L

by Ambrose Bierce

　　LABOR,n. One of the processes by which A acquires property for B.LAND, n. A part of the earth's surface, considered as property.The theory that land is property subject to private ownership and controlis the foundation of modern society, and is eminently worthy of the superstructure.Carried to its logical conclusion, it means that some have the right toprevent others from living; for the right to own implies the right exclusivelyto occupy; and in fact laws of trespass are enacted wherever propertyin land is recognized. It follows that if the whole area of terra firmais owned by A, B and C, there will be no place for D, E, F and G to beborn, or, born as trespassers, to exist.

　　A life on the ocean wave,

　　A home on the rolling deep,

　　For the spark the nature gave

　　I have there the right to keep.

　　They give me the cat-o'-nine

　　Whenever I go ashore.

　　Then ho! for the flashing brine --

　　I'm a natural commodore!

　　Dodle

　　LANGUAGE, n. The music with which we charm the serpents guardinganother's treasure.

　　LAOCOON, n. A famous piece of antique scripture representing apriest of that name and his two sons in the folds of two enormous serpents.The skill and diligence with which the old man and lads support the serpentsand keep them up to their work have been justly regarded as one of thenoblest artistic illustrations of the mastery of human intelligence overbrute inertia.

　　LAP, n. One of the most important organs of the female system-- an admirable provision of nature for the repose of infancy, but chieflyuseful in rural festivities to support plates of cold chicken and headsof adult males. The male of our species has a rudimentary lap, imperfectlydeveloped and in no way contributing to the animal's

　　substantial welfare.

　　LAST, n. A shoemaker's implement, named by a frowning Providenceas opportunity to the maker of puns.

　　Ah, punster, would my lot were cast,

　　Where the cobbler is unknown,

　　So that I might forget his last

　　And hear your own.

　　Gargo Repsky

　　LAUGHTER, n. An interior convulsion, producing a distortion ofthe features and accompanied by inarticulate noises. It is infectiousand, though intermittent, incurable. Liability to attacks of laughteris one of the characteristics distinguishing man from the animals -- thesebeing not only inaccessible to the provocation of his example, but impregnableto the microbes having original jurisdiction in bestowal of the disease.Whether laughter could be imparted to animals by inoculation from thehuman patient is a question that has not been answered by experimentation.Dr. Meir Witchell holds that the infection character of laughter is dueto the instantaneous fermentation of sputa diffused in a spray.From this peculiarity he names the disorder Convulsio spargens.

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

　　LAUREL, n. The laurus, a vegetable dedicated to Apollo,and formerly defoliated to wreathe the brows of victors and such poetsas had influence at court. (Vide supra)

　　LAW, n.

　　Once Law was sitting on the bench,

　　And Mercy knelt a-weeping.

　　"Clear out!" he cried, "disordered wench!

　　Nor come before me creeping.

　　Upon your knees if you appear,

　　'Tis plain your have no standing here."

　　Then Justice came. His Honor cried:

　　"Your status? -- devil seize you!"

　　"Amica curiae," she replied --

　　"Friend of the court, so please you."

　　"Begone!" he shouted -- "there's the door --

　　I never saw your face before!"

　　G.J.

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

　　LAWYER, n. One skilled in circumvention of the law.

　　LAZINESS, n. Unwarranted repose of manner in a person of low degree.

　　LEAD, n. A heavy blue-gray metal much used in giving stabilityto light lovers -- particularly to those who love not wisely but othermen's wives. Lead is also of great service as a counterpoise to an argumentof such weight that it turns the scale of debate the wrong way. An interestingfact in the chemistry of international controversy is that at the pointof contact of two patriotisms lead is precipitated in great quantities.

　　Hail, holy Lead! -- of human feuds the great

　　And universal arbiter; endowed

　　With penetration to pierce any cloud

　　Fogging the field of controversial hate,

　　And with a sift, inevitable, straight,

　　Searching precision find the unavowed

　　But vital point. Thy judgment, when allowed

　　By the chirurgeon, settles the debate.

　　O useful metal! -- were it not for thee

　　We'd grapple one another's ears alway:

　　But when we hear thee buzzing like a bee

　　We, like old Muhlenberg, "care not to stay."

　　And when the quick have run away like pellets

　　Jack Satan smelts the dead to make new bullets.

　　LEARNING, n. The kind of ignorance distinguishing the studious.

　　LECTURER, n. One with his hand in your pocket, his tongue in yourear and his faith in your patience.

　　LEGACY, n. A gift from one who is legging it out of this valeof tears.

　　LEONINE, adj. Unlike a menagerie lion. Leonine verses are thosein which a word in the middle of a line rhymes with a word at the end,as in this famous passage from Bella Peeler Silcox:

　　The electric light invades the dunnest deep of Hades.

