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A

+ +

abasement, n. A decent and customary +mental attitude in the presence of wealth of power. Peculiarly appropriate in an employee when addressing +an employer.

+ +

abatis, n. Rubbish in front of a fort, +to prevent the rubbish outside from molesting the rubbish inside.

+ +

abdication, n. An act +whereby a sovereign attests his sense of the high temperature of the throne.

+ +
+
+

Poor Isabella’s Dead, whose abdication

+

Set all tongues wagging in the Spanish nation.

+

For that performance ’twere unfair to scold her:

+

She wisely left a throne too hot to hold her.

+

To History she’ll be no royal riddle—

+

Merely a plain parched pea that jumped the griddle.

+

G. J.

+
+
+ +

abdomen, n. The temple of the god +Stomach, in whose worship, with sacrificial rights, all true men engage. From women this ancient faith commands but a +stammering assent. They sometimes minister at the altar in a half-hearted and ineffective way, but true reverence +for the one deity that men really adore they know not. If woman had a free hand in the world’s +marketing the race would become graminivorous.

+ +

ability, n. The natural equipment to accomplish +some small part of the meaner ambitions distinguishing able men from dead ones. In the last analysis ability is commonly +found to consist mainly in a high degree of solemnity. Perhaps, however, this impressive quality is +rightly appraised; it is no easy task to be solemn.

+ +

abnormal, adj. Not conforming to +standard. In matters of thought and conduct, to be independent is to be abnormal, to be abnormal is to +be detested. Wherefore the lexicographer adviseth a striving toward the straiter resemblance of the +Average Man than he hath to himself. Whoso attaineth thereto shall have peace, the prospect of death +and the hope of Hell.

+ +

aboriginies, n. Persons of little worth found +cumbering the soil of a newly discovered country. They soon cease to cumber; they fertilize.

+ +

abracadabra.

+ +
+
+

By Abracadabra we signify
+An infinite number of things.
+’Tis the answer to What? and How? and Why?
+And Whence? and Whither?—a word whereby
+The Truth (with the comfort it brings)
+Is open to all who grope in night,
+Crying for Wisdom’s holy light.

+
+ +
+

Whether the word is a verb or a noun
+Is knowledge beyond my reach.
+I only know that ’tis handed down.
+From sage to sage,
+From age to age—
+An immortal part of speech!

+
+ +
+

Of an ancient man the tale is told
+That he lived to be ten centuries old,
+In a cave on a mountain side.
+(True, he finally died.)
+The fame of his wisdom filled the land,
+For his head was bald, and you’ll understand
+His beard was long and white
+And his eyes uncommonly bright.

+
+ +
+

Philosophers gathered from far and near
+To sit at his feat and hear and hear,
+Though he never was heard
+To utter a word
+But “Abracadabra, abracadab,
+Abracada, abracad,
+Abraca, abrac, abra, ab!”
+’Twas all he had,
+’Twas all they wanted to hear, and each
+Made copious notes of the mystical speech,
+Which they published next—
+A trickle of text
+In the meadow of commentary.
+Mighty big books were these,
+In a number, as leaves of trees;
+In learning, remarkably—very!

+
+ +
+

He’s dead,
+As I said,
+And the books of the sages have perished,
+But his wisdom is sacredly cherished.
+In Abracadabra it solemnly rings,
+Like an ancient bell that forever swings.
+O, I love to hear
+That word make clear
+Humanity’s General Sense of Things.

+

Jamrach Holobom.

+
+
+ +

abridge, v.t. To shorten.

+ +

When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for people to abridge their +king, a decent respect for the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the +causes which impel them to the separation.—Oliver Cromwell

+ +

abrupt, adj. Sudden, without +ceremony, like the arrival of a cannon-shot and the departure of the soldier whose interests are most +affected by it. Dr. Samuel Johnson beautifully said of another author’s ideas that they were] +“concatenated without abruption.”

+ +

abscond, v.i. To “move +in a mysterious way,” commonly with the property of another.

+ +
+
+

Spring beckons!   All things to the call respond;
+The trees are leaving and cashiers abscond.

+

Phela Orm.

+
+
+ +

absent, adj. Peculiarly +exposed to the tooth of detraction; vilifed; hopelessly in the wrong; superseded in the consideration +and affection of another.

+ +
+
+

To men a man is but a mind. Who cares
+What face he carries or what form he wears?
+But woman’s body is the woman. O,
+Stay thou, my sweetheart, and do never go,
+But heed the warning words the sage hath said:
+A woman absent is a woman dead.
+

+

Jogo Tyree.

+
+
+ +

absentee,n. A person +with an income who has had the forethought to remove himself from the sphere of exaction.

+ +

absolute, adj. Independent, irresponsible. +An absolute monarchy is one in which the sovereign does as he pleases so long as he pleases the assassins. +Not many absolute monarchies are left, most of them having been replaced by limited monarchies, where the +sovereign’s power for evil (and for good) is greatly curtailed, and by republics, which are +governed by chance.

+ +

abstainer, n. A weak +person who yields to the temptation of denying himself a pleasure. A total abstainer is one who abstains +from everything but abstention, and especially from inactivity in the affairs of others.

+ +
+
+

Said a man to a crapulent youth: “I thought
+You a total abstainer, my son.”
+“So I am, so I am,” said the scrapgrace caught—
+“But not, sir, a bigoted one.”

+

G. J.

+
+
+ +

absurdity, n. A statement or belief +manifestly inconsistent with one’s own opinion.

+ +

academe, n. An ancient school where +morality and philosophy were taught.

+ +

academy, n. +(from academe). A modern school where football is taught.

+ +

accident, n. An inevitable +occurrence due to the action of immutable natural laws.

+ +

accomplice, n. One associated +with another in a crime, having guilty knowledge and complicity, as an attorney who defends a +criminal, knowing him guilty. This view of the attorney’s position in the matter has not hitherto +commanded the assent of attorneys, no one having offered them a fee for assenting.

+ +

accord, n. Harmony.

+ +

accordion, n. An instrument +in harmony with the sentiments of an assassin.

+ +

accountability, n. The +mother of caution.

+ +
+
+

“My accountability, bear in mind,”
+Said the Grand Vizier: “Yes, yes,”
+Said the Shah: “I do—’tis the only kind
+Of ability you possess.”

+

Joram Tate.

+
+
+ +

accuse, v.t. To affirm another’s guilt +or unworth; most commonly as a justification of ourselves for having wronged him.

+ +

acephalous, adj. In the surprising condition of the +Crusader who absently pulled at his forelock some hours after a Saracen scimitar had, unconsciously to him, +passed through his neck, as related by de Joinville.

+ +

achievement, n. The death of endeavor +and the birth of disgust.

+ +

acknowledge, v.t. To confess. +Acknowledgement of one another’s faults is the highest duty imposed by our love of +truth.

+ +

acquaintance, n. A person whom we +know well enough to borrow from, but not well enough to lend to. A degree of friendship called slight when +its object is poor or obscure, and intimate when he is rich or +famous.

+ +

actually, adv. Perhaps; possibly.

+ +

adage, n. Boned wisdom for weak teeth.

+ +

adamant, n. A mineral frequently found +beneath a corset. Soluble in solicitate of gold.

+ +

adder, n. A species of snake. So called +from its habit of adding funeral outlays to the other expenses of living.

+ +

adherent, n. A follower who has not +yet obtained all that he expects to get.

+ +

administration, n. An ingenious +abstraction in politics, designed to receive the kicks and cuffs due to +the premier or president. A man of straw, proof against bad-egging +and dead-catting.

+ +

admiral, n. That part of a war-ship +which does the talking while the figure-head does the thinking.

+ +

admiration, n. Our polite recognition of +another’s resemblance to ourselves.

+ +

admonition, n. Gentle +reproof, as with a meat-axe. Friendly warning.

+ +
+
+

Consigned by way of admonition,
+His soul foever to perdition.

+

Judibras.

+
+
+ +

adore, v.t. To venerate expectantly.

+ +

advice, n. The smallest +current coin.

+ +
+
+

“The man was in such deep distress,”
+Said Tom, “that I could do no less
+Than give him good advice.” Said Jim:
+“If less could have been done for him
+I know you well enough, my son,
+To know that’s what you would have done.”

+
+
+ +

affianced, pp. Fitted with an +ankle-ring for the ball-and-chain.

+ +

affliction, n. An acclimatizing +process preparing the soul for another and bitter world.

+ +

African, n. A nigger that votes our way.

+ +

age, n. That period of life in which +we compound for the vices that we still cherish by reviling those that we have no longer the +enterprise to commit.

+ +

agitator, n. A statesman who shakes +the fruit trees of his neighbors—to dislodge the worms.

+ +

aim, n. The task we set our wishes to.

+ +
+
+

“Cheer up! Have you no aim in life?”
+She tenderly inquired.
+“An aim? Well, no, I haven’t, wife;
+The fact is—I have fired.”

+

G. J.

+
+
+ +

air, n. A nutritious substance supplied by a +bountiful Providence for the fattening of the poor.

+ +

alderman, n. An ingenious criminal +who covers his secret thieving with a pretence of open marauding.

+ +

alien, n. An American sovereign +in his probationary state.

+ +

Allah, n. The Mahometan +Supreme Being, as distinguished from the Christian, Jewish, and so forth.

+ +
+
+

Allah’s good laws I faithfully have kept,
+And ever for the sins of man have wept;
+And sometimes kneeling in the temple I
+Have reverently crossed my hands and slept.

+

Junker Barlow.

+
+
+ +

allegiance, n.

+ +
+
+

This thing Allegiance, as I suppose,
+Is a ring fitted in the subject’s nose,
+Whereby that organ is kept rightly pointed
+To smell the sweetness of the Lord’s anointed.

+

G. J.

+
+
+ +

alliance, n. In international politics, +the union of two thieves who have their hands so deeply inserted in each other’s pockets that +they cannot separately plunder a third.

+ +

alligator, n. The crocodile of +America, superior in every detail to the crocodile of the effete monarchies of the Old World. +Herodotus says the Indus is, with one exception, the only river that produces crocodiles, but they +appear to have gone West and grown up with the other rivers. From the notches on his back the +alligator is called a sawrian.

+ +

alone, adj. In bad company.

+ +
+
+

In contact, lo! the flint and steel,
+By spark and flame, the thought reveal
+That he the metal, she the stone,
+Had cherished secretly alone.

+
+
+ +

altar, n. The place whereupon +the priest formerly raveled out the small intestine of the sacrificial victim for purposes of divination and +cooked its flesh for the gods. The word is now seldom used, except with reference to the sacrifice of +their liberty and peace by a male and a female tool.

+ +
+
+

They stood before the altar and supplied
+The fire themselves in which their fat was fried.
+In vain the sacrifice!—no god will claim
+An offering burnt with an unholy flame.

+

M. P. Nopput.

+
+
+ +

ambidextrous, adj. Able to pick +with equal skill a right-hand pocket or a left.

+ +

ambition, n. An overmastering +desire to be vilified by enemies while living and made ridiculous by friends when dead.

+ +

amnesty, n. The state’s +magnanimity to those offenders whom it would be too expensive to punish.

+ +

anoint, v.t. To grease a +king or other great functionary already sufficiently slippery.

+ +
+
+

As sovereigns are anointed by the priesthood,
+So pigs to lead the populace are greased good.

+

Judibras.

+
+
+ +

antipathy, n. The sentiment +inspired by one’s friend’s friend.

+ +

aphorism, n. Predigested wisdom.

+ +
+
+

The flabby wine-skin of his brain
+Yields to some pathologic strain,
+And voids from its unstored abysm
+The driblet of an aphorism.

+

 “The Mad Philosopher,” 1697.

+
+
+ +

apologize, v.i. To lay the foundation for a future +offence.

+ +

apostate, n. A leech who, having +penetrated the shell of a turtle only to find that the creature has long been dead, deems it expedient +to form a new attachment to a fresh turtle.

+ +

apothecary, n. The +physician’s accomplice, undertaker’s benefactor and grave worm’s provider.

+ +
+
+

When Jove sent blessings to all men that are,
+And Mercury conveyed them in a jar,
+That friend of tricksters introduced by stealth
+Disease for the apothecary’s health,
+Whose gratitude impelled him to proclaim:
+“My deadliest drug shall bear my patron’s name!”

+

G. J.

+
+
+ +

appeal, v.t. In law, +to put the dice into the box for another throw.

+ +

appetite, n. An instinct thoughtfully +implanted by Providence as a solution to the labor question.

+ +

applause, n. The echo of +a platitude.

+ +

April Fool, n. The March +fool with another month added to his folly.

+ +

archbishop, n. An ecclesiastical +dignitary one point holier than a bishop.

+ +
+
+

If I were a jolly archbishop,
+On Fridays I’d eat all the fish up—
+Salmon and flounders and smelts;
+On other days everything else.
+

+

Jodo Rem.

+
+
+ +

architect, n. One who drafts a plan +of your house, and plans a draft of your money.

+ +

ardor, n. The quality that distinguishes +love without knowledge.

+ +

arena, n. In politics, an imaginary rat-pit +in which the statesman wrestles with his record.

+ +

aristocracy, n. Government by the +best men. (In this sense the word is obsolete; so is that kind of government.) Fellows that wear downy hats +and clean shirts—guilty of education and suspected of bank accounts.

+ +

armor, n. The kind of clothing worn +by a man whose tailor is a blacksmith.

+ +

arrayed, pp. Drawn up and given an +orderly disposition, as a rioter hanged to a lamppost.

+ +

arrest, v.t. Formally to detain one +accused of unusualness.

+ +

God made the world in six days and was arrested on the +seventh.—The Unauthorized Version

+ +

arsenic, n. A kind of +cosmetic greatly affected by the ladies, whom it greatly affects in turn.

+ +
+
+

“Eat arsenic? Yes, all you get,”
+Consenting, he did speak up;
+“’Tis better you should eat it, pet,
+Than put it in my teacup.”

+

Joel Huck.

+
+
+ +

art, n. This word has no +definition. Its origin is related as follows by the ingenious Father Gassalasca Jape, S. J.

+ +
+
+

One day a wag—what would the wretch be at?—
+Shifted a letter of the cipher RAT,
+And said it was a god’s name! Straight arose
+Fantastic priests and postulants (with shows,
+And mysteries, and mummeries, and hymns,
+And disputations dire that lamed their limbs)
+To serve his temple and maintain the fires,
+Expound the law, manipulate the wires.
+Amazed, the populace that rites attend,
+Believe whate’er they cannot comprehend,
+And, inly edified to learn that two
+Half-hairs joined so and so (as Art can do)
+Have sweeter values and a grace more fit
+Than Nature’s hairs that never have been split,
+Bring cates and wines for sacrificial feasts,
+And sell their garments to support the priests.

+
+
+ +

artlessness, n. A certain engaging +quality to which women attain by long study and severe practice upon the admiring male, +who is pleased to fancy it resembles the candid simplicity of his young.

+ +

asperse, v.t. Maliciously to ascribe +to another vicious actions which one has not had the temptation and opportunity to commit.

+ +

ass, n. A public singer with +a good voice but no ear. In Virginia City, Nevada, he is called the Washoe Canary, in Dakota, the Senator, +and everywhere the Donkey. The animal is widely and variously celebrated in the literature, art +and religion of every age and country; no other so engages and fires the human +imagination as this noble vertebrate. Indeed, it is doubted by some (Ramasilus, lib. II., +De Clem., and C. Stantatus, De Temperamente) +if it is not a god; and as such we know it was worshiped by the Etruscans, and, if we may believe Macrobious, +by the Cupasians also. Of the only two animals admitted into the Mahometan Paradise along with the souls of +men, the ass that carried Balaam is one, the dog of the Seven Sleepers the other. +This is no small distinction. From what has been written about this beast might be compiled a library of great +splendor and magnitude, rivalling that of the Shakespearean cult, and that which clusters about the Bible. It +may be said, generally, that all literature is more or less Asinine.

+ +
+
+

“Hail, holy Ass!”the quiring angels sing;
+“Priest of Unreason, and of Discords King!”
+Great co-Creator, let Thy glory shine:
+God made all else, the Mule, the Mule is thine!”

+

G. J.

+
+
+ +

auctioneer, n. The man who proclaims +with a hammer that he has picked a pocket with his tongue.

+ +

Australia, n. A country lying in the +South Sea, whose industrial and commercial development has been unspeakably retarded by an unfortunate +dispute among geographers as to whether it is a continent or an island.

+ +

avernus, n. The lake by which the +ancients entered the infernal regions. The fact that access to the infernal regions was obtained by a lake +is believed by the learned Marcus Ansello Scrutator to have suggested the Christian +rite of baptism by immersion. This, however, has been shown by Lactantius to be +an error.

+ +
+
+

Facilis descensus Averni,
+The poet remarks; and the sense
+Of it is that when down-hill I turn I
+Will get more of punches than pence.

+

Jehal Dai Lupe.

+
+
+ + + \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/A.html.annot b/lib/ebooks/devils/A.html.annot new file mode 100644 index 00000000..e69de29b diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/A.html.i b/lib/ebooks/devils/A.html.i new file mode 100644 index 00000000..87a29e73 --- /dev/null +++ b/lib/ebooks/devils/A.html.i @@ -0,0 +1,53 @@ +15 pages +size 400 552 +length 28806 +400 2 11 body html +0 +1984 2 43 body html +73 +3135 2 59 body html +331 +3135 2 59 body html +874 +7242 2 149 body html +142 +9706 2 197 body html +0 +11725 2 234 body html +56 +14044 2 279 body html +43 +16224 2 326 body html +22 +17952 2 363 body html +43 +19588 2 399 body html +90 +21737 2 450 body html +0 +23824 2 495 body html +0 +25445 2 532 body html +56 +27720 2 565 body html +22 +abracadabra 1 +arsenic 11 +anoint 9 +allah 7 +aphorism 10 +absent 3 +aim 7 +abstainer 4 +abscond 3 +art 12 +ass 13 +advice 6 +apothecary 10 +altar 9 +admonition 6 +alone 8 +archbishop 11 +abdication 0 +accountability 5 +allegiance 8 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 diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/B.html.annot b/lib/ebooks/devils/B.html.annot new file mode 100644 index 00000000..e69de29b diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/B.html.i b/lib/ebooks/devils/B.html.i new file mode 100644 index 00000000..590d2215 --- /dev/null +++ b/lib/ebooks/devils/B.html.i @@ -0,0 +1,23 @@ +9 pages +size 400 552 +length 18309 +400 2 11 body html +0 +1681 2 34 body html +117 +4008 2 89 body html +0 +6365 2 132 body html +0 +6365 2 132 body html +547 +10201 2 245 body html +13 +12195 2 289 body html +90 +14590 2 335 body html +0 +16688 2 368 body html +13 +baptism 1 +beg 2 diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/C.html b/lib/ebooks/devils/C.html new file mode 100644 index 00000000..3c679342 --- /dev/null +++ b/lib/ebooks/devils/C.html @@ -0,0 +1,528 @@ + + + + + + +The Devil’s Dictionary: C + + + + +

C

+ +

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.

+
+

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.

+

G. J.

+
+ +

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.”

+

G. J.

+
+ +

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.

+ +

clergyman, n. A man who undertakes +the management of our spiritual affairs as a method of better 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.

+
+ +

cœnobite, 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 Cœnobite, O cœnobite,

+

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.

+

K. Q.

+
+ +

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 and 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.

+ + + \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/C.html.annot b/lib/ebooks/devils/C.html.annot new file mode 100644 index 00000000..e69de29b diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/C.html.i b/lib/ebooks/devils/C.html.i new file mode 100644 index 00000000..3f61cbb3 --- /dev/null +++ b/lib/ebooks/devils/C.html.i @@ -0,0 +1,33 @@ +14 pages +size 400 552 +length 28562 +397 2 11 body html +0 +1712 2 35 body html +85 +3565 2 65 body html +0 +3565 2 65 body html +552 +8255 2 164 body html +22 +10580 2 200 body html +0 +12955 2 241 body html +22 +14994 2 282 body html +0 +16175 2 307 body html +0 +18725 2 352 body html +0 +20230 2 375 body html +0 +22655 2 421 body html +0 +24758 2 459 body html +90 +26978 2 505 body html +141 +carmelite 1 +christian 4 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 @@ + + + + + + +The Devil’s Dictionary: D + + + + + +

D

+ +

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.”

+ +

Covet thou naught that thou hast not
+By hook or crook, or somehow, got.

+ +

G. J.

+ +
+ + + +

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.

+ +

G. J.

+ +
+ +

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. +

G. J.

+ +
+ + + \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/D.html.annot b/lib/ebooks/devils/D.html.annot new file mode 100644 index 00000000..e69de29b diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/D.html.i b/lib/ebooks/devils/D.html.i new file mode 100644 index 00000000..cb9b9f1c --- /dev/null +++ b/lib/ebooks/devils/D.html.i @@ -0,0 +1,30 @@ +13 pages +size 400 552 +length 24257 +399 2 11 body html +0 +2156 2 51 body html +39 +4271 2 99 body html +0 +5258 2 128 body html +0 +6732 2 175 body html +0 +8859 2 223 body html +39 +11359 2 268 body html +0 +11359 2 268 body html +552 +14896 2 356 body html +0 +17380 2 398 body html +0 +19636 2 442 body html +22 +21129 2 464 body html +0 +22215 2 497 body html +277 +dog 9 diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/DevilsDictionary.opf b/lib/ebooks/devils/DevilsDictionary.opf new file mode 100644 index 00000000..d7529cbf --- /dev/null +++ b/lib/ebooks/devils/DevilsDictionary.opf @@ -0,0 +1,119 @@ + + + + + +The Devil's Dictionary +Essay +123456789X +Ambrose Bierce +acidic commentary +PetesGuide.com +Peter K. Sheerin +Peter K. Sheerin +1911 +2000/07/21 +This work is now in the public domain. This edition is based on the Project Guttenberg plain ASCII edition. +en-us +Commentary on the use of language in the early 1900’s + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/E.html b/lib/ebooks/devils/E.html new file mode 100644 index 00000000..ed43e176 --- /dev/null +++ b/lib/ebooks/devils/E.html @@ -0,0 +1,629 @@ + + + + + + +The Devil’s Dictionary: E + + + + +

E

+ +

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.

+ + + + + +
+ +

O, the Lord of Law +on the Throne of Thought,
+A gilded impostor is he.
+Of shreds and +patches his robes are wrought,
+ +His crown is brass,
+ +Himself an ass,
+ +And his power is fiddle-dee-dee.
+Prankily, crankily prating of +naught,
+Silly old quilly old Monarch of +Thought.
+ +Public opinion’s +camp-follower he,
+Thundering, blundering, plundering free.
+ +Affected,
+ +Ungracious,
+ +Suspected,
+ +Mendacious,
+Respected contemporaree!

+ +

J.H. Bumbleshook.

+ +
+ +

education, n. That +which discloses to the wise and disguises from the foolish their lack of +understanding.

+ +

effect, n. The second of two phenomena which always +occur together in the same order. The +first, called a Cause, is said to generate the other—which is no more sensible +than it would be for one who has never seen a dog except in the pursuit of a +rabbit to declare the rabbit the cause of a dog.

+ +

egotist, n. A +person of low taste, more interested in himself than in me.

+ + + + + +
+ +

Megaceph, chosen to serve the State
+In the halls of legislative debate,
+One day with all his credentials +came
+To the capitol’s door and announced +his name.
+The doorkeeper looked, with a +comical twist
+Of the face, at the eminent +egotist,
+And said: “Go away, for we settle here
+All manner of questions, knotty and +queer,
+And we cannot have, when the +speaker demands
+To be told how every member stands,
+A man who to all things under the +sky
+Assents by eternally voting ‘I’.” +

+
+ +

ejection, n. An approved remedy for the disease of +garrulity. It is also much used in +cases of extreme poverty.

+ +

elector, n. One who enjoys the sacred privilege of +voting for the man of another man’s choice.

+ +

electricity, n. The power that causes all natural +phenomena not known to be caused by something else. It is the same thing as lightning, and its famous attempt to +strike Dr. Franklin is one of the most picturesque incidents in that great and +good man’s career. The memory of Dr. +Franklin is justly held in great reverence, particularly in France, where a +waxen effigy of him was recently on exhibition, bearing the following touching +account of his life and services to science:

+ +

“Monsieur +Franqulin, inventor of electricity. +This illustrious savant, after having made several voyages around the +world, died on the Sandwich Islands and was devoured by savages, of whom not a +single fragment was ever recovered.”

