DEFAME, v. t. To lie about another. To tell the truth about another.
DEFENCELESS, adj. Unable to attack.
DEGENERATE, adj. Less conspicuously admirable than one's ancestors.
The contemporaries of Homer were striking examples of degeneracy; it
required ten of them to raise a rock or a riot that one of the heroes
of the Trojan war could have raised with ease. Homer never tires of
sneering at the "men who live in these degenerate days," which is
perhaps why they suffered him to beg his bread-- a marked instance of
returning good for evil, by the way, for if they had forbidden him he
would certainly have starved.
DEGRADATION, n. One of the stages of moral and social progress from
private station to political preferment.
DEINOTHERIUM, n. An extinct pachyderm that flourished when the
Pterodactyl was in fashion. The latter was a native of Ireland, its name
being pronounced Terry Dactyl or Peter O'Dactyl, as the man pronouncing
it may chance to have heard it spoken or seen it printed.
DEJEUNER, n. The breakfast of an American who has been in Paris.
Variously pronounced.
DELEGATION, n. In American politics, an article of merchandise that
comes in sets.
DELIBERATION, n. The act of examining one's bread to determine which
side it is buttered on.
DELUGE, n. A notable first experiment in baptism which washed away the
sins (and sinners) of the world.
DELUSION, n. The father of a most respectable family, comprising
Enthusiasm, Affection, Self-denial, Faith, Hope, Charity, and many other
goodly sons and daughters.
All hail, Delusion! Were it not for thee
The world turned topsy-turvy we should see;
For Vice, respectable with cleanly fancies,
Would fly abandoned Virtue's gross advances.
Mumfrey Mappel.
DENTIST, n. A prestidigitator who, putting metal into your mouth, pulls
coins out of your pocket.
DEPENDENT, adj. Reliant upon another's generosity for the support which
you are not in a position to exact from his fears.
DEPUTY, n. A male relative of an officer-holder or of his bondsman.
The deputy is commonly a beautiful young man, with a red necktie and an
intricate system of cobwebs extending from his nose to his desk. When
accidentally struck by the janitor's broom, he gives off a cloud of
dust.
"Chief Deputy," the master cried,
"To-day the books are to be tried
By experts and accountants who
Have been commissioned to go through
Our office here, to see if we
Have stolen injudiciously.
Please have the proper entries made,
The proper balances displayed,
Conforming to the whole amount
Of cash on hand--which they will count.
I 've long admired your punctual way--
Here at the break and close of day,
Confronting in your chair the crowd
Of business men, whose voices loud
And gestures violent you quell
By some mysterious, calm spell--
Some magic lurking in your look
That brings the noisiest to book
And spreads a holy and profound
Tranquillity o'er all around.
So orderly all's done that they
Who came to draw remain to pay.
But now the time demands, at last,
That you employ your genius vast
In energies more active. Rise
And shake the lightnings from your eyes;
Inspire your underlings, and fling
Your spirit into everything!"
The master hand here dealt a whack
Upon the Deputy's bent back,
When straightway to the floor there fell
A shrunken globe, a rattling shell,
A blackened, withered, eyeless head!
The man had been a twelvemonth dead.
Jamrach Holobom.
DESTINY, n. A tyrant's authority for crime and a fool's excuse for
failure.
DIAGNOSIS, n. A physician's forecast of disease by the patient's pulse
and purse.
DIAPHRAGM, n. A muscular partition separating disorders of the chest
from disorders of the bowels.
DIARY, n. A daily record of that part of one's life, which he can relate
to himself without blushing.
Sam kept a diary wherein were writ
So many noble deeds and so much wit
That the Recording Angel, when Sam died,
Erased all entries of his own and cried:
"I 'll judge you by your diary." Said Sam:
"Thank you;'t will show you what a saint I am"--
Straightway producing, jubilant and proud,
That record from a pocket in his shroud.
The Angel slowly turned the pages o'er,
Each lying line of which he knew before,
Glooming and gleaming as by turns he hit
On noble action and amusing wit;
Then gravely closed the book and gave it back.
"My friend, you've wandered from your proper
track;
You'd never be content this side the tomb--
For deeds of greatness Heaven has little room,
And Hell's no latitude for making mirth,"
He said, and kicked the fellow back to earth.
"The Mad Philosopher"
DICTATOR, n. The chief of a nation that prefers the pestilence of
despotism to the plague of anarchy.
DICTIONARY, n. A malevolent literary device for cramping the growth of a
language and making it hard and inelastic. This dictionary, however, is
a most useful work.
DIE, n. The singular of "dice." We seldom hear the word, because there
is a prohibitory proverb, "Never say die." At long intervals, however,
some one says: "The die is cast," which is not true, for it is cut. The
word is found in an immortal couplet by that eminent poet and domestic
economist, Senator Depew:
A cube of cheese no larger than a die
May bait the trap to catch a nibbling mie.
