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diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/D.html b/lib/ebooks/devils/D.html new file mode 100644 index 00000000..6bd08ff1 --- /dev/null +++ b/lib/ebooks/devils/D.html @@ -0,0 +1,536 @@ +<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "+//ISBN 0-9673008-1-9//DTD OEB 1.0 Document//EN" + "http://openebook.org/dtds/oeb-1.0/oebdoc1.dtd"> +<html> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/x-oeb1-document; charset=utf-8" /> +<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/x-oeb1-css" href="devil.css" /> +<title>The Devil’s Dictionary: D</title> +</head> + +<body lang="en-us"> + + +<h1>D</h1> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">damn,</span> <span class="pos">v.</span> 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 <i>jod</i> or <i>god</i>, meaning “joy.” It would be with great diffidence that I +should advance an opinion conflicting with that of either of these formidable +authorities.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">dance,</span> <span class="pos">v.i.</span> 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.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">danger,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span></p> + + <table align="center" border="0"> + <tr> + <td valign="top" align="left"> + +<p class="poetry">A savage beast which, when it sleeps,<br /> +<span class="ind1"> +Man girds at and despises,</span><br /> +But takes himself away by leaps<br /> +<span class="ind1"> +And bounds when it arises.</span></p> + +<p class="citeauth">Ambat Delaso.</p> + + </td> + </tr> + </table> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">daring,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> One of the most conspicuous qualities of a man in security.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">datary,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> A high ecclesiastic official of the Roman +Catholic Church, whose important function is to brand the Pope’s bulls with the +words <i>Datum Romae</i>.He enjoys a princely revenue and the friendship of God.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">dawn,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> 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.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">day,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> 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.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">dead,</span> <span class="pos">adj.</span></p> + + <table align="center" border="0"> + <tr> + <td valign="top" align="left"> + +<p class="poetry"> +Done with the work of breathing; +done<br /> + +With all the world; the mad race +run<br /> + +Though to the end; the golden goal<br /> + +Attained and found to be a hole!</p> + +<p class="citeauth">Squatol Johnes.</p> + + </td> + </tr> + </table> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">debauchee,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> One who has so earnestly pursued pleasure +that he has had the misfortune to overtake it.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">debt,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> An ingenious substitute for the chain and +whip of the slave-driver.</p> + + <table align="center" border="0"> + <tr> + <td valign="top" align="left"> + +<p class="poetry">As, pent in an aquarium, the troutlet<br /> + +Swims round and round his tank to find an outlet,<br /> +Pressing his nose against the glass that +holds him,<br /> +Nor ever sees the prison that enfolds him;<br /> + +So the poor debtor, seeing naught around him,<br /> +Yet feels the narrow limits that impound him,<br /> +Grieves at his debt and studies to evade it,<br /> +And finds at last he might as well +have paid it.</p> + +<p class="citeauth">Barlow S. Vode.</p> + + </td> + </tr> + </table> + + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">decalogue,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> 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.</p> + + <table align="center" border="0"> + <tr> + <td valign="top" align="left"> + +<p class="poetry">Thou shalt no God but me adore:<br /> + +‘Twere too expensive to have more.</p> + +<p class="poetry">No images nor idols make<br /> + +For Robert Ingersoll to break.</p> + +<p class="poetry">Take not God’s name in vain; select<br /> +A time when it will have effect.</p> + +<p class="poetry">Work not on Sabbath days at all,<br /> +But go to see the teams play ball.</p> + +<p class="poetry">Honor thy parents. That creates<br /> +For life insurance lower rates.</p> + +<p class="poetry">Kill not, abet not those who kill;<br /> +Thou shalt not pay thy butcher’s bill.</p> + +<p class="poetry">Kiss not thy neighbor’s wife, unless<br /> +Thine own thy neighbor doth caress</p> + +<p class="poetry">Don’t steal; thou’lt never thus compete<br /> +Successfully in business. Cheat.</p> + +<p class="poetry">Bear not false witness—that is low—<br /> +But “hear ‘tis rumored so and so.”</p> + +<p class="poetry">Covet thou naught that thou hast not<br /> +By hook or crook, or somehow, got.</p> + +<p class="citeauth">G. J.</p> + + </td> + </tr> + </table> + + + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">decide,</span> <span class="pos">v.i.</span> To succumb to the preponderance of one set +of influences over another set.</p> + + <table align="center" border="0"> + <tr> + <td valign="top" align="left"> + +<p class="poetry">A leaf was riven from a tree,<br /> +“I mean to fall to earth,” said he.</p> + +<p class="poetry">The west wind, rising, made him veer.<br /> +“Eastward,” said he, “I now shall steer.”</p> + +<p class="poetry">The east wind rose with greater force.<br /> +Said he: “’Twere wise to change my course.”</p> + +<p class="poetry">With equal power they contend.<br /> +He said: “My judgment I suspend.”</p> + +<p class="poetry">Down died the winds; the leaf, elate,<br /> +Cried: “I’ve decided to fall straight.”</p> + +<p class="poetry">“First thoughts are best?” That’s not the moral;<br /> +Just choose your own and we’ll not quarrel.</p> + +<p class="poetry">Howe’er your choice may chance to fall,<br /> +You’ll have no hand in it at all.