THE DEVIL'S DICTIONARY

by Ambrose Bierce

  With imposing rites, in the White Man's head.

  John Lukkus

  HATRED, n. A sentiment appropriate to the occasion of another's superiority.

  HEAD-MONEY, n. A capitation tax, or poll-tax.

  In ancient times there lived a king

  Whose tax-collectors could not wring

  From all his subjects gold enough

  To make the royal way less rough.

  For pleasure's highway, like the dames

  Whose premises adjoin it, claims

  Perpetual repairing. So

  The tax-collectors in a row

  Appeared before the throne to pray

  Their master to devise some way

  To swell the revenue. "So great,"

  Said they, "are the demands of state

  A tithe of all that we collect

  Will scarcely meet them. Pray reflect:

  How, if one-tenth we must resign,

  Can we exist on t'other nine?"

  The monarch asked them in reply:

  "Has it occurred to you to try

  The advantage of economy?"

  "It has," the spokesman said: "we sold

  All of our gray garrotes of gold;

  With plated-ware we now compress

  The necks of those whom we assess.

  Plain iron forceps we employ

  To mitigate the miser's joy

  Who hoards, with greed that never tires,

  That which your Majesty requires."

  Deep lines of thought were seen to plow

  Their way across the royal brow.

  "Your state is desperate, no question;

  Pray favor me with a suggestion."

  "O King of Men," the spokesman said,

  "If you'll impose upon each head

  A tax, the augmented revenue

  We'll cheerfully divide with you."

  As flashes of the sun illume

  The parted storm-cloud's sullen gloom,

  The king smiled grimly. "I decree

  That it be so-and, not to be

  In generosity outdone,

  Declare you, each and every one,

  Exempted from the operation

  Of this new law of capitation.

  But lest the people censure me

  Because they're bound and you are free,

  'Twere well some clever scheme were laid

  By you this poll-tax to evade.

  I'll leave you now while you confer

  With my most trusted minister."

  The monarch from the throne-room walked

  And straightway in among them stalked

  A silent man, with brow concealed,

  Bare-armed-his gleaming axe revealed!

  G.J.

  HEARSE, n. Death's baby-carriage.

  HEART, n. An automatic, muscular blood-pump. Figuratively, this useful organ is said to be the seat of emotions and sentiments-a very pretty fancy which, however, is nothing but a survival of a once universal belief. It is now known that the sentiments and emotions reside in the stomach, being evolved from food by chemical action of the gastric fluid. The exact process by which a beefsteak becomes a feeling-tender or not, according to the age of the animal from which it was cut; the successive stages of elaboration through which a caviar sandwich is transmuted to a quaint fancy and reappears as a pungent epigram; the marvelous functional methods of converting a hard-boiled egg into religious contrition, or a cream-puff into a sigh of sensibility-these things have been patiently ascertained by M. Pasteur, and by him expounded with convincing lucidity. (See, also, my monograph, The Essential Identity of the Spiritual Affections and Certain Intestinal Gases Freed in Digestion-4to, 687 pp.) In a scientific work entitled, I believe, Delectatio Demonorum (John Camden Hotton, London, 1873) this view of the sentiments receives a striking illustration; and for further light consult Professor Dam's famous treatise on Love as a Product of Alimentary Maceration.

  HEAT, n.

  Heat, says Professor Tyndall, is a mode

  Of motion, but I know now how he's proving

  His point; but this I know-hot words bestowed

  With skill will set the human fist a-moving,

  And where it stops the stars burn free and wild.

  Crede expertum-I have seen them, child.

  Gorton Swope

  HEATHEN, n. A benighted creature who has the folly to worship something that he can see and feel. According to Professor Howison, of the California State University, Hebrews are heathens.

  "The Hebrews are heathens!" says Howison. He's

  A Christian philosopher. I'm

  A scurril agnostical chap, if you please,

  Addicted too much to the crime

  Of religious discussion in my rhyme.

  Though Hebrew and Howison cannot agree

  On a modus vivendi-not they!-

  Yet Heaven has had the designing of me,

  And I haven't been reared in a way

  To joy in the thick of the fray.

  For this of my creed is the soul and the gist,

  And the truth of it I aver:

  Who differs from me in his faith is an 'ist,

  And 'ite, an 'ie, or an 'er-

  And I'm down upon him or her!

  Let Howison urge with perfunctory chin

  Toleration-that's all very well,

  But a roast is "nuts" to his nostril thin,

  And he's running-I know by the smell-

  A secret and personal Hell!

  Bissell Gip

  HEAVEN, n. A place where the wicked cease from troubling you with talk of their personal affairs, and the good listen with attention while you expound your own.

  HEBREW, n. A male Jew, as distinguished from the Shebrew, an altogether superior creation.

  HELPMATE, n. A wife, or bitter half.

  "Now, why is yer wife called a helpmate, Pat?"

  Says the priest. "Since the time 'o yer wooin'

  She's niver [sic] assisted in what ye were at-

  For it's naught ye are ever doin'."

  "That's true of yer Riverence [sic]," Patrick replies,

  And no sign of contrition envices;

  "But, bedad, it's a fact which the word implies,

  For she helps to mate the expinses [sic]!"

  Marley Wottel

  HEMP, n. A plant from whose fibrous bark is made an article of neckwear which is frequently put on after public speaking in the open air and prevents the wearer from taking cold.

  HERMIT, n. A person whose vices and follies are not sociable.

  HERS, pron. His.

  HIBERNATE, v.i. To pass the winter season in domestic seclusion. There have been many singular popular notions about the hibernation of various animals. Many believe that the bear hibernates during the whole winter and subsists by mechanically sucking its paws. It is admitted that it comes out of its retirement in the spring so lean that it had to try twice before it can cast a shadow. Three or four centuries ago, in England, no fact was better attested than that swallows passed the winter months in the mud at the bottom of their brooks, clinging together in globular masses. They have apparently been compelled to give up the custom and account of the foulness of the brooks. Sotus Ecobius discovered in Central Asia a whole nation of people who hibernate. By some investigators, the fasting of Lent is supposed to have been originally a modified form of hibernation, to which the Church gave a religious significance; but this view was strenuously opposed by that eminent authority, Bishop Kip, who did not wish any honors denied to the memory of the Founder of his family.

  HIPPOGRIFF, n. An animal (now extinct) which was half horse and half griffin. The griffin was itself a compound creature, half lion and half eagle. The hippogriff was actually, therefore, a one-quarter eagle, which is two dollars and fifty cents in gold. The study of zoology is full of surprises.

  HISTORIAN, n. A broad-gauge gossip.

  HISTORY, n. An account mostly false, of events mostly unimportant, which are brought about by rulers m
ostly 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 fo
oleth 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.