +++ b/lib/ebooks/devils/TitlePage.html @@ -0,0 +1,25 @@ +<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "+//ISBN 0-9673008-1-9//DTD OEB 1.0 Document//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</title> +</head> +<body lang="en-us"> + +<h1 class="title">The Devil’s Dictionary</h1> + +<h2 class="title">AMBROSE BIERCE</h2> + +<p class="title">Originally published by Neale Publishing Company in 1911.</p> + +<p class="title">This version began as a plain ASCII text from Project +Gutenberg, and was entered by Aloysius of &tSftDotIotE (aloysius@west.darkside.com)</p> + +<p class="title">Open eBook formatting and editing was performed July–September, 2000 by +Peter K. Sheerin (psheerin@petesguide.com), with formatting based on that found in the 1993 +Dover Publications edition.</p> +</body> +</html>
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/TitlePage.html.annot b/lib/ebooks/devils/TitlePage.html.annot new file mode 100644 index 00000000..e69de29b --- /dev/null +++ b/lib/ebooks/devils/TitlePage.html.annot diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/TitlePage.html.i b/lib/ebooks/devils/TitlePage.html.i new file mode 100644 index 00000000..3d930afd --- /dev/null +++ b/lib/ebooks/devils/TitlePage.html.i @@ -0,0 +1,5 @@ +1 pages +size 400 552 +length 969 +396 2 10 body html +0 diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/U.html b/lib/ebooks/devils/U.html new file mode 100644 index 00000000..0327426f --- /dev/null +++ b/lib/ebooks/devils/U.html @@ -0,0 +1,118 @@ +<?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: U</title> +</head> +<body lang="en-US"> + + +<h1>U</h1> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">ubiquity</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The +gift or power of being in all places at one time, but not in all places at all +times, which is omnipresence, an attribute of God and the luminiferous ether +only. This important distinction between ubiquity and omnipresence was not +clear to the mediaeval Church and there was much bloodshed about it. Certain +Lutherans, who affirmed the presence everywhere of Christ’s body were known as +Ubiquitarians. For this error they were doubtless damned, for Christ’s body is +present only in the eucharist, though that sacrament may be performed in more +than one place simultaneously. In recent times ubiquity has not always been +understood—not even by Sir Boyle Roche, for example, who held that a man cannot +be in two places at once unless he is a bird.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">ugliness</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +gift of the gods to certain women, entailing virtue without humility.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">ultimatum</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> In +diplomacy, a last demand before resorting to concessions.</p> + +<p>Having received an ultimatum from Austria, the Turkish Ministry met to consider it.</p> + +<p>“O servant of the Prophet,” said the Sheik of the Imperial Chibouk to the Mamoosh of the +Invincible Army, “how many unconquerable soldiers have we in arms?”</p> + +<p>“Upholder of the Faith,” that dignitary replied after examining his memoranda, “they are in +numbers as the leaves of the forest!”</p> + +<p>“And how many impenetrable battleships strike terror to the hearts of all Christian swine?” +he asked the Imaum of the Ever Victorious Navy.</p> + +<p>“Uncle of the Full Moon,” was the reply, “deign to know that they are as the waves of the ocean, +the sands of the desert and the stars of Heaven!”</p> + +<p>For eight hours the broad brow of the Sheik of the Imperial Chibouk was corrugated with +evidences of deep thought: he was calculating the chances of war. Then, “Sons +of angels,” he said, “the die is cast! I shall suggest to the Ulema of the +Imperial Ear that he advise inaction. In the name of Allah, the council is adjourned.”</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">un-American</span>, <span class="pos">adj.</span> Wicked, +intolerable, heathenish.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">unction</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> An +oiling, or greasing. The rite of extreme unction consists in touching with oil +consecrated by a bishop several parts of the body of one engaged in dying. Marbury +relates that after the rite had been administered to a certain wicked English +nobleman it was discovered that the oil had not been properly consecrated and +no other could be obtained. When informed of this the sick man said in anger: </p> + +<p>“Then I’ll be damned if I die!”</p> + +<p>“My son,” said the priest, “this is what we fear.”</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">understanding</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +cerebral secretion that enables one having it to know a house from a horse by +the roof on the house. Its nature and laws have been exhaustively expounded by +Locke, who rode a house, and Kant, who lived in a horse.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">His understanding was so keen<br /> +That all things which he’d felt, heard, seen,<br /> +He could interpret without fail<br /> +If he was in or out of jail.<br /> +He wrote at Inspiration’s call<br /> +Deep disquisitions on them all,<br /> +Then, pent at last in an asylum,<br /> +Performed the service to compile ‘em.<br /> +So great a writer, all men swore,<br /> +They never had not read before.