Bamboo Stitch

REALLY, adv.  Apparently.

Waving Rib Pattern

REALITY, n.  The dream of a mad philosopher.  That which would remain in the cupel if one should assay a phantom.  The nucleus of a vacuum.

Goblets

REALISM, n.  The art of depicting nature as it is seen by toads.  The charm suffusing a landscape painted by a mole, or a story written by a measuring-worm.

Honeycomb Cable Stitch

REDEMPTION, n.  Deliverance of sinners from the penalty of their sin, through their murder of the deity against whom they sinned.  The doctrine of Redemption is the fundamental mystery of our holy religion, and whoso believeth in it shall not perish, but have everlasting life in which to try to understand it.

We must awake Man's spirit from its sin,

And take some special measure for redeeming it;

Though hard indeed the task to get it in

Among the angels any way but teaming it,

Or purify it otherwise than steaming it.

I'm awkward at Redemption--a beginner:

My method is to crucify the sinner.

Golgo Brone.

Textured Strip

TENACITY, n.  A certain quality of the human hand in its relation to the coin of the realm.  It attains its highest development in the hand of authority and is considered a serviceable equipment for a career in politics.  The following illustrative lines were written of a Californian gentleman in high political preferment, who has passed to his accounting:

Of such tenacity his grip

That nothing from his hand can slip.

Well-buttered eels you may o'erwhelm

In tubs of liquid slippery-elm

In vain--from his detaining pinch

They cannot struggle half an inch!

'Tis lucky that he so is planned

That breath he draws not with his hand,

For if he did, so great his greed

He'd draw his last with eager speed.

Nay, that were well, you say.  Not so

He'd draw but never let it go!

Speckle Rib

R. I. P.  A careless abbreviation of requiescat in pace, attesting an indolent goodwill to the dead.  According to the learned Dr. Drigge, however, the letters originally meant nothing more than reductus in pulvis.

Rice Stitch

RIMER, n.  A poet regarded with indifference or disesteem.

The rimer quenches his unheeded fires,

The sound surceases and the sense expires.

Then the domestic dog, to east and west,

Expounds the passions burning in his breast.

The rising moon o'er that enchanted land

Pauses to hear and yearns to understand.

Mowbray Myles.

Candle-Flame Stitch

SABBATH, n.  A weekly festival having its origin in the fact that God mad the world in six days and was arrested on the seventh.  Among the Jews observance of the day was endorced by a Commandment of which this is the Christian version:  "Remember the seventh day to make thy neighbor keep it wholly."  To the Creator it seemed fit and expedient that the Sabbath should be the last day of the week, but the Early Fathers of the Church held other views.  So great is the sanctity of the day that even where the Lord holds a doubtful and precairous jurisdiction over those who go down to (and down into) the sea it is reverently recognized, as is manifest in the following deep-water version of the Fourth Commandment:

Six days shalt thou labor and do all thou art able,

And on the seventh holystone the deck and scrape the cable.

Decks are no longer holystoned, but the cable still supplies the captain with opportunity to attest a pious respect for the divine ordinance.

Mini Bobble Stitch

REDRESS, n.  Reparation without satisfaction.
     Among the Anglo-Saxons a subject conceiving himself wronged by the king was permitted, on proving his injury, to beat a brazen image of the royal offender with a switch that was afterward applied to his own naked back.  The latter rite was performed by the public hang-man, and it assured moderation in the plaintiff's choice of a switch.

Reverse Stockinette Chevron

PROSPECT, n.  An outlook, usually forbidding.  An expectation, usually forbidden.

Blow, blow, ye spicy breezes--

O'er Ceylon blow your breath,

Where every prospect pleases,

Save only that of death. 

Bishop Sheber

Elongated Chevron

PROPHECY, n.  The art and practice of selling one's credibility for future delivery.

Honey Comb Stitch

REVIEW, v. t.

To set your wisdom  (holding not a doubt of it,

Although in truth there's neither bone nor skin to it)

At work upon a book, and so read out of it

The qualities that you have first read into it.

Knot Pattern

REPENTANCE, n.  The faithful attendant and follower of Punishment.  It is usually manifest in a degree of reformation that is not inconsistent with continuity of sin.

Desirous to avoid the pains of Hell,

You will repent and join the Church, Parnell?

How needless!--Nick will keep you off the coals 

And add you to the woes of other souls.

Jomater Abemy.

