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

to be

kicked when things go wrong in the domestic circle.

 

This is a dog,

This is a cat.

This is a frog,

This is a rat.

Run, dog, mew, cat.

Jump, frog, gnaw, rat.

 

Elevenson

 

CAVILER, n. A critic of our own work.

 

CEMETERY, n. An isolated suburban spot where mourners match lies,

poets write at a target and stone-cutters spell for a wager. The

inscriptions following will serve to illustrate the success attained

in these Olympian games:

 

His virtues were so conspicuous that his enemies, unable to

overlook them, denied them, and his friends, to whose loose lives

they were a rebuke, represented them as vices. They are here

commemorated by his family, who shared them.

In the earth we here prepare a

Place to lay our little Clara.

 

Thomas M. and Mary Frazer

 

P.S. — Gabriel will raise her.

 

CENTAUR, n. One of a race of persons who lived before the division of

labor had been carried to such a pitch of differentiation, and who

followed the primitive economic maxim, “Every man his own horse.” The

best of the lot was Chiron, who to the wisdom and virtues of the horse

added the fleetness of man. The scripture story of the head of John

the Baptist on a charger shows that pagan myths have somewhat

sophisticated sacred history.

 

CERBERUS, n. The watch-dog of Hades, whose duty it was to guard the

entrance — against whom or what does not clearly appear; everybody,

sooner or later, had to go there, and nobody wanted to carry off the

entrance. Cerberus is known to have had three heads, and some of the

poets have credited him with as many as a hundred. Professor

Graybill, whose clerky erudition and profound knowledge of Greek give

his opinion great weight, has averaged all the estimates, and makes

the number twenty-seven — a judgment that would be entirely

conclusive is Professor Graybill had known (a) something about dogs,

and (b) something about arithmetic.

 

CHILDHOOD, n. The period of human life intermediate between the

idiocy of infancy and the folly of youth — two removes from the sin

of manhood and three from the remorse of age.

 

CHRISTIAN, n. One who believes that the New Testament is a divinely

inspired book admirably suited to the spiritual needs of his neighbor.

One who follows the teachings of Christ in so far as they are not

inconsistent with a life of sin.

 

I dreamed I stood upon a hill, and, lo!

The godly multitudes walked to and fro

Beneath, in Sabbath garments fitly clad,

With pious mien, appropriately sad,

While all the church bells made a solemn din —

A fire-alarm to those who lived in sin.

Then saw I gazing thoughtfully below,

With tranquil face, upon that holy show

A tall, spare figure in a robe of white,

Whose eyes diffused a melancholy light.

“God keep you, strange,” I exclaimed. “You are

No doubt (your habit shows it) from afar;

And yet I entertain the hope that you,

Like these good people, are a Christian too.”

He raised his eyes and with a look so stern

It made me with a thousand blushes burn

Replied — his manner with disdain was spiced:

“What! I a Christian? No, indeed! I’m Christ.”

 

G.J.

 

CIRCUS, n. A place where horses, ponies and elephants are permitted

to see men, women and children acting the fool.

 

CLAIRVOYANT, n. A person, commonly a woman, who has the power of

seeing that which is invisible to her patron, namely, that he is a

blockhead.

 

CLARIONET, n. An instrument of torture operated by a person with

cotton in his ears. There are two instruments that are worse than a

clarionet — two clarionets.

 

CLERGYMAN, n. A man who undertakes the management of our spiritual

affairs as a method of better his temporal ones.

 

CLIO, n. One of the nine Muses. Clio’s function was to preside over

history — which she did with great dignity, many of the prominent

citizens of Athens occupying seats on the platform, the meetings being

addressed by Messrs. Xenophon, Herodotus and other popular speakers.

 

CLOCK, n. A machine of great moral value to man, allaying his concern

for the future by reminding him what a lot of time remains to him.

 

A busy man complained one day:

“I get no time!” “What’s that you say?”

Cried out his friend, a lazy quiz;

“You have, sir, all the time there is.

There’s plenty, too, and don’t you doubt it —

We’re never for an hour without it.”

 

Purzil Crofe

 

CLOSE-FISTED, adj. Unduly desirous of keeping that which many

meritorious persons wish to obtain.

 

“Close-fisted Scotchman!” Johnson cried

To thrifty J. Macpherson;

“See me — I’m ready to divide

With any worthy person.”

Sad Jamie: “That is very true —

The boast requires no backing;

And all are worthy, sir, to you,

Who have what you are lacking.”

 

Anita M. Bobe

 

COENOBITE, n. A man who piously shuts himself up to meditate upon the

sin of wickedness; and to keep it fresh in his mind joins a

brotherhood of awful examples.

 

O Coenobite, O coenobite,

Monastical gregarian,

You differ from the anchorite,

That solitudinarian:

With vollied prayers you wound Old Nick;

With dropping shots he makes him sick.

 

Quincy Giles

 

COMFORT, n. A state of mind produced by contemplation of a neighbor’s

uneasiness.

 

COMMENDATION, n. The tribute that we pay to achievements that

resembles, but do not equal, our own.

 

COMMERCE, n. A kind of transaction in which A plunders from B the

goods of C, and for compensation B picks the pocket of D of money

belonging to E.

 

COMMONWEALTH, n. An administrative entity operated by an incalculable

multitude of political parasites, logically active but fortuitously

efficient.

