"Monsieur Franqulin, inventor of electricity.  This
  illustrious savant, after having made several voyages around the
  world, died on the Sandwich Islands and was devoured by savages,
  of whom not a single fragment was ever recovered."

  Electricity seems destined to play a most important part in the
arts and industries.  The question of its economical application to
some purposes is still unsettled, but experiment has already proved
that it will propel a street car better than a gas jet and give more
light than a horse.

ELEGY, n. A composition in verse, in which, without employing any of the methods of humor, the writer aims to produce in the reader's mind the dampest kind of dejection. The most famous English example begins somewhat like this:

  The cur foretells the knell of parting day;
      The loafing herd winds slowly o'er the lea;
  The wise man homeward plods; I only stay
      To fiddle-faddle in a minor key.

ELOQUENCE, n. The art of orally persuading fools that white is the color that it appears to be. It includes the gift of making any color appear white.

ELYSIUM, n. An imaginary delightful country which the ancients foolishly believed to be inhabited by the spirits of the good. This ridiculous and mischievous fable was swept off the face of the earth by the early Christians—may their souls be happy in Heaven!

EMANCIPATION, n. A bondman's change from the tyranny of another to the despotism of himself.

  He was a slave:  at word he went and came;
      His iron collar cut him to the bone.
  Then Liberty erased his owner's name,
      Tightened the rivets and inscribed his own.

EMBALM, v.i. To cheat vegetation by locking up the gases upon which it feeds.