DIGESTION, n. The conversion of victuals into virtues. When the process
is imperfect, vices are evolved instead -- a circumstance from which
that wicked writer, Dr. Jeremiah Blenn, infers that the ladies are the
greater sufferers from dyspepsia.
DIPLOMACY, n. The patriotic, art of lying for one's country.
DISABUSE, v. t. To present your neighbor with another and better error
than the one which he has deemed it advantageous to embrace.
DISCRIMINATE, v. i. To note the particulars in which one person or thing
is, if possible, more objectionable than another.
DISCUSSION, n. A method of confirming others in their errors.
DISOBEDIENCE, n. The silver lining to the cloud of servitude.
DISOBEY, v. t. To celebrate with an appropriate ceremony the maturity of
a command.
His right to govern me is clear as day,
My duty manifest to disobey;
And if that fit observance e'er I shun
May I and duty be alike undone.
Israfel Brown.
DISSEMBLE, v. i. To put a clean shirt upon the character.
Let us dissemble.--<i>Adam</i>.
DISTANCE, n. The only thing that the rich are willing for the poor to
call theirs, and keep.
DISTRESS, n. A disease incurred by exposure to the prosperity of a
friend.
DIVINATION, n. The art of nosing out the occult. Divination is of as
many kinds as there are fruit-bearing varieties of the flowering dunce
and the early fool.
DOG, n. A kind of additional or subsidiary Deity designed to catch the
overflow and surplus of the world's worship. This Divine Being in some
of his smaller and silkier incarnations takes, in the affection of
Woman, the place to which there is no human male aspirant. The Dog is a
survival--an anachronism. He toils not, neither does he spin, yet Solomon
in all his glory never lay upon a door-mat all day long, sunsoaked and
fly-fed and fat, while his master worked for the means wherewith to
purchase an idle wag of the Solomonic tail, seasoned with a look of
tolerant recognition.
DRAGOON, n. A soldier who combines steadiness and dash in so equal
measure that he makes his advances on foot and his retreats on
horseback.
DRAMATIST, n. One who adapts plays from the French.
DRUIDS, n. Priests and ministers of an ancient Celtic religion which
did not disdain to employ the humble allurement of human sacrifice. Very
little is now known about the Druids and their faith. Pliny says their
religion, originating in Britain, spread eastward as far as Persia.
Cæsar says those who desired to study its mysteries went to Britain.
Cæsar himself went to Britain, but does not appear to have obtained any
high preferment in the Druidical Church, although his talent for human
sacrifice was considerable.
Druids performed their religious rites in groves, and knew nothing of
church mortgages and the seasonticket system of pew rents. They were,
in short, heathens and--as they were once complacently catalogued by a
distinguished prelate of the Church of England-- "Dissenters."
DUCK-BILL, n. Your account at your restaurant during the canvass-back
season.
DUEL, n. A formal ceremony preliminary to the reconciliation of two
enemies. Great skill is necessary to its satisfactory observance; if
awkwardly performed the most unexpected and deplorable consequences
sometimes ensue. A long time ago a man lost his life in a duel.
That dueling's a gentlemanly vice
I hold; and wish that it had been my lot
To live my life out in some favored spot--
Some country where it is considered nice
To split a rival like a Ash, or slice
A husband like a spud, or with a shot
Bring down a debtor doubled in a knot
And ready to be put upon the ice.
Some miscreants there are, whom I do long
To shoot, or stab, or some such way reclaim
The scurvy rogues to better lives and manners.
I seem to see them now--a mighty throng.
It looks as if to challenge <i>me</i> they came,
Jauntily marching with brass bands and banners!
Xamba Dar.
DULLARD, n. A member of the reigning dynasty in letters and life. The
Dullards came in with Adam, and being both numerous and sturdy So
have overrun the habitable world. The secret of their power is their
insensibility to blows; tickle them with a bludgeon and they laugh with
a platitude. The Dullards came originally from Boeotia, whence they were
driven by stress of starvation, their dulness having blighted the crops.
For some centuries they infested Philistia, and many of them are called
Philistines to this day. In the turbulent times of the Crusades they
withdrew thence and gradually overspread all Europe, occupying most of
the high places in politics, art, literature, science, and theology.
Since a detachment of Dullards came over with the Pilgrims in the
Mayflower and made a favorable report of the country, their increase by
birth, immigration, and conversion has been rapid and steady. According
to the most trustworthy statistics the number of adult Dullards in the
United States is but little short of thirty millions, including the
statisticians. The intellectual centre of the race is somewhere about
Peoria, Illinois, but the New England Dullard is the most impenitently
moral.
DUTY, n. That which sternly impels us in the direction of profit, along
the line of desire.
Sir Lavender Portwine, in favor at court,
Was wroth at his master, who 'd kissed Lady Port.
His anger provoked him to take the king's head,
But duty prevailed, and he took the king's bread,
Instead.