The Devil's Dictionary (5 page)

DECIDE, v.i. To succumb to the preponderance of one set of influences
over another set.

A leaf was riven from a tree,
"I mean to fall to earth," said he.
The west wind, rising, made him veer.
"Eastward," said he, "I now shall steer."
The east wind rose with greater force.
Said he:  "'Twere wise to change my course."
With equal power they contend.
He said:  "My judgment I suspend."
Down died the winds; the leaf, elate,
Cried:  "I've decided to fall straight."
"First thoughts are best?"  That's not the moral;
Just choose your own and we'll not quarrel.
Howe'er your choice may chance to fall,
You'll have no hand in it at all.

DEFAME, v.t. To lie about another. To tell the truth about another.

DEFENCELESS, adj. Unable to attack.

DEGENERATE, adj. Less conspicuously admirable than one's ancestors.
The contemporaries of Homer were striking examples of degeneracy; it
required ten of them to raise a rock or a riot that one of the heroes
of the Trojan war could have raised with ease. Homer never tires of
sneering at "men who live in these degenerate days," which is perhaps
why they suffered him to beg his bread—a marked instance of
returning good for evil, by the way, for if they had forbidden him he
would certainly have starved.

DEGRADATION, n. One of the stages of moral and social progress from
private station to political preferment.

DEINOTHERIUM, n. An extinct pachyderm that flourished when the
Pterodactyl was in fashion. The latter was a native of Ireland, its
name being pronounced Terry Dactyl or Peter O'Dactyl, as the man
pronouncing it may chance to have heard it spoken or seen it printed.

DEJEUNER, n. The breakfast of an American who has been in Paris.
Variously pronounced.

DELEGATION, n. In American politics, an article of merchandise that
comes in sets.

DELIBERATION, n. The act of examining one's bread to determine which
side it is buttered on.

DELUGE, n. A notable first experiment in baptism which washed away
the sins (and sinners) of the world.

DELUSION, n. The father of a most respectable family, comprising
Enthusiasm, Affection, Self-denial, Faith, Hope, Charity and many
other goodly sons and daughters.

All hail, Delusion!  Were it not for thee
The world turned topsy-turvy we should see;
For Vice, respectable with cleanly fancies,
Would fly abandoned Virtue's gross advances.

Mumfrey Mappel

DENTIST, n. A prestidigitator who, putting metal into your mouth,
pulls coins out of your pocket.

DEPENDENT, adj. Reliant upon another's generosity for the support
which you are not in a position to exact from his fears.

DEPUTY, n. A male relative of an office-holder, or of his bondsman.
The deputy is commonly a beautiful young man, with a red necktie and
an intricate system of cobwebs extending from his nose to his desk.
When accidentally struck by the janitor's broom, he gives off a cloud
of dust.

"Chief Deputy," the Master cried,
"To-day the books are to be tried
By experts and accountants who
Have been commissioned to go through
Our office here, to see if we
Have stolen injudiciously.
Please have the proper entries made,
The proper balances displayed,
Conforming to the whole amount
Of cash on hand—which they will count.
I've long admired your punctual way—
Here at the break and close of day,
Confronting in your chair the crowd
Of business men, whose voices loud
And gestures violent you quell
By some mysterious, calm spell—
Some magic lurking in your look
That brings the noisiest to book
And spreads a holy and profound
Tranquillity o'er all around.
So orderly all's done that they
Who came to draw remain to pay.
But now the time demands, at last,
That you employ your genius vast
In energies more active.  Rise
And shake the lightnings from your eyes;
Inspire your underlings, and fling
Your spirit into everything!"
The Master's hand here dealt a whack
Upon the Deputy's bent back,
When straightway to the floor there fell
A shrunken globe, a rattling shell
A blackened, withered, eyeless head!
The man had been a twelvemonth dead.

Jamrach Holobom

DESTINY, n. A tyrant's authority for crime and fool's excuse for
failure.

DIAGNOSIS, n. A physician's forecast of the disease by the patient's
pulse and purse.

DIAPHRAGM, n. A muscular partition separating disorders of the chest
from disorders of the bowels.

DIARY, n. A daily record of that part of one's life, which he can
relate to himself without blushing.

