The Devil's Dictionary
29 posts
• Page 2 of 3 • 1, 2, 3
- Shicreb El Aka
-
- Posts: 976
- Joined: Sun Jan 01, 2012 1:58 pm
- Location: behind your housedoor
You might like:
Wed Feb 06, 2013 6:56 pm » by Shicreb El Aka
S
SABBATH, n. A weekly festival having its origin in the fact that God
made the world in six days and was arrested on the seventh. 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:
Six days shalt thou labor and do all thou art able,
And on the seventh holystone the deck and scrape the cable.
Decks are no longer holystoned, but the cable still supplies the
captain with opportunity to attest a pious respect for the divine
ordinance.
SACERDOTALIST, n. 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.
SACRAMENT, n. 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.
SACRED, adj. 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.
All things are either sacred or profane.
The former to ecclesiasts bring gain;
The latter to the devil appertain.
Dumbo Omohundro
SANDLOTTER, n. 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.
SAFETY-CLUTCH, n. A mechanical device acting automatically to prevent
the fall of an elevator, or cage, in case of an accident to the
hoisting apparatus.
Once I seen a human ruin
In an elevator-well,
And his members was bestrewin'
All the place where he had fell.
And I says, apostrophisin'
That uncommon woful wreck:
"Your position's so surprisin'
That I tremble for your neck!"
Then that ruin, smilin' sadly
And impressive, up and spoke:
"Well, I wouldn't tremble badly,
For it's been a fortnight broke."
Then, for further comprehension
Of his attitude, he begs
I will focus my attention
On his various arms and legs --
How they all are contumacious;
Where they each, respective, lie;
How one trotter proves ungracious,
T'other one an _alibi_.
These particulars is mentioned
For to show his dismal state,
Which I wasn't first intentioned
To specifical relate.
None is worser to be dreaded
That I ever have heard tell
Than the gent's who there was spreaded
In that elevator-well.
Now this tale is allegoric --
It is figurative all,
For the well is metaphoric
And the feller didn't fall.
I opine it isn't moral
For a writer-man to cheat,
And despise to wear a laurel
As was gotten by deceit.
For 'tis Politics intended
By the elevator, mind,
It will boost a person splendid
If his talent is the kind.
Col. Bryan had the talent
(For the busted man is him)
And it shot him up right gallant
Till his head begun to swim.
Then the rope it broke above him
And he painful come to earth
Where there's nobody to love him
For his detrimented worth.
Though he's livin' none would know him,
Or at leastwise not as such.
Moral of this woful poem:
Frequent oil your safety-clutch.
Porfer Poog
SAINT, n. A dead sinner revised and edited.
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."
SALACITY, n. 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.
SALAMANDER, n. 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.
SARCOPHAGUS, n. 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.
SATAN, n. 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.
"Name it."
"Man, I understand, is about to be created. He will need laws."
"What, wretch! you his appointed adversary, charged from the dawn
of eternity with hatred of his soul -- you ask for the right to make
his laws?"
"Pardon; what I have to ask is that he be permitted to make them
himself."
It was so ordered.
SATIETY, n. The feeling that one has for the plate after he has eaten
its contents, madam.
SATIRE, n. 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.
Hail Satire! be thy praises ever sung
In the dead language of a mummy's tongue,
For thou thyself art dead, and damned as well --
Thy spirit (usefully employed) in Hell.
Had it been such as consecrates the Bible
Thou hadst not perished by the law of libel.
Barney Stims
SATYR, n. 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.
SAUCE, n. 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.
SAW, n. 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.
A penny saved is a penny to squander.
A man is known by the company that he organizes.
A bad workman quarrels with the man who calls him that.
A bird in the hand is worth what it will bring.
Better late than before anybody has invited you.
Example is better than following it.
Half a loaf is better than a whole one if there is much else.
Think twice before you speak to a friend in need.
What is worth doing is worth the trouble of asking somebody to
do it.
Least said is soonest disavowed.
He laughs best who laughs least.
Speak of the Devil and he will hear about it.
Of two evils choose to be the least.
Strike while your employer has a big contract.
Where there's a will there's a won't.
SCARABAEUS, n. 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.
SCARABEE, n. The same as scarabaeus.
He fell by his own hand
Beneath the great oak tree.
He'd traveled in a foreign land.
He tried to make her understand
The dance that's called the Saraband,
But he called it Scarabee.
He had called it so through an afternoon,
And she, the light of his harem if so might be,
Had smiled and said naught. O the body was fair to see,
All frosted there in the shine o' the moon --
Dead for a Scarabee
And a recollection that came too late.
O Fate!
They buried him where he lay,
He sleeps awaiting the Day,
In state,
And two Possible Puns, moon-eyed and wan,
Gloom over the grave and then move on.
Dead for a Scarabee!
Fernando Tapple
SCARIFICATION, n. 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.
SCEPTER, n. 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.
SCIMETAR, n. 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.
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!
"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?"
"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."
"To what regiment of executioners does the black-boweled
caitiff belong?" asked the Mikado.
"To the gallant Ninety-eight Hundred and Thirty-seventh -- I
know the man. His name is Sakko-Samshi."
"Let him be brought before me," said the Mikado to an
attendant, and a half-hour later the culprit stood in the
Presence.
"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?"
"Lord of Cranes of Cherry Blooms," replied the executioner,
unmoved, "command him to blow his nose with his fingers."
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.
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.
"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."
So saying, he gasped his top-knot, lifted off his head, and
advancing to the throne laid it humbly at the Mikado's feet.
SCRAP-BOOK, n. 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:
Dear Frank, that scrap-book where you boast
You keep a record true
Of every kind of peppered roast
That's made of you;
Wherein you paste the printed gibes
That revel round your name,
Thinking the laughter of the scribes
Attests your fame;
Where all the pictures you arrange
That comic pencils trace --
Your funny figure and your strange
Semitic face --
Pray lend it me. Wit I have not,
Nor art, but there I'll list
The daily drubbings you'd have got
Had God a fist.
SCRIBBLER, n. A professional writer whose views are antagonistic to
one's own.
SCRIPTURES, n. The sacred books of our holy religion, as
distinguished from the false and profane writings on which all other
faiths are based.
SEAL, n. 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 _sine cero_, 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 _locum
sigillis_, 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 _locum sigillis_ 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.
SEINE, n. 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.
The devil casting a seine of lace,
(With precious stones 'twas weighted)
Drew it into the landing place
And its contents calculated.
All souls of women were in that sack --
A draft miraculous, precious!
But ere he could throw it across his back
They'd all escaped through the meshes.
Baruch de Loppis
SELF-ESTEEM, n. An erroneous appraisement.
SELF-EVIDENT, adj. Evident to one's self and to nobody else.
SELFISH, adj. Devoid of consideration for the selfishness of others.
SENATE, n. A body of elderly gentlemen charged with high duties and
misdemeanors.
SERIAL, n. 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
_them_. A synposis of the entire work would be still better.
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.
SEVERALTY, n. 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.
Lo! the poor Indian whose unsuited mind
Saw death before, hell and the grave behind;
Whom thrifty settler ne'er besought to stay --
His small belongings their appointed prey;
Whom Dispossession, with alluring wile,
Persuaded elsewhere every little while!
His fire unquenched and his undying worm
By "land in severalty" (charming term!)
Are cooled and killed, respectively, at last,
And he to his new holding anchored fast!
SHERIFF, n. 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.
John Elmer Pettibone Cajee
(I write of him with little glee)
Was just as bad as he could be.
'Twas frequently remarked: "I swon!
The sun has never looked upon
So bad a man as Neighbor John."
A sinner through and through, he had
This added fault: it made him mad
To know another man was bad.
In such a case he thought it right
To rise at any hour of night
And quench that wicked person's light.
Despite the town's entreaties, he
Would hale him to the nearest tree
And leave him swinging wide and free.
Or sometimes, if the humor came,
A luckless wight's reluctant frame
Was given to the cheerful flame.
While it was turning nice and brown,
All unconcerned John met the frown
Of that austere and righteous town.
"How sad," his neighbors said, "that he
So scornful of the law should be --
An anar c, h, i, s, t."
(That is the way that they preferred
To utter the abhorrent word,
So strong the aversion that it stirred.)
