The Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce (best english books to read TXT) 📖

An instrument used chiefly for the purpose of putting dead

animals into the mouth. Formerly the knife was employed for this

purpose, and by many worthy persons is still thought to have many

advantages over the other tool, which, however, they do not altogether

reject, but use to assist in charging the knife. The immunity of

these persons from swift and awful death is one of the most striking

proofs of God’s mercy to those that hate Him.

 

FORMA PAUPERIS. [Latin] In the character of a poor person — a

method by which a litigant without money for lawyers is considerately

permitted to lose his case.

 

When Adam long ago in Cupid’s awful court

(For Cupid ruled ere Adam was invented)

Sued for Eve’s favor, says an ancient law report,

He stood and pleaded unhabilimented.

 

“You sue in forma pauperis, I see,” Eve cried;

“Actions can’t here be that way prosecuted.”

So all poor Adam’s motions coldly were denied:

He went away — as he had come — nonsuited.

 

G.J.

 

FRANKALMOIGNE, n. The tenure by which a religious corporation holds

lands on condition of praying for the soul of the donor. In mediaeval

times many of the wealthiest fraternities obtained their estates in

this simple and cheap manner, and once when Henry VIII of England sent

an officer to confiscate certain vast possessions which a fraternity

of monks held by frankalmoigne, “What!” said the Prior, “would you

master stay our benefactor’s soul in Purgatory?” “Ay,” said the

officer, coldly, “an ye will not pray him thence for naught he must

e’en roast.” “But look you, my son,” persisted the good man, “this

act hath rank as robbery of God!” “Nay, nay, good father, my master

the king doth but deliver him from the manifold temptations of too

great wealth.”

 

FREEBOOTER, n. A conqueror in a small way of business, whose

annexations lack of the sanctifying merit of magnitude.

 

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.

 

Freedom, as every schoolboy knows,

Once shrieked as Kosciusko fell;

On every wind, indeed, that blows

I hear her yell.

 

She screams whenever monarchs meet,

And parliaments as well,

To bind the chains about her feet

And toll her knell.

 

And when the sovereign people cast

The votes they cannot spell,

Upon the pestilential blast

Her clamors swell.

 

For all to whom the power’s given

To sway or to compel,

Among themselves apportion Heaven

And give her Hell.

 

Blary O’Gary

 

FREEMASONS, n. An order with secret rites, grotesque ceremonies and

fantastic costumes, which, originating in the reign of Charles II,

among working artisans of London, has been joined successively by the

dead of past centuries in unbroken retrogression until now it embraces

all the generations of man on the hither side of Adam and is drumming

up distinguished recruits among the pre-Creational inhabitants of

Chaos and Formless Void. The order was founded at different times by

Charlemagne, Julius Caesar, Cyrus, Solomon, Zoroaster, Confucious,

Thothmes, and Buddha. Its emblems and symbols have been found in the

Catacombs of Paris and Rome, on the stones of the Parthenon and the

Chinese Great Wall, among the temples of Karnak and Palmyra and in the

Egyptian Pyramids — always by a Freemason.

 

FRIENDLESS, adj. Having no favors to bestow. Destitute of fortune.

Addicted to utterance of truth and common sense.

 

FRIENDSHIP, n. A ship big enough to carry two in fair weather, but

only one in foul.

 

The sea was calm and the sky was blue;

Merrily, merrily sailed we two.

(High barometer maketh glad.)

On the tipsy ship, with a dreadful shout,

The tempest descended and we fell out.

(O the walking is nasty bad!)

 

Armit Huff Bettle

 

FROG, n. A reptile with edible legs. The first mention of frogs in

profane literature is in Homer’s narrative of the war between them and

the mice. Skeptical persons have doubted Homer’s authorship of the

work, but the learned, ingenious and industrious Dr. Schliemann has

set the question forever at rest by uncovering the bones of the slain

frogs. One of the forms of moral suasion by which Pharaoh was

besought to favor the Israelities was a plague of frogs, but Pharaoh,

who liked them fricasees, remarked, with truly oriental stoicism,

that he could stand it as long as the frogs and the Jews could; so the

programme was changed. The frog is a diligent songster, having a good

voice but no ear. The libretto of his favorite opera, as written by

Aristophanes, is brief, simple and effective — “brekekex-koax”; the

music is apparently by that eminent composer, Richard Wagner. Horses

have a frog in each hoof — a thoughtful provision of nature, enabling

them to shine in a hurdle race.

 

FRYING-PAN, n. One part of the penal apparatus employed in that

punitive institution, a woman’s kitchen. The frying-pan was invented

by Calvin, and by him used in cooking span-long infants that had died

without baptism; and observing one day the horrible torment of a tramp

who had incautiously pulled a fried babe from the waste-dump and

devoured it, it occurred to the great divine to rob death of its

terrors by introducing the frying-pan into every household in Geneva.

Thence it spread to all corners of the world, and has been of

invaluable assistance in the propagation of his sombre faith. The

following lines (said to be from the pen of his Grace Bishop Potter)

seem to imply that the usefulness of this utensil is not limited to

this world; but as the consequences of its employment in this life

reach over into the life to come, so also itself may be found on the

other side, rewarding its devotees:

 

Old Nick was summoned to the skies.

