Ambrose Gwinett Bierce Explained Quotations

LEONINE, adj. Unlike a menagerie lion. Leonine verses are those in which a word in the middle of a line rhymes with a word at the end, as in this famous passage from Bella Peeler Silcox:The electric light invades the dunnest deep of Hades. Cries Pluto, 'twixt his snores: "O tempora! O mores!"It should be explained that Mrs. Silcox does not undertake to teach pronunciation of the Greek and Latin tongues. Leonine verses are so called in honor of a poet named Leo, whom prosodists appear to find a pleasure in believing to have been the first to discover that a rhyming couplet could be run into a single line.

EAT, v.i. To perform successively (and successfully) the functions of mastication, humectation, and deglutition.""I was in the drawing-room, enjoying my dinner,"" said Brillat- Savarin, beginning an anecdote. ""What!"" interrupted Rochebriant; ""eating dinner in a drawing-room?"" ""I must beg you to observe, monsieur,"" explained the great gastronome, ""that I did not say I was eating my dinner, but enjoying it. I had dined an hour before.