</p> +<p class="citeauth">Jorrock Wormley</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">Unitarian</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> One +who denies the divinity of a Trinitarian.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">universalist</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> One +who forgoes the advantage of a Hell for persons of another faith.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">urbanity</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The +kind of civility that urban observers ascribe to dwellers in all cities but New +York. Its commonest expression is heard in the words, “I beg your pardon,” and +it is not consistent with disregard of the rights of others.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">The owner of a powder mill<br /> +Was musing on a distant hill—<br /> +Something his mind foreboded—<br /> +When from the cloudless sky there fell<br /> +A deviled human kidney! Well,<br /> +The man’s mill had exploded.<br /> +His hat he lifted from his head;<br /> +“I beg your pardon, sir,” he said;<br /> +“I didn’t know ‘twas loaded.”</p> +<p class="citeauth">Swatkin</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">usage</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The First +Person of the literary Trinity, the Second and Third being Custom and +Conventionality. Imbued with a decent reverence for this Holy Triad an +industrious writer may hope to produce books that will live as long as the fashion.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">uxoriousness</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +perverted affection that has strayed to one’s own wife.</p> + +</body> +</html>
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/U.html.annot b/lib/ebooks/devils/U.html.annot new file mode 100644 index 00000000..e69de29b --- /dev/null +++ b/lib/ebooks/devils/U.html.annot diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/U.html.i b/lib/ebooks/devils/U.html.i new file mode 100644 index 00000000..debc39d7 --- /dev/null +++ b/lib/ebooks/devils/U.html.i @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +4 pages +size 400 552 +length 5657 +396 2 10 body html +0 +1821 2 38 body html +34 +3346 2 66 body html +39 +4742 2 96 body html +138 diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/V.html b/lib/ebooks/devils/V.html new file mode 100644 index 00000000..3da23d23 --- /dev/null +++ b/lib/ebooks/devils/V.html @@ -0,0 +1,57 @@ +<?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: V</title> +</head> +<body lang="en-US"> + + +<h1>V</h1> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">valor</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +soldierly compound of vanity, duty and the gambler’s hope.</p> + +<p>“Why have you halted?” roared the commander of a division and Chickamauga, who had ordered a +charge; “move forward, sir, at once.”</p> + +<p>“General,” said the commander of the delinquent brigade, “I am persuaded that any further +display of valor by my troops will bring them into collision with the enemy.”</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">vanity</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The +tribute of a fool to the worth of the nearest ass.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">They say that hens do cackle loudest when<br /> +There’s nothing vital in the eggs they’ve laid;<br /> +And there are hens, professing to have made<br /> +A study of mankind, who say that men<br /> +Whose business ‘tis to drive the tongue or pen<br /> +Make the most clamorous fanfaronade<br /> +O’er their most worthless work; and I’m afraid<br /> +They’re not entirely different from the hen.<br /> +Lo! the drum-major in his coat of gold,<br /> +His blazing breeches and high-towering cap—<br /> +Imperiously pompous, grandly bold,<br /> +Grim, resolute, an awe-inspiring chap!<br /> +Who’d think this gorgeous creature’s only virtue Is that in +battle he will never hurt you?</p> + +<p class="citeauth">Hannibal Hunsiker</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">virtues</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span>pl. Certain +abstentions.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">vituperation</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Saite, +as understood by dunces and all such as suffer from an impediment in their wit.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">vote</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The +instrument and symbol of a freeman’s power to make a fool of himself and a +wreck of his country.</p> + +</body> +</html>
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/V.html.annot b/lib/ebooks/devils/V.html.annot new file mode 100644 index 00000000..e69de29b --- /dev/null +++ b/lib/ebooks/devils/V.html.annot diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/V.html.i b/lib/ebooks/devils/V.html.i new file mode 100644 index 00000000..4d91c1ad --- /dev/null +++ b/lib/ebooks/devils/V.html.i @@ -0,0 +1,7 @@ +2 pages +size 400 552 +length 2289 +396 2 10 body html +0 +1025 2 27 body html +240 diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/W.html b/lib/ebooks/devils/W.html new file mode 100644 index 00000000..49e9e950 --- /dev/null +++ b/lib/ebooks/devils/W.html @@ -0,0 +1,275 @@ +<?