酷兔英语
    当前位置:
  1. 首页
  2. 文章
  3. 娱乐英语
  4. 原版小说
  5. 正文

The Devil's Dictionary-Part22_Ambrose Bierce(1842-1914)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

0 收藏 0 分享 0 赞

章节正文
文章总共2页
their works without pride and their betters without envy. A dormitory

without an alarm clock.



OBSERVATORY, n. A place where astronomers conjecture away the guesses

of their predecessors.



OBSESSED, p.p. Vexed by an evil spirit, like the Gadarene swine and

other critics. Obsession was once more common than it is now.



Arasthus tells of a peasant who was occupied by a different devil for

every day in the week, and on Sundays by two. They were frequently



seen, always walking in his shadow, when he had one, but were finally

driven away by the village notary, a holy man; but they took the



peasant with them, for he vanished utterly. A devil thrown out of a

woman by the Archbishop of Rheims ran through the trees, pursued by a



hundred persons, until the open country was reached, where by a leap

higher than a church spire he escaped into a bird. A chaplain in



Cromwell's army exorcised a soldier's obsessing devil by throwing the

soldier into the water, when the devil came to the surface. The



soldier, unfortunately, did not.

OBSOLETE, adj. No longer used by the timid. Said chiefly of words.



A word which some lexicographer has marked obsolete is ever thereafter

an object of dread and loathing to the fool writer, but if it is a



good word and has no exact modern equivalentequally good, it is good

enough for the good writer. Indeed, a writer's attitude toward



"obsolete" words is as true a measure of his literaryability as

anything except the character of his work. A dictionary of obsolete



and obsolescent words would not only be singularly rich in strong and

sweet parts of speech; it would add large possessions to the



vocabulary of every competentwriter who might not happen to be a

competent reader.



OBSTINATE, adj. Inaccessible to the truth as it is manifest in the

splendor and stress of our advocacy.



The popular type and exponent of obstinacy is the mule, a most

intelligent animal.



OCCASIONAL, adj. Afflicting us with greater or less frequency. That,

however, is not the sense in which the word is used in the phrase



"occasional verses," which are verses written for an "occasion," such

as an anniversary, a celebration or other event. True, they afflict



us a little worse than other sorts of verse, but their name has no

reference to irregular recurrence.



OCCIDENT, n. The part of the world lying west (or east) of the

Orient. It is largely inhabited by Christians, a powerful subtribe of



the Hypocrites, whose principal industries are murder and cheating,

which they are pleased to call "war" and "commerce." These, also, are



the principal industries of the Orient.

OCEAN, n. A body of water occupying about two-thirds of a world made



for man -- who has no gills.

OFFENSIVE, adj. Generating disagreeable emotions or sensations, as



the advance of an army against its enemy.

"Were the enemy's tacticsoffensive?" the king asked. "I should



say so!" replied the unsuccessful general. "The blackguard wouldn't

come out of his works!"



OLD, adj. In that stage of usefulness which is not inconsistent with

general inefficiency, as an _old man_. Discredited by lapse of time



and offensive to the popular taste, as an _old_ book.

"Old books? The devil take them!" Goby said.



"Fresh every day must be my books and bread."

Nature herself approves the Goby rule



And gives us every moment a fresh fool.




文章总共2页
文章标签:名著  

章节正文
Copyright © 2023 Qeto All rights reserved.
商务合作 | 联系我们 | 关于我们 | 版权声明 | 隐私条款 | 如果智培

京ICP备05059198号-1 京公网安备 11011202003401号