　　Cries Pluto, 'twixt his snores: "O tempora! O mores!"

　　It should be explained that Mrs. Silcox does not undertake to teachpronunciation of the Greek and Latin tongues. Leonine verses are so calledin honor of a poet named Leo, whom prosodists appear to find a pleasurein believing to have been the first to discover that a rhyming coupletcould be run into a single line.

　　LETTUCE, n. An herb of the genus Lactuca, "Wherewith,"says that pious gastronome, Hengist Pelly, "God has been pleasedto reward the good and punish the wicked. For by his inner light the righteousman has discerned a manner of compounding for it a dressing to the appetencywhereof a multitude of gustible condiments conspire, being reconciledand ameliorated with profusion of oil, the entire comestible making gladthe heart of the godly and causing his face to shine. But the person ofspiritual unworth is successfully tempted to the Adversary to eat of lettucewith destitution of oil, mustard, egg, salt and garlic, and with a rascalbath of vinegar polluted with sugar. Wherefore the person of spiritualunworth suffers an intestinal pang of strange complexity and raises thesong."

　　LEVIATHAN, n. An enormous aquatic animal mentioned by Job. Some supposeit to have been the whale, but that distinguished ichthyologer, Dr. Jordan,of Stanford University, maintains with considerable heat that it was aspecies of gigantic Tadpole (Thaddeus Polandensis) or Polliwig-- Maria pseudo-hirsuta. For an exhaustive description and historyof the Tadpole consult the famous monograph of Jane Potter, Thaddeusof Warsaw.

　　LEXICOGRAPHER, n. A pestilent fellow who, under the pretense ofrecording some particular stage in the development of a language, doeswhat he can to arrest its growth, stiffen its flexibility and mechanizeits methods. For your lexicographer, having written his dictionary, comesto be considered "as one having authority," whereas his functionis only to make a record, not to give a law. The natural servility ofthe human understanding having invested him with judicial power, surrendersits right of reason and submits itself to a chronicle as if it were astatue. Let the dictionary (for example) mark a good word as "obsolete"or "obsolescent" and few men thereafter venture to use it, whatevertheir need of it and however desirable its restoration to favor -- wherebythe process of improverishment is accelerated and speech decays. On thecontrary, recognizing the truth that language must grow by innovationif it grow at all, makes new words and uses the old in an unfamiliar sense,has no following and is tartly reminded that "it isn't in the dictionary"-- although down to the time of the first lexicographer (Heaven forgivehim!) no author ever had used a word that was in the dictionary.In the golden prime and high noon of English speech; when from the lipsof the great Elizabethans fell words that made their own meaning and carriedit in their very sound; when a Shakespeare and a Bacon were possible,and the language now rapidly perishing at one end and slowly renewed atthe other was in vigorous growth and hardy preservation -- sweeter thanhoney and stronger than a lion -- the lexicographer was a person unknown,the dictionary a creation which his Creator had not created him to create.

　　God said: "Let Spirit perish into Form,"

　　And lexicographers arose, a swarm!

　　Thought fled and left her clothing, which they took,

　　And catalogued each garment in a book.

　　Now, from her leafy covert when she cries:

　　"Give me my clothes and I'll return," they rise

　　And scan the list, and say without compassion:

　　"Excuse us -- they are mostly out of fashion."

　　Sigismund Smith

　　LIAR, n. A lawyer with a roving commission.

　　LIBERTY, n. One of Imagination's most precious possessions.

　　The rising People, hot and out of breath,

　　Roared around the palace: "Liberty or death!"

　　"If death will do," the King said, "let me reign;

　　You'll have, I'm sure, no reason to complain."

　　Martha Braymance

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

　　LIFE, n. A spiritual pickle preserving the body from decay. Welive in daily apprehension of its loss; yet when lost it is not missed.The question, "Is life worth living?" has been much discussed;particularly by those who think it is not, many of whom have written atgreat length in support of their view and by careful observance of thelaws of health enjoyed for long terms of years the honors of successfulcontroversy.

　　"Life's not worth living, and that's the truth,"

　　Carelessly caroled the golden youth.

　　In manhood still he maintained that view

　　And held it more strongly the older he grew.

　　When kicked by a jackass at eighty-three,

　　"Go fetch me a surgeon at once!" cried he.

　　Han Soper

　　LIGHTHOUSE, n. A tall building on the seashore in which the governmentmaintains a lamp and the friend of a politician.

　　LIMB, n. The branch of a tree or the leg of an American woman.

　　'Twas a pair of boots that the lady bought,

　　And the salesman laced them tight

　　To a very remarkable height --

　　Higher, indeed, than I think he ought --

　　Higher than can be right.

　　For the Bible declares -- but never mind:

　　It is hardly fit

　　To censure freely and fault to find

　　With others for sins that I'm not inclined

　　Myself to commit.

　　Each has his weakness, and though my own

　　Is freedom from every sin,

　　It still were unfair to pitch in,

　　Discharging the first censorious stone.

　　Besides, the truth compels me to say,

　　The boots in question were made that way.

　　As he drew the lace she made a grimace,

　　And blushingly said to him:

　　"This boot, I'm sure, is too high to endure,

　　It hurts my -- hurts my -- limb."

　　The salesman smiled in a manner mild,

　　Like an artless, undesigning child;

　　Then, checking himself, to his face he gave

　　A look as sorrowful as the grave,

　　Though he didn't care two figs

　　For her paints and throes,

　　As he stroked her toes,

　　Remarking with speech and manner just

　　Befitting his calling: "Madam, I trust

　　That it doesn't hurt your twigs."

　　B. Percival Dike

　　LINEN, n. "A kind of cloth the making of which, when madeof hemp, entails a great waste of hemp." -- Calcraft the Hangman.

　　LITIGANT, n. A person about to give up his skin for the hope ofretaining his bones.

　　LITIGATION, n. A machine which you go into as a pig and come outof as a sausage.

　　LIVER, n. A large red organ thoughtfully provided by nature tobe bilious with. The sentiments and emotions which every literary anatomistnow knows to haunt the heart were anciently believed to infest the liver;and even Gascoygne, speaking of the emotional side of human nature, callsit "our hepaticall parte." It was at one time considered theseat of life; hence its name -- liver, the thing we live with. The liveris heaven's best gift to the goose; without it that bird would be unableto supply us with the Strasbourg pate.

　　LL.D. Letters indicating the degree Legumptionorum Doctor,one learned in laws, gifted with legal gumption. Some suspicion is castupon this derivation by the fact that the title was formerly LL.d.,and conferred only upon gentlemen distinguished for their wealth. At thedate of this writing Columbia University is considering the expediencyof making another degree for clergymen, in place of the old D.D. -- DamnatorDiaboli. The new honor will be known as Sanctorum Custus, andwritten $$c. The name of the Rev. John Satan has been suggestedas a suitable recipient by a lover of consistency, who points out thatProfessor Harry Thurston Peck has long enjoyed the advantage of a degree.

　　LOCK-AND-KEY, n. The distinguishing device of civilization andenlightenment.

　　LODGER, n. A less popular name for the Second Person of that delectablenewspaper Trinity, the Roomer, the Bedder, and the Mealer.

　　LOGIC, n. The art of thinking and reasoning in strict accordancewith the limitations and incapacities of the human misunderstanding. Thebasic of logic is the syllogism, consisting of a major and a minor premiseand a conclusion -- thus: Major Premise: Sixty men can do a pieceof work sixty times as quickly as one man. Minor Premise: One mancan dig a posthole in sixty seconds; therefore -- Conclusion: Sixtymen can dig a posthole in one second.This may be called the syllogismarithmetical, in which, by combining logic and mathematics, we obtaina double certainty and are twice blessed.

　　LOGOMACHY, n. A war in which the weapons are words and the woundspunctures in the swim-bladder of self-esteem -- a kind of contest in which,the vanquished being unconscious of defeat, the victor is denied the rewardof success.

　　'Tis said by divers of the scholar-men

　　That poor Salmasius died of Milton's pen.

　　Alas! we cannot know if this is true,

　　For reading Milton's wit we perish too.

　　LOGANIMITY, n. The disposition to endure injury with meek forbearancewhile maturing a plan of revenge.

　　LONGEVITY, n. Uncommon extension of the fear of death.

　　LOOKING-GLASS, n. A vitreous plane upon which to display a fleetingshow for man's disillusion given. The King of Manchuria had a magic looking-glass,whereon whoso looked saw, not his own image, but only that of the king.A certain courtier who had long enjoyed the king's favor and was therebyenriched beyond any other subject of the realm, said to the king: "Giveme, I pray, thy wonderful mirror, so that when absent out of thine augustpresence I may yet do homage before thy visible shadow, prostrating myselfnight and morning in the glory of thy benign countenance, as which nothinghas so divine splendor, O Noonday Sun of the Universe!"

　　Pleased with the speech, the king commanded that the mirror be conveyedto the courtier's palace; but after, having gone thither without apprisal,he found it in an apartment where was naught but idle lumber. And themirror was dimmed with dust and overlaced with cobwebs. This so angeredhim that he fisted it hard, shattering the glass, and was sorely hurt.Enraged all the more by this mischance, he commanded that the ungratefulcourtier be thrown into prison, and that the glass be repaired and takenback to his own palace; and this was done. But when the king looked againon the mirror he saw not his image as before, but only the figure of acrowned ass, having a bloody bandage on one of its hinder hooves -- asthe artificers and all who had looked upon it had before discerned butfeared to report. Taught wisdom and charity, the king restored his courtierto liberty, had the mirror set into the back of the throne and reignedmany years with justice and humility; and one day when he fell asleepin death while on the throne, the whole court saw in the mirror the luminousfigure of an angel, which remains to this day.

　　LOQUACITY, n. A disorder which renders the sufferer unable tocurb his tongue when you wish to talk.

　　LORD, n. In American society, an English tourist above the stateof a costermonger, as, lord 'Aberdasher, Lord Hartisan and so forth. Thetraveling Briton of lesser degree is addressed as "Sir," as,Sir 'Arry Donkiboi, or 'Amstead 'Eath. The word "Lord" is sometimesused, also, as a title of the Supreme Being; but this is thought to berather flattery than true reverence.

　　Miss Sallie Ann Splurge, of her own accord,

　　Wedded a wandering English lord --

　　Wedded and took him to dwell with her "paw,"

　　A parent who throve by the practice of Draw.

　　Lord Cadde I don't hesitate to declare

　　Unworthy the father-in-legal care

　　Of that elderly sport, notwithstanding the truth

　　That Cadde had renounced all the follies of youth;

　　For, sad to relate, he'd arrived at the stage

　　Of existence that's marked by the vices of age.

　　Among them, cupidity caused him to urge

　　Repeated demands on the pocket of Splurge,

　　Till, wrecked in his fortune, that gentleman saw

　　Inadequate aid in the practice of Draw,

　　And took, as a means of augmenting his pelf,

　　To the business of being a lord himself.

　　His neat-fitting garments he wilfully shed

　　And sacked himself strangely in checks instead;

　　Denuded his chin, but retained at each ear

　　A whisker that looked like a blasted career.

　　He painted his neck an incarnadine hue

　　Each morning and varnished it all that he knew.

　　The moony monocular set in his eye

　　Appeared to be scanning the Sweet Bye-and-Bye.

　　His head was enroofed with a billycock hat,

　　And his low-necked shoes were aduncous and flat.

　　In speech he eschewed his American ways,

　　Denying his nose to the use of his A's

　　And dulling their edge till the delicate sense

　　Of a babe at their temper could take no offence.

　　His H's -- 'twas most inexpressibly sweet,

　　The patter they made as they fell at his feet!

　　Re-outfitted thus, Mr. Splurge without fear

　　Began as Lord Splurge his recouping career.

　　Alas, the Divinity shaping his end

　　Entertained other views and decided to send

　　His lordship in horror, despair and dismay

　　From the land of the nobleman's natural prey.

　　For, smit with his Old World ways, Lady Cadde

　　Fell -- suffering Caesar! -- in love with her dad!

　　G.J.

　　LORE, n. Learning -- particularly that sort which is not derivedfrom a regular course of instruction but comes of the reading of occultbooks, or by nature. This latter is commonly designated as folk-lore andembraces popularly myths and superstitions. In Baring-Gould's CuriousMyths of the Middle Ages the reader will find many of these tracedbackward, through various people son converging lines, toward a commonorigin in remote antiquity. Among these are the fables of "Teddythe Giant Killer," "The Sleeping John Sharp Williams,""Little Red Riding Hood and the Sugar Trust," "Beauty andthe Brisbane," "The Seven Aldermen of Ephesus," "RipVan Fairbanks," and so forth. The fable with Goethe so affectinglyrelates under the title of "The Erl-King" was known two thousandyears ago in Greece as "The Demos and the Infant Industry."One of the most general and ancient of these myths is that Arabian taleof "Ali Baba and the Forty Rockefellers."

　　LOSS, n. Privation of that which we had, or had not. Thus, inthe latter sense, it is said of a defeated candidate that he "losthis election"; and of that eminent man, the poet Gilder, that hehas "lost his mind." It is in the former and more legitimatesense, 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 removalof the patient from the influences under which he incurred the disorder.This disease, like caries and many other ailments, is prevalentonly among civilized races living under artificial conditions; barbarousnations breathing pure air and eating simple food enjoy immunity fromits ravages. It is sometimes fatal, but more frequently to the physicianthan to the patient.

　　LOW-BRED, adj. "Raised" instead of brought up.

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

　　LUNARIAN, n. An inhabitant of the moon, as distinguished fromLunatic, one whom the moon inhabits. The Lunarians have been describedby Lucian, Locke and other observers, but without much agreement. Forexample, Bragellos avers their anatomical identity with Man, but ProfessorNewcomb says they are more like the hill tribes of Vermont.

　　LYRE, n. An ancient instrument of torture. The word is now usedin a figurative sense to denote the poetic faculty, as in the followingfiery 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