The Devil's Dictionary (3 page)

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.

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

BIGOT, n. One who is obstinately and zealously attached to an opinion
that you do not entertain.

BILLINGSGATE, n. The invective of an opponent.

BIRTH, n. The first and direst of all disasters. As to the nature of
it there appears to be no uniformity. Castor and Pollux were born
from the egg. Pallas came out of a skull. Galatea was once a block
of stone. Peresilis, who wrote in the tenth century, avers that he
grew up out of the ground where a priest had spilled holy water. It
is known that Arimaxus was derived from a hole in the earth, made by a
stroke of lightning. Leucomedon was the son of a cavern in Mount
Aetna, and I have myself seen a man come out of a wine cellar.

BLACKGUARD, n. A man whose qualities, prepared for display like a box
of berries in a market—the fine ones on top—have been opened on
the wrong side. An inverted gentleman.

BLANK-VERSE, n. Unrhymed iambic pentameters—the most difficult
kind of English verse to write acceptably; a kind, therefore, much
affected by those who cannot acceptably write any kind.

BODY-SNATCHER, n. A robber of grave-worms. One who supplies the
young physicians with that with which the old physicians have supplied
the undertaker. The hyena.

"One night," a doctor said, "last fall,
I and my comrades, four in all,
When visiting a graveyard stood
Within the shadow of a wall.
"While waiting for the moon to sink
We saw a wild hyena slink
About a new-made grave, and then
Begin to excavate its brink!
"Shocked by the horrid act, we made
A sally from our ambuscade,
And, falling on the unholy beast,
Dispatched him with a pick and spade."

Bettel K. Jhones

BONDSMAN, n. A fool who, having property of his own, undertakes to
become responsible for that entrusted to another to a third.

Philippe of Orleans wishing to appoint one of his favorites, a
dissolute nobleman, to a high office, asked him what security he would
be able to give. "I need no bondsmen," he replied, "for I can give
you my word of honor." "And pray what may be the value of that?"
inquired the amused Regent. "Monsieur, it is worth its weight in gold."

BORE, n. A person who talks when you wish him to listen.

BOTANY, n. The science of vegetables—those that are not good to
eat, as well as those that are. It deals largely with their flowers,
which are commonly badly designed, inartistic in color, and
ill-smelling.

BOTTLE-NOSED, adj. Having a nose created in the image of its maker.

BOUNDARY, n. In political geography, an imaginary line between two
nations, separating the imaginary rights of one from the imaginary
rights of the other.

BOUNTY, n. The liberality of one who has much, in permitting one who
has nothing to get all that he can.

A single swallow, it is said, devours ten millions of insects
every year.  The supplying of these insects I take to be a signal
instance of the Creator's bounty in providing for the lives of His
creatures.

Henry Ward Beecher

BRAHMA, n. He who created the Hindoos, who are preserved by Vishnu
and destroyed by Siva—a rather neater division of labor than is
found among the deities of some other nations. The Abracadabranese,
for example, are created by Sin, maintained by Theft and destroyed by
Folly. The priests of Brahma, like those of Abracadabranese, are holy
and learned men who are never naughty.

O Brahma, thou rare old Divinity,
First Person of the Hindoo Trinity,
You sit there so calm and securely,
With feet folded up so demurely—
You're the First Person Singular, surely.

Polydore Smith

BRAIN, n. An apparatus with which we think what we think. That which
distinguishes the man who is content to
be
something from the man
who wishes to
do
something. A man of great wealth, or one who has
been pitchforked into high station, has commonly such a headful of
brain that his neighbors cannot keep their hats on. In our
civilization, and under our republican form of government, brain is so
highly honored that it is rewarded by exemption from the cares of
office.

BRANDY, n. A cordial composed of one part thunder-and-lightning, one
part remorse, two parts bloody murder, one part death-hell-and-the
grave and four parts clarified Satan. Dose, a headful all the time.
Brandy is said by Dr. Johnson to be the drink of heroes. Only a hero
will venture to drink it.

BRIDE, n. A woman with a fine prospect of happiness behind her.

BRUTE, n. See HUSBAND.

CAABA, n. A large stone presented by the archangel Gabriel to the
patriarch Abraham, and preserved at Mecca. The patriarch had perhaps
asked the archangel for bread.

CABBAGE, n. A familiar kitchen-garden vegetable about as large and
wise as a man's head.

The cabbage is so called from Cabagius, a prince who on ascending
the throne issued a decree appointing a High Council of Empire
consisting of the members of his predecessor's Ministry and the
cabbages in the royal garden. When any of his Majesty's measures of
state policy miscarried conspicuously it was gravely announced that
several members of the High Council had been beheaded, and his
murmuring subjects were appeased.

CALAMITY, n. A more than commonly plain and unmistakable reminder
that the affairs of this life are not of our own ordering. Calamities
are of two kinds: misfortune to ourselves, and good fortune to
others.

CALLOUS, adj. Gifted with great fortitude to bear the evils
afflicting another.

When Zeno was told that one of his enemies was no more he was
observed to be deeply moved. "What!" said one of his disciples, "you
weep at the death of an enemy?" "Ah, 'tis true," replied the great
Stoic; "but you should see me smile at the death of a friend."

CALUMNUS, n. A graduate of the School for Scandal.

CAMEL, n. A quadruped (the
Splaypes humpidorsus
) of great value to
the show business. There are two kinds of camels—the camel proper
and the camel improper. It is the latter that is always exhibited.

CANNIBAL, n. A gastronome of the old school who preserves the simple
tastes and adheres to the natural diet of the pre-pork period.

CANNON, n. An instrument employed in the rectification of national
boundaries.

CANONICALS, n. The motley worm by Jesters of the Court of Heaven.

