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

ultimate,

indivisible unit of matter. Three great scientific theories of the

structure of the universe are the molecular, the corpuscular and the

atomic. A fourth affirms, with Haeckel, the condensation of

precipitation of matter from ether — whose existence is proved by the

condensation of precipitation. The present trend of scientific

thought is toward the theory of ions. The ion differs from the

molecule, the corpuscle and the atom in that it is an ion. A fifth

theory is held by idiots, but it is doubtful if they know any more

about the matter than the others.

 

MONAD, n. The ultimate, indivisible unit of matter. (See

Molecule.) According to Leibnitz, as nearly as he seems willing to

be understood, the monad has body without bulk, and mind without

manifestation — Leibnitz knows him by the innate power of

considering. He has founded upon him a theory of the universe, which

the creature bears without resentment, for the monad is a gentleman.

Small as he is, the monad contains all the powers and possibilities

needful to his evolution into a German philosopher of the first class

— altogether a very capable little fellow. He is not to be

confounded with the microbe, or bacillus; by its inability to discern

him, a good microscope shows him to be of an entirely distinct

species.

 

MONARCH, n. A person engaged in reigning. Formerly the monarch

ruled, as the derivation of the word attests, and as many subjects

have had occasion to learn. In Russia and the Orient the monarch has

still a considerable influence in public affairs and in the

disposition of the human head, but in western Europe political

administration is mostly entrusted to his ministers, he being

somewhat preoccupied with reflections relating to the status of his

own head.

 

MONARCHICAL GOVERNMENT, n. Government.

 

MONDAY, n. In Christian countries, the day after the baseball game.

 

MONEY, n. A blessing that is of no advantage to us excepting when we

part with it. An evidence of culture and a passport to polite

society. Supportable property.

 

MONKEY, n. An arboreal animal which makes itself at home in

genealogical trees.

 

MONOSYLLABIC, adj. Composed of words of one syllable, for literary

babes who never tire of testifying their delight in the vapid compound

by appropriate googoogling. The words are commonly Saxon — that is

to say, words of a barbarous people destitute of ideas and incapable

of any but the most elementary sentiments and emotions.

 

The man who writes in Saxon

Is the man to use an ax on

 

Judibras

 

MONSIGNOR, n. A high ecclesiastical title, of which the Founder of

our religion overlooked the advantages.

 

MONUMENT, n. A structure intended to commemorate something which

either needs no commemoration or cannot be commemorated.

 

The bones of Agammemnon are a show,

And ruined is his royal monument,

 

but Agammemnon’s fame suffers no diminution in consequence. The

monument custom has its reductiones ad absurdum in monuments “to the

unknown dead” — that is to say, monuments to perpetuate the memory of

those who have left no memory.

 

MORAL, adj. Conforming to a local and mutable standard of right.

Having the quality of general expediency.

 

It is sayd there be a raunge of mountaynes in the Easte, on

one syde of the which certayn conducts are immorall, yet on the other

syde they are holden in good esteeme; wherebye the mountayneer is much

conveenyenced, for it is given to him to goe downe eyther way and act

as it shall suite his moode, withouten offence.

 

Gooke’s Meditations

 

MORE, adj. The comparative degree of too much.

 

MOUSE, n. An animal which strews its path with fainting women. As in

Rome Christians were thrown to the lions, so centuries earlier in

Otumwee, the most ancient and famous city of the world, female

heretics were thrown to the mice. Jakak-Zotp, the historian, the only

Otumwump whose writings have descended to us, says that these martyrs

met their death with little dignity and much exertion. He even

attempts to exculpate the mice (such is the malice of bigotry) by

declaring that the unfortunate women perished, some from exhaustion,

some of broken necks from falling over their own feet, and some from

lack of restoratives. The mice, he avers, enjoyed the pleasures of

the chase with composure. But if “Roman history is nine-tenths

lying,” we can hardly expect a smaller proportion of that rhetorical

figure in the annals of a people capable of so incredible cruelty to a

lovely women; for a hard heart has a false tongue.

 

MOUSQUETAIRE, n. A long glove covering a part of the arm. Worn in

New Jersey. But “mousquetaire” is a might poor way to spell

muskeeter.

 

MOUTH, n. In man, the gateway to the soul; in woman, the outlet of

the heart.

 

MUGWUMP, n. In politics one afflicted with self-respect and addicted

to the vice of independence. A term of contempt.

 

MULATTO, n. A child of two races, ashamed of both.

 

MULTITUDE, n. A crowd; the source of political wisdom and virtue. In

a republic, the object of the statesman’s adoration. “In a multitude

of counsellors there is wisdom,” saith the proverb. If many men of

equal individual wisdom are wiser than any one of them, it must be

that they acquire the excess of wisdom by the mere act of getting

together. Whence comes it? Obviously from nowhere — as well say

that a range of mountains is higher than the single mountains

composing it. A multitude is as wise as its wisest member if it obey

him; if not, it is no wiser than its most foolish.

 

MUMMY, n. An ancient Egyptian, formerly in universal use among modern

civilized nations as medicine, and now engaged in supplying art with

an excellent pigment. He is handy, too, in museums in gratifying the

vulgar curiosity that serves to distinguish man from the lower

animals.

 

By means of the Mummy, mankind, it is said,

Attests to the gods its respect for the dead.

