Complete Works of Ambrose Bierce (Delphi Classics)

by Ambrose Bierce

OPTIMIST, n. A proponent of the doctrine that black is white.

  A pessimist applied to God for relief.

  “Ah, you wish me to restore your hope and cheerfulness,” said God.

  “No,” replied the petitioner, “I wish you to create something that would justify them.”

  “The world is all created,” said God, “but you have overlooked something — the mortality of the optimist.”

  ORATORY, n. A conspiracy between speech and action to cheat the understanding. A tyranny tempered by stenography.

  ORPHAN, n. A living person whom death has deprived of the power of filial ingratitude — a privation appealing with a particular eloquence to all that is sympathetic in human nature. When young the orphan is commonly sent to an asylum, where by careful cultivation of its rudimentary sense of locality it is taught to know its place. It is then instructed in the arts of dependence and servitude and eventually turned loose to prey upon the world as a bootblack or scullery maid.

  ORTHODOX, n. An ox wearing the popular religious joke.

  ORTHOGRAPHY, n. The science of spelling by the eye instead of the ear. Advocated with more heat than light by the outmates of every asylum for the insane. They have had to concede a few things since the time of Chaucer, but are none the less hot in defence of those to be conceded hereafter.

  A spelling reformer indicted

  For fudge was before the court cicted.

  The judge said: “Enough —

  His candle we’ll snough,

  And his sepulchre shall not be whicted.”

  OSTRICH, n. A large bird to which (for its sins, doubtless) nature has denied that hinder toe in which so many pious naturalists have seen a conspicuous evidence of design. The absence of a good working pair of wings is no defect, for, as has been ingeniously pointed out, the ostrich does not fly.

  OTHERWISE, adv. No better.

  OUTCOME, n. A particular type of disappointment. By the kind of intelligence that sees in an exception a proof of the rule the wisdom of an act is judged by the outcome, the result. This is immortal nonsense; the wisdom of an act is to be juded by the light that the doer had when he performed it.

  OUTDO, v.t. To make an enemy.

  OUT-OF-DOORS, n. That part of one’s environment upon which no government has been able to collect taxes. Chiefly useful to inspire poets.

  I climbed to the top of a mountain one day

  To see the sun setting in glory,

  And I thought, as I looked at his vanishing ray,

  Of a perfectly splendid story.

  ‘Twas about an old man and the ass he bestrode

  Till the strength of the beast was o’ertested;

  Then the man would carry him miles on the road

  Till Neddy was pretty well rested.

  The moon rising solemnly over the crest

  Of the hills to the east of my station

  Displayed her broad disk to the darkening west

  Like a visible new creation.

  And I thought of a joke (and I laughed till I cried)

  Of an idle young woman who tarried

  About a church-door for a look at the bride,

  Although ‘twas herself that was married.

  To poets all Nature is pregnant with grand

  Ideas — with thought and emotion.

  I pity the dunces who don’t understand

  The speech of earth, heaven and ocean.

  –Stromboli Smith

  OVATION, n. n ancient Rome, a definite, formal pageant in honor of one who had been disserviceable to the enemies of the nation. A lesser “triumph.” In modern English the word is improperly used to signify any loose and spontaneous expression of popular homage to the hero of the hour and place.

  “I had an ovation!” the actor man said,

  But I thought it uncommonly queer,

  That people and critics by him had been led

  By the ear.

  The Latin lexicon makes his absurd

  Assertion as plain as a peg;

  In “ovum” we find the true root of the word.

  It means egg.

  –Dudley Spink

  OVEREAT, v. To dine.

  Hail, Gastronome, Apostle of Excess,

  Well skilled to overeat without distress!

  Thy great invention, the unfatal feast,

  Shows Man’s superiority to Beast.

  –John Boop

  OVERWORK, n. A dangerous disorder affecting high public functionaries who want to go fishing.

  OWE, v. To have (and to hold) a debt. The word formerly signified not indebtedness, but possession; it meant “own,” and in the minds of debtors there is still a good deal of confusion between assets and liabilities.

  OYSTER, n. A slimy, gobby shellfish which civilization gives men the hardihood to eat without removing its entrails! The shells are sometimes given to the poor.

  P

  PAIN, n. An uncomfortable frame of mind that may have a physical basis in something that is being done to the body, or may be purely mental, caused by the good fortune of another.

  PAINTING, n. The art of protecting flat surfaces from the weather and exposing them to the critic.

  Formerly, painting and sculpture were combined in the same work: the ancients painted their statues. The only present alliance between the two arts is that the modern painter chisels his patrons.

  PALACE, n. A fine and costly residence, particularly that of a great official. The residence of a high dignitary of the Christian Church is called a palace; that of the Founder of his religion was known as a field, or wayside. There is progress.

  PALM, n. A species of tree having several varieties, of which the familiar “itching palm” (Palma hominis) is most widely distributed and sedulously cultivated. This noble vegetable exudes a kind of invisible gum, which may be detected by applying to the bark a piece of gold or silver. The metal will adhere with remarkable tenacity. The fruit of the itching palm is so bitter and unsatisfying that a considerable percentage of it is sometimes given away in what are known as “benefactions.”

