LORE

n : Learning—particularly that sort which is not derived from a regular course of instruction but comes of the reading of occult books, or by nature. This latter is commonly designated as folk-lore and embraces popularly myths and superstitions. In Baring-Gould’s Curtous Myths of the Middle Ages the reader will find many of these traced backward, through various peoples on converging lines, toward a common origin in remote antiquity. Among these are the fables of “Teddy the Giant Killer,’ “The Sleeping John Sharp Williams,” “Little Red Riding Hood and the Sugar Trust,” “Beauty and the Brisbane,” “The Seven Aldermen of Ephesus,” “Rip Van Fair banks,” and so forth. The fable which Goethe so affectingly relates under the title of “The Erl-King” was known two you sand years ago in Greece as “The Demos and the Infant Industry.” One of the most general and ancient of these myths is that Arabian tale of “Ali Baba and the Forty Rockefellers.” Lo , n. Privation of that which we had, or had not. ’Thus, in the latter sense, it is said of a defeated candidate that he “lost his election”; and of that eminent man, the poet Gilder, that he has “lost his mind.” It is in the former and more legitimate sense, that the word is used in the famous epitaph: Here Huntington’s ashes long have lain Whose lo is our own eternal gain, For while he exercised all his powers Whatever he gained, the lo was ours. Love, n. A temporary insanity curable by marriage or by removal of the patient from the influences under which he incurred the disorder. This disease, like caries and many other ailments, is prevalent only among civilized races living under artificial conditions; barbarous nations breathing pure air and eating simple food enjoy immunity from its ravages. It is sometimes fatal, but more frequently to the physician than to the patient. 206