The Devil's Dictionary (14 page)

God said:  "Let Spirit perish into Form,"
And lexicographers arose, a swarm!
Thought fled and left her clothing, which they took,
And catalogued each garment in a book.
Now, from her leafy covert when she cries:
"Give me my clothes and I'll return," they rise
And scan the list, and say without compassion:
"Excuse us—they are mostly out of fashion."

Sigismund Smith

LIAR, n. A lawyer with a roving commission.

LIBERTY, n. One of Imagination's most precious possessions.

The rising People, hot and out of breath,
Roared around the palace:  "Liberty or death!"
"If death will do," the King said, "let me reign;
You'll have, I'm sure, no reason to complain."

Martha Braymance

LICKSPITTLE, n. A useful functionary, not infrequently found editing
a newspaper. In his character of editor he is closely allied to the
blackmailer by the tie of occasional identity; for in truth the
lickspittle is only the blackmailer under another aspect, although the
latter is frequently found as an independent species. Lickspittling
is more detestable than blackmailing, precisely as the business of a
confidence man is more detestable than that of a highway robber; and
the parallel maintains itself throughout, for whereas few robbers will
cheat, every sneak will plunder if he dare.

LIFE, n. A spiritual pickle preserving the body from decay. We live
in daily apprehension of its loss; yet when lost it is not missed.
The question, "Is life worth living?" has been much discussed;
particularly by those who think it is not, many of whom have written
at great length in support of their view and by careful observance of
the laws of health enjoyed for long terms of years the honors of
successful controversy.

"Life's not worth living, and that's the truth,"
Carelessly caroled the golden youth.
In manhood still he maintained that view
And held it more strongly the older he grew.
When kicked by a jackass at eighty-three,
"Go fetch me a surgeon at once!" cried he.

Han Soper

LIGHTHOUSE, n. A tall building on the seashore in which the
government maintains a lamp and the friend of a politician.

LIMB, n. The branch of a tree or the leg of an American woman.

'Twas a pair of boots that the lady bought,
And the salesman laced them tight
To a very remarkable height—
Higher, indeed, than I think he ought—
Higher than
can
be right.
For the Bible declares—but never mind:
It is hardly fit
To censure freely and fault to find
With others for sins that I'm not inclined
Myself to commit.
Each has his weakness, and though my own
Is freedom from every sin,
It still were unfair to pitch in,
Discharging the first censorious stone.
Besides, the truth compels me to say,
The boots in question were
made
that way.
As he drew the lace she made a grimace,
And blushingly said to him:
"This boot, I'm sure, is too high to endure,
It hurts my—hurts my—limb."
The salesman smiled in a manner mild,
Like an artless, undesigning child;
Then, checking himself, to his face he gave
A look as sorrowful as the grave,
Though he didn't care two figs
For her paints and throes,
As he stroked her toes,
Remarking with speech and manner just
Befitting his calling:  "Madam, I trust
That it doesn't hurt your twigs."

B. Percival Dike

LINEN, n. "A kind of cloth the making of which, when made of hemp,
entails a great waste of hemp."—Calcraft the Hangman.

LITIGANT, n. A person about to give up his skin for the hope of
retaining his bones.

LITIGATION, n. A machine which you go into as a pig and come out of
as a sausage.

LIVER, n. A large red organ thoughtfully provided by nature to be
bilious with. The sentiments and emotions which every literary
anatomist now knows to haunt the heart were anciently believed to
infest the liver; and even Gascoygne, speaking of the emotional side
of human nature, calls it "our hepaticall parte." It was at one time
considered the seat of life; hence its name—liver, the thing we
live with. The liver is heaven's best gift to the goose; without it
that bird would be unable to supply us with the Strasbourg
pate
.

LL.D. Letters indicating the degree
Legumptionorum Doctor
, one
learned in laws, gifted with legal gumption. Some suspicion is cast
upon this derivation by the fact that the title was formerly
LL.d.
,
and conferred only upon gentlemen distinguished for their wealth. At
the date of this writing Columbia University is considering the
expediency of making another degree for clergymen, in place of the old
D.D.—
Damnator Diaboli
. The new honor will be known as
Sanctorum
Custus
, and written
$$c
. The name of the Rev. John Satan has been
suggested as a suitable recipient by a lover of consistency, who
points out that Professor Harry Thurston Peck has long enjoyed the
advantage of a degree.

