The Cynic's Word Book, by Ambrose Bierce

     As Death was a-riding out one day,
     Across Mount Carmel he took his way,
     Where he met a mendicant monk,
     Some three or four quarters drunk,
     With a holy leer and a pious grin,
     Ragged and fat and as saucy as sin,
     Who held out his hands and cried:
     "Give, give in Charity's name, I pray.
     Give in the name of the Church. O give,
     Give that her holy sons may live!"
     And Death replied,
     Smiling long and wide:
     "I'll give, holy father, I'll give thee—
     a ride."

     With a rattle and bang
     Of his bones, he sprang
     From his famous Pale Horse, with his spear;
     By the neck and the foot
     Seized the fellow, and put
     Him astride with his face to the rear.

     The Monarch laughed loud with a sound that fell
     Like clods on the coffin's empty shell:
     "Ho, ho! A beggar on horseback, they say,
     Will ride to the devil!"—and thump
     Fell the flat of his dart on the rump
     Of the charger, which galloped away.

     Faster and faster and faster it flew,
     Till the rocks, and the flocks, and the trees that
     grew
     By the road, were dim, and blended, and blue
     To the wild, wide eyes
     Of the rider—in size
     Resembling a couple of blackberry pies.
     Death laughed again, as a tomb might laugh
     At a burial service spoiled,
     And the mourners' intentions foiled
     By the body erecting
     Its head and objecting
     To further proceedings in its behalf.

     Many a year and many a day
     Have passed since these events away.
     The monk has long been a dusty corse,
     And Death has never recovered his horse.

     For the friar got hold of its tail,
     And steered it within the pale
     Of the monastery gray,
     Where the beast was stabled and fed,
     With barley, and oil, and bread,
     Till fatter it grew than the fattest friar,
     And so in due course was appointed Prior.

     G.J.

CARNIVOROUS, adj. Addicted to the cruelty of devouring the timorous vegetarian, his heirs and assigns.

CARTESIAN, adj. Relating to Descartes, a famous philosopher, author of the celebrated dictum, Cogito, ergo sum— whereby he was pleased to suppose he demonstrated the reality of human existence. The dictum might be improved, however, thus: Cogito cogito, ergo cogito sum—"I think that I think, therefore I think that I am;" as close an approach to certainty as any philosopher has yet made.

CAT, n. A soft, indestructible automaton provided by nature to be kicked when things go wrong in the domestic circle.

     This is a dog,
     This is a cat,
     This is a frog,
     This is a rat.
     Run, dog, mew, cat,
     Jump, frog, gnaw, rat.

     Elevenson.

CEMETERY, n. An isolated suburban spot where mourners match lies, poets write at a target and stonecutters spell for a wager. The inscriptions following will serve to illustrate the success attained in these Olympian games:

"His virtues were so conspicuous that his enemies, unable to overlook them, denied them, and his friends, to whose loose lives they were a rebuke, represented them as vices. They are here commemorated by his family, who shared them."

     "In the earth we here prepare a
     Place to lay our little Clara.
     —Thomas M. and Mary Frazer.
     P. S.—Gabriel will raise her."

CENTAUR, n. One of a race of persons who lived before the division of labor had been carried to such a pitch of differentiation, and who followed the primitive economic maxim, "Every man his own horse." The best of the lot was Chiron, who to the wisdom and virtues of the horse added the fleetness of man. The scripture story of the head of John the Baptist on a charger shows that pagan myths have somewhat sophisticated sacred history.

CERBERUS, n. The watch-dog of Hades, whose duty it was to guard the entrance—against whom or what does not clearly appear. Everybody, sooner or later, had to go there, and nobody wanted to carry off the entrance. Cerberus is known to have had three heads, and some of the poets have credited him with as many as a hundred. Professor Graybill, whose clerkly erudition and profound knowledge of Greek give his opinion great weight, has averaged all the estimates, and makes the number twenty-seven—a judgment that would be entirely conclusive if Professor Graybill had known (a) something about dogs, and (b) something about arithmetic.