"Resolved," they said, continuing,
"That Badman John must cease this thing
Of having his unlawful fling.
"Now, by these sacred relics" -- here
Each man had out a souvenir
Got at a lynching yesteryear --
"By these we swear he shall forsake
His ways, nor cause our hearts to ache
By sins of rope and torch and stake.
"We'll tie his red right hand until
He'll have small freedom to fulfil
The mandates of his lawless will."
So, in convention then and there,
They named him Sheriff. The affair
Was opened, it is said, with prayer.
J. Milton Sloluck
SIREN, n. 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.
SLANG, n. The grunt of the human hog (_Pignoramus intolerabilis_)
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.
SMITHAREEN, n. 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:
The wheels go round without a sound --
The maidens hold high revel;
In sinful mood, insanely gay,
True spinsters spin adown the way
From duty to the devil!
They laugh, they sing, and -- ting-a-ling!
Their bells go all the morning;
Their lanterns bright bestar the night
Pedestrians a-warning.
With lifted hands Miss Charlotte stands,
Good-Lording and O-mying,
Her rheumatism forgotten quite,
Her fat with anger frying.
She blocks the path that leads to wrath,
Jack Satan's power defying.
The wheels go round without a sound
The lights burn red and blue and green.
What's this that's found upon the ground?
Poor Charlotte Smith's a smithareen!
John William Yope
SOPHISTRY, n. 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.
His bad opponent's "facts" he sweeps away,
And drags his sophistry to light of day;
Then swears they're pushed to madness who resort
To falsehood of so desperate a sort.
Not so; like sods upon a dead man's breast,
He lies most lightly who the least is pressed.
Polydore Smith
SORCERY, n. 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.
SOUL, n. 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.
"Concerning the nature of the soul," saith the renowned author of
_Diversiones Sanctorum_, "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, _pates de foie gras_ 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."
SPOOKER, n. 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.
STORY, n. A narrative, commonly untrue. The truth of the stories
here following has, however, not been successfully impeached.
One evening Mr. Rudolph Block, of New York, found himself seated
at dinner alongside Mr. Percival Pollard, the distinguished critic.
"Mr. Pollard," said he, "my book, _The Biography of a Dead Cow_,
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?"
"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."
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.
"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?"
"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."
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."
"I don't hear any band," said Schley.
"Come to think, I don't either," said Joy; "but I see General
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."
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 --
"He seems to be enjoying himself," said the Admiral.
"There is nothing," assented Joy, thoughtfully, "that he enjoys
one-half so well."
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:
"Champ, it is not right to leave that mule out there in the sun.
He'll roast, sure! -- he was smoking as I passed him."
"O, he's all right," said Clark, lightly; "he's an inveterate
smoker."
The neighbor took a lemonade, but shook his head and repeated that
it was not right.
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.
"For mercy's sake!" he said, taking it with sugar, "do remove that
mule, barkeeper: it smells."
"Yes," interposed Clark, "that animal has the best nose in
Missouri. But if he doesn't mind, you shouldn't."
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.
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.
"You confounded remote ancestor!" thundered the great strategist,
"what do you mean by being out of bed after naps? -- and with my coat
on!"
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:
"Spoon, old man, when leaving you last evening I forgot to ask you
about those excellent cigars. Where did you get them?"
General Wotherspoon did not deign to reply, but walked away.
"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."
SUCCESS, n. 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."
The bard who would prosper must carry a book,
Do his thinking in prose and wear
A crimson cravat, a far-away look
And a head of hexameter hair.
Be thin in your thought and your body'll be fat;
If you wear your hair long you needn't your hat.
SUFFRAGE, n. 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.
SYCOPHANT, n. One who approaches Greatness on his belly so that he
may not be commanded to turn and be kicked. He is sometimes an
editor.
As the lean leech, its victim found, is pleased
To fix itself upon a part diseased
Till, its black hide distended with bad blood,
It drops to die of surfeit in the mud,
So the base sycophant with joy descries
His neighbor's weak spot and his mouth applies,
Gorges and prospers like the leech, although,
Unlike that reptile, he will not let go.
Gelasma, if it paid you to devote
Your talent to the service of a goat,
Showing by forceful logic that its beard
Is more than Aaron's fit to be revered;
If to the task of honoring its smell
Profit had prompted you, and love as well,
The world would benefit at last by you
And wealthy malefactors weep anew --
Your favor for a moment's space denied
And to the nobler object turned aside.
Is't not enough that thrifty millionaires
Who loot in freight and spoliate in fares,
Or, cursed with consciences that bid them fly
To safer villainies of darker dye,
Forswearing robbery and fain, instead,
To steal (they call it "cornering") our bread
May see you groveling their boots to lick
And begging for the favor of a kick?
Still must you follow to the bitter end
Your sycophantic disposition's trend,
And in your eagerness to please the rich
Hunt hungry sinners to their final ditch?
In Morgan's praise you smite the sounding wire,
And sing hosannas to great Havemeyher!
What's Satan done that him you should eschew?
He too is reeking rich -- deducting _you_.
SYLLOGISM, n. A logical formula consisting of a major and a minor
assumption and an inconsequent. (See LOGIC.)
SYLPH, n. 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.
SYMBOL, n. 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.
SYMBOLIC, adj. Pertaining to symbols and the use and interpretation
of symbols.
They say 'tis conscience feels compunction;
I hold that that's the stomach's function,
For of the sinner I have noted
That when he's sinned he's somewhat bloated,
Or ill some other ghastly fashion
Within that bowel of compassion.
True, I believe the only sinner
Is he that eats a shabby dinner.
You know how Adam with good reason,
For eating apples out of season,
Was "cursed." But that is all symbolic:
The truth is, Adam had the colic.
G.J.
T
T, the twentieth letter of the English alphabet, was by the Greeks
absurdly called _tau_. 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
_Tallegal_, translated by the learned Dr. Brownrigg, "tanglefoot."
TABLE D'HOTE, n. A caterer's thrifty concession to the universal
passion for irresponsibility.
Old Paunchinello, freshly wed,
Took Madam P. to table,
And there deliriously fed
As fast as he was able.
"I dote upon good grub," he cried,
Intent upon its throatage.
"Ah, yes," said the neglected bride,
"You're in your _table d'hotage_."
Associated Poets
TAIL, n. 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.
TAKE, v.t. To acquire, frequently by force but preferably by stealth.
TALK, v.t. To commit an indiscretion without temptation, from an
impulse without purpose.
TARIFF, n. A scale of taxes on imports, designed to protect the
domestic producer against the greed of his consumer.
The Enemy of Human Souls
Sat grieving at the cost of coals;
For Hell had been annexed of late,
And was a sovereign Southern State.
"It were no more than right," said he,
"That I should get my fuel free.
The duty, neither just nor wise,
Compels me to economize --
Whereby my broilers, every one,
Are execrably underdone.
What would they have? -- although I yearn
To do them nicely to a turn,
I can't afford an honest heat.
This tariff makes even devils cheat!
I'm ruined, and my humble trade
All rascals may at will invade:
Beneath my nose the public press
Outdoes me in sulphureousness;
The bar ingeniously applies
To my undoing my own lies;
My medicines the doctors use
(Albeit vainly) to refuse
To me my fair and rightful prey
And keep their own in shape to pay;
The preachers by example teach
What, scorning to perform, I teach;
And statesmen, aping me, all make
More promises than they can break.
Against such competition I
Lift up a disregarded cry.
Since all ignore my just complaint,
By Hokey-Pokey! I'll turn saint!"
Now, the Republicans, who all
Are saints, began at once to bawl
Against _his_ competition; so
There was a devil of a go!
They locked horns with him, tete-a-tete
In acrimonious debate,
Till Democrats, forlorn and lone,
Had hopes of coming by their own.
That evil to avert, in haste
The two belligerents embraced;
But since 'twere wicked to relax
A tittle of the Sacred Tax,
'Twas finally agreed to grant
The bold Insurgent-protestant
A bounty on each soul that fell
Into his ineffectual Hell.
Edam Smith
TECHNICALITY, n. 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.
TEDIUM, n. 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 _Te Deum
Laudamus_. In this apparently natural derivation there is something
that saddens.
TEETOTALER, n. One who abstains from strong drink, sometimes totally,
sometimes tolerably totally.
