From 46439007cf417cbd9ac8049bb4122c890097a0fa Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: "Charles.Forsyth" Date: Fri, 22 Dec 2006 20:52:35 +0000 Subject: 20060303-partial --- lib/ebooks/devils/B.html | 398 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 398 insertions(+) create mode 100644 lib/ebooks/devils/B.html (limited to 'lib/ebooks/devils/B.html') diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/B.html b/lib/ebooks/devils/B.html new file mode 100644 index 00000000..d8d4e5b7 --- /dev/null +++ b/lib/ebooks/devils/B.html @@ -0,0 +1,398 @@ + + + + + + +The Devil’s Dictionary: B + + + + +

B

+ +

Baal, n. An old deity formerly +much worshiped under various names. +As Baal he was popular with the Phoenicians; as Belus or Bel he had the honor to +be served by the priest Berosus, who wrote the famous account of the Deluge; +as Babel he had a tower partly erected to his glory on the Plain of Shinar. From Babel comes our English word +“babble.” Under whatever name worshiped, +Baal is the Sun-god. As Beelzebub he is the god of flies, which are begotten +of the sun’s rays on the stagnant water. In Physicia Baal is still +worshiped as Bolus, and as Belly he is adored and served with abundant +sacrifice by the priests of Guttledom.

+ +

babe or baby, n. A +misshapen creature of no particular age, sex, or +condition, chiefly remarkable for the violence of the sympathies and +antipathies it excites in others, itself without sentiment or emotion. There +have been famous babes; for example, little Moses, from whose adventure in the +bulrushes the Egyptian hierophants of seven centuries before doubtless derived +their idle tale of the child Osiris being preserved on a floating lotus leaf.

+ +

+
+
Ere babes were invented
+
The girls were contended.
+
Now man is tormented
+
Until to buy babes he has squandered
+
His money. And so I have pondered
+
This thing, and thought may be
+
’T were better that Baby
+
The First had been eagled or condored.
+
Ro Amil.
+
+

+ +

Bacchus, n. A convenient +deity invented by the ancients as an excuse for getting drunk.

+ +

+
+
Is public worship, then, a sin,
+
That for devotions paid to Bacchus
+
The lictors dare to run us in,
+
And resolutely thump and whack us?
+
Jorace.
+
+

+ +

back, n. That part of your +friend which it is your privilege to contemplate in your adversity.

+ +

backbite, v.t. To speak of a man as +you find him when he can’t find you.

+ +

bait, n. A preparation +that renders the hook more palatable. The best kind is beauty.

+ +

baptism, n. A sacred rite of +such efficacy that he who finds himself in heaven without having undergone it will be unhappy forever. +It is performed with water in two ways by immersion, or plunging, and by aspersion, or sprinkling.

+ +

+
+
But whether the plan of immersion
+
Is better than simple aspersion
+
Let those immersed
+
And those aspersed
+
Decide by the Authorized Version,
+
And by matching their agues tertian.
+
G. J.
+
+

+ +

barometer, n. An ingenious +instrument which indicates what kind of weather we are having.

+ +

barrack, n. A house in which +soldiers enjoy a portion of that of which it is their business to deprive others.

+ +

basilisk, n. The cockatrice. +A sort of serpent hatched form the egg of a cock. The basilisk had a bad eye, and its glance was +fatal. Many infidels deny this creature’s existence, but Semprello Aurator saw and handled one +that had been blinded by lightning as a punishment for having fatally gazed on +a lady of rank whom Jupiter loved. Juno afterward restored the reptile’s +sight and hid it in a cave. Nothing is so well attested by the ancients as +the existence of the basilisk, but the cocks have stopped laying.

+ +

bastinado, n. The act of walking +on wood without exertion.

+ +

bath, n. A kind of mystic ceremony +substituted for religious worship, with what spiritual efficacy has not been determined.

+ +

+
+
The man who taketh a steam bath
+
He loseth all the skin he hath,
+
And, for he’s boiled a brilliant red,
+
Thinketh to cleanliness he’s wed,
+
Forgetting that his lungs he’s soiling
+
With dirty vapors of the boiling.
+
Richard Gwow.
+
+

+ +

battle, n. A method of untying +with the teeth of a political knot that would not yield to the tongue.

+ +

beard, n. The hair that is commonly +cut off by those who justly execrate the absurd Chinese custom of shaving the head.

+ +

beauty, n. The power by which a woman +charms a lover and terrifies a husband.

+ +

befriend, v.t. To make an ingrate.

+ +

beg, v. To ask for something with +an earnestness proportioned to the belief that it will not be given.

+ +

+
+
Who is that, father?
+
+ +
+
A mendicant, child,
+
Haggard, morose, and unaffable—wild!
+
See how he glares through the bars of his cell!
+
With Citizen Mendicant all is not well.
+
+ +
+
Why did they put him there, father?
+
+ +
+
Because
+
Obeying his belly he struck at the laws.
+
+ +
+
His belly?
+
+ +
+
Oh, well, he was starving, my boy—
+
A state in which, doubtless, there’s little of joy.
+
No bite had he eaten for days, and his cry
+
Was “Bread!” ever “Bread!”
+
+ +
+
What’s the matter with pie?
+
+ +
+
With little to wear, he had nothing to sell;
+
To beg was unlawful—improper as well.
+
+ +
+
Why didn’t he work?
+
+ +
+
He would even have done that,
+
But men said: “Get out!” and the State remarked:
+
“Scat!”
+
I mention these incidents merely to show
+
That the vengeance he took was uncommonly low.
+
Revenge, at the best, is the act of a Siou,
+
But for trifles—
+
+ +
+
Pray what did bad Mendicant do?
+
+ +
+
Stole two loaves of bread to replenish his lack
+
And tuck out the belly that clung to his back.
+
+ +
+
Is that all father dear?
+
+ +
+
There’s little to tell:
+
They sent him to jail, and they’ll send him to—well,
+
The company’s better than here we can boast,
+
And there’s—
+
+ +
+
Bread for the needy, dear father?
+
+ +
+
Um—toast.
+
Atka Mip.
+
+

+ +

beggar, n. One who has relied +on the assistance of his friends.

+ +

behavior, n. Conduct, as determined, +not by principle, but by breeding. The word seems to be somewhat loosely used in Dr. Jamrach Holobom’s +translation of the following lines from the Dies Iræ:

+ +

+
+
+
Recordare, Jesu pie,
+
Quod sum causa tuae viæ.
+
Ne me perdas illa die.
+
+ +
+
Pray remember, sacred Savior,
+
Whose the thoughtless hand that gave your
+
Death-blow. Pardon such behavior.
+
+

+ +

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.
+
G. J.
+
+

+ +

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 Ætna, 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.

+ + + \ No newline at end of file -- cgit v1.2.3