F

FAIRY, n.A creature, variously fashioned and endowed, that formerlyinhabited the meadows and forests.It was nocturnal in its habits,and somewhat addicted to dancing and the theft of children.Thefairies are now believed by naturalist to be extinct, though aclergyman of the Church of England saw three near Colchester as latelyas 1855, while passing through a park after dining with the lord ofthe manor.The sight greatly staggered him, and he was so affectedthat his account of it was incoherent.In the year 1807 a troop offairies visited a wood near Aix and carried off the daughter of apeasant, who had been seen to enter it with a bundle of clothing.Theson of a wealthy _bourgeois_ disappeared about the same time, butafterward returned.He had seen the abduction been in pursuit of thefairies.Justinian Gaux, a writer of the fourteenth century, aversthat so great is the fairies' power of transformation that he saw onechange itself into two opposing armies and

fight a battle with greatslaughter, and that the next day, after it had resumed its originalshape and gone away, there were seven hundred bodies of the slainwhich the villagers had to bury.He does not say if any of thewounded recovered.In the time of Henry III, of England, a law wasmade which prescribed the death penalty for "Kyllynge, wowndynge, ormamynge" a fairy, and it was universally respected.

FAITH, n.Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speakswithout knowledge, of things without parallel.

FAMOUS, adj.Conspicuously miserable.

Done to a turn on the iron, behold Him who to be famous aspired. Content?Well, his grill has a plating of gold, And his twistings are greatly admired.

Hassan Brubuddy

FASHION, n.A despot whom the wise ridicule and obey.

A king there was who lost an eye In some excess of passion; And straight his courtiers all did try To follow the new fashion.

Each dropped one eyelid when before The throne he ventured, thinking 'Twould please the king.That monarch swore He'd slay them all for winking.

What should they do?They were not hot To hazard such disaster; They dared not close an eye -- dared not See better than their master.

Seeing them lacrymose and glum, A leech consoled the weepers: He spread small rags with liquid gum And covered half their peepers.

The court all wore the stuff, the flame Of royal anger dying. That's how court-plaster got its name Unless I'm greatly lying.

Naramy Oof

FEAST, n.A festival.A religious celebration usually signalized bygluttony and drunkenness, frequently in honor of some holy persondistinguished for abstemiousness.In the Roman Catholic Churchfeasts are "movable" and "immovable," but the celebrants are uniformlyimmovable until they are full.In their earliest development theseentertainments took the form of feasts for the dead; such were held bythe Greeks, under the name _Nemeseia_, by the Aztecs and Peruvians,as in modern times they are popular with the Chinese; though it

isbelieved that the ancient dead, like the modern, were light eaters. Among the many feasts of the Romans was the _Novemdiale_, which washeld, according to Livy, whenever stones fell from heaven.

FELON, n.A person of greater enterprise than discretion, who inembracing an opportunity has formed an unfortunate attachment.

FEMALE, n.One of the opposing, or unfair, sex.

The Maker, at Creation's birth, With living things had stocked the earth. From elephants to bats and snails, They all were good, for all were males. But when the Devil came and saw He said:"By Thine eternal law Of growth, maturity, decay, These all must quickly pass away And leave untenanted the earth Unless Thou dost establish birth" -- Then tucked his head beneath his wing To laugh -- he had no sleeve -- the thing With deviltry did so accord, That he'd suggested to the Lord. The Master pondered this advice, Then shook and threw the fateful dice Wherewith all matters here below Are ordered, and observed the throw; Then bent His head in awful state, Confirming the decree of Fate. From every part of earth anew The conscious dust consenting flew, While rivers from their courses rolled To make it plastic for the mould. Enough collected (but no more, For niggard Nature hoards her store) He kneaded it to flexible clay, While Nick unseen threw some away. And then the various forms He cast, Gross organs first and finer last; No one at once evolved, but all By even touches grew and small Degrees advanced, till, shade by shade, To match all living things He'd made Females, complete in all their parts Except (His clay gave out) the hearts. "No matter," Satan cried; "with speed I'll fetch the very hearts they need" -- So flew away and soon brought back The number needed, in a sack. That night earth range with sounds of strife

-- Ten million males each had a wife; That night sweet Peace her pinions spread O'er Hell -- ten million devils dead!

