Complete Works of Ambrose Bierce (Delphi Classics)

by Ambrose Bierce

  HISTORIAN, n. A broad-gauge gossip.

  HISTORY, n. An account mostly false, of events mostly unimportant, which are brought about by rulers mostly knaves, and soldiers mostly fools.

  Of Roman history, great Niebuhr’s shown

  ‘Tis nine-tenths lying. Faith, I wish ‘twere known,

  Ere we accept great Niebuhr as a guide,

  Wherein he blundered and how much he lied.

  –Salder Bupp

  HOG, n. A bird remarkable for the catholicity of its appetite and serving to illustrate that of ours. Among the Mahometans and Jews, the hog is not in favor as an article of diet, but is respected for the delicacy and the melody of its voice. It is chiefly as a songster that the fowl is esteemed; the cage of him in full chorus has been known to draw tears from two persons at once. The scientific name of this dicky-bird is Porcus Rockefelleri. Mr. Rockefeller did not discover the hog, but it is considered his by right of resemblance.

  HOMOEOPATHIST, n. The humorist of the medical profession.

  HOMOEOPATHY, n. A school of medicine midway between Allopathy and Christian Science. To the last both the others are distinctly inferior, for Christian Science will cure imaginary diseases, and they can not.

  HOMICIDE, n. The slaying of one human being by another. There are four kinds of homocide: felonious, excusable, justifiable, and praiseworthy, but it makes no great difference to the person slain whether he fell by one kind or another — the classification is for advantage of the lawyers.

  HOMILETICS, n. The science of adapting sermons to the spiritual needs, capacities and conditions of the congregation.

  So skilled the parson was in homiletics

  That all his normal purges and emetics

  To medicine the spirit were compounded

  With a most just discrimination founded

  Upon a rigorous examination

  Of tongue and pulse and heart and respiration.

  Then, having diagnosed each one’s condition,

  His scriptural specifics this physician

  Administered — his pills so efficacious

  And pukes of disposition so vivacious

  That souls afflicted with ten kinds of Adam

  Were convalescent ere they knew they had ‘em.

  But Slander’s tongue — itself all coated — uttered

  Her bilious mind and scandalously muttered

  That in the case of patients having money

  The pills were sugar and the pukes were honey.

  –Biography of Bishop Potter

  HONORABLE, adj. Afflicted with an impediment in one’s reach. In legislative bodies it is customary to mention all members as honorable; as, “the honorable gentleman is a scurvy cur.”

  HOPE, n. Desire and expectation rolled into one.

  Delicious Hope! when naught to man it left —

  Of fortune destitute, of friends bereft;

  When even his dog deserts him, and his goat

  With tranquil disaffection chews his coat

  While yet it hangs upon his back; then thou,

  The star far-flaming on thine angel brow,

  Descendest, radiant, from the skies to hint

  The promise of a clerkship in the Mint.

  –Fogarty Weffing

  HOSPITALITY, n. The virtue which induces us to feed and lodge certain persons who are not in need of food and lodging.

  HOSTILITY, n. A peculiarly sharp and specially applied sense of the earth’s overpopulation. Hostility is classified as active and passive; as (respectively) the feeling of a woman for her female friends, and that which she entertains for all the rest of her sex.

  HOURI, n. A comely female inhabiting the Mohammedan Paradise to make things cheery for the good Mussulman, whose belief in her existence marks a noble discontent with his earthly spouse, whom he denies a soul. By that good lady the Houris are said to be held in deficient esteem.

  HOUSE, n. A hollow edifice erected for the habitation of man, rat, mouse, beetle, cockroach, fly, mosquito, flea, bacillus and microbe. House of Correction, a place of reward for political and personal service, and for the detention of offenders and appropriations. House of God, a building with a steeple and a mortgage on it. House-dog, a pestilent beast kept on domestic premises to insult persons passing by and appal the hardy visitor. House-maid, a youngerly person of the opposing sex employed to be variously disagreeable and ingeniously unclean in the station in which it has pleased God to place her.

  HOUSELESS, adj. Having paid all taxes on household goods.

  HOVEL, n. The fruit of a flower called the Palace.

  Twaddle had a hovel,

  Twiddle had a palace;

  Twaddle said: “I’ll grovel

  Or he’ll think I bear him malice” —

  A sentiment as novel

  As a castor on a chalice.

  Down upon the middle

  Of his legs fell Twaddle

  And astonished Mr. Twiddle,

  Who began to lift his noddle.

  Feed upon the fiddle~Faddle flummery, unswaddle

  A new-born self-sufficiency and think himself a [mockery.]

  –G.J.

  HUMANITY, n. The human race, collectively, exclusive of the anthropoid poets.

  HUMORIST, n. A plague that would have softened down the hoar austerity of Pharaoh’s heart and persuaded him to dismiss Israel with his best wishes, cat-quick.

  Lo! the poor humorist, whose tortured mind

  See jokes in crowds, though still to gloom inclined —

  Whose simple appetite, untaught to stray,

  His brains, renewed by night, consumes by day.

  He thinks, admitted to an equal sty,

  A graceful hog would bear his company.