TELEPHONE, n. An invention of the devil which abrogates some of the
advantages of making a disagreeable person keep his distance.
TELESCOPE, n. 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.
TENACITY, n. 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:
Of such tenacity his grip
That nothing from his hand can slip.
Well-buttered eels you may o'erwhelm
In tubs of liquid slippery-elm
In vain -- from his detaining pinch
They cannot struggle half an inch!
'Tis lucky that he so is planned
That breath he draws not with his hand,
For if he did, so great his greed
He'd draw his last with eager speed.
Nay, that were well, you say. Not so
He'd draw but never let it go!
THEOSOPHY, n. 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.
TIGHTS, n. 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 _renaissances_, 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.
TOMB, n. 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.
TOPE, v. 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.
TORTOISE, n. A creature thoughtfully created to supply occasion for
the following lines by the illustrious Ambat Delaso:
TO MY PET TORTOISE
My friend, you are not graceful -- not at all;
Your gait's between a stagger and a sprawl.
Nor are you beautiful: your head's a snake's
To look at, and I do not doubt it aches.
As to your feet, they'd make an angel weep.
'Tis true you take them in whene'er you sleep.
No, you're not pretty, but you have, I own,
A certain firmness -- mostly you're [sic] backbone.
Firmness and strength (you have a giant's thews)
Are virtues that the great know how to use --
I wish that they did not; yet, on the whole,
You lack -- excuse my mentioning it -- Soul.
So, to be candid, unreserved and true,
I'd rather you were I than I were you.
Perhaps, however, in a time to be,
When Man's extinct, a better world may see
Your progeny in power and control,
Due to the genesis and growth of Soul.
So I salute you as a reptile grand
Predestined to regenerate the land.
Father of Possibilities, O deign
To accept the homage of a dying reign!
In the far region of the unforeknown
I dream a tortoise upon every throne.
I see an Emperor his head withdraw
Into his carapace for fear of Law;
A King who carries something else than fat,
Howe'er acceptably he carries that;
A President not strenuously bent
On punishment of audible dissent --
Who never shot (it were a vain attack)
An armed or unarmed tortoise in the back;
Subject and citizens that feel no need
To make the March of Mind a wild stampede;
All progress slow, contemplative, sedate,
And "Take your time" the word, in Church and State.
O Tortoise, 'tis a happy, happy dream,
My glorious testudinous regime!
I wish in Eden you'd brought this about
By slouching in and chasing Adam out.
TREE, n. 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:
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:
"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."
And I was furder tolde yt ye worde "Ghogo" sygnifyeth in yr
tong ye same as "rapscal" in our owne.
_Trauvells in ye Easte_
TRIAL, n. 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 _in
contumaciam_ 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
_cause celebre_ nothing is found to show whether the offenders braved
the punishment, or departed forthwith out of that inhospitable
jurisdiction.
TRICHINOSIS, n. The pig's reply to proponents of porcophagy.
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."
"Pork?" shrieked the patient -- "pork? Nothing shall induce me to
touch it!"
"Do you mean that?" the doctor gravely asked.
"I swear it!"
"Good! -- then I will undertake to cure you."
TRINITY, n. 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.
TROGLODYTE, n. 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.
TRUCE, n. Friendship.
TRUTH, n. 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.
TRUTHFUL, adj. Dumb and illiterate.
TRUST, n. 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.
TURKEY, n. 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.
TWICE, adv. Once too often.
TYPE, n. Pestilent bits of metal suspected of destroying
civilization and enlightenment, despite their obvious agency in this
incomparable dictionary.
TZETZE (or TSETSE) FLY, n. An African insect (_Glossina morsitans_)
whose bite is commonly regarded as nature's most efficacious remedy
for insomnia, though some patients prefer that of the American
novelist (_Mendax interminabilis_).
SABBATH, n. A weekly festival having its origin in the fact that God
made the world in six days and was arrested on the seventh. 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:
Six days shalt thou labor and do all thou art able,
And on the seventh holystone the deck and scrape the cable.
Decks are no longer holystoned, but the cable still supplies the
captain with opportunity to attest a pious respect for the divine
ordinance.
SACERDOTALIST, n. 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.
SACRAMENT, n. 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.
SACRED, adj. 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.
All things are either sacred or profane.
The former to ecclesiasts bring gain;
The latter to the devil appertain.
Dumbo Omohundro
SANDLOTTER, n. 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.
SAFETY-CLUTCH, n. A mechanical device acting automatically to prevent
the fall of an elevator, or cage, in case of an accident to the
hoisting apparatus.
Once I seen a human ruin
In an elevator-well,
And his members was bestrewin'
All the place where he had fell.
And I says, apostrophisin'
That uncommon woful wreck:
"Your position's so surprisin'
That I tremble for your neck!"
Then that ruin, smilin' sadly
And impressive, up and spoke:
"Well, I wouldn't tremble badly,
For it's been a fortnight broke."
Then, for further comprehension
Of his attitude, he begs
I will focus my attention
On his various arms and legs --
How they all are contumacious;
Where they each, respective, lie;
How one trotter proves ungracious,
T'other one an _alibi_.
These particulars is mentioned
For to show his dismal state,
Which I wasn't first intentioned
To specifical relate.
None is worser to be dreaded
That I ever have heard tell
Than the gent's who there was spreaded
In that elevator-well.
Now this tale is allegoric --
It is figurative all,
For the well is metaphoric
And the feller didn't fall.
I opine it isn't moral
For a writer-man to cheat,
And despise to wear a laurel
As was gotten by deceit.
For 'tis Politics intended
By the elevator, mind,
It will boost a person splendid
If his talent is the kind.
Col. Bryan had the talent
(For the busted man is him)
And it shot him up right gallant
Till his head begun to swim.
Then the rope it broke above him
And he painful come to earth
Where there's nobody to love him
For his detrimented worth.
Though he's livin' none would know him,
Or at leastwise not as such.
Moral of this woful poem:
Frequent oil your safety-clutch.
Porfer Poog
SAINT, n. A dead sinner revised and edited.
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."
SALACITY, n. 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.
SALAMANDER, n. 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.
SARCOPHAGUS, n. 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.
SATAN, n. 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.
"Name it."
"Man, I understand, is about to be created. He will need laws."
"What, wretch! you his appointed adversary, charged from the dawn
of eternity with hatred of his soul -- you ask for the right to make
his laws?"
"Pardon; what I have to ask is that he be permitted to make them
himself."
It was so ordered.
SATIETY, n. The feeling that one has for the plate after he has eaten
its contents, madam.
SATIRE, n. 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.
Hail Satire! be thy praises ever sung
In the dead language of a mummy's tongue,
For thou thyself art dead, and damned as well --
Thy spirit (usefully employed) in Hell.
Had it been such as consecrates the Bible
Thou hadst not perished by the law of libel.
Barney Stims
SATYR, n. 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.
SAUCE, n. 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.
SAW, n. 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.
A penny saved is a penny to squander.
A man is known by the company that he organizes.
A bad workman quarrels with the man who calls him that.
A bird in the hand is worth what it will bring.
Better late than before anybody has invited you.
Example is better than following it.
Half a loaf is better than a whole one if there is much else.
Think twice before you speak to a friend in need.
What is worth doing is worth the trouble of asking somebody to
do it.
Least said is soonest disavowed.
He laughs best who laughs least.
Speak of the Devil and he will hear about it.
Of two evils choose to be the least.
Strike while your employer has a big contract.
Where there's a will there's a won't.
SCARABAEUS, n. 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.
SCARABEE, n. The same as scarabaeus.
He fell by his own hand
Beneath the great oak tree.
He'd traveled in a foreign land.
He tried to make her understand
The dance that's called the Saraband,
But he called it Scarabee.
He had called it so through an afternoon,
And she, the light of his harem if so might be,
Had smiled and said naught. O the body was fair to see,
All frosted there in the shine o' the moon --
Dead for a Scarabee
And a recollection that came too late.
O Fate!
They buried him where he lay,
He sleeps awaiting the Day,
In state,
And two Possible Puns, moon-eyed and wan,
Gloom over the grave and then move on.
Dead for a Scarabee!
Fernando Tapple
SCARIFICATION, n. 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.
SCEPTER, n. 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.