Little Shell Pattern

REQUIEM, n.  A mass for the dead which the minor poets assure us the winds sing o'er the graves of their favorites.  Sometimes, by way of providing a varied entertainment, they sing a dirge.

Bee Stitch

RENOWN,  n.  A degree of distinction between notoriety and fame--a little more supportable than the one and a little more intolerable than the other.  Sometimes it is conferred by an unfriendly and inconsiderate hand.

I touched the harp in every key, 

But found no heeding ear; 

And then Ithuriel touched me

With a revealing spear.

Not all my genius, great as 'tis,

Could urge me out of night.

I felt the faint appulse of his, 

And leapt into the light!

W. J. Candleton.

Berry Stitch

REFLECTION, n.  An action of the mind whereby we obtain a clearer view of our relation to the stings of yesterday and are able to avoid the perils that we shall not again encounter.

Hindu Pillar Stitch

TEETOTALER, n.  One who abstains from strong drink, sometimes totally, sometimes tolerably totally.

Loop Pattern

TIGHTS, n.  An habiliment of the stage designed to reinforce the general acclamation of the press agent with a particular publicity.  Public attention was once somewhat diverted from this garment to Miss Lillian Russell's refusal to wear it, and may were the conjectures as to her motive, the guess of Miss Pauline Hall showing a high order of ingenuity and sustained reflection .  It was Miss Hall's belief that nature had not endowed Miss Russell with beautiful legs.  This theory was impossible of acceptance by the male understanding, but the conception of a faulty female leg was of so prodigious originality as to rank among the most brilliant feats of philosophical speculation!  It is strange that in all the controversy regarding Miss Russell's aversion to tights no one seems to have thought to ascribe it to what was known among the ancients as "modesty."  The nature of that sentiment is now imperfectly understood, and possibly incapable of exposition with the vocabulary that remains to us.  The study of lost arts has, however, been recently revived and some of the arts themselves recovered.  This is an epoch of renaissances, and there is ground for hope that the primitive "blush" may be dragged from its hiding-place amongst the tombs of antiquity and hissed on to the stage.

Inverness Diamond

RIGHTEOUSNESS, n.  A sturdy virtue that was once found among the Pantidoodles inhabiting the lower part of the peninsula of Oque.  Some feeble attempts were made by returned missionaries to introduce it into several European countries, but it appears to have been imperfectly expounded.  An example of this faulty exposition is found in the only extant sermon of the pious Bishop Rowley, a characteristic passage from which is here given:  "Now righteousness consisteth not merely in a holy state of mind, nor yet performance of religious rites and obedience to the letter of the law.  It is not enough that one be pious and just: one must see to it that others also are in the same state; and to this end compulsion is a proper means.  Forasmuch as my injustice may work ill to another, so by his injustice may evil be wrought upon still another, the which it is as manifestly my duty to estop as to forestall mine own tort.  Wherefore if I would be righteous I am bound to restrain my neighbor, by force if needful, in all those injurious enterprises from which, through a better disposition and by the help of Heaven, I do myself refrain."

King Charles Brocade

SHERIFF, n.  In America the chief executive officer of a county, whose most characteristic duties, in some of the Western and Southern States, are catching and hanging of rogues.

John Elmer Pettibone Cajee

(I write of him with little glee)

Was just as bad as he could be.

'Twas frequently remarked: "I swon!

The sun has never looked upon 

So bad a man as Neighbor John."

A sinner through and through, he had

This added fault:  it made him mad

To know another man was bad.

In such a case he thought it right

To rise at any hour of night

And quench that wicked person's light.

Despite the town's entreaties, he 

Would hale him to the nearest tree

And leave him swinging wide and free.

Or sometimes, if the humor came,

A luckless wight's reluctant frame

Was given to the cheerful flame.

While it was turning nice and brown,

All unconcerned John met the frown

Of that austere and righteous town.

"How sad," his neighbors said, "that the

So scornful of the law should be--

An anar c, h, i, s, t."

(That is the way that they preferred

To utter the abhorrent word,

So strong the aversion that it stirred.)

"Resolved," they said, continuing,

"That Badman John must cease this thing

Of having his unlawful fling.

"Now, by these sacred relics"--here

Each man had out a souvenir

Got at a lynching yesteryear--

"By these we swear he shall forsake

His ways, nor cause our hearts to ache 

Byh sins of rope and torch and stake.

"We'll tie his red right hand until

He'll have small freedom to fulfil

The mandates of his lawless will."

