The Devil's Dictionary (4 page)

CLERGYMAN, n. A man who undertakes the management of our spiritual
affairs as a method of bettering his temporal ones.

CLIO, n. One of the nine Muses. Clio's function was to preside over
history—which she did with great dignity, many of the prominent
citizens of Athens occupying seats on the platform, the meetings being
addressed by Messrs. Xenophon, Herodotus and other popular speakers.

CLOCK, n. A machine of great moral value to man, allaying his concern
for the future by reminding him what a lot of time remains to him.

A busy man complained one day:
"I get no time!"  "What's that you say?"
Cried out his friend, a lazy quiz;
"You have, sir, all the time there is.
There's plenty, too, and don't you doubt it—
We're never for an hour without it."

Purzil Crofe

CLOSE-FISTED, adj. Unduly desirous of keeping that which many
meritorious persons wish to obtain.

"Close-fisted Scotchman!" Johnson cried
To thrifty J. Macpherson;
"See me—I'm ready to divide
With any worthy person."
Sad Jamie:  "That is very true—
The boast requires no backing;
And all are worthy, sir, to you,
Who have what you are lacking."

Anita M. Bobe

COENOBITE, n. A man who piously shuts himself up to meditate upon the
sin of wickedness; and to keep it fresh in his mind joins a
brotherhood of awful examples.

O Coenobite, O coenobite,
Monastical gregarian,
You differ from the anchorite,
That solitudinarian:
With vollied prayers you wound Old Nick;
With dropping shots he makes him sick.

Quincy Giles

COMFORT, n. A state of mind produced by contemplation of a neighbor's
uneasiness.

COMMENDATION, n. The tribute that we pay to achievements that
resembles, but do not equal, our own.

COMMERCE, n. A kind of transaction in which A plunders from B the
goods of C, and for compensation B picks the pocket of D of money
belonging to E.

COMMONWEALTH, n. An administrative entity operated by an incalculable
multitude of political parasites, logically active but fortuitously
efficient.

This commonwealth's capitol's corridors view,
So thronged with a hungry and indolent crew
Of clerks, pages, porters and all attaches
Whom rascals appoint and the populace pays
That a cat cannot slip through the thicket of shins
Nor hear its own shriek for the noise of their chins.
On clerks and on pages, and porters, and all,
Misfortune attend and disaster befall!
May life be to them a succession of hurts;
May fleas by the bushel inhabit their shirts;
May aches and diseases encamp in their bones,
Their lungs full of tubercles, bladders of stones;
May microbes, bacilli, their tissues infest,
And tapeworms securely their bowels digest;
May corn-cobs be snared without hope in their hair,
And frequent impalement their pleasure impair.
Disturbed be their dreams by the awful discourse
Of audible sofas sepulchrally hoarse,
By chairs acrobatic and wavering floors—
The mattress that kicks and the pillow that snores!
Sons of cupidity, cradled in sin!
Your criminal ranks may the death angel thin,
Avenging the friend whom I couldn't work in.

COMPROMISE, n. Such an adjustment of conflicting interests as gives
each adversary the satisfaction of thinking he has got what he ought
not to have, and is deprived of nothing except what was justly his
due.

COMPULSION, n. The eloquence of power.

CONDOLE, v.i. To show that bereavement is a smaller evil than
sympathy.

CONFIDANT, CONFIDANTE, n. One entrusted by A with the secrets of B,
confided by
him
to C.

CONGRATULATION, n. The civility of envy.

CONGRESS, n. A body of men who meet to repeal laws.

CONNOISSEUR, n. A specialist who knows everything about something and
nothing about anything else.

An old wine-bibber having been smashed in a railway collision,
some wine was pouted on his lips to revive him. "Pauillac, 1873," he
murmured and died.

CONSERVATIVE, n. A statesman who is enamored of existing evils, as
distinguished from the Liberal, who wishes to replace them with
others.

CONSOLATION, n. The knowledge that a better man is more unfortunate
than yourself.

CONSUL, n. In American politics, a person who having failed to secure
an office from the people is given one by the Administration on
condition that he leave the country.

CONSULT, v.i. To seek another's disapproval of a course already
decided on.

CONTEMPT, n. The feeling of a prudent man for an enemy who is too
formidable safely to be opposed.

