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

heard —

All save one who spake never a word,

But sat as mum

As if deaf and dumb,

Serene, indifferent and unstirred.

Then all the others turned to him

And scrutinized him limb from limb —

Scanned him alive;

But he seemed to thrive

And tranquiler grow each minute,

As if there were nothing in it.

“What! what!” cried one, “are you not amazed

At what our friend has told?” He raised

Soberly then his eyes and gazed

In a natural way

And proceeded to say,

As he crossed his feet on the mantel-shelf:

“O no — not at all; I’m a liar myself.”

 

IMPROVIDENCE, n. Provision for the needs of to-day from the revenues

of to-morrow.

 

IMPUNITY, n. Wealth.

 

INADMISSIBLE, adj. Not competent to be considered. Said of certain

kinds of testimony which juries are supposed to be unfit to be

entrusted with, and which judges, therefore, rule out, even of

proceedings before themselves alone. Hearsay evidence is inadmissible

because the person quoted was unsworn and is not before the court for

examination; yet most momentous actions, military, political,

commercial and of every other kind, are daily undertaken on hearsay

evidence. There is no religion in the world that has any other basis

than hearsay evidence. Revelation is hearsay evidence; that the

Scriptures are the word of God we have only the testimony of men long

dead whose identity is not clearly established and who are not known

to have been sworn in any sense. Under the rules of evidence as they

now exist in this country, no single assertion in the Bible has in its

support any evidence admissible in a court of law. It cannot be

proved that the battle of Blenheim ever was fought, that there was

such as person as Julius Caesar, such an empire as Assyria.

 

But as records of courts of justice are admissible, it can easily

be proved that powerful and malevolent magicians once existed and were

a scourge to mankind. The evidence (including confession) upon which

certain women were convicted of witchcraft and executed was without a

flaw; it is still unimpeachable. The judges’ decisions based on it

were sound in logic and in law. Nothing in any existing court was

ever more thoroughly proved than the charges of witchcraft and sorcery

for which so many suffered death. If there were no witches, human

testimony and human reason are alike destitute of value.

 

INAUSPICIOUSLY, adv. In an unpromising manner, the auspices being

unfavorable. Among the Romans it was customary before undertaking any

important action or enterprise to obtain from the augurs, or state

prophets, some hint of its probable outcome; and one of their favorite

and most trustworthy modes of divination consisted in observing the

flight of birds — the omens thence derived being called auspices.

Newspaper reporters and certain miscreant lexicographers have decided

that the word — always in the plural — shall mean “patronage” or

“management”; as, “The festivities were under the auspices of the

Ancient and Honorable Order of Body-Snatchers”; or, “The hilarities

were auspicated by the Knights of Hunger.”

 

A Roman slave appeared one day

Before the Augur. “Tell me, pray,

If —” here the Augur, smiling, made

A checking gesture and displayed

His open palm, which plainly itched,

For visibly its surface twitched.

A denarius (the Latin nickel)

Successfully allayed the tickle,

And then the slave proceeded: “Please

Inform me whether Fate decrees

Success or failure in what I

To-night (if it be dark) shall try.

Its nature? Never mind — I think

‘Tis writ on this” — and with a wink

Which darkened half the earth, he drew

Another denarius to view,

Its shining face attentive scanned,

Then slipped it into the good man’s hand,

Who with great gravity said: “Wait

While I retire to question Fate.”

That holy person then withdrew

His scared clay and, passing through

The temple’s rearward gate, cried “Shoo!”

Waving his robe of office. Straight

Each sacred peacock and its mate

(Maintained for Juno’s favor) fled

With clamor from the trees o’erhead,

Where they were perching for the night.

The temple’s roof received their flight,

For thither they would always go,

When danger threatened them below.

Back to the slave the Augur went:

“My son, forecasting the event

By flight of birds, I must confess

The auspices deny success.”

That slave retired, a sadder man,

Abandoning his secret plan —

Which was (as well the craft seer

Had from the first divined) to clear

The wall and fraudulently seize

On Juno’s poultry in the trees.

 

G.J.

 

INCOME, n. The natural and rational gauge and measure of

respectability, the commonly accepted standards being artificial,

arbitrary and fallacious; for, as “Sir Sycophas Chrysolater” in the

play has justly remarked, “the true use and function of property (in

whatsoever it consisteth — coins, or land, or houses, or merchant-stuff, or anything which may be named as holden of right to one’s own

subservience) as also of honors, titles, preferments and place, and

all favor and acquaintance of persons of quality or ableness, are but

to get money. Hence it followeth that all things are truly to be

rated as of worth in measure of their serviceableness to that end; and

their possessors should take rank in agreement thereto, neither the

lord of an unproducing manor, howsoever broad and ancient, nor he who

bears an unremunerate dignity, nor yet the pauper favorite of a king,

being esteemed of level excellency with him whose riches are of daily

accretion; and hardly should they whose wealth is barren claim and

rightly take more honor than the poor and unworthy.”

 

INCOMPATIBILITY, n. In matrimony a similarity of tastes, particularly

the taste for domination. Incompatibility may, however, consist of a

meek-eyed matron living just around the corner. It has even been

known to wear a moustache.

 

INCOMPOSSIBLE, adj. Unable to exist if something else exists. Two

things are incompossible when the world of being has scope enough for

one of them, but not enough for both — as Walt Whitman’s poetry and

God’s mercy to man. Incompossibility, it will be seen, is only

incompatibility let loose. Instead of such low language as “Go heel

yourself — I mean to kill you on sight,” the words, “Sir, we are

incompossible,” would convey and equally significant intimation and in

stately courtesy are altogether superior.

