There are not stars enough in heaven.

G.J.


BIGAMY, n.  A mistake in taste for which the wisdom of the future will
adjudge a punishment called trigamy.

BIGOT, n.  One who is obstinately and zealously attached to an opinion
that you do not entertain.

BILLINGSGATE, n.  The invective of an opponent.

BIRTH, n.  The first and direst of all disasters.  As to the nature of
it there appears to be no uniformity.  Castor and Pollux were born
from the egg.  Pallas came out of a skull.  Galatea was once a block
of stone.  Peresilis, who wrote in the tenth century, avers that he
grew up out of the ground where a priest had spilled holy water.  It
is known that Arimaxus was derived from a hole in the earth, made by a
stroke of lightning.  Leucomedon was the son of a cavern in Mount
Aetna, and I have myself seen a man come out of a wine cellar.

BLACKGUARD, n.  A man whose qualities, prepared for display like a box
of berries in a market -- the fine ones on top -- have been opened on
the wrong side.  An inverted gentleman.

BLANK-VERSE, n.  Unrhymed iambic pentameters -- the most difficult
kind of English verse to write acceptably; a kind, therefore, much
affected by those who cannot acceptably write any kind.

BODY-SNATCHER, n.  A robber of grave-worms.  One who supplies the
young physicians with that with which the old physicians have supplied
the undertaker.  The hyena.

  "One night," a doctor said, "last fall,
  I and my comrades, four in all,
      When visiting a graveyard stood
  Within the shadow of a wall.

  "While waiting for the moon to sink
  We saw a wild hyena slink
      About a new-made grave, and then
  Begin to excavate its brink!

  "Shocked by the horrid act, we made
  A sally from our ambuscade,
      And, falling on the unholy beast,
  Dispatched him with a pick and spade."

Bettel K. Jhones


BONDSMAN, n.  A fool who, having property of his own, undertakes to
become responsible for that entrusted to another to a third.

Philippe of Orleans wishing to appoint one of his favorites, a
dissolute nobleman, to a high office, asked him what security he would
be able to give.  "I need no bondsmen," he replied, "for I can give
you my word of honor."  "And pray what may be the value of that?"
inquired the amused Regent.  "Monsieur, it is worth its weight in gold."

BORE, n.  A person who talks when you wish him to listen.

BOTANY, n.  The science of vegetables -- those that are not good to
eat, as well as those that are.  It deals largely with their flowers,
which are commonly badly designed, inartistic in color, and ill-
smelling.

BOTTLE-NOSED, adj.  Having a nose created in the image of its maker.

BOUNDARY, n.  In political geography, an imaginary line between two
nations, separating the imaginary rights of one from the imaginary
rights of the other.

BOUNTY, n.  The liberality of one who has much, in permitting one who
has nothing to get all that he can.

      A single swallow, it is said, devours ten millions of insects
  every year.  The supplying of these insects I take to be a signal
  instance of the Creator's bounty in providing for the lives of His
  creatures.

Henry Ward Beecher


BRAHMA, n.  He who created the Hindoos, who are preserved by Vishnu
and destroyed by Siva -- a rather neater division of labor than is
found among the deities of some other nations.  The Abracadabranese,
for example, are created by Sin, maintained by Theft and destroyed by
Folly.  The priests of Brahma, like those of Abracadabranese, are holy
and learned men who are never naughty.

  O Brahma, thou rare old Divinity,
  First Person of the Hindoo Trinity,
  You sit there so calm and securely,
  With feet folded up so demurely --
  You're the First Person Singular, surely.

Polydore Smith