CONTROVERSY, n. A battle in which spittle or ink replaces the
injurious cannon-ball and the inconsiderate bayonet.

In controversy with the facile tongue—
That bloodless warfare of the old and young—
So seek your adversary to engage
That on himself he shall exhaust his rage,
And, like a snake that's fastened to the ground,
With his own fangs inflict the fatal wound.
You ask me how this miracle is done?
Adopt his own opinions, one by one,
And taunt him to refute them; in his wrath
He'll sweep them pitilessly from his path.
Advance then gently all you wish to prove,
Each proposition prefaced with, "As you've
So well remarked," or, "As you wisely say,
And I cannot dispute," or, "By the way,
This view of it which, better far expressed,
Runs through your argument."  Then leave the rest
To him, secure that he'll perform his trust
And prove your views intelligent and just.

Conmore Apel Brune

CONVENT, n. A place of retirement for woman who wish for leisure to
meditate upon the vice of idleness.

CONVERSATION, n. A fair to the display of the minor mental
commodities, each exhibitor being too intent upon the arrangement of
his own wares to observe those of his neighbor.

CORONATION, n. The ceremony of investing a sovereign with the outward
and visible signs of his divine right to be blown skyhigh with a
dynamite bomb.

CORPORAL, n. A man who occupies the lowest rung of the military
ladder.

Fiercely the battle raged and, sad to tell,
Our corporal heroically fell!
Fame from her height looked down upon the brawl
And said:  "He hadn't very far to fall."

Giacomo Smith

CORPORATION, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit
without individual responsibility.

CORSAIR, n. A politician of the seas.

COURT FOOL, n. The plaintiff.

COWARD, n. One who in a perilous emergency thinks with his legs.

CRAYFISH, n. A small crustacean very much resembling the lobster, but
less indigestible.

In this small fish I take it that human wisdom is admirably
figured and symbolized; for whereas the crayfish doth move only
backward, and can have only retrospection, seeing naught but the
perils already passed, so the wisdom of man doth not enable him to
avoid the follies that beset his course, but only to apprehend
their nature afterward.

Sir James Merivale

CREDITOR, n. One of a tribe of savages dwelling beyond the Financial
Straits and dreaded for their desolating incursions.

CREMONA, n. A high-priced violin made in Connecticut.

CRITIC, n. A person who boasts himself hard to please because nobody
tries to please him.

There is a land of pure delight,
Beyond the Jordan's flood,
Where saints, apparelled all in white,
Fling back the critic's mud.
And as he legs it through the skies,
His pelt a sable hue,
He sorrows sore to recognize
The missiles that he threw.

Orrin Goof

CROSS, n. An ancient religious symbol erroneously supposed to owe its
significance to the most solemn event in the history of Christianity,
but really antedating it by thousands of years. By many it has been
believed to be identical with the
crux ansata
of the ancient phallic
worship, but it has been traced even beyond all that we know of that,
to the rites of primitive peoples. We have to-day the White Cross as
a symbol of chastity, and the Red Cross as a badge of benevolent
neutrality in war. Having in mind the former, the reverend Father
Gassalasca Jape smites the lyre to the effect following:

"Be good, be good!" the sisterhood
Cry out in holy chorus,
And, to dissuade from sin, parade
Their various charms before us.
But why, O why, has ne'er an eye
Seen her of winsome manner
And youthful grace and pretty face
Flaunting the White Cross banner?
Now where's the need of speech and screed
To better our behaving?
A simpler plan for saving man
(But, first, is he worth saving?)
Is, dears, when he declines to flee
From bad thoughts that beset him,
Ignores the Law as 't were a straw,
And wants to sin—don't let him.

CUI BONO? [Latin] What good would that do
me
?

CUNNING, n. The faculty that distinguishes a weak animal or person
from a strong one. It brings its possessor much mental satisfaction
and great material adversity. An Italian proverb says: "The furrier
gets the skins of more foxes than asses."

CUPID, n. The so-called god of love. This bastard creation of a
barbarous fancy was no doubt inflicted upon mythology for the sins of
its deities. Of all unbeautiful and inappropriate conceptions this is
the most reasonless and offensive. The notion of symbolizing sexual
love by a semisexless babe, and comparing the pains of passion to the
wounds of an arrow—of introducing this pudgy homunculus into art
grossly to materialize the subtle spirit and suggestion of the work—
this is eminently worthy of the age that, giving it birth, laid it on
the doorstep of prosperity.