</p> + +<p class="citeauth">G. J.</p> + + </td> + </tr> + </table> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">defame,</span> <span class="pos">v.t.</span> To lie about +another. To tell the truth about another.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">defenceless,</span> <span class="pos">adj. </span>Unable to attack.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">degenerate,</span> <span class="pos">adj. </span>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.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">degradation,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> One of the stages of moral and +social progress from private station to political preferment.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">deinotherium,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> 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.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">dejeuner,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> The breakfast of an American who has been in +Paris. Variously pronounced.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">delegation,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> In American politics, an article of +merchandise that comes in sets.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">deliberation,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> The act of examining one’s bread to +determine which side it is buttered on.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">deluge,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> A notable first experiment in baptism which +washed away the sins (and sinners) of the world.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">delusion,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> The father of a most respectable family, +comprising Enthusiasm, Affection, Self-denial, Faith, Hope, Charity and many +other goodly sons and daughters.</p> + + <table align="center" border="0"> + <tr> + <td valign="top" align="left"> + +<p class="poetry">All hail, Delusion! Were it not for thee<br /> +The world turned topsy-turvy we should see;<br /> +For Vice, respectable with cleanly fancies,<br /> +Would fly abandoned Virtue’s gross advances.</p> + +<p class="citeauth">Mumfrey Mappel.</p> + + </td> + </tr> + </table> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">dentist,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> A prestidigitator who, putting metal into +your mouth, pulls coins out of your pocket.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">dependent,</span> <span class="pos">adj.</span> Reliant upon another’s generosity +for the support which you are not in a position to exact from his fears.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">deputy,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> 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.</p> + + <table align="center" border="0"> + <tr> + <td valign="top" align="left"> + +<p class="poetry">“Chief Deputy,” the Master cried,<br /> +“To-day the books are to be tried<br /> +By experts and accountants who<br /> +Have been commissioned to go through<br /> +Our office here, to see if we<br /> +Have stolen injudiciously.<br /> +Please have the proper entries made,<br /> +The proper balances displayed,<br /> +Conforming to the whole amount<br /> +Of cash on hand—which they will count.<br /> +I’ve long admired your punctual way—<br /> +Here at the break and close of day,<br /> +Confronting in your chair the crowd<br /> +Of business men, whose voices loud<br /> +And gestures violent you quell<br /> +By some mysterious, calm spell—<br /> +Some magic lurking in your look<br /> +That brings the noisiest to book<br /> +And spreads a holy and profound<br /> +Tranquillity o’er all around.<br /> +So orderly all’s done that they<br /> +Who came to draw remain to pay.<br /> +But now the time demands, at last,<br /> +That you employ your genius vast<br /> +In energies more active. Rise<br /> +And shake the lightnings from your eyes;<br /> +Inspire your underlings, and fling<br /> +Your spirit into everything!”<br /> +The Master’s hand here dealt a whack<br /> +Upon the Deputy’s bent back,<br /> +When straightway to the floor there fell<br /> +A shrunken globe, a rattling shell<br /> +A blackened, withered, eyeless head!<br /> +The man had been a twelvemonth dead.</p> +<p class="citeauth">Jamrach Holobom.</p> + + </td> + </tr> + </table> + + + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">destiny,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> A tyrant’s authority for crime and fool’s excuse for failure.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">diagnosis,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> A physician’s forecast of the disease by the +patient’s pulse and purse.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">diaphragm,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> A muscular partition separating disorders of +the chest from disorders of the bowels.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">diary,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> A daily record of that part of one’s life, +which he can relate to himself without blushing.</p> + + <table align="center" border="0"> + <tr> + <td valign="top" align="left"> + +<p class="poetry">Hearst kept a diary wherein were writ<br /> +All that he had of wisdom and of wit.<br /> +So the Recording Angel, when Hearst died,<br /> +Erased all entries of his own and cried:<br /> +“I’ll judge you by your diary.” Said Hearst:<br /> +“Thank you; ‘twill show you I am Saint the First”—<br /> +Straightway producing, jubilant and proud,<br /> +That record from a pocket in his shroud.<br /> +The Angel slowly turned the pages o’er,<br /> +Each stupid line of which he knew before,<br /> +Glooming and +gleaming as by turns he hit<br /> +On Shallow sentiment and stolen wit;<br /> +Then gravely closed the book and gave it back.<br /> +“My friend, you’ve wandered from your proper track:<br /> +You’d never be content this side the tomb—<br /> +For big ideas Heaven has little room,<br /> +And Hell’s no latitude for making mirth,”<br /> +He said, and +kicked the fellow back to earth.</p> + +<p class="citeauth">“The Mad Philosopher.”