Plain iron forceps we employ To mitigate the miser's joy Who hoards, with greed that never tires, That which your Majesty requires."
Deep lines of thought were seen to plow Their way across the royal brow.
"Your state is desperate, no question;
Pray favor me with a suggestion."
"O King of Men," the spokesman said, "If you'll impose upon each head A tax, the augmented revenue We'll cheerfully divide with you."
As flashes of the sun illume The parted storm-cloud's sullen gloom, The king smiled grimly. "I decree That it be so -- and, not to be In generosity outdone, Declare you, each and every one, Exempted from the operation Of this new law of capitation.
But lest the people censure me Because they're bound and you are free, 'Twere well some clever scheme were laid By you this poll-tax to evade.
I'll leave you now while you confer With my most trusted minister."
The monarch from the throne-room walked And straightway in among them stalked A silent man, with brow concealed, Bare-armed -- his gleaming axe revealed!
G.J.
HEARSE, n. Death's baby-carriage.
HEART, n. An automatic, muscular blood-pump. Figuratively, this useful organ is said to be the esat of emotions and sentiments -- a very pretty fancy which, however, is nothing but a survival of a once universal belief. It is now known that the sentiments and emotions reside in the stomach, being evolved from food by chemical action of the gastric fluid. The exact process by which a beefsteak becomes a feeling -- tender or not, according to the age of the animal from which it was cut; the successive stages of elaboration through which a caviar sandwich is transmuted to a quaint fancy and reappears as a pungent epigram; the marvelous functional methods of converting a hard-boiled egg into religious contrition, or a cream-puff into a sigh of sensibility -- these things have been patiently ascertained by M.
Pasteur, and by him expounded with convincing lucidity. (See, also, my monograph, _The Essential Identity of the Spiritual Affections and Certain Intestinal Gases Freed in Digestion_ -- 4to, 687 pp.) In a scientific work entitled, I believe, _Delectatio Demonorum_ (John Camden Hotton, London, 1873) this view of the sentiments receives a striking illustration; and for further light consult Professor Dam's famous treatise on _Love as a Product of Alimentary Maceration_.
HEAT, n.
Heat, says Professor Tyndall, is a mode Of motion, but I know now how he's proving His point; but this I know -- hot words bestowed With skill will set the human fist a-moving, And where it stops the stars burn free and wild.
_Crede expertum_ -- I have seen them, child.
Gorton Swope HEATHEN, n. A benighted creature who has the folly to worship something that he can see and feel. According to Professor Howison, of the California State University, Hebrews are heathens.
"The Hebrews are heathens!" says Howison. He's A Christian philosopher. I'm A scurril agnostical chap, if you please, Addicted too much to the crime Of religious discussion in my rhyme.
Though Hebrew and Howison cannot agree On a _modus vivendi_ -- not they! --
Yet Heaven has had the designing of me, And I haven't been reared in a way To joy in the thick of the fray.
For this of my creed is the soul and the gist, And the truth of it I aver:
Who differs from me in his faith is an 'ist, And 'ite, an 'ie, or an 'er --
And I'm down upon him or her!
Let Howison urge with perfunctory chin Toleration -- that's all very well, But a roast is "nuts" to his nostril thin, And he's running -- I know by the smell --
A secret and personal Hell!
Bissell Gip HEAVEN, n. A place where the wicked cease from troubling you with talk of their personal affairs, and the good listen with attention while you expound your own.
HEBREW, n. A male Jew, as distinguished from the Shebrew, an altogether superior creation.
HELPMATE, n. A wife, or bitter half.
"Now, why is yer wife called a helpmate, Pat?"
Says the priest. "Since the time 'o yer wooin'
She's niver [sic] assisted in what ye were at --
For it's naught ye are ever doin'."
"That's true of yer Riverence [sic]," Patrick replies, And no sign of contrition envices;
"But, bedad, it's a fact which the word implies, For she helps to mate the expinses [sic]!"
Marley Wottel HEMP, n. A plant from whose fibrous bark is made an article of neckwear which is frequently put on after public speaking in the open air and prevents the wearer from taking cold.
HERMIT, n. A person whose vices and follies are not sociable.
HERS, pron. His.
HIBERNATE, v.i. To pass the winter season in domestic seclusion.
There have been many singular popular notions about the hibernation of various animals. Many believe that the bear hibernates during the whole winter and subsists by mechanically sucking its paws. It is admitted that it comes out of its retirement in the spring so lean that it had to try twice before it can cast a shadow. Three or four centuries ago, in England, no fact was better attested than that swallows passed the winter months in the mud at the bottom of their brooks, clinging together in globular masses. They have apparently been compelled to give up the custom and account of the foulness of the brooks. Sotus Ecobius discovered in Central Asia a whole nation of people who hibernate. By some investigators, the fasting of Lent is supposed to have been originally a modified form of hibernation, to which the Church gave a religious significance; but this view was strenuously opposed by that eminent authority, Bishop Kip, who did not wish any honors denied to the memory of the Founder of his family.
HIPPOGRIFF, n. An animal (now extinct) which was half horse and half griffin. The griffin was itself a compound creature, half lion and half eagle. The hippogriff was actually, therefore, a one-quarter eagle, which is two dollars and fifty cents in gold. The study of zoology is full of surprises.
HISTORIAN, n. A broad-gauge gossip.