CHILDHOOD, n. The period of human life intermediate between the idiocy of infancy and the folly of youth—two removes from the sin of manhood and three from the remorse of age.

CHRISTIAN, n. One who believes that the New Testament is a divinely inspired book admirably suited to the spiritual needs of his neighbor. One who follows the teachings of Christ in so far as they are not inconsistent with a life of sin.

     I dreamed I stood upon a hill, and, lo!
     The godly multitudes walked to and fro
     Beneath, in Sabbath garments fitly clad,
     With pious mien, appropriately sad,
     While all the church bells made a solemn din
     A fire-alarm to those who lived in sin.
     Then saw I gazing thoughtfully below,
     With tranquil face, upon that holy show
     A tall, spare figure in a robe of white,
     Whose eyes diffused a melancholy light.
     "God keep you, stranger," I exclaimed. "You are
     No doubt (your habit shows it) from afar;
     And yet I entertain the hope that you,
     Like these good people, are a Christian too."
     He raised his eyes and with a look so stern
     It made me with a thousand blushes burn
     Replied—his manner with disdain was spiced:
     "What! I a Christian? No, indeed! I 'm Christ."

     G.J.

CIRCUS, n. A place where horses, ponies, and elephants are permitted to see men, women, and children acting the fool.

CLAIRVOYANT, n. A person, commonly a woman, who has the power of seeing that which is invisible to her patron—namely, that he is a blockhead.

CLARIONET, n. An instrument of torture operated by a person with cotton in his ears. There are two instruments that are worse than a clarionet —two clarionets.

CLERGYMAN, n. A man who undertakes the management of our spiritual affairs as a method of bettering his temporal ones.

CLIO, n. One of the nine Muses. Clio's function was to preside over history—which she did with great dignity, many of the prominent citizens of Athens occupying seats on the platform, the meetings being addressed by Messrs. Xenophon, Herodotus and other popular speakers.

CLOCK, n. A machine of great moral value to man, allaying his concern for the future by reminding him what a lot of time remains to him.

     A busy man complained one day:
     "I get no time!" "What 's that you say?"
     Cried out his friend, a lazy quiz;
     "You have, sir, all the time there is.
     There 's plenty, too, and don't you doubt it—
     We 're never for an hour without it."

     Purzil Crofe.

CLOSE-FISTED, adj. Unduly desirous of keeping that which many deserving persons wish to obtain.

     "Close-fisted Scotchman!" Johnson cried
     To thrifty J. Macpherson;
     "See me—I 'm ready to divide
     With any worthy person."
     Said Jamie: "That is very true—
     The boast requires no backing;
     And all are worthy, sir, to you,
     Who have what you are lacking."

     Anita M. Bobe.

CONOBITE, or CENOBITE, n. A man who piously shuts himself up to meditate upon the sin of wickedness; and to keep it fresh in his mind joins a brotherhood of awful examples.

     O coenobite, O coenobite,
     Monastical gregarian,
     You differ from the anchorite,
     That solitudinarian:
     With vollied prayers you wound Old Nick;
     With dropping shots he makes him sick.

     Quincy Giles.

COMFORT, n. A state of mind produced by the contemplation of our neighbor's uneasiness.

COMMENDATION, n. The tribute that we pay to achievements that resemble, but do not equal, our own.

COMMERCE, n. A kind of transaction in which A plunders from B the goods of C, and for compensation B picks the pocket of D of money belonging to E.

COMMONWEALTH, n. An administrative entity operated by an incalculable multitude of political parasites, logically active, but fortuitously efficient.

