Alien - an American sovereign in his probationary state.

ASS, n. A public singer with a good voice but no ear.

The slightest acquaintance with history shows that powerful republics are the most warlike and unscrupulous of nations.

Distance, n. The only thing that the rich are willing for the poor to call theirs and keep.

Optimism - the doctrine or belief that everything is beautiful, including what is ugly.

FRYING-PAN, n. One part of the penal apparatus employed in that punitive institution, a woman's kitchen. The frying-pan was invented by Calvin, and by him used in cooking span-long infants that had died without baptism; and observing one day the horrible torment of a tramp who had incautiously pulled a fried babe from the waste-dump and devoured it, it occurred to the great divine to rob death of its terrors by introducing the frying-pan into every household in Geneva. Thence it spread to all corners of the world, and has been of invaluable assistance in the propagation of his sombre faith.

Revolution, n. In politics, an abrupt change in the form of misgovernment.