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Rarebit N. A Welsh Rabbit, In The Speech Of The Humorless, Who Point Out That It Is Not A Rabbit. To Whom It May Be Solemnly Explained That The Comestible Known As Toad-in-a-hole Is Really Not A Toad, And That Riz-de-veau à La Financière Is Not The Smile Of A Calf Prepared After The Recipe Of A She Banker.

-Ambrose Bierce

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Rarebit N. A Welsh

Ambrose Bierce

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Rarebit N. A Welsh Rabbit, In The Speech Of The Humorless, Who Point Out That It Is Not A Rabbit. To Whom It May Be Solemnly Explained That The Comestible Known As Toad-in-a-hole Is Really Not A Toad, And That Riz-de-veau à La Financière Is Not The Smile Of A Calf Prepared After The Recipe Of A She Banker.

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Dentist: A Prestidigitator Who, Putting Metal Into Your Mouth, Pulls Coin Out Of Your Pocket.

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Obstinate, Adj. Inaccessible To The Truth As It Is Manifest In The Splendor And Stress Of Our Advocacy.

Brain: An Apparatus With Which We Think We Think.

Magic, N. An Art Of Converting Superstition Into Coin. There Are Other Arts Serving The Same High Purpose, But The Discreet Lexicographer Does Not Name Them.

Kindness N: A Brief Preface To Ten Volumes Of Exaction.

Doubt Is The Father Of Invention.

Here's To Woman! Would That We Could Fold Into Her Arms Without Falling Into Her Hands.

Ritualism, N. A Dutch Garden Of God Where He May Walk In Rectilinear Freedom, Keeping Off The Grass.

Tzetze (or Tsetse) Fly, N. An African Insect ("glossina Morsitans") Whose Bite Is Commonly Regarded As Nature's Most Efficacious Remedy For Insomnia, Though Some Patients Prefer That Of The American Novelist ("mendax Interminabilis").

They Say That Hens Do Cackle Loudest When There Is Nothing Vital In The Eggs They Have Laid.

A Statesman Who Shakes The Fruit Trees Of His Neighbors - To Dislodge The Worms.

Dawn: When Men Of Reason Go To Bed.

Monarch, N. A Person Engaged In Reigning. Formerly The Monarch Ruled, As The Derivation Of The Word Attests, And As Many Subjects Have Had Occasion To Learn.

Satiety, N. The Feeling That One Has For The Plate After He Has Eaten Its Contents, Madam.

Commerce, N. A Kind Of Transaction In Which A Plunders From B The Goods Of C, And For Compensation B Picks The Pocket Of D Of Money Belonging To E.

Definition: Connoisseur, N. A Specialist Who Knows Everything About Something And Nothing About Anything Else.

April Fool, N. The March Fool With Another Month Added To His Folly.

Fickleness, N. The Iterated Satiety Of An Enterprising Affection.

Last, N. A Shoemaker's Implement, Named By A Frowning Providence As Opportunity To The Maker Of Puns.

Harmonists, N. A Sect Of Protestants, Now Extinct, Who Came From Europe In The Beginning Of The Last Century And Were Distinguished For The Bitterness Of Their Internal Controversies And Dissensions.

Plebeian, N. An Ancient Roman Who In The Blood Of His Country Stained Nothing But His Hands. Distinguished From The Patrician, Who Was A Saturated Solution.

Replica, N. A Reproduction Of A Work Of Art, By The Artist That Made The Original. It Is So Called To Distinguish It From A "copy," Which Is Made By Another Artist. When The Two Are Mae With Equal Skill The Replica Is The More Valuable, For It Is Suppose

Telescope, N. A Device Having A Relation To The Eye Similar To That Of The Telephone To The Ear, Enabling Distant Objects To Plague Us With A Multitude Of Needless Details. Luckily It Is Unprovided With A Bell Summoning Us To The Sacrifice.

Alien - An American Sovereign In His Probationary State.

Asperse, V.t. Maliciously To Ascribe To Another Vicious Actions Which One Has Not Had The Temptation And Opportunity To Commit.

Vanity, N. The Tribute Of A Fool To The Worth Of The Nearest Ass.

Forgetfulness - A Gift Of God Bestowed Upon Debtors In Compensation For Their Destitution Of Conscience.

Christians And Camels Receive Their Burdens Kneeling.

Perfection, N. An Imaginary State Of Quality Distinguished From The Actual By An Element Known As Excellence; An Attribute Of The Critic.

Pleasure, N. The Least Hateful Form Of Dejection.

Calamity, N. A More Than Commonly Plain And Unmistakable Reminder That The Affairs Of This Life Are Not Of Our Own Ordering. Calamities Are Of Two Kinds: Misfortune To Ourselves, And Good Fortune To Others.

Rice-water, N. A Mystic Beverage Secretly Used By Our Most Popular Novelists And Poets To Regulate The Imagination And Narcotize The Conscience.

Behavior, N. Conduct, As Determined, Not By Principle, But By Breeding.

Hope Is Desire And Expectation Rolled Into One.

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