Hearst kept a diary wherein were writ
All that he had of wisdom and of wit.
So the Recording Angel, when Hearst died,
Erased all entries of his own and cried:
"I'll judge you by your diary."  Said Hearst:
"Thank you; 'twill show you I am Saint the First"—
Straightway producing, jubilant and proud,
That record from a pocket in his shroud.
The Angel slowly turned the pages o'er,
Each stupid line of which he knew before,
Glooming and gleaming as by turns he hit
On Shallow sentiment and stolen wit;
Then gravely closed the book and gave it back.
"My friend, you've wandered from your proper track:
You'd never be content this side the tomb—
For big ideas Heaven has little room,
And Hell's no latitude for making mirth,"
He said, and kicked the fellow back to earth.

"The Mad Philosopher"

DICTATOR, n. The chief of a nation that prefers the pestilence of
despotism to the plague of anarchy.

DICTIONARY, n. A malevolent literary device for cramping the growth
of a language and making it hard and inelastic. This dictionary,
however, is a most useful work.

DIE, n. The singular of "dice." We seldom hear the word, because
there is a prohibitory proverb, "Never say die." At long intervals,
however, some one says: "The die is cast," which is not true, for it
is cut. The word is found in an immortal couplet by that eminent poet
and domestic economist, Senator Depew:

A cube of cheese no larger than a die
May bait the trap to catch a nibbling mie.

DIGESTION, n. The conversion of victuals into virtues. When the
process is imperfect, vices are evolved instead—a circumstance from
which that wicked writer, Dr. Jeremiah Blenn, infers that the ladies
are the greater sufferers from dyspepsia.

DIPLOMACY, n. The patriotic art of lying for one's country.

DISABUSE, v.t. The present your neighbor with another and better
error than the one which he has deemed it advantageous to embrace.

DISCRIMINATE, v.i. To note the particulars in which one person or
thing is, if possible, more objectionable than another.

DISCUSSION, n. A method of confirming others in their errors.

DISOBEDIENCE, n. The silver lining to the cloud of servitude.

DISOBEY, v.t. To celebrate with an appropriate ceremony the maturity
of a command.

His right to govern me is clear as day,
My duty manifest to disobey;
And if that fit observance e'er I shut
May I and duty be alike undone.

Israfel Brown

DISSEMBLE, v.i.  To put a clean shirt upon the character.
Let us dissemble.

Adam

DISTANCE, n. The only thing that the rich are willing for the poor to
call theirs, and keep.

DISTRESS, n. A disease incurred by exposure to the prosperity of a
friend.

DIVINATION, n. The art of nosing out the occult. Divination is of as
many kinds as there are fruit-bearing varieties of the flowering dunce
and the early fool.

DOG, n. A kind of additional or subsidiary Deity designed to catch
the overflow and surplus of the world's worship. This Divine Being in
some of his smaller and silkier incarnations takes, in the affection
of Woman, the place to which there is no human male aspirant. The Dog
is a survival—an anachronism. He toils not, neither does he spin,
yet Solomon in all his glory never lay upon a door-mat all day long,
sun-soaked and fly-fed and fat, while his master worked for the means
wherewith to purchase the idle wag of the Solomonic tail, seasoned
with a look of tolerant recognition.

DRAGOON, n. A soldier who combines dash and steadiness in so equal
measure that he makes his advances on foot and his retreats on
horseback.

DRAMATIST, n. One who adapts plays from the French.

DRUIDS, n. Priests and ministers of an ancient Celtic religion which
did not disdain to employ the humble allurement of human sacrifice.
Very little is now known about the Druids and their faith. Pliny says
their religion, originating in Britain, spread eastward as far as
Persia. Caesar says those who desired to study its mysteries went to
Britain. Caesar himself went to Britain, but does not appear to have
obtained any high preferment in the Druidical Church, although his
talent for human sacrifice was considerable.

Druids performed their religious rites in groves, and knew nothing
of church mortgages and the season-ticket system of pew rents. They
were, in short, heathens and—as they were once complacently
catalogued by a distinguished prelate of the Church of England—
Dissenters.

DUCK-BILL, n. Your account at your restaurant during the canvas-back
season.

