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

>while maturing a plan of revenge.

 

LONGEVITY, n. Uncommon extension of the fear of death.

 

LOOKING-GLASS, n. A vitreous plane upon which to display a fleeting

show for man’s disillusion given.

The King of Manchuria had a magic looking-glass, whereon whoso

looked saw, not his own image, but only that of the king. A certain

courtier who had long enjoyed the king’s favor and was thereby

enriched beyond any other subject of the realm, said to the king:

“Give me, I pray, thy wonderful mirror, so that when absent out of

thine august presence I may yet do homage before thy visible shadow,

prostrating myself night and morning in the glory of thy benign

countenance, as which nothing has so divine splendor, O Noonday Sun of

the Universe!”

Please with the speech, the king commanded that the mirror be

conveyed to the courtier’s palace; but after, having gone thither

without apprisal, he found it in an apartment where was naught but

idle lumber. And the mirror was dimmed with dust and overlaced with

cobwebs. This so angered him that he fisted it hard, shattering the

glass, and was sorely hurt. Enraged all the more by this mischance,

he commanded that the ungrateful courtier be thrown into prison, and

that the glass be repaired and taken back to his own palace; and this

was done. But when the king looked again on the mirror he saw not his

image as before, but only the figure of a crowned ass, having a bloody

bandage on one of its hinder hooves — as the artificers and all who

had looked upon it had before discerned but feared to report. Taught

wisdom and charity, the king restored his courtier to liberty, had the

mirror set into the back of the throne and reigned many years with

justice and humility; and one day when he fell asleep in death while

on the throne, the whole court saw in the mirror the luminous figure

of an angel, which remains to this day.

 

LOQUACITY, n. A disorder which renders the sufferer unable to curb

his tongue when you wish to talk.

 

LORD, n. In American society, an English tourist above the state of a

costermonger, as, lord ‘Aberdasher, Lord Hartisan and so forth. The

traveling Briton of lesser degree is addressed as “Sir,” as, Sir ‘Arry

Donkiboi, or ‘Amstead ‘Eath. The word “Lord” is sometimes used, also,

as a title of the Supreme Being; but this is thought to be rather

flattery than true reverence.

 

Miss Sallie Ann Splurge, of her own accord,

Wedded a wandering English lord —

Wedded and took him to dwell with her “paw,”

A parent who throve by the practice of Draw.

Lord Cadde I don’t hesitate to declare

Unworthy the father-in-legal care

Of that elderly sport, notwithstanding the truth

That Cadde had renounced all the follies of youth;

For, sad to relate, he’d arrived at the stage

Of existence that’s marked by the vices of age.

Among them, cupidity caused him to urge

Repeated demands on the pocket of Splurge,

Till, wrecked in his fortune, that gentleman saw

Inadequate aid in the practice of Draw,

And took, as a means of augmenting his pelf,

To the business of being a lord himself.

His neat-fitting garments he wilfully shed

And sacked himself strangely in checks instead;

Denuded his chin, but retained at each ear

A whisker that looked like a blasted career.

He painted his neck an incarnadine hue

Each morning and varnished it all that he knew.

The moony monocular set in his eye

Appeared to be scanning the Sweet Bye-and-Bye.

His head was enroofed with a billycock hat,

And his low-necked shoes were aduncous and flat.

In speech he eschewed his American ways,

Denying his nose to the use of his A’s

And dulling their edge till the delicate sense

Of a babe at their temper could take no offence.

His H’s — ‘twas most inexpressibly sweet,

The patter they made as they fell at his feet!

Re-outfitted thus, Mr. Splurge without fear

Began as Lord Splurge his recouping career.

Alas, the Divinity shaping his end

Entertained other views and decided to send

His lordship in horror, despair and dismay

From the land of the nobleman’s natural prey.

For, smit with his Old World ways, Lady Cadde

Fell — suffering Caesar! — in love with her dad!

 

G.J.

 

LORE, n. Learning — particularly that sort which is not derived from

a regular course of instruction but comes of the reading of occult

books, or by nature. This latter is commonly designated as folk-lore

and embraces popularly myths and superstitions. In Baring-Gould’s

Curious Myths of the Middle Ages the reader will find many of these

traced backward, through various people son converging lines, toward a

common origin in remote antiquity. Among these are the fables of

“Teddy the Giant Killer,” “The Sleeping John Sharp Williams,” “Little

Red Riding Hood and the Sugar Trust,” “Beauty and the Brisbane,” “The

Seven Aldermen of Ephesus,” “Rip Van Fairbanks,” and so forth. The

fable with Goethe so affectingly relates under the title of “The Erl-King” was known two thousand years ago in Greece as “The Demos and the

Infant Industry.” One of the most general and ancient of these myths

is that Arabian tale of “Ali Baba and the Forty Rockefellers.”

 

LOSS, n. Privation of that which we had, or had not. Thus, in the

latter sense, it is said of a defeated candidate that he “lost his

election”; and of that eminent man, the poet Gilder, that he has “lost

his mind.” It is in the former and more legitimate sense, that the

word is used in the famous epitaph:

 

Here Huntington’s ashes long have lain

Whose loss is our eternal gain,

For while he exercised all his powers

Whatever he gained, the loss was ours.

