Delphi Complete Works of Ambrose Bierce (Illustrated)

by Bierce, Ambrose

“The man was in such deep distress,”

  Said Tom, “that I could do no less

  Than give him good advice.” Said Jim:

  “If less could have been done for him

  I know you well enough, my son,

  To know that’s what you would have done.”

  –Jebel Jocordy

  AFFIANCED, pp. Fitted with an ankle-ring for the ball-and-chain.

  AFFLICTION, n. An acclimatizing process preparing the soul for another and bitter world.

  AFRICAN, n. A nigger that votes our way.

  AGE, n. That period of life in which we compound for the vices that we still cherish by reviling those that we have no longer the enterprise to commit.

  AGITATOR, n. A statesman who shakes the fruit trees of his neighbors — to dislodge the worms.

  AIM, n. The task we set our wishes to.

  “Cheer up! Have you no aim in life?”

  She tenderly inquired.

  “An aim? Well, no, I haven’t, wife;

  The fact is — I have fired.”

  –G.J.

  AIR, n. A nutritious substance supplied by a bountiful Providence for the fattening of the poor.

  ALDERMAN, n. An ingenious criminal who covers his secret thieving with a pretence of open marauding.

  ALIEN, n. An American sovereign in his probationary state.

  ALLAH, n. The Mahometan Supreme Being, as distinguished from the Christian, Jewish, and so forth.

  Allah’s good laws I faithfully have kept,

  And ever for the sins of man have wept;

  And sometimes kneeling in the temple I

  Have reverently crossed my hands and slept.

  –Junker Barlow

  ALLEGIANCE, n.

  This thing Allegiance, as I suppose,

  Is a ring fitted in the subject’s nose,

  Whereby that organ is kept rightly pointed

  To smell the sweetness of the Lord’s anointed.

  –G.J.

  ALLIANCE, n. In international politics, the union of two thieves who have their hands so deeply inserted in each other’s pockets that they cannot separately plunder a third.

  ALLIGATOR, n. The crocodile of America, superior in every detail to the crocodile of the effete monarchies of the Old World. Herodotus says the Indus is, with one exception, the only river that produces crocodiles, but they appear to have gone West and grown up with the other rivers. From the notches on his back the alligator is called a sawrian.

  ALONE, adj. In bad company.

  In contact, lo! the flint and steel,

  By spark and flame, the thought reveal

  That he the metal, she the stone,

  Had cherished secretly alone.

  –Booley Fito

  ALTAR, n. The place whereupon the priest formerly raveled out the small intestine of the sacrificial victim for purposes of divination and cooked its flesh for the gods. The word is now seldom used, except with reference to the sacrifice of their liberty and peace by a male and a female tool.

  They stood before the altar and supplied

  The fire themselves in which their fat was fried.

  In vain the sacrifice! — no god will claim

  An offering burnt with an unholy flame.

  –M.P. Nopput

  AMBIDEXTROUS, adj. Able to pick with equal skill a right-hand pocket or a left.

  AMBITION, n. An overmastering desire to be vilified by enemies while living and made ridiculous by friends when dead.

  AMNESTY, n. The state’s magnanimity to those offenders whom it would be too expensive to punish.

  ANOINT, v.t. To grease a king or other great functionary already sufficiently slippery.

  As sovereigns are anointed by the priesthood,

  So pigs to lead the populace are greased good.

  –Judibras

  ANTIPATHY, n. The sentiment inspired by one’s friend’s friend.

  APHORISM, n. Predigested wisdom.

  The flabby wine-skin of his brain

  Yields to some pathologic strain,

  And voids from its unstored abysm

  The driblet of an aphorism.

  –”The Mad Philosopher,” 1697

  APOLOGIZE, v.i. To lay the foundation for a future offence.

  APOSTATE, n. A leech who, having penetrated the shell of a turtle only to find that the creature has long been dead, deems it expedient to form a new attachment to a fresh turtle.

  APOTHECARY, n. The physician’s accomplice, undertaker’s benefactor and grave worm’s provider.

  When Jove sent blessings to all men that are,

  And Mercury conveyed them in a jar,

  That friend of tricksters introduced by stealth

  Disease for the apothecary’s health,

  Whose gratitude impelled him to proclaim:

  “My deadliest drug shall bear my patron’s name!”

  –G.J.

  APPEAL, v.t. In law, to put the dice into the box for another throw.

  APPETITE, n. An instinct thoughtfully implanted by Providence as a solution to the labor question.

  APPLAUSE, n. The echo of a platitude.

  APRIL FOOL, n. The March fool with another month added to his folly.

  ARCHBISHOP, n. An ecclesiastical dignitary one point holier than a bishop.

  If I were a jolly archbishop,

  On Fridays I’d eat all the fish up —

  Salmon and flounders and smelts;

  On other days everything else.

  –Jodo Rem

  ARCHITECT, n. One who drafts a plan of your house, and plans a draft of your money.

  ARDOR, n. The quality that distinguishes love without knowledge.

  ARENA, n. In politics, an imaginary rat-pit in which the statesman wrestles with his record.

