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

and provided with a lock to prevent

the contents from coming out and performing miracles at unseasonable

times. A feather from the wing of the Angel of the Annunciation once

escaped during a sermon in Saint Peter’s and so tickled the noses of

the congregation that they woke and sneezed with great vehemence three

times each. It is related in the “Gesta Sanctorum” that a sacristan

in the Canterbury cathedral surprised the head of Saint Dennis in the

library. Reprimanded by its stern custodian, it explained that it was

seeking a body of doctrine. This unseemly levity so raged the

diocesan that the offender was publicly anathematized, thrown into the

Stour and replaced by another head of Saint Dennis, brought from Rome.

 

RENOWN, n. A degree of distinction between notoriety and fame — a

little more supportable than the one and a little more intolerable

than the other. Sometimes it is conferred by an unfriendly and

inconsiderate hand.

 

I touched the harp in every key,

But found no heeding ear;

And then Ithuriel touched me

With a revealing spear.

 

Not all my genius, great as ‘tis,

Could urge me out of night.

I felt the faint appulse of his,

And leapt into the light!

 

W.J. Candleton

 

REPARATION, n. Satisfaction that is made for a wrong and deducted

from the satisfaction felt in committing it.

 

REPARTEE, n. Prudent insult in retort. Practiced by gentlemen with a

constitutional aversion to violence, but a strong disposition to

offend. In a war of words, the tactics of the North American Indian.

 

REPENTANCE, n. The faithful attendant and follower of Punishment. It

is usually manifest in a degree of reformation that is not

inconsistent with continuity of sin.

 

Desirous to avoid the pains of Hell,

You will repent and join the Church, Parnell?

How needless! — Nick will keep you off the coals

And add you to the woes of other souls.

 

Jomater Abemy

 

REPLICA, n. A reproduction of a work of art, by the artist that made

the original. It is so called to distinguish it from a “copy,” which

is made by another artist. When the two are mae with equal skill the

replica is the more valuable, for it is supposed to be more beautiful

than it looks.

 

REPORTER, n. A writer who guesses his way to the truth and dispels it

with a tempest of words.

 

“More dear than all my bosom knows, O thou

Whose ‘lips are sealed’ and will not disavow!”

So sang the blithe reporter-man as grew

Beneath his hand the leg-long “interview.”

 

Barson Maith

 

REPOSE, v.i. To cease from troubling.

 

REPRESENTATIVE, n. In national politics, a member of the Lower House

in this world, and without discernible hope of promotion in the next.

 

REPROBATION, n. In theology, the state of a luckless mortal

prenatally damned. The doctrine of reprobation was taught by Calvin,

whose joy in it was somewhat marred by the sad sincerity of his

conviction that although some are foredoomed to perdition, others are

predestined to salvation.

 

REPUBLIC, n. A nation in which, the thing governing and the thing

governed being the same, there is only a permitted authority to

enforce an optional obedience. In a republic, the foundation of

public order is the ever lessening habit of submission inherited from

ancestors who, being truly governed, submitted because they had to.

There are as many kinds of republics as there are graduations between

the despotism whence they came and the anarchy whither they lead.

 

REQUIEM, n. A mass for the dead which the minor poets assure us the

winds sing o’er the graves of their favorites. Sometimes, by way of

providing a varied entertainment, they sing a dirge.

 

RESIDENT, adj. Unable to leave.

 

RESIGN, v.t. To renounce an honor for an advantage. To renounce an

advantage for a greater advantage.

 

‘Twas rumored Leonard Wood had signed

A true renunciation

Of title, rank and every kind

Of military station —

Each honorable station.

 

By his example fired — inclined

To noble emulation,

The country humbly was resigned

To Leonard’s resignation —

His Christian resignation.

 

Politian Greame

 

RESOLUTE, adj. Obstinate in a course that we approve.

 

RESPECTABILITY, n. The offspring of a liaison between a bald head

and a bank account.

 

RESPIRATOR, n. An apparatus fitted over the nose and mouth of an

inhabitant of London, whereby to filter the visible universe in its

passage to the lungs.

 

RESPITE, n. A suspension of hostilities against a sentenced assassin,

to enable the Executive to determine whether the murder may not have

been done by the prosecuting attorney. Any break in the continuity of

a disagreeable expectation.

 

Altgeld upon his incandescent bed

Lay, an attendant demon at his head.

 

“O cruel cook, pray grant me some relief —

Some respite from the roast, however brief.”

 

“Remember how on earth I pardoned all

Your friends in Illinois when held in thrall.”

 

“Unhappy soul! for that alone you squirm

O’er fire unquenched, a never-dying worm.

 

“Yet, for I pity your uneasy state,

Your doom I’ll mollify and pains abate.

 

“Naught, for a season, shall your comfort mar,

Not even the memory of who you are.”

 

Throughout eternal space dread silence fell;

Heaven trembled as Compassion entered Hell.

 

“As long, sweet demon, let my respite be

As, governing down here, I’d respite thee.”

 

“As long, poor soul, as any of the pack

You thrust from jail consumed in getting back.”

 

A genial chill affected Altgeld’s hide

While they were turning him on t’other side.

 

Joel Spate Woop

 

RESPLENDENT, adj. Like a simple American citizen beduking himself in

his lodge, or affirming his consequence in the Scheme of Things as an

elemental unit of a parade.

 

The Knights of Dominion were so resplendent in their velvet-and-gold that their masters would hardly have known them.