</p> + + </td> + </tr> + </table> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">dictator,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> The chief of a nation that prefers the +pestilence of despotism to the plague of anarchy.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">dictionary,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> 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.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">die,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> 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:</p> + + <table align="center" border="0"> + <tr> + <td valign="top" align="left"> + +<p class="poetry">A cube of cheese no larger than a die</p> + May bait the trap to catch a nibbling mie. + + </td> + </tr> + </table> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">digestion,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> 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.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">diplomacy,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> The patriotic art of lying for one’s country.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">disabuse,</span> <span class="pos">v.t.</span> The present your neighbor with another and better error than the one +which he has deemed it advantageous to embrace.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">discriminate,</span> <span class="pos">v.i.</span> To note the particulars in which +one person or thing is, if possible, more objectionable than another.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">discussion,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> A method of confirming others in their errors.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">disobedience,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> The silver lining to the cloud of servitude.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">disobey,</span> <span class="pos">v.t.</span> To celebrate with an appropriate ceremony the maturity of a command.</p> + + <table align="center" border="0"> + <tr> + <td valign="top" align="left"> + +<p class="poetry">His right to govern me is clear as day,<br /> +My duty manifest to disobey;<br /> +And if that fit observance e’er I shut<br /> +May I and duty be alike undone.</p> + +<p class="citeauth">Israfel Brown.</p> + + </td> + </tr> + </table> + + + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">dissemble,</span> <span class="pos">v.i.</span> To put a clean shirt upon the character.</p> + +<p class="quote" style="text-align: center">Let us dissemble.—<i>Adam.</i></p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">distance,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> The only thing that the rich are willing for +the poor to call theirs, and keep.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">distress,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> A disease incurred by exposure to the prosperity of a friend.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">divination,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> 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.</p> + +<p id="dog" class="entry"><span class="def">dog,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> 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.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">dragoon,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> A soldier who combines dash and steadiness in so equal measure +that he makes his advances on foot and his retreats on horseback.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">dramatist,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> One who adapts plays from the French.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">druids,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> 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.</p> + +<p class="indentpara">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—<i>Dissenters.</i></p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">duck-bill,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> Your account at your restaurant during the canvas-back season.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">duel,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> 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.</p> + + <table align="center" border="0"> + <tr> + <td valign="top" align="left"> + +<p class="poetry">That dueling’s a gentlemanly vice<br /> +<span class="ind1"> +I hold; and wish that it had been my lot</span><br /> +<span class="ind1"> +To live my life out in some favored spot—</span><br /> +Some country where it is considered nice<br /> +To split a rival like a fish, or slice<br /> +<span class="ind1"> +A husband like a spud, or with a shot</span><br /> +<span class="ind1"> +Bring down a debtor doubled in a knot</span><br /> +And ready to be put upon the ice.<br /> +Some miscreants there are, whom I do long<br /> +<span class="ind1"> +To shoot, to stab, or some such way reclaim</span><br /> +The scurvy rogues to better lives and manners,<br /> +I seem +to see them now—a mighty throng.<br /> +<span class="ind1"> +It looks as if to challenge me they came,</span><br /> +Jauntily marching with brass bands and banners!</p> + +<p class="citeauth">Xamba Q. Dar.</p> + + </td> + </tr> + </table> + + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">Dullard,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> 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 <i>Mayflower</i> +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.</p> + +<p class="entry"><span class="def">duty,</span> <span class="pos">n.</span> That which sternly impels us in the direction of profit, along the line of desire.</p> + + <table align="center" border="0"> + <tr> + <td valign="top" align="left"> + +<p class="poetry">Sir Lavender Portwine, in favor at court,</p> +Was wroth at his master, who’d kissed Lady Port.<br /> +His anger provoked him to take the king’s head,<br /> +But duty prevailed, and he took the king’s bread,<br /> +<span class="ind3"> +Instead.</span> +<p class="citeauth">G. J.</p> + + </td> + </tr> + </table> + +</body> +</html>
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