Quotations

«LEVIATHAN, n. An enormous aquatic animal mentioned by Job. Some suppose it to have been the whale, but that distinguished ichthyologer, Dr. Jordan, of Stanford University, maintains with considerable heat that it was a species of gigantic Tadpole (_Thaddeus Polandensis_) or Polliwig --_Maria pseudo-hirsuta_. For an exhaustive description and history of the Tadpole consult the famous monograph of Jane Potter, _Thaddeus of Warsaw_.»

«LICKSPITTLE, n. A useful functionary, not infrequently found editing a newspaper. In his character of editor he is closely allied to the blackmailer by the tie of occasional identity; for in truth the lickspittle is only the blackmailer under another aspect, although the latter is frequently found as an independent species. Lickspittling is more detestable than blackmailing, precisely as the business of a confidence man is more detestable than that of a highway robber; and the parallel maintains itself throughout, for whereas few robbers will cheat, every sneak will plunder if he dare.»

«LAUREATE, adj. Crowned with leaves of the laurel. In England the Poet Laureate is an officer of the sovereign's court, acting as dancing skeleton at every royal feast and singing-mute at every royal funeral. Of all incumbents of that high office, Robert Southey had the most notable knack at drugging the Samson of public joy and cutting his hair to the quick; and he had an artistic color-sense which enabled him so to blacken a public grief as to give it the aspect of a national crime.»

«LAWFUL, adj. Compatible with the will of a judge having jurisdiction.»

«MENDACIOUS, adj. Addicted to rhetoric.»

«HUMANITY, n. The human race, collectively, exclusive of the anthropoid poets.»

«HUMORIST, n. A plague that would have softened down the hoar austerity of Pharaoh's heart and persuaded him to dismiss Israel with his best wishes, cat-quick.Lo! the poor humorist, whose tortured mind See jokes in crowds, though still to gloom inclined -- Whose simple appetite, untaught to stray, His brains, renewed by night, consumes by day. He thinks, admitted to an equal sty, A graceful hog would bear his company. --Alexander Poke»

«ILLUMINATI, n. A sect of Spanish heretics of the latter part of the sixteenth century; so called because they were light weights --_cunctationes illuminati_.»

«IMAGINATION, n. A warehouse of facts, with poet and liar in joint ownership.»

«IMPARTIAL, adj. Unable to perceive any promise of personal advantage from espousing either side of a controversy or adopting either of two conflicting opinions.»