 

This commonwealth’s capitol’s corridors view,

So thronged with a hungry and indolent crew

Of clerks, pages, porters and all attaches

Whom rascals appoint and the populace pays

That a cat cannot slip through the thicket of shins

Nor hear its own shriek for the noise of their chins.

On clerks and on pages, and porters, and all,

Misfortune attend and disaster befall!

May life be to them a succession of hurts;

May fleas by the bushel inhabit their shirts;

May aches and diseases encamp in their bones,

Their lungs full of tubercles, bladders of stones;

May microbes, bacilli, their tissues infest,

And tapeworms securely their bowels digest;

May corn-cobs be snared without hope in their hair,

And frequent impalement their pleasure impair.

Disturbed be their dreams by the awful discourse

Of audible sofas sepulchrally hoarse,

By chairs acrobatic and wavering floors —

The mattress that kicks and the pillow that snores!

Sons of cupidity, cradled in sin!

Your criminal ranks may the death angel thin,

Avenging the friend whom I couldn’t work in.

 

K.Q.

 

COMPROMISE, n. Such an adjustment of conflicting interests as gives

each adversary the satisfaction of thinking he has got what he ought

not to have, and is deprived of nothing except what was justly his

due.

 

COMPULSION, n. The eloquence of power.

 

CONDOLE, v.i. To show that bereavement is a smaller evil than

sympathy.

 

CONFIDANT, CONFIDANTE, n. One entrusted by A with the secrets of B,

confided by him to C.

 

CONGRATULATION, n. The civility of envy.

 

CONGRESS, n. A body of men who meet to repeal laws.

 

CONNOISSEUR, n. A specialist who knows everything about something and

nothing about anything else.

An old wine-bibber having been smashed in a railway collision,

some wine was pouted on his lips to revive him. “Pauillac, 1873,” he

murmured and died.

 

CONSERVATIVE, n. A statesman who is enamored of existing evils, as

distinguished from the Liberal, who wishes to replace them with

others.

 

CONSOLATION, n. The knowledge that a better man is more unfortunate

than yourself.

 

CONSUL, n. In American politics, a person who having failed to secure

an office from the people is given one by the Administration on

condition that he leave the country.

 

CONSULT, v.i. To seek another’s disapproval of a course already

decided on.

 

CONTEMPT, n. The feeling of a prudent man for an enemy who is too

formidable safely to be opposed.

 

CONTROVERSY, n. A battle in which spittle or ink replaces the

injurious cannon-ball and the inconsiderate bayonet.

 

In controversy with the facile tongue —

That bloodless warfare of the old and young —

So seek your adversary to engage

That on himself he shall exhaust his rage,

And, like a snake that’s fastened to the ground,

With his own fangs inflict the fatal wound.

You ask me how this miracle is done?

Adopt his own opinions, one by one,

And taunt him to refute them; in his wrath

He’ll sweep them pitilessly from his path.

Advance then gently all you wish to prove,

Each proposition prefaced with, “As you’ve

So well remarked,” or, “As you wisely say,

And I cannot dispute,” or, “By the way,

This view of it which, better far expressed,

Runs through your argument.” Then leave the rest

To him, secure that he’ll perform his trust

And prove your views intelligent and just.

 

Conmore Apel Brune

 

CONVENT, n. A place of retirement for woman who wish for leisure to

meditate upon the vice of idleness.

 

CONVERSATION, n. A fair to the display of the minor mental

commodities, each exhibitor being too intent upon the arrangement of

his own wares to observe those of his neighbor.

 

CORONATION, n. The ceremony of investing a sovereign with the outward

and visible signs of his divine right to be blown skyhigh with a

dynamite bomb.

 

CORPORAL, n. A man who occupies the lowest rung of the military

ladder.

 

Fiercely the battle raged and, sad to tell,

Our corporal heroically fell!

Fame from her height looked down upon the brawl

And said: “He hadn’t very far to fall.”

 

Giacomo Smith

 

CORPORATION, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit

without individual responsibility.

 

CORSAIR, n. A politician of the seas.

 

COURT FOOL, n. The plaintiff.

 

COWARD, n. One who in a perilous emergency thinks with his legs.

 

CRAYFISH, n. A small crustacean very much resembling the lobster, but

less indigestible.

 

In this small fish I take it that human wisdom is admirably

figured and symbolized; for whereas the crayfish doth move only

backward, and can have only retrospection, seeing naught but the

perils already passed, so the wisdom of man doth not enable him to

avoid the follies that beset his course, but only to apprehend

their nature afterward.

 

Sir James Merivale

 

CREDITOR, n. One of a tribe of savages dwelling beyond the Financial

Straits and dreaded for their desolating incursions.

 

CREMONA, n. A high-priced violin made in Connecticut.

 

CRITIC, n. A person who boasts himself hard to please because nobody

tries to please him.

 

There is a land of pure delight,

Beyond the Jordan’s flood,

Where saints, apparelled all in white,

Fling back the critic’s mud.

 

And as he legs it through the skies,

His pelt a sable hue,

He sorrows sore to recognize

The missiles that he threw.

 

Orrin Goof

 

CROSS, n. An ancient religious symbol erroneously supposed to owe its

significance to the most solemn event in the history of Christianity,

but really antedating it by thousands of years. By many it has been

believed to be identical with the crux ansata of the ancient phallic

worship, but it has been traced even beyond all that we know of that,

to the rites of primitive peoples. We have to-day the White Cross as

a symbol of chastity, and the Red Cross as a badge of benevolent

neutrality in war. Having in mind the former, the reverend