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.