SATYR, n. One of the few characters of the Grecian mythology accorded
recognition in the Hebrew. (Leviticus, xvii, 7.) The satyr was at
first a member of the dissolute community acknowledging a loose
allegiance with Dionysius, but underwent many transformations and
improvements. Not infrequently he is confounded with the faun, a
later and decenter creation of the Romans, who was less like a man and
more like a goat.
SAUCE, n. The one infallible sign of civilization and enlightenment.
A people with no sauces has one thousand vices; a people with one
sauce has only nine hundred and ninety-nine. For every sauce invented
and accepted a vice is renounced and forgiven.
SAW, n. A trite popular saying, or proverb. (Figurative and
colloquial.) So called because it makes its way into a wooden head.
Following are examples of old saws fitted with new teeth.
A penny saved is a penny to squander.
A man is known by the company that he organizes.
A bad workman quarrels with the man who calls him that.
A bird in the hand is worth what it will bring.
Better late than before anybody has invited you.
Example is better than following it.
Half a loaf is better than a whole one if there is much else.
Think twice before you speak to a friend in need.
What is worth doing is worth the trouble of asking somebody to do it.
Least said is soonest disavowed.
He laughs best who laughs least.
Speak of the Devil and he will hear about it.
Of two evils choose to be the least.
Strike while your employer has a big contract.
Where there's a will there's a won't.
SCARABAEUS, n. The sacred beetle of the ancient Egyptians, allied to
our familiar "tumble-bug." It was supposed to symbolize immortality,
the fact that God knew why giving it its peculiar sanctity. Its habit
of incubating its eggs in a ball of ordure may also have commended it
to the favor of the priesthood, and may some day assure it an equal
reverence among ourselves. True, the American beetle is an inferior
beetle, but the American priest is an inferior priest.
SCARABEE, n. The same as scarabaeus.
He fell by his own hand
Beneath the great oak tree.
He'd traveled in a foreign land.
He tried to make her understand
The dance that's called the Saraband,
But he called it Scarabee.
He had called it so through an afternoon,
And she, the light of his harem if so might be,
Had smiled and said naught. O the body was fair to see,
All frosted there in the shine o' the moon--
Dead for a Scarabee
And a recollection that came too late.
O Fate!
They buried him where he lay,
He sleeps awaiting the Day,
In state,
And two Possible Puns, moon-eyed and wan,
Gloom over the grave and then move on.
Dead for a Scarabee!
Fernando Tapple
SCARIFICATION, n. A form of penance practised by the mediaeval pious.
The rite was performed, sometimes with a knife, sometimes with a hot
iron, but always, says Arsenius Asceticus, acceptably if the penitent
spared himself no pain nor harmless disfigurement. Scarification,
with other crude penances, has now been superseded by benefaction.
The founding of a library or endowment of a university is said to
yield to the penitent a sharper and more lasting pain than is
conferred by the knife or iron, and is therefore a surer means of
grace. There are, however, two grave objections to it as a
penitential method: the good that it does and the taint of justice.
SCEPTER, n. A king's staff of office, the sign and symbol of his
authority. It was originally a mace with which the sovereign
admonished his jester and vetoed ministerial measures by breaking the
bones of their proponents.
SCIMITAR, n. A curved sword of exceeding keenness, in the conduct of
which certain Orientals attain a surprising proficiency, as the
incident here related will serve to show. The account is translated
from the Japanese of Shusi Itama, a famous writer of the thirteenth
century.
When the great Gichi-Kuktai was Mikado he condemned to
decapitation Jijiji Ri, a high officer of the Court. Soon after
the hour appointed for performance of the rite what was his
Majesty's surprise to see calmly approaching the throne the man
who should have been at that time ten minutes dead!
"Seventeen hundred impossible dragons!" shouted the enraged
monarch. "Did I not sentence you to stand in the market-place and
have your head struck off by the public executioner at three
o'clock? And is it not now 3:10?"
"Son of a thousand illustrious deities," answered the
condemned minister, "all that you say is so true that the truth is
a lie in comparison. But your heavenly Majesty's sunny and
vitalizing wishes have been pestilently disregarded. With joy I
ran and placed my unworthy body in the market-place. The
executioner appeared with his bare scimitar, ostentatiously
whirled it in air, and then, tapping me lightly upon the neck,
strode away, pelted by the populace, with whom I was ever a
favorite. I am come to pray for justice upon his own dishonorable
and treasonous head."
