The Works of Edgar Allan Poe — Volume 4 by Edgar Allan Poe
page 81 of 284 (28%)
page 81 of 284 (28%)
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thee -- for thee!' Here it is clear that you are apostrophizing the
cause of your disaster, the chicken. Indeed what gentleman (or lady either) of sense, wouldn't die, I should like to know, for a well fattened capon of the right Molucca breed, stuffed with capers and mushrooms, and served up in a salad-bowl, with orange-jellies en mosaiques. Write! (You can get them that way at Tortoni's) -- Write, if you please! "Here is a nice little Latin phrase, and rare too, (one can't be too recherche or brief in one's Latin, it's getting so common -- ignoratio elenchi. He has committed an ignoratio elenchi -- that is to say, he has understood the words of your proposition, but not the idea. The man was a fool, you see. Some poor fellow whom you address while choking with that chicken-bone, and who therefore didn't precisely understand what you were talking about. Throw the ignoratio elenchi in his teeth, and, at once, you have him annihilated. If he dares to reply, you can tell him from Lucan (here it is) that speeches are mere anemonae verborum, anemone words. The anemone, with great brilliancy, has no smell. Or, if he begins to bluster, you may be down upon him with insomnia Jovis, reveries of Jupiter -- a phrase which Silius Italicus (see here!) applies to thoughts pompous and inflated. This will be sure and cut him to the heart. He can do nothing but roll over and die. Will you be kind enough to write? "In Greek we must have some thing pretty -- from Demosthenes, for example. !<,D@ N,LT8 ¯"4 B"84< :"P,F,J"4 [Anerh o pheugoen kai palin makesetai] There is a tolerably good translation of it in Hudibras |
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