  –Alexander Poke

  HURRICANE, n. An atmospheric demonstration once very common but now generally abandoned for the tornado and cyclone. The hurricane is still in popular use in the West Indies and is preferred by certain old-fashioned sea-captains. It is also used in the construction of the upper decks of steamboats, but generally speaking, the hurricane’s usefulness has outlasted it.

  HURRY, n. The dispatch of bunglers.

  HUSBAND, n. One who, having dined, is charged with the care of the plate.

  HYBRID, n. A pooled issue.

  HYDRA, n. A kind of animal that the ancients catalogued under many heads.

  HYENA, n. A beast held in reverence by some oriental nations from its habit of frequenting at night the burial-places of the dead. But the medical student does that.

  HYPOCHONDRIASIS, n. Depression of one’s own spirits.

  Some heaps of trash upon a vacant lot

  Where long the village rubbish had been shot

  Displayed a sign among the stuff and stumps —

  “Hypochondriasis.” It meant The Dumps.

  –Bogul S. Purvy

  HYPOCRITE, n. One who, profession virtues that he does not respect secures the advantage of seeming to be what he despises.

  I

  I is the first letter of the alphabet, the first word of the language, the first thought of the mind, the first object of affection. In grammar it is a pronoun of the first person and singular number. Its plural is said to be We, but how there can be more than one myself is doubtless clearer the grammarians than it is to the author of this incomparable dictionary. Conception of two myselfs is difficult, but fine. The frank yet graceful use of “I” distinguishes a good writer from a bad; the latter carries it with the manner of a thief trying to cloak his loot.

  ICHOR, n. A fluid that serves the gods and goddesses in place of blood.

  Fair Venus, speared by Diomed,

  Restrained the raging chief and said:

  “Behold, rash mortal, whom you’ve bled —

  Your soul’s stained white with ichorshed!”

  –Mary Doke

  ICONOCLAST, n. A breaker of idols, the worshipers whereof are imperfectly gratified by the performance, and most strenuously protest that he unbuildeth but doth
not reedify, that he pulleth down but pileth not up. For the poor things would have other idols in place of those he thwacketh upon the mazzard and dispelleth. But the iconoclast saith: “Ye shall have none at all, for ye need them not; and if the rebuilder fooleth round hereabout, behold I will depress the head of him and sit thereon till he squawk it.”

  IDIOT, n. A member of a large and powerful tribe whose influence in human affairs has always been dominant and controlling. The Idiot’s activity is not confined to any special field of thought or action, but “pervades and regulates the whole.” He has the last word in everything; his decision is unappealable. He sets the fashions and opinion of taste, dictates the limitations of speech and circumscribes conduct with a dead-line.

  IDLENESS, n. A model farm where the devil experiments with seeds of new sins and promotes the growth of staple vices.

  IGNORAMUS, n. A person unacquainted with certain kinds of knowledge familiar to yourself, and having certain other kinds that you know nothing about.

  Dumble was an ignoramus,

  Mumble was for learning famous.

  Mumble said one day to Dumble:

  “Ignorance should be more humble.

  Not a spark have you of knowledge

  That was got in any college.”

  Dumble said to Mumble: “Truly

  You’re self-satisfied unduly.

  Of things in college I’m denied

  A knowledge — you of all beside.”

  –Borelli

  ILLUMINATI, n. A sect of Spanish heretics of the latter part of the sixteenth century; so called because they were light weights — cunctationes illuminati.

  ILLUSTRIOUS, adj. Suitably placed for the shafts of malice, envy and detraction.

  IMAGINATION, n. A warehouse of facts, with poet and liar in joint ownership.

  IMBECILITY, n. A kind of divine inspiration, or sacred fire affecting censorious critics of this dictionary.

  IMMIGRANT, n. An unenlightened person who thinks one country better than another.

  IMMODEST, adj. Having a strong sense of one’s own merit, coupled with a feeble conception of worth in others.

  There was once a man in Ispahan

  Ever and ever so long ago,

  And he had a head, the phrenologists said,

  That fitted him for a show.

  For his modesty’s bump was so large a lump

  (Nature, they said, had taken a freak)

  That its summit stood far above the wood

  Of his hair, like a mountain peak.

  So modest a man in all Ispahan,

  Over and over again they swore —

  So humble and meek, you would vainly seek;

  None ever was found before.

  Meantime the hump of that awful bump

  Into the heavens contrived to get

  To so great a height that they called the wight

  The man with the minaret.

  There wasn’t a man in all Ispahan

  Prouder, or louder in praise of his chump:

  With a tireless tongue and a brazen lung

  He bragged of that beautiful bump

  Till the Shah in a rage sent a trusty page

  Bearing a sack and a bow-string too,

  And that gentle child explained as he smiled:

  “A little present for you.”

  The saddest man in all Ispahan,

  Sniffed at the gift, yet accepted the same.

  “If I’d lived,” said he, “my humility

  Had given me deathless fame!”