CAPITAL, n. The seat of misgovernment. That which provides the fire,
the pot, the dinner, the table and the knife and fork for the
anarchist; the part of the repast that himself supplies is the
disgrace before meat.
Capital Punishment
, a penalty regarding the
justice and expediency of which many worthy persons—including all
the assassins—entertain grave misgivings.

CARMELITE, n. A mendicant friar of the order of Mount Carmel.

As Death was a-rising out one day,
Across Mount Camel he took his way,
Where he met a mendicant monk,
Some three or four quarters drunk,
With a holy leer and a pious grin,
Ragged and fat and as saucy as sin,
Who held out his hands and cried:
"Give, give in Charity's name, I pray.
Give in the name of the Church.  O give,
Give that her holy sons may live!"
And Death replied,
Smiling long and wide:
"I'll give, holy father, I'll give thee—a ride."
With a rattle and bang
Of his bones, he sprang
From his famous Pale Horse, with his spear;
By the neck and the foot
Seized the fellow, and put
Him astride with his face to the rear.
The Monarch laughed loud with a sound that fell
Like clods on the coffin's sounding shell:
"Ho, ho!  A beggar on horseback, they say,
Will ride to the devil!"—and
thump
Fell the flat of his dart on the rump
Of the charger, which galloped away.
Faster and faster and faster it flew,
Till the rocks and the flocks and the trees that grew
By the road were dim and blended and blue
To the wild, wild eyes
Of the rider—in size
Resembling a couple of blackberry pies.
Death laughed again, as a tomb might laugh
At a burial service spoiled,
And the mourners' intentions foiled
By the body erecting
Its head and objecting
To further proceedings in its behalf.
Many a year and many a day
Have passed since these events away.
The monk has long been a dusty corse,
And Death has never recovered his horse.
For the friar got hold of its tail,
And steered it within the pale
Of the monastery gray,
Where the beast was stabled and fed
With barley and oil and bread
Till fatter it grew than the fattest friar,
And so in due course was appointed Prior.

CARNIVOROUS, adj. Addicted to the cruelty of devouring the timorous
vegetarian, his heirs and assigns.

CARTESIAN, adj. Relating to Descartes, a famous philosopher, author
of the celebrated dictum,
Cogito ergo sum
—whereby he was pleased
to suppose he demonstrated the reality of human existence. The dictum
might be improved, however, thus:
Cogito cogito ergo cogito sum
—
"I think that I think, therefore I think that I am;" as close an
approach to certainty as any philosopher has yet made.

CAT, n. A soft, indestructible automaton provided by nature to be
kicked when things go wrong in the domestic circle.

This is a dog,
This is a cat.
This is a frog,
This is a rat.
Run, dog, mew, cat.
Jump, frog, gnaw, rat.

Elevenson

CAVILER, n. A critic of our own work.

CEMETERY, n. An isolated suburban spot where mourners match lies,
poets write at a target and stone-cutters spell for a wager. The
inscriptions following will serve to illustrate the success attained
in these Olympian games:

His virtues were so conspicuous that his enemies, unable to
overlook them, denied them, and his friends, to whose loose lives
they were a rebuke, represented them as vices.  They are here
commemorated by his family, who shared them.
In the earth we here prepare a
Place to lay our little Clara.

Thomas M. and Mary Frazer

P.S.—Gabriel will raise her.

CENTAUR, n. One of a race of persons who lived before the division of
labor had been carried to such a pitch of differentiation, and who
followed the primitive economic maxim, "Every man his own horse." The
best of the lot was Chiron, who to the wisdom and virtues of the horse
added the fleetness of man. The scripture story of the head of John
the Baptist on a charger shows that pagan myths have somewhat
sophisticated sacred history.

CERBERUS, n. The watch-dog of Hades, whose duty it was to guard the
entrance—against whom or what does not clearly appear; everybody,
sooner or later, had to go there, and nobody wanted to carry off the
entrance. Cerberus is known to have had three heads, and some of the
poets have credited him with as many as a hundred. Professor
Graybill, whose clerky erudition and profound knowledge of Greek give
his opinion great weight, has averaged all the estimates, and makes
the number twenty-seven—a judgment that would be entirely
conclusive is Professor Graybill had known (a) something about dogs,
and (b) something about arithmetic.

CHILDHOOD, n. The period of human life intermediate between the
idiocy of infancy and the folly of youth—two removes from the sin
of manhood and three from the remorse of age.

CHRISTIAN, n. One who believes that the New Testament is a divinely
inspired book admirably suited to the spiritual needs of his neighbor.
One who follows the teachings of Christ in so far as they are not
inconsistent with a life of sin.

I dreamed I stood upon a hill, and, lo!
The godly multitudes walked to and fro
Beneath, in Sabbath garments fitly clad,
With pious mien, appropriately sad,
While all the church bells made a solemn din—
A fire-alarm to those who lived in sin.
Then saw I gazing thoughtfully below,
With tranquil face, upon that holy show
A tall, spare figure in a robe of white,
Whose eyes diffused a melancholy light.
"God keep you, strange," I exclaimed.  "You are
No doubt (your habit shows it) from afar;
And yet I entertain the hope that you,
Like these good people, are a Christian too."
He raised his eyes and with a look so stern
It made me with a thousand blushes burn
Replied—his manner with disdain was spiced:
"What!  I a Christian?  No, indeed!  I'm Christ."

CIRCUS, n. A place where horses, ponies and elephants are permitted
to see men, women and children acting the fool.

CLAIRVOYANT, n. A person, commonly a woman, who has the power of
seeing that which is invisible to her patron, namely, that he is a
blockhead.

CLARIONET, n. An instrument of torture operated by a person with
cotton in his ears. There are two instruments that are worse than a
clarionet—two clarionets.