SCIMETAR, n. 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.
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!
"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?"
"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."
"To what regiment of executioners does the black-boweled
caitiff belong?" asked the Mikado.
"To the gallant Ninety-eight Hundred and Thirty-seventh -- I
know the man. His name is Sakko-Samshi."
"Let him be brought before me," said the Mikado to an
attendant, and a half-hour later the culprit stood in the
Presence.
"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?"
"Lord of Cranes of Cherry Blooms," replied the executioner,
unmoved, "command him to blow his nose with his fingers."
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.
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.
"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."
So saying, he gasped his top-knot, lifted off his head, and
advancing to the throne laid it humbly at the Mikado's feet.
SCRAP-BOOK, n. 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:
Dear Frank, that scrap-book where you boast
You keep a record true
Of every kind of peppered roast
That's made of you;
Wherein you paste the printed gibes
That revel round your name,
Thinking the laughter of the scribes
Attests your fame;
Where all the pictures you arrange
That comic pencils trace --
Your funny figure and your strange
Semitic face --
Pray lend it me. Wit I have not,
Nor art, but there I'll list
The daily drubbings you'd have got
Had God a fist.
SCRIBBLER, n. A professional writer whose views are antagonistic to
one's own.
SCRIPTURES, n. The sacred books of our holy religion, as
distinguished from the false and profane writings on which all other
faiths are based.
SEAL, n. 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 _sine cero_, 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 _locum
sigillis_, 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 _locum sigillis_ 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.
SEINE, n. 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.
The devil casting a seine of lace,
(With precious stones 'twas weighted)
Drew it into the landing place
And its contents calculated.
All souls of women were in that sack --
A draft miraculous, precious!
But ere he could throw it across his back
They'd all escaped through the meshes.
Baruch de Loppis
SELF-ESTEEM, n. An erroneous appraisement.
SELF-EVIDENT, adj. Evident to one's self and to nobody else.
SELFISH, adj. Devoid of consideration for the selfishness of others.
SENATE, n. A body of elderly gentlemen charged with high duties and
misdemeanors.
SERIAL, n. 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
_them_. A synposis of the entire work would be still better.
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.
SEVERALTY, n. 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.
Lo! the poor Indian whose unsuited mind
Saw death before, hell and the grave behind;
Whom thrifty settler ne'er besought to stay --
His small belongings their appointed prey;
Whom Dispossession, with alluring wile,
Persuaded elsewhere every little while!
His fire unquenched and his undying worm
By "land in severalty" (charming term!)
Are cooled and killed, respectively, at last,
And he to his new holding anchored fast!
SHERIFF, n. 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.
John Elmer Pettibone Cajee
(I write of him with little glee)
Was just as bad as he could be.
'Twas frequently remarked: "I swon!
The sun has never looked upon
So bad a man as Neighbor John."
A sinner through and through, he had
This added fault: it made him mad
To know another man was bad.
In such a case he thought it right
To rise at any hour of night
And quench that wicked person's light.
Despite the town's entreaties, he
Would hale him to the nearest tree
And leave him swinging wide and free.
Or sometimes, if the humor came,
A luckless wight's reluctant frame
Was given to the cheerful flame.
While it was turning nice and brown,
All unconcerned John met the frown
Of that austere and righteous town.
"How sad," his neighbors said, "that he
So scornful of the law should be --
An anar c, h, i, s, t."
(That is the way that they preferred
To utter the abhorrent word,
So strong the aversion that it stirred.)
"Resolved," they said, continuing,
"That Badman John must cease this thing
Of having his unlawful fling.
"Now, by these sacred relics" -- here
Each man had out a souvenir
Got at a lynching yesteryear --
"By these we swear he shall forsake
His ways, nor cause our hearts to ache
By sins of rope and torch and stake.
"We'll tie his red right hand until
He'll have small freedom to fulfil
The mandates of his lawless will."
So, in convention then and there,
They named him Sheriff. The affair
Was opened, it is said, with prayer.
J. Milton Sloluck
SIREN, n. 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.
SLANG, n. The grunt of the human hog (_Pignoramus intolerabilis_)
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.
SMITHAREEN, n. 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:
The wheels go round without a sound --
The maidens hold high revel;
In sinful mood, insanely gay,
True spinsters spin adown the way
From duty to the devil!
They laugh, they sing, and -- ting-a-ling!
Their bells go all the morning;
Their lanterns bright bestar the night
Pedestrians a-warning.
With lifted hands Miss Charlotte stands,
Good-Lording and O-mying,
Her rheumatism forgotten quite,
Her fat with anger frying.
She blocks the path that leads to wrath,
Jack Satan's power defying.
The wheels go round without a sound
The lights burn red and blue and green.
What's this that's found upon the ground?
Poor Charlotte Smith's a smithareen!
John William Yope
SOPHISTRY, n. 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.
His bad opponent's "facts" he sweeps away,
And drags his sophistry to light of day;
Then swears they're pushed to madness who resort
To falsehood of so desperate a sort.
Not so; like sods upon a dead man's breast,
He lies most lightly who the least is pressed.
Polydore Smith
SORCERY, n. 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.
SOUL, n. 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.
"Concerning the nature of the soul," saith the renowned author of
_Diversiones Sanctorum_, "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, _pates de foie gras_ 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."
SPOOKER, n. 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.
STORY, n. A narrative, commonly untrue. The truth of the stories
here following has, however, not been successfully impeached.
One evening Mr. Rudolph Block, of New York, found himself seated
at dinner alongside Mr. Percival Pollard, the distinguished critic.
"Mr. Pollard," said he, "my book, _The Biography of a Dead Cow_,
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?"
"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."
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.
"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?"
"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."
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."
"I don't hear any band," said Schley.
"Come to think, I don't either," said Joy; "but I see General
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."
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 --
"He seems to be enjoying himself," said the Admiral.
"There is nothing," assented Joy, thoughtfully, "that he enjoys
one-half so well."
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:
"Champ, it is not right to leave that mule out there in the sun.
He'll roast, sure! -- he was smoking as I passed him."
"O, he's all right," said Clark, lightly; "he's an inveterate
smoker."
The neighbor took a lemonade, but shook his head and repeated that
it was not right.
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.
"For mercy's sake!" he said, taking it with sugar, "do remove that
mule, barkeeper: it smells."
"Yes," interposed Clark, "that animal has the best nose in
Missouri. But if he doesn't mind, you shouldn't."
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.
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.
"You confounded remote ancestor!" thundered the great strategist,
"what do you mean by being out of bed after naps? -- and with my coat
on!"
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:
"Spoon, old man, when leaving you last evening I forgot to ask you
about those excellent cigars. Where did you get them?"
General Wotherspoon did not deign to reply, but walked away.
"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."
SUCCESS, n. 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."
The bard who would prosper must carry a book,
Do his thinking in prose and wear
A crimson cravat, a far-away look
And a head of hexameter hair.
Be thin in your thought and your body'll be fat;
If you wear your hair long you needn't your hat.
SUFFRAGE, n. 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.
SYCOPHANT, n. One who approaches Greatness on his belly so that he
may not be commanded to turn and be kicked. He is sometimes an
editor.
As the lean leech, its victim found, is pleased
To fix itself upon a part diseased
Till, its black hide distended with bad blood,
It drops to die of surfeit in the mud,
So the base sycophant with joy descries
His neighbor's weak spot and his mouth applies,
Gorges and prospers like the leech, although,
Unlike that reptile, he will not let go.
Gelasma, if it paid you to devote
Your talent to the service of a goat,
Showing by forceful logic that its beard
Is more than Aaron's fit to be revered;
If to the task of honoring its smell
Profit had prompted you, and love as well,
The world would benefit at last by you
And wealthy malefactors weep anew --
Your favor for a moment's space denied
And to the nobler object turned aside.
Is't not enough that thrifty millionaires
Who loot in freight and spoliate in fares,
Or, cursed with consciences that bid them fly
To safer villainies of darker dye,
Forswearing robbery and fain, instead,
To steal (they call it "cornering") our bread
May see you groveling their boots to lick
And begging for the favor of a kick?
Still must you follow to the bitter end
Your sycophantic disposition's trend,
And in your eagerness to please the rich
Hunt hungry sinners to their final ditch?
