NOVEMBER, n. The eleventh twelfth of a weariness.
O
OATH, n. In law, a solemn appeal to the Deity, made binding upon the
conscience by a penalty for perjury.
OBLIVION, n. The state or condition in which the wicked cease from
struggling and the dreary are at rest. Fame's eternal dumping ground.
Cold storage for high hopes. A place where ambitious authors meet
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.
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