  PALMISTRY, n. The 947th method (according to Mimbleshaw’s classification) of obtaining money by false pretences. It consists in “reading character” in the wrinkles made by closing the hand. The pretence is not altogether false; character can really be read very accurately in this way, for the wrinkles in every hand submitted plainly spell the word “dupe.” The imposture consists in not reading it aloud.

  PANDEMONIUM, n. Literally, the Place of All the Demons. Most of them have escaped into politics and finance, and the place is now used as a lecture hall by the Audible Reformer. When disturbed by his voice the ancient echoes clamor appropriate responses most gratifying to his pride of distinction.

  PANTALOONS, n. A nether habiliment of the adult civilized male. The garment is tubular and unprovided with hinges at the points of flexion. Supposed to have been invented by a humorist. Called “trousers” by the enlightened and “pants” by the unworthy.

  PANTHEISM, n. The doctrine that everything is God, in contradistinction to the doctrine that God is everything.

  PANTOMIME, n. A play in which the story is told without violence to the language. The least disagreeable form of dramatic action.

  PARDON, v. To remit a penalty and restore to the life of crime. To add to the lure of crime the temptation of ingratitude.

  PASSPORT, n. A document treacherously inflicted upon a citizen going abroad, exposing him as an alien and pointing him out for special reprobation and outrage.

  PAST, n. That part of Eternity with some small fraction of which we have a slight and regrettable acquaintance. A moving line called the Present parts it from an imaginary period known as the Future. These two grand divisions of Eternity, of which the one is continually effacing the other, are entirely unlike. The one is dark with sorrow and disappointment, the other bright with prosperity and joy. The Past is the region of sobs, the Future is the realm of song. In the one crouches Memory, clad in sackcloth and ashes, mumbling
penitential prayer; in the sunshine of the other Hope flies with a free wing, beckoning to temples of success and bowers of ease. Yet the Past is the Future of yesterday, the Future is the Past of to-morrow. They are one — the knowledge and the dream.

  PASTIME, n. A device for promoting dejection. Gentle exercise for intellectual debility.

  PATIENCE, n. A minor form of despair, disguised as a virtue.

  PATRIOT, n. One to whom the interests of a part seem superior to those of the whole. The dupe of statesmen and the tool of conquerors.

  PATRIOTISM, n. Combustible rubbish read to the torch of any one ambitious to illuminate his name.

  In Dr. Johnson’s famous dictionary patriotism is defined as the last resort of a scoundrel. With all due respect to an enlightened but inferior lexicographer I beg to submit that it is the first.

  PEACE, n. In international affairs, a period of cheating between two periods of fighting.

  O, what’s the loud uproar assailing

  Mine ears without cease?

  ‘Tis the voice of the hopeful, all-hailing

  The horrors of peace.

  Ah, Peace Universal; they woo it —

  Would marry it, too.

  If only they knew how to do it

  ‘Twere easy to do.

  They’re working by night and by day

  On their problem, like moles.

  Have mercy, O Heaven, I pray,

  On their meddlesome souls!

  –Ro Amil

  PEDESTRIAN, n. The variable (an audible) part of the roadway for an automobile.

  PEDIGREE, n. The known part of the route from an arboreal ancestor with a swim bladder to an urban descendant with a cigarette.

  PENITENT, adj. Undergoing or awaiting punishment.

  PERFECTION, n. An imaginary state of quality distinguished from the actual by an element known as excellence; an attribute of the critic.

  The editor of an English magazine having received a letter pointing out the erroneous nature of his views and style, and signed “Perfection,” promptly wrote at the foot of the letter: “I don’t agree with you,” and mailed it to Matthew Arnold.

  PERIPATETIC, adj. Walking about. Relating to the philosophy of Aristotle, who, while expounding it, moved from place to place in order to avoid his pupil’s objections. A needless precaution — they knew no more of the matter than he.

  PERORATION, n. The explosion of an oratorical rocket. It dazzles, but to an observer having the wrong kind of nose its most conspicuous peculiarity is the smell of the several kinds of powder used in preparing it.

  PERSEVERANCE, n. A lowly virtue whereby mediocrity achieves an inglorious success.

  “Persevere, persevere!” cry the homilists all,

  Themselves, day and night, persevering to bawl.

  “Remember the fable of tortoise and hare —

  The one at the goal while the other is — where?”

  Why, back there in Dreamland, renewing his lease

  Of life, all his muscles preserving the peace,

  The goal and the rival forgotten alike,

  And the long fatigue of the needless hike.

  His spirit a-squat in the grass and the dew

  Of the dogless Land beyond the Stew,

  He sleeps, like a saint in a holy place,

  A winner of all that is good in a race.

  –Sukker Uffro

  PESSIMISM, n. A philosophy forced upon the convictions of the observer by the disheartening prevalence of the optimist with his scarecrow hope and his unsightly smile.

  PHILANTHROPIST, n. A rich (and usually bald) old gentleman who has trained himself to grin while his conscience is picking his pocket.

