EAT, v.i.
To perform successively (and successfully)
the functions of mastication, humectation, and deglutition."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.
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 Aeacus, but is placable with an obolus; a
severely virtuous censor, but so charitable withal that he tolerates the
virtues of others and the vices of himself; who flings about him the
splintering lightning and sturdy thunders of admonition till he
resembles a bunch of firecrackers petulantly uttering his mind at the
tail of a dog; then straightway murmurs a mild, melodious lay, soft as
the cooing of a donkey intoning its prayer to the evening star. Master
of mysteries and lord of law, high- pinnacled upon the throne of thought, his
face suffused with the dim splendors of the Transfiguration, his legs
intertwisted and his tongue a- cheek, the editor spills his will along the
paper and cuts it off in lengths to suit. And at intervals from behind the
veil of the temple is heard the voice of the foreman demanding three inches
of wit and six lines of religious meditation, or bidding him turn off the
wisdom and whack up some pathos.
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 the pursuit of a rabbit to declare the
rabbit the cause of a dog.
EGOTIST, n.
A person of low taste, more interested in
himself than in me.
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.
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:
The cur foretells the knell of parting day;
The loafing herd
winds slowly o'er the lea;
The wise man homeward plods; I only
stay
To fiddle- faddle in a minor key.
ELOQUENCE, n.
The art of orally persuading fools that
white is the color that it appears to be. It includes the gift of making any
color appear white.
ELYSIUM, n.
An imaginary delightful country which the
ancients foolishly believed to be inhabited by the spirits of the good. This
ridiculous and mischievous fable was swept off the face of the earth by
the early Christians-- may their souls be happy in Heaven!
EMANCIPATION, n.
A bondman's change from the tyranny of
another to the despotism of himself.
EMBALM, v.i.
To cheat vegetation by locking up the gases
upon which it feeds. By embalming their dead and thereby deranging the
natural balance between animal and vegetable life, the Egyptians made their
once fertile and populous country barren and incapable of supporting
more than a meagre crew. The modern metallic burial casket is a step in
the same direction, and many a dead man who ought now to be ornamenting his
neighbor's lawn as a tree, or enriching his table as a bunch of radishes, is
doomed to a long inutility. We shall get him after awhile if we are spared,
but in the meantime the violet and rose are languishing for a nibble at his
glutoeus maximus.
EMOTION, n.
A prostrating disease caused by a
determination of the heart to the head. It is sometimes accompanied by a
copious discharge of hydrated chloride of sodium from the eyes.
ENCONOMIST, n.
A special (but not particular) kind of
liar.
END, n.
The position farthest removed on either hand
from the Interlocutor.
ENOUGH, pro.
All there is in the world if you like it.
ENTERTAINMENT, n.
Any kind of amusement whose inroads
stop short of death by injection.
ENTHUSIASM, n.
A distemper of youth, curable by small
doses of repentance in connection with outward applications of experience.
Byron, who recovered long enough to call it "entuzy- muzy," had a
relapse, which carried him off-- to Missolonghi.
ENVELOPE, n.
The coffin of a document; the scabbard of a
bill; the husk of a remittance; the bed- gown of a love- letter.
ENVY, n.
Emulation adapted to the meanest capacity.
EPAULET, n.
An ornamented badge, serving to distinguish
a military officer from the enemy-- that is to say, from the officer of
lower rank to whom his death would give promotion.
EPICURE, n.
An opponent of Epicurus, an abstemious
philosopher who, holding that pleasure should be the chief aim of man,
wasted no time in gratification from the senses.
EPIGRAM, n.
A short, sharp saying in prose or verse,
frequently characterize by acidity or acerbity and sometimes by wisdom.
Following are some of the more notable epigrams of the learned and
ingenious Dr. Jamrach Holobom:
We know better the needs of ourselves than of others. To
serve
oneself is economy of administration.
In each human heart are a tiger, a pig, an ass and a
nightingale. Diversity of character is due to their unequal
activity.
There are three sexes; males, females and girls.
Beauty in women and distinction in men are alike in this:
they
seem to be the unthinking a kind of credibility.
Women in love are less ashamed than men. They have less to be
ashamed of.
While your friend holds you affectionately by both your hands
you are safe, for you can watch both his.
EPITAPH, n.
An inscription on a tomb, showing that
virtues acquired by death have a retroactive effect. Following is a touching
example:
Here lie the bones of Parson Platt,
Wise, pious, humble and all
that,
Who showed us life as all should live it;
Let that be
said-- and God forgive it!
ERUDITION, n.
Dust shaken out of a book into an empty
skull.
ESOTERIC, adj.
Very particularly abstruse and
consummately occult. The ancient philosophies were of two kinds,--
exoteric, those that the philosophers themselves could partly
understand, and esoteric, those that nobody could understand. It is
the latter that have most profoundly affected modern thought and found
greatest acceptance in our time.
ETHNOLOGY, n.
The science that treats of the various
tribes of Man, as robbers, thieves, swindlers, dunces, lunatics, idiots and
ethnologists.
EUCHARIST, n.
A sacred feast of the religious sect of
Theophagi.A dispute once unhappily arose among the members of this sect as
to what it was that they ate. In this controversy some five hundred
thousand have already been slain, and the question is still unsettled.
EULOGY, n.
Praise of a person who has either the
advantages of wealth and power, or the consideration to be dead.
EVANGELIST, n.
A bearer of good tidings, particularly
(in a religious sense) such as assure us of our own salvation and the
damnation of our neighbors.
EVERLASTING, adj.
Lasting forever. It is with no small
diffidence that I venture to offer this brief and elementary definition, for
I am not unaware of the existence of a bulky volume by a sometime Bishop of
Worcester, entitled, A Partial Definition of the Word "Everlasting,"
as Used in the Authorized Version of the Holy Scriptures. His
book was once esteemed of great authority in the Anglican Church, and is
still, I understand, studied with pleasure to the mind and profit of the
soul.
EXCEPTION, n.
A thing which takes the liberty to differ
from other things of its class, as an honest man, a truthful woman, etc.
"The exception proves the rule" is an expression constantly upon the lips
of the ignorant, who parrot it from one another with never a thought of
its absurdity. In the Latin, "Exceptio probat regulam" means that the
exception tests the rule, puts it to the proof, not confirms
it. The malefactor who drew the meaning from this excellent dictum and
substituted a contrary one of his own exerted an evil power which appears to
be immortal.
EXCESS, n.
In morals, an indulgence that enforces by
appropriate penalties the law of moderation.
EXECUTIVE, n.
An officer of the Government, whose duty
it is to enforce the wishes of the legislative power until such time as the
judicial department shall be pleased to pronounce them invalid and of no
effect.
EXHORT, v.t.
In religious affairs, to put the conscience
of another upon the spit and roast it to a nut- brown discomfort.
EXILE, n.
One who serves his country by residing abroad,
yet is not an ambassador.
EXPERIENCE, n.
The wisdom that enables us to recognize
as an undesirable old acquaintance the folly that we have already embraced.
EXPOSTULATION, n.
One of the many methods by which fools
prefer to lose their friends.
EXTINCTION, n.
The raw material out of which theology
created the future state.