In Morgan's praise you smite the sounding wire,
And sing hosannas to great Havemeyher!
What's Satan done that him you should eschew?
He too is reeking rich -- deducting _you_.
SYLLOGISM, n. A logical formula consisting of a major and a minor
assumption and an inconsequent. (See LOGIC.)
SYLPH, n. 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.
SYMBOL, n. 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.
SYMBOLIC, adj. Pertaining to symbols and the use and interpretation
of symbols.
They say 'tis conscience feels compunction;
I hold that that's the stomach's function,
For of the sinner I have noted
That when he's sinned he's somewhat bloated,
Or ill some other ghastly fashion
Within that bowel of compassion.
True, I believe the only sinner
Is he that eats a shabby dinner.
You know how Adam with good reason,
For eating apples out of season,
Was "cursed." But that is all symbolic:
The truth is, Adam had the colic.
G.J.
T
T, the twentieth letter of the English alphabet, was by the Greeks
absurdly called _tau_. 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
_Tallegal_, translated by the learned Dr. Brownrigg, "tanglefoot."
TABLE D'HOTE, n. A caterer's thrifty concession to the universal
passion for irresponsibility.
Old Paunchinello, freshly wed,
Took Madam P. to table,
And there deliriously fed
As fast as he was able.
"I dote upon good grub," he cried,
Intent upon its throatage.
"Ah, yes," said the neglected bride,
"You're in your _table d'hotage_."
Associated Poets
TAIL, n. 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.
TAKE, v.t. To acquire, frequently by force but preferably by stealth.
TALK, v.t. To commit an indiscretion without temptation, from an
impulse without purpose.
TARIFF, n. A scale of taxes on imports, designed to protect the
domestic producer against the greed of his consumer.
The Enemy of Human Souls
Sat grieving at the cost of coals;
For Hell had been annexed of late,
And was a sovereign Southern State.
"It were no more than right," said he,
"That I should get my fuel free.
The duty, neither just nor wise,
Compels me to economize --
Whereby my broilers, every one,
Are execrably underdone.
What would they have? -- although I yearn
To do them nicely to a turn,
I can't afford an honest heat.
This tariff makes even devils cheat!
I'm ruined, and my humble trade
All rascals may at will invade:
Beneath my nose the public press
Outdoes me in sulphureousness;
The bar ingeniously applies
To my undoing my own lies;
My medicines the doctors use
(Albeit vainly) to refuse
To me my fair and rightful prey
And keep their own in shape to pay;
The preachers by example teach
What, scorning to perform, I teach;
And statesmen, aping me, all make
More promises than they can break.
Against such competition I
Lift up a disregarded cry.
Since all ignore my just complaint,
By Hokey-Pokey! I'll turn saint!"
Now, the Republicans, who all
Are saints, began at once to bawl
Against _his_ competition; so
There was a devil of a go!
They locked horns with him, tete-a-tete
In acrimonious debate,
Till Democrats, forlorn and lone,
Had hopes of coming by their own.
That evil to avert, in haste
The two belligerents embraced;
But since 'twere wicked to relax
A tittle of the Sacred Tax,
'Twas finally agreed to grant
The bold Insurgent-protestant
A bounty on each soul that fell
Into his ineffectual Hell.
Edam Smith
TECHNICALITY, n. 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.
TEDIUM, n. 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 _Te Deum
Laudamus_. In this apparently natural derivation there is something
that saddens.
TEETOTALER, n. One who abstains from strong drink, sometimes totally,
sometimes tolerably totally.
TELEPHONE, n. An invention of the devil which abrogates some of the
advantages of making a disagreeable person keep his distance.
TELESCOPE, n. 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.
TENACITY, n. 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:
Of such tenacity his grip
That nothing from his hand can slip.
Well-buttered eels you may o'erwhelm
In tubs of liquid slippery-elm
In vain -- from his detaining pinch
They cannot struggle half an inch!
'Tis lucky that he so is planned
That breath he draws not with his hand,
For if he did, so great his greed
He'd draw his last with eager speed.
Nay, that were well, you say. Not so
He'd draw but never let it go!
THEOSOPHY, n. 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.
TIGHTS, n. 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 _renaissances_, 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.
TOMB, n. 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.
TOPE, v. 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.
TORTOISE, n. A creature thoughtfully created to supply occasion for
the following lines by the illustrious Ambat Delaso:
TO MY PET TORTOISE
My friend, you are not graceful -- not at all;
Your gait's between a stagger and a sprawl.
Nor are you beautiful: your head's a snake's
To look at, and I do not doubt it aches.
As to your feet, they'd make an angel weep.
'Tis true you take them in whene'er you sleep.
No, you're not pretty, but you have, I own,
A certain firmness -- mostly you're [sic] backbone.
Firmness and strength (you have a giant's thews)
Are virtues that the great know how to use --
I wish that they did not; yet, on the whole,
You lack -- excuse my mentioning it -- Soul.
So, to be candid, unreserved and true,
I'd rather you were I than I were you.
Perhaps, however, in a time to be,
When Man's extinct, a better world may see
Your progeny in power and control,
Due to the genesis and growth of Soul.
So I salute you as a reptile grand
Predestined to regenerate the land.
Father of Possibilities, O deign
To accept the homage of a dying reign!
In the far region of the unforeknown
I dream a tortoise upon every throne.
I see an Emperor his head withdraw
Into his carapace for fear of Law;
A King who carries something else than fat,
Howe'er acceptably he carries that;
A President not strenuously bent
On punishment of audible dissent --
Who never shot (it were a vain attack)
An armed or unarmed tortoise in the back;
Subject and citizens that feel no need
To make the March of Mind a wild stampede;
All progress slow, contemplative, sedate,
And "Take your time" the word, in Church and State.
O Tortoise, 'tis a happy, happy dream,
My glorious testudinous regime!
I wish in Eden you'd brought this about
By slouching in and chasing Adam out.
TREE, n. 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:
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:
"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."
And I was furder tolde yt ye worde "Ghogo" sygnifyeth in yr
tong ye same as "rapscal" in our owne.
_Trauvells in ye Easte_
TRIAL, n. 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 _in
contumaciam_ 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
_cause celebre_ nothing is found to show whether the offenders braved
the punishment, or departed forthwith out of that inhospitable
jurisdiction.
TRICHINOSIS, n. The pig's reply to proponents of porcophagy.
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."
"Pork?" shrieked the patient -- "pork? Nothing shall induce me to
touch it!"
"Do you mean that?" the doctor gravely asked.
"I swear it!"
"Good! -- then I will undertake to cure you."
TRINITY, n. 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.
TROGLODYTE, n. 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.
TRUCE, n. Friendship.
TRUTH, n. 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.
TRUTHFUL, adj. Dumb and illiterate.
TRUST, n. 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.
TURKEY, n. 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.
TWICE, adv. Once too often.
TYPE, n. Pestilent bits of metal suspected of destroying
civilization and enlightenment, despite their obvious agency in this
incomparable dictionary.
TZETZE (or TSETSE) FLY, n. An African insect (_Glossina morsitans_)
whose bite is commonly regarded as nature's most efficacious remedy
for insomnia, though some patients prefer that of the American
novelist (_Mendax interminabilis_).
my son,you are a walking proof that even the dumb-asses are awakening now.
my mother.
my mother.
- ZetaRediculous
-
- Posts: 834
- Joined: Mon Aug 20, 2012 8:17 pm
Wed Feb 06, 2013 6:57 pm » by ZetaRediculous
DmoniX_The_Destroyer wrote:Was it really necessary to post the whole thing? Like maybe a link to it somewhere like a PDF file?
Thanx I guess
I did ask the same question, but reading on another post he believes it's a Illuminati document!
---------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------
---------
---------
-----------------------------------------------------------
---------- Shicreb El Aka
-
- Posts: 976
- Joined: Sun Jan 01, 2012 1:58 pm
- Location: behind your housedoor
Wed Feb 06, 2013 6:58 pm » by Shicreb El Aka
U
UBIQUITY, n. 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.
UGLINESS, n. A gift of the gods to certain women, entailing virtue
without humility.
ULTIMATUM, n. In diplomacy, a last demand before resorting to
concessions.
Having received an ultimatum from Austria, the Turkish Ministry
met to consider it.