  ARISTOCRACY, n. Government by the best men. (In this sense the word is obsolete; so is that kind of government.) Fellows that wear downy hats and clean shirts — guilty of education and suspected of bank accounts.

  ARMOR, n. The kind of clothing worn by a man whose tailor is a blacksmith.

  ARRAYED, pp. Drawn up and given an orderly disposition, as a rioter hanged to a lamppost.

  ARREST, v.t. Formally to detain one accused of unusualness.

  God made the world in six days and was arrested on the seventh.

  –The Unauthorized Version

  ARSENIC, n. A kind of cosmetic greatly affected by the ladies, whom it greatly affects in turn.

  “Eat arsenic? Yes, all you get,”

  Consenting, he did speak up;

  “‘Tis better you should eat it, pet,

  Than put it in my teacup.”

  –Joel Huck

  ART, n. This word has no definition. Its origin is related as follows by the ingenious Father Gassalasca Jape, S.J.

  One day a wag — what would the wretch be at? —

  Shifted a letter of the cipher RAT,

  And said it was a god’s name! Straight arose

  Fantastic priests and postulants (with shows,

  And mysteries, and mummeries, and hymns,

  And disputations dire that lamed their limbs)

  To serve his temple and maintain the fires,

  Expound the law, manipulate the wires.

  Amazed, the populace that rites attend,

  Believe whate’er they cannot comprehend,

  And, inly edified to learn that two

  Half-hairs joined so and so (as Art can do)

  Have sweeter values and a grace more fit

  Than Nature’s hairs that never have been split,

  Bring cates and wines for sacrificial feasts,

  And sell their garments to support the priests.

  ARTLESSNESS, n. A certain engaging quality to which women attain by long study and severe practice upon the admiring male, who is pleased to fancy it resembles the candid simplicity of his young.

  ASPERSE, v.t. Maliciously to ascribe to another vicious actions which one has not had the temptation and opportunity to commit.


  ASS, n. A public singer with a good voice but no ear. In Virginia City, Nevada, he is called the Washoe Canary, in Dakota, the Senator, and everywhere the Donkey. The animal is widely and variously celebrated in the literature, art and religion of every age and country; no other so engages and fires the human imagination as this noble vertebrate. Indeed, it is doubted by some (Ramasilus, lib. II., De Clem., and C. Stantatus, De Temperamente) if it is not a god; and as such we know it was worshiped by the Etruscans, and, if we may believe Macrobious, by the Cupasians also. Of the only two animals admitted into the Mahometan Paradise along with the souls of men, the ass that carried Balaam is one, the dog of the Seven Sleepers the other. This is no small distinction. From what has been written about this beast might be compiled a library of great splendor and magnitude, rivalling that of the Shakespearean cult, and that which clusters about the Bible. It may be said, generally, that all literature is more or less Asinine.

  “Hail, holy Ass!” the quiring angels sing;

  “Priest of Unreason, and of Discords King!”

  Great co-Creator, let Thy glory shine:

  God made all else, the Mule, the Mule is thine!”

  –G.J.

  AUCTIONEER, n. The man who proclaims with a hammer that he has picked a pocket with his tongue.

  AUSTRALIA, n. A country lying in the South Sea, whose industrial and commercial development has been unspeakably retarded by an unfortunate dispute among geographers as to whether it is a continent or an island.

  AVERNUS, n. The lake by which the ancients entered the infernal regions. The fact that access to the infernal regions was obtained by a lake is believed by the learned Marcus Ansello Scrutator to have suggested the Christian rite of baptism by immersion. This, however, has been shown by Lactantius to be an error.

  Facilis descensus Averni,

  The poet remarks; and the sense

  Of it is that when down-hill I turn I

  Will get more of punches than pence.

  –Jehal Dai Lupe

  B

  BAAL, n. An old deity formerly much worshiped under various names. As Baal he was popular with the Phoenicians; as Belus or Bel he had the honor to be served by the priest Berosus, who wrote the famous account of the Deluge; as Babel he had a tower partly erected to his glory on the Plain of Shinar. From Babel comes our English word “babble.” Under whatever name worshiped, Baal is the Sun-god. As Beelzebub he is the god of flies, which are begotten of the sun’s rays on the stagnant water. In Physicia Baal is still worshiped as Bolus, and as Belly he is adored and served with abundant sacrifice by the priests of Guttledom.

  BABE or BABY, n. A misshapen creature of no particular age, sex, or condition, chiefly remarkable for the violence of the sympathies and antipathies it excites in others, itself without sentiment or emotion. There have been famous babes; for example, little Moses, from whose adventure in the bulrushes the Egyptian hierophants of seven centuries before doubtless derived their idle tale of the child Osiris being preserved on a floating lotus leaf.

  Ere babes were invented

  The girls were contended.

  Now man is tormented

  Until to buy babes he has squandered

  His money. And so I have pondered

  This thing, and thought may be

  ‘T were better that Baby

  The First had been eagled or condored.

  –Ro Amil

  BACCHUS, n. A convenient deity invented by the ancients as an excuse for getting drunk.