 

LOVE, n. A temporary insanity curable by marriage or by removal of

the patient from the influences under which he incurred the disorder.

This disease, like caries and many other ailments, is prevalent only

among civilized races living under artificial conditions; barbarous

nations breathing pure air and eating simple food enjoy immunity from

its ravages. It is sometimes fatal, but more frequently to the

physician than to the patient.

 

LOW-BRED, adj. “Raised” instead of brought up.

 

LUMINARY, n. One who throws light upon a subject; as an editor by not

writing about it.

 

LUNARIAN, n. An inhabitant of the moon, as distinguished from

Lunatic, one whom the moon inhabits. The Lunarians have been

described by Lucian, Locke and other observers, but without much

agreement. For example, Bragellos avers their anatomical identity

with Man, but Professor Newcomb says they are more like the hill

tribes of Vermont.

 

LYRE, n. An ancient instrument of torture. The word is now used in a

figurative sense to denote the poetic faculty, as in the following

fiery lines of our great poet, Ella Wheeler Wilcox:

 

I sit astride Parnassus with my lyre,

And pick with care the disobedient wire.

That stupid shepherd lolling on his crook

With deaf attention scarcely deigns to look.

I bide my time, and it shall come at length,

When, with a Titan’s energy and strength,

I’ll grab a fistful of the strings, and O,

The word shall suffer when I let them go!

 

Farquharson Harris

M

MACE, n. A staff of office signifying authority. Its form, that of a

heavy club, indicates its original purpose and use in dissuading from

dissent.

 

MACHINATION, n. The method employed by one’s opponents in baffling

one’s open and honorable efforts to do the right thing.

 

So plain the advantages of machination

It constitutes a moral obligation,

And honest wolves who think upon’t with loathing

Feel bound to don the sheep’s deceptive clothing.

So prospers still the diplomatic art,

And Satan bows, with hand upon his heart.

 

R.S.K.

 

MACROBIAN, n. One forgotten of the gods and living to a great age.

History is abundantly supplied with examples, from Methuselah to Old

Parr, but some notable instances of longevity are less well known. A

Calabrian peasant named Coloni, born in 1753, lived so long that he

had what he considered a glimpse of the dawn of universal peace.

Scanavius relates that he knew an archbishop who was so old that he

could remember a time when he did not deserve hanging. In 1566 a

linen draper of Bristol, England, declared that he had lived five

hundred years, and that in all that time he had never told a lie.

There are instances of longevity (_macrobiosis_) in our own country.

Senator Chauncey Depew is old enough to know better. The editor of

The American, a newspaper in New York City, has a memory that goes

back to the time when he was a rascal, but not to the fact. The

President of the United States was born so long ago that many of the

friends of his youth have risen to high political and military

preferment without the assistance of personal merit. The verses

following were written by a macrobian:

 

When I was young the world was fair

And amiable and sunny.

A brightness was in all the air,

In all the waters, honey.

The jokes were fine and funny,

The statesmen honest in their views,

And in their lives, as well,

And when you heard a bit of news

‘Twas true enough to tell.

Men were not ranting, shouting, reeking,

Nor women “generally speaking.”

 

The Summer then was long indeed:

It lasted one whole season!

The sparkling Winter gave no heed

When ordered by Unreason

To bring the early peas on.

Now, where the dickens is the sense

In calling that a year

Which does no more than just commence

Before the end is near?

When I was young the year extended

From month to month until it ended.

I know not why the world has changed

To something dark and dreary,

And everything is now arranged

To make a fellow weary.

The Weather Man — I fear he

Has much to do with it, for, sure,

The air is not the same:

It chokes you when it is impure,

When pure it makes you lame.

With windows closed you are asthmatic;

Open, neuralgic or sciatic.

 

Well, I suppose this new regime

Of dun degeneration

Seems eviler than it would seem

To a better observation,

And has for compensation

Some blessings in a deep disguise

Which mortal sight has failed

To pierce, although to angels’ eyes

They’re visible unveiled.

If Age is such a boon, good land!

He’s costumed by a master hand!

 

Venable Strigg

 

MAD, adj. Affected with a high degree of intellectual independence;

not conforming to standards of thought, speech and action derived by

the conformants from study of themselves; at odds with the majority;

in short, unusual. It is noteworthy that persons are pronounced mad

by officials destitute of evidence that themselves are sane. For

illustration, this present (and illustrious) lexicographer is no

firmer in the faith of his own sanity than is any inmate of any

madhouse in the land; yet for aught he knows to the contrary, instead

of the lofty occupation that seems to him to be engaging his powers he

may really be beating his hands against the window bars of an asylum

and declaring himself Noah Webster, to the innocent delight of many

thoughtless spectators.

 

MAGDALENE, n. An inhabitant of Magdala. Popularly, a woman found

out. This definition of the word has the authority of ignorance, Mary

of Magdala being another person than the penitent woman mentioned by

St. Luke. It has also the official sanction of the governments of

Great Britain and the United States. In England the word is

pronounced Maudlin, whence maudlin, adjective, unpleasantly

sentimental. With their Maudlin for Magdalene, and their Bedlam for

Bethlehem, the English may justly boast themselves the greatest