violence to
the language. The least disagreeable form of dramatic action.

PARDON, v. To remit a penalty and restore to the life of crime. To
add to the lure of crime the temptation of ingratitude.

PASSPORT, n. A document treacherously inflicted upon a citizen going
abroad, exposing him as an alien and pointing him out for special
reprobation and outrage.

PAST, n. That part of Eternity with some small fraction of which we
have a slight and regrettable acquaintance. A moving line called the
Present parts it from an imaginary period known as the Future. These
two grand divisions of Eternity, of which the one is continually
effacing the other, are entirely unlike. The one is dark with sorrow
and disappointment, the other bright with prosperity and joy. The
Past is the region of sobs, the Future is the realm of song. In the
one crouches Memory, clad in sackcloth and ashes, mumbling penitential
prayer; in the sunshine of the other Hope flies with a free wing,
beckoning to temples of success and bowers of ease. Yet the Past is
the Future of yesterday, the Future is the Past of to-morrow. They
are one--the knowledge and the dream.

PASTIME, n. A device for promoting dejection. Gentle exercise for
intellectual debility.

PATIENCE, n. A minor form of despair, disguised as a virtue.

PATRIOT, n. One to whom the interests of a part seem superior to
those of the whole. The dupe of statesmen and the tool of conquerors.

PATRIOTISM, n. Combustible rubbish read to the torch of any one
ambitious to illuminate his name.

In Dr. Johnson's famous dictionary patriotism is defined as the
last resort of a scoundrel. With all due respect to an enlightened
but inferior lexicographer I beg to submit that it is the first.

PEACE, n. In international affairs, a period of cheating between two
periods of fighting.

O, what's the loud uproar assailing
Mine ears without cease?
'Tis the voice of the hopeful, all-hailing
The horrors of peace.

Ah, Peace Universal; they woo it--
Would marry it, too.
If only they knew how to do it
'Twere easy to do.

They're working by night and by day
On their problem, like moles.
Have mercy, O Heaven, I pray,
On their meddlesome souls!

Ro Amil

PEDESTRIAN, n. The variable (an audible) part of the roadway for an
automobile.

PEDIGREE, n. The known part of the route from an arboreal ancestor
with a swim bladder to an urba