DUEL, n. A formal ceremony preliminary to the reconciliation of two
enemies. Great skill is necessary to its satisfactory observance; if
awkwardly performed the most unexpected and deplorable consequences
sometimes ensue. A long time ago a man lost his life in a duel.

That dueling's a gentlemanly vice
I hold; and wish that it had been my lot
To live my life out in some favored spot—
Some country where it is considered nice
To split a rival like a fish, or slice
A husband like a spud, or with a shot
Bring down a debtor doubled in a knot
And ready to be put upon the ice.
Some miscreants there are, whom I do long
To shoot, to stab, or some such way reclaim
The scurvy rogues to better lives and manners,
I seem to see them now—a mighty throng.
It looks as if to challenge
me
they came,
Jauntily marching with brass bands and banners!

Xamba Q. Dar

DULLARD, n. A member of the reigning dynasty in letters and life.
The Dullards came in with Adam, and being both numerous and sturdy
have overrun the habitable world. The secret of their power is their
insensibility to blows; tickle them with a bludgeon and they laugh
with a platitude. The Dullards came originally from Boeotia, whence
they were driven by stress of starvation, their dullness having
blighted the crops. For some centuries they infested Philistia, and
many of them are called Philistines to this day. In the turbulent
times of the Crusades they withdrew thence and gradually overspread
all Europe, occupying most of the high places in politics, art,
literature, science and theology. Since a detachment of Dullards came
over with the Pilgrims in the
Mayflower
and made a favorable report
of the country, their increase by birth, immigration, and conversion
has been rapid and steady. According to the most trustworthy
statistics the number of adult Dullards in the United States is but
little short of thirty millions, including the statisticians. The
intellectual centre of the race is somewhere about Peoria, Illinois,
but the New England Dullard is the most shockingly moral.

DUTY, n. That which sternly impels us in the direction of profit,
along the line of desire.

Sir Lavender Portwine, in favor at court,
Was wroth at his master, who'd kissed Lady Port.
His anger provoked him to take the king's head,
But duty prevailed, and he took the king's bread,
Instead.

EAT, v.i. To perform successively (and successfully) the functions of
mastication, humectation, and deglutition.

"I was in the drawing-room, enjoying my dinner," said Brillat-Savarin,
beginning an anecdote. "What!" interrupted Rochebriant; "eating dinner
in a drawing-room?" "I must beg you to observe, monsieur," explained
the great gastronome, "that I did not say I was eating my dinner, but
enjoying it. I had dined an hour before."

EAVESDROP, v.i. Secretly to overhear a catalogue of the crimes and
vices of another or yourself.

A lady with one of her ears applied
To an open keyhole heard, inside,
Two female gossips in converse free—
The subject engaging them was she.
"I think," said one, "and my husband thinks
That she's a prying, inquisitive minx!"
As soon as no more of it she could hear
The lady, indignant, removed her ear.
"I will not stay," she said, with a pout,
"To hear my character lied about!"

Gopete Sherany

ECCENTRICITY, n. A method of distinction so cheap that fools employ
it to accentuate their incapacity.

ECONOMY, n. Purchasing the barrel of whiskey that you do not need for
the price of the cow that you cannot afford.

EDIBLE, adj. Good to eat, and wholesome to digest, as a worm to a
toad, a toad to a snake, a snake to a pig, a pig to a man, and a man
to a worm.

EDITOR, n. A person who combines the judicial functions of Minos,
Rhadamanthus and Aeacus, but is placable with an obolus; a severely
virtuous censor, but so charitable withal that he tolerates the
virtues of others and the vices of himself; who flings about him the
splintering lightning and sturdy thunders of admonition till he
resembles a bunch of firecrackers petulantly uttering his mind at the
tail of a dog; then straightway murmurs a mild, melodious lay, soft as
the cooing of a donkey intoning its prayer to the evening star.
Master of mysteries and lord of law, high-pinnacled upon the throne of
thought, his face suffused with the dim splendors of the
Transfiguration, his legs intertwisted and his tongue a-cheek, the
editor spills his will along the paper and cuts it off in lengths to
suit. And at intervals from behind the veil of the temple is heard
the voice of the foreman demanding three inches of wit and six lines
of religious meditation, or bidding him turn off the wisdom and whack
up some pathos.