Pocket.—Great Expectations, Dickens. Name of a family prominent in the story.
Pocket.—A real scholar, educated at Harrow, and an honor-man at Cambridge, but, having married young, he had to take up the calling of “grinder” and literary fag for a living. Pip was placed in his care.
Pocket, Herbert.—Son of Mr. Matthew Pocket, wonderfully hopeful, but had not the stuff to push his way into wealth.
Pocket, Mrs.—Daughter of a city knight, brought up to be an ornamental nonentity, helpless, shiftless, and useless. She was the mother of eight children, whom she allowed to “tumble up” as best they could, under the charge of her maid, Flopson.
Pocket, Sarah.—Sister of Matthew Pocket, a little, dry, old woman, with a small face that might have been made of walnut-shell, and a large mouth.
Poor Richard’s Almanac.—An almanac published by Benjamin Franklin, 1732-1757, noted for its maxims. He made it the medium for teaching thrift, temperance, order, cleanliness, chastity, forgiveness, and so on. The maxims or precepts of these almanacs generally end with the words, “as poor Richard says.”
Portia (pôr´shiä).—In The Merchant of Venice, a rich heiress, whose hand and fortune hang upon the right choosing between a gold, a silver, and a leaden casket. She is in love with Bassanio, who, luckily, chooses well. She appears at the trial of Antonio as a “young doctor of Rome,” named Balthazar.
Poyser (poi´zer), Mrs.—A character in Adam Bede. Some of her wonderfully shrewd and humorous observations have passed into the language. Here are some specimens: “It seems as if them as aren’t wanted here are th’ only folks as aren’t wanted in the other world.” “I’m not denyin’ the women are foolish; God Almighty made ’em to match the men.” “It’s hard to tell which is Old Harry when everybody’s got boots on.” “There’s many a good bit o’ work done with a sad heart.” “It’s poor work allays settin’ the dead above the livin’. It ’ud be better if folks ’ud make much on us beforehand, istid o’ beginning when we’re gone.” “Some folks’ tongues are like the clocks as run on strikin’ not to tell you the time of day, but because there’s summat wrong in their own inside.”
Précieuses Ridicules (prā-syuz´ ri-di-kul´), Les.—A comedy by Molière, in ridicule of the Précieuses, as they were styled, forming the coterie of the Hotel de Rambouillet in the seventeenth century. The soirées held in this hotel were a great improvement on the licentious assemblies of the period; but many imitators made the thing ridiculous, because they lacked the same presiding talent and good taste.
The two girls of Molière’s comedy are Madelon and Cathos, the daughter and niece of Gargibus, a bourgeois. They change their names to Polixène and Aminte, which they think more genteel, and look on the affectations of two flunkies as far more distingués than the simple, gentlemanly manners of their masters. However, they are cured of their folly, and no harm comes of it.