FIB, n.A lie that has not cut its teeth.An habitual liar's nearestapproach to truth:the perigee of his eccentric orbit.

When David said:"All men are liars," Dave, Himself a liar, fibbed like any thief. Perhaps he thought to weaken disbelief By proof that even himself was not a slave To Truth; though I suspect the aged knave Had

been of all her servitors the chief Had he but known a fig's reluctant leaf Is more than e'er she wore on land or wave. No, David served not Naked Truth when he Struck that sledge-hammer blow at all his race; Nor did he hit the nail upon the head: For reason shows that it could never be, And the facts contradict him to his face. Men are not liars all, for some are dead.

Bartle Quinker

FICKLENESS, n.The iterated satiety of an enterprising affection.

FIDDLE, n.An instrument to tickle human ears by friction of ahorse's tail on the entrails of a cat.

To Rome said Nero:"If to smoke you turn I shall not cease to fiddle while you burn." To Nero Rome replied:"Pray do your worst, 'Tis my excuse that you were fiddling first."

Orm Pludge

FIDELITY, n.A virtue peculiar to those who are about to be betrayed. FINANCE, n.The art or science of managing revenues and resources forthe best advantage of the manager.The pronunciation of this wordwith the i long and the accent on the first syllable is one ofAmerica's most

precious discoveries and possessions.

FLAG, n.A colored rag borne above troops and hoisted on forts andships.It appears to serve the same purpose as certain signs that onesees and vacant lots in London -- "Rubbish may be shot here."

FLESH, n.The Second Person of the secular Trinity.

FLOP, v.Suddenly to change one's opinions and go over to anotherparty.The most notable flop on record was that of Saul of Tarsus,who has been severely criticised as a turn-coat by some of ourpartisan journals.

FLY-SPECK, n.The prototype of punctuation.It is observed byGarvinus that the systems of punctuation in use by the variousliterary nations depended originally upon the social habits andgeneral diet of the flies infesting the several countries.Thesecreatures, which have always been distinguished for a neighborly andcompanionable familiarity with authors, liberally or niggardlyembellish the manuscripts in process of growth under the pen,according to their bodily habit, bringing out the sense of the work bya species of interpretation superior to, and

independent of, thewriter's powers.The "old masters" of literature -- that is to say,the early writers whose work is so esteemed by later scribes andcritics in the same language -- never punctuated at all, but workedright along free-handed, without that abruption of the thought whichcomes from the use of points.(We observe the same thing in childrento-day, whose usage in this particular is a striking and beautifulinstance of the law that the infancy of individuals reproduces themethods and stages of development characterizing the infancy ofraces.)In the work of these primitive scribes all the punctuation isfound, by the modern investigator with his optical instruments andchemical tests, to have been inserted by the writers' ingenious andserviceable collaborator, the common house-fly -

- _Musca maledicta_. In transcribing these ancient MSS, for the purpose of either makingthe work their own or preserving what they naturally regard as divinerevelations, later writers reverently and accurately copy whatevermarks they find upon the papyrus or parchment, to the unspeakableenhancement of the lucidity of the thought and value of the work. Writers contemporary with the copyists naturally avail themselves ofthe obvious advantages of these marks in their own work, and with suchassistance as the flies of their own household may be willing togrant, frequently rival and sometimes surpass the older compositions,in respect at least of punctuation, which is no small glory.Fully tounderstand the important services that flies perform to literature itis only necessary to lay a page of some popular novelist alongside asaucer of cream-and-molasses in a sunny room and observe "how the witbrightens and the style refines" in accurate proportion to theduration of exposure.

FOLLY, n.That "gift and faculty divine" whose creative andcontrolling energy inspires Man's mind, guides his actions and adornshis life.

Folly! although Erasmus praised thee once In a thick volume, and all authors known, If not thy glory yet thy power have shown, Deign to take homage from thy son who hunts Through all thy maze his brothers, fool and dunce, To mend their lives and to sustain his own, However feebly be his arrows thrown,

Howe'er each hide the flying weapons blunts. All-Father Folly! be it mine to raise, With lusty lung, here on his western strand With all thine

offspring thronged from every land, Thyself inspiring me, the song of praise. And if too weak, I'll hire, to help me bawl, Dick Watson Gilder, gravest of us all.