     This commonwealth's capito's corridors view,
     So thronged with a hungry and indolent crew
     Of clerks, pages, porters and all attachés
     Whom rascals appoint and the populace pays
     That a cat cannot slip through the thicket of shins
     Nor hear its own shriek for the noise of their
     chins.
     On clerks and on pages, and porters, and all,
     Misfortune attend and disaster befall!
     May life be to them a succession of hurts;
     May fleas by the bushel inhabit their shirts;
     May aches and diseases encamp in their bones,
     Their lungs full of tubercles, bladders of stones;
     May microbes, bacilli, their tissues infest,
     And tapeworms securely their bowels digest;
     May corn-cobs be snared without hope in their hair,
     And frequent impalement their pleasure impair.
     Disturbed be their dreams by the awful discourse
     Of menacing dressers, sepulchrally hoarse,
     By chairs acrobatic and wavering floors—
     The mattress that kicks and the pillow that snores!
     Sons of cupidity, cradled in sin!
     Their criminal ranks may the death angel thin,
     Avenging the friend whom I could n't work in.

     K. Q.

COMPROMISE, n, Such an adjustment of conflicting interests as gives each adversary the satisfaction of thinking he has got what he ought not to have, and is deprived of nothing except what was justly his due.

CONFIDANT, CONFIDANTE, n. One entrusted by A with the secrets of B confided to himself by C.

CONNOISSEUR, n. A specialist who knows everything about something and nothing about anything else.

An old wine-bibber having been smashed in a railway collision, some wine was poured upon his lips to revive him. "Pauillac, 1873," he murmured and died.

CONSERVATIVE, n. A statesman who is enamored of existing evils, as distinguished from the Liberal, who wishes to replace them with others.

CONSOLATION, n. The knowledge that a better man is more unfortunate than yourself.

CONSUL, n. In American politics, a person who having failed to secure an office from the people is given one by the Administration on condition that he leave the country.

CONTEMPT, n. The feeling of a prudent man for an enemy who is too formidable safely to be opposed.

CONTROVERSY, n. A battle in which spittle or ink replaces the injurious cannon-ball and the inconsiderate bayonet.

     In controversy with the facile tongue—
     That bloodless warfare of the old and young—
     So seek your adversary to engage
     That on himself he shall exhaust his rage,
     And, like a snake that's fastened to the ground,
     With his own fangs inflict the fatal wound.
     You ask me how this miracle is done?
     Adopt his own opinions, one by one,
     And taunt him to refute them; in his wrath
     He 'll sweep them pitilessly from his path.
     Advance then gently all you wish to prove,
     Each proposition prefaced with, "As you 've
     So well remarked," or, "As you wisely say,
     And I cannot dispute," or, "By the way,
     This view of it which, better far expressed,
     Runs through your argument." Then leave
     the rest
     To him, secure that he 'll perform his trust
     And prove your views intelligent and just.

     Conmore Apel Brune.

CONVENT, n. A place of retirement for women who wish for leisure to meditate upon the sin of idleness.

CONVERSATION, n. A fair for the display of the minor mental commodities, each exhibitor being too intent upon the arrangement of his own wares to observe those of his neighbor.

CORONATION, n. The ceremony of investing a sovereign with the outward and visible signs of his divine right to be blown skyhigh with a dynamite bomb.

     Fiercely the battle raged and, sad to tell,
     Our corporal heroically fell!
     Fame from her height looked down upon the brawl
     And said: "He had n't very far to fall."

     Giacomo Smith.

CORPORATION, n. An ingenious device for securing individual profit without individual responsibility.

CRAYFISH, n. A small crustacean very much resembling the lobster, but less indigestible.

In this small fish I take it that human wisdom is admirably figured and symbolized; for whereas the crayfish doth move only backward, and can have only retrospection, seeing naught but the perils already passed, so the wisdom of man doth not enable him to avoid the follies that beset his course, but only to apprehend their nature afterward.— Sir James Merivale.

CREDITOR, n. One of a tribe of savages dwelling beyond the Financial Straits and dreaded for their desolating incursions.

CRITIC, n. A person who boasts himself hard to please because nobody has ever tried to please him.

     There is a land of pure delight,
     Beyond the Jordan's flood,
     Where saints, apparelled all in white,
     Fling back the critic's mud.

     And as he legs it through the skies,
     His pelt a sable hue,
     He sorrows sore to recognize
     The missiles that he threw.

