APPEAL, v. t. In law, to put the dice into the box for another throw.
APPETITE, n. An instinct thoughtfully implanted by Providence as a
solution to the labor question.
APPLAUSE, n. The echo of a platitude.
APRIL FOOL, n. The March fool with another month added to his folly.
ARBITRATION, n. A modern device for promoting strife by substituting for
an original dispute a score of inevitable disagreements as to the manner
of submitting it for settlement.
ARCHBISHOP, n. An ecclesiastical dignitary one point holier than a
bishop.
If I were a jolly archbishop,
On Fridays I 'd eat all the fish up--
Salmon and flounders and smelts;
On other days everything else.
Jodo Rem.
ARCHITECT, n. One who drafts a plan of your house, and plans a draft of
your money; who estimates the whole cost, and himself costs the whole
estimate.
ARDOR, n. The quality that distinguishes love without knowledge.
ARENA, n. In politics, an imaginary rat-pit, in which the statesman
wrestles with his record.
ARISTOCRACY, n. Government by the best men. (In this sense the word is
obsolete; so is that kind of government.) Fellows that wear downy hats
and clean shirts--guilty of education and suspected of bank accounts.
ARMOR, n. The kind of clothing worn by a man whose tailor is a
blacksmith.
ARRAYED, pp. Drawn up and given an orderly disposition, as a rioter
hanged to a lamp-post.
ARREST, v. t Formally to detain one accused of unusualness.
God made the world in six days and was arrested on the seventh.-- The
Unauthorized Version.
ARSENIC, n. A kind of cosmetic greatly affected by the ladies, whom it
greatly affects in turn.
"Eat arsenic? Yes, all you get,"
Consenting, he did speak up;
"'T is better you should eat it, pet,
Than put it in my teacup."
Joel Huck.
ART, n. This word has no definition. Its origin is related as follows by
the ingenious Father Gassalasca Jape, S. J.
One day a wag--what would the wretch be at?--
Shifted a letter of the cipher RAT,
And said it was a god's name! Straight arose
Fantastic priests and postulants (with shows,
And mysteries, and mummeries, and hymns,
And disputations dire that lamed their limbs)
To serve his temple and maintain the fires,
Expound the law, manipulate the wires.
Amazed, the populace the rites attend,
Believe whate'er they cannot comprehend.
And, inly edified to learn that two
Half-hairs joined so and so (as Art can do)
Have sweeter values and a grace more fit
Than Nature's hairs that never have been split,
Bring cates and wines for sacrificiàl feasts,
And sell their garments to support the priests.
ARTLESSNESS, n. A certain engaging quality to which women attain by
long study and severe practice upon the admiring male, who is pleased to
fancy it resembles the candid simplicity of his young.
ASPERSE, v. t Maliciously to ascribe to another vicious actions which
one has not had the temptation and opportunity to commit.
ASS, n. A public singer with a good voice but no ear. In Virginia City,
Nevada, he is called the Washoe Canary, in Dakota, the Senator, and
everywhere the Donkey. The animal is widely and variously celebrated in
the literature, art, and religion of every age and country; no other
so engages and fires the human imagination as this noble vertebrate.
Indeed, it is doubted by some (Ramasilus, lib. II., De Clem., and C.
Stantatus, De Temperamente) if it is not a god; and as such we know it
was worshipped by the Etruscans, and, if we may believe Macrobius, by
the Capasians also. Of the only two animals admitted into the Mahometan
Paradise along with the souls of men, the ass that carried Balaam
is one, the dog of the Seven Sleepers the other. This is no small
distinction. From what has been written about this beast might be
compiled a library of great splendor and magnitude, rivaling that of the
Shakspearean cult, and that which clusters about the Bible. It may be
said, generally, that all literature is more or less Asinine.
"Hail, holy Ass!" the quiring angels sing;
"Priest of Unreason, and of Discords King!
Great co-Creator, let Thy glory shine:
God made all else, the Mule--the Mule is thine!"