 

INCUBUS, n. One of a race of highly improper demons who, though

probably not wholly extinct, may be said to have seen their best

nights. For a complete account of incubi and succubi, including

incubae and succubae, see the Liber Demonorum of Protassus

(Paris, 1328), which contains much curious information that would be

out of place in a dictionary intended as a text-book for the public

schools.

Victor Hugo relates that in the Channel Islands Satan himself —

tempted more than elsewhere by the beauty of the women, doubtless —

sometimes plays at incubus, greatly to the inconvenience and alarm

of the good dames who wish to be loyal to their marriage vows,

generally speaking. A certain lady applied to the parish priest to

learn how they might, in the dark, distinguish the hardy intruder from

their husbands. The holy man said they must feel his brown for horns;

but Hugo is ungallant enough to hint a doubt of the efficacy of the

test.

 

INCUMBENT, n. A person of the liveliest interest to the outcumbents.

 

INDECISION, n. The chief element of success; “for whereas,” saith Sir

Thomas Brewbold, “there is but one way to do nothing and divers way to

do something, whereof, to a surety, only one is the right way, it

followeth that he who from indecision standeth still hath not so many

chances of going astray as he who pusheth forwards” — a most clear

and satisfactory exposition on the matter.

“Your prompt decision to attack,” said Genera Grant on a certain

occasion to General Gordon Granger, “was admirable; you had but five

minutes to make up your mind in.”

“Yes, sir,” answered the victorious subordinate, “it is a great

thing to be know exactly what to do in an emergency. When in doubt

whether to attack or retreat I never hesitate a moment — I toss us a

copper.”

“Do you mean to say that’s what you did this time?”

“Yes, General; but for Heaven’s sake don’t reprimand me: I

disobeyed the coin.”

 

INDIFFERENT, adj. Imperfectly sensible to distinctions among things.

 

“You tiresome man!” cried Indolentio’s wife,

“You’ve grown indifferent to all in life.”

“Indifferent?” he drawled with a slow smile;

“I would be, dear, but it is not worth while.”

 

Apuleius M. Gokul

 

INDIGESTION, n. A disease which the patient and his friends

frequently mistake for deep religious conviction and concern for the

salvation of mankind. As the simple Red Man of the western wild put

it, with, it must be confessed, a certain force: “Plenty well, no

pray; big bellyache, heap God.”

 

INDISCRETION, n. The guilt of woman.

 

INEXPEDIENT, adj. Not calculated to advance one’s interests.

 

INFANCY, n. The period of our lives when, according to Wordsworth,

“Heaven lies about us.” The world begins lying about us pretty soon

afterward.

 

INFERIAE,n. [Latin] Among the Greeks and Romans, sacrifices for

propitiation of the Dii Manes, or souls of the dead heroes; for the

pious ancients could not invent enough gods to satisfy their spiritual

needs, and had to have a number of makeshift deities, or, as a sailor

might say, jury-gods, which they made out of the most unpromising

materials. It was while sacrificing a bullock to the spirit of

Agamemnon that Laiaides, a priest of Aulis, was favored with an

audience of that illustrious warrior’s shade, who prophetically

recounted to him the birth of Christ and the triumph of Christianity,

giving him also a rapid but tolerably complete review of events down

to the reign of Saint Louis. The narrative ended abruptly at the

point, owing to the inconsiderate crowing of a cock, which compelled

the ghosted King of Men to scamper back to Hades. There is a fine

mediaeval flavor to this story, and as it has not been traced back

further than Pere Brateille, a pious but obscure writer at the court

of Saint Louis, we shall probably not err on the side of presumption

in considering it apocryphal, though Monsignor Capel’s judgment of the

matter might be different; and to that I bow — wow.

 

INFIDEL, n. In New York, one who does not believe in the Christian

religion; in Constantinople, one who does. (See GIAOUR.) A kind of

scoundrel imperfectly reverent of, and niggardly contributory to,

divines, ecclesiastics, popes, parsons, canons, monks, mollahs,

voodoos, presbyters, hierophants, prelates, obeah-men, abbes, nuns,

missionaries, exhorters, deacons, friars, hadjis, high-priests,

muezzins, brahmins, medicine-men, confessors, eminences, elders,

primates, prebendaries, pilgrims, prophets, imaums, beneficiaries,

clerks, vicars-choral, archbishops, bishops, abbots, priors,

preachers, padres, abbotesses, caloyers, palmers, curates, patriarchs,

bonezs, santons, beadsmen, canonesses, residentiaries, diocesans,

deans, subdeans, rural deans, abdals, charm-sellers, archdeacons,

hierarchs, class-leaders, incumbents, capitulars, sheiks, talapoins,

postulants, scribes, gooroos, precentors, beadles, fakeers, sextons,

reverences, revivalists, cenobites, perpetual curates, chaplains,

mudjoes, readers, novices, vicars, pastors, rabbis, ulemas, lamas,

sacristans, vergers, dervises, lectors, church wardens, cardinals,

prioresses, suffragans, acolytes, rectors, cures, sophis, mutifs and

pumpums.

 

INFLUENCE, n. In politics, a visionary quo given in exchange for a

substantial quid.

 

INFALAPSARIAN, n. One who ventures to believe that Adam need not have

sinned unless he had a mind to — in opposition to the

Supralapsarians, who hold that that luckless person’s fall was decreed

from the beginning. Infralapsarians are sometimes called

Sublapsarians without material effect upon the importance and lucidity

of their views about Adam.

 

Two theologues once, as they wended their way

To chapel, engaged in colloquial fray —

An earnest logomachy, bitter as gall,

Concerning poor Adam and what made him fall.

“‘Twas Predestination,” cried one