INK, N. A Villainous Compound Of Tannogallate Of Iron, Gum-arabic And
Water, Chiefly Used To Facilitate The Infection Of Idiocy And Promote
Intellectual Crime.
INK, n. A villainous compound of tannogallate of iron, gum-arabic and
water, chiefly used to facilitate the infection of idiocy and promote
intellectual crime. The properties of ink are peculiar and
contradictory: it may be used to make reputations and unmake them; to
blacken them and to make them white; but it is most generally and
acceptably employed as a mortar to bind together the stones of an
edifice of fame, and as a whitewash to conceal afterward the rascal
quality of the material. There are men called journalists who have
established ink baths which some persons pay money to get into, others
to get out of. Not infrequently it occurs that a person who has paid
to get in pays twice as much to get out.
-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