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: W</title> +</head> +<body lang="en-US"> + + +<h1>W</h1> + +<p class="firstpara">W (double U) has, +of all the letters in our alphabet, the only cumbrous name, the names of the +others being monosyllabic. This advantage of the Roman alphabet over the Grecian +is the more valued after audibly spelling out some simple Greek word, like <i>epixoriambikos</i>. Still, it is now thought +by the learned that other agencies than the difference of the two alphabets may +have been concerned in the decline of “the glory that was Greece” and the rise +of “the grandeur that was Rome.” There can be no doubt, however, that by +simplifying the name of W (calling it “wow,” for example) our civilization +could be, if not promoted, at least better endured.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">Wall Street</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +symbol for sin for every devil to rebuke. That Wall Street is a den of thieves +is a belief that serves every unsuccessful thief in place of a hope in Heaven. Even +the great and good Andrew Carnegie has made his profession of faith in the +matter.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">Carnegie the dauntless +has uttered his call To battle: “The brokers are parasites all!” Carnegie, +Carnegie, you’ll never prevail;</p> + +<p class="poetry">Keep the wind of your slogan to belly your sail, Go back to your isle of perpetual brume, +Silence your pibroch, doff tartan and plume:</p> + +<p class="poetry">Ben Lomond is calling his son from the fray—</p> + +<p class="poetry">Fly, fly from the region of Wall Street away! While still you’re possessed of a single baubee (I +wish it were pledged to endowment of me) ‘Twere wise to retreat from the wars +of finance Lest its value decline ere your credit advance. For a man ‘twixt a +king of finance and the sea, Carnegie, Carnegie, your tongue is too free!</p> + +<p class="citeauth">Anonymus Bink</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">war</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A by-product of the arts of +peace. The most menacing political condition is a period of +international amity. The student of history who has not been taught +to expect the unexpected may justly boast himself inaccessible to the +light. “In time of peace prepare for war” has a deeper meaning than +is commonly discerned; it means, not merely that all things earthly +have an end—that change is the one immutable and eternal law—but +that the soil of peace is thickly sown with the seeds of war and +singularly suited to their germination and growth. It was when Kubla Khan +had decreed his “stately pleasure dome”—when, that is to say, there +were peace and fat feasting in Xanadu—that he heard from afar +Ancestral voices prophesying war.</p> + +<p class="indentpara">One of the +greatest of poets, Coleridge was one of the wisest of men, and it was not for +nothing that he read us this parable. Let us have a little less of “hands +across the sea,” and a little more of that elemental distrust that is the +security of nations. War loves to come like a thief in the night; professions +of eternal amity provide the night.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">Washingtonian</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +Potomac tribesman who exchanged the privilege of governing himself for the +advantage of good government. In justice to him it should be said that he did +not want to.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">They took away his vote and gave instead<br /> +The right, when he had earned, to <i>eat</i> his bread.<br /> +In vain—he clamors for his “boss,” pour soul,<br /> +To come again and part him from his roll.</p> + +<p class="citeauth">Offenbach Stutz</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">weaknesses</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span>pl. Certain +primal powers of Tyrant Woman wherewith she holds dominion over the male of her +species, binding him to the service of her will and paralyzing his rebellious +energies.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">weather</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The +climate of the hour. A permanent topic of conversation among persons whom it +does not interest, but who have inherited the tendency to chatter about it from +naked arboreal ancestors whom it keenly concerned. The setting up official +weather bureaus and their maintenance in mendacity prove that even governments +are accessible to suasion by the rude forefathers of the jungle.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">Once I dipt into +the future far as human eye could see, And I saw the Chief Forecaster, dead as +any one can be—</p> + +<p class="poetry">Dead and damned +and shut in Hades as a liar from his birth, With a record of unreason seldom +paralleled on earth. While I looked he reared him solemnly, that incadescent +youth, From the coals that he’d preferred to the advantages of truth. He cast +his eyes about him and above him; then he wrote On a slab of thin asbestos what +I venture here to quote—</p> + +<p class="poetry">For I read it in +the rose-light of the everlasting glow:</p> + +<p class="poetry">“Cloudy; variable +winds, with local showers; cooler; snow.”</p> + +<p class="citeauth">Halcyon Jones</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">wedding</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +ceremony at which two persons undertake to become one, one undertakes to become +nothing, and nothing undertakes to become supportable.