INCOME, n. The natural and rational gauge and measure of respectability,
the commonly accepted standards being artificial, arbitrary, and
fallacious; for, as "Sir Sycophas Aureolater" in the play has justly
remarked, "the true use and function of property (in whatsoever it
consisteth--coins, or land, or houses, or merchant-stuff, or anything
which may be named as holden of right to one's own subservience) as
also of honors, titles, preferments, and place, and all favor and
acquaintance of persons of quality or ableness, are but to get money.
Hence it followeth that all things are truly to be rated as of worth
in measure of their serviceableness to that end; and their possessors
should take rank in agreement thereto, neither the lord of an
unproducing manor, howsoever broad and ancient, nor he who bears an
unremunerate dignity, nor yet the pauper favorite of a king, being
esteemed of level excellency with him whose riches are of daily
accretion; and hardly should they whose wealth is barren claim and
rightly take more honor than the poor and unworthy."
INCOMPATIBILITY, n. In matrimony a similarity of tastes, particularly
the taste for domination. Incompatibility may, however, consist of a
meekeyed matron living just around the corner. It has even been known to
wear a moustache.
INCOMPOSSIBLE, adj. Unable to exist if something else exists. Two things
are incompossible when the world of being has scope enough for one of
them, but not enough for both-- as the poet Gilder and God's mercy to
man. Incompossibility, it will be seen, is only incompatibility let
loose. Instead of such low language as "Go heel yourself--I mean to kill
you on sight," the words, "Sir, we are incompossible," would convey an
equally significant intimation, and in stately courtesy are altogether
superior.
INCUBUS, n. One of a race of highly improper demons who, though probably
not wholly extinct, may be said to have seen their best nights. For a
complete account of incubi and suecubi, including incuba and succuba,
see the Liber Demonorum of Protassus (Paris, 1328), which contains much
curious information that would be out of place in a dictionary intended
as a text-book for the public schools. Victor Hugo relates that in the
Channel Islands Satan himself--tempted more than elsewhere by the beauty
of the women, doubtless--sometimes plays at incubus, greatly to the
inconvenience and alarm of the good dames who wish to be loyal to their
marriage vows, generally speaking. A certain lady applied to the parish
priest to learn how they might, in the dark, distinguish the hardy
intruder from their husbands. The holy man said they must feel his brow
for horns; but Hugo is ungallant enough to hint a doubt of the efficacy
of the test.
INCUMBENT, n. A person of the liveliest interest to the outcumbents.
INDECISION, n. The chief element of success; "for whereas," saith Sir
Thomas Brewbold, "there is but one way to do nothing and divers ways
to do something, whereof, to a surety, only one is the right way, it
followeth that he who from indecision standeth still hath not so many
chances of going astray as he who pusheth forwards"--a most clear and
satisfactory exposition of the matter.
"Your prompt decision to attack," said Gen. Grant on a certain occasion
to Gen. Gordon Granger, "was admirable; you had but five minutes to make
up your mind in."
"Yes, sir," answered the victorious subordinate, "it is a great thing to
know exactly what to do in an emergency. When in doubt whether to attack
or retreat I never hesitate a moment--I toss up a copper."
"Do you mean to say that's what you did this time?"
"Yes, General; but for heaven's sake don't reprimand me: I disobeyed the
judgment."
INDIFFERENT, adj. Imperfectly sensible to distinctions among things.
"You tiresome man!" cried Indolentio's wife,
"You 've grown indifferent to all in life."
"Indifferent?" he drawled with a slow smile;
"I would be, dear, but it is not worth while."
Apuleius M. Gokul,
INDIGESTION, n. A disease which the patient and his friends frequently
mistake for deep religious conviction and concern for the salvation of
mankind. As the simple Red Man of the western wild put it, with, it must
be confessed, a certain force: "Plenty well, no pray; big bellyache,
heap God."
INDISCRETION, n. The guilt of woman.
INEXPEDIENT, adj. Not calculated to advance one's interests.
INFANCY, n. The period of our lives when, according to Wordsworth,
"Heaven lies about us." The world begins lying about us pretty soon
afterward.