  –Sukker Uffro

  IMMORAL, adj. Inexpedient. Whatever in the long run and with regard to the greater number of instances men find to be generally inexpedient comes to be considered wrong, wicked, immoral. If man’s notions of right and wrong have any other basis than this of expediency; if they originated, or could have originated, in any other way; if actions have in themselves a moral character apart from, and nowise dependent on, their consequences — then all philosophy is a lie and reason a disorder of the mind.

  IMMORTALITY, n.

  A toy which people cry for,

  And on their knees apply for,

  Dispute, contend and lie for,

  And if allowed

  Would be right proud

  Eternally to die for.

  –G.J.

  IMPALE, v.t. In popular usage to pierce with any weapon which remains fixed in the wound. This, however, is inaccurate; to impale is, properly, to put to death by thrusting an upright sharp stake into the body, the victim being left in a sitting position. This was a common mode of punishment among many of the nations of antiquity, and is still in high favor in China and other parts of Asia. Down to the beginning of the fifteenth century it was widely employed in “churching” heretics and schismatics. Wolecraft calls it the “stoole of repentynge,” and among the common people it was jocularly known as “riding the one legged horse.” Ludwig Salzmann informs us that in Thibet impalement is considered the most appropriate punishment for crimes against religion; and although in China it is sometimes awarded for secular offences, it is most frequently adjudged in cases of sacrilege. To the person in actual experience of impalement it must be a matter of minor importance by what kind of civil or religious dissent he was made acquainted with its discomforts; but doubtless he would feel a certain satisfaction if able to contemplate himself in the character of a weather-cock on the spire of the True Church.

  IMPARTIAL, adj. Unable to perceive any promise of personal advantage from espousing either side of a controversy or adopting either of two conflicting opinions.

  IMPENITENCE, n. A state of mind intermediate in point of time between sin and punishment.

  IMPIETY, n. Your irreverence toward my deity.

  IMPOSITION, n. The act of blessing or consecrating by the laying on of hands — a ceremony common to many ecclesiastical systems, but performed with the frankest sincerity by the sect known as Thieves.

  “Lo! by the laying on of hands,”

  Say parson, priest and dervise,

  “We consecrate your cash and lands

  To ecclesiastical service.

  No doubt you’ll swear till all is blue

  At such an imposition. Do.”

  –Pollo Doncas

  IMPOSTOR n. A rival aspirant to public honors.

  IMPROBABILITY, n.

  His tale he told with a solemn face

  And a tender, melancholy grace.

  Improbable ‘twas, no doubt,

  When you came to think it out,

  But the fascinated crowd

  Their deep surprise avowed

  And all with a single voice averred

  ‘Twas the most amazing thing they’d heard —

  All save one who spake never a word,

  But sat as mum

  As if deaf and dumb,

  Serene, indifferent and unstirred.

  Then all the others turned to him

  And scrutinized him limb from limb —

  Scanned him alive;

  But he seemed to thrive

  And tranquiler grow each minute,

  As if there were nothing in it.

  “What! what!” cried one, “are you not amazed

  At what our friend has told?” He raised

  Soberly then his eyes and gazed

  In a natural way

  And proceeded to say,

  As he crossed his feet on the mantel-shelf:

  “O no — not at all; I’m a liar myself.”

  IMPROVIDENCE, n. Provision for the needs of to-day from the revenues of to-morrow.

  IMPUNITY, n. Wealth.

  INADMISSIBLE, adj. Not competent to be considered. Said of certain kinds of testimony which juries are supposed to be unfit to be entrusted with, and which judges, therefore, rule out, even of proceedings before themselves alone. Hearsay evidence is inadmissible because the person quoted was unsworn and is not before the court for examination; yet most momentous actions, military, political, commercial and of every
other kind, are daily undertaken on hearsay evidence. There is no religion in the world that has any other basis than hearsay evidence. Revelation is hearsay evidence; that the Scriptures are the word of God we have only the testimony of men long dead whose identity is not clearly established and who are not known to have been sworn in any sense. Under the rules of evidence as they now exist in this country, no single assertion in the Bible has in its support any evidence admissible in a court of law. It cannot be proved that the battle of Blenheim ever was fought, that there was such as person as Julius Caesar, such an empire as Assyria.

  But as records of courts of justice are admissible, it can easily be proved that powerful and malevolent magicians once existed and were a scourge to mankind. The evidence (including confession) upon which certain women were convicted of witchcraft and executed was without a flaw; it is still unimpeachable. The judges’ decisions based on it were sound in logic and in law. Nothing in any existing court was ever more thoroughly proved than the charges of witchcraft and sorcery for which so many suffered death. If there were no witches, human testimony and human reason are alike destitute of value.

  INAUSPICIOUSLY, adv. In an unpromising manner, the auspices being unfavorable. Among the Romans it was customary before undertaking any important action or enterprise to obtain from the augurs, or state prophets, some hint of its probable outcome; and one of their favorite and most trustworthy modes of divination consisted in observing the flight of birds — the omens thence derived being called auspices. Newspaper reporters and certain miscreant lexicographers have decided that the word — always in the plural — shall mean “patronage” or “management”; as, “The festivities were under the auspices of the Ancient and Honorable Order of Body–Snatchers”; or, “The hilarities were auspicated by the Knights of Hunger.”