creatures, which have always been distinguished for a neighborly and
companionable familiarity with authors, liberally or niggardly

embellish the manuscripts in process of growth under the pen,
according to their bodily habit, bringing out the sense of the work by

a species of interpretation superior to, and independent of, the
writer's powers. The "old masters" of literature -- that is to say,

the early writers whose work is so esteemed by later scribes and
critics in the same language -- never punctuated at all, but worked

right along free-handed, without that abruption of the thought which
comes from the use of points. (We observe the same thing in children

to-day, whose usage in this particular is a striking and beautiful
instance of the law that the infancy of individuals reproduces the

methods and stages of development characterizing the infancy of
races.) In the work of these primitive scribes all the punctuation is

found, by the modern investigator with his optical instruments and
chemical tests, to have been inserted by the writers' ingenious and

serviceable collaborator, the common house-fly -- _Musca maledicta_.
In transcribing these ancient MSS, for the purpose of either making

the work their own or preserving what they naturally regard as divine
revelations, later writers reverently and accurately" target="_blank" title="ad.准确地；精密地">accurately copy whatever

marks they find upon the papyrus or parchment, to the unspeakable
enhancement of the lucidity of the thought and value of the work.

Writers contemporary with the copyists naturally avail themselves of
the obvious advantages of these marks in their own work, and with such

assistance as the flies of their own household may be willing to
grant, frequently rival and sometimes surpass the older compositions,

in respect at least of punctuation, which is no small glory. Fully to
understand the important services that flies perform to literature it

is only necessary to lay a page of some popular novelistalongside a
saucer of cream-and-molasses in a sunny room and observe "how the wit

brightens and the style refines" in accurateproportion to the
duration of exposure.

FOLLY, n. That "gift and facultydivine" whose creative and
controlling energy inspires Man's mind, guides his actions and adorns

his life.
Folly! although Erasmus praised thee once

In a thick volume, and all authors known,
If not thy glory yet thy power have shown,

Deign to take homage from thy son who hunts
Through all thy maze his brothers, fool and dunce,

To mend their lives and to sustain his own,
However feebly be his arrows thrown,

Howe'er each hide the flying weapons blunts.
All-Father Folly! be it mine to raise,

With lusty lung, here on his western strand
With all thine offspring thronged from every land,

Thyself inspiring me, the song of praise.
And if too weak, I'll hire, to help me bawl,

Dick Watson Gilder, gravest of us all.
Aramis Loto Frope

FOOL, n. A person who pervades the domain of intellectual speculation
and diffuses himself through the channels of moral activity. He is

omnific, omniform, omnipercipient, omniscience, omnipotent. He it was
who invented letters, printing, the railroad, the steamboat, the

telegraph, the platitude and the circle of the sciences. He created
patriotism and taught the nations war -- founded theology, philosophy,

law, medicine and Chicago. He established monarchical and republican
government. He is from everlasting to everlasting -- such as

creation's dawn beheld he fooleth now. In the morning of time he sang
upon primitive hills, and in the noonday of existence headed the

procession of being. His grandmotherly hand was warmly tucked-in the
set sun of civilization, and in the twilight he prepares Man's evening

meal of milk-and-morality and turns down the covers of the universal
grave. And after the rest of us shall have retired for the night of

eternal oblivion he will sit up to write a history of human
civilization.

FORCE, n.
"Force is but might," the teacher said --

"That definition's just."
The boy said naught but through instead,

Remembering his pounded head:
"Force is not might but must!"

FOREFINGER, n. The finger commonly used in pointing out two
malefactors.

FOREORDINATION, n. This looks like an easy word to define, but when I
consider that pious and learned theologians have spent long lives in

explaining it, and written libraries to explain their explanations;
when I remember the nations have been divided and bloody battles

caused by the difference between foreordination and predestination,
and that millions of treasure have been expended in the effort to

prove and disprove its compatibility with freedom of the will and the
efficacy of prayer, praise, and a religious life, -- recalling these

awful facts in the history of the word, I stand appalled before the
mighty problem of its signification, abase my spiritual eyes, fearing

to contemplate its portentous magnitude, reverently uncover and humbly
refer it to His Eminence Cardinal Gibbons and His Grace Bishop Potter.

FORGETFULNESS, n. A gift of God bestowed upon doctors in compensation
for their destitution of conscience.

FORK, n. An instrument used chiefly for the purpose of putting dead
animals into the mouth. Formerly the knife was employed for this

purpose, and by many worthy persons is still thought to have many
advantages over the other tool, which, however, they do not altogether

reject, but use to assist in charging the knife. The immunity of
these persons from swift and awful death is one of the most striking

proofs of God's mercy to those that hate Him.
FORMA PAUPERIS. [Latin] In the character of a poor person -- a

method by which a litigant without money for lawyers is considerately
permitted to lose his case.

When Adam long ago in Cupid's awful court
(For Cupid ruled ere Adam was invented)

Sued for Eve's favor, says an ancient law report,
He stood and pleaded unhabilimented.

"You sue _in forma pauperis_, I see," Eve cried;
"Actions can't here be that way prosecuted."

So all poor Adam's motions coldly were denied:
He went away -- as he had come -- nonsuited.

G.J.
FRANKALMOIGNE, n. The tenure by which a religious corporation holds

lands on condition of praying for the soul of the donor. In mediaeval
times many of the wealthiest fraternities obtained their estates in

this simple and cheap manner, and once when Henry VIII of England sent
an officer to confiscate certain vast possessions which a fraternity

of monks held by frankalmoigne, "What!" said the Prior, "would you
master stay our benefactor's soul in Purgatory?" "Ay," said the

officer, coldly, "an ye will not pray him thence for naught he must
e'en roast." "But look you, my son," persisted the good man, "this

act hath rank as robbery of God!" "Nay, nay, good father, my master
the king doth but deliver him from the manifold temptations of too

great wealth."
FREEBOOTER, n. A conqueror in a small way of business, whose

annexations lack of the sanctifying merit of magnitude.
FREEDOM, n. Exemption from the stress of authority in a beggarly half

dozen of restraint's infinitemultitude of methods. A political
condition that every nation supposes itself to enjoy in virtual

monopoly. Liberty. The distinction between freedom and liberty is
not accurately" target="_blank" title="ad.准确地；精密地">accurately known; naturalists have never been able to find a

living specimen of either.
Freedom, as every schoolboy knows,

Once shrieked as Kosciusko fell;
On every wind, indeed, that blows

I hear her yell.
She screams whenever monarchs meet,

And parliaments as well,
To bind the chains about her feet

And toll her knell.
And when the sovereign people cast

The votes they cannot spell,
Upon the pestilential blast

Her clamors swell.
For all to whom the power's given