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

it they are

occupying a neglected field of letters and reaping an overlooked

harvest. If they have the misfortune to live long enough they are

tormented with a desire to burn their sheaves.

 

SALAMANDER, n. Originally a reptile inhabiting fire; later, an

anthropomorphous immortal, but still a pyrophile. Salamanders are now

believed to be extinct, the last one of which we have an account

having been seen in Carcassonne by the Abbe Belloc, who exorcised it

with a bucket of holy water.

 

SARCOPHAGUS, n. Among the Greeks a coffin which being made of a

certain kind of carnivorous stone, had the peculiar property of

devouring the body placed in it. The sarcophagus known to modern

obsequiographers is commonly a product of the carpenter’s art.

 

SATAN, n. One of the Creator’s lamentable mistakes, repented in

sashcloth and axes. Being instated as an archangel, Satan made

himself multifariously objectionable and was finally expelled from

Heaven. Halfway in his descent he paused, bent his head in thought a

moment and at last went back. “There is one favor that I should like

to ask,” said he.

“Name it.”

“Man, I understand, is about to be created. He will need laws.”

“What, wretch! you his appointed adversary, charged from the dawn

of eternity with hatred of his soul — you ask for the right to make

his laws?”

“Pardon; what I have to ask is that he be permitted to make them

himself.”

It was so ordered.

 

SATIETY, n. The feeling that one has for the plate after he has eaten

its contents, madam.

 

SATIRE, n. An obsolete kind of literary composition in which the

vices and follies of the author’s enemies were expounded with

imperfect tenderness. In this country satire never had more than a

sickly and uncertain existence, for the soul of it is wit, wherein we

are dolefully deficient, the humor that we mistake for it, like all

humor, being tolerant and sympathetic. Moreover, although Americans

are “endowed by their Creator” with abundant vice and folly, it is not

generally known that these are reprehensible qualities, wherefore the

satirist is popularly regarded as a soul-spirited knave, and his ever

victim’s outcry for codefendants evokes a national assent.

 

Hail Satire! be thy praises ever sung

In the dead language of a mummy’s tongue,

For thou thyself art dead, and damned as well —

Thy spirit (usefully employed) in Hell.

Had it been such as consecrates the Bible

Thou hadst not perished by the law of libel.

 

Barney Stims

 

SATYR, n. One of the few characters of the Grecian mythology accorded

recognition in the Hebrew. (Leviticus, xvii, 7.) The satyr was at

first a member of the dissolute community acknowledging a loose

allegiance with Dionysius, but underwent many transformations and

improvements. Not infrequently he is confounded with the faun, a

later and decenter creation of the Romans, who was less like a man and

more like a goat.

 

SAUCE, n. The one infallible sign of civilization and enlightenment.

A people with no sauces has one thousand vices; a people with one

sauce has only nine hundred and ninety-nine. For every sauce invented

and accepted a vice is renounced and forgiven.

 

SAW, n. A trite popular saying, or proverb. (Figurative and

colloquial.) So called because it makes its way into a wooden head.

Following are examples of old saws fitted with new teeth.

 

A penny saved is a penny to squander.

 

A man is known by the company that he organizes.

A bad workman quarrels with the man who calls him that.

 

A bird in the hand is worth what it will bring.

 

Better late than before anybody has invited you.

 

Example is better than following it.

 

Half a loaf is better than a whole one if there is much else.

 

Think twice before you speak to a friend in need.

 

What is worth doing is worth the trouble of asking somebody to do it.

 

Least said is soonest disavowed.

 

He laughs best who laughs least.

 

Speak of the Devil and he will hear about it.

 

Of two evils choose to be the least.

 

Strike while your employer has a big contract.

 

Where there’s a will there’s a won’t.

 

SCARABAEUS, n. The sacred beetle of the ancient Egyptians, allied to

our familiar “tumble-bug.” It was supposed to symbolize immortality,

the fact that God knew why giving it its peculiar sanctity. Its habit

of incubating its eggs in a ball of ordure may also have commended it

to the favor of the priesthood, and may some day assure it an equal

reverence among ourselves. True, the American beetle is an inferior

beetle, but the American priest is an inferior priest.

 

SCARABEE, n. The same as scarabaeus.

 

He fell by his own hand

Beneath the great oak tree.

He’d traveled in a foreign land.

He tried to make her understand

The dance that’s called the Saraband,

But he called it Scarabee.

He had called it so through an afternoon,

And she, the light of his harem if so might be,

Had smiled and said naught. O the body was fair to see,

All frosted there in the shine o’ the moon —

Dead for a Scarabee

And a recollection that came too late.

O Fate!

They buried him where he lay,

He sleeps awaiting the Day,

In state,

And two Possible Puns, moon-eyed and wan,

Gloom over the grave and then move on.

Dead for a Scarabee!

Fernando Tapple

 

SCARIFICATION, n. A form of penance practised by the mediaeval pious.

The rite was performed, sometimes with a knife, sometimes with a hot

iron, but always, says Arsenius Asceticus, acceptably if the penitent

spared himself no pain nor harmless disfigurement. Scarification,

with other crude penances, has now been superseded by benefaction.

