3 books to know Horatian Satire. Anthony Trollope

      IN'ARDS, n. The stomach, heart, soul and other bowels. Many eminent investigators do not class the soul as an in'ard, but that acute observer and renowned authority, Dr. Gunsaulus, is persuaded that the mysterious organ known as the spleen is nothing less than our immortal part. To the contrary, Professor Garrett P. Servis holds that man's soul is that prolongation of his spinal marrow which forms the pith of his no tail; and for demonstration of his faith points confidently to the fact that tailed animals have no souls. Concerning these two theories, it is best to suspend judgment by believing both.

      INSCRIPTION, n. Something written on another thing. Inscriptions are of many kinds, but mostly memorial, intended to commemorate the fame of some illustrious person and hand down to distant ages the record of his services and virtues. To this class of inscriptions belongs the name of John Smith, penciled on the Washington monument. Following are examples of memorial inscriptions on tombstones: (See EPITAPH.)

      "In the sky my soul is found,

      And my body in the ground.

      By and by my body'll rise

      To my spirit in the skies,

      Soaring up to Heaven's gate.

      1878."

      "Sacred to the memory of Jeremiah Tree. Cut down May 9th, 1862,

      aged 27 yrs. 4 mos. and 12 ds. Indigenous."

      "Affliction sore long time she boar,

      Phisicians was in vain,

      Till Deth released the dear deceased

      And left her a remain.

      Gone to join Ananias in the regions of bliss."

      "The clay that rests beneath this stone

      As Silas Wood was widely known.

      Now, lying here, I ask what good

      It was to let me be S. Wood.

      O Man, let not ambition trouble you,

      Is the advice of Silas W."

      "Richard Haymon, of Heaven. Fell to Earth Jan. 20, 1807, and had

      the dust brushed off him Oct. 3, 1874."

      INSECTIVORA, n.

      "See," cries the chorus of admiring preachers,

      "How Providence provides for all His creatures!"

      "His care," the gnat said, "even the insects follows:

      For us He has provided wrens and swallows."

      Sempen Railey

      INSURANCE, n. An ingenious modern game of chance in which the player is permitted to enjoy the comfortable conviction that he is beating the man who keeps the table.

      INSURANCE AGENT: My dear sir, that is a fine house—pray let me

      insure it.

      HOUSE OWNER: With pleasure. Please make the annual premium so

      low that by the time when, according to the tables of your

      actuary, it will probably be destroyed by fire I will have

      paid you considerably less than the face of the policy.

      INSURANCE AGENT: O dear, no—we could not afford to do that.

      We must fix the premium so that you will have paid more.

      HOUSE OWNER: How, then, can I afford that?

      INSURANCE AGENT: Why, your house may burn down at any time.

      There was Smith's house, for example, which—

      HOUSE OWNER: Spare me—there were Brown's house, on the

      contrary, and Jones's house, and Robinson's house, which—

      INSURANCE AGENT: Spare me!

      HOUSE OWNER: Let us understand each other. You want me to pay

      you money on the supposition that something will occur

      previously to the time set by yourself for its occurrence. In

      other words, you expect me to bet that my house will not last

      so long as you say that it will probably last.

      INSURANCE AGENT: But if your house burns without insurance it

      will be a total loss.

      HOUSE OWNER: Beg your pardon—by your own actuary's tables I

      shall probably have saved, when it burns, all the premiums I

      would otherwise have paid to you—amounting to more than the

      face of the policy they would have bought. But suppose it to

      burn, uninsured, before the time upon which your figures are

      based. If I could not afford that, how could you if it were

      insured?

      INSURANCE AGENT: O, we should make ourselves whole from our

      luckier ventures with other clients. Virtually, they pay your

      loss.

      HOUSE OWNER: And virtually, then, don't I help to pay their

      losses? Are not their houses as likely as mine to burn before

      they have paid you as much as you must pay them? The case

      stands this way: you expect to take more money from your

      clients than you pay to them, do you not?

      INSURANCE AGENT: Certainly; if we did not—

      HOUSE OWNER: I would not trust you with my money. Very well

      then. If it is certain, with reference to the whole body of

      your clients, that they lose money on you it is probable,

      with reference to any one of them, that he will. It is

      these individual probabilities that make the aggregate

      certainty.

      INSURANCE AGENT: I will not deny it—but look at the figures in

      this pamph—

      HOUSE OWNER: Heaven forbid!

      INSURANCE AGENT: You spoke of saving the premiums which you would

      otherwise pay to me. Will you not be more likely to squander

      them? We offer you an incentive to thrift.

      HOUSE OWNER: The willingness of A to take care of B's money is

      not peculiar to insurance, but as a charitable institution you

      command esteem. Deign to accept its expression from a

      Deserving Object.

      INSURRECTION, n. An unsuccessful revolution. Disaffection's failure to substitute misrule for bad government.

      INTENTION, n. The mind's sense of the prevalence of one set of influences over another set; an effect whose cause is the imminence, immediate or remote, of the performance of an involuntary act.

      INTERPRETER, n. One who enables two persons of different languages to understand each other by repeating to each what it would have been to the interpreter's advantage for the other to have said.

      INTERREGNUM, n. The period during which a monarchical country is governed by a warm spot on the cushion of the throne. The experiment of letting the spot grow cold has commonly been attended by most unhappy results from the zeal of many worthy persons to make it warm again.

      INTIMACY, n. A relation into which fools are providentially drawn