INFERÏÆ, [Latin.] n. Among the Greeks and Romans, sacrifices for
propitiation of the Dii Manes, or souls of dead heroes; for the pious
ancients could not invent enough gods to satisfy their spiritual needs,
and had to have a number of makeshift deities, or, as a sailor might
say, jury-gods, which they made out of the most unpromising materials.
It was while sacrificing a bullock to the spirit of Agamemnon that
Laiaides, a priest of Aulis, was favored with an audience of that
illustrious warrior's shade, who prophetically recounted to him the
birth of Christ and the triumph of Christianity, giving him also a
rapid but tolerably complete review of events down to the reign of
Saint Louis. The narrative ended abruptly at that point owing to the
inconsiderate crowing of a cock, which compelled the ghosted King of Men
to scamper back to Hades. There is a fine mediæval flavor to this story,
and as it has not been traced back further than Père Brateille, a pious
but obscure writer at the court of Saint Louis, we shall probably not
err on the side of presumption in considering it apocryphal, though
Monsignor Capels judgment of the matter might be different; and to that
I bow-wow.
INFIDEL, n. In New York, one who does not believe in the Christian
religion; in Constantinople, one who does. (See Giaour.) A kind of
scoundrel imperfectly reverent of, and niggardly contributory to,
divines, ecclesiastics, popes, parsons, canons, monks, mollahs, voodoos,
presbyters, hierophants, prelates, obeah-men, abbés, nuns, missionaries,
exhorters, deacons, friars, hadjis, high-priests, muezzins, brahmins,
medicine-men, confessors, eminences, elders, primates, prebendaries,
pilgrims, prophets, imaums, beneficiaries, clerks, vicars-choral,
archbishops, bishops, abbots, priors, preachers, padres, abbotesses,
caloyers, palmers, curates, patriarchs, bonzes, santons, beadsmen,
canonesses, residentiaries, diocesans, deans, subdeans, rural
deans, abdals, charm-sellers, archdeacons, hierarchs, class-leaders,
incumbents, capitulars, sheiks, talapoins, postulants, scribes,
gooroos, precentors, beadles, fakeers, sextons, reverences, revivalists,
cenobites^ perpetual curates, chaplains, mudjoes, readers, novices,
vicars, pastors, rabbis, ulemas, lamas, sacristans, vergers, dervises,
lecturers, churchwardens, cardinals, prioresses, suffragans, acolytes,
rectors, curés, sophis, muftis, and pumpums.
INFLUENCE, n. In politics, a visionary quo given in exchange for a
substanstantial quid.
INFRALAPSARIAN, n. One who ventures to believe that Adam need not have
sinned unless he had a mind to -- in opposition to the Supralapsarians,
who hold that that luckless person's fall was decreed from the
beginning. Infralapsarians are sometimes called Sublapsarians without
material effect upon the importance and lucidity of their views about
Adam.
Two theologues once, as they wended their way
To chapel, engaged in colloquial fray--
An earnest logomachy, bitter as gall,
Concerning poor Adam and what made him fall.
"'T was Predestination," cried one--"for the Lord
Decreed he should fall of his own accord."
"Not so--'t was Free will," the other maintained,
"Which led him to choose what the Lord had
ordained."
So fierce and so fiery grew the debate
That nothing but bloodshed their dudgeon could sate;
So off flew their cassocks and caps to the ground
And, moved by the spirit, their hands went round.
Ere either had proved his theology right
By winning, or even beginning, the fight,
A gray old professor of Latin came by,
A staff in his hand and a scowl in his eye,
And learning the cause of their quarrel (for still
As they clumsily sparred they disputed with skill
Of foreordinational freedom of will)
Cried: "Sirrahs! this reasonless warfare compose:
Atwixt ye's no difference worthy of blows.
The sects ye belong to--I 'm ready to swear
Ye wrongly interpret the names that they bear.
<i>You</i>--Infralapsarian son of a clown!--
Should only contend that Adam slipped down;
While <i>you</i>--you Supralapsarian pup!--
Should nothing aver but that Adam slipped up."
It 's all the same whether up or down
You slip on a peel of banana brown;
And Adam analyzed not his blunder
But thought he had slipped on a peal of thunder!