"To what regiment of executioners does the black-boweled
caitiff belong?" asked the Mikado.
"To the gallant Ninety-eight Hundred and Thirty-seventh--I
know the man. His name is Sakko-Samshi."
"Let him be brought before me," said the Mikado to an
attendant, and a half-hour later the culprit stood in the
Presence.
"Thou bastard son of a three-legged hunchback without thumbs!"
roared the sovereign--"why didst thou but lightly tap the neck
that it should have been thy pleasure to sever?"
"Lord of Cranes an Cherry Blooms," replied the executioner,
unmoved, "command him to blow his nose with his fingers."
Being commanded, Jijiji Ri laid hold of his nose and trumpeted
like an elephant, all expecting to see the severed head flung
violently from him. Nothing occurred: the performance prospered
peacefully to the close, without incident.
All eyes were now turned on the executioner, who had grown as
white as the snows on the summit of Fujiama. His legs trembled
and his breath came in gasps of terror.
"Several kinds of spike-tailed brass lions!" he cried; "I am a
ruined and disgraced swordsman! I struck the villain feebly
because in flourishing the scimitar I had accidentally passed it
through my own neck! Father of the Moon, I resign my office."
So saying, he gasped his top-knot, lifted off his head, and
advancing to the throne laid it humbly at the Mikado's feet.
SCRAP-BOOK, n. A book that is commonly edited by a fool. Many
persons of some small distinction compile scrap-books containing
whatever they happen to read about themselves or employ others to
collect. One of these egotists was addressed in the lines following,
by Agamemnon Melancthon Peters:
Dear Frank, that scrap-book where you boast
You keep a record true
Of every kind of peppered roast
That's made of you;
Wherein you paste the printed gibes
That revel round your name,
Thinking the laughter of the scribes
Attests your fame;
Where all the pictures you arrange
That comic pencils trace--
Your funny figure and your strange
Semitic face--
Pray lend it me. Wit I have not,
Nor art, but there I'll list
The daily drubbings you'd have got
Had God a fist.
SCRIBBLER, n. A professional writer whose views are antagonistic to
one's own.
SCRIPTURES, n. The sacred books of our holy religion, as
distinguished from the false and profane writings on which all other
faiths are based.
SEAL, n. A mark impressed upon certain kinds of documents to attest
their authenticity and authority. Sometimes it is stamped upon wax,
and attached to the paper, sometimes into the paper itself. Sealing,
in this sense, is a survival of an ancient custom of inscribing
important papers with cabalistic words or signs to give them a magical
efficacy independent of the authority that they represent. In the
British museum are preserved many ancient papers, mostly of a
sacerdotal character, validated by necromantic pentagrams and other
devices, frequently initial letters of words to conjure with; and in
many instances these are attached in the same way that seals are
appended now. As nearly every reasonless and apparently meaningless
custom, rite or observance of modern times had origin in some remote
utility, it is pleasing to note an example of ancient nonsense
evolving in the process of ages into something really useful. Our
word "sincere" is derived from _sine cero_, without wax, but the
learned are not in agreement as to whether this refers to the absence
of the cabalistic signs, or to that of the wax with which letters were
formerly closed from public scrutiny. Either view of the matter will
serve one in immediate need of an hypothesis. The initials L.S.,
commonly appended to signatures of legal documents, mean _locum
sigillis_, the place of the seal, although the seal is no longer used
--an admirable example of conservatism distinguishing Man from the
beasts that perish. The words _locum sigillis_ are humbly suggested
as a suitable motto for the Pribyloff Islands whenever they shall take
their place as a sovereign State of the American Union.
SEINE, n. A kind of net for effecting an involuntary change of
environment. For fish it is made strong and coarse, but women are
more easily taken with a singularly delicate fabric weighted with
small, cut stones.
The devil casting a seine of lace,
(With precious stones 'twas weighted)
Drew it into the landing place
And its contents calculated.
All souls of women were in that sack--
A draft miraculous, precious!
But ere he could throw it across his back
They'd all escaped through the meshes.