When publicly censured our first instinct is to make everybody a codefendant.
Youth is Gilead, in which is balm for every wound.
One engaged in a commercial pursuit. A commercial pursuit is one in which the thing pursued is a dollar.
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.
EJECTION, n. An approved remedy for the disease of garrulity. It is also much used in cases of extreme poverty.
CALLOUS, adj. Gifted with great fortitude to bear the evils afflicting another.
Dentist: a prestidigitator who, putting metal into your mouth, pulls coin out of your pocket.
PRESBYTERIAN, n. One who holds the conviction that the government authorities of the Church should be called presbyters.
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.
PERIPATETIC, adj. Walking about. Relating to the philosophy of Aristotle, who, while expounding it, moved from place to place in order to avoid his pupil’s objections. A needless precaution – they knew no more of the matter than he.
PROBOSCIS, n. The rudimentary organ of an elephant which serves him in place of the knife-and-fork that Evolution has as yet denied him. For purposes of humor it is popularly called a trunk.
MONARCHICAL GOVERNMENT, n. Government.
RUMOR, n. A favorite weapon of the assassins of character.
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.
CAVILER, n. A critic of our own work.
RESPITE, n. A suspension of hostilities against a sentenced assassin, to enable the Executive to determine whether the murder may not have been done by the prosecuting attorney. Any break in the continuity of a disagreeable expectation.
COMPULSION, n. The eloquence of power.
PLENIPOTENTIARY, adj. Having full power. A Minister Plenipotentiary is a diplomatist possessing absolute authority on condition that he never exert it.
MINISTER, n. An agent of a higher power with a lower responsibility. In diplomacy, an officer sent into a foreign country as the visible embodiment of his sovereign’s hostility.
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.