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">werewolf</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +wolf that was once, or is sometimes, a man. All werewolves are of evil +disposition, having assumed a bestial form to gratify a beastial appetite, but +some, transformed by sorcery, are as humane and is consistent with an acquired +taste for human flesh.</p> + +<p>Some Bavarian peasants having caught a wolf one evening, tied it to a post by the tail and +went to bed. The next morning nothing was there! Greatly perplexed, they +consulted the local priest, who told them that their captive was undoubtedly a +werewolf and had resumed its human for during the night. “The next time that +you take a wolf,” the good man said, “see that you chain it by the leg, and in +the morning you will find a Lutheran.”</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">Whangdepootenawah,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> In the +Ojibwa tongue, disaster; an unexpected affliction that strikes hard.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">Should you ask me whence this laughter,</p> +<p class="poetry">Whence this audible big-smiling,</p> +<p class="poetry">With its labial extension,</p> +<p class="poetry">With its maxillar distortion</p> +<p class="poetry">And its diaphragmic rhythmus</p> +<p class="poetry">Like the billowing of an ocean,</p> +<p class="poetry">Like the shaking of a carpet,</p> +<p class="poetry">I should answer, I should tell you:</p> +<p class="poetry">From the great deeps of the spirit,</p> +<p class="poetry">From the unplummeted abysmus</p> +<p class="poetry">Of the soul this laughter welleth</p> +<p class="poetry">As the fountain, the gug-guggle,</p> +<p class="poetry">Like the river from the canon [sic],</p> +<p class="poetry">To entoken and give warning</p> +<p class="poetry">That my present mood is sunny.</p> +<p class="poetry">Should you ask me further question—</p> +<p class="poetry">Why the great deeps of the spirit,</p> +<p class="poetry">Why the unplummeted abysmus</p> +<p class="poetry">Of the soule extrudes this laughter,</p> +<p class="poetry">This all audible big-smiling,</p> +<p class="poetry">I should answer, I should tell you</p> +<p class="poetry">With a white heart, tumpitumpy,</p> +<p class="poetry">With a true tongue, honest Injun:</p> +<p class="poetry">William Bryan, he has Caught It,</p> +<p class="poetry">Caught the Whangdepootenawah!</p> +<p class="poetry">Is’t the sandhill crane, the shankank,</p> +<p class="poetry">Standing in the marsh, the kneedeep,</p> +<p class="poetry">Standing silent in the kneedeep</p> +<p class="poetry">With his wing-tips crossed behind him</p> +<p class="poetry">And his neck close-reefed before him,</p> +<p class="poetry">With his bill, his william, buried</p> +<p class="poetry">In the down upon his bosom,</p> +<p class="poetry">With his head retracted inly,</p> +<p class="poetry">While his shoulders overlook it?</p> +<p class="poetry">Does the sandhill crane, the shankank,</p> +<p class="poetry">Shiver grayly in the north wind,</p> +<p class="poetry">Wishing he had died when little,</p> +<p class="poetry">As the sparrow, the chipchip, does?</p> +<p class="poetry">No ‘tis not the Shankank standing,</p> +<p class="poetry">Standing in the gray and dismal</p> +<p class="poetry">Marsh, the gray and dismal kneedeep.</p> +<p class="poetry">No, ‘tis peerless William Bryan</p> +<p class="poetry">Realizing that he’s Caught It,</p> +<p class="poetry">Caught the Whangdepootenawah!</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">wheat</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A cereal +from which a tolerably good whisky can with some difficulty be made, and which +is used also for bread. The French are said to eat more bread <i>per capita</i> of population than any other +people, which is natural, for only they know how to make the stuff palatable.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">white</span>, <span class="pos">adj.</span> and n. +Black.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">widow</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +pathetic figure that the Christian world has agreed to take humorously, +although Christ’s tenderness towards widows was one of the most marked features +of his character.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">wine</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Fermented +grape-juice known to the Women’s Christian Union as “liquor,” sometimes as +“rum.” Wine, madam, is God’s next best gift to man.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">wit</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The salt +with which the American humorist spoils his intellectual cookery by leaving it +out.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">witch</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> (1) Any +ugly and repulsive old woman, in a wicked league with the devil. (2) A +beautiful and attractive young woman, in wickedness a league beyond the devil.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">witticism</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A +sharp and clever remark, usually quoted, and seldom noted; what the Philistine +is pleased to call a “joke.”