The Devil's Dictionary

LORE, n. Learning — particularly that sort which is not derived from a regular course of instruction but comes of the reading of occult books, or by nature. This latter is commonly designated as folk-lore and embraces popularly myths and superstitions. In Baring-Gould’s Curious Myths of the Middle Ages the reader will find many of these traced backward, through various people son converging lines, toward a common origin in remote antiquity. Among these are the fables of “Teddy the Giant Killer,” “The Sleeping John Sharp Williams,” “Little Red Riding Hood and the Sugar Trust,” “Beauty and the Brisbane,” “The Seven Aldermen of Ephesus,” “Rip Van Fairbanks,” and so forth. The fable with Goethe so affectingly relates under the title of “The Erl-King” was known two thousand years ago in Greece as “The Demos and the Infant Industry.” One of the most general and ancient of these myths is that Arabian tale of “Ali Baba and the Forty Rockefellers.”

LOSS, n. Privation of that which we had, or had not. Thus, in the latter sense, it is said of a defeated candidate that he “lost his election”; and of that eminent man, the poet Gilder, that he has “lost his mind.” It is in the former and more legitimate sense, that the word is used in the famous epitaph:

Here Huntington’s ashes long have lain

Whose loss is our eternal gain,

For while he exercised all his powers

Whatever he gained, the loss was ours.

LOVE, n. A temporary insanity curable by marriage or by removal of the patient from the influences under which he incurred the disorder. This disease, like caries and many other ailments, is prevalent only among civilized races living under artificial conditions; barbarous nations breathing pure air and eating simple food enjoy immunity from its ravages. It is sometimes fatal, but more frequently to the physician than to the patient.

LOW-BRED, adj. “Raised” instead of brought up.

LUMINARY, n. One who throws light upon a subject; as an editor by not writing about it.

LUNARIAN, n. An inhabitant of the moon, as distinguished from Lunatic, one whom the moon inhabits. The Lunarians have been described by Lucian, Locke and other observers, but without much agreement. For example, Bragellos avers their anatomical identity with Man, but Professor Newcomb says they are more like the hill tribes of Vermont.

LYRE, n. An ancient instrument of torture. The word is now used in a figurative sense to denote the poetic faculty, as in the following fiery lines of our great poet, Ella Wheeler Wilcox:

I sit astride Parnassus with my lyre,

And pick with care the disobedient wire.

That stupid shepherd lolling on his crook

With deaf attention scarcely deigns to look.

I bide my time, and it shall come at length,

When, with a Titan’s energy and strength,

I’ll grab a fistful of the strings, and O,

The word shall suffer when I let them go!

Farquharson Harris

M

MACE, n. A staff of office signifying authority. Its form, that of a heavy club, indicates its original purpose and use in dissuading from dissent.

MACHINATION, n. The method employed by one’s opponents in baffling one’s open and honorable efforts to do the right thing.

So plain the advantages of machination

It constitutes a moral obligation,

And honest wolves who think upon’t with loathing

Feel bound to don the sheep’s deceptive clothing.

So prospers still the diplomatic art,

And Satan bows, with hand upon his heart.

R.S.K.

MACROBIAN, n. One forgotten of the gods and living to a great age. History is abundantly supplied with examples, from Methuselah to Old Parr, but some notable instances of longevity are less well known. A Calabrian peasant named Coloni, born in 1753, lived so long that he had what he considered a glimpse of the dawn of universal peace. Scanavius relates that he knew an archbishop who was so old that he could remember a time when he did not deserve hanging. In 1566 a linen draper of Bristol, England, declared that he had lived five hundred years, and that in all that time he had never told a lie. There are instances of longevity (_macrobiosis_) in our own country. Senator Chauncey Depew is old enough to know better. The editor of The American, a newspaper in New York City, has a memory that goes back to the time when he was a rascal, but not to the fact. The President of the United States was born so long ago that many of the friends of his youth have risen to high political and military preferment without the assistance of personal merit. The verses following were written by a macrobian:

When I was young the world was fair

And amiable and sunny.

A brightness was in all the air,

In all the waters, honey.

The jokes were fine and funny,

The statesmen honest in their views,

And in their lives, as well,

And when you heard a bit of news

‘Twas true enough to tell.

Men were not ranting, shouting, reeking,

Nor women “generally speaking.”

The Summer then was long indeed:

It lasted one whole season!

The sparkling Winter gave no heed

When ordered by Unreason

To bring the early peas on.