Delphi Complete Works of Ambrose Bierce (Illustrated)

by Bierce, Ambrose

  MONARCH, n. A person engaged in reigning. Formerly the monarch ruled, as the derivation of the word attests, and as many subjects have had occasion to learn. In Russia and the Orient the monarch has still a considerable influence in public affairs and in the disposition of the human head, but in western Europe political administration is mostly entrusted to his ministers, he being somewhat preoccupied with reflections relating to the status of his own head.

  MONARCHICAL GOVERNMENT, n. Government.

  MONDAY, n. In Christian countries, the day after the baseball game.

  MONEY, n. A blessing that is of no advantage to us excepting when we part with it. An evidence of culture and a passport to polite society. Supportable property.

  MONKEY, n. An arboreal animal which makes itself at home in genealogical trees.

  MONOSYLLABIC, adj. Composed of words of one syllable, for literary babes who never tire of testifying their delight in the vapid compound by appropriate googoogling. The words are commonly Saxon — that is to say, words of a barbarous people destitute of ideas and incapable of any but the most elementary sentiments and emotions.

  The man who writes in Saxon

  Is the man to use an ax on

  –Judibras

  MONSIGNOR, n. A high ecclesiastical title, of which the Founder of our religion overlooked the advantages.

  MONUMENT, n. A structure intended to commemorate something which either needs no commemoration or cannot be commemorated.

  The bones of Agammemnon are a show,

  And ruined is his royal monument,

  but Agammemnon’s fame suffers no diminution in consequence. The monument custom has its reductiones ad absurdum in monuments “to the unknown dead” — that is to say, monuments to perpetuate the memory of those who have left no memory.

  MORAL, adj. Conforming to a local and mutable standard of right. Having the quality of general expediency.

  It is sayd there be a raunge of mountaynes in the Easte, on one syde of the which certayn conducts are immorall, yet on the other syde they are holden in good esteeme; wherebye the mountayneer is much conveenyenced, for it is given to him to goe downe eyther way and act as it shall suite his moode, withouten offence.

  –Gooke’s Meditations

  MORE, adj. The comparative degree of too much.

  MOUSE, n. An animal which strews its path with fainting women. As in Rome Christians were thrown to the lions, so centuries earlier in Otumwee, the most ancient and famous city of the world, female heretics were thrown to the mice. Jakak–Zotp, the historian, the only Otumwump whose writings have descended to us, says that these martyrs met their death with little dignity and much exertion. He even attempts to exculpate the mice (such is the malice of bigotry) by declaring that the unfortunate women perished, some from exhaustion, some of broken necks from falling over their own feet, and some from lack of restoratives. The mice, he avers, enjoyed the pleasures of the chase with composure. But if “Roman history is nine-tenths lying,” we can hardly expect a smaller proportion of that rhetorical figure in the annals of a people capable of so incredible cruelty to a lovely women; for a hard heart has a false tongue.

  MOUSQUETAIRE, n. A long glove covering a part of the arm. Worn in New Jersey. But “mousquetaire” is a might poor way to spell muskeeter.

  MOUTH, n. In man, the gateway to the soul; in woman, the outlet of the heart.

  MUGWUMP, n. In politics one afflicted with self-respect and addicted to the vice of independence. A term of contempt.

  MULATTO, n. A child of two races, ashamed of both.

  MULTITUDE, n. A crowd; the source of political wisdom and virtue. In a republic, the object of the statesman’s adoration. “In a multitude of counsellors there is wisdom,” saith the proverb. If many men of equal individual wisdom are wiser than any one of them, it must be that they acquire the excess of wisdom by the mere act of getting together. Whence comes it? Obviously from nowhere — as well say that a range of mountains is higher than the single mountains composing it. A multitude is as wise as its wisest member if it obey him; if not, it is no wiser than its most foolish.

  MUMMY, n. An ancient Egyptian, formerly in universal use among modern civilized nations as medicine, and now engaged in supplying art with an excellent pigment. He is handy, too, in museums in gratifying the vulgar curiosity that serves to distinguish man from the lower animals.

  By means of the Mummy, mankind, it is said,

  Attests to the gods its respect for the dead.

  We plunder his tomb, be he sinner or saint,

  Distil him for physic and grind him for paint,

  Exhibit for money his poor, shrunken frame,

  And with levity flock to the scene of the shame.

  O, tell me, ye gods, for the use of my rhyme:

  For respecting the dead what’s the limit of time?

  –Scopas Brune

  MUSTANG, n. An indocile horse of the western plains. In English society, the American wife of an English nobleman.

  MYRMIDON, n. A follower of Achilles — particularly when he didn’t lead.

  MYTHOLOGY, n. The body of a primitive people’s beliefs concerning its origin, early history, heroes, deities and so forth, as distinguished from the true accounts which it invents later.

  N

  NECTAR, n. A drink served at banquets of the Olympian deities. The secret of its preparation is lost, but the modern Kentuckians believe that they come pretty near to a knowledge of its chief ingredient.

  Juno drank a cup of nectar,

  But the draught did not affect her.