</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">woman</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span></p> + +<p>An animal usually +living in the vicinity of Man, and having a rudimentary susceptibility to +domestication. It is credited by many of the elder zoologists with a certain +vestigial docility acquired in a former state of seclusion, but naturalists of +the postsusananthony period, having no knowledge of the seclusion, deny the +virtue and declare that such as creation’s dawn beheld, it roareth now. The +species is the most widely distributed of all beasts of prey, infesting all +habitable parts of the globe, from Greeland’s spicy mountains to India’s moral +strand. The popular name (wolfman) is incorrect, for the creature is of the cat +kind. The woman is lithe and graceful in its movement, especially the American +variety (<i>felis pugnans</i>), is omnivorous and can be taught not to talk.</p> + +<p class="citeauth">Balthasar Pober</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">worms’-meat</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The +finished product of which we are the raw material. The contents of the Taj +Mahal, the Tombeau Napoleon and the Granitarium. Worms’-meat is usually +outlasted by the structure that houses it, but “this too must pass away.” Probably +the silliest work in which a human being can engage is construction of a tomb +for himself. The solemn purpose cannot dignify, but only accentuates by +contrast the foreknown futility.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">Ambitious fool! so mad to be a show!<br /> +How profitless the labor you bestow<br /> +Upon a dwelling whose magnificence<br /> +The tenant neither can admire nor know.<br /> +Build deep, build high, build massive as you can,<br /> +The wanton grass-roots will defeat the plan<br /> +By shouldering asunder all the stones<br /> +In what to you would be a moment’s span.<br /> +Time to the dead so all unreckoned flies<br /> +That when your marble is all dust, arise,<br /> +If wakened, stretch your limbs and yawn—<br /> +You’ll think you scarcely can have closed your eyes.<br /> +What though of all man’s works your tomb alone +Should stand till Time himself be overthrown?<br /> +Would it advantage you to dwell therein<br /> +Forever as a stain upon a stone?</p> + +<p class="citeauth">Joel Huck</p> +</div> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">worship</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Homo +Creator’s testimony to the sound construction and fine finish of Deus Creatus. A +popular form of abjection, having an element of pride.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">wrath</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Anger of +a superior quality and degree, appropriate to exalted characters and momentous +occasions; as, “the wrath of God,” “the day of wrath,” etc. Amongst the +ancients the wrath of kings was deemed sacred, for it could usually command the +agency of some god for its fit manifestation, as could also that of a priest. The +Greeks before Troy were so harried by Apollo that they jumped out of the +frying-pan of the wrath of Cryses into the fire of the wrath of Achilles, +though Agamemnon, the sole offender, was neither fried nor roasted. A similar +noted immunity was that of David when he incurred the wrath of Yahveh by +numbering his people, seventy thousand of whom paid the penalty with their +lives. God is now Love, and a director of the census performs his work without +apprehension of disaster.</p> + +</body> +</html>
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/W.html.annot b/lib/ebooks/devils/W.html.annot new file mode 100644 index 00000000..e69de29b --- /dev/null +++ b/lib/ebooks/devils/W.html.annot diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/W.html.i b/lib/ebooks/devils/W.html.i new file mode 100644 index 00000000..326f22ee --- /dev/null +++ b/lib/ebooks/devils/W.html.i @@ -0,0 +1,23 @@ +10 pages +size 400 552 +length 14117 +396 2 10 body html +0 +1443 2 31 body html +159 +3459 2 69 body html +22 +4746 2 95 body html +157 +6679 2 136 body html +72 +6679 2 136 body html +612 +6679 2 136 body html +1152 +9503 2 188 body html +0 +11587 2 226 body html +0 +13208 2 261 body html +0 diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/X.html b/lib/ebooks/devils/X.html new file mode 100644 index 00000000..87cefdd5 --- /dev/null +++ b/lib/ebooks/devils/X.html @@ -0,0 +1,25 @@ +<?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: X</title> +</head> +<body lang="en-US"> + + +<h1>X</h1> + +<p class="firstpara">X in our alphabet being a needless letter has an added invincibility to the attacks of the +spelling reformers, and like them, will doubtless last as long as the language. +X is the sacred symbol of ten dollars, and in such words as Xmas, Xn, etc., +stands for Christ, not, as is popular supposed, because it represents a cross, +but because the corresponding letter in the Greek alphabet is the initial of +his name—<i>Xristos</i>. If it represented a cross it would stand for St. Andrew, who “testified” upon one of +that shape. In the algebra of psychology x stands for Woman’s mind. Words +beginning with X are Grecian and will not be defined in this standard English dictionary.</p> + +</body> +</html>
