酷兔英语

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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 classicalrefinement, 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 mysticbeveragesecretly 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 which 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.

RICHES, n.
A gift from Heaven signifying, "This is my beloved son, in

whom I am well pleased."
John D. Rockefeller

The reward of toil and virtue.
J.P. Morgan

The sayings of many in the hands of one.
Eugene Debs

To these excellent definitions the inspired lexicographer feels
that he can add nothing of value.

RIDICULE, n. Words designed to show that the person of whom they are
uttered is devoid of the dignity of character distinguishing him who

utters them. It may be graphic, mimetic or merely rident.
Shaftesbury is quoted as having pronounced it the test of truth -- a

ridiculous assertion, for many a solemn fallacy has undergone
centuries of ridicule with no abatement of its popular acceptance.

What, for example, has been more valorously derided than the doctrine
of Infant Respectability?

RIGHT, n. Legitimate authority to be, to do or to have; as the right
to be a king, the right to do one's neighbor, the right to have

measles, and the like. The first of these rights was once universally
believed to be derived directly from the will of God; and this is

still sometimes affirmed _in partibus infidelium_ outside the
enlightened realms of Democracy; as the well known lines of Sir

Abednego Bink, following:
By what right, then, do royal rulers rule?

Whose is the sanction of their state and pow'r?
He surely were as stubborn as a mule

Who, God unwilling, could maintain an hour
His uninvited session on the throne, or air

His pride securely in the Presidential chair.
Whatever is is so by Right Divine;

Whate'er occurs, God wills it so. Good land!
It were a wondrous thing if His design

A fool could baffle or a rogue withstand!
If so, then God, I say (intending no offence)

Is guilty of contributory negligence.
RIGHTEOUSNESS, n. A sturdyvirtue that was once found among the

Pantidoodles inhabiting the lower part of the peninsula of Oque. Some
feeble attempts were made by returned missionaries to introduce it

into several European countries, but it appears to have been
imperfectly expounded. An example of this faultyexposition is found

in the only extant sermon of the pious Bishop Rowley, a characteristic
passage from which is here given:

"Now righteousness consisteth not merely in a holy state of
mind, nor yet in performance of religious rites and obedience to

the letter of the law. It is not enough that one be pious and
just: one must see to it that others also are in the same state;

and to this end compulsion is a proper means. Forasmuch as my
injustice may work ill to another, so by his injustice may evil be

wrought upon still another, the which it is as manifestly" target="_blank" title="ad.明显的">manifestly my duty
to estop as to forestall mine own tort. Wherefore if I would be

righteous I am bound to restrain my neighbor, by force if needful,
in all those injurious enterprises from which, through a better

disposition and by the help of Heaven, I do myself restrain."
RIME, n. Agreeing sounds in the terminals of verse, mostly bad. The

verses themselves, as distinguished from prose, mostly dull. Usually
(and wickedly) spelled "rhyme."

RIMER, n. A poet regarded with indifference or disesteem.
The rimer quenches his unheeded fires,

The sound surceases and the sense expires.
Then the domestic dog, to east and west,

Expounds the passions burning in his breast.
The rising moon o'er that enchanted land

Pauses to hear and yearns to understand.
Mowbray Myles

RIOT, n. A popular entertainment given to the military by innocent
bystanders.

R.I.P. A careless abbreviation of _requiescat in pace_, attesting to
indolent goodwill to the dead. According to the learned Dr. Drigge,

however, the letters originally" target="_blank" title="ad.本来;独创地">originally meant nothing more than _reductus in
pulvis_.

RITE, n. A religious or semi-religious ceremony fixed by law, precept
or custom, with the essential oil of sincerity carefully squeezed out

of it.
RITUALISM, n. A Dutch Garden of God where He may walk in rectilinear

freedom, keeping off the grass.
ROAD, n. A strip of land along which one may pass from where it is

too tiresome to be to where it is futile to go.
All roads, howsoe'er they diverge, lead to Rome,

Whence, thank the good Lord, at least one leads back home.
Borey the Bald

ROBBER, n. A candid man of affairs.
It is related of Voltaire that one night he and some traveling

companion lodged at a wayside inn. The surroundings were suggestive,
and after supper they agreed to tell robber stories in turn. "Once

there was a Farmer-General of the Revenues." Saying nothing more, he
was encouraged to continue. "That," he said, "is the story."

ROMANCE, n. Fiction that owes no allegiance to the God of Things as
They Are. In the novel the writer's thought is tethered to

probability, as a domestic horse to the hitching-post, but in romance
it ranges at will over the entire region of the imagination -- free,

lawless, immune to bit and rein. Your novelist is a poor creature, as
Carlyle might say -- a mere reporter. He may invent his characters

and plot, but he must not imagine anything taking place that might not
occur, albeit his entire narrative is candidly a lie. Why he imposes

this hard condition on himself, and "drags at each remove a
lengthening chain" of his own forging he can explain in ten thick

volumes without illuminating by so much as a candle's ray the black
profound of his own ignorance of the matter. There are great novels,

for great writers have "laid waste their powers" to write them, but it
remains true that far and away the most fascinatingfiction that we

have is "The Thousand and One Nights."
ROPE, n. An obsolescent appliance for reminding assassins that they

too are mortal. It is put about the neck and remains in place one's
whole life long. It has been largely superseded by a more complex

electrical device worn upon another part of the person; and this is
rapidly giving place to an apparatus known as the preachment.

ROSTRUM, n. In Latin, the beak of a bird or the prow of a ship. In
America, a place from which a candidate for office energetically

expounds the wisdom, virtue and power of the rabble.
ROUNDHEAD, n. A member of the Parliamentarian party in the English


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