THE DEVIL'S DICTIONARY

by Ambrose Bierce

  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."

  A Roman slave appeared one day

  Before the Augur. "Tell me, pray,

  If-" here the Augur, smiling, made

  A checking gesture and displayed

  His open palm, which plainly itched,

  For visibly its surface twitched.

  A denarius (the Latin nickel)

  Successfully allayed the tickle,

  And then the slave proceeded: "Please

  Inform me whether Fate decrees

  Success or failure in what I

  To-night (if it be dark) shall try.

  Its nature? Never mind-I think

 
'Tis writ on this"-and with a wink

  Which darkened half the earth, he drew

  Another denarius to view,

  Its shining face attentive scanned,

  Then slipped it into the good man's hand,

  Who with great gravity said: "Wait

  While I retire to question Fate."

  That holy person then withdrew

  His scared clay and, passing through

  The temple's rearward gate, cried "Shoo!"

  Waving his robe of office. Straight

  Each sacred peacock and its mate

  (Maintained for Juno's favor) fled

  With clamor from the trees o'erhead,

  Where they were perching for the night.

  The temple's roof received their flight,

  For thither they would always go,

  When danger threatened them below.

  Back to the slave the Augur went:

  "My son, forecasting the event

  By flight of birds, I must confess

  The auspices deny success."

  That slave retired, a sadder man,

  Abandoning his secret plan-

  Which was (as well the craft seer

  Had from the first divined) to clear

  The wall and fraudulently seize

  On Juno's poultry in the trees.

  G.J.

  INCOME, n. The natural and rational gauge and measure of respectability, the commonly accepted standards being artificial, arbitrary and fallacious; for, as "Sir Sycophas Chrysolater" in the play has justly remarked, "the true use and function of property (in whatsoever it consisteth-coins, or land, or houses, or merchant-stuff, or anything which may be named as holden of right to one's own subservience) as also of honors, titles, preferments and place, and all favor and acquaintance of persons of quality or ableness, are but to get money. Hence it followeth that all things are truly to be rated as of worth in measure of their serviceableness to that end; and their possessors should take rank in agreement thereto, neither the lord of an unproducing manor, howsoever broad and ancient, nor he who bears an unremunerate dignity, nor yet the pauper favorite of a king, being esteemed of level excellency with him whose riches are of daily accretion; and hardly should they whose wealth is barren claim and rightly take more honor than the poor and unworthy."

  INCOMPATIBILITY, n. In matrimony a similarity of tastes, particularly the taste for domination. Incompatibility may, however, consist of a meek-eyed matron living just around the corner. It has even been known to wear a moustache.

  INCOMPOSSIBLE, adj. Unable to exist if something else exists. Two things are incompossible when the world of being has scope enough for one of them, but not enough for both-as Walt Whitman's poetry and God's mercy to man. Incompossibility, it will be seen, is only incompatibility let loose. Instead of such low language as "Go heel yourself-I mean to kill you on sight," the words, "Sir, we are incompossible," would convey and equally significant intimation and in stately courtesy are altogether superior.

  INCUBUS, n. One of a race of highly improper demons who, though probably not wholly extinct, may be said to have seen their best nights. For a complete account of incubi and succubi, including incubae and succubae, see the Liber Demonorum of Protassus (Paris, 1328), which contains much curious information that would be out of place in a dictionary intended as a text-book for the public schools.

  Victor Hugo relates that in the Channel Islands Satan himself- tempted more than elsewhere by the beauty of the women, doubtless- sometimes plays at incubus, greatly to the inconvenience and alarm of the good dames who wish to be loyal to their marriage vows, generally speaking. A certain lady applied to the parish priest to learn how they might, in the dark, distinguish the hardy intruder from their husbands. The holy man said they must feel his brown for horns; but Hugo is ungallant enough to hint a doubt of the efficacy of the test.

  INCUMBENT, n. A person of the liveliest interest to the outcumbents.

  INDECISION, n. The chief element of success; "for whereas," saith Sir Thomas Brewbold, "there is but one way to do nothing and divers way to do something, whereof, to a surety, only one is the right way, it followeth that he who from indecision standeth still hath not so many chances of going astray as he who pusheth forwards"-a most clear and satisfactory exposition on the matter.

  "Your prompt decision to attack," said Genera Grant on a certain occasion to General Gordon Granger, "was admirable; you had but five minutes to make up your mind in."

  "Yes, sir," answered the victorious subordinate, "it is a great thing to be know exactly what to do in an emergency. When in doubt whether to attack or retreat I never hesitate a moment-I toss us a copper."

  "Do you mean to say that's what you did this time?"

  "Yes, General; but for Heaven's sake don't reprimand me: I disobeyed the coin."

  INDIFFERENT, adj. Imperfectly sensible to distinctions among things.

  "You tiresome man!" cried Indolentio's wife,

  "You've grown indifferent to all in life."