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/X.html.annot b/lib/ebooks/devils/X.html.annot new file mode 100644 index 00000000..e69de29b --- /dev/null +++ b/lib/ebooks/devils/X.html.annot diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/X.html.i b/lib/ebooks/devils/X.html.i new file mode 100644 index 00000000..2837c016 --- /dev/null +++ b/lib/ebooks/devils/X.html.i @@ -0,0 +1,5 @@ +1 pages +size 400 552 +length 1145 +396 2 10 body html +0 diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/Y.html b/lib/ebooks/devils/Y.html new file mode 100644 index 00000000..aea3f7e8 --- /dev/null +++ b/lib/ebooks/devils/Y.html @@ -0,0 +1,72 @@ +<?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: Y</title> +</head> +<body lang="en-US"> + + +<h1>Y</h1> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">Yankee</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> In +Europe, an American. In the Northern States of our Union, a New Englander. In +the Southern States the word is unknown. (See DAMNYANK.)</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">year</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A period +of three hundred and sixty-five disappointments.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">yesterday</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The +infancy of youth, the youth of manhood, the entire past of age.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="poetry">But yesterday I should have thought me blest<br /> +To stand high-pinnacled upon the peak<br /> +Of middle life and look adown the bleak<br /> +And unfamiliar foreslope to the West,<br /> +Where solemn shadows all the land invest<br /> +And stilly voices, half-remembered, speak<br /> +Unfinished prophecy, and witch-fires freak<br /> +The haunted twilight of the Dark of Rest.<br /> +Yea, yesterday my soul was all aflame<br /> +To stay the shadow on the dial’s face<br /> +At manhood’s noonmark! Now, in God His name<br /> +I chide aloud the little interspace<br /> +Disparting me from Certitude, and fain<br /> +Would know the dream and vision ne’er again.</p> + +<p class="citeauth">Baruch Arnegriff</p> +</div> + +<p class="indentpara">It is said that in his last illness the poet Arnegriff was attended at different times by seven +doctors.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">yoke</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> An +implement, madam, to whose Latin name, <i>jugum</i>, +we owe one of the most illuminating words in our language—a word that defines +the matrimonial situation with precision, point and poignancy. A thousand +apologies for withholding it.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">youth</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The +Period of Possibility, when Archimedes finds a fulcrum, Cassandra has a +following and seven cities compete for the honor of endowing a living Homer.</p> + +<p class="poetry">Youth is the true Saturnian Reign,<br /> +the Golden Age on earth again,<br /> +when figs are grown on thistles,<br /> +and pigs betailed with whistles and,<br /> +wearing silken bristles,<br /> +live ever in clover,<br /> +and clows fly over,<br /> +delivering milk at every door,<br /> +and Justice never is heard to snore,<br /> +and every assassin is made a ghost<br /> +and, howling, is cast into Baltimost!</p> + +<p class="citeauth">Polydore Smith</p> + +</body> +</html>
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/Y.html.annot b/lib/ebooks/devils/Y.html.annot new file mode 100644 index 00000000..e69de29b --- /dev/null +++ b/lib/ebooks/devils/Y.html.annot diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/Y.html.i b/lib/ebooks/devils/Y.html.i new file mode 100644 index 00000000..a94153cf --- /dev/null +++ b/lib/ebooks/devils/Y.html.i @@ -0,0 +1,7 @@ +2 pages +size 400 552 +length 2842 +396 2 10 body html +0 +1669 2 44 body html +0 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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\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/foreword.html b/lib/ebooks/devils/foreword.html new file mode 100644 index 00000000..3d1304be --- /dev/null +++ b/lib/ebooks/devils/foreword.html @@ -0,0 +1,99 @@ +<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "+//ISBN 0-9673008-1-9//DTD OEB 1.0 Document//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: Editor’s Foreword</title> +</head> +<body lang="en-us"> + +<h1>Editor’s Foreword</h1> + +<p class="firstpara">This Open eBook edition of <i>The Devil’s Dictionary</i> was begun as a way for +me to learn the Open eBook (OEB) structure and how to write clean XHTML that duplicates the original formatting of the +typeset edition.</p> + +<p class="indentpara">Having hit the limitations of the OEB format and current OEB readers in this attempt, I am +posting this early version of my conversion effort as a test document that illustrates the shortcomings of the +format and is meant to encourage the developers to address these issues in forthcoming versions of their software +and the OEB specification itself.</p> + +<p class="indentpara">The most difficult problem I have faced in formatting <i>The Devil’s Dictionary</i> +has been poetry. The print copy I own has the poems formatted so that the attribution line is right justified +with the end of the longest line of the poem, no stanza is broken across pages, and the whole thing is centered +within the margins of the body text. This is a very natural way to format the poetry, yet it is impossible to +duplicate this structure with the current eBook readers—most notably, with Microsoft Reader.