     G. J.

CROSS, n. An ancient religious symbol erroneously supposed to owe its significance to the most solemn event in the history of Christianity, but really antedating it by thousands of years. By many it has been believed to be identical with the crux ansata of the ancient phallic worship, but it has been traced even beyond all that we know of that, to the rites of primitive peoples. We have today the White Cross as a symbol of chastity, and the Red Cross as a badge of benevolent neutrality in war. Having in mind the former, the reverend Father Gassalasca Jape smites the lyre to the effect following:

     "Be good, be good!" the sisterhood
     Cry out in holy chorus;
     And, to dissuade from sin, parade
     Their various charms before us.

     But why, O why, has ne'er an eye
     Seen her of winsome manner
     And youthful grace and pretty face
     Flaunting the White Cross banner?

     Now where's the need of speech and screed
     To better our behaving?
     A simpler plan for saving man
     (But, first, is he worth saving?)

     Is, dears, when he declines to flee
     From bad thoughts that beset him,
     Ignores the Law as't were a straw,
     And wants to sin—don't let him.

CUNNING, n. The faculty that distinguishes a weak animal or person from a strong one. It brings its possessor much mental satisfaction and great material adversity. An Italian proverb says: "The furrier gets the skins of more foxes than asses."

CUPID, n. The so-called god of love. This bastard creation of a barbarous fancy was no doubt inflicted upon mythology for the sins of its deities. Of all unbeautiful and inappropriate conceptions this is the most reasonless and offensive. The notion of symbolizing sexual love by a semisexless babe, and comparing the pains of passion to the wounds of an arrow —of introducing this pudgy homunculus into art grossly to materialize the subtle spirit and suggestion of the work—this is eminently worthy of the age that, giving it birth, laid it on the doorstep of posterity.

CURIOSITY, n. An objectionable quality of the female mind. The desire to know whether or not a woman is cursed with curiosity is one of the most active and insatiable passions of the masculine soul.

CURSE, v. t. Energetically to belabor with a verbal slap-stick. This is an operation which in literature, particularly in the drama, is commonly fatal to the victim. Nevertheless, the liability to a cursing is a risk that cuts but a small figure in fixing the rates of life insurance.

CYNIC, n. A blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not as they ought to be. Hence the custom among the Scythians of plucking out a cynic's eyes to improve his vision.

DAMN, int. A word formerly much used by the Paphlagonians, the meaning of which is lost. By the learned Dr. Dolabelly Gak it is believed to have been a term of satisfaction, implying the highest possible degree of mental tranquillity. Professor Groke, on the other hand, thinks it expressed an emotion of tumultuous delight, because it so frequently occurs in combination with the word jod or god, meaning "joy." It would be with great diffidence that I should advance an opinion conflicting with that of either of these formidable authorities.

DANCE, v. i. To leap about to the sound of tittering music, preferably with arms about your neighbor's wife or daughter. There are many kinds of dances, but all those requiring the participation of the two sexes have two characteristics in common: they are conspicuously innocent, and warmly loved by the guilty.

     A savage beast which, when it sleeps,
     Man girds at and despises,
     But takes himself away by leaps
     And bounds when it arises.

     Ambat Delaso,

DATARY, n. A high ecclesiastical official of the Roman Catholic Church, whose important function is to brand the Pope's bulls with the words Datum Romæ. He enjoys a princely revenue and the friendship of God.

DAWN, n. The time when men of reason go to bed. Certain old men prefer to rise at about that time, taking a cold bath and a long walk, with an empty stomach, and otherwise mortifying the flesh. They then point with pride to these practices as the cause of their sturdy health and ripe years; the truth being that they are hearty and old, not because of their habits, but in spite of them. The reason we find only robust persons doing this thing is that it has killed all the others who have tried it.

DAY, n. A period of twenty-four hours, mostly misspent. This period is divided into two parts, the day proper and the night, or day improper— the former devoted to sins of business, the latter consecrated to the other sort. These two kinds of social activity overlap.