CURIOSITY, n. An objectionable quality of the female mind. The
desire to know whether or not a woman is cursed with curiosity is one
of the most active and insatiable passions of the masculine soul.

CURSE, v.t. Energetically to belabor with a verbal slap-stick. This
is an operation which in literature, particularly in the drama, is
commonly fatal to the victim. Nevertheless, the liability to a
cursing is a risk that cuts but a small figure in fixing the rates of
life insurance.

CYNIC, n. A blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are,
not as they ought to be. Hence the custom among the Scythians of
plucking out a cynic's eyes to improve his vision.

DAMN, v. A word formerly much used by the Paphlagonians, the meaning
of which is lost. By the learned Dr. Dolabelly Gak it is believed to
have been a term of satisfaction, implying the highest possible degree
of mental tranquillity. Professor Groke, on the contrary, thinks it
expressed an emotion of tumultuous delight, because it so frequently
occurs in combination with the word
jod
or
god
, meaning "joy." It
would be with great diffidence that I should advance an opinion
conflicting with that of either of these formidable authorities.

DANCE, v.i. To leap about to the sound of tittering music, preferably
with arms about your neighbor's wife or daughter. There are many
kinds of dances, but all those requiring the participation of the two
sexes have two characteristics in common: they are conspicuously
innocent, and warmly loved by the vicious.

DANGER, n.

A savage beast which, when it sleeps,
Man girds at and despises,
But takes himself away by leaps
And bounds when it arises.

Ambat Delaso

DARING, n. One of the most conspicuous qualities of a man in
security.

DATARY, n. A high ecclesiastic official of the Roman Catholic Church,
whose important function is to brand the Pope's bulls with the words
Datum Romae
. He enjoys a princely revenue and the friendship of
God.

DAWN, n. The time when men of reason go to bed. Certain old men
prefer to rise at about that time, taking a cold bath and a long walk
with an empty stomach, and otherwise mortifying the flesh. They then
point with pride to these practices as the cause of their sturdy
health and ripe years; the truth being that they are hearty and old,
not because of their habits, but in spite of them. The reason we find
only robust persons doing this thing is that it has killed all the
others who have tried it.

DAY, n. A period of twenty-four hours, mostly misspent. This period
is divided into two parts, the day proper and the night, or day
improper—the former devoted to sins of business, the latter
consecrated to the other sort. These two kinds of social activity
overlap.

DEAD, adj.

Done with the work of breathing; done
With all the world; the mad race run
Though to the end; the golden goal
Attained and found to be a hole!

Squatol Johnes

DEBAUCHEE, n. One who has so earnestly pursued pleasure that he has
had the misfortune to overtake it.

DEBT, n. An ingenious substitute for the chain and whip of the
slave-driver.

As, pent in an aquarium, the troutlet
Swims round and round his tank to find an outlet,
Pressing his nose against the glass that holds him,
Nor ever sees the prison that enfolds him;
So the poor debtor, seeing naught around him,
Yet feels the narrow limits that impound him,
Grieves at his debt and studies to evade it,
And finds at last he might as well have paid it.

Barlow S. Vode

DECALOGUE, n. A series of commandments, ten in number—just enough
to permit an intelligent selection for observance, but not enough to
embarrass the choice. Following is the revised edition of the
Decalogue, calculated for this meridian.

Thou shalt no God but me adore:
'Twere too expensive to have more.
No images nor idols make
For Robert Ingersoll to break.
Take not God's name in vain; select
A time when it will have effect.
Work not on Sabbath days at all,
But go to see the teams play ball.
Honor thy parents.  That creates
For life insurance lower rates.
Kill not, abet not those who kill;
Thou shalt not pay thy butcher's bill.
Kiss not thy neighbor's wife, unless
Thine own thy neighbor doth caress
Don't steal; thou'lt never thus compete
Successfully in business.  Cheat.
Bear not false witness—that is low—
But "hear 'tis rumored so and so."
Cover thou naught that thou hast not
By hook or crook, or somehow, got.