</p> + +<p>First, the only +way to create the desired justification and centering with HTML is to place the whole poem inside one table. This +works for small poems, but not for larger ones because MS Reader cuts off all text in a table cell when the end +of the page is reached, preventing long poems from being displayed in their entirity. Additionally, if each stanza +is placed inside a pair of paragraph tags (as would seem natural) many of the indents must be accomplished by +adjusting the left margin of that individual line with a <code><span></code> tag. This should work, since +both this tag and the left margin property are applied to all elements (block and inline) according to the HTML and +CSS specifications. MS Reader, however, ignores this instruction. An example of this formatting +is found in the “A” section of the <i>Dictionary</i>.</p> + +<p>An alternate way to format the poems is to enclose each poem in a <code><blockquote></code> tag, +each line in its own paragraph tag (with different CSS classes to handle the needed indents and close up +the line spacing) and, each stanza in a <code><span></code> tag (with the CSS page-break-after property set +to avoid breaking across pages). However, the blockquote’s margins causes many poems towrap, does not +center the poem, places the attribution line (and any right-justified lines of the poem) almost at the right margin +of the book (sometimes far away from the poem itself), and MS Reader ignores the instructions to not +wrap the stanzas. This method is demonstrated in the “B” section of the <i>Dictionary</i>.</p> + +<p>As I was writing this, I thought of what should have been an obvious construct for these poems: putting +each stanza in a separate table cell. This solves many, but not all, of the problems described above. For poems +with short- or medium-length stanzas viewed with the PC version of MS Reader on a large-screen laptop +it should work fine. But for a PocketPC, or even for poems with long single stanzas on a PC, the bottom of each long +stanza will still be lost. You can see the results of this experiment in the “C” section of the +<i>Dictionary</i>.</p> + +<p>These issues can best be demonstrated by one representative poem in each of the first three sections, when +reading the book in the desktop version of MS Reader. <a href="A.html#abracadabra">Abracadabra</a> should +be separated into stanzas with 1em of space between each, but since Reader ignores the <code><span></code> +tag, it is just one long block. The poem cited under the definition of <a href="B.html#beg">beg</a> exemplifies +the problems with the wide right margin described above. Although not perfect, the poem cited under +<a href="C.html#carmelite">carmelite</a> is presented almost exactly as it should be. The poem is properly +centered, the indents and right justification appear as intended, and the poem is broken across pages only +between stanzas. But when viewed on a smaller screen (almost certainly with a Pocket PC) the first stanza +alone will likely be cut off.</p> + +<p>A major additional problem, not specific to this book, is the inability of any current OEB reader to handle +Unicode text, as mandated in the OEB specification. An example of how such a Unicode document appears is +demonstrated in sections “D” (UTF-8) and “E” (UTF-16) of the <i>Dictionary</i>. Notice that +the Unicode signature/byte-order mark which appears at the beginning of each of these files causes problems with +both the readers and with the authoring tools. The MobiPocket Publisher can not complete the conversion +process at all, and while ReaderWorks handles both relatively OK, MS Reader can not display UTF-8 files +correctly (the Unicode signature causes it to ignore all CSS formatting and UTF-8 characters are displayed +as their literal byte sequence, something specifically forbidden by the OEB specification) and the whole +section “E” disappears because of the byte-order mark.</p> + +<p>Most sections beyond E have not yet been fully formatted, so please do not expect them to look pretty.</p> + +<h2>Project Gutenberg</h2> + +<p class="indentpara">Another goal is much broader. I have long known of Project Gutenberg, but have +always found its insistence on plain ASCII to be a handicap that limited its appeal and usability. Don’t +get me wrong—the effort has provided a tremendous resource, and at the time the project was begun +(and until very recently) plain ASCII was clearly the best choice. But you can’t properly format a book +with just ASCII characters. Not only must basic things such as *bold* and _italics_ be indicated in a funky +manner, it is simply impossible to preserve the accented characters, ligatures, and many other important +features. And trying to display such a work legibly on a PDA or eBbook reader with a small screen is +impossible, given the hard line breaks that are present (keeping the text from flowing properly).</p> + +<p class="indentpara">With is footing solidly in HTML and XML and its completely open nature, the Open eBook +format is the ideal structure in which to continue the goals of Project Gutenberg on into the 21<sup>st</sup> +century. So this edition of <i>The Devil’s Dictionary</i> is not meant just as a personal learning +project, but as an example of the benefits to offering current and future editions as Open eBooks. I don’t +dispute the benefits of the current plain ASCII versions, but with the right automation tools, future editions +could begin as Open eBooks and then be converted to plain ASCII, making both versions available without +duplicated effort. This would be far preferable to starting with plain ASCII versions and converting them to +Open eBook. This is the method I obviously used for this edition, and I assure you that it is quite tedious +and not well-suited as a standard practice.</p> + +<p style="text-align: right">Peter K. Sheerin</p> +</body> +</html>
