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<?xml version="1.0"?> <!DOCTYPE package PUBLIC "+//ISBN 0-9673008-1-9//DTD OEB 1.0 Package//EN" "http://openebook.org/dtds/oeb-1.0/oebdoc1.dtd"> <html> <head> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/x-oeb1-document; charset=utf-8" /> <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/x-oeb1-css" href="devil.css" /> <title>The Devil’s Dictionary: N</title> </head> <body lang="en-US"> <h1>N</h1> <p class="entry"><span class="def">nectar</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A drink served at banquets of the Olympian deities. The secret of its preparation is lost, but the modern Kentuckians believe that they come pretty near to a knowledge of its chief ingredient.</p> <div class="poem"> <p class="poetry">Juno drank a cup of nectar,</p> <p class="poetry">But the draught did not affect her.</p> <p class="poetry">Juno drank a cup of rye—</p> <p class="poetry">Then she bad herself good-bye.</p> <p class="citeauth">J. G.</p> </div> <p class="entry"><span class="def">negro</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The <i>piece de resistance</i> in the American political problem. Representing him by the letter n, the Republicans begin to build their equation thus: “Let n = the white man.” This, however, appears to give an unsatisfactory solution.</p> <p class="entry"><span class="def">neighbor</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> One whom we are commanded to love as ourselves, and who does all he knows how to make us disobedient.</p> <p class="entry"><span class="def">nepotism</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Appointing your grandmother to office for the good of the party.</p> <p class="entry"><span class="def">Newtonian</span>, <span class="pos">adj.</span> Pertaining to a philosophy of the universe invented by Newton, who discovered that an apple will fall to the ground, but was unable to say why. His successors and disciples have advanced so far as to be able to say when.</p> <p class="entry"><span class="def">nihilist</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A Russian who denies the existence of anything but Tolstoi. The leader of the school is Tolstoi.</p> <p class="entry"><span class="def">Nirvana</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> In the Buddhist religion, a state of pleasurable annihilation awarded to the wise, particularly to those wise enough to understand it.</p> <p class="entry"><span class="def">nobleman</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Nature’s provision for wealthy American minds ambitious to incur social distinction and suffer high life.</p> <p class="entry"><span class="def">noise</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A stench in the ear. Undomesticated music. The chief product and authenticating sign of civilization.</p> <p class="entry"><span class="def">nominate</span>, <span class="pos">v.</span> To designate for the heaviest political assessment. To put forward a suitable person to incur the mudgobbling and deadcatting of the opposition.</p> <p class="entry"><span class="def">nominee</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A modest gentleman shrinking from the distinction of private life and diligently seeking the honorable obscurity of public office.</p> <p class="entry"><span class="def">non-combatant</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A dead Quaker.</p> <p class="entry"><span class="def">nonsense</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The objections that are urged against this excellent dictionary.</p> <p class="entry"><span class="def">nose</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The extreme outpost of the face. From the circumstance that great conquerors have great noses, Getius, whose writings antedate the age of humor, calls the nose the organ of quell. It has been observed that one’s nose is never so happy as when thrust into the affairs of others, from which some physiologists have drawn the inference that the nose is devoid of the sense of smell.</p> <div class="poem"> <p class="poetry">There’s a man with a Nose,</p> <p class="poetry">And wherever he goes</p> <p class="poetry">The people run from him and shout:</p> <p class="poetry">“No cotton have we</p> <p class="poetry">For our ears if so be</p> <p class="poetry">He blow that interminous snout!”</p> <p class="poetry">So the lawyers applied</p> <p class="poetry">For injunction. “Denied,”</p> <p class="poetry">Said the Judge: “the defendant prefixion,</p> <p class="poetry">Whate’er it portend,</p> <p class="poetry">Appears to transcend</p> <p class="poetry">The bounds of this court’s jurisdiction.”</p> <p class="citeauth">Arpad Singiny</p> </div> <p class="entry"><span class="def">notoriety</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The fame of one’s competitor for public honors. The kind of renown most accessible and acceptable to mediocrity. A Jacob’s-ladder leading to the vaudeville stage, with angels ascending and descending.</p> <p class="entry"><span class="def">noumenon</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> That which exists, as distinguished from that which merely seems to exist, the latter being a phenomenon. The noumenon is a bit difficult to locate; it can be apprehended only be a process of reasoning—which is a phenomenon. Nevertheless, the discovery and exposition of noumena offer a rich field for what Lewes calls “the endless variety and excitement of philosophic thought.” Hurrah (therefore) for the noumenon!</p> <p class="entry"><span class="def">novel</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A short story padded. A species of composition bearing the same relation to literature that the panorama bears to art. As it is too long to be read at a sitting the impressions made by its successive parts are successively effaced, as in the panorama. Unity, totality of effect, is impossible; for besides the few pages last read all that is carried in mind is the mere plot of what has gone before. To the romance the novel is what photography is to painting. Its distinguishing principle, probability, corresponds to the literal actuality of the photograph and puts it distinctly into the category of reporting; whereas the free wing of the romancer enables him to mount to such altitudes of imagination as he may be fitted to attain; and the first three essentials of the literary art are imagination, imagination and imagination. The art of writing novels, such as it was, is long dead everywhere except in Russia, where it is new. Peace to its ashes—some of which have a large sale.</p> <p class="entry"><span class="def">November</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The eleventh twelfth of a weariness.</p> </body> </html>