  PHILISTINE, n. One whose mind is the creature of its environment, following the fashion in thought, feeling and sentiment. He is sometimes learned, frequently prosperous, commonly clean and always solemn.

  PHILOSOPHY, n. A route of many roads leading from nowhere to nothing.

  PHOENIX, n. The classical prototype of the modern “small hot bird.”

  PHONOGRAPH, n. An irritating toy that restores life to dead noises.

  PHOTOGRAPH, n. A picture painted by the sun without instruction in art. It is a little better than the work of an Apache, but not quite so good as that of a Cheyenne.

  PHRENOLOGY, n. The science of picking the pocket through the scalp. It consists in locating and exploiting the organ that one is a dupe with.

  PHYSICIAN, n. One upon whom we set our hopes when ill and our dogs when well.

  PHYSIOGNOMY, n. The art of determining the character of another by the resemblances and differences between his face and our own, which is the standard of excellence.

  “There is no art,” says Shakespeare, foolish man,

  “To read the mind’s construction in the face.”

  The physiognomists his portrait scan,

  And say: “How little wisdom here we trace!

  He knew his face disclosed his mind and heart,

  So, in his own defence, denied our art.”

  –Lavatar Shunk

  PIANO, n. A parlor utensil for subduing the impenitent visitor. It is operated by pressing the keys of the machine and the spirits of the audience.

  PICKANINNY, n. The young of the Procyanthropos, or Americanus dominans. It is small, black and charged with political fatalities.

  PICTURE, n. A representation in two dimensions of something wearisome in three.

  “Behold great Daubert’s picture here on view —

  Taken from Life.” If that description’s true,

  Grant, heavenly Powers, that I be taken, too.

  –Jali Hane

  PIE, n. An advance agent of the reaper whose name is Indigestion.

  Cold pie was highly esteemed by the remains.

  –Rev. Dr. Mucker

  (in a funeral sermon over a British nobleman)

  Cold pie is a detestable

  American comestible.

  That’s why I’m done — or undone —

  So far from that dear London.

  –(from the headstone of a British nobleman in Kalamazoo)

  PIETY, n. Reverence for the Supreme Being, based upon His supposed resemblance to man.

  The pig is taught by sermons and epistles

  To think the God of Swine has snout and bristles.

  –Judibras

  PIG, n. An animal (Porcus omnivorus) closely allied to the human race by the splendor and vivacity of its appetite, which, however, is inferior in scope, for it sticks at pig.

  PIGMY, n. One of a tribe of very small men found by ancient travelers in many parts of the world, but by modern in Central Africa only. The Pigmies are so called to distinguish them from the bulkier Caucasians — who are Hogmies.

  PILGRIM, n. A traveler that is taken seriously. A Pilgrim Father was one who, leaving Europe in 1620 because not permitted to sing psalms through his nose, followed it to Massachusetts, where he could personate God according to the dictates of his conscience.

  PILLORY, n. A mechanical device for inflicting personal distinction — prototype of the modern newspaper conducted by persons of austere virtues and blameless lives.

  PIRACY, n. Commerce without its folly-swaddles, just as God made it.

  PITIFUL, adj. The state of an enemy of opponent after an imaginary encounter with oneself.

  PITY, n. A failing sense of exemption, inspired by contrast.

  PLAGIARISM, n. A literary coincidence compounded of a discreditable priority and an honorable subsequence.

  PLAGIARIZE, v. To take the thought or style of another writer whom one has never, never read.

  PLAGUE, n. In ancient times a general punishment of the innocent for admonition of their ruler, as in the familiar instance of Pharaoh the Immune. The plague as we of to-day have the happiness to know it is merely Nature’s fortuitous manifestation of her purposeless objectionableness.

  PLAN, v.t. To bother about the best method of accomplishing an accidental result.

  PLATITUDE,
n. The fundamental element and special glory of popular literature. A thought that snores in words that smoke. The wisdom of a million fools in the diction of a dullard. A fossil sentiment in artificial rock. A moral without the fable. All that is mortal of a departed truth. A demi-tasse of milk-and-mortality. The Pope’s-nose of a featherless peacock. A jelly-fish withering on the shore of the sea of thought. The cackle surviving the egg. A desiccated epigram.

  PLATONIC, adj. Pertaining to the philosophy of Socrates. Platonic Love is a fool’s name for the affection between a disability and a frost.

  PLAUDITS, n. Coins with which the populace pays those who tickle and devour it.

  PLEASE, v. To lay the foundation for a superstructure of imposition.

  PLEASURE, n. The least hateful form of dejection.

  PLEBEIAN, n. An ancient Roman who in the blood of his country stained nothing but his hands. Distinguished from the Patrician, who was a saturated solution.

  PLEBISCITE, n. A popular vote to ascertain the will of the sovereign.

  PLENIPOTENTIARY, adj. Having full power. A Minister Plenipotentiary is a diplomatist possessing absolute authority on condition that he never exert it.

  PLEONASM, n. An army of words escorting a corporal of thought.

  PLOW, n. An implement that cries aloud for hands accustomed to the pen.