GNOME, n. In North-European mythology, a dwarfish imp inhabiting the interior parts of the earth and having special custody of mineral treasures. Bjorsen, who died in 1765, says gnomes were common enough in the southern parts of Sweden in his boyhood, and he frequently saw them scampering on the hills in the evening twilight. Ludwig Binkerhoof saw three as recently as 1792, in the Black Forest, and Sneddeker avers that in 1803 they drove a party of miners out of a Silesian mine. Basing our computations upon data supplied by these statements, we find that the gnomes were probably extinct as early as 1764.
More Quotes from Ambrose Gwinett Bierce:
ETHNOLOGY, n. The science that treats of the various tribes of Man, as robbers, thieves, swindlers, dunces, lunatics, idiots and ethnologists.Ambrose Gwinett Bierce
TEDIUM, n. Ennui, the state or condition of one that is bored. Many fanciful derivations of the word have been affirmed, but so high an authority as Father Jape says that it comes from a very obvious source --the first words of the ancient Latin hymn Te Deum Laudamus. In this apparently natural derivation there is something that saddens.
Ambrose Gwinett Bierce
While your friend holds you affectionately by both your hands, you are safe, for you can watch both his.
Ambrose Gwinett Bierce
TOPE, v. To tipple, booze, swill, soak, guzzle, lush, bib, or swig. In the individual, toping is regarded with disesteem, but toping nations are in the forefront of civilization and power. When pitted against the hard-drinking Christians the absemious Mahometans go down like grass before the scythe. In India one hundred thousand beef- eating and brandy-and-soda guzzling Britons hold in subjection two hundred and fifty million vegetarian abstainers of the same Aryan race. With what an easy grace the whisky-loving American pushed the temperate Spaniard out of his possessions From the time when the Berserkers ravaged all the coasts of western Europe and lay drunk in every conquered port it has been the same way everywhere the nations that drink too much are observed to fight rather well and not too righteously. Wherefore the estimable old ladies who abolished the canteen from the American army may justly boast of having materially augmented the nation's military power.
Ambrose Gwinett Bierce
SALAMANDER, n. Originally a reptile inhabiting fire later, an anthropomorphous immortal, but still a pyrophile. Salamanders are now believed to be extinct, the last one of which we have an account having been seen in Carcassonne by the Abbe Belloc, who exorcised it with a bucket of holy water.
Ambrose Gwinett Bierce
HOVEL, n. The fruit of a flower called the Palace.Twaddle had a hovel, Twiddle had a palace Twaddle said I'll grovel Or he'll think I bear him malice -- A sentiment as novel As a castor on a chalice.Down upon the middle Of his legs fell Twaddle And astonished Mr. Twiddle, Who began to lift his noddle. Feed upon the fiddle- Faddle flummery, unswaddle A new-born self-sufficiency and think himself a mockery. --G.J.
Ambrose Gwinett Bierce
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Based on Topics: Parties QuotesBased on Keywords: avers, computations, dwarfish, gnome, gnomes, imp, inhabiting, ludwig, scampering
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