CAVILER, n. A critic of our own work.
CEMETERY, n. An isolated suburban spot where mourners match lies,
poets write at a target and stone-cutters spell for a wager. The
inscriptions following will serve to illustrate the success attained
in these Olympian games:
His virtues were so conspicuous that his enemies, unable to
overlook them, denied them, and his friends, to whose loose lives
they were a rebuke, represented them as vices. They are here
commemorated by his family, who shared them.
In the earth we here prepare a
Place to lay our little Clara.
Thomas M. and Mary Frazer
P.S.--Gabriel will raise her.
CENTAUR, n. One of a race of persons who lived before the division of
labor had been carried to such a pitch of differentiation, and who
followed the primitive economic maxim, "Every man his own horse." The
best of the lot was Chiron, who to the wisdom and virtues of the horse
added the fleetness of man. The scripture story of the head of John
the Baptist on a charger shows that pagan myths have somewhat
sophisticated sacred history.
CERBERUS, n. The watch-dog of Hades, whose duty it was to guard the
entrance--against whom or what does not clearly appear; everybody,
sooner or later, had to go there, and nobody wanted to carry off the
entrance. Cerberus is known to have had three heads, and some of the
poets have credited him with as many as a hundred. Professor
Graybill, whose clerky erudition and profound knowledge of Greek give
his opinion great weight, has averaged all the estimates, and makes
the number twenty-seven--a judgment that would be entirely
conclusive if Professor Graybill had known (a) something about dogs,
and (b) something about arithmetic.
CHILDHOOD, n. The period of human life intermediate between the
idiocy of infancy and the folly of youth--two removes from the sin
of manhood and three from the remorse of age.
CHRISTIAN, n. One who believes that the New Testament is a divinely
inspired book admirably suited to the spiritual needs of his neighbor.
One who follows the teachings of Christ in so far as they are not
inconsistent with a life of sin.
I dreamed I stood upon a hill, and, lo!
The godly multitudes walked to and fro
Beneath, in Sabbath garments fitly clad,
With pious mien, appropriately sad,
While all the church bells made a solemn din--
A fire-alarm to those who lived in sin.
Then saw I gazing thoughtfully below,
With tranquil face, upon that holy show
A tall, spare figure in a robe of white,
Whose eyes diffused a melancholy light.
"God keep you, stranger," I exclaimed. "You are
No doubt (your habit shows it) from afar;
And yet I entertain the hope that you,
Like these good people, are a Christian too."
He raised his eyes and with a look so stern
It made me with a thousand blushes burn
Replied--his manner with disdain was spiced:
"What! I a Christian? No, indeed! I'm Christ."