s immortal
nonsense; the wisdom of an act is to be juded by the light that the
doer had when he performed it.

OUTDO, v.t. To make an enemy.

OUT-OF-DOORS, n. That part of one's environment upon which no
government has been able to collect taxes. Chiefly useful to inspire
poets.

I climbed to the top of a mountain one day
To see the sun setting in glory,
And I thought, as I looked at his vanishing ray,
Of a perfectly splendid story.

'Twas about an old man and the ass he bestrode
Till the strength of the beast was o'ertested;
Then the man would carry him miles on the road
Till Neddy was pretty well rested.

The moon rising solemnly over the crest
Of the hills to the east of my station
Displayed her broad disk to the darkening west
Like a visible new creation.

And I thought of a joke (and I laughed till I cried)
Of an idle young woman who tarried
About a church-door for a look at the bride,
Although 'twas herself that was married.

To poets all Nature is pregnant with grand
Ideas--with thought and emotion.
I pity the dunces who don't understand
The speech of earth, heaven and ocean.

Stromboli Smith

OVATION, n. n ancient Rome, a definite, formal pageant in honor of
one who had been disserviceable to the enemies of the nation. A
lesser "triumph." In modern English the word is improperly used to
signify any loose and spontaneous expression of popular homage to the
hero of the hour and place.

"I had an ovation!" the actor man said,
But I thought it uncommonly queer,
That people and critics by him had been led
By the ear.

The Latin lexicon makes his absurd
Assertion as plain as a peg;
In "ovum" we find the true root of the word.
It means egg.

Dudley Spink

OVEREAT, v. To dine.

Hail, Gastronome, Apostle of Excess,
Well skilled to overeat without distress!
Thy great invention, the unfatal feast,
Shows Man's superiority to Beast.

John Boop

OVERWORK, n. A dangerous disorder affecting high public functionaries
who want to go fishing.

OWE, v. To have (and to hold) a debt. The word formerly signified
not indebtedness, but possession; it meant "own," and in the minds of
debtors there is still a good deal of confusion between assets and
liabilities.

OYSTER, n. A slimy, gobby shellfish which civilization gives men the
hardihood to eat without remo