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/foreword.html.annot b/lib/ebooks/devils/foreword.html.annot new file mode 100644 index 00000000..e69de29b --- /dev/null +++ b/lib/ebooks/devils/foreword.html.annot diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/foreword.html.i b/lib/ebooks/devils/foreword.html.i new file mode 100644 index 00000000..a1b60537 --- /dev/null +++ b/lib/ebooks/devils/foreword.html.i @@ -0,0 +1,13 @@ +5 pages +size 400 552 +length 7632 +421 2 10 body html +0 +1633 2 29 body html +119 +3826 2 54 body html +34 +5770 2 76 body html +0 +6646 2 87 body html +238 diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/index.html b/lib/ebooks/devils/index.html new file mode 100644 index 00000000..00d10b5e --- /dev/null +++ b/lib/ebooks/devils/index.html @@ -0,0 +1,44 @@ +<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> +<!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/html; charset=utf-8" /> +<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="devil.css" /> +<title>The Devil’s Dictionary: Table of Contents</title> +</head> +<body lang="en-US"> +<h1 align="center">Table of Contents</h1> +<p><a href="TitlePage.html">Title Page</a></p> +<p><a href="foreword.html">Foreword</a></p> +<p><a href="preface.html">Author’s Preface</a></p> +<ul> + <li><a href="A.html">A</a></li> + <li><a href="B.html">B</a></li> + <li><a href="C.html">C</a></li> + <li><a href="D.html">D</a></li> + <li><a href="E.html">E</a></li> + <li><a href="F.html">F</a></li> + <li><a href="G.html">G</a></li> + <li><a href="H.html">H</a></li> + <li><a href="I.html">I</a></li> + <li><a href="J.html">J</a></li> + <li><a href="K.html">K</a></li> + <li><a href="L.html">L</a></li> + <li><a href="M.html">M</a></li> + <li><a href="N.html">N</a></li> + <li><a href="O.html">O</a></li> + <li><a href="P.html">P</a></li> + <li><a href="Q.html">Q</a></li> + <li><a href="R.html">R</a></li> + <li><a href="S.html">S</a></li> + <li><a href="T.html">T</a></li> + <li><a href="U.html">U</a></li> + <li><a href="V.html">V</a></li> + <li><a href="W.html">W</a></li> + <li><a href="X.html">X</a></li> + <li><a href="Y.html">Y</a></li> + <li><a href="Z.html">Z</a></li> +</ul> +</body> +</html> diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/index.html.annot b/lib/ebooks/devils/index.html.annot new file mode 100644 index 00000000..e69de29b --- /dev/null +++ b/lib/ebooks/devils/index.html.annot diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/index.html.i b/lib/ebooks/devils/index.html.i new file mode 100644 index 00000000..bfd13d14 --- /dev/null +++ b/lib/ebooks/devils/index.html.i @@ -0,0 +1,7 @@ +2 pages +size 400 552 +length 1530 +400 2 10 body html +0 +603 2 15 body html +357 diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/preface.html b/lib/ebooks/devils/preface.html new file mode 100644 index 00000000..19c585ca --- /dev/null +++ b/lib/ebooks/devils/preface.html @@ -0,0 +1,48 @@ +<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "+//ISBN 0-9673008-1-9//DTD OEB 1.0 Document//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: Preface</title> +</head> +<body lang="en-us"> + +<h1>Preface</h1> + +<p class="firstpara"><i>The Devil’s Dictionary</i> +was begun in a weekly paper in 1881, and was continued in a desultory way at +long intervals until 1906. In that year a large part of it was published in +covers with the title <i>The Cynic’s Word Book</i>, +a name which the author had not the power to reject or happiness to approve. To +quote the publishers of the present work:</p> + +<p class="indentpara">“This more reverent title had previously been forced upon him by the religious scruples of +the last newspaper in which a part of the work had appeared, with the natural +consequence that when it came out in covers the country already had been +flooded by its imitators with a score of ‘cynic’ books—<i>The Cynic’s This</i>, <i>The Cynic’s That</i>, +and <i>The Cynic’s t’Other</i>. Most of these books +were merely stupid, though some of them added the distinction of silliness. +Among them, they brought the word ‘cynic’ into disfavor so deep that any book +bearing it was discredited in advance of publication.”</p> + +<p class="indentpara">Meantime, too, some of the enterprising humorists of the country had helped themselves to such +parts of the work as served their needs, and many of its definitions, +anecdotes, phrases and so forth, had become more or less current in popular +speech. This explanation is made, not with any pride of priority in trifles, +but in simple denial of possible charges of plagiarism, which is no trifle. In +merely resuming his own the author hopes to be held guiltless by those to whom +the work is addressed—enlightened souls who prefer dry wines to sweet, sense to +sentiment, wit to humor and clean English to slang.</p> + +<p class="indentpara">A conspicuous, and it is hope not unpleasant, feature of the book is its abundant illustrative +quotations from eminent poets, chief of whom is that learned and ingenius +cleric, Father Gassalasca Jape, S.J., whose lines bear his initials. To Father +Jape’s kindly encouragement and assistance the author of the prose text is +greatly indebted.</p> + +<p style="text-align: right">A. B.</p> + +</body> +</html>
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