Last night, I took high-browed Harriet to the theatre, and she talked of her soul, while I perished. Oh, the rise of the curtain on that third act of farcical folly! It was a jujasm. (See Orobaldity.)
Jujasmic is it when, at night,
Your baby stops his wails;
Or when the land, at last in sight,
The seasick traveller hails.
But what are such jujasms to this—
(I hope your memory’s strong,)
That first ecstatic, rapturous kiss
You waited for, so long!
Jul´lix, n. 1. A mental affinity, with a similar taste and inclination. 2. One who knew you when you were a child.
“He speaks my own language!” Smile if you will, and call it sentimentality, but some there are, your jullixes, who laugh at the same jokes as you and weep at the same sights. Out of the ruck of social five-o’clocks you pick them, like single pearls out of dead oysters, and they shine in your memory forever. Three words spoken, and you know them as you know yourself; and you have floated lightly from ports of conventionality, never to return. (See Frime.)
Such is your jullix. It is not only that he loves your authors and your songs; not that he has been to the same queer foreign little towns that you have “discovered”—or even that she has had the same operation. Of your jullix you know far more than that—you know his soul.
When you are rich, sedate and prominent, comes one with whiskers and calls you, “Bill!” He knew you when you wore short trousers; and he, too, knows your language—that all but forgotten speech of your youth. (See Thusk.)
Is she a jullix who was once engaged to the man whom you have married? A jullix? Yes, but alas, she knows too much for friendship!
A woman’s jullix is one who knows her real age.
How Elsie stared! Did Elsie guess
What bond united her
To that girl opposite her? Yes!
It was her jullix, sure.