apostrophizing addressing words to a person or thing, whether absent or present, generally in an exclamatory digression in a speech or literary writing.
Dapes inemptae “unpurchased banquet” (Latin); refers to the dairyman’s self-sufficiency in producing food.
black-puddings dark sausages made with meat and seasoned blood.
delirium tremens violent delirium resulting chiefly from excessive drinking of alcoholic liquor and characterized by sweating, trembling, anxiety, and frightening hallucinations.
flummery meaningless flattery or silly talk.
Calvinistic doctrine reference to the teachings of John Calvin (1509–1564), Swiss Protestant theologian, who emphasized salvation through God’s grace.
pernicious causing great injury, destruction, or ruin; fatal; deadly; [Rare] wicked; evil.
“as Hamlet puts it” from Hamlet 2.2.351.
“from St. Luke” refers to Luke 12:20.
“Being reviled we bless…” 1 Corinthians 4:12–13.
Tractarian derived from the Oxford Movement, which favored a return to early Catholic doctrines in the Church of England.
pantheistic relating to pantheism, the doctrine that God is not a personality, but that all laws, forces, manifestations, etc. of the universe are God; the belief that God and the universe are one and the same.
“Sigh gratis” act or feel without expecting reward; from Hamlet (Act II, Scene 2, Line 323).
carking [Archaic] worrying or being worried or anxious.
self-immolation suicide, usually by burning oneself in a public place; deliberate self-sacrifice.
phlegmatic hard to rouse to action; sluggish; dull; apathetic; calm; cool; stolid.
Centurions the commanding officers of an ancient Roman century.
Caroline date the seventeenth century, during the reign of Charles I (reigned 1625–49) or Charles II (reigned 1660–85).