Said Peter: “Your intentions

Are good, but you lack enterprise

Concerning new inventions.

 

“Now, broiling in an ancient plan

Of torment, but I hear it

Reported that the frying-pan

Sears best the wicked spirit.

 

“Go get one — fill it up with fat —

Fry sinners brown and good in’t.”

“I know a trick worth two o’ that,”

Said Nick — “I’ll cook their food in’t.”

 

FUNERAL, n. A pageant whereby we attest our respect for the dead by

enriching the undertaker, and strengthen our grief by an expenditure

that deepens our groans and doubles our tears.

 

The savage dies — they sacrifice a horse

To bear to happy hunting-grounds the corse.

Our friends expire — we make the money fly

In hope their souls will chase it to the sky.

 

Jex Wopley

 

FUTURE, n. That period of time in which our affairs prosper, our

friends are true and our happiness is assured.

G

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.

 

Whether on the gallows high

Or where blood flows the reddest,

The noblest place for man to die —

Is where he died the deadest.

 

(Old play)

 

GARGOYLE, n. A rain-spout projecting from the eaves of mediaeval

buildings, commonly fashioned into a grotesque caricature of some

personal enemy of the architect or owner of the building. This was

especially the case in churches and ecclesiastical structures

generally, in which the gargoyles presented a perfect rogues’ gallery

of local heretics and controversialists. Sometimes when a new dean

and chapter were installed the old gargoyles were removed and others

substituted having a closer relation to the private animosities of the

new incumbents.

 

GARTHER, n. An elastic band intended to keep a woman from coming out

of her stockings and desolating the country.

 

GENEROUS, adj. Originally this word meant noble by birth and was

rightly applied to a great multitude of persons. It now means noble

by nature and is taking a bit of a rest.

 

GENEALOGY, n. An account of one’s descent from an ancestor who did

not particularly care to trace his own.

 

GENTEEL, adj. Refined, after the fashion of a gent.

 

Observe with care, my son, the distinction I reveal:

A gentleman is gentle and a gent genteel.

Heed not the definitions your “Unabridged” presents,

For dictionary makers are generally gents.

 

G.J.

 

GEOGRAPHER, n. A chap who can tell you offhand the difference between

the outside of the world and the inside.

 

Habeam, geographer of wide reknown,

Native of Abu-Keber’s ancient town,

In passing thence along the river Zam

To the adjacent village of Xelam,

Bewildered by the multitude of roads,

Got lost, lived long on migratory toads,

Then from exposure miserably died,

And grateful travelers bewailed their guide.

 

Henry Haukhorn

 

GEOLOGY, n. The science of the earth’s crust — to which, doubtless,

will be added that of its interior whenever a man shall come up

garrulous out of a well. The geological formations of the globe

already noted are catalogued thus: The Primary, or lower one,

consists of rocks, bones or mired mules, gas-pipes, miners’ tools,

antique statues minus the nose, Spanish doubloons and ancestors. The

Secondary is largely made up of red worms and moles. The Tertiary

comprises railway tracks, patent pavements, grass, snakes, mouldy

boots, beer bottles, tomato cans, intoxicated citizens, garbage,

anarchists, snap-dogs and fools.

 

GHOST, n. The outward and visible sign of an inward fear.

 

He saw a ghost.

It occupied — that dismal thing! —

The path that he was following.

Before he’d time to stop and fly,

An earthquake trifled with the eye

That saw a ghost.

He fell as fall the early good;

Unmoved that awful vision stood.

The stars that danced before his ken

He wildly brushed away, and then

He saw a post.

 

Jared Macphester

 

Accounting for the uncommon behavior of ghosts, Heine mentions

somebody’s ingenious theory to the effect that they are as much

afraid of us as we of them. Not quite, if I may judge from such

tables of comparative speed as I am able to compile from memories of

my own experience.

There is one insuperable obstacle to a belief in ghosts. A ghost

never comes naked: he appears either in a winding-sheet or “in his

habit as he lived.” To believe in him, then, is to believe that not

only have the dead the power to make themselves visible after there is

nothing left of them, but that the same power inheres in textile

fabrics. Supposing the products of the loom to have this ability,

what object would they have in exercising it? And why does not the

apparition of a suit of clothes sometimes walk abroad without a ghost

in it? These be riddles of significance. They reach away down and

get a convulsive grip on the very tap-root of this flourishing faith.

 

GHOUL, n. A demon addicted to the reprehensible habit of devouring

the dead. The existence of ghouls has been disputed by that class of

controversialists who are more concerned to deprive the world of

comforting beliefs than to give it anything good in their place. In

1640 Father Secchi saw one in a cemetery near Florence and frightened

it away with the sign of the cross. He describes it as gifted with

many heads an an uncommon allowance of limbs, and he saw it in more

than one place at a time. The good man was coming away from dinner at

the time and explains that if he had not been “heavy with eating” he

would have seized the demon at all hazards. Atholston relates that a

ghoul was