Affection is a coal that must be cooled;
Else, suffered, it will set the heart on fire.

Affliction.

SHAKESPEARE, Venus and Adonis, lines 387, 388

Henceforth I'll bear

Affliction till it do cry out itself
"Enough, enough!" and die.

SHAKESPEARE, King Lear, iv, 6

Affront. A moral, sensible, and well-bred man
Will not affront me, and no other can.
COWPER, Conversation, lines 193, 194

Afloat. I'm afloat — I'm afloat — on the fierce rolling tide;
The ocean's my home! and my bark is my bride.
ELIZA COOK, Rover's Song, st. 1

Afternoon.

Sleeping within my [mine] orchard,
My custom always of [in] the afternoon.
SHAKESPEARE, Hamlet, i, 5

Age. A lady of ". 'a certain age," which means
Certainly aged. BYRON, Don Juan, Canto vi, st. 69

I am not of this people, nor this age.

BYRON, Prophecy of Dante, Canto i, line 143

When he's forsaken,
Withered and shaken,

What can an old man do but die?

Love will not clip him,
Maids will not lip him,

Maud and Marian pass him by;
Youth it is sunny,
Age has no honey,—
What can an old man do but die?

HOOD, Ballad

He was not of an age, but for all time!

BEN JONSON, To the Memory of Shakespeare, line 43

Old age is still old age.
It is the waning, not the crescent moon;
The dusk of evening, not the blaze of noon:
It is not strength, but weakness; not desire,
But its surcease; not the fierce heat of fire,
The burning and consuming element,
But that of ashes and of embers spent,
In which some living sparks we still discern,
Enough to warm, but not enough to burn.

LONGFELLOW, Morituri Salutamus, st. 26
Old age ne'er cools the Douglas blood.

SCOTT, Marmion, vi, 15

Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale
Her infinite variety: other women cloy
The appetites they feed: but she makes hungry
Where most she satisfies.

SHAKESPEARE, Antony and Cleopatra, ii, 2

Your lordship, though not clean past your youth, hath yet some smack of age in you, some relish of the saltness of time.

SHAKESPEARE, King Henry IV, Part II, i, 2

When the age is in, the wit is out.

SHAKESPEARE, Much Ado about Nothing, iii, 5

Crabbed age and youth cannot live together:
Youth is full of pleasance, age is full of care;
Youth like summer morn, age like winter weather;
Youth like summer brave, age like winter bare.
SHAKESPEARE, Passionate Pilgrim, st. 12

Thoughts of my age,

Dread ye not the cold sod;

Hopes of my age,

Be ye fixed on your God.

ST. GEORGE TUCKER, Days of My Youth, st. 3

Agony.- Charm ache with air, and agony with words. SHAKESPEARE, Much Ado about Nothing, v, I Air.- Hamlet. The air bites shrewdly; it is very cold. Horatio. It is a nipping and an eager air. SHAKESPEARE, Hamlet, i, 4

The air, a chartered libertine. SHAKESPEARE, King Henry V, i, 1 Alarum.- Hear the loud alarum bells Brazen bells!

What a tale of terror, now, their turbulency tells. POE, The Bells, st. 3 Albatross."Why look'st thou so?"-"With my cross-bow COLERIDGE, Ancient Mariner, lines 81, 82

I shot the albatross."

Alcalde. He whose father is alcalde, of his trial hath no fear. BRET HARTE, Concepcion de Arguello, iii, st. 15

Alcoholic.

The alcoholic virtues don't wash; but until the water takes their colours out, the tints are very much like those of the true celestial stuff.

HOLMES, Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table, viii

Ale. Then to the spicy nut-brown ale.1

I would give all my fame for a pot of ale and safety.
SHAKESPEARE, King Henry V, iii, 2

MILTON, L'Allegro, line 100

A quart of ale is a dish for a king.
SHAKESPEARE, Winter's Tale, iv, 3 [2]

I cannot eat but little meat,-
My stomach is not good;
But, sure, I think that I can drink
With him that wears a hood. . .
Back and side, go bare, go bare;
Both foot and hand go cold;
But, belly, God send thee good ale enough,
Whether it be new or old.

Algebra.

Alexandrine.

A needless Alexandrine ends the song
That, like a wounded snake, drags its slow length along.
POPE, Essay on Criticism, lines 356, 357

JOHN STILL, Good Ale, st. 1

He, by geometric scale,
Could take the size of pots of ale;
Resolve, by sines and tangents straight,
If bread or butter wanted weight;
And wisely tell what hour o' th' day
The clock does strike, by algebra.

