the devils dictionary

To designate for the heaviest political assessment. To put forward a suitable person to incur the mudgobbing and deadcatting of the opposition.

A stench in the ear. Undomesticated music. The chief product and authenticating sign of civilization.

Nature's provision for wealthy American maids ambitious to incur social distinction and suffer high life.

In the Buddhist religion, a state of pleasurable annihilation awarded to the wise, particularly to those wise enough to understand it.

A Russian who denies the existence of anything but Tolstoi. The leader of the school is Tolstoi.

Pertaining to a philosophy of the universe invented by Newton, who discovered that an apple will fall to the ground, but was unable to say why. His successors and disciples have advanced so far as to be able to say when.

Appointing your grandmother to office for the good of the party.

One whom we are commanded to love as ourselves, and who does all he knows how to make us disobedient.

A drink served at banquets of the Olympian deities. The secret of its preparation is lost, but the modern Kentuckians believe that they come pretty near to a knowledge of its chief ingredient.

---

Juno drank a cup of nectar,
But the draught did not affect her.
Juno drank a cup of rye —
Then she bade herself good-bye.
—J.G.

Having the quality of magazine poetry. (also: FLUMMERY)

A slimy, gobby shellfish which civilization gives men the hardihood to eat without removing its entrails! The shells are sometimes given to the poor.

To have (and to hold) a debt. The word formerly signified not indebtedness, but possession; it meant "own," and in the minds of debtors there is still a good deal of confusion between assets and liabilities.

A dangerous disorder affecting high public functionaries who want to go fishing.

To dine.

---

Hail, Gastronome, Apostle of Excess,
Well skilled to overeat without distress!
Thy great invention, the unfatal feast,
Shows Man's superiority to Beast.
—John Boop

A fatal dose of medicine when administered by any other than the physician.

To ask a higher price that you can get.

. In ancient Rome, a definite, formal pageant in honor of one who had been disserviceable to the enemies of the nation. A lesser "triumph." In modern English the word is improperly used to signify any loose and spontaneous expression of popular homage to the hero of the hour and place.

---

"I had an ovation!" the actor man said,
But I thought it uncommonly queer,
That people and critics by him had been led
By the ear.

The Latin lexicon makes his absurd
Assertion as plain as a peg;
In "ovum" we find the true root of the word.
It means egg.
—Dudley Spink

A person austerely censorious of that which he is unable to do or become. In commerce and finance, a member of the Army of Provision.

Any disagreeable act, considered from the viewpoint of the victim of it. A denial of immunity

That part of one's environment upon which no government has been able to collect taxes. Chiefly useful to inspire poets.

---

I climbed to the top of a mountain one day
To see the sun setting in glory,
And I thought, as I looked at his vanishing ray,
Of a perfectly splendid story.

'Twas about an old man and the ass he bestrode
Till the strength of the beast was o'ertested;
Then the man would carry him miles on the road
Till Neddy was pretty well rested.

The moon rising solemnly over the crest
Of the hills to the east of my station
Displayed her broad disk to the darkening west
Like a visible new creation.

And I thought of a joke (and I laughed till I cried)
Of an idle young woman who tarried
About a church-door for a look at the bride,
Although 'twas herself that was married.

To poets all Nature is pregnant with grand
Ideas — with thought and emotion.
I pity the dunces who don't understand
The speech of earth, heaven and ocean.
—Stromboli Smith