Aramis Loto Frope

FOOL, n.A person who pervades the domain of intellectual speculationand diffuses himself through the channels of moral activity.He isomnific, omniform, omnipercipient, omniscience, omnipotent.He it waswho invented letters, printing, the railroad, the steamboat, thetelegraph, the platitude and the circle of the sciences.He createdpatriotism and taught the nations war -- founded theology, philosophy,law, medicine and Chicago.He established monarchical and republicangovernment.He is from everlasting to everlasting -- such ascreation's dawn beheld he fooleth now.In the morning of time he sangupon primitive hills, and in the noonday of existence headed theprocession of being.His grandmotherly hand was warmly tucked-in theset sun of civilization, and in the twilight he prepares Man's eveningmeal of milk-and-morality and turns down the covers of the universalgrave.And after the rest of us shall have retired for the night ofeternal oblivion he will sit up to write a history of humancivilization.

FORCE, n.

"Force is but might," the teacher said -- "That definition's just." The boy said naught but through instead, Remembering his pounded head: "Force is not might but must!"

FOREFINGER, n.The finger commonly used in pointing out twomalefactors.

FOREORDINATION, n.This looks like an easy word to define, but when Iconsider that pious and learned theologians have spent long lives inexplaining it, and written libraries to explain their explanations;when I remember the nations have been divided and bloody battlescaused by the difference between foreordination and predestination,and that millions of treasure have been expended in the effort toprove and disprove its compatibility with freedom of the will and theefficacy of prayer, praise, and a religious life, -- recalling theseawful facts in the history of the word, I stand appalled before themighty problem of its signification, abase my

spiritual eyes, fearingto contemplate its portentous magnitude, reverently uncover and humblyrefer it to His Eminence Cardinal Gibbons and His Grace Bishop Potter.

FORGETFULNESS, n.A gift of God bestowed upon doctors in compensationfor their destitution of conscience.

FORK, n.An instrument used chiefly for the purpose of putting deadanimals into the mouth.Formerly the knife was employed for thispurpose, and by many worthy persons is still thought to have manyadvantages over the other tool, which, however, they do not altogetherreject, but use to assist in charging the knife.The immunity ofthese persons from swift and awful death is one of the most strikingproofs of God's mercy to those that hate Him.

FORMA PAUPERIS.[Latin]In the character of a poor person -- amethod by which a litigant without money for lawyers is consideratelypermitted to lose his case.

When Adam long ago in Cupid's awful court (For Cupid ruled ere Adam was invented) Sued for Eve's favor, says an ancient law report, He stood and pleaded unhabilimented.

"You sue _in forma pauperis_, I see," Eve cried; "Actions can't here be that way prosecuted." So all poor Adam's motions coldly were denied: He went away -- as he had come -- nonsuited.

FRANKALMOIGNE, n.The tenure by which a religious corporation holdslands on condition of praying for the soul of the donor.In mediaevaltimes many of the wealthiest fraternities obtained their estates inthis simple and cheap manner, and once when Henry VIII of England sentan officer to confiscate certain vast possessions which a fraternityof monks held by frankalmoigne, "What!" said the Prior, "would youmaster stay our benefactor's soul in Purgatory?""Ay," said theofficer, coldly, "an ye will not pray him thence for naught he muste'en roast.""But look you, my son," persisted the good man, "thisact hath rank as robbery of God!""Nay, nay, good father, my masterthe king doth but deliver him from the manifold temptations of toogreat wealth."

FREEBOOTER, n.A conqueror in a small way of business,

whoseannexations lack of the sanctifying merit of magnitude.

FREEDOM, n.Exemption from the stress of authority in a beggarly halfdozen of restraint's infinite multitude of methods.A politicalcondition that every nation supposes itself to enjoy in virtualmonopoly.Liberty.The distinction between freedom and liberty isnot accurately known; naturalists have never been able to find aliving specimen of either.