     Done with the work of breathing; done
     With all the world; the mad race run
     Through to the end; the golden goal
     Attained and found to be a hole!

     Squatol Johnes.

DEBAUCHEE, n. One who has so earnestly pursued pleasure that he has had the misfortune to overtake it.

     As, pent in an aquarium, the troutlet
     Swims round and round his tank to find an outlet,
     Pressing his nose against the glass that holds him,
     Nor ever sees the prison that enfolds him;
     So the poor debtor, seeing naught around him,
     Yet feels the limits pitiless that bound him;
     Grieves at his debt and studies to evade it,
     And finds at last he might as well have paid it.

     Barlow S. Vode.

DECALOGUE, n. A series of commandments, ten in number—just enough to permit an intelligent selection for observance, but not enough to embarrass the choice. Following is the revised edition of the Decalogue, calculated for this meridian.

     Thou shalt no God but me adore:
     'T were too expensive to have more.
     No images nor idols make
     For Robert Ingersoll to break.
     Take not God's name in vain; select
     A time when it will have effect.
     Work not on Sabbath days at all,
     But go to see the teams play ball.
     Honor thy parents. That creates
     For life insurance lower rates.
     Kill not, abet not those who kill;
     Thou shalt not pay thy butcher's bill.
     Kiss not thy neighbor's wife, unless
     Thine own thy neighbor doth caress.
     Don't steal; thou 'lt never thus compete
     Successfully in business. Cheat.
     Bear not false witness—that is low—
     But "hear't is rumored so and so."
     Covet thou naught that thou hast not
     By hook or crook, or somehow, got.

DECIDE, v. i. To succumb to the preponderance of one set of influences over another set.

     A leaf was riven from a tree,
     "I mean to fall to earth," said he.

     The west wind, rising, made him veer
     "Eastward," said he, I mean to steer."

     The east wind rose with greater force.

     Said he: "'T were wise to change my course."
     With equal power they contend.

     He said: "My judgment I suspend."

     Down died the winds; the leaf, elate,
     Cried: "I 've decided to fall straight."

     "First thoughts are best"? That 's not the moral;
     Just choose your own and we 'll not quarrel.

     Howe'er your choice may chance to fall,

     G. J.

DEGENERATE, adj. Less conspicuously admirable than one's ancestors. The contemporaries of Homer were striking examples of degeneracy; it required ten of them to raise a rock or a riot that one of the heroes of the Trojan war could have raised with ease. Homer never tires of sneering at the "men who live in these degenerate days," which is perhaps why they suffered him to beg his bread— a marked instance of returning good for evil, by the way, for if they had forbidden him he would certainly have starved.

DEGRADATION, n. One of the stages of moral and social progress from private station to political preferment.

DEINOTHERIUM, n. An extinct pachyderm that flourished when the Pterodactyl was in fashion. The latter was a native of Ireland, its name being pronounced Terry Dactyl or Peter O'Dactyl, as the man pronouncing it may chance to have heard it spoken or seen it printed.

DEJEUNER, n. The breakfast of an American who has been in Paris. Variously pronounced.

DELEGATION, n. In American politics, an article of merchandise that comes in sets.

DELIBERATION, n. The act of examining one's bread to determine which side it is buttered on.

DELUGE, n. A notable first experiment in baptism which washed away the sins (and sinners) of the world.

DELUSION, n. The father of a most respectable family, comprising Enthusiasm, Affection, Self-denial, Faith, Hope, Charity, and many other goodly sons and daughters.

     All hail, Delusion! Were it not for thee
     The world turned topsy-turvy we should see;
     For Vice, respectable with cleanly fancies,
     Would fly abandoned Virtue's gross advances.

     Mumfrey Mappel.

DENTIST, n. A prestidigitator who, putting metal into your mouth, pulls coins out of your pocket.

DEPENDENT, adj. Reliant upon another's generosity for the support which you are not in a position to exact from his fears.