  "Indifferent?" he drawled with a slow smile;

  "I would be, dear, but it is not worth while."

  Apuleius M. Gokul

  INDIGESTION, n. A disease which the patient and his friends frequently mistake for deep religious conviction and concern for the salvation of mankind. As the simple Red Man of the western wild put it, with, it must be confessed, a certain force: "Plenty well, no pray; big bellyache, heap God."

  INDISCRETION, n. The guilt of woman.

  INEXPEDIENT, adj. Not calculated to advance one's interests.

  INFANCY, n. The period of our lives when, according to Wordsworth, "Heaven lies about us." The world begins lying about us pretty soon afterward.

  INFERIAE, n. [Latin] Among the Greeks and Romans, sacrifices for propitiation of the Dii Manes, or souls of the dead heroes; for the pious ancients could not invent enough gods to satisfy their spiritual needs, and had to have a number of makeshift deities, or, as a sailor might say, jury-gods, which they made out of the most unpromising materials. It was while sacrificing a bullock to the spirit of Agamemnon that Laiaides, a priest of Aulis, was favored with an audience of that illustrious warrior's shade, who prophetically recounted to him the birth of Christ and the triumph of Christianity, giving him also a rapid but tolerably complete review of events down to the reign of Saint Louis. The narrative ended abruptly at the point, owing to the inconsiderate crowing of a cock, which compelled the ghosted King of Men to scamper back to Hades. There is a fine mediaeval flavor to this story, and as it has not been traced back further than Pere Brateille, a pious but obscure writer at the court of Saint Louis, we shall probably not err on the side of presumption in considering it apocryphal, though Monsignor Capel's judgment of the matter might be different; and to that I bow-wow.

  INFIDEL, n. In New York, one who does not believe in the Christian religion; in Constantinople, one who does. (See GIAOUR.) A kind of scoundrel imperfectly reverent of, and niggardly contributory to, divines, ecclesiastics, popes, parsons, canons, monks, mollahs, voodoos, presbyters, hierophants, prelates, obeah-men, abbes, nuns, missionaries, exhorters, deacons, friars, hadjis, high-priests, muezzins, brahmins, medicine-men, confessors, eminences, elders, primates, prebendaries, pilgrims, prophets, imaums, beneficiaries, clerks, vicars-choral, archbishops, bishops, abbots, priors, preachers, padres, abbotesses, caloyers, palmers, curates, patriarchs, bonezs, santons, beadsmen, canonesses, residentiaries, diocesans, deans, subdeans, rural deans, abdals, charm-sellers, archdeacons, hierarchs, class-leaders, incumbents, capitulars, sheiks, talapoins, postulants, scribes, gooroos, precentors, beadles, fakeers, sextons, reverences, revivalists, cenobites, perpetual curates, chaplains, mudjoes, readers, novices, vicars, pastors, rabbis, ulemas, lamas, sacristans, vergers, dervises, lectors, church wardens, cardinals, prioresses, suffragans, acolytes, rectors, cures, sophis, mutifs and pumpums.

  INFLUENCE, n. In politics, a visionary quo given in exchange for a substantial quid.

  INFRALAPSARI
AN, n. One who ventures to believe that Adam need not have sinned unless he had a mind to-in opposition to the Supralapsarians, who hold that that luckless person's fall was decreed from the beginning. Infralapsarians are sometimes called Sublapsarians without material effect upon the importance and lucidity of their views about Adam.

  Two theologues once, as they wended their way

  To chapel, engaged in colloquial fray-

  An earnest logomachy, bitter as gall,

  Concerning poor Adam and what made him fall.

  "'Twas Predestination," cried one-"for the Lord

  Decreed he should fall of his own accord."

  "Not so-'twas Free will," the other maintained,

  "Which led him to choose what the Lord had ordained."

  So fierce and so fiery grew the debate

  That nothing but bloodshed their dudgeon could sate;

  So off flew their cassocks and caps to the ground

  And, moved by the spirit, their hands went round.

  Ere either had proved his theology right

  By winning, or even beginning, the fight,

  A gray old professor of Latin came by,

  A staff in his hand and a scowl in his eye,

  And learning the cause of their quarrel (for still

  As they clumsily sparred they disputed with skill

  Of foreordination freedom of will)

  Cried: "Sirrahs! this reasonless warfare compose:

  Atwixt ye's no difference worthy of blows.

  The sects ye belong to-I'm ready to swear

  Ye wrongly interpret the names that they bear.

  You-Infralapsarian son of a clown!-

  Should only contend that Adam slipped down;

  While you-you Supralapsarian pup!-

  Should nothing aver but that Adam slipped up.

  It's all the same whether up or down

  You slip on a peel of banana brown.

  Even Adam analyzed not his blunder,

  But thought he had slipped on a peal of thunder!

  G.J.

  INGRATE, n. One who receives a benefit from another, or is otherwise an object of charity.