Freedom, as every schoolboy knows, Once shrieked as Kosciusko fell; On every wind, indeed, that blows I hear her yell.

She screams whenever monarchs meet, And parliaments as well, To bind the chains about her feet And toll her knell.

And when the sovereign people cast The votes they cannot spell, Upon the pestilential blast Her clamors swell.

For all to whom the power's given To sway or to compel, Among themselves apportion Heaven And give her Hell.

Blary O'Gary

FREEMASONS, n.An order with secret rites, grotesque ceremonies andfantastic costumes, which, originating in the reign of Charles II,among working artisans of London, has been joined successively by thedead of past centuries in unbroken retrogression until now it embracesall the generations of man on the hither side of Adam and is drummingup distinguished recruits among the pre-Creational inhabitants ofChaos and Formless Void.The order was founded at different times byCharlemagne, Julius Caesar, Cyrus, Solomon, Zoroaster, Confucious,Thothmes, and Buddha.Its emblems and symbols have been found in theCatacombs of Paris and Rome, on the stones of the Parthenon and theChinese Great Wall, among the temples of Karnak and Palmyra and in theEgyptian Pyramids -- always by a Freemason.

FRIENDLESS, adj.Having no favors to bestow.Destitute of fortune.

Addicted to utterance of truth and common sense.

FRIENDSHIP, n.A ship big enough to carry two in fair weather, butonly one in foul.

The sea was calm and the sky was blue; Merrily, merrily sailed we two. (High barometer maketh glad.) On the tipsy ship, with a dreadful shout, The tempest descended and we fell out. (O the walking is nasty bad!)

Armit Huff Bettle

FROG, n.A reptile with edible legs.The first mention of frogs inprofane literature is in Homer's narrative of the war between them andthe mice.Skeptical persons have doubted Homer's authorship of thework, but the learned, ingenious and industrious Dr. Schliemann hasset the question forever at rest by uncovering the bones of the slainfrogs.One of the forms of moral suasion by which Pharaoh wasbesought to favor the Israelities was a plague of frogs, but Pharaoh,who liked them _fricasees_, remarked, with truly oriental stoicism,that he could stand it as long as the frogs and the Jews could; so theprogramme was changed.The frog is a diligent songster, having a goodvoice but no ear.The libretto of his favorite opera, as written byAristophanes, is brief, simple and effective -- "brekekex-koax"; themusic is apparently by that eminent composer, Richard Wagner.Horseshave a frog in each hoof -- a thoughtful provision of nature, enablingthem to shine in a hurdle race.

FRYING-PAN, n.One part of the penal apparatus employed in thatpunitive institution, a woman's kitchen.The frying-pan was inventedby Calvin, and by him used in cooking span-long infants that had diedwithout baptism; and observing one day the horrible torment of a trampwho had incautiously pulled a fried babe from the waste-dump anddevoured it, it occurred to the great divine to rob death of itsterrors by introducing the frying-pan into every household in Geneva. Thence it spread to all corners of the world, and has been ofinvaluable assistance in the propagation of his sombre faith.Thefollowing lines (said to be from the pen of his Grace Bishop Potter)seem to imply that the usefulness of this utensil is not limited tothis world; but as the consequences of its employment in this lifereach over into the life to come, so also itself may be found on theother side, rewarding its devotees:

Old Nick was summoned to the skies. Said Peter:"Your intentions Are good, but you lack enterprise Concerning new inventions.

"Now, broiling in an ancient plan Of torment, but I hear it Reported that the frying-pan Sears best the wicked spirit.

"Go get one -- fill it up with fat -- Fry sinners brown and good in't." "I know a trick worth two o' that," Said Nick -- "I'll cook their food in't."

FUNERAL, n.A pageant whereby we attest our respect for the dead byenriching the undertaker, and strengthen our grief by an expenditurethat deepens our groans and doubles our tears.

The savage dies -- they sacrifice a horse To bear to happy hunting- grounds the corse. Our friends expire -- we make the money fly In hope their souls will chase it to the sky.

Jex Wopley

FUTURE, n.That period of time in which our affairs prosper, ourfriends are true and our happiness is assured.