Ambrose Bierce gives
us, in resolute resolution, the meanings of words which otherwise would be
plots of unintelligible confusion. Here
are a few of his more amusing denouements.
Take care, because
if you read enough of him, you start speaking and writing like him, words
flying from the tongue or typewriter like a sermon from a holy roller bible thumper.
Huh?
Enjoy a day of
respite from boats on the rocks and priests in a snit.
______________________________
DICTIONARY, n. A
malevolent literary device for cramping the growth of a language and making it
hard and inelastic.
ELECTOR, n. One who
enjoys the sacred privilege of voting for the man of another man's choice.
EVANGELIST, n. A
bearer of good tidings, particularly (in a religious sense) such as assure us
of our own salvation and the damnation of our neighbors.
EXILE, n. One who
serves his country by residing abroad, yet is not an ambassador.
FIDDLE, n. An
instrument to tickle human ears by friction of a horse's tail on the entrails
of a cat.
FOOL, n. A person
who pervades the domain of intellectual speculation and diffuses himself
through the channels of moral activity. He is omnific, omniform,
omnipercipient, omniscient, omnipotent. He it was who invented letters,
printing, the railroad, the steamboat, the telegraph, the platitude and the
circle of the sciences. He created patriotism and taught the nations
war—founded theology, philosophy, law, medicine and Chicago. He established
monarchical and republican government. He is from everlasting to
everlasting—such as creation's dawn beheld he fooleth now. In the morning of
time he sang upon primitive hills, and in the noonday of existence headed the
procession of being. His grandmotherly hand was warmly tucked-in the set sun of
civilization, and in the twilight he prepares Man's evening meal of
milk-and-morality and turns down the covers of the universal grave. And after
the rest of us shall have retired for the night of eternal oblivion he will sit
up to write a history of human civilization.
FREEDOM, n.
Exemption from the stress of authority in a beggarly half dozen of restraint's
infinite multitude of methods. A political condition that every nation supposes
itself to enjoy in virtual monopoly. Liberty. The distinction between freedom
and liberty is not accurately known; naturalists have never been able to find a
living specimen of either.
GALLOWS, n. A stage
for the performance of miracle plays, in which the leading actor is translated
to heaven. In this country the gallows is chiefly remarkable for the number of
persons who escape it.
GRAVITATION, n. The
tendency of all bodies to approach one another with a strength proportion to
the quantity of matter they contain— the quantity of matter they contain being
ascertained by the strength of their tendency to approach one another. This is
a lovely and edifying illustration of how science, having made A the proof of
B, makes B the proof of A.
HAND, n. A singular
instrument worn at the end of the human arm and commonly thrust into somebody's
pocket.
HAPPINESS, n. An
agreeable sensation arising from contemplating the misery of another.
HASH, x. There is no
definition for this word—nobody knows what hash is.
HELPMATE, n. A wife,
or bitter half.
IMAGINATION, n. A
warehouse of facts, with poet and liar in joint ownership.
JUSTICE, n. A
commodity which is a more or less adulterated condition the State sells to the
citizen as a reward for his allegiance, taxes and personal service.
MAGNIFICENT, adj.
Having a grandeur or splendor superior to that to which the spectator is
accustomed, as the ears of an ass, to a rabbit, or the glory of a glowworm, to
a maggot.
MAN, n. An animal so
lost in rapturous contemplation of what he thinks he is as to overlook what he
indubitably ought to be. His chief occupation is extermination of other animals
and his own species, which, however, multiplies with such insistent rapidity as
to infest the whole habitable earth and Canada.
NOMINATE, v. To
designate for the heaviest political assessment. To put forward a suitable
person to incur the mudgobbling and deadcatting of the opposition.
NON-COMBATANT, n. A
dead Quaker.
OMEN, n. A sign that
something will happen if nothing happens.
REAR, n. In American
military matters, that exposed part of the army that is nearest to Congress.
REBEL, n. A
proponent of a new misrule who has failed to establish it.
RED-SKIN, n. A North
American Indian, whose skin is not red—at least not on the outside.
SCRIPTURES, n. The
sacred books of our holy religion, as distinguished from the false and profane
writings on which all other faiths are based.
TRIAL,
n. A formal inquiry designed to prove and put upon record the blameless
characters of judges, advocates and jurors. In order to effect this purpose it
is necessary to supply a contrast in the person of one who is called the
defendant, the prisoner, or the accused. If the contrast is made sufficiently
clear this person is made to undergo such an affliction as will give the
virtuous gentlemen a comfortable sense of their immunity, added to that of
their worth. In our day the accused is usually a human being, or a socialist,
but in mediaeval times, animals, fishes, reptiles and insects were brought to
trial. A beast that had taken human life, or practiced sorcery, was duly
arrested, tried and, if condemned, put to death by the public executioner. Insects
ravaging grain fields, orchards or vineyards were cited to appeal by counsel
before a civil tribunal, and after testimony, argument and condemnation, if
they continued in contumaciam the
matter was taken to a high ecclesiastical court, where they were solemnly
excommunicated and anathematized. In a street of Toledo, some pigs that had
wickedly run between the viceroy's legs, upsetting him, were arrested on a
warrant, tried and punished. In Naples and ass was condemned to be burned at
the stake, but the sentence appears not to have been executed. D'Addosio
relates from the court records many trials of pigs, bulls, horses, cocks, dogs,
goats, etc., greatly, it is believed, to the betterment of their conduct and
morals. In 1451 a suit was brought against the leeches infesting some ponds
about Berne, and the Bishop of Lausanne, instructed by the faculty of
Heidelberg University, directed that some of "the aquatic worms" be
brought before the local magistracy. This was done and the leeches, both
present and absent, were ordered to leave the places that they had infested
within three days on pain of incurring "the malediction of God." In
the voluminous records of this cause celebre nothing is found to show whether the
offenders braved the punishment, or departed forthwith out of that inhospitable
jurisdiction.
ULTIMATUM, n. In
diplomacy, a last demand before resorting to concessions.
VOTE, n. The
instrument and symbol of a freeman's power to make a fool of himself and a
wreck of his country.
WOMAN,
n.
An animal usually living in the vicinity of Man,
and having a
rudimentary susceptibility to domestication. It is credited by
many of the elder zoologists with a certain vestigial docility
acquired in a former state of seclusion, but naturalists of the
postsusananthony period, having no knowledge of the seclusion,
deny the virtue and declare that such as creation's dawn beheld,
it roareth now. The species is the most widely distributed of all
beasts of prey, infesting all habitable parts of the globe, from
Greeland's spicy mountains to India's moral strand. The popular
name (wolfman) is incorrect, for the creature is of the cat kind.
The woman is lithe and graceful in its movement, especially the
American variety (felis pugnans), is omnivorous and can be
taught not to talk.
rudimentary susceptibility to domestication. It is credited by
many of the elder zoologists with a certain vestigial docility
acquired in a former state of seclusion, but naturalists of the
postsusananthony period, having no knowledge of the seclusion,
deny the virtue and declare that such as creation's dawn beheld,
it roareth now. The species is the most widely distributed of all
beasts of prey, infesting all habitable parts of the globe, from
Greeland's spicy mountains to India's moral strand. The popular
name (wolfman) is incorrect, for the creature is of the cat kind.
The woman is lithe and graceful in its movement, especially the
American variety (felis pugnans), is omnivorous and can be
taught not to talk.
Balthasar
Pober
______________
Excerpts
are from the
Gutenberg Library, "The Devil's Dictionary", by Ambrose Bierce
