Chapter Planet-struck to Pleasure of P by Brewer's Phrase & Fable

dodecahedron, and icosahedron, all of which are bounded by like, equal, and regular planes.

Platonic Love Spiritual love between persons of opposite sexes. It is the friendship of man and woman, without mixture of what is usually called love. Plato strongly advocated this pure affection, and hence its distinctive name.

Platonic Puritan (The). John Howe, the Nonconformist divine. (1630-1706.)

Platonism The philosophical system of Plato; dialectics. Locke maintains that the mind is by nature a sheet of white paper, the five senses being the doors of knowledge. Plato maintained the opposite theory, drawing a strong line of demarcation between the province of thought and that of sensations in the production of ideas. (See Dialectics. )
   It is characterised by the doctrine of pre-existing eternal ideas, and teaches the immortality and pre-existence of the soul, the dependence of virtue upon discipline, and the trust worthiness of cognition.
   In theology, he taught that there are two eternal, primary, independent, and incorruptible causes of material things- God the maker, and matter the substance.
   In psychology, he maintained the ultimate unity and mutual dependence of all knowledge.
   In physics, he said that God is the measure of all things, and that from God, in whom reason and being are one, proceed human reason and those “ideas” or laws which constitute all that can do called real in nature.

Platter with Two Eyes (A). Emblematic of St. Lucy, in allusion to her sending her two eyes to a nobleman who wanted to marry her for the exceeding beauty of her eyes. (See Lucy. )

Play “This may be play to you, `tis death to us.” The allusion is to the fable of the boys throwing stones at some frogs. (Roger L'Estrange.)
   As good as a play. So said King Charles when he attended the discussion of Lord Ross's “Divorce Bill.”

Play the Deuce The Irish say, Play the pooka. Pooka or Pouke is an evil spirit in the form of a wild colt, who does great hurt to benighted travellers.

Played Out Out of date; no longer in vogue; exhausted.

“Valentines, I suppose, are played ont, said Milton.”- Truth: Queer Story, Feb. 18, 1886.

Playing to the Gods Degrading one's vocation ad captandum vulgus. The gods, in theatrical phrase, are the spectators in the uppermost gallery, the ignobile vulgus. The ceiling of Drury Lane theatre was at one time painted in imitation of the sky, with Cupids and other deities here and there represented. As the gallery referred to was near the ceiling, the occupants were called the gods. In French this gallery is nick-named paradis.

Please the Pigs (See under Pigs. )

Pleased as Punch Greatly delighted. Our old friend Punch is always singing with self-satisfaction in all his naughty ways, and his evident “pleasure” is contageous to the beholders.

“You could skip over to Europe whenever you liked; mamma would be pleased as Punch.”- R. Grant.

Pleasure It was Xerxes who offered a reward to anyone who could invent a new pleasure.