 | The collected works of Ambrose Bierce |  |
356
U
Understanding, n.
[_]
A cerebral secretion that enables one having it to know a house from a horse by the roof on the house. Its nature and laws have been exhaustively expounded by Locke, who rode a house, and Kant, who lived in a horse.
[His understanding was so keen]
His understanding was so keenThat all things which he'd felt, heard, seen,
He could interpret without fail
If he was in or out of jail.
He wrote at Inspiration's call
357
Then, pent at last in an asylum,
Performed the service to compile 'em.
So great a writer, all men swore,
They never had not read before.
Jorrock Wormley.
Urbanity, n.
[_]
The kind of civility that urban observers ascribe to dwellers in all cities but New York. Its commonest expression is heard in the words, “I beg your pardon,” and it is not inconsistent with disregard of the rights of others.
[The owner of a powder mill]
The owner of a powder millWas musing on a distant hill—
Something his mind foreboded—
When from the cloudless sky there fell
A deviled human kidney! Well,
The man's mill had exploded.
His hat he lifted from his head;
“I beg your pardon, sir,” he said;
“I didn't know 'twas loaded.”
Swatkin.
| The collected works of Ambrose Bierce | |