So, in convention then and there,

They named him Sheriff.  The affair

Was opened, it is said, with prayer.

J. Milton Sloluck.

Diamond Brocaid

RESIGN, v.t.  To renounce an honor for an advantage.  To renounce an advantage for a greater advantage.

'Twas remored Leonard Wood had signed

A true renunciation 

Of title, rank and every kind

Of military station--

Each honorable station.

By his example fired--inclined

To noble emulation,

The country humbly was resigned

To Leonard's resignation--

His Christian resignation.

Politian Greame.

Embossed Diamonds

TRINITY, n.  In the multiplex theism of certain Christian churches, three entirely distinct deities consistent with only one.  Subordinate deities of the polytheistic faith, such as devils and angels, are not dowered with the power of combination, and must urge individually their claims to adoration and propitiation.  The Trinity is one of the most sublime systeries of our holy religion.  In rejecting it because it is incomprehensible, Unitarians betray their inadequate sense of theological fundamentals.  In religion we believe only what we do not understand, except in the instance of an intelligible doctrine that contradicts an incomprehensible one.  In that case we believe the former as a part of the latter.

Twisted Moss

RICHES, n.  A gift from Heaven signifying,  "This is my beloved son, in whom  I am well pleased."--John D. Rockefeller.
   The reward of toil and virtue.--J. P. Morgan.
   The savings of many in the hands of one.--Eugene Debs.
   To these excellent definitions the inspired lexicographer feels that he can add nothing of value.

Moss Slip Stitch

TREE, n.  A tall vegetable intended by nature to serve as a penal apparatus, though through a miscarriage of justice most trees bear only a negligible fruit, or noe at all.  When naturally fruited, the tree is a beneficent agency of civilization and an important factor in public morals.  In the stern West and the sensitive South its fruit  (white and black respectively)  though not eaten, is agreeable to the public taste and, though not exported, profitable to the general welfare.  That the legitimate relation of the tree to justice was no discovery of Judge Lynch  (who, indeed, conceded it no primacy over the lamp-post and the bridge-girder)  is made plain by the following passage from Morryster, who antedated him by two centuries:  While in yt londe I was carryed to see ye Ghogo tree, whereof I had hearde moch talk; but sayynge yt I saw naught remarkabyll in it, ye hed manne of ye villayge where it grewe made answer as followeth:  "Ye tree is not nowe in fruite, but in his seasonne you shall see dependynge fr. his braunches all soch as have affronynted ye King his Majesty."  And I was furder tolde yt ye worde "Ghogo" sygnifyeth in yr tong ye same as "rapscal" in our owne.--Trauvells in ye Easte.

Moss-Stitch Zigzag

ABSENT, adj.  Peculiarly exposed to the tooth of detraction; vilified; hopelessly in the wrong; superseded in the consideration and affection of another.

To men a man is but a mind.  Who cares 

What face he carries or what form he wears?

But woman's body is the woman.  O,

Stay thou, my sweetheart, and do never go,

But heed the warning words the sage hath said:

A woman absent is a woman dead. 

Jogo Tyree.

Hunters Stitch

COWARD, n.  One who in a perilous emergency thinks with his legs.

MISCREANT, n.  A person of the highest degree of unworth.  Etymologically, the word means unbeliever, and its present signification may be regarded as theology's noblest contribution to the development of our language.

Harris-Tweed Rib

HOPE, n.  Desire and expectation rolled into one.

Delicious Hope! when naught to man is left--

Of fortune destitute, of friends bereft;

When even his dog deserts him, and his goat

With tranquil disaffection chews his coat

While yet it hangs upon his back; then thou, 

The star far-flaming on thine angel brow,

Descendest, radiant, from the skies to hint 

The promise of a clerkship in the Mint.

Fogarty Weffing.

Cluster Rib

UBIQUITY, n.  The gift or power of being in all places at one time, but not in all places at all times, which is omnipresence, an attribute of God and the luminiferous ether only.  This mportant distinction between ubiquity and omnipresence was not clear to the mediaeval Church and there was much bloodshed about it.  Certain Lutheran, who affirmed the presence everywhere of Christ's body were known as Ubiquitarians.  For this error they were doubtless damned, for Christ's body is present only in the eucharist, though that sacrament may be performed in more than one place simultaneously.  In recent times ubiquity has not always been understood--not even by Sir Boyle Roche, for example, who held that a man cannot be in two places at once unless he is a bird.