DECIDE, v.i. To succumb to the preponderance of one set of influences over another set.

To apologize is to lay the foundation for a future offense.

Erudition - dust shaken out of a book into an empty skull.

IMPENITENCE, n. A state of mind intermediate in point of time between sin and punishment.

International arbitration may be defined as the substitution of many burning questions for a smoldering one

J, n. A consonant in English, but some nations use it as a vowel . . . from a Latin verb, "jacere", "to throw," because when a stone is thrown at a dog the dog's tail assumes that shape.

BIRTH, n. The first and direst of all disasters. As to the nature of it there appears to be no uniformity. Castor and Pollux were born from the egg. Pallas came out of a skull. Galatea was once a block of stone. Peresilis, who wrote in the tenth century, avers that he grew up out of the ground where a priest had spilled holy water. It is known that Arimaxus was derived from a hole in the earth, made by a stroke of lightning. Leucomedon was the son of a cavern in Mount Etna, and I have myself seen a man come out of a wine cellar.