A
ABASEMENT, n. A decent and customary mental attitude in the presence of
wealth or power. Peculiarly appropriate in an employé when addressing an
employer.
ABATIS, n. Rubbish in front of a fort, to prevent the rubbish outside
from molesting the rubbish inside.
ABDICATION, n. An act whereby a sovereign attests his sense of the high
temperature of the throne.
Poor Isabella's dead, whose abdication
Set all tongues wagging in the Spanish nation.
For that performance 'twere unfair to scold her:
She wisely left a throne too hot to hold her.
To History she 'll be no royal riddle--
Merely a plain parched pea that jumped the griddle.
ABDOMEN, n. The temple of the god Stomach, in whose worship, with
sacrificial rights, all true men engage. From women this ancient faith
commands but a stammering assent. They sometimes minister at the altar
in a half-hearted and inefficient way, but true reverence for the one
deity that men really adore they know not. If woman had a free hand in
the world's marketing the race would become graminivorous.
ABILITY, n. The natural equipment to accomplish some small part of the
meaner ambitions distinguishing able men from dead ones. In the last
analysis ability is commonly found to consist mainly in a high degree
of solemnity. Perhaps, however, this impressive quality is rightly
appraised; it is no easy task to be solemn.
ABNORMAL, adj. Not conforming to standard. In matters of thought and
conduct, to be independent is to be abnormal, to be abnormal is to
be detested. Wherefore the lexicographer adviseth a striving toward a
straiter resemblance to the Average Man than he hath to himself. Who so
attaineth thereto shall have peace, the prospect of death and the hope
of Hades.
ABORIGINES, Persons of little worth found cumbering the soil of a newly
discovered country. They soon cease to cumber; they fertilize.