"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?"
"Upholder of the Faith," that dignitary replied after examining
his memoranda, "they are in numbers as the leaves of the forest!"
"And how many impenetrable battleships strike terror to the hearts
of all Christian swine?" he asked the Imaum of the Ever Victorious
Navy.
"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!"
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."
UN-AMERICAN, adj. Wicked, intolerable, heathenish.
UNCTION, n. 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:
"Then I'll be damned if I die!"
"My son," said the priest, "this is what we fear."
UNDERSTANDING, n. 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.
His understanding was so keen
That all things which he'd felt, heard, seen,
He could interpret without fail
If he was in or out of jail.
He wrote at Inspiration's call
Deep disquisitions on them all,
Then, pent at last in an asylum,
Performed the service to compile 'em.
So great a writer, all men swore,
They never had not read before.
Jorrock Wormley
UNITARIAN, n. One who denies the divinity of a Trinitarian.
UNIVERSALIST, n. One who forgoes the advantage of a Hell for persons
of another faith.
URBANITY, n. 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.
The owner of a powder mill
Was musing on a distant hill --
Something his mind foreboded --
When from the cloudless sky there fell
A deviled human kidney! Well,
The man's mill had exploded.
His hat he lifted from his head;
"I beg your pardon, sir," he said;
"I didn't know 'twas loaded."
Swatkin
USAGE, n. 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.
UXORIOUSNESS, n. A perverted affection that has strayed to one's own
wife.
V
VALOR, n. A soldierly compound of vanity, duty and the gambler's
hope.
"Why have you halted?" roared the commander of a division and
Chickamauga, who had ordered a charge; "move forward, sir, at once."
"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."
VANITY, n. The tribute of a fool to the worth of the nearest ass.
They say that hens do cackle loudest when
There's nothing vital in the eggs they've laid;
And there are hens, professing to have made
A study of mankind, who say that men
Whose business 'tis to drive the tongue or pen
Make the most clamorous fanfaronade
O'er their most worthless work; and I'm afraid
They're not entirely different from the hen.
Lo! the drum-major in his coat of gold,
His blazing breeches and high-towering cap --
Imperiously pompous, grandly bold,
Grim, resolute, an awe-inspiring chap!
Who'd think this gorgeous creature's only virtue
Is that in battle he will never hurt you?
Hannibal Hunsiker
VIRTUES, n.pl. Certain abstentions.
VITUPERATION, n. Saite, as understood by dunces and all such as
suffer from an impediment in their wit.
VOTE, n. The instrument and symbol of a freeman's power to make a
fool of himself and a wreck of his country.
W
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
_epixoriambikos_. 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.
WALL STREET, n. 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.
Carnegie the dauntless has uttered his call
To battle: "The brokers are parasites all!"
Carnegie, Carnegie, you'll never prevail;
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:
Ben Lomond is calling his son from the fray --
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!
Anonymus Bink
WAR, n. 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.
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.
WASHINGTONIAN, n. 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.
They took away his vote and gave instead
The right, when he had earned, to _eat_ his bread.
In vain -- he clamors for his "boss," pour soul,
To come again and part him from his roll.
Offenbach Stutz
WEAKNESSES, n.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.
WEATHER, n. 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.
Once I dipt into the future far as human eye could see,
And I saw the Chief Forecaster, dead as any one can be --
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 --
For I read it in the rose-light of the everlasting glow:
"Cloudy; variable winds, with local showers; cooler; snow."
Halcyon Jones
WEDDING, n. A ceremony at which two persons undertake to become one,
one undertakes to become nothing, and nothing undertakes to become
supportable.
WEREWOLF, n. 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.
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."
WHANGDEPOOTENAWAH, n. In the Ojibwa tongue, disaster; an unexpected
affliction that strikes hard.
Should you ask me whence this laughter,
Whence this audible big-smiling,
With its labial extension,
With its maxillar distortion
And its diaphragmic rhythmus
Like the billowing of an ocean,
Like the shaking of a carpet,
I should answer, I should tell you:
From the great deeps of the spirit,
From the unplummeted abysmus
Of the soul this laughter welleth
As the fountain, the gug-guggle,
Like the river from the canon [sic],
To entoken and give warning
That my present mood is sunny.
Should you ask me further question --
Why the great deeps of the spirit,
Why the unplummeted abysmus
Of the soule extrudes this laughter,
This all audible big-smiling,
I should answer, I should tell you
With a white heart, tumpitumpy,
With a true tongue, honest Injun:
William Bryan, he has Caught It,
Caught the Whangdepootenawah!
Is't the sandhill crane, the shankank,
Standing in the marsh, the kneedeep,
Standing silent in the kneedeep
With his wing-tips crossed behind him
And his neck close-reefed before him,
With his bill, his william, buried
In the down upon his bosom,
With his head retracted inly,
While his shoulders overlook it?
Does the sandhill crane, the shankank,
Shiver grayly in the north wind,
Wishing he had died when little,
As the sparrow, the chipchip, does?
No 'tis not the Shankank standing,
Standing in the gray and dismal
Marsh, the gray and dismal kneedeep.
No, 'tis peerless William Bryan
Realizing that he's Caught It,
Caught the Whangdepootenawah!
WHEAT, n. 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 _per capita_ of population than any other
people, which is natural, for only they know how to make the stuff
palatable.
WHITE, adj. and n. Black.
WIDOW, n. 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.
WINE, n. 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.
WIT, n. The salt with which the American humorist spoils his
intellectual cookery by leaving it out.
WITCH, n. (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.
WITTICISM, n. A sharp and clever remark, usually quoted, and seldom
noted; what the Philistine is pleased to call a "joke."
WOMAN, n.
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 (_felis pugnans_), is omnivorous and can be
taught not to talk.
Balthasar Pober
WORMS'-MEAT, n. 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.
Ambitious fool! so mad to be a show!
How profitless the labor you bestow
Upon a dwelling whose magnificence
The tenant neither can admire nor know.
Build deep, build high, build massive as you can,
The wanton grass-roots will defeat the plan
By shouldering asunder all the stones
In what to you would be a moment's span.
Time to the dead so all unreckoned flies
That when your marble is all dust, arise,
If wakened, stretch your limbs and yawn --
You'll think you scarcely can have closed your eyes.
What though of all man's works your tomb alone
Should stand till Time himself be overthrown?
Would it advantage you to dwell therein
Forever as a stain upon a stone?
Joel Huck
WORSHIP, n. Homo Creator's testimony to the sound construction and
fine finish of Deus Creatus. A popular form of abjection, having an
element of pride.
WRATH, n. 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.
X
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
-- _Xristos_. 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.
Y
YANKEE, n. In Europe, an American. In the Northern States of our
Union, a New Englander. In the Southern States the word is unknown.
(See DAMNYANK.)
YEAR, n. A period of three hundred and sixty-five disappointments.
YESTERDAY, n. The infancy of youth, the youth of manhood, the entire
past of age.
But yesterday I should have thought me blest
To stand high-pinnacled upon the peak
Of middle life and look adown the bleak
And unfamiliar foreslope to the West,
Where solemn shadows all the land invest
And stilly voices, half-remembered, speak
Unfinished prophecy, and witch-fires freak
The haunted twilight of the Dark of Rest.
Yea, yesterday my soul was all aflame
To stay the shadow on the dial's face
At manhood's noonmark! Now, in God His name
I chide aloud the little interspace
Disparting me from Certitude, and fain
Would know the dream and vision ne'er again.
Baruch Arnegriff
It is said that in his last illness the poet Arnegriff was
attended at different times by seven doctors.
YOKE, n. An implement, madam, to whose Latin name, _jugum_, 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.
YOUTH, n. 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.
Youth is the true Saturnian Reign, the Golden Age on earth
again, when figs are grown on thistles, and pigs betailed with
whistles and, wearing silken bristles, live ever in clover, and
clows fly over, delivering milk at every door, and Justice never
is heard to snore, and every assassin is made a ghost and,
howling, is cast into Baltimost!
Polydore Smith
Z
ZANY, n. A popular character in old Italian plays, who imitated with
ludicrous incompetence the _buffone_, 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.
ZANZIBARI, n. 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 _entente cordiale_ between two great
nations, she was the Sultana.