DEPUTY, n. A male relative of an officer-holder or of his bondsman. The deputy is commonly a beautiful young man, with a red necktie and an intricate system of cobwebs extending from his nose to his desk. When accidentally struck by the janitor's broom, he gives off a cloud of dust.

     "Chief Deputy," the master cried,
     "To-day the books are to be tried
     By experts and accountants who
     Have been commissioned to go through
     Our office here, to see if we
     Have stolen injudiciously.

     Please have the proper entries made,
     The proper balances displayed,
     Conforming to the whole amount
     Of cash on hand—which they will count.

     I 've long admired your punctual way—
     Here at the break and close of day,
     Confronting in your chair the crowd
     Of business men, whose voices loud
     And gestures violent you quell
     By some mysterious, calm spell—
     Some magic lurking in your look
     That brings the noisiest to book
     And spreads a holy and profound
     Tranquillity o'er all around.

     So orderly all's done that they
     Who came to draw remain to pay.

     But now the time demands, at last,
     That you employ your genius vast
     In energies more active. Rise
     And shake the lightnings from your eyes;
     Inspire your underlings, and fling
     Your spirit into everything!"

     The master hand here dealt a whack
     Upon the Deputy's bent back,
     When straightway to the floor there fell
     A shrunken globe, a rattling shell,
     A blackened, withered, eyeless head!
     The man had been a twelvemonth dead.

     Jamrach Holobom.

DIAGNOSIS, n. A physician's forecast of disease by the patient's pulse and purse.

DIAPHRAGM, n. A muscular partition separating disorders of the chest from disorders of the bowels.

DIARY, n. A daily record of that part of one's life, which he can relate to himself without blushing.

     Sam kept a diary wherein were writ
     So many noble deeds and so much wit
     That the Recording Angel, when Sam died,
     Erased all entries of his own and cried:
     "I 'll judge you by your diary." Said Sam:
     "Thank you;'t will show you what a saint I am"—
     Straightway producing, jubilant and proud,
     That record from a pocket in his shroud.

     The Angel slowly turned the pages o'er,
     Each lying line of which he knew before,
     Glooming and gleaming as by turns he hit
     On noble action and amusing wit;
     Then gravely closed the book and gave it back.
     "My friend, you've wandered from your proper
     track;
     You'd never be content this side the tomb—
     For deeds of greatness Heaven has little room,
     And Hell's no latitude for making mirth,"
     He said, and kicked the fellow back to earth.

     "The Mad Philosopher"

DICTATOR, n. The chief of a nation that prefers the pestilence of despotism to the plague of anarchy.

DICTIONARY, n. A malevolent literary device for cramping the growth of a language and making it hard and inelastic. This dictionary, however, is a most useful work.

DIE, n. The singular of "dice." We seldom hear the word, because there is a prohibitory proverb, "Never say die." At long intervals, however, some one says: "The die is cast," which is not true, for it is cut. The word is found in an immortal couplet by that eminent poet and domestic economist, Senator Depew:

A cube of cheese no larger than a die
May bait the trap to catch a nibbling mie.

DIGESTION, n. The conversion of victuals into virtues. When the process is imperfect, vices are evolved instead — a circumstance from which that wicked writer, Dr. Jeremiah Blenn, infers that the ladies are the greater sufferers from dyspepsia.

DISABUSE, v. t. To present your neighbor with another and better error than the one which he has deemed it advantageous to embrace.

DISCRIMINATE, v. i. To note the particulars in which one person or thing is, if possible, more objectionable than another.

DISOBEY, v. t. To celebrate with an appropriate ceremony the maturity of a command.

     His right to govern me is clear as day,
     My duty manifest to disobey;
     And if that fit observance e'er I shun
     May I and duty be alike undone.

     Israfel Brown.

Let us dissemble.—Adam.

DISTANCE, n. The only thing that the rich are willing for the poor to call theirs, and keep.

DIVINATION, n. The art of nosing out the occult. Divination is of as many kinds as there are fruit-bearing varieties of the flowering dunce and the early fool.