LOCK-AND-KEY, n. The distinguishing device of civilization and
enlightenment.

LODGER, n. A less popular name for the Second Person of that
delectable newspaper Trinity, the Roomer, the Bedder, and the Mealer.

LOGIC, n. The art of thinking and reasoning in strict accordance with
the limitations and incapacities of the human misunderstanding. The
basic of logic is the syllogism, consisting of a major and a minor
premise and a conclusion—thus:

Major Premise
: Sixty men can do a piece of work sixty times as
quickly as one man.

Minor Premise
: One man can dig a posthole in sixty seconds;
therefore—

Conclusion
: Sixty men can dig a posthole in one second.

This may be called the syllogism arithmetical, in which, by
combining logic and mathematics, we obtain a double certainty and are
twice blessed.

LOGOMACHY, n. A war in which the weapons are words and the wounds
punctures in the swim-bladder of self-esteem—a kind of contest in
which, the vanquished being unconscious of defeat, the victor is
denied the reward of success.

'Tis said by divers of the scholar-men
That poor Salmasius died of Milton's pen.
Alas! we cannot know if this is true,
For reading Milton's wit we perish too.

LONGANIMITY, n. The disposition to endure injury with meek forbearance
while maturing a plan of revenge.

LONGEVITY, n. Uncommon extension of the fear of death.

LOOKING-GLASS, n. A vitreous plane upon which to display a fleeting
show for man's disillusion given.

The King of Manchuria had a magic looking-glass, whereon whoso
looked saw, not his own image, but only that of the king. A certain
courtier who had long enjoyed the king's favor and was thereby
enriched beyond any other subject of the realm, said to the king:
"Give me, I pray, thy wonderful mirror, so that when absent out of
thine august presence I may yet do homage before thy visible shadow,
prostrating myself night and morning in the glory of thy benign
countenance, as which nothing has so divine splendor, O Noonday Sun of
the Universe!"

Please with the speech, the king commanded that the mirror be
conveyed to the courtier's palace; but after, having gone thither
without apprisal, he found it in an apartment where was naught but
idle lumber. And the mirror was dimmed with dust and overlaced with
cobwebs. This so angered him that he fisted it hard, shattering the
glass, and was sorely hurt. Enraged all the more by this mischance,
he commanded that the ungrateful courtier be thrown into prison, and
that the glass be repaired and taken back to his own palace; and this
was done. But when the king looked again on the mirror he saw not his
image as before, but only the figure of a crowned ass, having a bloody
bandage on one of its hinder hooves—as the artificers and all who
had looked upon it had before discerned but feared to report. Taught
wisdom and charity, the king restored his courtier to liberty, had the
mirror set into the back of the throne and reigned many years with
justice and humility; and one day when he fell asleep in death while
on the throne, the whole court saw in the mirror the luminous figure
of an angel, which remains to this day.

LOQUACITY, n. A disorder which renders the sufferer unable to curb
his tongue when you wish to talk.

LORD, n. In American society, an English tourist above the state of a
costermonger, as, lord 'Aberdasher, Lord Hartisan and so forth. The
traveling Briton of lesser degree is addressed as "Sir," as, Sir 'Arry
Donkiboi, or 'Amstead 'Eath. The word "Lord" is sometimes used, also,
as a title of the Supreme Being; but this is thought to be rather
flattery than true reverence.