  Juno drank a cup of rye —

  Then she bad herself good-bye.

  –J.G.

  NEGRO, n. The piece de resistance in the American political problem. Representing him by the letter n, the Republicans begin to build their equation thus: “Let n = the white man.” This, however, appears to give an unsatisfactory solution.

  NEIGHBOR, n. One whom we are commanded to love as ourselves, and who does all he knows how to make us disobedient.

  NEPOTISM, n. Appointing your grandmother to office for the good of the party.

  NEWTONIAN, adj. Pertaining to a philosophy of the universe invented by Newton, who discovered that an apple will fall to the ground, but was unable to say why. His successors and disciples have advanced so far as to be able to say when.

  NIHILIST, n. A Russian who denies the existence of anything but Tolstoi. The leader of the school is Tolstoi.

  NIRVANA, n. In the Buddhist religion, a state of pleasurable annihilation awarded to the wise, particularly to those wise enough to understand it.

  NOBLEMAN, n. Nature’s provision for wealthy American minds ambitious to incur social distinction and suffer high life.

  NOISE, n. A stench in the ear. Undomesticated music. The chief product and authenticating sign of civilization.

  NOMINATE, v. To designate for the heaviest political assessment. To put forward a suitable person to incur the mudgobbling and deadcatting of the opposition.

  NOMINEE, n. A modest gentleman shrinking from the distinction of private life and diligently seeking the honorable obscurity of public office.

  NON-COMBATANT, n. A dead Quaker.

  NONSENSE, n. The objections that are urged against this excellent dictionary.

  NOSE, n. The extreme outpost of the face. From the circumstance that great conquerors have great noses, Getius, whose writings antedate the age of humor, calls the nose the organ of quell. It has been observed that one’s nose is never so happy as when thrust into the affairs of others, from which some physiologists have drawn the inference that the nose is devoid of the sense of smell.

  There’s a man with a Nose,

  And wherever he goes

  The people run from him and shout:

  “No cotton have we

  For our ears if so be

  He blow that interminous snout!”

  So the lawyers applied

  For injunction. “Denied,”

  Said the Judge: �
��the defendant prefixion,

  Whate’er it portend,

  Appears to transcend

  The bounds of this court’s jurisdiction.”

  –Arpad Singiny

  NOTORIETY, n. The fame of one’s competitor for public honors. The kind of renown most accessible and acceptable to mediocrity. A Jacob’s-ladder leading to the vaudeville stage, with angels ascending and descending.

  NOUMENON, n. That which exists, as distinguished from that which merely seems to exist, the latter being a phenomenon. The noumenon is a bit difficult to locate; it can be apprehended only be a process of reasoning — which is a phenomenon. Nevertheless, the discovery and exposition of noumena offer a rich field for what Lewes calls “the endless variety and excitement of philosophic thought.” Hurrah (therefore) for the noumenon!

  NOVEL, n. A short story padded. A species of composition bearing the same relation to literature that the panorama bears to art. As it is too long to be read at a sitting the impressions made by its successive parts are successively effaced, as in the panorama. Unity, totality of effect, is impossible; for besides the few pages last read all that is carried in mind is the mere plot of what has gone before. To the romance the novel is what photography is to painting. Its distinguishing principle, probability, corresponds to the literal actuality of the photograph and puts it distinctly into the category of reporting; whereas the free wing of the romancer enables him to mount to such altitudes of imagination as he may be fitted to attain; and the first three essentials of the literary art are imagination, imagination and imagination. The art of writing novels, such as it was, is long dead everywhere except in Russia, where it is new. Peace to its ashes — some of which have a large sale.

  NOVEMBER, n. The eleventh twelfth of a weariness.

  O

  OATH, n. In law, a solemn appeal to the Deity, made binding upon the conscience by a penalty for perjury.

  OBLIVION, n. The state or condition in which the wicked cease from struggling and the dreary are at rest. Fame’s eternal dumping ground. Cold storage for high hopes. A place where ambitious authors meet their works without pride and their betters without envy. A dormitory without an alarm clock.

  OBSERVATORY, n. A place where astronomers conjecture away the guesses of their predecessors.

  OBSESSED, p.p. Vexed by an evil spirit, like the Gadarene swine and other critics. Obsession was once more common than it is now. Arasthus tells of a peasant who was occupied by a different devil for every day in the week, and on Sundays by two. They were frequently seen, always walking in his shadow, when he had one, but were finally driven away by the village notary, a holy man; but they took the peasant with them, for he vanished utterly. A devil thrown out of a woman by the Archbishop of Rheims ran through the trees, pursued by a hundred persons, until the open country was reached, where by a leap higher than a church spire he escaped into a bird. A chaplain in Cromwell’s army exorcised a soldier’s obsessing devil by throwing the soldier into the water, when the devil came to the surface. The soldier, unfortunately, did not.