 

“Chronicles of the Classes”

 

RESPOND, v.i. To make answer, or disclose otherwise a consciousness

of having inspired an interest in what Herbert Spencer calls “external

coexistences,” as Satan “squat like a toad” at the ear of Eve,

responded to the touch of the angel’s spear. To respond in damages is

to contribute to the maintenance of the plaintiff’s attorney and,

incidentally, to the gratification of the plaintiff.

 

RESPONSIBILITY, n. A detachable burden easily shifted to the

shoulders of God, Fate, Fortune, Luck or one’s neighbor. In the days

of astrology it was customary to unload it upon a star.

 

Alas, things ain’t what we should see

If Eve had let that apple be;

And many a feller which had ought

To set with monarchses of thought,

Or play some rosy little game

With battle-chaps on fields of fame,

Is downed by his unlucky star

And hollers: “Peanuts! — here you are!”

 

“The Sturdy Beggar”

 

RESTITUTIONS, n. The founding or endowing of universities and public

libraries by gift or bequest.

 

RESTITUTOR, n. Benefactor; philanthropist.

 

RETALIATION, n. The natural rock upon which is reared the Temple of

Law.

 

RETRIBUTION, n. A rain of fire-and-brimstone that falls alike upon

the just and such of the unjust as have not procured shelter by

evicting them.

In the lines following, addressed to an Emperor in exile by Father

Gassalasca Jape, the reverend poet appears to hint his sense of the

improduence of turning about to face Retribution when it is talking

exercise:

 

What, what! Dom Pedro, you desire to go

Back to Brazil to end your days in quiet?

Why, what assurance have you ‘twould be so?

‘Tis not so long since you were in a riot,

And your dear subjects showed a will to fly at

Your throat and shake you like a rat. You know

That empires are ungrateful; are you certain

Republics are less handy to get hurt in?

 

REVEILLE, n. A signal to sleeping soldiers to dream of battlefields

no more, but get up and have their blue noses counted. In the

American army it is ingeniously called “rev-e-lee,” and to that

pronunciation our countrymen have pledged their lives, their

misfortunes and their sacred dishonor.

 

REVELATION, n. A famous book in which St. John the Divine concealed

all that he knew. The revealing is done by the commentators, who know

nothing.

 

REVERENCE, n. The spiritual attitude of a man to a god and a dog to a

man.

 

REVIEW, v.t.

 

To set your wisdom (holding not a doubt of it,

Although in truth there’s neither bone nor skin to it)

At work upon a book, and so read out of it

The qualities that you have first read into it.

 

REVOLUTION, n. In politics, an abrupt change in the form of

misgovernment. Specifically, in American history, the substitution of

the rule of an Administration for that of a Ministry, whereby the

welfare and happiness of the people were advanced a full half-inch.

Revolutions are usually accompanied by a considerable effusion of

blood, but are accounted worth it — this appraisement being made by

beneficiaries whose blood had not the mischance to be shed. The

French revolution is of incalculable value to the Socialist of to-day;

when he pulls the string actuating its bones its gestures are

inexpressibly terrifying to gory tyrants suspected of fomenting law

and order.

 

RHADOMANCER, n. One who uses a divining-rod in prospecting for

precious metals in the pocket of a fool.

 

RIBALDRY, n. Censorious language by another concerning oneself.

 

RIBROASTER, n. Censorious language by oneself concerning another.

The word is of classical refinement, and is even said to have been

used in a fable by Georgius Coadjutor, one of the most fastidious

writers of the fifteenth century — commonly, indeed, regarded as the

founder of the Fastidiotic School.

 

RICE-WATER, n. A mystic beverage secretly used by our most popular

novelists and poets to regulate the imagination and narcotize the

conscience. It is said to be rich in both obtundite and lethargine,

and is brewed in a midnight fog by a fat which of the Dismal Swamp.

 

RICH, adj. Holding in trust and subject to an accounting the property

of the indolent, the incompetent, the unthrifty, the envious and the

luckless. That is the view that prevails in the underworld, where the

Brotherhood of Man finds its most logical development and candid

advocacy. To denizens of the midworld the word means good and wise.

 

RICHES, n.

 

A gift from Heaven signifying, “This is my beloved son, in

whom I am well pleased.”

 

John D. Rockefeller

 

The reward of toil and virtue.

 

J.P. Morgan

 

The sayings of many in the hands of one.

 

Eugene Debs

 

To these excellent definitions the inspired lexicographer feels

that he can add nothing of value.

 

RIDICULE, n. Words designed to show that the person of whom they are

uttered is devoid of the dignity of character distinguishing him who

utters them. It may be graphic, mimetic or merely rident.

Shaftesbury is quoted as having pronounced it the test of truth — a

ridiculous assertion, for many a solemn fallacy has undergone

centuries of ridicule with no abatement of its popular acceptance.

What, for example, has been more valorously derided than the doctrine

of Infant Respectability?

 

RIGHT, n. Legitimate authority to be, to do or to have; as the right

to be a king, the right to do one’s neighbor, the right to have

measles, and the like. The first of these rights was once universally

believed to be derived directly from the will of God; and this is

still sometimes affirmed in partibus infidelium outside the

enlightened realms of Democracy; as the well known lines of Sir

Abednego Bink, following:

 

By what right, then, do royal rulers rule?

Whose is the sanction of their state and pow’r?

He surely