DOG, n. A kind of additional or subsidiary Deity designed to catch the overflow and surplus of the world's worship. This Divine Being in some of his smaller and silkier incarnations takes, in the affection of Woman, the place to which there is no human male aspirant. The Dog is a survival—an anachronism. He toils not, neither does he spin, yet Solomon in all his glory never lay upon a door-mat all day long, sunsoaked and fly-fed and fat, while his master worked for the means wherewith to purchase an idle wag of the Solomonic tail, seasoned with a look of tolerant recognition.

DRAGOON, n. A soldier who combines steadiness and dash in so equal measure that he makes his advances on foot and his retreats on horseback.

DRUIDS, n. Priests and ministers of an ancient Celtic religion which did not disdain to employ the humble allurement of human sacrifice. Very little is now known about the Druids and their faith. Pliny says their religion, originating in Britain, spread eastward as far as Persia. Cæsar says those who desired to study its mysteries went to Britain. Cæsar himself went to Britain, but does not appear to have obtained any high preferment in the Druidical Church, although his talent for human sacrifice was considerable.

Druids performed their religious rites in groves, and knew nothing of church mortgages and the seasonticket system of pew rents. They were, in short, heathens and—as they were once complacently catalogued by a distinguished prelate of the Church of England— "Dissenters."

DUEL, n. A formal ceremony preliminary to the reconciliation of two enemies. Great skill is necessary to its satisfactory observance; if awkwardly performed the most unexpected and deplorable consequences sometimes ensue. A long time ago a man lost his life in a duel.

     That dueling's a gentlemanly vice
     I hold; and wish that it had been my lot
     To live my life out in some favored spot—
     Some country where it is considered nice
     To split a rival like a Ash, or slice
     A husband like a spud, or with a shot
     Bring down a debtor doubled in a knot
     And ready to be put upon the ice.
     Some miscreants there are, whom I do long
     To shoot, or stab, or some such way reclaim
     The scurvy rogues to better lives and manners.
     I seem to see them now—a mighty throng.
     It looks as if to challenge me they came,
     Jauntily marching with brass bands and banners!

     Xamba Dar.

DULLARD, n. A member of the reigning dynasty in letters and life. The Dullards came in with Adam, and being both numerous and sturdy So have overrun the habitable world. The secret of their power is their insensibility to blows; tickle them with a bludgeon and they laugh with a platitude. The Dullards came originally from Boeotia, whence they were driven by stress of starvation, their dulness having blighted the crops. For some centuries they infested Philistia, and many of them are called Philistines to this day. In the turbulent times of the Crusades they withdrew thence and gradually overspread all Europe, occupying most of the high places in politics, art, literature, science, and theology. Since a detachment of Dullards came over with the Pilgrims in the Mayflower and made a favorable report of the country, their increase by birth, immigration, and conversion has been rapid and steady. According to the most trustworthy statistics the number of adult Dullards in the United States is but little short of thirty millions, including the statisticians. The intellectual centre of the race is somewhere about Peoria, Illinois, but the New England Dullard is the most impenitently moral.

DUTY, n. That which sternly impels us in the direction of profit, along the line of desire.

     Sir Lavender Portwine, in favor at court,
     Was wroth at his master, who 'd kissed Lady Port.
     His anger provoked him to take the king's head,
     But duty prevailed, and he took the king's bread,
     Instead.

     G. J.

HAT, v. i. To perform successively (and successfully) the functions of mastication, humectation, and deglutition—in short, to eat. "I was in the drawing-room, enjoying my dinner," said Brillat-Savarin, beginning an anecdote. "What!" interrupted Rochebriant; "eating dinner in a drawing-room?"

"I must beg you to observe, Monsieur," explained the great gastronome, "that I did not say I was eating my dinner, but enjoying it. I had dined an hour before."

EAVESDROP, v. i. Secretly to overhear a catalogue of the crimes and vices of another or yourself.