We plunder his tomb, be he sinner or saint,

Distil him for physic and grind him for paint,

Exhibit for money his poor, shrunken frame,

And with levity flock to the scene of the shame.

O, tell me, ye gods, for the use of my rhyme:

For respecting the dead what’s the limit of time?

 

Scopas Brune

 

MUSTANG, n. An indocile horse of the western plains. In English

society, the American wife of an English nobleman.

 

MYRMIDON, n. A follower of Achilles — particularly when he didn’t

lead.

 

MYTHOLOGY, n. The body of a primitive people’s beliefs concerning its

origin, early history, heroes, deities and so forth, as distinguished

from the true accounts which it invents later.

N

NECTAR, n. A drink served at banquets of the Olympian deities. The

secret of its preparation is lost, but the modern Kentuckians believe

that they come pretty near to a knowledge of its chief ingredient.

 

Juno drank a cup of nectar,

But the draught did not affect her.

Juno drank a cup of rye —

Then she bad herself good-bye.

 

J.G.

 

NEGRO, n. The piece de resistance in the American political

problem. Representing him by the letter n, the Republicans begin to

build their equation thus: “Let n = the white man.” This, however,

appears to give an unsatisfactory solution.

 

NEIGHBOR, n. One whom we are commanded to love as ourselves, and who

does all he knows how to make us disobedient.

 

NEPOTISM, n. Appointing your grandmother to office for the good of

the party.

 

NEWTONIAN, adj. Pertaining to a philosophy of the universe invented

by Newton, who discovered that an apple will fall to the ground, but

was unable to say why. His successors and disciples have advanced so

far as to be able to say when.

 

NIHILIST, n. A Russian who denies the existence of anything but

Tolstoi. The leader of the school is Tolstoi.

 

NIRVANA, n. In the Buddhist religion, a state of pleasurable

annihilation awarded to the wise, particularly to those wise enough to

understand it.

 

NOBLEMAN, n. Nature’s provision for wealthy American minds ambitious

to incur social distinction and suffer high life.

 

NOISE, n. A stench in the ear. Undomesticated music. The chief

product and authenticating sign of civilization.

 

NOMINATE, v. To designate for the heaviest political assessment. To

put forward a suitable person to incur the mudgobbling and deadcatting

of the opposition.

 

NOMINEE, n. A modest gentleman shrinking from the distinction of

private life and diligently seeking the honorable obscurity of public

office.

 

NON-COMBATANT, n. A dead Quaker.

 

NONSENSE, n. The objections that are urged against this excellent

dictionary.

 

NOSE, n. The extreme outpost of the face. From the circumstance that

great conquerors have great noses, Getius, whose writings antedate the

age of humor, calls the nose the organ of quell. It has been observed

that one’s nose is never so happy as when thrust into the affairs of

others, from which some physiologists have drawn the inference that

the nose is devoid of the sense of smell.

 

There’s a man with a Nose,

And wherever he goes

The people run from him and shout:

“No cotton have we

For our ears if so be

He blow that interminous snout!”

 

So the lawyers applied

For injunction. “Denied,”

Said the Judge: “the defendant prefixion,

Whate’er it portend,

Appears to transcend

The bounds of this court’s jurisdiction.”

 

Arpad Singiny

 

NOTORIETY, n. The fame of one’s competitor for public honors. The

kind of renown most accessible and acceptable to mediocrity. A

Jacob’s-ladder leading to the vaudeville stage, with angels ascending

and descending.

 

NOUMENON, n. That which exists, as distinguished from that which

merely seems to exist, the latter being a phenomenon. The noumenon is

a bit difficult to locate; it can be apprehended only be a process of

reasoning — which is a phenomenon. Nevertheless, the discovery and

exposition of noumena offer a rich field for what Lewes calls “the

endless variety and excitement of philosophic thought.” Hurrah

(therefore) for the noumenon!

 

NOVEL, n. A short story padded. A species of composition bearing the

same relation to literature that the panorama bears to art. As it is

too long to be read at a sitting the impressions made by its

successive parts are successively effaced, as in the panorama. Unity,

totality of effect, is impossible; for besides the few pages last read

all that is carried in mind is the mere plot of what has gone before.

To the romance the novel is what photography is to painting. Its

distinguishing principle, probability, corresponds to the literal

actuality of the photograph and puts it distinctly into the category

of reporting; whereas the free wing of the romancer enables him to

mount to such altitudes of imagination as he may be fitted to attain;

and the first three essentials of the literary art are imagination,

imagination and imagination. The art of writing novels, such as it

was, is long dead everywhere except in Russia, where it is new. Peace

to its ashes — some of which have a large sale.

 

NOVEMBER, n. The eleventh twelfth of a weariness.

O

OATH, n. In law, a solemn appeal to the Deity, made binding upon the

conscience by a penalty for perjury.

 

OBLIVION, n. The state or condition in which the wicked cease from

struggling and the dreary are at rest. Fame’s eternal dumping ground.

Cold storage for high hopes. A place where ambitious authors meet

their works without pride and their betters without envy. A dormitory

without an alarm clock.

 

OBSERVATORY, n. A place where astronomers conjecture away the guesses

of their predecessors.

 

OBSESSED, p.p. Vexed by an evil spirit, like the Gadarene swine and

other critics. Obsession was