Part 50

"As long, sweet demon, let my respite be As, governing down here, I'd respite thee."

"As long, poor soul, as any of the pack You thrust from jail consumed in getting back."

A genial chill affected Altgeld's hide While they were turning him on t'other side.

Joel Spate Woop

RESPLENDENT, adj. Like a simple American citizen beduking himself in his lodge, or affirming his consequence in the Scheme of Things as an elemental unit of a parade.

The Knights of Dominion were so resplendent in their velvet- and-gold that their masters would hardly have known them.

"Chronicles of the Classes"

RESPOND, v.i. To make answer, or disclose otherwise a consciousness of having inspired an interest in what Herbert Spencer calls "external coexistences," as Satan "squat like a toad" at the ear of Eve, responded to the touch of the angel's spear. To respond in damages is to contribute to the maintenance of the plaintiff's attorney and, incidentally, to the gratification of the plaintiff.

RESPONSIBILITY, n. A detachable burden easily shifted to the shoulders of God, Fate, Fortune, Luck or one's neighbor. In the days of astrology it was customary to unload it upon a star.

Alas, things ain't what we should see If Eve had let that apple be; And many a feller which had ought To set with monarchses of thought, Or play some rosy little game With battle-chaps on fields of fame, Is downed by his unlucky star And hollers: "Peanuts!--here you are!"

"The Sturdy Beggar"

RESTITUTION, n. The founding or endowing of universities and public libraries by gift or bequest.

RESTITUTOR, n. Benefactor; philanthropist.

RETALIATION, n. The natural rock upon which is reared the Temple of Law.

RETRIBUTION, n. A rain of fire-and-brimstone that falls alike upon the just and such of the unjust as have not procured shelter by evicting them.

In the lines following, addressed to an Emperor in exile by Father Gassalasca Jape, the reverend poet appears to hint his sense of the imprudence of turning about to face Retribution when it is taking exercise:

What, what! Dom Pedro, you desire to go Back to Brazil to end your days in quiet? Why, what assurance have you 'twould be so? 'Tis not so long since you were in a riot, And your dear subjects showed a will to fly at Your throat and shake you like a rat. You know That empires are ungrateful; are you certain Republics are less handy to get hurt in?

REVEILLE, n. A signal to sleeping soldiers to dream of battlefields no more, but get up and have their blue noses counted. In the American army it is ingeniously called "rev-e-lee," and to that pronunciation our countrymen have pledged their lives, their misfortunes and their sacred dishonor.

REVELATION, n. A famous book in which St. John the Divine concealed all that he knew. The revealing is done by the commentators, who know nothing.

REVERENCE, n. The spiritual attitude of a man to a god and a dog to a man.

REVIEW, v.t.

To set your wisdom (holding not a doubt of it, Although in truth there's neither bone nor skin to it) At work upon a book, and so read out of it The qualities that you have first read into it.

REVOLUTION, n. In politics, an abrupt change in the form of misgovernment. Specifically, in American history, the substitution of the rule of an Administration for that of a Ministry, whereby the welfare and happiness of the people were advanced a full half-inch. Revolutions are usually accompanied by a considerable effusion of blood, but are accounted worth it--this appraisement being made by beneficiaries whose blood had not the mischance to be shed. The French revolution is of incalculable value to the Socialist of to-day; when he pulls the string actuating its bones its gestures are inexpressibly terrifying to gory tyrants suspected of fomenting law and order.

RHADOMANCER, n. One who uses a divining-rod in prospecting for precious metals in the pocket of a fool.

RIBALDRY, n. Censorious language by another concerning oneself.

RIBROASTER, n. Censorious language by oneself concerning another. The word is of classical refinement, and is even said to have been used in a fable by Georgius Coadjutor, one of the most fastidious writers of the fifteenth century--commonly, indeed, regarded as the founder of the Fastidiotic School.

RICE-WATER, n. A mystic beverage secretly used by our most popular novelists and poets to regulate the imagination and narcotize the conscience. It is said to be rich in both obtundite and lethargine, and is brewed in a midnight fog by a fat witch of the Dismal Swamp.

RICH, adj. Holding in trust and subject to an accounting the property of the indolent, the incompetent, the unthrifty, the envious and the luckless. That is the view that prevails in the underworld, where the Brotherhood of Man finds its most logical development and candid advocacy. To denizens of the midworld the word means good and wise.