“Behold, thou art fair, my love: behold, thou art fair; thou hast
dove’s eyes within thy locks; thy hair is as a flock of goats that
appear from Mt. Gilead. Thy teeth are like a flock of sheep that are
even shorn, which came up from the washing; whereof every one bear
twins, and none is barren among them. Thy lips are like a thread of
scarlet, and thy speech is comely; thy temples are like a piece of
pomegranate within thy locks. Thy neck is a tower of ivory; thine eyes
like the fishpools of Heshbon, by the gate of Bath-rabbim; thy nose is
as the tower of Lebanon looking towards Damascus.”
Really, we think that will do for one instalment. What the mischief
this “poet” means, with his goat’s hair, sheep’s teeth, and temples
like a piece of pomegranate, is quite beyond our mental reach. We would
suggest that the ignorance of English grammar displayed in the phrase
“every one bear twins,” is not atoned for by comparing his mistress’s
eyes to a duck pond, and her nose to the “tower of Lebanon looking
towards Damascus.” The latter simile is suggestive of unpleasant
consequences to the inhabitants of that village in case the young lady
should decide to blow that astounding feature! Our very young
contributor will consider himself dismissed with such ignominy as is
implied by our frantic indifference.
.... A liberal reward will be paid by the writer for a suitably
vituperative epithet to be applied to the ordinary street preacher. The
writer has himself laboured with so unflagging a zeal in the pursuit of
the proper word, has expended the midnight oil with so lavish and
matchless a prodigality, has kneaded his brain with such a singular
forgetfulness of self—that he is gone clean daft. And all, without
adequate result! From the profoundest deep of his teeming invention he
succeeded in evolving only such utterly unsatisfying results as
“rhinoceros,” “polypus,” and “sheeptick” in the animal kingdom, and
“rhubarb,” “snakeroot,” and “smartweed” in the vegetable. The mineral
world was ransacked, but gave forth only “old red sandstone,” which is
tolerably severe, but had been previously used to stigmatize a member
of the Academy of Sciences.
Now, what we wish to secure is a word that shall contain within itself
all the essential principles of downright abuse; the mere pronouncing
of which in the public street would subject one to the inconvenience of
being rent asunder by an infuriated populace—something so atrociously
apt and so exquisitely diabolical that any person to whom it should be
applied would go right away out and kick himself to death with a
jackass. We covenant that the inventor shall be slain the moment we are
in possession of his infernal secret, as life would of course be a
miserable burden to him ever afterward.
With a calm reliance upon the fertile scurrility of our readers, we
leave the matter in their hands, commending their souls to the merciful
God who contrived them.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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