  OBSOLETE, adj. No longer used by the timid. Said chiefly of words. A word which some lexicographer has marked obsolete is ever thereafter an object of dread and loathing to the fool writer, but if it is a good word and has no exact modern equivalent equally good, it is good enough for the good writer. Indeed, a writer’s attitude toward “obsolete” words is as true a measure of his literary ability as anything except the character of his work. A dictionary of obsolete and obsolescent words would not only be singularly rich in strong and sweet parts of speech; it would add large possessions to the vocabulary of every competent writer who might not happen to be a competent reader.

  OBSTINATE, adj. Inaccessible to the truth as it is manifest in the splendor and stress of our advocacy.

  The popular type and exponent of obstinacy is the mule, a most intelligent animal.

  OCCASIONAL, adj. Afflicting us with greater or less frequency. That, however, is not the sense in which the word is used in the phrase “occasional verses,” which are verses written for an “occasion,” such as an anniversary, a celebration or other event. True, they afflict us a little worse than other sorts of verse, but their name has no reference to irregular recurrence.

  OCCIDENT, n. The part of the world lying west (or east) of the Orient. It is largely inhabited by Christians, a powerful subtribe of the Hypocrites, whose principal industries are murder and cheating, which they are pleased to call “war” and “commerce.” These, also, are the principal industries of the Orient.

  OCEAN, n. A body of water occupying about two-thirds of a world made for man — who has no gills.

  OFFENSIVE, adj. Generating disagreeable emotions or sensations, as the advance of an army against its enemy.

  “Were the enemy’s tactics offensive?” the king asked. “I should say so!” replied the unsuccessful general. “The blackguard wouldn’t come out of his works!”

  OLD, adj. In that stage of usefulness which is not inconsistent with general inefficiency, as an old man. Discredited by lapse of time and offensive to the popular taste, as an old book.

  “Old books? The devil take them!” Goby said.

  “Fresh every day must be my books and bread.”

  Nature herself approves the Goby rule

  And gives us every moment a fresh fool.

  –Harley Shum

  OLEAGINOUS, adj. Oily, smooth, sleek.

  Disraeli once described the manner of Bishop Wilberforce as “unctuous, oleaginous, saponaceous.” And the good prelate was ever afterward known as Soapy Sam. For every man there is something in the vocabulary that would stick to him like a second skin. His enemies have only to find it.

  OLYMPIAN, adj. Relating to a mountain in Thessaly, once inhabited by gods, now a repository of yellowing newspapers, beer bottles and mutilated sardine cans, attesting the presence of the tourist and his appetite.

  His name the smirking tourist scrawls

  Upon Minerva’s temple walls,

  Where thundered once Olympian Zeus,

  And marks his appetite’s abuse.

  –Averil Joop

  OMEN, n. A sign that something will happen if nothing happens.

  ONCE, adv. Enough.

  OPERA, n. A play representing life in another world, whose inhabitants have no speech but song, no motions but gestures and no postures but attitudes. All acting is simulation, and the word simulation is from simia, an ape; but in opera the actor takes for his model Simia audibilis (or Pithecanthropos stentor) — the ape that howls.

  The actor apes a man — at least in shape;

  The opera performer apes and ape.

  OPIATE, n. An unlocked door in the prison of Identity. It leads into the jail yard.

  OPPORTUNITY, n. A favorable occasion for grasping a disappointment.

  OPPOSE, v. To assist with obstructions and objections.

  How lonely he who thinks to vex

  With bandinage the Solemn Sex!

  Of levity, Mere Man, beware;

  None but the Grave deserve the Unfair.

  –Percy P. Orminder

  OPPOSITION, n. In politics the party that prevents the Government from running amuck by hamstringing it.

  The King of Ghargaroo, who had been abroad to study the science of government, appointed one hundred of his fattest subjects as members of a parliament to make laws for the collection of revenue. Forty of these he named the Party of Opposition and had his Prime Minister carefully instruct them in their duty of opposing every royal measure. Nevertheless, the first one that was submitted passed unanimously. Greatly displeased, the King vetoed it, informing the Opposition that if they did that again they would pay for their obstinacy with their heads. The entire forty promptly disemboweled themselves.

  “What shall we do now?” the King asked. “Liberal institutions cannot be maintained without a party of Opposition.”

  “Splendor of the universe,” replied the Prime Minister, “it is true these dogs of darkness ha
ve no longer their credentials, but all is not lost. Leave the matter to this worm of the dust.”

  So the Minister had the bodies of his Majesty’s Opposition embalmed and stuffed with straw, put back into the seats of power and nailed there. Forty votes were recorded against every bill and the nation prospered. But one day a bill imposing a tax on warts was defeated — the members of the Government party had not been nailed to their seats! This so enraged the King that the Prime Minister was put to death, the parliament was dissolved with a battery of artillery, and government of the people, by the people, for the people perished from Ghargaroo.

  OPTIMISM, n. The doctrine, or belief, that everything is beautiful, including what is ugly, everything good, especially the bad, and everything right that is wrong. It is held with greatest tenacity by those most accustomed to the mischance of falling into adversity, and is most acceptably expounded with the grin that apes a smile. Being a blind faith, it is inaccessible to the light of disproof — an intellectual disorder, yielding to no treatment but death. It is hereditary, but fortunately not contagious.