ZEAL, n. A certain nervous disorder afflicting the young and
inexperienced. A passion that goeth before a sprawl.
When Zeal sought Gratitude for his reward
He went away exclaiming: "O my Lord!"
"What do you want?" the Lord asked, bending down.
"An ointment for my cracked and bleeding crown."
Jum Coople
ZENITH, n. 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 _fides defuncti_.
ZEUS, n. 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.
ZIGZAG, v.t. To move forward uncertainly, from side to side, as one
carrying the white man's burden. (From _zed_, _z_, and _jag_, an
Icelandic word of unknown meaning.)
He zedjagged so uncomen wyde
Thet non coude pas on eyder syde;
So, to com saufly thruh, I been
Constreynet for to doodge betwene.
Munwele
ZOOLOGY, n. The science and history of the animal kingdom, including
its king, the House Fly (_Musca maledicta_). 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 (_L'Histoire generale des animaux_ and _A History of Animated
Nature_) that the domestic cow sheds its horn every two years.
-)(-
UBIQUITY, n. 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.
UGLINESS, n. A gift of the gods to certain women, entailing virtue
without humility.
ULTIMATUM, n. In diplomacy, a last demand before resorting to
concessions.
Having received an ultimatum from Austria, the Turkish Ministry
met to consider it.
"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?"
"Upholder of the Faith," that dignitary replied after examining
his memoranda, "they are in numbers as the leaves of the forest!"
"And how many impenetrable battleships strike terror to the hearts
of all Christian swine?" he asked the Imaum of the Ever Victorious
Navy.
"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!"
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."
UN-AMERICAN, adj. Wicked, intolerable, heathenish.
UNCTION, n. 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:
"Then I'll be damned if I die!"
"My son," said the priest, "this is what we fear."
UNDERSTANDING, n. 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.
His understanding was so keen
That all things which he'd felt, heard, seen,
He could interpret without fail
If he was in or out of jail.
He wrote at Inspiration's call
Deep disquisitions on them all,
Then, pent at last in an asylum,
Performed the service to compile 'em.
So great a writer, all men swore,
They never had not read before.
Jorrock Wormley
UNITARIAN, n. One who denies the divinity of a Trinitarian.
UNIVERSALIST, n. One who forgoes the advantage of a Hell for persons
of another faith.
URBANITY, n. 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.
The owner of a powder mill
Was musing on a distant hill --
Something his mind foreboded --
When from the cloudless sky there fell
A deviled human kidney! Well,
The man's mill had exploded.
His hat he lifted from his head;
"I beg your pardon, sir," he said;
"I didn't know 'twas loaded."
Swatkin
USAGE, n. 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.
UXORIOUSNESS, n. A perverted affection that has strayed to one's own
wife.
V
VALOR, n. A soldierly compound of vanity, duty and the gambler's
hope.
"Why have you halted?" roared the commander of a division and
Chickamauga, who had ordered a charge; "move forward, sir, at once."
"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."
VANITY, n. The tribute of a fool to the worth of the nearest ass.
They say that hens do cackle loudest when
There's nothing vital in the eggs they've laid;
And there are hens, professing to have made
A study of mankind, who say that men
Whose business 'tis to drive the tongue or pen
Make the most clamorous fanfaronade
O'er their most worthless work; and I'm afraid
They're not entirely different from the hen.
Lo! the drum-major in his coat of gold,
His blazing breeches and high-towering cap --
Imperiously pompous, grandly bold,
Grim, resolute, an awe-inspiring chap!
Who'd think this gorgeous creature's only virtue
Is that in battle he will never hurt you?
Hannibal Hunsiker
VIRTUES, n.pl. Certain abstentions.
VITUPERATION, n. Saite, as understood by dunces and all such as
suffer from an impediment in their wit.
VOTE, n. The instrument and symbol of a freeman's power to make a
fool of himself and a wreck of his country.
W
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
_epixoriambikos_. 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.
WALL STREET, n. 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.
Carnegie the dauntless has uttered his call
To battle: "The brokers are parasites all!"
Carnegie, Carnegie, you'll never prevail;
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:
Ben Lomond is calling his son from the fray --
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!
Anonymus Bink
WAR, n. 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.
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.
WASHINGTONIAN, n. 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.
They took away his vote and gave instead
The right, when he had earned, to _eat_ his bread.
In vain -- he clamors for his "boss," pour soul,
To come again and part him from his roll.
Offenbach Stutz
WEAKNESSES, n.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.
WEATHER, n. 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.
Once I dipt into the future far as human eye could see,
And I saw the Chief Forecaster, dead as any one can be --
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 --
For I read it in the rose-light of the everlasting glow:
"Cloudy; variable winds, with local showers; cooler; snow."
Halcyon Jones
WEDDING, n. A ceremony at which two persons undertake to become one,
one undertakes to become nothing, and nothing undertakes to become
supportable.
WEREWOLF, n. 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.
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."
WHANGDEPOOTENAWAH, n. In the Ojibwa tongue, disaster; an unexpected
affliction that strikes hard.
Should you ask me whence this laughter,
Whence this audible big-smiling,
With its labial extension,
With its maxillar distortion
And its diaphragmic rhythmus
Like the billowing of an ocean,
Like the shaking of a carpet,
I should answer, I should tell you:
From the great deeps of the spirit,
From the unplummeted abysmus
Of the soul this laughter welleth
As the fountain, the gug-guggle,
Like the river from the canon [sic],
To entoken and give warning
That my present mood is sunny.
Should you ask me further question --
Why the great deeps of the spirit,
Why the unplummeted abysmus
Of the soule extrudes this laughter,
This all audible big-smiling,
I should answer, I should tell you
With a white heart, tumpitumpy,
With a true tongue, honest Injun:
William Bryan, he has Caught It,
Caught the Whangdepootenawah!
Is't the sandhill crane, the shankank,
Standing in the marsh, the kneedeep,
Standing silent in the kneedeep
With his wing-tips crossed behind him
And his neck close-reefed before him,
With his bill, his william, buried
In the down upon his bosom,
With his head retracted inly,
While his shoulders overlook it?
Does the sandhill crane, the shankank,
Shiver grayly in the north wind,
Wishing he had died when little,
As the sparrow, the chipchip, does?
No 'tis not the Shankank standing,
Standing in the gray and dismal
Marsh, the gray and dismal kneedeep.
No, 'tis peerless William Bryan
Realizing that he's Caught It,
Caught the Whangdepootenawah!
WHEAT, n. 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 _per capita_ of population than any other
people, which is natural, for only they know how to make the stuff
palatable.
WHITE, adj. and n. Black.
WIDOW, n. 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.
WINE, n. 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.
WIT, n. The salt with which the American humorist spoils his
intellectual cookery by leaving it out.
WITCH, n. (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.
WITTICISM, n. A sharp and clever remark, usually quoted, and seldom
noted; what the Philistine is pleased to call a "joke."
WOMAN, n.
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 (_felis pugnans_), is omnivorous and can be
taught not to talk.
Balthasar Pober
WORMS'-MEAT, n. 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.
Ambitious fool! so mad to be a show!
How profitless the labor you bestow
Upon a dwelling whose magnificence
The tenant neither can admire nor know.
Build deep, build high, build massive as you can,
The wanton grass-roots will defeat the plan
By shouldering asunder all the stones
In what to you would be a moment's span.
Time to the dead so all unreckoned flies
That when your marble is all dust, arise,
If wakened, stretch your limbs and yawn --
You'll think you scarcely can have closed your eyes.
What though of all man's works your tomb alone
Should stand till Time himself be overthrown?
Would it advantage you to dwell therein
Forever as a stain upon a stone?
Joel Huck
WORSHIP, n. Homo Creator's testimony to the sound construction and
fine finish of Deus Creatus. A popular form of abjection, having an
element of pride.
WRATH, n. 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.
X
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
-- _Xristos_. 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.
Y
YANKEE, n. In Europe, an American. In the Northern States of our
Union, a New Englander. In the Southern States the word is unknown.
(See DAMNYANK.)
YEAR, n. A period of three hundred and sixty-five disappointments.
YESTERDAY, n. The infancy of youth, the youth of manhood, the entire
past of age.