BUTLER, Hudibras, I, i, lines 121-126

Allegory. As headstrong as an allegory on the banks of the
Nile.
SHERIDAN, The Rivals, v, 3

Alley. Of all the girls that are so smart
There's none like pretty Sally;
She is the darling of my heart,
And she lives in our alley.

H. CAREY, Sally in Our Alley, st. 1

Alliances.- Peace, commerce, and honest friendship, with all
nations, entangling alliances with none.
THOMAS JEFFERSON, Inaugural Address, March 4, 1801
Alliteration.- Apt alliteration's artful aid.

C. CHURCHILL, The Prophecy of Famine
Almighty. The Almighty has his own purposes.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN, Inaugural Address,
March 4, 1865

1 Foamed forth in floods the nut-brown ale.

SCOTT, Lay of the Last Minstrel, Canto VI, viii

Alms. That is no true alms which the hand can hold;
He gives only the worthless gold
Who gives from a sense of duty.

LOWELL, Vision of Sir Launfal, i, st. 6

Alone. Alone, alone, all, all alone,
Alone on a wide, wide sea!

COLERIDGE, Ancient Mariner, lines 232, 233, 598

SHAKESPEARE, Coriolanus, v, 6 [5]

Alone I did it.

Altar-stairs. Upon the great world's altar-stairs
That slope through darkness up to God.
TENNYSON, In Memoriam, lv, st. 4

Ambassador. An ambassador is an honest man sent to lie abroad for the good of his country.

SIR HENRY WOTTON, adapted and translated
by Izaak Walton in his Life of Wotton

Ambition.- Till pride and worse ambition threw me down. MILTON, Paradise Lost, IV, line 40

What will not ambition and revenge
Descend to? who aspires must down as low
As high he soared.

Ibid., IX, lines 168-170

Lowliness is young ambition's ladder,
Whereto the climber-upward turns his face;
But when he once attains the upmost round,
He then unto the ladder turns his back,
Looks in the clouds, scorning the base degrees
By which he did ascend.

SHAKESPEARE, Julius Cæsar, ii, 1
Ambition should be made of sterner stuff. Ibid., iii, 2

Cromwell, I charge thee, fling away ambition:
By that sin fell the angels; how can man, then,
The image of his Maker, hope to win by it?
SHAKESPEARE, King Henry VIII, iii, 2

Vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself.

SHAKESPEARE, Macbeth, i, 7

Ambitious.

As Cæsar loved me, I weep for him; as he was fortunate, I rejoice at it; as he was valiant, I honour him: but, as he was ambitious, I slew him. There is tears for his love; joy for his fortune; honour for his valour; and death for his ambition.

SHAKESPEARE, Julius Cæsar, iii, 2

From his ambitious finger.

Amen.

No man's pie is freed

SHAKESPEARE, King Henry VIII, i, 1

“Amen”

Stuck in my throat.

America. This day is a glorious day for America.

Samuel Adams, quoted in Tudor's Life of James Otis
America! half-brother of the world!
With something good and bad of every land.

P. J. BAILEY, Festus, Scene-The Surface

SHAKESPEARE, Macbeth, ii, 2

My Lords, you cannot conquer America.
WILLIAM PITT, EARL OF CHATHAM,
Speech on the American War, Nov. 18, 1777

American.- I am an American,— and wherever I look up and see the stars and stripes overhead, that is home to me! HOLMES, Professor at the Breakfast-Table, iv

The apron-strings of an American mother are made of india-rubber. Her boy belongs where he is wanted; and . . . his home [is] wherever the stars and stripes [blow] over his head. Ibid., xii

To think of trying to waterproof the American mind against the questions that Heaven rains down upon it shows a misapprehension of our new conditions; for what the Declaration means is the right to question everything, even the truth of its own fundamental proposition. Ibid.

The kindly-earnest, brave, foreseeing man [Lincoln],
Sagacious, patient, dreading praise, not blame,

New birth of our new soil, the first American.
LOWELL, Commemoration Ode, st. 6

If I were an American, as I am an Englishman, while a foreign troop was landed in my country, I never would lay down my arms-never-never-never!

WILLIAM PITT, EARL OF CHATHAM,

Speech on the American War, Nov. 18, 1777 Amorous. Whosoever esteemeth too much of amorous affection, quitteth both riches and wisdom.

BACON, Essay X: Of Love Anchor. Our anchor soon must change his bed of fiery rich array

For a hammock at the roaring bows, or an oozy couch of clay.

SIR S. FERGUSON, The Forging of the Anchor, st. 4