  Is public worship, then, a sin,

  That for devotions paid to Bacchus

  The lictors dare to run us in,

  And resolutely thump and whack us?

  –Jorace

  BACK, n. That part of your friend which it is your privilege to contemplate in your adversity.

  BACKBITE, v.t. To speak of a man as you find him when he can’t find you.

  BAIT, n. A preparation that renders the hook more palatable. The best kind is beauty.

  BAPTISM, n. A sacred rite of such efficacy that he who finds himself in heaven without having undergone it will be unhappy forever. It is performed with water in two ways — by immersion, or plunging, and by aspersion, or sprinkling.

  But whether the plan of immersion

  Is better than simple aspersion

  Let those immersed

  And those aspersed

  Decide by the Authorized Version,

  And by matching their agues tertian.

  –G.J.

  BAROMETER, n. An ingenious instrument which indicates what kind of weather we are having.

  BARRACK, n. A house in which soldiers enjoy a portion of that of which it is their business to deprive others.

  BASILISK, n. The cockatrice. A sort of serpent hatched form the egg of a cock. The basilisk had a bad eye, and its glance was fatal. Many infidels deny this creature’s existence, but Semprello Aurator saw and handled one that had been blinded by lightning as a punishment for having fatally gazed on a lady of rank whom Jupiter loved. Juno afterward restored the reptile’s sight and hid it in a cave. Nothing is so well attested by the ancients as the existence of the basilisk, but the cocks have stopped laying.

  BASTINADO, n. The act of walking on wood without exertion.

  BATH, n. A kind of mystic ceremony substituted for religious worship, with what spiritual efficacy has not been determined.

  The man who taketh a steam bath

  He loseth all the skin he hath,

  And, for he’s boiled a brilliant red,

  Thinketh to cleanliness he’s wed,

  Forgetting that his lungs he’s soiling

  With dirty vapors of the boiling.

  –Richard Gwow

  BATTLE, n. A method of untying with the teeth of a political knot that would not yield to the tongue.

  BEARD, n. The hair that is commonly cut off by those who justly execrate the absurd Chinese custom of shaving the head.

  BEAUTY, n. The power by which a woman charms a lover and terrifies a husband.

  BEFRIEND, v.t. To make an ingrate.

  BEG, v. To ask for something with an earnestness proportioned to the belief that it will not be given.

  Who is that, father?

  A mendicant, child,

  Haggard, morose, and unaffable — wild!

  See how he glares through the bars of his cell!

  With Citizen Mendicant all is not well.

  Why did they put him there, father?

  Because

  Obeying his belly he struck at the laws.

  His belly?

  Oh, well, he was starving, my boy —

  A state in which, doubtless, there’s little of joy.

  No bite had he eaten for days, and his cry

  Was “Bread!” ever “Bread!”

  What’s the matter with pie?

  With little to wear, he had nothing to sell;

  To beg was unlawful — improper as well.

  Why didn’t he work?

  He would even have done that,

  But men said: “Get out!” and the State remarked: “Scat!”

  I mention these incidents merely to show

  That the vengeance he took was uncommonly low.

  Revenge, at the best, is the act of a Siou,

  But for trifles —

  Pray what did bad Mendicant do?

  Stole two loaves of bread to replenish his lack

  And tuck out the belly that clung to his back.

  Is that all father dear?

  There’s little to tell:

  They sent him to jail, and they’ll send him to — well,

  The company’s better than here we can boast,

  And there’s —

  Bread for the needy, dear father?

  Um — toast.

  –Atka Mip

  BEGGAR, n. One who has relied on the assistance of his friends.

  BEHAVIOR, n. Conduct, as determined, not by principle, but by breeding. The word seems to be somewhat loosely used i
n Dr. Jamrach Holobom’s translation of the following lines from the Dies Irae:

  Recordare, Jesu pie,

  Quod sum causa tuae viae.

  Ne me perdas illa die.

  Pray remember, sacred Savior,

  Whose the thoughtless hand that gave your

  Death-blow. Pardon such behavior.

  BELLADONNA, n. In Italian a beautiful lady; in English a deadly poison. A striking example of the essential identity of the two tongues.

  BENEDICTINES, n. An order of monks otherwise known as black friars.

  She thought it a crow, but it turn out to be

  A monk of St. Benedict croaking a text.

  “Here’s one of an order of cooks,” said she —

  “Black friars in this world, fried black in the next.”

  –”The Devil on Earth” (London, 1712)

  BENEFACTOR, n. One who makes heavy purchases of ingratitude, without, however, materially affecting the price, which is still within the means of all.

  BERENICE’S HAIR, n. A constellation (Coma Berenices) named in honor of one who sacrificed her hair to save her husband.

  Her locks an ancient lady gave

  Her loving husband’s life to save;

  And men — they honored so the dame —

  Upon some stars bestowed her name.

  But to our modern married fair,

  Who’d give their lords to save their hair,

  No stellar recognition’s given.

  There are not stars enough in heaven.

  –G.J.

  BIGAMY, n. A mistake in taste for which the wisdom of the future will adjudge a punishment called trigamy.