     A lady with one of her ears applied
     To an open keyhole heard, inside,
     Two female gossips in converse free—
     The subject engaging them was she.
     "I think," said one, "and my husband thinks
     That she 's a prying, inquisitive minx!"
     As soon as no more of it she could hear
     The lady, indignant, removed her ear.
     "I will not stay," she said, with a pout,
     "To hear my character lied about!"

     Gopete Sherany.

ECCENTRICITY, n. A method of distinction so cheap that fools employ it to accentuate their incapacity.

ECONOMY, n. Purchasing the barrel of whiskey that you do not need for the price of the cow that you cannot afford.

EDIBLE, adj. Good to eat, and wholesome to digest, as a worm to a toad, a toad to a snake, a snake to a pig, a pig to a man, and a man to a worm.

EDITOR, n. A person who combines the judicial functions of Minos, Rhadamanthus and Æacus, but is placable with an obolus; a severely virtuous censor, but so charitable withal that he tolerates the virtues of others and the vices of himself; who flings about him the splintering lightning and sturdy thunders of admonition till he resembles a bunch of firecrackers petulantly uttering its mind at the tail of a dog; then straightway murmurs a mild, melodious lay, soft as the cooing of a donkey intoning its prayer to the evening star. Master of mysteries and lord of law, high-pinnacled upon the throne of thought, his face suffused with the dim Splendors of the Transfiguration, his legs intertwisted and his tongue a-cheek, the editor spills his will along the paper and cuts it off in lengths to suit. And at intervals from behind the veil of the temple is heard the voice of the foreman demanding three inches of wit and six lines of religious meditation, or bidding him turn off the wisdom and whack up some pathos.

     O, the Lord of Law on the Throne of Thought,
     A gilded impostor is he.
     Of shreds and patches his robes are wrought,
     His crown is brass,
     Himself is an ass,
     And his power is fiddle-dee-dee.
     Prankily, crankily prating of naught,
     Silly old quilly old Monarch of Thought.
     Public opinion's camp-follower he,
     Thundering, blundering, plundering free.
     Affected,
     Ungracious,
     Detected,
     Mendacious,
     Respected contemporaree!

     J. H. Bumbleshook,

EDUCATION, n. That which discloses to the wise and disguises from the foolish their lack of understanding.

EFFECT, n. The second of two phenomena which always occur together in the same order. The first, called a Cause, is said to generate the other— which is no more sensible than it would be for one who has never seen a dog except in pursuit of a rabbit to declare the rabbit the cause of the dog.

     Megaceph, chosen to serve the State
     In the halls of legislative debate,
     One day with all his credentials came
     To the capitol's door and announced his name.
     The doorkeeper looked, with a comical twist
     Of the face, at the eminent egotist,
     And said: "Go away, for we settle here
     All manner of questions, knotty and queer,
     And we cannot have, when the speaker demands
     To be told how every member stands,
     A man who to all things under the sky
     Assents by eternally voting 'I'."

EJECTION, n. An approved remedy for the disease of garrulity. It is also much used in cases of extreme poverty.

ELECTOR, n. One who enjoys the sacred privilege of voting for the man of another man's choice.

ELECTRICITY, n. The power that causes all natural phenomena not known to be caused by something else. It is the same thing as lightning, and its famous attempt to strike Dr. Franklin is one of the most picturesque incidents in that great and good man's career. The memory of Dr. Franklin is justly held in great reverence, particularly in France, where a waxen effigy of him was recently on exhibition, bearing the following touching account of his life and services to science:

"Monsieur Franqulin, inventor of electricity. This illustrious savant, after having made several voyages around the world, died on the Sandwich Islands and was devoured by savages, of whom not a single fragment was ever recovered."

Electricity seems destined to play a most important part in the arts and industries. The question of its economical application to some purposes is still unsettled, but experiment has already proved that it will propel a street car better than a gas jet and give more light than a horse.

ELEGY, n. A composition in verse, in which, without employing any of the methods of humor, the writer aims to produce in the reader's mind the dampest kind of dejection. The most famous English example begins somewhat like this: