LANGUAGE, n. The music with which we charm the serpents guarding another's treasure. |
LAOCOON, n. A famous piece of antique scripture representing a priest 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 serpents and keep them up to their work have been justly regarded as one of the noblest artistic illustrations of the mastery of human intelligence over brute inertia. |
LAP, n. One of the most important organs of the female system --an admirable provision of nature for the repose of infancy, but chiefly useful in rural festivities to support plates of cold chicken and heads of adult males. The male of our species has a rudimentary lap, imperfectly developed and in no way contributing to the animal's substantial welfare. |
LAST, n. A shoemaker's implement, named by a frowning Providence as opportunity to the maker of puns. |
LAST, n. A shoemaker's implement, named by a frowning Providence as 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 is an interior convulsion, producing a distortion of the features and accompanied by inarticulate noises. It is infectious and, though intermittent, incurable. |
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. |
LAUREL, n. The _laurus_, a vegetable dedicated to Apollo, and formerly defoliated to wreathe the brows of victors and such poets as 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 stability to light lovers --particularly to those who love not wisely but other men's wives. Lead is also of great service as a counterpoise to an argument of such weight that it turns the scale of debate the wrong way. An interesting fact in the chemistry of international controversy is that at the point of 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. |
Least said is soonest disavowed. |