The founding of a library or endowment of a university is said to

yield to the penitent a sharper and more lasting pain than is

conferred by the knife or iron, and is therefore a surer means of

grace. There are, however, two grave objections to it as a

penitential method: the good that it does and the taint of justice.

 

SCEPTER, n. A king’s staff of office, the sign and symbol of his

authority. It was originally a mace with which the sovereign

admonished his jester and vetoed ministerial measures by breaking the

bones of their proponents.

 

SCIMETAR, n. A curved sword of exceeding keenness, in the conduct of

which certain Orientals attain a surprising proficiency, as the

incident here related will serve to show. The account is translated

from the Japanese by Shusi Itama, a famous writer of the thirteenth

century.

 

When the great Gichi-Kuktai was Mikado he condemned to

decapitation Jijiji Ri, a high officer of the Court. Soon after

the hour appointed for performance of the rite what was his

Majesty’s surprise to see calmly approaching the throne the man

who should have been at that time ten minutes dead!

“Seventeen hundred impossible dragons!” shouted the enraged

monarch. “Did I not sentence you to stand in the market-place and

have your head struck off by the public executioner at three

o’clock? And is it not now 3:10?”

“Son of a thousand illustrious deities,” answered the

condemned minister, “all that you say is so true that the truth is

a lie in comparison. But your heavenly Majesty’s sunny and

vitalizing wishes have been pestilently disregarded. With joy I

ran and placed my unworthy body in the market-place. The

executioner appeared with his bare scimetar, ostentatiously

whirled it in air, and then, tapping me lightly upon the neck,

strode away, pelted by the populace, with whom I was ever a

favorite. I am come to pray for justice upon his own dishonorable

and treasonous head.”

“To what regiment of executioners does the black-boweled

caitiff belong?” asked the Mikado.

“To the gallant Ninety-eight Hundred and Thirty-seventh — I

know the man. His name is Sakko-Samshi.”

“Let him be brought before me,” said the Mikado to an

attendant, and a half-hour later the culprit stood in the

Presence.

“Thou bastard son of a three-legged hunchback without thumbs!”

roared the sovereign — “why didst thou but lightly tap the neck

that it should have been thy pleasure to sever?”

“Lord of Cranes of Cherry Blooms,” replied the executioner,

unmoved, “command him to blow his nose with his fingers.”

Being commanded, Jijiji Ri laid hold of his nose and trumpeted

like an elephant, all expecting to see the severed head flung

violently from him. Nothing occurred: the performance prospered

peacefully to the close, without incident.

All eyes were now turned on the executioner, who had grown as

white as the snows on the summit of Fujiama. His legs trembled

and his breath came in gasps of terror.

“Several kinds of spike-tailed brass lions!” he cried; “I am a

ruined and disgraced swordsman! I struck the villain feebly

because in flourishing the scimetar I had accidentally passed it

through my own neck! Father of the Moon, I resign my office.”

So saying, he gasped his top-knot, lifted off his head, and

advancing to the throne laid it humbly at the Mikado’s feet.

 

SCRAP-BOOK, n. A book that is commonly edited by a fool. Many

persons of some small distinction compile scrap-books containing

whatever they happen to read about themselves or employ others to

collect. One of these egotists was addressed in the lines following,

by Agamemnon Melancthon Peters:

 

Dear Frank, that scrap-book where you boast

You keep a record true

Of every kind of peppered roast

That’s made of you;

 

Wherein you paste the printed gibes

That revel round your name,

Thinking the laughter of the scribes

Attests your fame;

 

Where all the pictures you arrange

That comic pencils trace —

Your funny figure and your strange

Semitic face —

 

Pray lend it me. Wit I have not,

Nor art, but there I’ll list

The daily drubbings you’d have got

Had God a fist.

 

SCRIBBLER, n. A professional writer whose views are antagonistic to

one’s own.

 

SCRIPTURES, n. The sacred books of our holy religion, as

distinguished from the false and profane writings on which all other

faiths are based.

 

SEAL, n. A mark impressed upon certain kinds of documents to attest

their authenticity and authority. Sometimes it is stamped upon wax,

and attached to the paper, sometimes into the paper itself. Sealing,

in this sense, is a survival of an ancient custom of inscribing

important papers with cabalistic words or signs to give them a magical

efficacy independent of the authority that they represent. In the

British museum are preserved many ancient papers, mostly of a

sacerdotal character, validated by necromantic pentagrams and other

devices, frequently initial letters of words to conjure with; and in

many instances these are attached in the same way that seals are

appended now. As nearly every reasonless and apparently meaningless

custom, rite or observance of modern times had origin in some remote

utility, it is pleasing to note an example of ancient nonsense

evolving in the process of ages into something really useful. Our

word “sincere” is derived from sine cero, without wax, but the

learned are not in agreement as to whether this refers to the absence

of the cabalistic signs, or to that of the wax with which letters were

formerly closed from public scrutiny. Either view of the matter will

serve one in immediate need of an hypothesis. The initials L.S.,

commonly appended to signatures of legal documents, mean _locum

sigillis_, the place of the seal, although the seal is no longer used

— an admirable example of conservatism distinguishing Man from the

beasts that perish. The words locum sigillis are humbly suggested

as a suitable motto for the Pribyloff Islands whenever they shall take

their place as a sovereign State of the American Union.

 

SEINE, n.