Miss Sallie Ann Splurge, of her own accord,
Wedded a wandering English lord—
Wedded and took him to dwell with her "paw,"
A parent who throve by the practice of Draw.
Lord Cadde I don't hesitate to declare
Unworthy the father-in-legal care
Of that elderly sport, notwithstanding the truth
That Cadde had renounced all the follies of youth;
For, sad to relate, he'd arrived at the stage
Of existence that's marked by the vices of age.
Among them, cupidity caused him to urge
Repeated demands on the pocket of Splurge,
Till, wrecked in his fortune, that gentleman saw
Inadequate aid in the practice of Draw,
And took, as a means of augmenting his pelf,
To the business of being a lord himself.
His neat-fitting garments he wilfully shed
And sacked himself strangely in checks instead;
Denuded his chin, but retained at each ear
A whisker that looked like a blasted career.
He painted his neck an incarnadine hue
Each morning and varnished it all that he knew.
The moony monocular set in his eye
Appeared to be scanning the Sweet Bye-and-Bye.
His head was enroofed with a billycock hat,
And his low-necked shoes were aduncous and flat.
In speech he eschewed his American ways,
Denying his nose to the use of his A's
And dulling their edge till the delicate sense
Of a babe at their temper could take no offence.
His H's—'twas most inexpressibly sweet,
The patter they made as they fell at his feet!
Re-outfitted thus, Mr. Splurge without fear
Began as Lord Splurge his recouping career.
Alas, the Divinity shaping his end
Entertained other views and decided to send
His lordship in horror, despair and dismay
From the land of the nobleman's natural prey.
For, smit with his Old World ways, Lady Cadde
Fell—suffering Caesar!—in love with her dad!

LORE, n. Learning—particularly that sort which is not derived from
a regular course of instruction but comes of the reading of occult
books, or by nature. This latter is commonly designated as folk-lore
and embraces popularly myths and superstitions. In Baring-Gould's
Curious Myths of the Middle Ages
the reader will find many of these
traced backward, through various people son converging lines, toward a
common origin in remote antiquity. Among these are the fables of
"Teddy the Giant Killer," "The Sleeping John Sharp Williams," "Little
Red Riding Hood and the Sugar Trust," "Beauty and the Brisbane," "The
Seven Aldermen of Ephesus," "Rip Van Fairbanks," and so forth. The
fable with Goethe so affectingly relates under the title of "The
Erl-King" was known two thousand years ago in Greece as "The Demos and
the Infant Industry." One of the most general and ancient of these
myths is that Arabian tale of "Ali Baba and the Forty Rockefellers."

LOSS, n. Privation of that which we had, or had not. Thus, in the
latter sense, it is said of a defeated candidate that he "lost his
election"; and of that eminent man, the poet Gilder, that he has "lost
his mind." It is in the former and more legitimate sense, that the
word is used in the famous epitaph:

Here Huntington's ashes long have lain
Whose loss is our eternal gain,
For while he exercised all his powers
Whatever he gained, the loss was ours.

LOVE, n. A temporary insanity curable by marriage or by removal of
the patient from the influences under which he incurred the disorder.
This disease, like
caries
and many other ailments, is prevalent only
among civilized races living under artificial conditions; barbarous
nations breathing pure air and eating simple food enjoy immunity from
its ravages. It is sometimes fatal, but more frequently to the
physician than to the patient.

LOW-BRED, adj. "Raised" instead of brought up.

LUMINARY, n. One who throws light upon a subject; as an editor by not
writing about it.

LUNARIAN, n. An inhabitant of the moon, as distinguished from
Lunatic, one whom the moon inhabits. The Lunarians have been
described by Lucian, Locke and other observers, but without much
agreement. For example, Bragellos avers their anatomical identity
with Man, but Professor Newcomb says they are more like the hill
tribes of Vermont.

LYRE, n. An ancient instrument of torture. The word is now used in a
figurative sense to denote the poetic faculty, as in the following
fiery lines of our great poet, Ella Wheeler Wilcox:

I sit astride Parnassus with my lyre,
And pick with care the disobedient wire.
That stupid shepherd lolling on his crook
With deaf attention scarcely deigns to look.
I bide my time, and it shall come at length,
When, with a Titan's energy and strength,
I'll grab a fistful of the strings, and O,
The word shall suffer when I let them go!

Farquharson Harris

MACE, n. A staff of office signifying authority. Its form, that of a
heavy club, indicates its original purpose and use in dissuading from
dissent.

MACHINATION, n. The method employed by one's opponents in baffling
one's open and honorable efforts to do the right thing.

So plain the advantages of machination
It constitutes a moral obligation,
And honest wolves who think upon't with loathing
Feel bound to don the sheep's deceptive clothing.
So prospers still the diplomatic art,
And Satan bows, with hand upon his heart.