But yesterday I should have thought me blest
To stand high-pinnacled upon the peak
Of middle life and look adown the bleak
And unfamiliar foreslope to the West,
Where solemn shadows all the land invest
And stilly voices, half-remembered, speak
Unfinished prophecy, and witch-fires freak
The haunted twilight of the Dark of Rest.
Yea, yesterday my soul was all aflame
To stay the shadow on the dial's face
At manhood's noonmark! Now, in God His name
I chide aloud the little interspace
Disparting me from Certitude, and fain
Would know the dream and vision ne'er again.
Baruch Arnegriff
It is said that in his last illness the poet Arnegriff was
attended at different times by seven doctors.
YOKE, n. An implement, madam, to whose Latin name, _jugum_, 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.
YOUTH, n. 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.
Youth is the true Saturnian Reign, the Golden Age on earth
again, when figs are grown on thistles, and pigs betailed with
whistles and, wearing silken bristles, live ever in clover, and
clows fly over, delivering milk at every door, and Justice never
is heard to snore, and every assassin is made a ghost and,
howling, is cast into Baltimost!
Polydore Smith
Z
ZANY, n. A popular character in old Italian plays, who imitated with
ludicrous incompetence the _buffone_, 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.
ZANZIBARI, n. 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 _entente cordiale_ between two great
nations, she was the Sultana.
ZEAL, n. A certain nervous disorder afflicting the young and
inexperienced. A passion that goeth before a sprawl.
When Zeal sought Gratitude for his reward
He went away exclaiming: "O my Lord!"
"What do you want?" the Lord asked, bending down.
"An ointment for my cracked and bleeding crown."
Jum Coople
ZENITH, n. 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 _fides defuncti_.
ZEUS, n. 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.
ZIGZAG, v.t. To move forward uncertainly, from side to side, as one
carrying the white man's burden. (From _zed_, _z_, and _jag_, an
Icelandic word of unknown meaning.)
He zedjagged so uncomen wyde
Thet non coude pas on eyder syde;
So, to com saufly thruh, I been
Constreynet for to doodge betwene.
Munwele
ZOOLOGY, n. The science and history of the animal kingdom, including
its king, the House Fly (_Musca maledicta_). 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 (_L'Histoire generale des animaux_ and _A History of Animated
Nature_) that the domestic cow sheds its horn every two years.
-)(-
my son,you are a walking proof that even the dumb-asses are awakening now.
my mother.
my mother.
- Shicreb El Aka
-
- Posts: 976
- Joined: Sun Jan 01, 2012 1:58 pm
- Location: behind your housedoor
Wed Feb 06, 2013 7:02 pm » by Shicreb El Aka
DmoniX_The_Destroyer wrote:Was it really necessary to post the whole thing? Like maybe a link to it somewhere like a PDF file?
Thanx I guess
the original look like shit and almost unreadable.
fuc& that was trance.
you welcome mr.destroyer
my son,you are a walking proof that even the dumb-asses are awakening now.
my mother.
my mother.
- Shicreb El Aka
-
- Posts: 976
- Joined: Sun Jan 01, 2012 1:58 pm
- Location: behind your housedoor
Wed Feb 06, 2013 7:12 pm » by Shicreb El Aka
ZetaRediculous wrote:DmoniX_The_Destroyer wrote:Was it really necessary to post the whole thing? Like maybe a link to it somewhere like a PDF file?
Thanx I guess
I did ask the same question, but reading on another post he believes it's a Illuminati document!
there is allot of respect in the occult to this documents. and there was an agenda behind there publishing.
my son,you are a walking proof that even the dumb-asses are awakening now.
my mother.
my mother.
- ZetaRediculous
-
- Posts: 834
- Joined: Mon Aug 20, 2012 8:17 pm
Wed Feb 06, 2013 7:28 pm » by ZetaRediculous
Akashicrebel wrote:
there is allot of respect in the occult to this documents. and there was an agenda behind there publishing.
What, this document.....
That happens to be one mans satirical perspective, that was instigated in the late 1800's...
Well, if you have evidence of the agenda I would love to hear it... I have owned this book for nearly twenty years and as of yet have not found any nefarious undertones to it.... I am all ears for your theory...
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------
-----------------------------------------------------------
---------- Shicreb El Aka
-
- Posts: 976
- Joined: Sun Jan 01, 2012 1:58 pm
- Location: behind your housedoor
Wed Feb 06, 2013 7:39 pm » by Shicreb El Aka
ZetaRediculous wrote:Akashicrebel wrote:
there is allot of respect in the occult to this documents. and there was an agenda behind there publishing.
What, this document.....
That happens to be one mans satirical perspective, that was instigated in the late 1800's...
Well, if you have evidence of the agenda I would love to hear it... I have owned this book for nearly twenty years and as of yet have not found any nefarious undertones to it.... I am all ears for your theory...
its not my theory, just something i learned in the last week in a forum that deal with the golden down and numerology. there was a few documents that connected MR.AMBROSE BIERCE with the occult and hi positions freemasons.
my son,you are a walking proof that even the dumb-asses are awakening now.
my mother.
my mother.
Wed Feb 06, 2013 7:52 pm » by SUKHOV
ZetaRediculous wrote:DmoniX_The_Destroyer wrote:Was it really necessary to post the whole thing? Like maybe a link to it somewhere like a PDF file?
Thanx I guess
I did ask the same question, but reading on another post he believes it's a Illuminati document!
The True Sons of Liberty are alive and well.
Мое сердце, мой спаситель, да будет свет.
Мое сердце, мой спаситель, да будет свет.
- Shicreb El Aka
-
- Posts: 976
- Joined: Sun Jan 01, 2012 1:58 pm
- Location: behind your housedoor
Wed Feb 06, 2013 7:59 pm » by Shicreb El Aka
SUKHOV wrote:ZetaRediculous wrote:DmoniX_The_Destroyer wrote:Was it really necessary to post the whole thing? Like maybe a link to it somewhere like a PDF file?
Thanx I guess
I did ask the same question, but reading on another post he believes it's a Illuminati document!
I just did a facepalm with the Freddy Krooger glove on. Is that make you even happier?
my son,you are a walking proof that even the dumb-asses are awakening now.
my mother.
my mother.
- ZetaRediculous
-
- Posts: 834
- Joined: Mon Aug 20, 2012 8:17 pm
Wed Feb 06, 2013 8:01 pm » by ZetaRediculous
Akashicrebel wrote:
its not my theory, just something i learned in the last week in a forum that deal with the golden down and numerology. there was a few documents that connected MR.AMBROSE BIERCE with the occult and hi positions freemasons.
Then can you post the material please....
Just a point to note Mr Bierce had originally titled "The Devil's Dictionary" as "The Cynics Word Book", and I would wonder if that original title had been retained, if this discussion would of happened.... And all the secret societies listed under Regalia are fictional.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------
-----------------------------------------------------------
---------
29 posts
• Page 2 of 3 • 1, 2, 3
-
- Related topics
- Replies
- Views
- Last post
-
- The History of the Devil
by theduck » Tue Mar 01, 2011 7:33 pm - 8 Replies
- 558 Views
- Last post by iamthatiam
Tue Mar 01, 2011 11:21 pm
- The History of the Devil
-
- Devil Pyramid Rotting in Memphis
by Evildweeb » Tue Jun 05, 2012 10:57 pm - 0 Replies
- 231 Views
- Last post by Evildweeb
Tue Jun 05, 2012 10:57 pm
- Devil Pyramid Rotting in Memphis
-
- chinese women grows devil horns
by bugmenot » Tue Mar 09, 2010 12:59 pm - 3 Replies
- 1321 Views
- Last post by demobe
Tue Mar 09, 2010 2:20 pm
- chinese women grows devil horns
-
- Chinese woman grows 'Devil Horns'
by theduck » Tue Mar 16, 2010 1:50 pm - 7 Replies
- 1052 Views
- Last post by larsson7
Mon Mar 22, 2010 2:11 pm
- Chinese woman grows 'Devil Horns'
-
- Stunning picture of rare 'devil tornado' emerges
by Muchtyman » Fri Sep 21, 2012 3:23 pm - 0 Replies
- 166 Views
- Last post by Muchtyman
Fri Sep 21, 2012 3:23 pm
- Stunning picture of rare 'devil tornado' emerges