I was rushing for the station,
Had to catch the 5.11,
When he caught me, seized a button,
And began to talk—Oh, Heaven!
For the Drillig was a golfer,
And I knew he’d talk his fill;
So I cut that button off my coat—
He is talking to it still!
Ed´i-cle, n. 1. One who is educated beyond his intellect; a pedant. 2. One who is proficient in theory, but poor in practice.
In old times, they spoke of “Book learning” and worshiped the edicled fool. But we are wiser today and know the hollowness of the edicle.
The edicle is the college professor who has listened to his own talk so long that he has mistaken knowledge for wisdom. The book-worm who has learned to believe that literature is greater than life. (See Snosh.)
A woman is an edicle, who prates “new thought” and juggles the trite phrases of a philosophy too heavy for her comprehension. (See Orobaldity.) A man is an edicle when he quotes Browning or Karl Marx or Herbert Spencer. Most clergymen are edicles, and persons who rave over pictures they don’t understand.
The book reviewer who can’t write a book himself, is an edicle. The dramatic critic is an edicle, for he has failed as a playwright. (See Yowf.)
The college girl who can’t cook is an edicle; the young medico, newly graduated, with an “M.D.” painted on him still fresh, and wet and green,—a mere mass of quivering Latin words. All editors are edicles.
Josephus is an edicle,
A Doctor wise is he;
Oh, no!—not doctor medical—
Only a Ph. D.
His brain is like a phonograph’s,
And he would starve, unless
He’d started writing monographs
On “How to BE Success.”