+ +

Electricity seems +destined to play a most important part in the arts and industries. The question of its economical application +to some purposes is still unsettled, but experiment has already proved that it +will propel a street car better than a gas jet and give more light than a +horse.

+ +

elegy, n. A composition in verse, in which, without +employing any of the methods of humor, the writer aims to produce in the +reader’s mind the dampest kind of dejection. +The most famous English example begins somewhat like this:

+ + + + + +
+ +

The cur foretells +the knell of parting day;
+ +The loafing herd +winds slowly o’er the lea;
+The wise man +homeward plods; I only stay
+ +To fiddle-faddle +in a minor key. +

+
+ +

eloquence, n. +The art of orally persuading fools that white +is the color that it appears to be. It +includes the gift of making any color appear white.

+ +

elysium, n. An imaginary delightful country which the +ancients foolishly believed to be inhabited by the spirits of the good. This ridiculous and mischievous fable was +swept off the face of the earth by the early Christians—may their souls be +happy in Heaven!

+ +

emancipation, +n. A bondman’s change from the tyranny +of another to the despotism of himself.

+ + + + + +
+ +

He was a +slave: at word he went and came;
+ +His iron collar cut +him to the bone.
+Then Liberty +erased his owner’s name,
+ +Tightened the +rivets and inscribed his own.

+ +

G. J.

+ +
+ +

embalm, v.i. To cheat vegetation by locking up the gases +upon which it feeds. By embalming their +dead and thereby deranging the natural balance between animal and vegetable +life, the Egyptians made their once fertile and populous country barren and +incapable of supporting more than a meagre crew. The modern metallic burial casket is a step in the same direction, +and many a dead man who ought now to be ornamenting his neighbor’s lawn as a +tree, or enriching his table as a bunch of radishes, is doomed to a long +inutility. We shall get him after +awhile if we are spared, but in the meantime the violet and rose are +languishing for a nibble at his glutoeus +maximus.

+ +

emotion, n. A prostrating disease caused by a +determination of the heart to the head. +It is sometimes accompanied by a copious discharge of hydrated chloride +of sodium from the eyes.

+ +

encomiast, n. A special (but not particular) kind of liar.

+ +

end, n. The position farthest removed on either hand +from the Interlocutor.

+ + + + + +
+ +

The man was +perishing apace
+ +Who played the +tambourine;
+The seal of death +was on his face—
+ +‘Twas pallid, for +‘twas clean.

+ +

“This is the end,” +the sick man said
+ +In faint and +failing tones.
+A moment later he +was dead,
+ +And Tambourine was +Bones.

+ +

Tinley Roquot.

+ +
+ +

+ +

enough, pro. All there is in the world if you like it.

+ + + + + +
+ +

Enough is as good +as a feast—for that matter
+Enougher’s as good as a feast for the platter.

+

Arbely C. Strunk.

+ +
+ +

entertainment, n. Any kind of amusement whose inroads +stop short of death by injection.

+ +

enthusiasm, n. A distemper of youth, curable by +small doses of repentance in connection with outward applications of +experience. Byron, who recovered long +enough to call it “entuzy-muzy,” had a relapse, which carried him off—to +Missolonghi.

+ +

envelope, n. The coffin of a document; the scabbard of a +bill; the husk of a remittance; the bed-gown of a love-letter.

+ +

envy, n. Emulation adapted to the meanest capacity.

+ +

epaulet, n. An ornamented badge, serving to distinguish +a military officer from the enemy—that is to say, from the officer of lower +rank to whom his death would give promotion.

+ +

epicure, n. An opponent of Epicurus, an abstemious +philosopher who, holding that pleasure should be the chief aim of man, wasted +no time in gratification from the senses.

+ +

epigram, n. A short, sharp saying in prose or verse, +frequently characterize by acidity or acerbity and sometimes by wisdom. Following are some of the more notable +epigrams of the learned and ingenious Dr. Jamrach Holobom:

+ +
+

We know better the +needs of ourselves than of others. To +serve oneself is economy of administration.

+

In each human +heart are a tiger, a pig, an ass and a nightingale. Diversity of character is due to their unequal activity.

+

There are three +sexes; males, females and girls.

+

Beauty in women +and distinction in men are alike in this: +they seem to be +the unthinking a kind of credibility.

+

Women in love are +less ashamed than men. They have less +to be ashamed of.

+

While your friend +holds you affectionately by both your hands you are safe, for you can watch +both his.

+
+ + + +

epitaph, n. An inscription on a tomb, showing that +virtues acquired by death have a retroactive effect. Following is a touching example:

+ + + + + +
+ +

Here lie the bones of Parson Platt,
+Wise, pious, humble and all that,
+Who showed us life as all should +live it;
+Let that be said—and God forgive +it!

+ +
+ +

erudition, n. Dust shaken out of a book into an empty +skull.

+ + + + + +
+ +

So wide his erudition’s mighty +span,
+He knew Creation’s origin and plan
+And only came by accident to grief—
+He thought, poor man, ‘twas right +to be a thief.

+ +

+ +

Romach Pute.

+ +
+ +

+ +

esoteric, adj. Very particularly abstruse and +consummately occult. The ancient +philosophies were of two kinds,—exoteric, +those that the philosophers themselves could partly understand, and esoteric, those that nobody could +understand. It is the latter that have +most profoundly affected modern thought and found greatest acceptance in our +time.

+ +

ethnology, n. The science that treats of the various +tribes of Man, as robbers, thieves, swindlers, dunces, lunatics, idiots and +ethnologists.

+ +

Eucharist, n. A sacred feast of the religious sect of +Theophagi.

+ +

A dispute once +unhappily arose among the members of this sect as to what it was that they +ate. In this controversy some five +hundred thousand have already been slain, and the question is still unsettled.

+ +

eulogy, n. Praise of a person who has either the +advantages of wealth and power, or the consideration to be dead.

+ +

evangelist, n. A bearer of good tidings, +particularly (in a religious sense) such as assure us of our own salvation and +the damnation of our neighbors.

+ +

everlasting, adj. Lasting forever. It is with no small diffidence that I +venture to offer this brief and elementary definition, for I am not unaware of +the existence of a bulky volume by a sometime Bishop of Worcester, entitled, A +Partial Definition of the Word “Everlasting,” as Used in the Authorized Version +of the Holy Scriptures. His book was +once esteemed of great authority in the Anglican Church, and is still, I +understand, studied with pleasure to the mind and profit of the soul.

+ +

exception, n. A thing which takes the liberty to differ +from other things of its class, as an honest man, a truthful woman, etc. “The exception proves the rule” is an +expression constantly upon the lips of the ignorant, who parrot it from one +another with never a thought of its absurdity. +In the Latin, “Exceptio probat regulam” means that the exception tests the rule, puts it to the proof, not confirms it. +The malefactor who drew the meaning from this excellent dictum +and substituted a contrary one of his own exerted an evil power which appears +to be immortal.

+ +

excess, n. In morals, an indulgence that enforces by +appropriate penalties the law of moderation.

+ + + + + +
+ +

+ +Hail, high +Excess—especially in wine,
+ +To thee in worship +do I bend the knee
+ + Who preach abstemiousness unto me—
+My skull thy +pulpit, as my paunch thy shrine.
+Precept on +precept, aye, and line on line,
+ +Could ne’er +persuade so sweetly to agree
+ +With reason as thy +touch, exact and free,
+Upon my forehead +and along my spine.
+At thy command +eschewing pleasure’s cup,
+ +With the hot grape +I warm no more my wit;
+ +When on thy stool +of penitence I sit
+I’m quite converted, for I can’t +get up.
+Ungrateful he who afterward would +falter
+To make new sacrifices at thine +altar!

+ +
+ +

excommunication, n.

+ + + + + +
+ +

This “excommunication” is a word
+In speech ecclesiastical oft heard,
+And means the +damning, with bell, book and candle,
+Some sinner whose opinions are a scandal—
+A rite permitting +Satan to enslave him
+Forever, and forbidding Christ to save him.

+ +

Gat Huckle.

+ +
+ +

+ +

executive, n. An officer of the Government, whose duty it +is to enforce the wishes of the legislative power until such time as the +judicial department shall be pleased to pronounce them invalid and of no +effect. Following is an extract from an +old book entitled, The Lunarian Astonished—Pfeiffer & Co., Boston, +1803:

+
+

Lunarian: Then when your Congress has passed a law it +goes directly to the Supreme Court in order that it may at once be known whether it is constitutional?

+ +

Terrestrain: O no; it does not require the approval of +the Supreme Court until having perhaps been enforced for many years somebody objects to its +operation against himself—I mean his client. +The President, if he approves it, begins to execute it at once.

+ +

Lunarian: Ah, the executive power is a part of the legislative.

+ +

Do your policemen also have to approve the local ordinances that they enforce?

+ +

Terrestrian: Not yet—at least not in their character of constables. +Generally speaking, though, all laws require the approval of those whom they are intended to restrain.

+ +

Lunarian: I see. The death warrant is not valid until signed by the murderer.

+ +

Terrestrian: My friend, you put it too strongly; we are not so consistent.

+ +

Lunarian: But this system of maintaining an expensive +judicial machinery to pass upon the validity of laws only after they have long been executed, and then +only when brought before the court by some private person—does it not cause great confusion?

+ +

Terrestrian: It does.

+ +

Lunarian: Why then should not your laws, previously to +being executed, be validated, not by the signature of your President, but by that of the Chief +Justice of the Supreme Court?

+ +

Terrestrian: There is no precedent for any such course.

+ +

Lunarian: Precedent. What is that?

+ +

Terrestrian: It has been defined by five hundred lawyers +in three volumes each. So how can any one know?

+
+ +

exhort, v.t. In +religious affairs, to put the conscience of another upon the spit and roast it +to a nut-brown discomfort.

+ +

exile, n. One who serves his country by residing +abroad, yet is not an ambassador.

+ +

An English +sea-captain being asked if he had read “The Exile of Erin,” replied: “No, sir, but I should like to anchor on +it.” Years afterwards, when he had been +hanged as a pirate after a career of unparalleled atrocities, the following +memorandum was found in the ship’s log that he had kept at the time of his +reply:

+ +

Aug. 3d, +1842. Made a joke on the ex-Isle of Erin. Coldly received. War with the whole world!

+ +

existence, n.

+ + + + + +
+ +

A transient, +horrible, fantastic dream,
+Wherein is nothing yet all things do seem:
+From which we’re +wakened by a friendly nudge
+Of our bedfellow Death, and cry: “O fudge!”

+ +
+ +

experience, n. The wisdom that enables us to recognize +as an undesirable old acquaintance the folly that we have already embraced.

+ + + + + +
+ +

To one who, +journeying through night and fog,
+Is mired neck-deep in an unwholesome bog,
+Experience, like the rising of the dawn,
+Reveals the path that he should not +have gone.

+ +

Joel Frad Bink.

+ +
+ +

expostulation, n. One of the many methods by which +fools prefer to lose their friends.

+ +

extinction, n. The raw material out of which +theology created the future state.

+ + + + + diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/E.html.annot b/lib/ebooks/devils/E.html.annot new file mode 100644 index 00000000..e69de29b diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/E.html.i b/lib/ebooks/devils/E.html.i new file mode 100644 index 00000000..0d208de6 --- /dev/null +++ b/lib/ebooks/devils/E.html.i @@ -0,0 +1,31 @@ +14 pages +size 400 552 +length 26246 +397 2 11 body html +0 +2053 2 56 body html +0 +3718 2 81 body html +0 +5641 2 133 body html +0 +7742 2 182 body html +51 +10267 2 247 body html +39 +12629 2 305 body html +0 +14666 2 344 body html +118 +16609 2 408 body html +22 +18788 2 443 body html +56 +20989 2 501 body html +0 +21978 2 528 body html +284 +21978 2 528 body html +823 +25433 2 603 body html +0 diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/F.html b/lib/ebooks/devils/F.html new file mode 100644 index 00000000..2760de3d --- /dev/null +++ b/lib/ebooks/devils/F.html @@ -0,0 +1,578 @@ + + + + + + +The Devil’s Dictionary: F + + + + +

F

+ +

fairy, n. A creature, variously fashioned and endowed, +that formerly inhabited the meadows and forests. It was nocturnal in its habits, +and somewhat addicted to dancing and the theft of children. The fairies +are now believed by naturalist to be extinct, though a clergyman of the Church +of England saw three near Colchester as lately as 1855, while passing through a +park after dining with the lord of the manor. +The sight greatly staggered him, and he was so affected that his account +of it was incoherent. In the year 1807 +a troop of fairies visited a wood near Aix and carried off the daughter of a +peasant, who had been seen to enter it with a bundle of clothing. The son of a wealthy +bourgeois disappeared about the same time, +but afterward returned. He had seen the +abduction been in pursuit of the fairies. +Justinian Gaux, a writer of the fourteenth century, avers that so great +is the fairies’ power of transformation that he saw one change itself into two +opposing armies and fight a battle with great slaughter, and that the next day, +after it had resumed its original shape and gone away, there were seven hundred +bodies of the slain which the villagers had to bury. He does not say if any of the +wounded recovered. In the time of Henry III, of England, a law +was made which prescribed the death penalty for “Kyllynge, wowndynge, or +mamynge” a fairy, and it was universally respected.

+ +

faith, n. Belief without evidence in what is told by +one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel.

+ +

famous, adj. Conspicuously miserable.

+ + + + + +
+ +

Done to a turn on +the iron, behold
+Him who to be +famous aspired.
+Content? Well, his grill has a plating of gold,
+And his twistings +are greatly admired.

+ +

Hassan Brubuddy.

+ +
+ +

 

+ +

fashion, n. A despot whom the wise ridicule and obey.

+ + + + + +
+ +

A king there was +who lost an eye
+In some excess of +passion;
+And straight his +courtiers all did try
+To follow the new +fashion.
+Each dropped one +eyelid when before
+The throne he +ventured, thinking
+‘Twould please the +king. That monarch swore
+He’d slay them all +for winking.
+What should they +do? They were not hot
+To hazard such +disaster;
+They dared not +close an eye—dared not
+See better than +their master.
+Seeing them +lacrymose and glum,
+A leech consoled +the weepers:
+He spread small +rags with liquid gum
+And covered half +their peepers.
+The court all wore +the stuff, the flame
+Of royal anger +dying.
+That’s how +court-plaster got its name
+Unless I’m greatly +lying.

+ +

Naramy Oof.

+ +
+ +

feast, n. A festival. +A religious celebration usually signalized by gluttony and drunkenness, frequently +in honor of some holy person distinguished for abstemiousness. In the Roman Catholic +Church feasts are +“movable” and “immovable,” but the celebrants are uniformly immovable until +they are full. In their earliest +development these entertainments took the form of feasts for the dead; such +were held by the Greeks, under the name Nemeseia, +by the Aztecs and Peruvians, as in modern times they are popular with the +Chinese; though it is believed that the ancient dead, like the modern, were +light eaters. Among the many feasts of +the Romans was the Novemdiale, +which was held, according to Livy, whenever stones fell from heaven.

+ +

felon, n. A person of greater enterprise than +discretion, who in embracing an opportunity has formed an unfortunate +attachment.

+ +

female, n. One of the opposing, or unfair, sex.

+ + + + + +
+ +

The Maker, at Creation’s birth,
+With living things had stocked the +earth.
+From elephants to bats and snails,
+They all were good, for all were +males.
+But when the Devil came and saw
+He said: “By Thine eternal law
+Of growth, maturity, decay,
+These all must quickly pass away
+And leave untenanted the earth
+Unless Thou dost establish birth”—
+Then tucked his head beneath his +wing
+To laugh—he had no sleeve—the thing
+With deviltry did so accord,
+That he’d suggested to the Lord.
+The Master pondered this advice,
+Then shook and threw the fateful +dice
+Wherewith all matters here below
+Are ordered, and observed the +throw;
+Then bent His head in awful state,
+Confirming the decree of Fate.
+From every part of earth anew
+The conscious dust consenting flew,
+While rivers from their courses rolled
+To make it plastic for the mould.
+Enough collected (but no more,
+For niggard Nature hoards her store)
+He kneaded it to flexible clay,
+While Nick unseen threw some away.
+And then the various forms He cast,
+Gross organs first and finer last;
+No one at once evolved, but all
+By even touches grew and small
+Degrees advanced, till, shade by shade,
+To match all living things He’d made
+Females, complete in all their parts
+Except (His clay gave out) thec hearts.
+“No matter,” Satan cried; “with speed
+I’ll fetch the very hearts they need”—
+So flew away and soon brought back
+The number needed, in a sack.
+That night earth range with sounds of strife—
+Ten million males each had a wife;
+That night sweet Peace her pinions spread
+O’er Hell—ten million devils dead!

+ +

G. J.

+ + + +
+ + + +

fib, n. A lie that has not cut its teeth. An habitual liar’s +nearest approach to truth: the perigee of his eccentric orbit.

+ + + + + +
+ +

When David said: “All men are liars,” Dave,
+Himself a liar, fibbed like any thief.
+Perhaps he thought to weaken disbelief
+By proof that even himself was not a slave
+To Truth; though I suspect the aged knave
+Had been of all her servitors the chief
+Had he but known a fig’s reluctant leaf
+Is more than e’er she wore on land or wave.
+No, David served not Naked Truth when he
+Struck that sledge-hammer blow at all his race;
+Nor did he hit the nail upon the head:
+For reason shows that it could never be,
+And the facts contradict him to his face.
+Men are not liars all, for some are dead.

+ +

Bartle Quinker.

+ +
+ +

fickleness, n. The iterated satiety of an +enterprising affection.

+ +

fiddle, n. An instrument to tickle human ears by +friction of a horse’s tail on the entrails of a cat.

+ +

To Rome said +Nero: “If to smoke you turn I shall not +cease to fiddle while you burn.” To Nero Rome replied: “Pray do your worst, +‘Tis my excuse that you were fiddling first.”—Orm Pludge

+ +

fidelity, n. A virtue peculiar to those who are about to +be betrayed.

+ +

finance, n. The art or science of managing revenues and resources +for the best advantage of the manager. +The pronunciation of this word with the i long and the accent on the +first syllable is one of America’s most precious discoveries and possessions.

+ +

flag, n. A colored rag borne above troops and hoisted +on forts and ships. It appears to serve +the same purpose as certain signs that one sees and vacant lots in +London—“Rubbish may be shot here.”

+ +

flesh, n. The Second Person of the secular Trinity.

+ +

flop, v. Suddenly to change one’s opinions and go +over to another party. The most notable +flop on record was that of Saul of Tarsus, who has been severely criticised as +a turn-coat by some of our partisan journals.

+ +

fly-speck, n. The prototype of punctuation. It is observed by +Garvinus that the systems +of punctuation in use by the various literary nations depended originally upon +the social habits and general diet of the flies infesting the several +countries. These creatures, which have +always been distinguished for a neighborly and companionable familiarity with +authors, liberally or niggardly embellish the manuscripts in process of growth +under the pen, according to their bodily habit, bringing out the sense of the +work by a species of interpretation superior to, and independent of, the +writer’s powers. The “old masters” of +literature—that is to say, the early writers whose work is so esteemed by later +scribes and critics in the same language—never punctuated at all, but worked +right along free-handed, without that abruption of the thought which comes from +the use of points. (We observe the same +thing in children to-day, whose usage in this particular is a striking and +beautiful instance of the law that the infancy of individuals reproduces the +methods and stages of development characterizing the infancy of races.) +In the work of these primitive scribes all +the punctuation is found, by the modern investigator with his optical +instruments and chemical tests, to have been inserted by the writers’ ingenious +and serviceable collaborator, the common house-fly—Musca maledicta. +In transcribing these ancient MSS, for the purpose of either +making the work their own or preserving what they naturally regard as divine +revelations, later writers reverently and accurately copy whatever marks they +find upon the papyrus or parchment, to the unspeakable enhancement of the +lucidity of the thought and value of the work. +Writers contemporary with the copyists naturally avail themselves of the +obvious advantages of these marks in their own work, and with such assistance +as the flies of their own household may be willing to grant, frequently rival +and sometimes surpass the older compositions, in respect at least of +punctuation, which is no small glory. +Fully to understand the important services that flies perform to +literature it is only necessary to lay a page of some popular novelist +alongside a saucer of cream-and-molasses in a sunny room and observe “how the +wit brightens and the style refines” in accurate proportion to the duration of +exposure.

+ +

folly, n. That “gift and faculty divine” whose +creative and controlling energy inspires Man’s mind, guides his actions and +adorns his life.

+ + + + + +
+ +

Folly! although Erasmus praised thee once
+In a thick volume, and all authors known,
+If not thy glory yet thy power have shown,
+Deign to take homage from thy son who hunts
+Through all thy maze his brothers, fool and dunce,
+To mend their lives and to sustain his own,
+However feebly be his arrows thrown,
+Howe’er each hide the flying weapons blunts.
+All-Father Folly! be it mine to raise,
+With lusty lung, here on his western strand
+With all thine offspring thronged from every land,
+Thyself inspiring me, the song of praise.
+And if too weak, I’ll hire, to help me bawl,
+Dick Watson Gilder, gravest of us all.

+ +

Aramis Loto Frope.

+ +
+ +

fool, n. A person who pervades the domain of +intellectual speculation and diffuses himself through the channels of moral +activity. He is omnific, omniform, +omnipercipient, omniscience, omnipotent. +He it was who invented letters, printing, the railroad, the steamboat, +the telegraph, the platitude and the circle of the sciences. He created +patriotism and taught the nations +war—founded theology, philosophy, law, medicine and Chicago. He established +monarchical and republican +government. He is from everlasting to +everlasting—such as creation’s dawn beheld he fooleth now. In the morning +of time he sang upon +primitive hills, and in the noonday of existence headed the procession of +being. His grandmotherly hand was +warmly tucked-in the set sun of civilization, and in the twilight he prepares +Man’s evening meal of milk-and-morality and turns down the covers of the +universal grave. And after the rest of +us shall have retired for the night of eternal oblivion he will sit up to write +a history of human civilization.

+ +

force, n.

+ + + + + +
+ +

“Force is but might,” the teacher said—
+“That definition’s just.”
+The boy said naught but through instead,
+Remembering his pounded head:
+“Force is not might but must!”

+ +
+ +

forefinger, n. The finger commonly used in pointing out two malefactors.

+ +

foreordination, n. This looks like an easy word to +define, but when I consider that pious and learned theologians have spent long +lives in explaining it, and written libraries to explain their explanations; +when I remember the nations have been divided and bloody battles caused by the +difference between foreordination and predestination, and that millions of +treasure have been expended in the effort to prove and disprove its +compatibility with freedom of the will and the efficacy of prayer, praise, and +a religious life,𔃐recalling these awful facts in the history of the word, I +stand appalled before the mighty problem of its signification, abase my +spiritual eyes, fearing to contemplate its portentous magnitude, reverently +uncover and humbly refer it to His Eminence Cardinal Gibbons and His Grace +Bishop Potter.

+ +

forgetfulness, n. A gift of God bestowed upon doctors +in compensation for their destitution of conscience.

+ +

fork, n. An instrument used chiefly for the purpose +of putting dead animals into the mouth. +Formerly the knife was employed for this purpose, and by many worthy +persons is still thought to have many advantages over the other tool, which, +however, they do not altogether reject, but use to assist in charging the +knife. The immunity of these persons +from swift and awful death is one of the most striking proofs of God’s mercy to +those that hate Him.

+ +

forma pauperis. [Latin] In the character of a poor person—a method +by which a litigant without money for lawyers is considerately permitted to +lose his case.

+ + + + + +
+ +

When Adam long ago in Cupid’s awful court
+(For Cupid ruled ere Adam was invented)
+Sued for Eve’s favor, says an ancient law report,
+He stood and pleaded unhabilimented.
+“You sue in forma pauperis, I see,” Eve cried;
+“Actions can’t here be that way prosecuted.”
+So all poor Adam’s motions coldly were denied:
+He went away—as he had come—nonsuited.

+ +

G. J.

+ +
+ +

Frankalmoigne, n. The tenure by which a religious +corporation holds lands on condition of praying for the soul of the donor. +In mediaeval times many of the wealthiest +fraternities obtained their estates in this simple and cheap manner, and once +when Henry VIII of England sent an officer to confiscate certain vast +possessions which a fraternity of monks held by frankalmoigne, “What!” said the +Prior, “would you master stay our benefactor’s soul in Purgatory?” “Ay,” +said the officer, coldly, “an ye will +not pray him thence for naught he must e’en roast.” “But look you, my son,” +persisted the good man, “this act hath +rank as robbery of God!” “Nay, nay, +good father, my master the king doth but deliver him from the manifold +temptations of too great wealth.”

+ +

freebooter, n. A conqueror in a small way of +business, whose annexations lack of the sanctifying merit of magnitude.

+ +

freedom, n. Exemption from the stress of authority in a +beggarly half dozen of restraint’s infinite multitude of methods. A political +condition that every nation +supposes itself to enjoy in virtual monopoly. +Liberty. The distinction between +freedom and liberty is not accurately known; naturalists have never been able +to find a living specimen of either.

+ + + + + +
+ +

Freedom, as every schoolboy knows,
+Once shrieked as Kosciusko fell;
+On every wind, indeed, that blows
+I hear her yell.
+She screams whenever monarchs meet,
+And parliaments as well,
+To bind the chains about her feet
+And toll her knell.
+And when the sovereign people cast
+The votes they cannot spell,
+Upon the pestilential blast
+Her clamors swell.
+For all to whom the power’s given
+To sway or to compel,
+Among themselves apportion Heaven
+And give her Hell.

+ +

Blary O’Gary.

+ +
+ +

Freemasons, n. An order with secret rites, +grotesque ceremonies and fantastic costumes, which, originating in the reign of +Charles II, among working artisans of London, has been joined successively by +the dead of past centuries in unbroken retrogression until now it embraces all +the generations of man on the hither side of Adam and is drumming up +distinguished recruits among the pre-Creational inhabitants of Chaos and +Formless Void. The order was founded at +different times by Charlemagne, Julius Caesar, Cyrus, Solomon, Zoroaster, +Confucious, Thothmes, and Buddha. Its +emblems and symbols have been found in the Catacombs of Paris and Rome, on the +stones of the Parthenon and the Chinese Great Wall, among the temples of Karnak +and Palmyra and in the Egyptian Pyramids—always by a Freemason.

+ +

friendless, adj. Having no favors to bestow. Destitute of fortune. +Addicted to utterance of truth and common sense.

+ +

friendship, n. A ship big enough to carry two in fair weather, but only one in foul.

+ + + + + +
+ +

The sea was calm and the sky was blue;
+Merrily, merrily sailed we two.
+(High barometer maketh glad.)
+On the tipsy ship, with a dreadful shout,
+The tempest descended and we fell out.
+(O the walking is nasty bad!)

+ +

Armit Huff Bettle.

+ +
+ +

frog, n. A reptile with edible legs. The first mention of frogs in profane +literature is in Homer’s narrative of the war between them and the mice. +Skeptical persons have doubted Homer’s +authorship of the work, but the learned, ingenious and industrious Dr. Schliemann +has set the question forever at rest by uncovering the bones of the slain +frogs. One of the forms of moral +suasion by which Pharaoh was besought to favor the Israelities was a plague of +frogs, but Pharaoh, who liked them fricasees, +remarked, with truly oriental stoicism, that he could stand it as long as the +frogs and the Jews could; so the programme was changed. The frog is a +diligent songster, having a +good voice but no ear. The libretto of +his favorite opera, as written by Aristophanes, is brief, simple and +effective—“brekekex-koax”; the music is apparently by that eminent composer, +Richard Wagner. Horses have a frog in +each hoof—a thoughtful provision of nature, enabling them to shine in a hurdle +race.

+ +

frying-pan, n. One part of the penal apparatus +employed in that punitive institution, a woman’s kitchen. The frying-pan was +invented by Calvin, and +by him used in cooking span-long infants that had died without baptism; and +observing one day the horrible torment of a tramp who had incautiously pulled a +fried babe from the waste-dump and devoured it, it occurred to the great divine +to rob death of its terrors by introducing the frying-pan into every household +in Geneva. Thence it spread to all +corners of the world, and has been of invaluable assistance in the propagation +of his sombre faith. The following +lines (said to be from the pen of his Grace Bishop Potter) seem to imply that +the usefulness of this utensil is not limited to this world; but as the +consequences of its employment in this life reach over into the life to come, +so also itself may be found on the other side, rewarding its devotees:

+ + + + + +
+ +

Old Nick was summoned to the skies.
+Said Peter: “Your intentions
+Are good, but you lack enterprise
+Concerning new inventions.
+“Now, broiling in an ancient plan
+Of torment, but I hear it
+Reported that the frying-pan
+Sears best the wicked spirit.
+“Go get one—fill it up with fat—
+Fry sinners brown and good in’t.”
+“I know a trick worth two o’ that,”
+Said Nick—“I’ll cook their food in’t.”

+ +

 

+ +
+ +

funeral, n. A pageant whereby we attest our respect for +the dead by enriching the undertaker, and strengthen our grief by an +expenditure that deepens our groans and doubles our tears.

+ + + + + +
+ +

The savage dies—they sacrifice a horse
+To bear to happy hunting-grounds the corse.
+Our friends expire—we make the money fly
+In +hope their souls will chase it to the sky.

+ +

Jex Wopley.

+ +
+ +

future, n. That period of time in which our affairs +prosper, our friends are true and our happiness is assured.

+ + + + \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/F.html.annot b/lib/ebooks/devils/F.html.annot new file mode 100644 index 00000000..e69de29b diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/F.html.i b/lib/ebooks/devils/F.html.i new file mode 100644 index 00000000..220345cb --- /dev/null +++ b/lib/ebooks/devils/F.html.i @@ -0,0 +1,34 @@ +14 pages +size 400 552 +length 25380 +390 2 11 body html +0 +2225 2 42 body html +0 +3791 2 115 body html +39 +4962 2 135 body html +0 +4962 2 135 body html +552 +8145 2 227 body html +0 +9883 2 258 body html +141 +12382 2 295 body html +22 +13518 2 324 body html +243 +16357 2 378 body html +39 +18626 2 424 body html +0 +20026 2 462 body html +90 +21721 2 497 body html +175 +23819 2 530 body html +0 +famous 0 +funeral 12 +fool 7 diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/G.html b/lib/ebooks/devils/G.html new file mode 100644 index 00000000..9f16f5bc --- /dev/null +++ b/lib/ebooks/devils/G.html @@ -0,0 +1,313 @@ + + + + + + +The Devil’s Dictionary: D + + + +

G

+ + +

gallows, n. A stage for the performance of miracle plays, in which the leading actor is +translated to heaven. In this country the gallows is chiefly remarkable for the +number of persons who escape it.

+ +
+

Whether on the gallows high

+

Or where blood flows the reddest, The noblest place for man to die—

+

Is where he died the deadest.

+

(Old play)

+
+ +

gargoyle, n. A rain-pout projecting from the eaves of mediaeval buildings, commonly fashioned +into a grotesque caricature of some personal enemy of the architect or owner of +the building. This was especially the case in churches and ecclesiastical +structures generally, in which the gargoyles presented a perfect rogues’ +gallery of local heretics and controversialists. Sometimes when a new dean and +chapter were installed the old gargoyles were removed and others substituted +having a closer relation to the private animosities of the new incumbents.

+ +

garther, n. An elastic band intended to keep a woman from coming out of her stockings and +desolating the country.

+ +

generous, adj. Originally this word meant noble by birth and was rightly applied to a great multitude of +persons. It now means noble by nature and is taking a bit of a rest.

+ +

genealogy, n. An account of one’s descent from an ancestor who did not particularly care to trace his own.

+ +

genteel, adj. Refined, after the fashion of a gent.

+ +
+

Observe with care, my son, the distinction I reveal:

+

A gentleman is gentle and a gent genteel.

+

Heed not the definitions your “Unabridged” presents,

+

For dictionary makers are generally gents.

+

G. J.

+
+ +

geographer, n. A chap who can tell you offhand the difference between the outside of the world and the inside.

+ +
+

Habeam, geographer of wide reknown,

+

Native of Abu-Keber’s ancient town,

+

In passing thence along the river Zam

+

To the adjacent village of Xelam,

+

Bewildered by the multitude of roads,

+

Got lost, lived long on migratory toads,

+

Then from exposure miserably died,

+

And grateful travelers bewailed their guide.

+

Henry Haukhorn

+
+ +

geology, n. The science of the earth’s crust—to which, doubtless, will be added that of its +interior whenever a man shall come up garrulous out of a well. The geological +formations of the globe already noted are catalogued thus: The Primary, or +lower one, consists of rocks, bones or mired mules, gas-pipes, miners’ tools, +antique statues minus the nose, Spanish doubloons and ancestors. The Secondary +is largely made up of red worms and moles. The Tertiary comprises railway +tracks, patent pavements, grass, snakes, mouldy boots, beer bottles, tomato +cans, intoxicated citizens, garbage, anarchists, snap-dogs and fools.

+ +

ghost, n. The outward and visible sign of an inward fear.

+ +
+

He saw a ghost.

+

It occupied—that dismal thing!—

+

The path that he was following.

+

Before he’d time to stop and fly,

+

An earthquake trifled with the eye

+

That saw a ghost.

+

He fell as fall the early good;

+

Unmoved that awful vision stood.

+

The stars that danced before his ken

+

He wildly brushed away, and then

+

He saw a post.

+

Jared Macphester

+
+ +

Accounting for the uncommon behavior of ghosts, Heine mentions somebody’s ingenious theory to the +effect that they are as much afraid of us as we of them. Not quite, if I may +judge from such tables of comparative speed as I am able to compile from +memories of my own experience.

+ +

There is one insuperable obstacle to a belief in ghosts. A ghost never comes naked: he +appears either in a winding-sheet or “in his habit as he lived.” To believe in +him, then, is to believe that not only have the dead the power to make +themselves visible after there is nothing left of them, but that the same power +inheres in textile fabrics. Supposing the products of the loom to have this +ability, what object would they have in exercising it? And why does not the +apparition of a suit of clothes sometimes walk abroad without a ghost in it? These +be riddles of significance. They reach away down and get a convulsive grip on +the very tap-root of this flourishing faith.

+ +

ghoul, n. A demon addicted to the reprehensible habit of devouring the dead. The existence of +ghouls has been disputed by that class of controversialists who are more +concerned to deprive the world of comforting beliefs than to give it anything +good in their place. In 1640 Father Secchi saw one in a cemetery near Florence +and frightened it away with the sign of the cross. He describes it as gifted +with many heads an an uncommon allowance of limbs, and he saw it in more than +one place at a time. The good man was coming away from dinner at the time and +explains that if he had not been “heavy with eating” he would have seized the +demon at all hazards. Atholston relates that a ghoul was caught by some sturdy +peasants in a churchyard at Sudbury and ducked in a horsepond. (He appears to +think that so distinguished a criminal should have been ducked in a tank of +rosewater.) The water turned at once to blood “and so contynues unto ys daye.” The +pond has since been bled with a ditch. As late as the beginning of the +fourteenth century a ghoul was cornered in the crypt of the cathedral at Amiens +and the whole population surrounded the place. Twenty armed men with a priest +at their head, bearing a crucifix, entered and captured the ghoul, which, +thinking to escape by the stratagem, had transformed itself to the semblance of +a well known citizen, but was nevertheless hanged, drawn and quartered in the +midst of hideous popular orgies. The citizen whose shape the demon had assumed +was so affected by the sinister occurrence that he never again showed himself +in Amiens and his fate remains a mystery.

+ +

glutton, n. A person who escapes the evils of moderation by committing dyspepsia.

+ +

gnome, n. In North-European mythology, a dwarfish imp inhabiting the interior parts of the +earth and having special custody of mineral treasures. Bjorsen, who died in +1765, says gnomes were common enough in the southern parts of Sweden in his +boyhood, and he frequently saw them scampering on the hills in the evening +twilight. Ludwig Binkerhoof saw three as recently as 1792, in the Black Forest, +and Sneddeker avers that in 1803 they drove a party of miners out of a Silesian +mine. Basing our computations upon data supplied by these statements, we find +that the gnomes were probably extinct as early as 1764.

+ +

gnostics, n. A sect of philosophers who tried to engineer a fusion between the early +Christians and the Platonists. The former would not go into the caucus and the +combination failed, greatly to the chagrin of the fusion managers.

+ +

gnu, n. An animal of South Africa, which in its domesticated state resembles a horse, a buffalo +and a stag. In its wild condition it is something like a thunderbolt, an +earthquake and a cyclone.

+ +
+

A hunter from Kew caught a distant view

+

Of a peacefully meditative gnu,

+

And he said: “I’ll pursue, and my hands imbrue

+

In its blood at a closer interview.”

+

But that beast did ensue and the hunter it threw

+

O’er the top of a palm that adjacent grew;

+

And he said as he flew: “It is well I withdrew

+

Ere, losing my temper, I wickedly slew That really meritorious gnu.”

+

Jarn Leffer

+
+ +

good, adj. Sensible, madam, +to the worth of this present writer.

+ +

Alive, sir, to the advantages of letting him alone.

+ +

goose, n. A bird that supplies quills for writing. These, by some occult process of nature, are +penetrated and suffused with various degrees of the bird’s intellectual +energies and emotional character, so that when inked and drawn mechanically +across paper by a person called an “author,” there results a very fair and +accurate transcript of the fowl’s thought and feeling. The difference in geese, +as discovered by this ingenious method, is considerable: many are found to have +only trivial and insignificant powers, but some are seen to be very great geese +indeed.

+ +

gorgon, n.

+ +
+

The Gorgon was a maiden bold

+

Who turned to stone the Greeks of old

+

That looked upon her awful brow.

+

We dig them out of ruins now,

+

And swear that workmanship so bad

+

Proves all the ancient sculptors mad.

+
+

gout, n. A physician’s name for the rheumatism of a rich patient.

+ +

graces, n. Three beautiful goddesses, Aglaia, Thalia and Euphrosyne, who attended upon Venus, +serving without salary. They were at no expense for board and clothing, for +they ate nothing to speak of and dressed according to the weather, wearing +whatever breeze happened to be blowing.

+ +

grammar, n. A system of pitfalls thoughtfully prepared for the feet for the self-made man, +along the path by which he advances to distinction.

+ +

grape, n.

+ +
+

Hail noble fruit!—by Homer sung,

+

Anacreon and Khayyam;

+

Thy praise is ever on the tongue

+

Of better men than I am.

+

The lyre in my hand has never swept,

+

The song I cannot offer:

+

My humbler service pray accept—

+

I’ll help to kill the scoffer.

+

The water-drinkers and the cranks

+

Who load their skins with liquor—

+

I’ll gladly bear their belly-tanks

+

And tap them with my sticker.

+

Fill up, fill up, for wisdom cools

+

When e’er we let the wine rest.

+

Here’s death to Prohibition’s fools,

+

And every kind of vine-pest!

+

Jamrach Holobom

+
+ +

grapeshot, n. An argument which the future is preparing in answer to the demands of American Socialism.

+ +

grave, n. A place in which the dead are laid to await the coming of the medical student.

+ +
+

Beside a lonely grave I stood—

+

With brambles ‘twas encumbered;

+

The winds were moaning in the wood,

+

Unheard by him who slumbered,

+

A rustic standing near, I said:

+

“He cannot hear it blowing!”

+

“’Course not,” said he: “the feller’s dead—

+

He can’t hear nowt [sic] that’s going.”

+

“Too true,” I said; “alas, too true—

+

No sound his sense can quicken!”

+

“Well, mister, wot is that to you?—

+

The deadster ain’t a-kickin’.”

+

I knelt and prayed: “O Father, smile

+

On him, and mercy show him!”

+

That countryman looked on the while,

+

And said: “Ye didn’t know him.”

+

Pobeter Dunko

+
+ +

gravitation, n. The tendency of all bodies to approach one another with a strength proportion to +the quantity of matter they contain—the quantity of matter they contain being +ascertained by the strength of their tendency to approach one another. This is +a lovely and edifying illustration of how science, having made A the proof of +B, makes B the proof of A.

+ +

great, adj.

+ +
+

“I’m great,” the Lion said—“I reign

+

The monarch of the wood and plain!”

+

The Elephant replied: “I’m great—

+

No quadruped can match my weight!”

+

“I’m great—no animal has half

+

So long a neck!” said the Giraffe.

+

“I’m great,” the Kangaroo said—“see

+

My femoral muscularity!”

+

The ‘Possum said: “I’m great—behold,

+

My tail is lithe and bald and cold!”

+

An Oyster fried was understood

+

To say: “I’m great because I’m good!”

+

Each reckons greatness to consist

+

In that in which he heads the list,

+

And Vierick thinks he tops his class

+

Because he is the greatest ass.

+

Arion Spurl Doke

+
+ +

guillotine, n. A machine which makes a Frenchman shrug his shoulders with good reason.

+ +

In his great work on Divergent Lines of Racial Evolution, +the learned Professor Brayfugle argues from the prevalence of this gesture— +the shrug—among Frenchmen, that they are descended from turtles and it is +simply a survival of the habit of retracing the head inside the shell. It is +with reluctance that I differ with so eminent an authority, but in my judgment +(as more elaborately set forth and enforced in my work entitled Hereditary Emotions—lib. II, c. XI) the +shrug is a poor foundation upon which to build so important a theory, for +previously to the Revolution the gesture was unknown. I have not a doubt that +it is directly referable to the terror inspired by the guillotine during the +period of that instrument’s activity.

+ +

gunpowder, n. An agency employed by civilized nations for the settlement of disputes which might +become troublesome if left unadjusted. By most writers the invention of +gunpowder is ascribed to the Chinese, but not upon very convincing evidence. Milton +says it was invented by the devil to dispel angels with, and this opinion seems +to derive some support from the scarcity of angels. Moreover, it has the hearty +concurrence of the Hon. James Wilson, Secretary of Agriculture.

+ +

Secretary Wilson became interested in gunpowder through an event that occurred on the Government +experimental farm in the District of Columbia. One day, several years ago, a +rogue imperfectly reverent of the Secretary’s profound attainments and personal +character presented him with a sack of gunpowder, representing it as the sed of +the Flashawful flabbergastor, a +Patagonian cereal of great commercial value, admirably adapted to this climate. +The good Secretary was instructed to spill it along in a furrow and afterward +inhume it with soil. This he at once proceeded to do, and had made a continuous +line of it all the way across a ten-acre field, when he was made to look +backward by a shout from the generous donor, who at once dropped a lighted +match into the furrow at the starting-point. Contact with the earth had +somewhat dampened the powder, but the startled functionary saw himself pursued +by a tall moving pillar of fire and smoke and fierce evolution. He stood for a +moment paralyzed and speechless, then he recollected an engagement and, +dropping all, absented himself thence with such surprising celerity that to the +eyes of spectators along the route selected he appeared like a long, dim streak +prolonging itself with inconceivable rapidity through seven villages, and +audibly refusing to be comforted. “Great Scott! what is that?” cried a +surveyor’s chainman, shading his eyes and gazing at the fading line of +agriculturist which bisected his visible horizon. “That,” said the surveyor, +carelessly glancing at the phenomenon and again centering his attention upon +his instrument, “is the Meridian of Washington.”

+ + + + \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/G.html.annot b/lib/ebooks/devils/G.html.annot new file mode 100644 index 00000000..e69de29b diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/G.html.i b/lib/ebooks/devils/G.html.i new file mode 100644 index 00000000..26f06710 --- /dev/null +++ b/lib/ebooks/devils/G.html.i @@ -0,0 +1,31 @@ +14 pages +size 400 552 +length 18661 +396 2 10 body html +0 +1752 2 37 body html +0 +2826 2 54 body html +199 +4203 2 77 body html +199 +5148 2 97 body html +187 +7699 2 131 body html +0 +8953 2 148 body html +199 +10495 2 176 body html +127 +11649 2 196 body html +252 +12929 2 220 body html +91 +13952 2 240 body html +0 +14469 2 248 body html +415 +16428 2 281 body html +56 +16977 2 288 body html +459 diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/H.html b/lib/ebooks/devils/H.html new file mode 100644 index 00000000..204f8039 --- /dev/null +++ b/lib/ebooks/devils/H.html @@ -0,0 +1,432 @@ + + + + + + +The Devil’s Dictionary: H + + + + +

H

+ + +

habeas corpus. A writ by which a man may be taken out of jail when confined for the wrong crime.

+ +

habit, n. A shackle for the free.

+ +

hades, n. The lower world; +the residence of departed spirits; the place where the dead live.

+ +

Among the ancients the idea of Hades was not synonymous with our Hell, many of the most +respectable men of antiquity residing there in a very comfortable kind of way. Indeed, +the Elysian Fields themselves were a part of Hades, though they have since been +removed to Paris. When the Jacobean version of the New Testament was in process +of evolution the pious and learned men engaged in the work insisted by a +majority vote on translating the Greek word “Aides” as “Hell”; but a +conscientious minority member secretly possessed himself of the record and +struck out the objectional word wherever he could find it. At the next meeting, +the Bishop of Salisbury, looking over the work, suddenly sprang to his feet and +said with considerable excitement: “Gentlemen, somebody has been razing ‘Hell’ +here!” Years afterward the good prelate’s death was made sweet by the +reflection that he had been the means (under Providence) of making an +important, serviceable and immortal addition to the phraseology of the English +tongue.

+ +

hag, n. An elderly lady whom you do not happen to like; sometimes called, also, a hen, or cat. Old +witches, sorceresses, etc., were called hags from the belief that their heads +were surrounded by a kind of baleful lumination or nimbus—hag being the popular +name of that peculiar electrical light sometimes observed in the hair. At one +time hag was not a word of reproach: Drayton speaks of a “beautiful hag, all +smiles,” much as Shakespeare said, “sweet wench.” It would not now be proper to +call your sweetheart a hag—that compliment is reserved for the use of her +grandchildren.

+ +

half, n. One of two equal parts into which a thing may be divided, or considered as divided. In +the fourteenth century a heated discussion arose among theologists and +philosophers as to whether Omniscience could part an object into three halves; +and the pious Father Aldrovinus publicly prayed in the cathedral at Rouen that +God would demonstrate the affirmative of the proposition in some signal and +unmistakable way, and particularly (if it should please Him) upon the body of +that hardy blasphemer, Manutius Procinus, who maintained the negative. Procinus, +however, was spared to die of the bite of a viper.

+ +

halo, n. Properly, a luminous ring encircling an astronomical body, but not infrequently +confounded with “aureola,” or “nimbus,” a somewhat similar phenomenon worn as a +head-dress by divinities and saints. The halo is a purely optical illusion, +produced by moisture in the air, in the manner of a rainbow; but the aureola is +conferred as a sign of superior sanctity, in the same way as a bishop’s mitre, +or the Pope’s tiara. In the painting of the Nativity, by Szedgkin, a pious artist +of Pesth, not only do the Virgin and the Child wear the nimbus, but an ass +nibbling hay from the sacred manger is similarly decorated and, to his lasting +honor be it said, appears to bear his unaccustomed dignity with a truly saintly +grace.

+ +

hand, n. A singular instrument worn at the end of the human arm and commonly thrust into +somebody’s pocket.

+ +

handkerchief, n. A small square of silk or linen, used in various ignoble offices about the face +and especially serviceable at funerals to conceal the lack of tears. The +handkerchief is of recent invention; our ancestors knew nothing of it and +intrusted its duties to the sleeve. Shakespeare’s introducing it into the play +of “Othello” is an anachronism: Desdemona dried her nose with her skirt, as Dr. +Mary Walker and other reformers have done with their coattails in our own +day—an evidence that revolutions sometimes go backward.

+ +

hangman, n. An officer of the law charged with duties of the highest dignity and utmost +gravity, and held in hereditary disesteem by a populace having a criminal +ancestry. In some of the American States his functions are now performed by an +electrician, as in New Jersey, where executions by electricity have recently +been ordered—the first instance known to this lexicographer of anybody +questioning the expediency of hanging Jerseymen.

+ +

happiness, n. An agreeable sensation arising from contemplating the misery of another.

+ +

harangue, n. A speech by an opponent, who is known as an harrangue- outang.

+ +

harbor, n. A place where ships taking shelter from stores are exposed to the fury of the customs.

+ +

harmonists, n. A sect of Protestants, now extinct, who came from Europe in the beginning of the +last century and were distinguished for the bitterness of their internal controversies and dissensions.

+ +

hash, x. There is no definition for this word—nobody knows what hash is.

+ +

hatchet, n. A young axe, known among Indians as a Thomashawk.

+ +
+

“O bury the hatchet, irascible Red,

+

For peace is a blessing,” the White Man said.

+

The Savage concurred, and that weapon interred, With imposing rites, in the White Man’s head.

+

John Lukkus

+
+ +

hatred, n. A sentiment appropriate to the occasion of another’s superiority.

+ +

head-money, n. A capitation tax, or poll-tax.

+ +
+

In ancient times there lived a king

+

Whose tax-collectors could not wring

+

From all his subjects gold enough

+

To make the royal way less rough.

+

For pleasure’s highway, like the dames

+

Whose premises adjoin it, claims

+

Perpetual repairing. So

+

The tax-collectors in a row

+

Appeared before the throne to pray

+

Their master to devise some way

+

To swell the revenue. “So great,”

+

Said they, “are the demands of state

+

A tithe of all that we collect

+

Will scarcely meet them. Pray reflect:

+

How, if one-tenth we must resign,

+

Can we exist on t’other nine?”

+

The monarch asked them in reply:

+

“Has it occurred to you to try

+

The advantage of economy?”

+

“It has,” the spokesman said: “we sold

+

All of our gray garrotes of gold;

+

With plated-ware we now compress

+

The necks of those whom we assess.

+

Plain iron forceps we employ

+

To mitigate the miser’s joy

+

Who hoards, with greed that never tires,

+

That which your Majesty requires.”

+

Deep lines of thought were seen to plow

+

Their way across the royal brow.

+

“Your state is desperate, no question;

+

Pray favor me with a suggestion.”

+

“O King of Men,” the spokesman said,

+

“If you’ll impose upon each head

+

A tax, the augmented revenue

+

We’ll cheerfully divide with you.”

+

As flashes of the sun illume

+

The parted storm-cloud’s sullen gloom,

+

The king smiled grimly. “I decree

+

That it be so—and, not to be

+

In generosity outdone,

+

Declare you, each and every one,

+

Exempted from the operation

+

Of this new law of capitation.

+

But lest the people censure me

+

Because they’re bound and you are free,

+

‘Twere well some clever scheme were laid

+

By you this poll-tax to evade.

+

I’ll leave you now while you confer

+

With my most trusted minister.”

+

The monarch from the throne-room walked

+

And straightway in among them stalked

+

A silent man, with brow concealed,

+

Bare-armed—his gleaming axe revealed!

+

G. J.

+
+ +

hearse, n. Death’s baby-carriage.

+ +

heart, n. An automatic, muscular blood-pump. Figuratively, this useful organ is said to be +the esat of emotions and sentiments—a very pretty fancy which, however, is +nothing but a survival of a once universal belief. It is now known that the +sentiments and emotions reside in the stomach, being evolved from food by +chemical action of the gastric fluid. The exact process by which a beefsteak +becomes a feeling—tender or not, according to the age of the animal from which +it was cut; the successive stages of elaboration through which a caviar +sandwich is transmuted to a quaint fancy and reappears as a pungent epigram; +the marvelous functional methods of converting a hard-boiled egg into religious +contrition, or a cream-puff into a sigh of sensibility—these things have been +patiently ascertained by M. Pasteur, and by him expounded with convincing +lucidity. (See, also, my monograph, The Essential Identity of the Spiritual +Affections and Certain Intestinal Gases Freed in Digestion—4to, 687 pp.) In +a scientific work entitled, I believe, Delectatio +Demonorum (John Camden Hotton, London, 1873) this view of the +sentiments receives a striking illustration; and for further light consult +Professor Dam’s famous treatise on Love as a +Product of Alimentary Maceration.

+ +

heat, n.

+ +
+

Heat, says Professor Tyndall, is a mode

+

Of motion, but I know now how he’s proving

+

His point; but this I know—hot words bestowed

+

With skill will set the human fist a-moving, And where it stops the stars burn free and wild. Crede expertum—I have seen them, child.

+

Gorton Swope

+
+ +

heathen, n. A benighted creature who has the folly to worship something that he can see and +feel. According to Professor Howison, of the California State University, +Hebrews are heathens.

+ +
+

“The Hebrews are heathens!” says Howison. He’s

+

A Christian philosopher. I’m

+

A scurril agnostical chap, if you please,

+

Addicted too much to the crime

+

Of religious discussion in my rhyme.

+

Though Hebrew and Howison cannot agree

+

On a modus vivendi—not they!—

+

Yet Heaven has had the designing of me,

+

And I haven’t been reared in a way

+

To joy in the thick of the fray.

+

For this of my creed is the soul and the gist,

+

And the truth of it I aver:

+

Who differs from me in his faith is an ‘ist,

+

And ‘ite, an ‘ie, or an ‘er—

+

And I’m down upon him or her!

+

Let Howison urge with perfunctory chin

+

Toleration—that’s all very well,

+

But a roast is “nuts” to his nostril thin,

+

And he’s running—I know by the smell—

+

A secret and personal Hell!

+

Bissell Gip

+
+ +

heaven, n. A place where the wicked cease from troubling you with talk of their personal affairs, +and the good listen with attention while you expound your own.

+ +

hebrew, n. A male Jew, as distinguished from the Shebrew, an altogether superior creation.

+ +

helpmate, n. A wife, or bitter half.

+ +
+

“Now, why is yer wife called a helpmate, Pat?”

+

Says the priest. “Since the time ‘o yer wooin’ She’s niver [sic] assisted in what ye were at—

+

For it’s naught ye are ever doin’.”

+

“That’s true of yer Riverence [sic],” Patrick replies,

+

And no sign of contrition envices;

+

“But, bedad, it’s a fact which the word implies,

+

For she helps to mate the expinses [sic]!”

+

Marley Wottel

+
+ +

hemp, n. A plant from whose fibrous bark is made an article of neckwear which is frequently put +on after public speaking in the open air and prevents the wearer from taking cold.

+ +

hermit, n. A person whose vices and follies are not sociable.

+ +

hers, pron. His.

+ +

hibernate, v.i. To pass the winter season in domestic seclusion. There have been many singular +popular notions about the hibernation of various animals. Many believe that the +bear hibernates during the whole winter and subsists by mechanically sucking +its paws. It is admitted that it comes out of its retirement in the spring so +lean that it had to try twice before it can cast a shadow. Three or four centuries +ago, in England, no fact was better attested than that swallows passed the +winter months in the mud at the bottom of their brooks, clinging together in +globular masses. They have apparently been compelled to give up the custom and +account of the foulness of the brooks. Sotus Ecobius discovered in Central Asia +a whole nation of people who hibernate. By some investigators, the fasting of +Lent is supposed to have been originally a modified form of hibernation, to +which the Church gave a religious significance; but this view was strenuously +opposed by that eminent authority, Bishop Kip, who did not wish any honors +denied to the memory of the Founder of his family.

+ +

hippogriff, n. An animal (now extinct) which was half horse and half griffin. The griffin was +itself a compound creature, half lion and half eagle. The hippogriff was +actually, therefore, a one-quarter eagle, which is two dollars and fifty cents +in gold. The study of zoology is full of surprises.

+ +

historian, n. A broad-gauge gossip.

+ +

history, n. An account mostly false, of events mostly unimportant, which are brought about by +rulers mostly knaves, and soldiers mostly fools.

+ +
+

Of Roman history, great Niebuhr’s shown

+

‘Tis nine-tenths lying.
+Faith, I wish ‘twere known, Ere we accept great Niebuhr as a guide,
+Wherein he blundered and how much he lied.

+

Salder Bupp

+
+ +

hog, n. A bird remarkable for the catholicity of its appetite and serving to illustrate that +of ours. Among the Mahometans and Jews, the hog is not in favor as an article +of diet, but is respected for the delicacy and the melody of its voice. It is +chiefly as a songster that the fowl is esteemed; the cage of him in full chorus +has been known to draw tears from two persons at once. The scientific name of +this dicky-bird is Porcus Rockefelleri. +Mr. Rockefeller did not discover the hog, but it is considered his by right of +resemblance.

+ +

homoeopathist, n. The humorist of the medical profession.

+ +

homoeopathy, n. A school of medicine midway between Allopathy and Christian Science. To the last +both the others are distinctly inferior, for Christian Science will cure +imaginary diseases, and they can not.

+ +

homicide, n. The slaying of one human being by another. There are four kinds of homocide: felonious, +excusable, justifiable, and praiseworthy, but it makes no great difference to +the person slain whether he fell by one kind or another—the classification is +for advantage of the lawyers.

+ +

homiletics, n. The science of adapting sermons to the spiritual needs, capacities and conditions +of the congregation.

+ +
+

So skilled the parson was in homiletics

+

That all his normal purges and emetics

+

To medicine the spirit were compounded

+

With a most just discrimination founded

+

Upon a rigorous examination

+

Of tongue and pulse and heart and respiration.

+

Then, having diagnosed each one’s condition,

+

His scriptural specifics this physician

+

Administered—his pills so efficacious

+

And pukes of disposition so vivacious

+

That souls afflicted with ten kinds of Adam
+Were convalescent ere they knew they had ‘em.
+But Slander’s tongue—itself all coated—uttered
+Her bilious mind and scandalously muttered
+That in the case of patients having money
+The pills were sugar and the pukes were honey.

+

Biography of Bishop Potter

+
+ +

honorable, adj. Afflicted with an impediment in one’s reach. In legislative bodies it is customary to +mention all members as honorable; as, “the honorable gentleman is a scurvy cur.”

+ +

hope, n. Desire and expectation rolled into one.

+ +
+

Delicious Hope! when naught to man it left—

+

Of fortune destitute, of friends bereft;

+

When even his dog deserts him, and his goat +With tranquil disaffection chews his coat +While yet it hangs upon his back; then thou, +The star far-flaming on thine angel brow, +Descendest, radiant, from the skies to hint +The promise of a clerkship in the Mint.

+

Fogarty Weffing

+
+ +

hospitality, n. The virtue which induces us to feed and lodge certain persons who are not in need +of food and lodging.

+ +

hostility, n. A peculiarly sharp and specially applied sense of the earth’s overpopulation. Hostility +is classified as active and passive; as (respectively) the feeling of a woman +for her female friends, and that which she entertains for all the rest of her sex.

+ +

Houri, n. A comely female inhabiting the Mohammedan Paradise to make things cheery for the good +Mussulman, whose belief in her existence marks a noble discontent with his +earthly spouse, whom he denies a soul. By that good lady the Houris are said to +be held in deficient esteem.

+ +

house, n. A hollow edifice erected for the habitation of man, rat, mouse, beelte, cockroach, fly, +mosquito, flea, bacillus and microbe. House +of Correction, a place of reward for political and personal service, +and for the detention of offenders and appropriations. House of God, a building with a steeple +and a mortgage on it. House-dog, +a pestilent beast kept on domestic premises to insult persons passing by and +appal the hardy visitor. House-maid, +a youngerly person of the opposing sex employed to be variously disagreeable +and ingeniously unclean in the station in which it has pleased God to place her.

+ +

houseless, adj. Having paid all taxes on household goods.

+ +

hovel, n. The fruit of a flower called the Palace.

+ +
+

Twaddle had a hovel,

+

Twiddle had a palace;

+

Twaddle said: “I’ll grovel

+

Or he’ll think I bear him malice”—

+

A sentiment as novel

+

As a castor on a chalice.

+

Down upon the middle

+

Of his legs fell Twaddle

+

And astonished Mr. Twiddle,

+

Who began to lift his noddle.

+

Feed upon the fiddle—

+

Faddle flummery, unswaddle

+

A new-born self-sufficiency and think himself a [mockery.]

+

G. J.

+
+ +

humanity, n. The human race, collectively, exclusive of the anthropoid poets.

+ +

humorist, n. A plague that would have softened down the hoar austerity of Pharaoh’s heart and +persuaded him to dismiss Israel with his best wishes, cat-quick.

+ +
+

Lo! the poor humorist, whose tortured mind

+

See jokes in crowds, though still to gloom inclined—

+

Whose simple appetite, untaught to stray, His brains, renewed by night, consumes by day.

+

He thinks, admitted to an equal sty,

+

A graceful hog would bear his company.

+

Alexander Poke

+
+ +

hurricane, n. An atmospheric demonstration once very common but now generally abandoned for the +tornado and cyclone. The hurricane is still in popular use in the West Indies +and is preferred by certain old-fashioned sea-captains. It is also used in the +construction of the upper decks of steamboats, but generally speaking, the +hurricane’s usefulness has outlasted it.

+ +

hurry, n. The dispatch of bunglers.

+ +

husband, n. One who, having dined, is charged with the care of the plate.

+ +

hybrid, n. A pooled issue.

+ +

hydra, n. A kind of animal that the ancients catalogued under many heads.

+ +

hyena, n. A beast held in reverence by some oriental nations from its habit of frequenting at +night the burial-places of the dead. But the medical student does that.

+ +

hypochondriasis, n. Depression of one’s own spirits.

+ +
+

Some heaps of trash upon a vacant lot
+Where long the village rubbish had been shot
+Displayed a sign among the stuff and stumps—
+“Hypochondriasis.” It meant The Dumps.

+

Bogul S. Purvy

+
+ +

hypocrite, n. One who, profession virtues that he does not respect secures the advantage of +seeming to be what he depises.

+ + + + \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/H.html.annot b/lib/ebooks/devils/H.html.annot new file mode 100644 index 00000000..016c06df --- /dev/null +++ b/lib/ebooks/devils/H.html.annot @@ -0,0 +1 @@ +22841 Hello \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/H.html.i b/lib/ebooks/devils/H.html.i new file mode 100644 index 00000000..83cf28a1 --- /dev/null +++ b/lib/ebooks/devils/H.html.i @@ -0,0 +1,41 @@ +18 pages +size 400 552 +length 26002 +396 2 10 body html +0 +1871 2 38 body html +39 +4030 2 67 body html +22 +6233 2 96 body html +0 +6945 2 109 body html +271 +6945 2 109 body html +811 +6945 2 109 body html +1351 +6945 2 109 body html +1891 +11584 2 189 body html +72 +12276 2 201 body html +324 +13953 2 230 body html +0 +15146 2 250 body html +107 +17293 2 283 body html +0 +18872 2 306 body html +163 +20286 2 331 body html +91 +22520 2 367 body html +0 +23366 2 386 body html +0 +24997 2 412 body html +0 +husband 16 +house 14 diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/I.html b/lib/ebooks/devils/I.html new file mode 100644 index 00000000..508ded63 --- /dev/null +++ b/lib/ebooks/devils/I.html @@ -0,0 +1,681 @@ + + + + + + +The Devil’s Dictionary: I + + + + +

I

+ + +

I is the first letter of the alphabet, the first word of the language, the first thought of +the mind, the first object of affection. In grammar it is a pronoun of the +first person and singular number. Its plural is said to be We, but how there can be more than one +myself is doubtless clearer the grammarians than it is to the author of this +incomparable dictionary. Conception of two myselfs is difficult, but fine. The +frank yet graceful use of “I” distinguishes a good writer from a bad; the +latter carries it with the manner of a thief trying to cloak his loot.

+ +

Ichor, n. A fluid that serves the gods and goddesses in place of blood.

+ +
+

Fair Venus, speared by Diomed,

+

Restrained the raging chief and said:

+

“Behold, rash mortal, whom you’ve bled—

+

Your soul’s stained white with ichorshed!”

+

Mary Doke

+
+ +

iconoclast, n. A breaker of idols, the worshipers whereof are imperfectly gratified by the +performance, and most strenuously protest that he unbuildeth but doth not +reedify, that he pulleth down but pileth not up. For the poor things would have +other idols in place of those he thwacketh upon the mazzard and dispelleth. But +the iconoclast saith: “Ye shall have none at all, for ye need them not; and if +the rebuilder fooleth round hereabout, behold I will depress the head of him +and sit thereon till he squawk it.”

+ +

idiot, n. A member of a large and powerful tribe whose influence in human affairs has always been +dominant and controlling. The Idiot’s activity is not confined to any special +field of thought or action, but “pervades and regulates the whole.” He has the +last word in everything; his decision is unappealable. He sets the fashions and +opinion of taste, dictates the limitations of speech and circumscribes conduct +with a dead-line.

+ +

idleness, n. A model farm where the +devil experiments with seeds of new sins and promotes the growth of staple vices.

+ +

ignoramus, n. A person unacquainted with certain kinds of knowledge familiar to yourself, and +having certain other kinds that you know nothing about.

+ +
+

Dumble was an ignoramus,

+

Mumble was for learning famous.

+

Mumble said one day to Dumble:

+

“Ignorance should be more humble.

+

Not a spark have you of knowledge

+

That was got in any college.”

+

Dumble said to Mumble: “Truly

+

You’re self-satisfied unduly.

+

Of things in college I’m denied

+

A knowledge—you of all beside.”

+

Borelli

+
+ +

illuminati, n. A sect of Spanish heretics of the latter part of the sixteenth century; so called +because they were light weights—cunctationes illuminati.

+ +

illustrious, adj. Suitably placed for the shafts of malice, envy and detraction.

+ +

imagination, n. A warehouse of facts, with poet and liar in joint ownership.

+ +

imbecility, n. A kind of divine inspiration, or sacred fire affecting censorious critics of this dictionary.

+ +

immigrant, n. An unenlightened person who thinks one country better than another.

+ +

immodest, adj. Having a strong sense of one’s own merit, coupled with a feeble conception of worth in others.

+ +
+

There was once a man in Ispahan

+

Ever and ever so long ago,

+

And he had a head, the phrenologists said,

+

That fitted him for a show.

+

For his modesty’s bump was so large a lump

+

(Nature, they said, had taken a freak)

+

That its summit stood far above the wood

+

Of his hair, like a mountain peak.

+

So modest a man in all Ispahan,

+

Over and over again they swore—

+

So humble and meek, you would vainly seek;

+

None ever was found before.

+

Meantime the hump of that awful bump

+

Into the heavens contrived to get

+

To so great a height that they called the wight

+

The man with the minaret.

+

There wasn’t a man in all Ispahan

+

Prouder, or louder in praise of his chump:

+

With a tireless tongue and a brazen lung

+

He bragged of that beautiful bump

+

Till the Shah in a rage sent a trusty page

+

Bearing a sack and a bow-string too,

+

And that gentle child explained as he smiled:

+

“A little present for you.”

+

The saddest man in all Ispahan,

+

Sniffed at the gift, yet accepted the same.

+

“If I’d lived,” said he, “my humility

+

Had given me deathless fame!”

+

Sukker Uffro

+
+ +

immoral, adj. Inexpedient. Whatever in the long run and with regard to the greater number of instances men +find to be generally inexpedient comes to be considered wrong, wicked, immoral. +If man’s notions of right and wrong have any other basis than this of +expediency; if they originated, or could have originated, in any other way; if +actions have in themselves a moral character apart from, and nowise dependent +on, their consequences—then all philosophy is a lie and reason a disorder of the mind.

+ +

immorality, n.

+ +
+

A toy which people cry for,

+

And on their knees apply for,

+

Dispute, contend and lie for,

+

And if allowed

+

Would be right proud

+

Eternally to die for.

+

G. J.

+
+ +

impale, v.t. In popular usage to pierce with any weapon which remains fixed in the wound. This, +however, is inaccurate; to imaple is, properly, to put to death by thrusting an +upright sharp stake into the body, the victim being left in a sitting position. +This was a common mode of punishment among many of the nations of antiquity, +and is still in high favor in China and other parts of Asia. Down to the +beginning of the fifteenth century it was widely employed in “churching” +heretics and schismatics. Wolecraft calls it the “stoole of repentynge,” and +among the common people it was jocularly known as “riding the one legged +horse.” Ludwig Salzmann informs us that in Thibet impalement is considered the +most appropriate punishment for crimes against religion; and although in China +it is sometimes awarded for secular offences, it is most frequently adjudged in +cases of sacrilege. To the person in actual experience of impalement it must be +a matter of minor importance by what kind of civil or religious dissent he was +made acquainted with its discomforts; but doubtless he would feel a certain +satisfaction if able to contemplate himself in the character of a weather-cock +on the spire of the True Church.

+ +

impartial, adj. Unable to perceive any promise of personal advantage from espousing either side of a +controversy or adopting either of two conflicting opinions.

+ +

impenitence, n. A state of mind intermediate in point of time between sin and punishment.

+ +

impiety, n. Your irreverence toward my deity.

+ +

imposition, n. The act of blessing +or consecrating by the laying on of hands—a ceremony common to many ecclesiastical systems, but performed +with the frankest sincerity by the sect known as Thieves.

+ +
+

“Lo! by the laying on of hands,”

+

Say parson, priest and dervise,

+

“We consecrate your cash and lands

+

To ecclesiastical service.

+

No doubt you’ll swear till all is blue

+

At such an imposition. Do.”

+

Pollo Doncas

+

impostor n. A rival aspirant to public honors.

+

improbability, n.

+

His tale he told with a solemn face

+

And a tender, melancholy grace.

+

Improbable ‘twas, no doubt,

+

When you came to think it out,

+

But the fascinated crowd

+

Their deep surprise avowed

+

And all with a single voice averred ‘Twas the most amazing thing they’d heard—

+

All save one who spake never a word,

+

But sat as mum

+

As if deaf and dumb,

+

Serene, indifferent and unstirred.

+

Then all the others turned to him And scrutinized him limb from limb—

+

Scanned him alive;

+

But he seemed to thrive

+

And tranquiler grow each minute,

+

As if there were nothing in it.

+

“What! what!” cried one, “are you not amazed

+

At what our friend has told?” He raised

+

Soberly then his eyes and gazed

+

In a natural way

+

And proceeded to say,

+

As he crossed his feet on the mantel-shelf:

+

“O no—not at all; I’m a liar myself.”

+
+ +

improvidence, n. Provision for the needs of to-day from the revenues of to-morrow.

+ +

impunity, n. Wealth.

+ +

inadmissible, adj. Not competent to be considered. Said of certain kinds of testimony which juries +are supposed to be unfit to be entrusted with, and which judges, therefore, +rule out, even of proceedings before themselves alone. Hearsay evidence is +inadmissible because the person quoted was unsworn and is not before the court +for examination; yet most momentous actions, military, political, commercial +and of every other kind, are daily undertaken on hearsay evidence. There is no +religion in the world that has any other basis than hearsay evidence. Revelation +is hearsay evidence; that the Scriptures are the word of God we have only the +testimony of men long dead whose identity is not clearly established and who +are not known to have been sworn in any sense. Under the rules of evidence as +they now exist in this country, no single assertion in the Bible has in its +support any evidence admissible in a court of law. It cannot be proved that the +battle of Blenheim ever was fought, that there was such as person as Julius +Caesar, such an empire as Assyria.

+ +

But as records of courts of justice are admissible, it can easily be proved that powerful and +malevolent magicians once existed and were a scourge to mankind. The evidence +(including confession) upon which certain women were convicted of witchcraft +and executed was without a flaw; it is still unimpeachable. The judges’ +decisions based on it were sound in logic and in law. Nothing in any existing +court was ever more thoroughly proved than the charges of witchcraft and +sorcery for which so many suffered death. If there were no witches, human +testimony and human reason are alike destitute of value.

+ +

inauspiciously, adv. In an unpromising manner, the auspices being unfavorable. Among the Romans +it was customary before undertaking any important action or enterprise to +obtain from the augurs, or state prophets, some hint of its probable outcome; +and one of their favorite and most trustworthy modes of divination consisted in +observing the flight of birds—the omens thence derived being called auspices. Newspaper reporters and certain +miscreant lexicographers have decided that the word—always in the plural—shall +mean “patronage” or “management”; as, “The festivities were under the auspices +of the Ancient and Honorable Order of Body-Snatchers”; or, “The hilarities were +auspicated by the Knights of Hunger.”

+ +
+

A Roman slave appeared one day

+

Before the Augur. “Tell me, pray,

+

If—“ here the Augur, smiling, made

+

A checking gesture and displayed

+

His open palm, which plainly itched,

+

For visibly its surface twitched.

+

A denarius (the Latin nickel)

+

Successfully allayed the tickle,

+

And then the slave proceeded: “Please

+

Inform me whether Fate decrees

+

Success or failure in what I

+

To-night (if it be dark) shall try.

+

Its nature? Never mind—I think

+

‘Tis writ on this”—and with a wink

+

Which darkened half the earth, he drew

+

Another denarius to view,

+

Its shining face attentive scanned,

+

Then slipped it into the good man’s hand,

+

Who with great gravity said: “Wait

+

While I retire to question Fate.”

+

That holy person then withdrew

+

His scared clay and, passing through

+

The temple’s rearward gate, cried “Shoo!”

+

Waving his robe of office. Straight

+

Each sacred peacock and its mate

+

(Maintained for Juno’s favor) fled

+

With clamor from the trees o’erhead,

+

Where they were perching for the night.

+

The temple’s roof received their flight,

+

For thither they would always go,

+

When danger threatened them below.

+

Back to the slave the Augur went:

+

“My son, forecasting the event

+

By flight of birds, I must confess

+

The auspices deny success.”

+

That slave retired, a sadder man,

+

Abandoning his secret plan—

+

Which was (as well the craft seer

+

Had from the first divined) to clear

+

The wall and fraudulently seize

+

On Juno’s poultry in the trees.

+

G. J.

+
+ +

income, n. The natural and rational gauge and measure of respectability, the commonly accepted +standards being artificial, arbitrary and fallacious; for, as “Sir Sycophas +Chrysolater” in the play has justly remarked, “the true use and function of +property (in whatsoever it consisteth—coins, or land, or houses, or merchant-stuff, +or anything which may be named as holden of right to one’s own +subservience) as also of honors, titles, preferments and place, and all favor +and acquaintance of persons of quality or ableness, are but to get money. Hence +it followeth that all things are truly to be rated as of worth in measure of +their serviceableness to that end; and their possessors should take rank in +agreement thereto, neither the lord of an unproducing manor, howsoever broad +and ancient, nor he who bears an unremunerate dignity, nor yet the pauper +favorite of a king, being esteemed of level excellency with him whose riches +are of daily accretion; and hardly should they whose wealth is barren claim and +rightly take more honor than the poor and unworthy.”

+ +

incompatibility, n. In matrimony a similarity of tastes, particularly the taste for domination. Incompatibility +may, however, consist of a meek-eyed matron living just around the corner. It +has even been known to wear a moustache.

+ +

incompossible, adj. Unable to exist if something else exists. Two things are incompossible +when the world of being has scope enough for one of them, but not enough for +both—as Walt Whitman’s poetry and God’s mercy to man. Incompossibility, it will +be seen, is only incompatibility let loose. Instead of such low language as “Go +heel yourself—I mean to kill you on sight,” the words, “Sir, we are +incompossible,” would convey and equally significant intimation and in stately +courtesy are altogether superior.

+ +

Incubus, n. One of a race of highly improper demons who, though probably not wholly extinct, may +be said to have seen their best nights. For a complete account of incubi and succubi, including incubae +and succubae, see the Liber Demonorum of Protassus (Paris, +1328), which contains much curious information that would be out of place in a +dictionary intended as a text-book for the public schools.

+ +

Victor Hugo relates that in the Channel Islands Satan himself—tempted more than elsewhere +by the beauty of the women, doubtless—sometimes plays at incubus, greatly to the inconvenience and +alarm of the good dames who wish to be loyal to their marriage vows, generally +speaking. A certain lady applied to the parish priest to learn how they might, +in the dark, distinguish the hardy intruder from their husbands. The holy man +said they must feel his brown for horns; but Hugo is ungallant enough to hint a +doubt of the efficacy of the test.

+ +

incumbent, n. A +person of the liveliest interest to the outcumbents.

+ +

indecision, n. The +chief element of success; “for whereas,” saith Sir Thomas Brewbold, “there is +but one way to do nothing and divers way to do something, whereof, to a surety, +only one is the right way, it followeth that he who from indecision standeth +still hath not so many chances of going astray as he who pusheth forwards”—a +most clear and satisfactory exposition on the matter.

+ +

“Your prompt decision to attack,” said Genera Grant +on a certain occasion to General Gordon Granger, “was admirable; you had but five minutes +to make up your mind in.”

+ +

“Yes, sir,” answered the victorious subordinate, +“it is a great thing to be know exactly what to do in an emergency. When in doubt +whether to attack or retreat I never hesitate a moment—I toss us a copper.”

+ +

“Do you mean to say that’s what you did this time?”

+

“Yes, General; but for Heaven’s sake don’t reprimand me: I disobeyed the coin.”

+ +

indifferent, adj. Imperfectly +sensible to distinctions among things.

+ +
+

“You tiresome man!” cried Indolentio’s wife,
+“You’ve grown indifferent to all in life.”
+“Indifferent?” he drawled with a slow smile;
+“I would be, dear, but it is not worth while.”

+

Apuleius M. Gokul

+
+ +

indigestion, n. A +disease which the patient and his friends frequently mistake for deep religious +conviction and concern for the salvation of mankind. As the simple Red Man of +the western wild put it, with, it must be confessed, a certain force: “Plenty +well, no pray; big bellyache, heap God.”

+ +

indiscretion, n. The guilt of woman.

+ +

inexpedient, adj. Not calculated +to advance one’s interests.

+ +

infancy, n. The +period of our lives when, according to Wordsworth, “Heaven lies about us.” The +world begins lying about us pretty soon afterward.

+ +

Inferiae, n. [Latin] Among the Greeks and Romans, sacrifices +for propitation of the Dii Manes, or souls of the dead heroes; +for the pious ancients could not invent enough gods to satisfy their spiritual +needs, and had to have a number of makeshift deities, or, as a sailor might +say, jury-gods, which they made out of the most unpromising materials. It was +while sacrificing a bullock to the spirit of Agamemnon that Laiaides, a priest +of Aulis, was favored with an audience of that illustrious warrior’s shade, who +prophetically recounted to him the birth of Christ and the triumph of +Christianity, giving him also a rapid but tolerably complete review of events +down to the reign of Saint Louis. The narrative ended abruptly at the point, +owing to the inconsiderate crowing of a cock, which compelled the ghosted King +of Men to scamper back to Hades. There is a fine mediaeval flavor to this +story, and as it has not been traced back further than Pere Brateille, a pious +but obscure writer at the court of Saint Louis, we shall probably not err on +the side of presumption in considering it apocryphal, though Monsignor Capel’s +judgment of the matter might be different; and to that I bow—wow.

+ +

infidel, n. In New +York, one who does not believe in the Christian religion; in Constantinople, +one who does. (See GIAOUR.) A kind of scoundrel imperfectly reverent of, and +niggardly contributory to, divines, ecclesiastics, popes, parsons, canons, +monks, mollahs, voodoos, presbyters, hierophants, prelates, obeah-men, abbes, +nuns, missionaries, exhorters, deacons, friars, hadjis, high-priests, muezzins, +brahmins, medicine-men, confessors, eminences, elders, primates, prebendaries, +pilgrims, prophets, imaums, beneficiaries, clerks, vicars-choral, archbishops, +bishops, abbots, priors, preachers, padres, abbotesses, caloyers, palmers, +curates, patriarchs, bonezs, santons, beadsmen, canonesses, residentiaries, +diocesans, deans, subdeans, rural deans, abdals, charm-sellers, archdeacons, +hierarchs, class-leaders, incumbents, capitulars, sheiks, talapoins, +postulants, scribes, gooroos, precentors, beadles, fakeers, sextons, +reverences, revivalists, cenobites, perpetual curates, chaplains, mudjoes, +readers, novices, vicars, pastors, rabbis, ulemas, lamas, sacristans, vergers, +dervises, lectors, church wardens, cardinals, prioresses, suffragans, acolytes, +rectors, cures, sophis, mutifs and pumpums.

+ +

influence, n. In politics, +a visionary quo given in exchange for a substantial quid.

+ +

Infalapsarian, n. One +who ventures to believe that Adam need not have sinned unless he had a mind +to—in opposition to the Supralapsarians, who hold that that luckless person’s +fall was decreed from the beginning. Infralapsarians are sometimes called +Sublapsarians without material effect upon the importance and lucidity of their +views about Adam.

+ +
+

Two theologues once, as they wended their way

+

To chapel, engaged in colloquial fray—

+

An earnest logomachy, bitter as gall,

+

Concerning poor Adam and what made him fall.
+“’Twas Predestination,” cried one—“for the Lord
+Decreed he should fall of his own accord.”
+“Not so—‘twas Free will,” the other maintained,
+“Which led him to choose what the Lord had ordained.”
+So fierce and so fiery grew the debate
+That nothing but bloodshed their dudgeon could sate;

+

So off flew their +cassocks and caps to the ground And, moved by the spirit, their hands went +round. Ere either had proved his theology right By winning, or even beginning, +the fight, A gray old professor of Latin came by, A staff in his hand and a +scowl in his eye, And learning the cause of their quarrel (for still As they +clumsily sparred they disputed with skill Of foreordination freedom of will)

+

Cried: “Sirrahs! this reasonless warfare compose:

+

Atwixt ye’s no +difference worthy of blows. The sects ye belong to—I’m ready to swear Ye +wrongly interpret the names that they bear. You +—Infralapsarian son of a clown!—

+

Should only contend that Adam slipped down;

+

While you—you Supralapsarian pup!—

+

Should nothing aver but that Adam slipped up.

+

It’s all the same whether up or down

+

You slip on a peel of banana brown.

+

Even Adam analyzed not his blunder,

+

But thought he had slipped on a peal of thunder!

+

G. J.

+
+

ingrate, n. One +who receives a benefit from another, or is otherwise an object of charity.

+ +
+

“All men are ingrates,” sneered the cynic. “Nay,”

+

The good philanthropist replied;

+

“I did great service to a man one day

+

Who never since has cursed me to repay,

+

Nor vilified.”

+

“Ho!” cried the cynic, “lead me to him straight—

+

With veneration I am overcome,

+

And fain would have his blessing.” “Sad your fate—

+

He cannot bless you, for AI grieve to state

+

This man is dumb.”

+

Ariel Selp

+
+ +

injury, n. An +offense next in degree of enormity to a slight.

+ +

injustice, n. A +burden which of all those that we load upon others and carry ourselves is +lightest in the hands and heaviest upon the back.

+ +

ink, n. A +villainous compound of tannogallate of iron, gum-arabic and water, chiefly used +to facilitate the infection of idiocy and promote intellectual crime. The +properties of ink are peculiar and contradictory: it may be used to make +reputations and unmake them; to blacken them and to make them white; but it is +most generally and acceptably employed as a mortar to bind together the stones +of an edifice of fame, and as a whitewash to conceal afterward the rascal +quality of the material. There are men called journalists who have established +ink baths which some persons pay money to get into, others to get out of. Not +infrequently it occurs that a person who has paid to get in pays twice as much +to get out.

+ +

innate, adj. Natural, +inherent—as innate ideas, that is to say, ideas that we are born with, having +had them previously imparted to us. The doctrine of innate ideas is one of the +most admirable faiths of philosophy, being itself an innate idea and therefore +inaccessible to disproof, though Locke foolishly supposed himself to have given +it “a black eye.” Among innate ideas may be mentioned the belief in one’s +ability to conduct a newspaper, in the greatness of one’s country, in the +superiority of one’s civilization, in the importance of one’s personal affairs +and in the interesting nature of one’s diseases.

+ +

in’ards, n. The +stomach, heart, soul and other bowels. Many eminent investigators do not class +the soul as an in’ard, but that acute observer and renowned authority, Dr. +Gunsaulus, is persuaded that the mysterious organ known as the spleen is +nothing less than our important part. To the contrary, Professor Garrett P. +Servis holds that man’s soul is that prolongation of his spinal marrow which +forms the pith of his no tail; and for demonstration of his faith points +confidently to the fact that no tailed animals have no souls. Concerning these +two theories, it is best to suspend judgment by believing both.

+ +

inscription, n. Something +written on another thing. Inscriptions are of many kinds, but mostly memorial, +intended to commemorate the fame of some illustrious person and hand down to +distant ages the record of his services and virtues. To this class of +inscriptions belongs the name of John Smith, penciled on the Washington +monument. Following are examples of memorial inscriptions on tombstones: (See +EPITAPH.)

+ +
+

“In the sky my soul is found,

+

And my body in the ground.

+

By and by my body’ll rise

+

To my spirit in the skies,

+

Soaring up to Heaven’s gate.

+

1878.”

+

“Sacred to the memory of Jeremiah Tree. Cut down May 9th, 1862, aged 27 yrs. 4 mos. +and 12 ds. Indigenous.”

+

“Affliction sore long time she boar,

+

Phisicians was in vain,

+

Till Deth released the dear deceased

+

And left her a remain.

+

Gone to join Ananias in the regions of bliss.”

+

“The clay that rests beneath this stone

+

As Silas Wood was widely known.

+

Now, lying here, I ask what good

+

It was to let me be S. Wood.

+

O Man, let not ambition trouble you,

+

Is the advice of Silas W.”

+

“Richard Haymon, of Heaven. Fell to Earth Jan. 20, 1807, and had the dust brushed off him Oct. +3, 1874.”

+
+ +

insectivora, n.

+ +
+

“See,” cries the chorus of admiring preachers, “How Providence provides for all His creatures!”

+

“His care,” the gnat said, “even the insects follows:

+

For us He has provided wrens and swallows.”

+

Sempen Railey

+
+ +

insurance, n. An +ingenious modern game of chance in which the player is permitted to enjoy the +comfortable conviction that he is beating the man who keeps the table.

+ +

INSURANCE AGENT: My +dear sir, that is a fine house—pray let me insure it.

+ +

HOUSE OWNER: With pleasure. Please make the annual premium so low that by the +time when, according to the tables of your actuary, it will probably be +destroyed by fire I will have paid you considerably less than the face of the policy.

+ +

INSURANCE AGENT: O dear, no—we could not afford to do that.

+ +

We must fix the premium so that you will have paid more.

+ +

HOUSE OWNER: How, then, can I afford that?

+ +

INSURANCE AGENT: Why, your house may burn down at any time.

+ +

There was Smith’s house, for example, which—

+ +

HOUSE OWNER: Spare me—there were Brown’s house, on the contrary, and +Jones’s house, and Robinson’s house, which—

+ +

INSURANCE AGENT: Spare me!

+ +

HOUSE OWNER: Let us understand each other. You want me to pay you money on the +supposition that something will occur previously to the time set by yourself +for its occurrence. In other words, you expect me to bet that my house will not +last so long as you say that it will probably last.

+ +

INSURANCE AGENT: But if your house burns without insurance it will be a total loss.

+ +

HOUSE OWNER: Beg your pardon—by your own actuary’s tables I shall probably +have saved, when it burns, all the premiums I would otherwise have paid to +you—amounting to more than the face of the policy they would have bought. But +suppose it to burn, uninsured, before the time upon which your figures are +based. If I could not afford that, how could you if it were insured?

+ +

INSURANCE AGENT: O, we should make ourselves whole from our luckier ventures +with other clients. Virtually, they pay your loss.

+ +

HOUSE OWNER: And virtually, then, don’t I help to pay their losses? Are not +their houses as likely as mine to burn before they have paid you as much as you +must pay them? The case stands this way: you expect to take more money from +your clients than you pay to them, do you not?

+ +

INSURANCE AGENT: Certainly; if we did not—

+ +

HOUSE OWNER: I would not trust you with my money. Very well then. If it is certain, with +reference to the whole body of your clients, that they lose money on you it is probable, with +reference to any one of them, that he will. It is these individual +probabilities that make the aggregate certainty.

+ +

INSURANCE AGENT: I will not deny it—but look at the figures in this pamph—

+ +

HOUSE OWNER: Heaven forbid!

+ +

INSURANCE AGENT: You spoke of saving the premiums which you would otherwise pay to +me. Will you not be more likely to squander them? We offer you an incentive to thrift.

+ +

HOUSE OWNER: The willingness of A to take care of B’s money is not peculiar to +insurance, but as a charitable institution you command esteem. Deign to accept +its expression from a Deserving Object.

+ +

insurrection, n. An +unsuccessful revolution. Disaffection’s failure to substitute misrule for bad government.

+ +

intention, n. The +mind’s sense of the prevalence of one set of influences over another set; an +effect whose cause is the imminence, immediate or remote, of the performance of +an involuntary act.

+ +

interpreter, n. One +who enables two persons of different languages to understand each other by +repeating to each what it would have been to the interpreter’s advantage for +the other to have said.

+ +

interregnum, n. The +period during which a monarchical country is governed by a warm spot on the +cushion of the throne. The experiment of letting the spot grow cold has +commonly been attended by most unhappy results from the zeal of many worthy +persons to make it warm again.

+ +

intimacy, n. A +relation into which fools are providentially drawn for their mutual destruction.

+ +
+

Two Seidlitz powders, one in blue

+

And one in white, together drew

+

And having each a pleasant sense

+

Of t’other powder’s excellence,

+

Forsook their jackets for the snug

+

Enjoyment of a common mug.

+

So close their intimacy grew

+

One paper would have held the two.

+

To confidences straight they fell,

+

Less anxious each to hear than tell;

+

Then each remorsefully confessed

+

To all the virtues he possessed,

+

Acknowledging he had them in

+

So high degree it was a sin.

+

The more they said, the more they felt

+

Their spirits with emotion melt,

+

Till tears of sentiment expressed

+

Their feelings. Then they effervesced!

+

So Nature executes her feats

+

Of wrath on friends and sympathetes

+

The good old rule who don’t apply,

+

That you are you and I am I.

+
+ +

introduction, n. A +social ceremony invented by the devil for the gratification of his servants and +the plaguing of his enemies. The introduction attains its most malevolent +development in this century, being, indeed, closely related to our political +system. Every American being the equal of every other American, it follows that +everybody has the right to know everybody else, which implies the right to +introduce without request or permission. The Declaration of Independence should +have read thus:

+ +

“We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are +endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are +life, and the right to make that of another miserable by thrusting upon him an +incalculable quantity of acquaintances; liberty, particularly the liberty to +introduce persons to one another without first ascertaining if they are not +already acquainted as enemies; and the pursuit of another’s happiness with a +running pack of strangers.”

+ +

inventor, n. A +person who makes an ingenious arrangement of wheels, levers and springs, and +believes it civilization.

+ +

irreligion, n. The +principal one of the great faiths of the world.

+ +

itch, n. The +patriotism of a Scotchman.

+ + + + \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/I.html.annot b/lib/ebooks/devils/I.html.annot new file mode 100644 index 00000000..e69de29b diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/I.html.i b/lib/ebooks/devils/I.html.i new file mode 100644 index 00000000..5e4a45c8 --- /dev/null +++ b/lib/ebooks/devils/I.html.i @@ -0,0 +1,62 @@ +29 pages +size 400 552 +length 40130 +396 2 10 body html +0 +1452 2 34 body html +56 +2967 2 55 body html +216 +4626 2 82 body html +108 +4626 2 82 body html +648 +6344 2 114 body html +141 +7343 2 133 body html +243 +9427 2 161 body html +252 +9427 2 161 body html +790 +11521 2 200 body html +73 +13272 2 224 body html +124 +14087 2 234 body html +451 +14087 2 234 body html +991 +16500 2 279 body html +0 +18562 2 306 body html +0 +20433 2 334 body html +0 +22151 2 367 body html +0 +23431 2 384 body html +209 +25306 2 412 body html +246 +27137 2 443 body html +0 +28326 2 467 body html +22 +30507 2 499 body html +0 +30991 2 507 body html +413 +32627 2 540 body html +39 +34139 2 571 body html +0 +35615 2 596 body html +0 +37320 2 627 body html +36 +37320 2 627 body html +576 +39859 2 673 body html +0 +income 12 diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/J.html b/lib/ebooks/devils/J.html new file mode 100644 index 00000000..68d56c2c --- /dev/null +++ b/lib/ebooks/devils/J.html @@ -0,0 +1,74 @@ + + + + + + +The Devil’s Dictionary: J + + + +

J

+ +

J is a consonant in English, but some nations use it as a vowel—than which nothing could be more +absurd. Its original form, which has been but slightly modified, was that of +the tail of a subdued dog, and it was not a letter but a character, standing +for a Latin verb, jacere, “to throw,” because when a stone is thrown at a dog the dog’s tail assumes that +shape. This is the origin of the letter, as expounded by the renowned Dr. +Jocolpus Bumer, of the University of Belgrade, who established his conclusions +on the subject in a work of three quarto volumes and committed suicide on being +reminded that the j in the Roman alphabet had originally no curl.

+ +

jealous, adj. Unduly +concerned about the preservation of that which can be lost only if not worth keeping.

+ +

jester, n. An +officer formerly attached to a king’s household, whose business it was to amuse +the court by ludicrous actions and utterances, the absurdity being attested by +his motley costume. The king himself being attired with dignity, it took the +world some centuries to discover that his own conduct and decrees were +sufficiently ridiculous for the amusement not only of his court but of all +mankind. The jester was commonly called a fool, but the poets and romancers have +ever delighted to represent him as a singularly wise and witty person. In the +circus of to-day the melancholy ghost of the court fool effects the dejection +of humbler audiences with the same jests wherewith in life he gloomed the +marble hall, panged the patrician sense of humor and tapped the tank of royal tears.

+ +
+

The widow-queen of Portugal

+

Had an audacious jester

+

Who entered the confessional

+

Disguised, and there confessed her.

+

“Father,” she said, “thine ear bend down—

+

My sins are more than scarlet:

+

I love my fool—blaspheming clown,

+

And common, base-born varlet.”

+

“Daughter,” the mimic priest replied,

+

“That sin, indeed, is awful:

+

The church’s pardon is denied

+

To love that is unlawful.

+

“But since thy stubborn heart will be

+

For him forever pleading,

+

Thou’dst better make him, by decree,

+

A man of birth and breeding.”

+

She made the fool a duke, in hope

+

With Heaven’s taboo to palter;

+

Then told a priest, who told the Pope,

+

Who damned her from the altar!

+

Barel Dort

+
+ +

Jews-harp, n. An +unmusical instrument, played by holding it fast with the teeth and trying to brush it away with the finger.

+ +

Joss-sticks, n. Small +sticks burned by the Chinese in their pagan tomfoolery, in imitation of certain sacred rites of our holy religion.

+ +

justice, n. A +commodity which is a more or less adulterated condition the State sells to the +citizen as a reward for his allegiance, taxes and personal service.

+ + + + \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/J.html.annot b/lib/ebooks/devils/J.html.annot new file mode 100644 index 00000000..e69de29b diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/J.html.i b/lib/ebooks/devils/J.html.i new file mode 100644 index 00000000..c1a1c9ec --- /dev/null +++ b/lib/ebooks/devils/J.html.i @@ -0,0 +1,9 @@ +3 pages +size 400 552 +length 3986 +396 2 10 body html +0 +1286 2 26 body html +209 +2152 2 38 body html +523 diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/K.html b/lib/ebooks/devils/K.html new file mode 100644 index 00000000..71c6f2d2 --- /dev/null +++ b/lib/ebooks/devils/K.html @@ -0,0 +1,137 @@ + + + + + + +The Devil’s Dictionary: K + + + + +

K

+ +

K is a consonant that we get from the Greeks, but it can be traced away back beyond them to the +Cerathians, a small commercial nation inhabiting the peninsula of Smero. In +their tongue it was called Klatch, which means “destroyed.” The form of the letter was originally precisely that +of our H, but the erudite Dr. Snedeker explains that it was altered to its +present shape to commemorate the destruction of the great temple of Jarute by +an earthquake, circa 730 B.C. This building was famous for the two lofty columns of its portico, one of which was +broken in half by the catastrophe, the other remaining intact. As the earlier +form of the letter is supposed to have been suggested by these pillars, so, it +is thought by the great antiquary, its later was adopted as a simple and +natural—not to say touching—means of keeping the calamity ever in the national +memory. It is not known if the name of the letter was altered as an additional +mnemonic, or if the name was always Klatch and the destruction one of nature’s pums. As each theory seems probable enough, +I see no objection to believing both—and Dr. Snedeker arrayed himself on that side of the question.

+ +

keep, v.t.

+ +
+

He willed away his whole estate,

+

And then in death he fell asleep,

+

Murmuring: “Well, at any rate,

+

My name unblemished I shall keep.”

+

But when upon the tomb ‘twas wrought Whose was it?—for the dead keep naught.

+

Durang Gophel Arn

+
+ +

kill, v.t. To +create a vacancy without nominating a successor.

+ +

kilt, n. A costume +sometimes worn by Scotchmen in America and Americans in Scotland.

+ +

kindness, n. A +brief preface to ten volumes of exaction.

+ +

king, n. A male +person commonly known in America as a “crowned head,” although he never wears a +crown and has usually no head to speak of.

+ +
+

A king, in times long, long gone by,

+

Said to his lazy jester:

+

“If I were you and you were I

+

My moments merrily would fly—

+

Nor care nor grief to pester.”

+

“The reason, Sire, that you would thrive,”

+

The fool said—“if you’ll hear it—

+

Is that of all the fools alive

+

Who own you for their sovereign, I’ve

+

The most forgiving spirit.”

+

Oogum Bem

+
+ +

King’s Evil, n. A +malady that was formerly cured by the touch of the sovereign, but has now to be +treated by the physicians. Thus ‘the most pious Edward” of England used to lay +his royal hand upon the ailing subjects and make them whole—

+ +
+

a crowd of wretched souls

+

That stay his cure: their malady convinces

+

The great essay of art; but at his touch,

+

Such sanctity hath Heaven given his hand,

+

They presently amend,

+

as the “Doctor” in Macbeth hath it. This useful property of the

+

royal hand could, it appears, be transmitted along with other crown

+

properties; for according to “Malcolm,”

+

‘tis spoken To the succeeding royalty he leaves The healing benediction.

+

But the gift somewhere dropped out of the line of succession: the later sovereigns of +England have not been tactual healers, and the disease once honored with the +name “king’s evil” now bears the humbler one of “scrofula,” from scrofa, a sow. The date and author of the +following epigram are known only to the author of this dictionary, but it is +old enough to show that the jest about Scotland’s national disorder is not a +thing of yesterday.

+

Ye Kynge his evill in me laye,

+

Wh. he of Scottlande charmed awaye.

+

He layde his hand on mine and sayd:

+

“Be gone!” Ye ill no longer stayd.

+

But O ye wofull plyght in wh.

+

I’m now y-pight: I have ye itche!

+

The superstitionth at maladies can be cured by royal taction is

+

dead, but like many a departed conviction it has left a monument of

+

custom to keep its memory green. The practice of forming a line and

+

shaking the President’s hand had no other origin, and when that great

+

dignitary bestows his healing salutation on

+

strangely visited people,

+

All swoln and ulcerous, pitiful to the eye,

+

The mere despair of surgery,

+

he and his patients are handing along an extinguished torch which once was kindled at the +altar-fire of a faith long held by all classes of men. It is a beautiful and +edifying “survival”—one which brings the sainted past close home in our “business and bosoms.”

+
+ +

kiss, n. A word +invented by the poets as a rhyme for “bliss.” It is supposed to signify, in a +general way, some kind of rite or ceremony appertaining to a good +understanding; but the manner of its performance is unknown to this lexicographer.

+ +

kleptomaniac, n. A +rich thief.

+ +

knight, n.

+ +
+

Once a warrior gentle of birth,

+

Then a person of civic worth,

+

Now a fellow to move our mirth.

+

Warrior, person, and fellow—no more:

+

We must knight our dogs to get any lower.

+

Brave Knights Kennelers then shall be,

+

Noble Knights of the Golden Flea,

+

Knights of the Order of St. Steboy,

+

Knights of St. Gorge and Sir Knights Jawy.

+

God speed the day when this knighting fad

+

Shall go to the dogs and the dogs go mad.

+
+ +

Koran, n. A book +which the Mohammedans foolishly believe to have been written by divine +inspiration, but which Christians know to be a wicked imposture, contradictory +to the Holy Scriptures.

+ + + \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/K.html.annot b/lib/ebooks/devils/K.html.annot new file mode 100644 index 00000000..e69de29b diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/K.html.i b/lib/ebooks/devils/K.html.i new file mode 100644 index 00000000..c6593bc6 --- /dev/null +++ b/lib/ebooks/devils/K.html.i @@ -0,0 +1,16 @@ +6 pages +size 400 552 +length 7556 +396 2 10 body html +0 +1716 2 31 body html +91 +2763 2 53 body html +252 +3711 2 72 body html +305 +3711 2 72 body html +854 +6594 2 117 body html +91 +king 1 diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/L.html b/lib/ebooks/devils/L.html new file mode 100644 index 00000000..8f9f79de --- /dev/null +++ b/lib/ebooks/devils/L.html @@ -0,0 +1,525 @@ + + + + + + +The Devil’s Dictionary: L + + + +

L

+ +

labor, n. One of +the processes by which A acquires property for B.

+ +

land, n. A part of +the earth’s surface, considered as property. The theory that land is property +subject to private ownership and control is the foundation of modern society, +and is eminently worthy of the superstructure. Carried to its logical +conclusion, it means that some have the right to prevent others from living; +for the right to own implies the right exclusively to occupy; and in fact laws +of trespass are enacted wherever property in land is recognized. It follows +that if the whole area of terra firma +is owned by A, B and C, there will be no place for D, E, F and G to be born, +or, born as trespassers, to exist.

+ +
+

A life on the ocean wave,

+

A home on the rolling deep,

+

For the spark the nature gave

+

I have there the right to keep.

+

They give me the cat-o’-nine

+

Whenever I go ashore.

+

Then ho! for the flashing brine—

+

I’m a natural commodore!

+

Dodle

+
+ +

language, n. The +music with which we charm the serpents guarding another’s treasure.

+ +

Laocoon, n. A +famous piece of antique scripture representing a priest of that name and his +two sons in the folds of two enormous serpents. The skill and diligence with +which the old man and lads support the serpents and keep them up to their work +have been justly regarded as one of the noblest artistic illustrations of the +mastery of human intelligence over brute inertia.

+ +

lap, n. One of the +most important organs of the female system—an admirable provision of nature for +the repose of infancy, but chiefly useful in rural festivities to support +plates of cold chicken and heads of adult males. The male of our species has a +rudimentary lap, imperfectly developed and in no way contributing to the +animal’s substantial welfare.

+ +

last, n. A +shoemaker’s implement, named by a frowning Providence as opportunity to the +maker of puns.

+ +
+

Ah, punster, would my lot were cast,

+

Where the cobbler is unknown,

+

So that I might forget his last

+

And hear your own.

+

Gargo Repsky

+
+ +

laughter, n. An +interior convulsion, producing a distortion of the features and accompanied by +inarticulate noises. It is infectious and, though intermittent, incurable. Liability +to attacks of laughter is one of the characteristics distinguishing man from +the animals—these being not only inaccessible to the provocation of his +example, but impregnable to the microbes having original jurisdiction in +bestowal of the disease. Whether laughter could be imparted to animals by +inoculation from the human patient is a question that has not been answered by +experimentation. Dr. Meir Witchell holds that the infection character of +laughter is due to the instantaneous fermentation of sputa diffused in a spray. From this peculiarity he names +the disorder Convulsio spargens.

+ +

laureate, adj. Crowned +with leaves of the laurel. In England the Poet Laureate is an officer of the +sovereign’s court, acting as dancing skeleton at every royal feast and +singing-mute at every royal funeral. Of all incumbents of that high office, +Robert Southey had the most notable knack at drugging the Samson of public joy +and cutting his hair to the quick; and he had an artistic color-sense which +enabled him so to blacken a public grief as to give it the aspect of a national +crime.

+ +

laurel, n. The laurus, a vegetable dedicated to Apollo, +and formerly defoliated to wreathe the brows of victors and such poets as had +influence at court. (Vide supra.)

+ +

law, n.

+ +
+

Once Law was sitting on the bench,

+

And Mercy knelt a-weeping.

+

“Clear out!” he cried, “disordered wench!

+

Nor come before me creeping.

+

Upon your knees if you appear,

+

‘Tis plain your have no standing here.”

+

Then Justice came. His Honor cried:

+

“Your status?—devil seize you!”

+

“Amica curiae,” she replied—

+

“Friend of the court, so please you.”

+

“Begone!” he shouted—“there’s the door—

+

I never saw your face before!”

+

G. J.

+
+ +

lawful, adj. Compatible +with the will of a judge having jurisdiction.

+ +

lawyer, n. One +skilled in circumvention of the law.

+ +

laziness, n. Unwarranted +repose of manner in a person of low degree.

+ +

lead, n. A heavy +blue-gray metal much used in giving stability to light lovers—particularly to +those who love not wisely but other men’s wives. Lead is also of great service +as a counterpoise to an argument of such weight that it turns the scale of +debate the wrong way. An interesting fact in the chemistry of international +controversy is that at the point of contact of two patriotisms lead is +precipitated in great quantities.

+ +
+

Hail, holy Lead!—of human feuds the great

+

And universal arbiter; endowed

+

With penetration to pierce any cloud

+

Fogging the field of controversial hate,

+

And with a sift, inevitable, straight,

+

Searching precision find the unavowed

+

But vital point. Thy judgment, when allowed

+

By the chirurgeon, settles the debate.

+

O useful metal!—were it not for thee

+

We’d grapple one another’s ears alway:

+

But when we hear thee buzzing like a bee

+

We, like old Muhlenberg, “care not to stay.”

+

And when the quick have run away like pellets

+

Jack Satan smelts the dead to make new bullets.

+
+ +

learning, n. The +kind of ignorance distinguishing the studious.

+ +

lecturer, n. One +with his hand in your pocket, his tongue in your ear and his faith in your patience.

+ +

legacy, n. A gift +from one who is legging it out of this vale of tears.

+ +

leonine, adj. Unlike +a menagerie lion. Leonine verses are those in which a word in the middle of a +line rhymes with a word at the end, as in this famous passage from Bella Peeler Silcox:

+ +
+

The electric light invades the dunnest deep of Hades.

+

Cries Pluto, ‘twixt his snores: “O tempora! O mores!”

+

It should be explained that Mrs. Silcox does not undertake to teach pronunciation of the +Greek and Latin tongues. Leonine verses are so called in honor of a poet named +Leo, whom prosodists appear to find a pleasure in believing to have been the +first to discover that a rhyming couplet could be run into a single line.

+
+ +

lettuce, n. An +herb of the genus Lactuca, “Wherewith,” says that pious gastronome, Hengist Pelly, “God has been pleased +to reward the good and punish the wicked. For by his inner light the righteous +man has discerned a manner of compounding for it a dressing to the appetency +whereof a multitude of gustible condiments conspire, being reconciled and +ameliorated with profusion of oil, the entire comestible making glad the heart +of the godly and causing his face to shine. But the person of spiritual unworth +is successfully tempted to the Adversary to eat of lettuce with destitution of +oil, mustard, egg, salt and garlic, and with a rascal bath of vinegar polluted +with sugar. Wherefore the person of spiritual unworth suffers an intestinal +pang of strange complexity and raises the song.”

+ +

leviathan, n. An +enormous aquatic animal mentioned by Job. Some suppose it to have been the +whale, but that distinguished ichthyologer, Dr. Jordan, of Stanford University, +maintains with considerable heat that it was a species of gigantic Tadpole +(Thaddeus Polandensis) or Polliwig—Maria +pseudo-hirsuta. For an exhaustive description and history of the +Tadpole consult the famous monograph of Jane Potter, Thaddeus of Warsaw.

+ +

lexicographer, n. A +pestilent fellow who, under the pretense of recording some particular stage in +the development of a language, does what he can to arrest its growth, stiffen +its flexibility and mechanize its methods. For your lexicographer, having +written his dictionary, comes to be considered “as one having authority,” +whereas his function is only to make a record, not to give a law. The natural +servility of the human understanding having invested him with judicial power, +surrenders its right of reason and submits itself to a chronicle as if it were +a statue. Let the dictionary (for example) mark a good word as “obsolete” or +“obsolescent” and few men thereafter venture to use it, whatever their need of +it and however desirable its restoration to favor—whereby the process of +improverishment is accelerated and speech decays. On the contrary, recognizing +the truth that language must grow by innovation if it grow at all, makes new +words and uses the old in an unfamiliar sense, has no following and is tartly +reminded that “it isn’t in the dictionary”—although down to the time of the +first lexicographer (Heaven forgive him!) no author ever had used a word that was in the dictionary. In the golden prime +and high noon of English speech; when from the lips of the great Elizabethans +fell words that made their own meaning and carried it in their very sound; when +a Shakespeare and a Bacon were possible, and the language now rapidly perishing +at one end and slowly renewed at the other was in vigorous growth and hardy +preservation—sweeter than honey and stronger than a lion—the lexicographer was +a person unknown, the dictionary a creation which his Creator had not created +him to create.

+ +
+

God said: “Let Spirit perish into Form,”

+

And lexicographers arose, a swarm!

+

Thought fled and left her clothing, which they took,

+

And catalogued each garment in a book.

+

Now, from her leafy covert when she cries:

+

“Give me my clothes and I’ll return,” they rise

+

And scan the list, and say without compassion:

+

“Excuse us—they are mostly out of fashion.”

+

Sigismund Smith

+
+ +

liar, n. A lawyer +with a roving commission.

+ +

liberty, n. One of +Imagination’s most precious possessions.

+ +
+

The rising People, hot and out of breath,

+

Roared around the palace: “Liberty or death!”

+

“If death will do,” the King said, “let me reign;

+

You’ll have, I’m sure, no reason to complain.”

+

Martha Braymance

+
+ +

lickspittle, n. A +useful functionary, not infrequently found editing a newspaper. In his +character of editor he is closely allied to the blackmailer by the tie of +occasional identity; for in truth the lickspittle is only the blackmailer under +another aspect, although the latter is frequently found as an independent +species. Lickspittling is more detestable than blackmailing, precisely as the +business of a confidence man is more detestable than that of a highway robber; +and the parallel maintains itself throughout, for whereas few robbers will +cheat, every sneak will plunder if he dare.

+ +

life, n. A +spiritual pickle preserving the body from decay. We live in daily apprehension +of its loss; yet when lost it is not missed. The question, “Is life worth +living?” has been much discussed; particularly by those who think it is not, +many of whom have written at great length in support of their view and by +careful observance of the laws of health enjoyed for long terms of years the +honors of successful controversy.

+ +
+

“Life’s not worth living, and that’s the truth,”

+

Carelessly caroled the golden youth.

+

In manhood still he maintained that view

+

And held it more strongly the older he grew.

+

When kicked by a jackass at eighty-three,

+

“Go fetch me a surgeon at once!” cried he.

+

Han Soper

+
+ +

lighthouse, n. A +tall building on the seashore in which the government maintains a lamp and the friend of a politician.

+ +

limb, n. The +branch of a tree or the leg of an American woman.

+ +
+

‘Twas a pair of boots that the lady bought,

+

And the salesman laced them tight

+

To a very remarkable height—

+

Higher, indeed, than I think he ought—

+

Higher than can be right.

+

For the Bible declares—but never mind:

+

It is hardly fit

+

To censure freely and fault to find

+

With others for sins that I’m not inclined

+

Myself to commit.

+

Each has his weakness, and though my own

+

Is freedom from every sin,

+

It still were unfair to pitch in,

+

Discharging the first censorious stone.

+

Besides, the truth compels me to say,

+

The boots in question were made that way.

+

As he drew the lace she made a grimace,

+

And blushingly said to him:

+

“This boot, I’m sure, is too high to endure, It hurts my—hurts my—limb.”

+

The salesman smiled in a manner mild,

+

Like an artless, undesigning child;

+

Then, checking himself, to his face he gave

+

A look as sorrowful as the grave,

+

Though he didn’t care two figs

+

For her paints and throes,

+

As he stroked her toes,

+

Remarking with speech and manner just

+

Befitting his calling: “Madam, I trust

+

That it doesn’t hurt your twigs.”

+

B. Percival Dike

+
+ +

linen, n. “A kind +of cloth the making of which, when made of hemp, entails a great waste of +hemp.”—Calcraft the Hangman.

+ +

litigant, n. A +person about to give up his skin for the hope of retaining his bones.

+ +

litigation, n. A +machine which you go into as a pig and come out of as a sausage.

+ +

liver, n. A large +red organ thoughtfully provided by nature to be bilious with. The sentiments +and emotions which every literary anatomist now knows to haunt the heart were +anciently believed to infest the liver; and even Gascoygne, speaking of the +emotional side of human nature, calls it “our hepaticall parte.” It was at one +time considered the seat of life; hence its name—liver, the thing we live with. +The liver is heaven’s best gift to the goose; without it that bird would be +unable to supply us with the Strasbourg pate.

+ +

LL.D. Letters indicating the degree Legumptionorum Doctor, +one learned in laws, gifted with legal gumption. Some suspicion is cast upon +this derivation by the fact that the title was formerly LL.d., and conferred only upon gentlemen +distinguished for their wealth. At the date of this writing Columbia University +is considering the expediency of making another degree for clergymen, in place +of the old D.D.—Damnator Diaboli. +The new honor will be known as Sanctorum Custus, and written $$c. The name of the Rev. John Satan has +been suggested as a suitable recipient by a lover of consistency, who points +out that Professor Harry Thurston Peck has long enjoyed the advantage of a +degree.

+ +

lock-and-key, n. The +distinguishing device of civilization and enlightenment.

+ +

Lodger, n. A less +popular name for the Second Person of that delectable newspaper Trinity, the +Roomer, the Bedder, and the Mealer.

+ +

logic, n. The art +of thinking and reasoning in strict accordance with the limitations and +incapacities of the human misunderstanding. The basic of logic is the +syllogism, consisting of a major and a minor premise and a conclusion—thus:

+ +

Major Premise: Sixty men can do a piece of work sixty times as quickly as one man.

+ +

Minor Premise: One man can dig a posthole in sixty seconds; therefore—

+ +

Conclusion: Sixty men can dig a posthole in one second.

+ +

This may be called the syllogism arithmetical, in which, by combining logic and mathematics, we +obtain a double certainty and are twice blessed.

+ +

logomachy, n. A +war in which the weapons are words and the wounds punctures in the swim-bladder +of self-esteem—a kind of contest in which, the vanquished being unconscious of +defeat, the victor is denied the reward of success.

+ +
+

‘Tis said by divers of the scholar-men That poor Salmasius died of Milton’s pen.

+

Alas! we cannot know if this is true,

+

For reading Milton’s wit we perish too.

+
+ +

loganimity, n. The +disposition to endure injury with meek forbearance while maturing a plan of revenge.

+ +

longevity, n. Uncommon +extension of the fear of death.

+ +

looking-glass, n. A +vitreous plane upon which to display a fleeting show for man’s disillusion given.

+ +

The King of +Manchuria had a magic looking-glass, whereon whoso looked saw, not his own +image, but only that of the king. A certain courtier who had long enjoyed the +king’s favor and was thereby enriched beyond any other subject of the realm, +said to the king:

+ +

“Give me, I pray, +thy wonderful mirror, so that when absent out of thine august presence I may +yet do homage before thy visible shadow, prostrating myself night and morning +in the glory of thy benign countenance, as which nothing has so divine +splendor, O Noonday Sun of the Universe!”

+ +

Please with the +speech, the king commanded that the mirror be conveyed to the courtier’s +palace; but after, having gone thither without apprisal, he found it in an +apartment where was naught but idle lumber. And the mirror was dimmed with dust +and overlaced with cobwebs. This so angered him that he fisted it hard, +shattering the glass, and was sorely hurt. Enraged all the more by this +mischance, he commanded that the ungrateful courtier be thrown into prison, and +that the glass be repaired and taken back to his own palace; and this was done. +But when the king looked again on the mirror he saw not his image as before, +but only the figure of a crowned ass, having a bloody bandage on one of its +hinder hooves—as the artificers and all who had looked upon it had before +discerned but feared to report. Taught wisdom and charity, the king restored +his courtier to liberty, had the mirror set into the back of the throne and +reigned many years with justice and humility; and one day when he fell asleep +in death while on the throne, the whole court saw in the mirror the luminous +figure of an angel, which remains to this day.

+ +

loquacity, n. A +disorder which renders the sufferer unable to curb his tongue when you wish to +talk.

+ +

lord, n. In +American society, an English tourist above the state of a costermonger, as, +lord ‘Aberdasher, Lord Hartisan and so forth. The traveling Briton of lesser +degree is addressed as “Sir,” as, Sir ‘Arry Donkiboi, or ‘Amstead ‘Eath. The +word “Lord” is sometimes used, also, as a title of the Supreme Being; but this +is thought to be rather flattery than true reverence.

+ +
+

Miss Sallie Ann Splurge, of her own accord,
+Wedded a wandering English lord—

+

Wedded and took him to dwell with her “paw,”
+A parent who throve by the practice of Draw.

+

Lord Cadde I don’t hesitate to declare

+

Unworthy the father-in-legal care

+

Of that elderly sport, notwithstanding the truth
+That Cadde had renounced all the follies of youth;

+

For, sad to relate, he’d arrived at the stage
+Of existence that’s marked by the vices of age.
+Among them, cupidity caused him to urge
+Repeated demands on the pocket of Splurge,
+Till, wrecked in his fortune, that gentleman saw
+Inadequate aid in the practice of Draw,
+And took, as a means of augmenting his pelf,
+To the business of being a lord himself.

+

His neat-fitting garments he wilfully shed
+And sacked himself strangely in checks instead;

+

Denuded his chin, but retained at each ear
+A whisker that looked like a blasted career.
+He painted his neck an incarnadine hue
+Each morning and varnished it all that he knew.

+

The moony monocular set in his eye

+

Appeared to be scanning the Sweet Bye-and-Bye.
+His head was enroofed with a billycock hat, And +his low-necked shoes were aduncous and flat.

+

In speech he eschewed his American ways,

+

Denying his nose to the use of his A’s

+

And dulling their edge till the delicate sense
+Of a babe at their temper could take no offence.
+His H’s—‘twas most inexpressibly sweet,
+The patter they made as they fell at his feet!

+

Re-outfitted thus, Mr. Splurge without fear

+

Began as Lord Splurge his recouping career.

+

Alas, the Divinity shaping his end

+

Entertained other views and decided to send

+

His lordship in horror, despair and dismay

+

From the land of the nobleman’s natural prey.

+

For, smit with his Old World ways,

+

Lady Cadde Fell—suffering Caesar!—in love with her dad!

+

G. J.

+
+ +

lore, n. Learning—particularly +that sort which is not derived from a regular course of instruction but comes +of the reading of occult books, or by nature. This latter is commonly +designated as folk-lore and embraces popularly myths and superstitions. In +Baring-Gould’s Curious Myths of the Middle +Ages the reader will find many of these traced backward, through +various people son converging lines, toward a common origin in remote +antiquity. Among these are the fables of “Teddy the Giant Killer,” “The +Sleeping John Sharp Williams,” “Little Red Riding Hood and the Sugar Trust,” +“Beauty and the Brisbane,” “The Seven Aldermen of Ephesus,” “Rip Van +Fairbanks,” and so forth. The fable with Goethe so affectingly relates under +the title of “The Erl- King” was known two thousand years ago in Greece as “The +Demos and the Infant Industry.” One of the most general and ancient of these +myths is that Arabian tale of “Ali Baba and the Forty Rockefellers.”

+ +

loss, n. Privation +of that which we had, or had not. Thus, in the latter sense, it is said of a +defeated candidate that he “lost his election”; and of that eminent man, the +poet Gilder, that he has “lost his mind.” It is in the former and more +legitimate sense, that the word is used in the famous epitaph:

+ +
+

Here Huntington’s ashes long have lain

+

Whose loss is our eternal gain,

+

For while he exercised all his powers

+

Whatever he gained, the loss was ours.

+
+ +

love, n. A +temporary insanity curable by marriage or by removal of the patient from the +influences under which he incurred the disorder. This disease, like caries and many other ailments, is +prevalent only among civilized races living under artificial conditions; +barbarous nations breathing pure air and eating simple food enjoy immunity from +its ravages. It is sometimes fatal, but more frequently to the physician than to the patient.

+ +

low-bred, adj. “Raised” +instead of brought up.

+ +

luminary, n. One +who throws light upon a subject; as an editor by not writing about it.

+ +

lunarian, n. An +inhabitant of the moon, as distinguished from Lunatic, one whom the moon +inhabits. The Lunarians have been described by Lucian, Locke and other +observers, but without much agreement. For example, Bragellos avers their +anatomical identity with Man, but Professor Newcomb says they are more like the +hill tribes of Vermont.

+ +

lyre, n. An +ancient instrument of torture. The word is now used in a figurative sense to +denote the poetic faculty, as in the following fiery lines of our great poet, +Ella Wheeler Wilcox:

+ +
+

I sit astride Parnassus with my lyre,

+

And pick with care the disobedient wire.

+

That stupid shepherd lolling on his crook With deaf attention scarcely deigns to look. I +bide my time, and it shall come at length, When, with a Titan’s energy and +strength, I’ll grab a fistful of the strings, and O, The word shall suffer when +I let them go!

+

Farquharson Harris

+
+ + + + \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/L.html.annot b/lib/ebooks/devils/L.html.annot new file mode 100644 index 00000000..e69de29b diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/L.html.i b/lib/ebooks/devils/L.html.i new file mode 100644 index 00000000..4c386264 --- /dev/null +++ b/lib/ebooks/devils/L.html.i @@ -0,0 +1,45 @@ +20 pages +size 400 552 +length 29470 +396 2 10 body html +0 +1257 2 28 body html +235 +2934 2 61 body html +127 +4970 2 96 body html +36 +6178 2 121 body html +0 +6684 2 129 body html +415 +8845 2 168 body html +73 +10249 2 188 body html +260 +12064 2 212 body html +320 +13945 2 248 body html +107 +15236 2 272 body html +199 +15236 2 272 body html +737 +17527 2 315 body html +56 +19544 2 347 body html +34 +20992 2 376 body html +51 +22915 2 409 body html +0 +23378 2 416 body html +439 +23378 2 416 body html +990 +27237 2 481 body html +36 +28972 2 513 body html +72 +law 2 +lawyer 3 diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/M.html b/lib/ebooks/devils/M.html new file mode 100644 index 00000000..dae028a0 --- /dev/null +++ b/lib/ebooks/devils/M.html @@ -0,0 +1,580 @@ + + + + + + +The Devil’s Dictionary: M + + + + +

M

+ +

mace, n. A staff +of office signifying authority. Its form, that of a heavy club, indicates its +original purpose and use in dissuading from dissent.

+ +

machination, n. The +method employed by one’s opponents in baffling one’s open and honorable efforts +to do the right thing.

+ +
+

So plain the advantages of machination

+

It constitutes a moral obligation,

+

And honest wolves who think upon’t with loathing

+

Feel bound to don the sheep’s deceptive clothing.

+

So prospers still the diplomatic art,

+

And Satan bows, with hand upon his heart.

+

R. S. K.

+
+ +

macrobian, n. One +forgotten of the gods and living to a great age. History is abundantly supplied +with examples, from Methuselah to Old Parr, but some notable instances of +longevity are less well known. A Calabrian peasant named Coloni, born in 1753, +lived so long that he had what he considered a glimpse of the dawn of universal +peace. Scanavius relates that he knew an archbishop who was so old that he +could remember a time when he did not deserve hanging. In 1566 a linen draper +of Bristol, England, declared that he had lived five hundred years, and that in +all that time he had never told a lie. There are instances of longevity +(macrobiosis) in our own country. Senator Chauncey Depew is old enough to +know better. The editor of The American, +a newspaper in New York City, has a memory that goes back to the time when he +was a rascal, but not to the fact. The President of the United States was born +so long ago that many of the friends of his youth have risen to high political +and military preferment without the assistance of personal merit. The verses +following were written by a macrobian:

+ +
+

When I was young the world was fair

+

And amiable and sunny.

+

A brightness was in all the air,

+

In all the waters, honey.

+

The jokes were fine and funny,

+

The statesmen honest in their views,

+

And in their lives, as well,

+

And when you heard a bit of news

+

‘Twas true enough to tell.

+

Men were not ranting, shouting, reeking,

+

Nor women “generally speaking.”

+

The Summer then was long indeed:

+

It lasted one whole season!

+

The sparkling Winter gave no heed

+

When ordered by Unreason

+

To bring the early peas on.

+

Now, where the dickens is the sense

+

In calling that a year

+

Which does no more than just commence

+

Before the end is near?

+

When I was young the year extended

+

From month to month until it ended.

+

I know not why the world has changed

+

To something dark and dreary,

+

And everything is now arranged

+

To make a fellow weary.

+

The Weather Man—I fear he

+

Has much to do with it, for, sure,

+

The air is not the same:

+

It chokes you when it is impure,

+

When pure it makes you lame.

+

With windows closed you are asthmatic;

+

Open, neuralgic or sciatic.

+

Well, I suppose this new regime

+

Of dun degeneration

+

Seems eviler than it would seem

+

To a better observation,

+

And has for compensation

+

Some blessings in a deep disguise

+

Which mortal sight has failed

+

To pierce, although to angels’ eyes

+

They’re visible unveiled.

+

If Age is such a boon, good land!

+

He’s costumed by a master hand!

+

Venable Strigg

+
+ +

mad, adj. Affected +with a high degree of intellectual independence; not conforming to standards of +thought, speech and action derived by the conformants from study of themselves; +at odds with the majority; in short, unusual. It is noteworthy that persons are +pronounced mad by officials destitute of evidence that themselves are sane. For +illustration, this present (and illustrious) lexicographer is no firmer in the +faith of his own sanity than is any inmate of any madhouse in the land; yet for +aught he knows to the contrary, instead of the lofty occupation that seems to +him to be engaging his powers he may really be beating his hands against the +window bars of an asylum and declaring himself Noah Webster, to the innocent +delight of many thoughtless spectators.

+ +

Magdalene, n. An +inhabitant of Magdala. Popularly, a woman found out. This definition of the +word has the authority of ignorance, Mary of Magdala being another person than +the penitent woman mentioned by St. Luke. It has also the official sanction of +the governments of Great Britain and the United States. In England the word is +pronounced Maudlin, whence maudlin, adjective, unpleasantly sentimental. With +their Maudlin for Magdalene, and their Bedlam for Bethlehem, the English may +justly boast themselves the greatest of revisers.

+ +

magic, n. An art +of converting superstition into coin. There are other arts serving the same +high purpose, but the discreet lexicographer does not name them.

+ +

magnet, n. Something +acted upon by magnetism.

+ +

magnetism, n. Something +acting upon a magnet.

+ +

The two definitions immediately foregoing are condensed from the works of one thousand +eminent scientists, who have illuminated the subject with a great white light, +to the inexpressible advancement of human knowledge.

+ +

magnificient, adj. Having +a grandeur or splendor superior to that to which the spectator is accustomed, +as the ears of an ass, to a rabbit, or the glory of a glowworm, to a maggot.

+ +

magnitude, n. Size. +Magnitude being purely relative, nothing is large and nothing small. If +everything in the universe were increased in bulk one thousand diameters +nothing would be any larger than it was before, but if one thing remain +unchanged all the others would be larger than they had been. To an +understanding familiar with the relativity of magnitude and distance the spaces +and masses of the astronomer would be no more impressive than those of the +microscopist. For anything we know to the contrary, the visible universe may be +a small part of an atom, with its component ions, floating in the life- fluid +(luminiferous ether) of some animal. Possibly the wee creatures peopling the +corpuscles of our own blood are overcome with the proper emotion when +contemplating the unthinkable distance from one of these to another.

+ +

magpie, n. A bird +whose thievish disposition suggested to someone that it might be taught to talk.

+ +

maiden, n. A young +person of the unfair sex addicted to clewless conduct and views that madden to +crime. The genus has a wide geographical distribution, being found wherever +sought and deplored wherever found. The maiden is not altogether unpleasing to +the eye, nor (without her piano and her views) insupportable to the ear, though +in respect to comeliness distinctly inferior to the rainbow, and, with regard +to the part of her that is audible, bleating out of the field by the +canary—which, also, is more portable.

+ +
+

A lovelorn maiden she sat and sang—

+

This quaint, sweet song sang she;

+

“It’s O for a youth with a football bang

+

And a muscle fair to see!

+

The Captain he

+

Of a team to be!

+

On the gridiron he shall shine,

+

A monarch by right divine,

+

And never to roast on it—me!”

+

Opoline Jones

+
+ +

majesty, n. The +state and title of a king. Regarded with a just contempt by the Most Eminent +Grand Masters, Grand Chancellors, Great Incohonees and Imperial Potentates of +the ancient and honorable orders of republican America.

+ +

male, n. A member +of the unconsidered, or negligible sex. The male of the human race is commonly +known (to the female) as Mere Man. The genus has two varieties: good providers +and bad providers.

+ +

malefactor, n. The +chief factor in the progress of the human race.

+ +

malthusian, adj. Pertaining +to Malthus and his doctrines. Malthus believed in artificially limiting +population, but found that it could not be done by talking. One of the most +practical exponents of the Malthusian idea was Herod of Judea, though all the +famous soldiers have been of the same way of thinking.

+ +

mammalia, n.pl. A +family of vertebrate animals whose females in a state of nature suckle their +young, but when civilized and enlightened put them out to nurse, or use the bottle.

+ +

Mammon, n. The god +of the world’s leading religion. The chief temple is in the holy city of New York.

+ +
+

He swore that all other religions were

+

gammon, And wore out his knees in the worship of Mammon.

+

Jared Oopf

+
+ +

man, n. An animal +so lost in rapturous contemplation of what he thinks he is as to overlook what +he indubitably ought to be. His chief occupation is extermination of other +animals and his own species, which, however, multiplies with such insistent +rapidity as to infest the whole habitable earh and Canada.

+ +
+

When the world was young and Man was new,

+

And everything was pleasant,

+

Distinctions Nature never drew

+

‘Mongst kings and priest and peasant.

+

We’re not that way at present,

+

Save here in this Republic, where

+

We have that old regime,

+

For all are kings, however bare

+

Their backs, howe’er extreme

+

Their hunger. And, indeed, each has a voice

+

To accept the tyrant of his party’s choice.

+

A citizen who would not vote,

+

And, therefore, was detested,

+

Was one day with a tarry coat

+

(With feathers backed and breasted)

+

By patriots invested.

+

“It is your duty,” cried the crowd,

+

“Your ballot true to cast

+

For the man o’ your choice.” He humbly bowed,

+

And explained his wicked past:

+

“That’s what I very gladly would have done, Dear patriots, but he has never run.”

+

Apperton Duke

+
+ +

manes, n. The +immortal parts of dead Greeks and Romans. They were in a state of dull +discomfort until the bodies from which they had exhaled were buried and burned; +and they seem not to have been particularly happy afterward.

+ +

Manicheism, n. The +ancient Persian doctrine of an incessant warfare between Good and Evil. When +Good gave up the fight the Persians joined the victorious Opposition.

+ +

Manna, n. A food +miraculously given to the Israelites in the wilderness. When it was no longer +supplied to them they settled down and tilled the soil, fertilizing it, as a +rule, with the bodies of the original occupants.

+ +

marriage, n. The +state or condition of a community consisting of a master, a mistress and two +slaves, making in all, two.

+ +

martyr, n. One who +moves along the line of least reluctance to a desired death.

+ +

material, adj. Having +an actual existence, as distinguished from an imaginary one. Important.

+ +
+

Material things I know, or fell, or see;

+

All else is immaterial to me.

+

Jamrach Holobom

+
+ +

mausoleum, n. The +final and funniest folly of the rich.

+ +

mayonnaise, n. One +of the sauces which serve the French in place of a state religion.

+ +

me, pro. The +objectionable case of I. The personal pronoun in English has three cases, the +dominative, the objectionable and the oppressive. Each is all three.

+ +

meander, n. To +proceed sinuously and aimlessly. The word is the ancient name of a river about +one hundred and fifty miles south of Troy, which turned and twisted in the +effort to get out of hearing when the Greeks and Trojans boasted of their prowess.

+ +

medal, n. A small +metal disk given as a reward for virtues, attainments or services more or less +authentic.

+ +

It is related of Bismark, who had been awarded a medal for gallantly rescuing a drowning person, +that, being asked the meaning of the medal, he replied: “I save lives +sometimes.” And sometimes he didn’t.

+ +

medicine, n. A stone +flung down the Bowery to kill a dog in Broadway.

+ +

meekness, n. Uncommon +patience in planning a revenge that is worth while.

+ +
+

M is for Moses,

+

Who slew the Egyptian.

+

As sweet as a rose is

+

The meekness of Moses.

+

No monument shows his

+

Post-mortem inscription,

+

But M is for Moses

+

Who slew the Egyptian.

+

The Biographical Alphabet

+
+ +

meerschaum, n. (Literally, +seafoam, and by many erroneously supposed to be made of it.) A fine white clay, +which for convenience in coloring it brown is made into tobacco pipes and smoked +by the workmen engaged in that industry. The purpose of coloring it has not +been disclosed by the manufacturers.

+ +
+

There was a youth (you’ve heard before,

+

This woeful tale, may be),

+

Who bought a meerschaum pipe and swore

+

That color it would he!

+

He shut himself from the world away,

+

Nor any soul he saw.

+

He smoke by night, he smoked by day,

+

As hard as he could draw.

+

His dog died moaning in the wrath

+

Of winds that blew aloof;

+

The weeds were in the gravel path,

+

The owl was on the roof.

+

“He’s gone afar, he’ll come no more,”

+

The neighbors sadly say.

+

And so they batter in the door

+

To take his goods away.

+

Dead, pipe in mouth, the youngster lay,

+

Nut-brown in face and limb.

+

“That pipe’s a lovely white,” they say,

+

“But it has colored him!”

+

The moral there’s small need to sing—

+

‘Tis plain as day to you:

+

Don’t play your game on any thing

+

That is a gamester too.

+

Martin Bulstrode

+
+ +

mendacious, adj. Addicted to rhetoric.

+ +

merchant, n. One +engaged in a commercial pursuit. A commercial pursuit is one in which the thing +pursued is a dollar.

+ +

mercy, n. An +attribute beloved of detected offenders.

+ +

mesmerism, n. Hypnotism +before it wore good clothes, kept a carriage and asked Incredulity to dinner.

+ +

metropolis, n. A +stronghold of provincialism.

+ +

millennium, n. The +period of a thousand years when the lid is to be screwed down, with all reformers on the under side.

+ +

mind, n. A +mysterious form of matter secreted by the brain. Its chief activity consists in +the endeavor to ascertain its own nature, the futility of the attempt being due +to the fact that it has nothing but itself to know itself with. From the Latin mens, a fact unknown to that honest +shoe-seller, who, observing that his learned competitor over the way had +displayed the motto “Mens conscia recti,” emblazoned his own front with the +words “Men’s, women’s and children’s conscia recti.”

+ +

mine, adj. Belonging +to me if I can hold or seize it.

+ +

minister, n. An +agent of a higher power with a lower responsibility. In diplomacy and officer +sent into a foreign country as the visible embodiment of his sovereign’s +hostility. His principal qualification is a degree of plausible inveracity next +below that of an ambassador.

+ +

minor, adj. Less +objectionable.

+ +

minstrel, adj. Formerly +a poet, singer or musician; now a nigger with a color less than skin deep and a +humor more than flesh and blood can bear.

+ +

miracle, n. An act +or event out of the order of nature and unaccountable, as beating a normal hand +of four kings and an ace with four aces and a king.

+ +

miscreant, n. A +person of the highest degree of unworth. Etymologically, the word means +unbeliever, and its present signification may be regarded as theology’s noblest +contribution to the development of our language.

+ +

misdemeanor, n. An +infraction of the law having less dignity than a felony and constituting no +claim to admittance into the best criminal society.

+ +
+

By misdemeanors he essays to climb

+

Into the aristocracy of crime.

+

O, woe was him!—with manner chill and grand “Captains of industry” refused his hand, “Kings of +finance” denied him recognition And “railway magnates” jeered his low +condition. He robbed a bank to make himself respected.

+

They still rebuffed him, for he was detected.

+

S. V. Hanipur

+
+ +

misericorde, n. A +dagger which in mediaeval warfare was used by the foot soldier to remind an +unhorsed knight that he was mortal.

+ +

misfortune, n. The +kind of fortune that never misses.

+ +

miss, n. The title +with which we brand unmarried women to indicate that they are in the market. Miss, +Missis (Mrs.) and Mister (Mr.) are the three most distinctly disagreeable words +in the language, in sound and sense. Two are corruptions of Mistress, the other +of Master. In the general abolition of social titles in this our country they +miraculously escaped to plague us. If we must have them let us be consistent +and give one to the unmarried man. I venture to suggest Mush, abbreviated to +Mh.

+ +

molecule, n. The +ultimate, indivisible unit of matter. It is distinguished from the corpuscle, +also the ultimate, indivisible unit of matter, by a closer resemblance to the +atom, also the ultimate, indivisible unit of matter. Three great scientific +theories of the structure of the universe are the molecular, the corpuscular +and the atomic. A fourth affirms, with Haeckel, the condensation of +precipitation of matter from ether—whose existence is proved by the +condensation of precipitation. The present trend of scientific thought is +toward the theory of ions. The ion differs from the molecule, the corpuscle and +the atom in that it is an ion. A fifth theory is held by idiots, but it is +doubtful if they know any more about the matter than the others.

+ +

monad, n. The +ultimate, indivisible unit of matter. (See Molecule.) +According to Leibnitz, as nearly as he seems willing to be understood, the +monad has body without bulk, and mind without manifestation—Leibnitz knows him +by the innate power of considering. He has founded upon him a theory of the +universe, which the creature bears without resentment, for the monad is a +gentlmean. Small as he is, the monad contains all the powers and possibilities +needful to his evolution into a German philosopher of the first class— +altogether a very capable little fellow. He is not to be confounded with the +microbe, or bacillus; by its inability to discern him, a good microscope shows +him to be of an entirely distinct species.

+ +

monarch, n. A +person engaged in reigning. Formerly the monarch ruled, as the derivation of +the word attests, and as many subjects have had occasion to learn. In Russia +and the Orient the monarch has still a considerable influence in public affairs +and in the disposition of the human head, but in western Europe political +administration is mostly entrusted to his ministers, he being somewhat +preoccupied with reflections relating to the status of his own head.

+ +

monarchical government, n. Government.

+ +

Monday, n. In +Christian countries, the day after the baseball game.

+ +

money, n. A +blessing that is of no advantage to us excepting when we part with it. An +evidence of culture and a passport to polite society. Supportable property.

+ +

monkey, n. An +arboreal animal which makes itself at home in genealogical trees.

+ +

monosyllabic, adj. +Composed of words of one syllable, for literary babes who never tire of +testifying their delight in the vapid compound by appropriate googoogling. The +words are commonly Saxon—that is to say, words of a barbarous people destitute +of ideas and incapable of any but the most elementary sentiments and emotions.

+ +
+

The man who writes in Saxon

+

Is the man to use an ax on

+

Judibras

+
+ +

monsignor, n. A +high ecclesiastical title, of which the Founder of our religion overlooked the advantages.

+ +

monument, n. A +structure intended to commemorate something which either needs no commemoration +or cannot be commemorated.

+ +
+

The bones of Agammemnon are a show,

+

And ruined is his royal monument,

+

but Agammemnon’s +fame suffers no diminution in consequence. The monument custom has its reductiones ad absurdum in monuments “to +the unknown dead”—that is to say, monuments to perpetuate the memory of those +who have left no memory.

+
+ +

moral, adj. Conforming +to a local and mutable standard of right.

+ +
+

Having the quality of general expediency.

+

It is sayd there +be a raunge of mountaynes in the Easte, on one syde of the which certayn +conducts are immorall, yet on the other syde they are holden in good esteeme; +wherebye the mountayneer is much conveenyenced, for it is given to him to goe +downe eyther way and act as it shall suite his moode, withouten offence.

+

Gooke’s Meditations

+
+ +

more, adj. The +comparative degree of too much.

+ +

mouse, n. An +animal which strews its path with fainting women. As in Rome Christians were +thrown to the lions, so centuries earlier in Otumwee, the most ancient and +famous city of the world, female heretics were thrown to the mice. Jakak-Zotp, +the historian, the only Otumwump whose writings have descended to us, says that +these martyrs met their death with little dignity and much exertion. He even +attempts to exculpate the mice (such is the malice of bigotry) by declaring +that the unfortunate women perished, some from exhaustion, some of broken necks +from falling over their own feet, and some from lack of restoratives. The mice, +he avers, enjoyed the pleasures of the chase with composure. But if “Roman +history is nine-tenths lying,” we can hardly expect a smaller proportion of +that rhetorical figure in the annals of a people capable of so incredible +cruelty to a lovely women; for a hard heart has a false tongue.

+ +

mousquetaire, n. A +long glove covering a part of the arm. Worn in New Jersey. But “mousquetaire” +is a might poor way to spell muskeeter.

+ +

mouth, n. In man, +the gateway to the soul; in woman, the outlet of the heart.

+ +

mugwump, n. In +politics one afflicted with self-respect and addicted to the vice of +independence. A term of contempt.

+ +

mulatto, n. A +child of two races, ashamed of both.

+ +

multitude, n. A +crowd; the source of political wisdom and virtue. In a republic, the object of +the statesman’s adoration. “In a multitude of consellors there is wisdom,” +saith the proverb. If many men of equal individual wisdom are wiser than any +one of them, it must be that they acquire the excess of wisdom by the mere act +of getting together. Whence comes it? Obviously from nowhere—as well say that a +range of mountains is higher than the single mountains composing it. A +multitude is as wise as its wisest member if it obey him; if not, it is no +wiser than its most foolish.

+ +

mummy, n. An +ancient Egyptian, formerly in universal use among modern civilized nations as +medicine, and now engaged in supplying art with an excellent pigment. He is +handy, too, in museums in gratifying the vulgar curiosity that serves to +distinguish man from the lower animals.

+ +
+

By means of the +Mummy, mankind, it is said, Attests to the gods its respect for the dead. We +plunder his tomb, be he sinner or saint, Distil him for physic and grind him +for paint, Exhibit for money his poor, shrunken frame, And with levity flock to +the scene of the shame.

+

O, tell me, ye gods, for the use of my rhyme:

+

For respecting the dead what’s the limit of time?

+

Scopas Brune

+
+ +

mustang, n. An +indocile horse of the western plains. In English society, the American wife of +an English nobleman.

+ +

myrmidon, n. A +follower of Achilles—particularly when he didn’t lead.

+ +

mythology, n. The +body of a primitive people’s beliefs concerning its origin, early history, +heroes, deities and so forth, as distinguished from the true accounts which it +invents later.

+ + + \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/M.html.annot b/lib/ebooks/devils/M.html.annot new file mode 100644 index 00000000..e69de29b diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/M.html.i b/lib/ebooks/devils/M.html.i new file mode 100644 index 00000000..033f6e87 --- /dev/null +++ b/lib/ebooks/devils/M.html.i @@ -0,0 +1,46 @@ +21 pages +size 400 552 +length 31261 +396 2 10 body html +0 +1279 2 33 body html +90 +2468 2 50 body html +324 +2468 2 50 body html +864 +2468 2 50 body html +1404 +5710 2 110 body html +90 +7282 2 137 body html +226 +8950 2 162 body html +324 +11206 2 207 body html +0 +11585 2 213 body html +451 +13420 2 247 body html +39 +15429 2 287 body html +34 +16387 2 309 body html +73 +16760 2 315 body html +523 +18848 2 358 body html +0 +20940 2 394 body html +39 +22560 2 424 body html +56 +24843 2 458 body html +22 +26303 2 487 body html +108 +27455 2 512 body html +226 +30146 2 556 body html +87 +male 7 diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/N.html b/lib/ebooks/devils/N.html new file mode 100644 index 00000000..06a84161 --- /dev/null +++ b/lib/ebooks/devils/N.html @@ -0,0 +1,130 @@ + + + + + + +The Devil’s Dictionary: N + + + + +

N

+ +

nectar, n. A drink +served at banquets of the Olympian deities. The secret of its preparation is +lost, but the modern Kentuckians believe that they come pretty near to a +knowledge of its chief ingredient.

+ +
+

Juno drank a cup of nectar,

+

But the draught did not affect her.

+

Juno drank a cup of rye—

+

Then she bad herself good-bye.

+

J. G.

+
+ +

negro, n. The piece de resistance in the American +political problem. Representing him by the letter n, the Republicans begin to +build their equation thus: “Let n = the white man.” This, however, appears to +give an unsatisfactory solution.

+ +

neighbor, n. One +whom we are commanded to love as ourselves, and who does all he knows how to +make us disobedient.

+ +

nepotism, n. Appointing +your grandmother to office for the good of the party.

+ +

Newtonian, adj. Pertaining +to a philosophy of the universe invented by Newton, who discovered that an +apple will fall to the ground, but was unable to say why. His successors and +disciples have advanced so far as to be able to say when.

+ +

nihilist, n. A +Russian who denies the existence of anything but Tolstoi. The leader of the +school is Tolstoi.

+ +

Nirvana, n. In the +Buddhist religion, a state of pleasurable annihilation awarded to the wise, +particularly to those wise enough to understand it.

+ +

nobleman, n. Nature’s +provision for wealthy American minds ambitious to incur social distinction and +suffer high life.

+ +

noise, n. A stench +in the ear. Undomesticated music. The chief product and authenticating sign of +civilization.

+ +

nominate, v. To +designate for the heaviest political assessment. To put forward a suitable +person to incur the mudgobbling and deadcatting of the opposition.

+ +

nominee, n. A +modest gentleman shrinking from the distinction of private life and diligently +seeking the honorable obscurity of public office.

+ +

non-combatant, n. A +dead Quaker.

+ +

nonsense, n. The +objections that are urged against this excellent dictionary.

+ +

nose, n. The +extreme outpost of the face. From the circumstance that great conquerors have +great noses, Getius, whose writings antedate the age of humor, calls the nose +the organ of quell. It has been observed that one’s nose is never so happy as +when thrust into the affairs of others, from which some physiologists have +drawn the inference that the nose is devoid of the sense of smell.

+ +
+

There’s a man with a Nose,

+

And wherever he goes

+

The people run from him and shout:

+

“No cotton have we

+

For our ears if so be

+

He blow that interminous snout!”

+

So the lawyers applied

+

For injunction. “Denied,”

+

Said the Judge: “the defendant prefixion,

+

Whate’er it portend,

+

Appears to transcend

+

The bounds of this court’s jurisdiction.”

+

Arpad Singiny

+
+ +

notoriety, n. The +fame of one’s competitor for public honors. The kind of renown most accessible +and acceptable to mediocrity. A Jacob’s-ladder leading to the vaudeville stage, +with angels ascending and descending.

+ +

noumenon, n. That +which exists, as distinguished from that which merely seems to exist, the +latter being a phenomenon. The noumenon is a bit difficult to locate; it can be +apprehended only be a process of reasoning—which is a phenomenon. Nevertheless, +the discovery and exposition of noumena offer a rich field for what Lewes calls +“the endless variety and excitement of philosophic thought.” Hurrah (therefore) +for the noumenon!

+ +

novel, n. A short +story padded. A species of composition bearing the same relation to literature +that the panorama bears to art. As it is too long to be read at a sitting the +impressions made by its successive parts are successively effaced, as in the +panorama. Unity, totality of effect, is impossible; for besides the few pages +last read all that is carried in mind is the mere plot of what has gone before. +To the romance the novel is what photography is to painting. Its distinguishing +principle, probability, corresponds to the literal actuality of the photograph +and puts it distinctly into the category of reporting; whereas the free wing of +the romancer enables him to mount to such altitudes of imagination as he may be +fitted to attain; and the first three essentials of the literary art are +imagination, imagination and imagination. The art of writing novels, such as it +was, is long dead everywhere except in Russia, where it is new. Peace to its +ashes—some of which have a large sale.

+ +

November, n. The +eleventh twelfth of a weariness.

+ + + \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/N.html.annot b/lib/ebooks/devils/N.html.annot new file mode 100644 index 00000000..e69de29b diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/N.html.i b/lib/ebooks/devils/N.html.i new file mode 100644 index 00000000..48c06abd --- /dev/null +++ b/lib/ebooks/devils/N.html.i @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +4 pages +size 400 552 +length 6554 +396 2 10 body html +0 +1613 2 40 body html +22 +3863 2 82 body html +19 +4833 2 103 body html +0 diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/O.html b/lib/ebooks/devils/O.html new file mode 100644 index 00000000..ce553be6 --- /dev/null +++ b/lib/ebooks/devils/O.html @@ -0,0 +1,304 @@ + + + + + + +The Devil’s Dictionary: O + + + + +

O

+ +

oath, n. In law, a +solemn appeal to the Deity, made binding upon the conscience by a penalty for +perjury.

+ +

oblivion, n. The +state or condition in which the wicked cease from struggling and the dreary are +at rest. Fame’s eternal dumping ground. Cold storage for high hopes. A place +where ambitious authors meet their works without pride and their betters +without envy. A dormitory without an alarm clock.

+ +

observatory, n. A +place where astronomers conjecture away the guesses of their predecessors.

+ +

obsessed, p.p. Vexed +by an evil spirit, like the Gadarene swine and other critics. Obsession was once +more common than it is now. Arasthus tells of a peasant who was occupied by a +different devil for every day in the week, and on Sundays by two. They were +frequently seen, always walking in his shadow, when he had one, but were +finally driven away by the village notary, a holy man; but they took the +peasant with them, for he vanished utterly. A devil thrown out of a woman by +the Archbishop of Rheims ran through the trees, pursued by a hundred persons, +until the open country was reached, where by a leap higher than a church spire +he escaped into a bird. A chaplain in Cromwell’s army exorcised a soldier’s +obsessing devil by throwing the soldier into the water, when the devil came to +the surface. The soldier, unfortunately, did not.

+ +

obsolete, adj. No longer +used by the timid. Said chiefly of words. A word which some lexicographer has +marked obsolete is ever thereafter an object of dread and loathing to the fool +writer, but if it is a good word and has no exact modern equivalent equally +good, it is good enough for the good writer. Indeed, a writer’s attitude toward +“obsolete” words is as true a measure of his literary ability as anything +except the character of his work. A dictionary of obsolete and obsolescent +words would not only be singularly rich in strong and sweet parts of speech; it +would add large possessions to the vocabulary of every competent writer who +might not happen to be a competent reader.

+ +

obstinate, adj. Inaccessible +to the truth as it is manifest in the splendor and stress of our advocacy.

+ +

The popular type and exponent of obstinacy is the mule, a most intelligent animal.

+ +

occasional, adj. Afflicting us with +greater or less frequency. That, however, is not the sense in which the word is used in the phrase +“occasional verses,” which are verses written for an “occasion,” such as an anniversary, a celebration or +other event. True, they afflict us a little worse than other sorts of verse, but their name has no reference to +irregular recurrence.

+ +

occident, n. The +part of the world lying west (or east) of the Orient. It is largely inhabited +by Christians, a powerful subtribe of the Hypocrites, whose principal +industries are murder and cheating, which they are pleased to call “war” and +“commerce.” These, also, are the principal industries of the Orient.

+ +

ocean, n. A body +of water occupying about two-thirds of a world made for man—who has no gills.

+ +

offensive, adj. Generating +disagreeable emotions or sensations, as the advance of an army against its enemy.

+ +

“Were the enemy’s tactics offensive?” the king asked. “I should say so!” replied the unsuccessful +general. “The blackguard wouldn’t come out of his works!”

+ +

old, adj. In that +stage of usefulness which is not inconsistent with general inefficiency, as an old man. Discredited by lapse of time and +offensive to the popular taste, as an old +book.

+ +
+

“Old books? The devil take them!” Goby said.

+

“Fresh every day must be my books and bread.”

+

Nature herself approves the Goby rule

+

And gives us every moment a fresh fool.

+

Harley Shum

+
+ +

oleginous, adj. Oily, +smooth, sleek.

+ +

Disraeli once described the manner of Bishop Wilberforce as “unctuous, oleaginous, +saponaceous.” And the good prelate was ever afterward known as Soapy Sam. For +every man there is something in the vocabulary that would stick to him like a +second skin. His enemies have only to find it.

+ +

Olympian, adj. Relating +to a mountain in Thessaly, once inhabited by gods, now a repository of +yellowing newspapers, beer bottles and mutilated sardine cans, attesting the +presence of the tourist and his appetite.

+ +
+

His name the smirking tourist scrawls

+

Upon Minerva’s temple walls,

+

Where thundered once Olympian Zeus,

+

And marks his appetite’s abuse.

+

Averil Joop

+
+ +

omen, n. A sign +that something will happen if nothing happens.

+ +

once, adv. Enough.

+ +

opera, n. A play +representing life in another world, whose inhabitants have no speech but song, +no motions but gestures and no postures but attitudes. All acting is +simulation, and the word simulation is from simia, an ape; but in +opera the actor takes for his model Simia audibilis (or Pithecanthropos +stentor)—the ape that howls.

+ +
+

The actor apes a man—at least in shape;

+

The opera performer apes and ape.

+
+ +

Opiate, n. An +unlocked door in the prison of Identity. It leads into the jail yard.

+ +

opportunity, n. A +favorable occasion for grasping a disappointment.

+ +

oppose, v. To +assist with obstructions and objections.

+ +
+

How lonely he who thinks to vex

+

With bandinage the Solemn Sex!

+

Of levity, Mere Man, beware;

+

None but the Grave deserve the Unfair.

+

Percy P. Orminder

+
+ +

opposition, n. In +politics the party that prevents the Government from running amuck by hamstringing it.

+ +

The King of Ghargaroo, who had been abroad to study the science of government, appointed +one hundred of his fattest subjects as members of a parliament to make laws for +the collection of revenue. Forty of these he named the Party of Opposition and +had his Prime Minister carefully instruct them in their duty of opposing every +royal measure. Nevertheless, the first one that was submitted passed unanimously. +Greatly displeased, the King vetoed it, informing the Opposition that if they +did that again they would pay for their obstinacy with their heads. The entire +forty promptly disemboweled themselves.

+ +

“What shall we do now?” the King asked. “Liberal institutions cannot be maintained without a +party of Opposition.”

+ +

“Splendor of the universe,” replied the Prime Minister, “it is true these dogs of darkness have +no longer their credentials, but all is not lost. Leave the matter to this worm of the dust.”

+ +

So the Minister had the bodies of his Majesty’s Opposition embalmed and stuffed with straw, put +back into the seats of power and nailed there. Forty votes were recorded +against every bill and the nation prospered. But one day a bill imposing a tax +on warts was defeated—the members of the Government party had not been nailed +to their seats! This so enraged the King that the Prime Minister was put to +death, the parliament was dissolved with a battery of artillery, and government +of the people, by the people, for the people perished from Ghargaroo.

+ +

optimism, n. The +doctrine, or belief, that everything is beautiful, including what is ugly, +everything good, especially the bad, and everything right that is wrong. It is +held with greatest tenacity by those most accustomed to the mischance of +falling into adversity, and is most acceptably expounded with the grin that +apes a smile. Being a blind faith, it is inaccessible to the light of +disproof—an intellectual disorder, yielding to no treatment but death. It is +hereditary, but fortunately not contagious.

+ +

optimist, n. A proponent of the +doctrine that black is white.

+ +

A pessimist applied to God for relief.

+

“Ah, you wish me to restore your hope and cheerfulness,” said God.

+

“No,” replied the petitioner, “I wish you to create something that would justify them.”

+

“The world is all created,” said God, “but you have overlooked something—the mortality of the optimist.”

+ +

oratory, n. A +conspiracy between speech and action to cheat the understanding. A tyranny +tempered by stenography.

+ +

orphan, n. A +living person whom death has deprived of the power of filial ingratitude—a +privation appealing with a particular eloquence to all that is sympathetic in +human nature. When young the orphan is commonly sent to an asylum, where by +careful cultivation of its rudimentary sense of locality it is taught to know +its place. It is then instructed in the arts of dependence and servitude and +eventually turned loose to prey upon the world as a bootblack or scullery maid.

+ +

orthodox, n. An ox +wearing the popular religious joke.

+ +

orthography, n. The +science of spelling by the eye instead of the ear. Advocated with more heat +than light by the outmates of every asylum for the insane. They have had to +concede a few things since the time of Chaucer, but are none the less hot in +defence of those to be conceded hereafter.

+ +
+

A spelling reformer indicted

+

For fudge was before the court cicted.

+

The judge said: “Enough—

+

His candle we’ll snough,

+

And his sepulchre shall not be whicted.”

+
+ +

ostrich, n. A large +bird to which (for its sins, doubtless) nature has denied that hinder toe in +which so many pious naturalists have seen a conspicuous evidence of design. The +absence of a good working pair of wings is no defect, for, as has been +ingeniously pointed out, the ostrich does not fly.

+ +

otherwise, adv. No better.

+ +

outcome, n. A +particular type of disappointment. By the kind of intelligence that sees in an +exception a proof of the rule the wisdom of an act is judged by the outcome, +the result. This is immortal nonsense; the wisdom of an act is to be juded by +the light that the doer had when he performed it.

+ +

outdo, v.t. To +make an enemy.

+ +

out-of-doors, n. That +part of one’s environment upon which no government has been able to collect +taxes. Chiefly useful to inspire poets.

+ +
+

I climbed to the top of a mountain one day

+

To see the sun setting in glory,

+

And I thought, as I looked at his vanishing ray,

+

Of a perfectly splendid story.

+

‘Twas about an old man and the ass he bestrode

+

Till the strength of the beast was o’ertested;

+

Then the man would carry him miles on the road

+

Till Neddy was pretty well rested.

+

The moon rising solemnly over the crest

+

Of the hills to the east of my station

+

Displayed her broad disk to the darkening west

+

Like a visible new creation.

+

And I thought of a joke (and I laughed till I cried)

+

Of an idle young woman who tarried

+

About a church-door for a look at the bride,

+

Although ‘twas herself that was married.

+

To poets all Nature is pregnant with grand

+

Ideas—with thought and emotion.

+

I pity the dunces who don’t understand

+

The speech of earth, heaven and ocean.

+

Stromboli Smith

+
+ +

ovation, n. n +ancient Rome, a definite, formal pageant in honor of one who had been +disserviceable to the enemies of the nation. A lesser “triumph.” In modern +English the word is improperly used to signify any loose and spontaneous +expression of popular homage to the hero of the hour and place.

+ +
+

“I had an ovation!” the actor man said,

+

But I thought it uncommonly queer,

+

That people and critics by him had been led

+

By the ear.

+

The Latin lexicon makes his absurd

+

Assertion as plain as a peg;

+

In “ovum” we find the true root of the word.

+

It means egg.

+

Dudley Spink

+
+ +

overeat, v. To +dine.

+ +
+

Hail, Gastronome, Apostle of Excess, Well skilled to overeat without distress!

+

Thy great invention, the unfatal feast,

+

Shows Man’s superiority to Beast.

+

John Boop

+
+ +

overwork, n. A +dangerous disorder affecting high public functionaries who want to go fishing.

+ +

owe, v. To have +(and to hold) a debt. The word formerly signified not indebtedness, but possession; +it meant “own,” and in the minds of debtors there is still a good deal of +confusion between assets and liabilities.

+ +

oyster, n. A +slimy, gobby shellfish which civilization gives men the hardihood to eat +without removing its entrails! The shells are sometimes given to the poor.

+ + + \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/O.html.annot b/lib/ebooks/devils/O.html.annot new file mode 100644 index 00000000..e69de29b diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/O.html.i b/lib/ebooks/devils/O.html.i new file mode 100644 index 00000000..342aa190 --- /dev/null +++ b/lib/ebooks/devils/O.html.i @@ -0,0 +1,25 @@ +11 pages +size 400 552 +length 16292 +396 2 10 body html +0 +2042 2 41 body html +39 +4269 2 75 body html +0 +5743 2 104 body html +0 +7267 2 138 body html +0 +8683 2 164 body html +0 +10316 2 189 body html +0 +11848 2 218 body html +56 +13002 2 239 body html +324 +14705 2 269 body html +0 +15582 2 291 body html +0 diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/P.html b/lib/ebooks/devils/P.html new file mode 100644 index 00000000..347a3e1f --- /dev/null +++ b/lib/ebooks/devils/P.html @@ -0,0 +1,653 @@ + + + + + + +The Devil’s Dictionary: P + + + + +

P

+ +

pain, n. An +uncomfortable frame of mind that may have a physical basis in something that is +being done to the body, or may be purely mental, caused by the good fortune of +another.

+ +

painting, n. The +art of protecting flat surfaces from the weather and exposing them to the critic.

+ +

Formerly, painting and sculpture were combined in the same work:

+ +

the ancients painted their statues. The only present alliance between the two arts is that +the modern painter chisels his patrons.

+ +

palace, n. A fine +and costly residence, particularly that of a great official. The residence of a +high dignitary of the Christian Church is called a palace; that of the Founder +of his religion was known as a field, or wayside. There is progress.

+ +

palm, n. A species +of tree having several varieties, of which the familiar “itching palm” (Palma +hominis) is most widely distributed and sedulously cultivated. This noble +vegetable exudes a kind of invisible gum, which may be detected by applying to +the bark a piece of gold or silver. The metal will adhere with remarkable +tenacity. The fruit of the itching palm is so bitter and unsatisfying that a +considerable percentage of it is sometimes given away in what are known as +“benefactions.”

+ +

palmistry, n. The +947th method (according to Mimbleshaw’s classification) of obtaining +money by false pretences. It consists in “reading character” in the wrinkles +made by closing the hand. The pretence is not altogether false; character can +really be read very accurately in this way, for the wrinkles in every hand +submitted plainly spell the word “dupe.” The imposture consists in not reading +it aloud.

+ +

pandemonium , n. Literally, +the Place of All the Demons. Most of them have escaped into politics and +finance, and the place is now used as a lecture hall by the Audible Reformer. When +disturbed by his voice the ancient echoes clamor appropriate responses most +gratifying to his pride of distinction.

+ +

pantaloons, n. A +nether habiliment of the adult civilized male. The garment is tubular and +unprovided with hinges at the points of flexion. Supposed to have been invented +by a humorist. Called “trousers” by the enlightened and “pants” by the +unworthy.

+ +

pantheism, n. The +doctrine that everything is God, in contradistinction to the doctrine that God is everything.

+ +

pantomime, n. A +play in which the story is told without violence to the language. The least +disagreeable form of dramatic action.

+ +

pardon, v. To +remit a penalty and restore to the life of crime. To add to the lure of crime +the temptation of ingratitude.

+ +

passport, n. A +document treacherously inflicted upon a citizen going abroad, exposing him as +an alien and pointing him out for special reprobation and outrage.

+ +

past, n. That part +of Eternity with some small fraction of which we have a slight and regrettable +acquaintance. A moving line called the Present parts it from an imaginary +period known as the Future. These two grand divisions of Eternity, of which the +one is continually effacing the other, are entirely unlike. The one is dark +with sorrow and disappointment, the other bright with prosperity and joy. The +Past is the region of sobs, the Future is the realm of song. In the one +crouches Memory, clad in sackcloth and ashes, mumbling penitential prayer; in +the sunshine of the other Hope flies with a free wing, beckoning to temples of +success and bowers of ease. Yet the Past is the Future of yesterday, the Future +is the Past of to-morrow. They are one—the knowledge and the dream.

+ +

pastime, n. A +device for promoting dejection. Gentle exercise for intellectual debility.

+ +

patience, n. A +minor form of despair, disguised as a virtue.

+ +

patriot, n. One to +whom the interests of a part seem superior to those of the whole. The dupe of +statesmen and the tool of conquerors.

+ +

patriotism, n. Combustible +rubbish read to the torch of any one ambitious to illuminate his name.

+ +

In Dr. Johnson’s famous dictionary patriotism is defined as the last resort of a scoundrel. With +all due respect to an enlightened but inferior lexicographer I beg to submit +that it is the first.

+ +

peace, n. In +international affairs, a period of cheating between two periods of fighting.

+ +
+

O, what’s the loud uproar assailing

+

Mine ears without cease?

+

‘Tis the voice of the hopeful, all-hailing

+

The horrors of peace.

+

Ah, Peace Universal; they woo it—

+

Would marry it, too.

+

If only they knew how to do it

+

‘Twere easy to do.

+

They’re working by night and by day

+

On their problem, like moles.

+

Have mercy, O Heaven, I pray,

+

On their meddlesome souls!

+

Ro Amil

+
+ +

pedestrian, n. The +variable (an audible) part of the roadway for an automobile.

+ +

pedigree, n. The +known part of the route from an arboreal ancestor with a swim bladder to an +urban descendant with a cigarette.

+ +

penitentN, adj. Undergoing +or awaiting punishment.

+ +

perfection, n. An +imaginary state of quality distinguished from the actual by an element known as +excellence; an attribute of the critic.

+ +

The editor of an English magazine having received a letter pointing out the erroneous nature of +his views and style, and signed “Perfection,” promptly wrote at the foot of the +letter: “I don’t agree with you,” and mailed it to Matthew Arnold.

+ +

peripatetic, adj. Walking +about. Relating to the philosophy of Aristotle, who, while expounding it, moved +from place to place in order to avoid his pupil’s objections. A needless +precaution—they knew no more of the matter than he.

+ +

peroration, n. The +explosion of an oratorical rocket. It dazzles, but to an observer having the +wrong kind of nose its most conspicuous peculiarity is the smell of the several +kinds of powder used in preparing it.

+ +

perseverance, n. A +lowly virtue whereby mediocrity achieves an inglorious success.

+ +
+

“Persevere, persevere!” cry the homilists all,
+Themselves, day and night, persevering to bawl.
+“Remember the fable of tortoise and hare—

+

The one at the goal while the other is—where?”
+Why, back there in Dreamland, renewing his lease
+Of life, all his muscles preserving the peace,
+The goal and the rival forgotten alike,
+And the long fatigue of the needless hike.

+

His spirit a-squat in the grass and the dew

+

Of the dogless Land beyond the Stew,

+

He sleeps, like a saint in a holy place,

+

A winner of all that is good in a race.

+

Sukker Uffro

+
+ +

pessimism, n. A +philosophy forced upon the convictions of the observer by the disheartening +prevalence of the optimist with his scarecrow hope and his unsightly smile.

+ +

philanthropist, n. +A rich (and usually bald) old gentleman who has trained himself to grin while +his conscience is picking his pocket.

+ +

philistine, n. One +whose mind is the creature of its environment, following the fashion in +thought, feeling and sentiment. He is sometimes learned, frequently prosperous, +commonly clean and always solemn.

+ +

philosophy, n. A +route of many roads leading from nowhere to nothing.

+ +

Phoenix, n. The classical +prototype of the modern “small hot bird.”

+ +

phonograph, n. An +irritating toy that restores life to dead noises.

+ +

photograph, n. A +picture painted by the sun without instruction in art. It is a little better +than the work of an Apache, but not quite so good as that of a Cheyenne.

+ +

phrenology, n. The +science of picking the pocket through the scalp. It consists in locating and +exploiting the organ that one is a dupe with.

+ +

physician, n. One +upon whom we set our hopes when ill and our dogs when well.

+ +

physiognomy, n. The +art of determining the character of another by the resemblances and differences +between his face and our own, which is the standard of excellence.

+ +
+

“There is no art,” says Shakespeare, foolish man,

+

“To read the mind’s construction in the face.”

+

The physiognomists his portrait scan,

+

And say: “How little wisdom here we trace! He knew his face disclosed his mind and heart, So, +in his own defence, denied our art.”

+

Lavatar Shunk

+
+ +

piano, n. A parlor +utensil for subduing the impenitent visitor. It is operated by pressing the +keys of the machine and the spirits of the audience.

+ +

pickaninny, n. The +young of the Procyanthropos, or Americanus dominans. It is small, black and charged with political +fatalities.

+ +

picture, n. A +representation in two dimensions of something wearisome in three.

+ +
+

“Behold great Daubert’s picture here on view—

+

Taken from Life.” If that description’s true, Grant, heavenly Powers, that I be taken, too.

+

Jali Hane

+
+ +

pie, n. An advance +agent of the reaper whose name is Indigestion.

+ +
+

Cold pie was highly esteemed by the remains.

+

Rev. Dr. Mucker

+

(in a funeral sermon over a British nobleman)

+

Cold pie is a detestable

+

American comestible.

+

That’s why I’m done—or undone—

+

So far from that dear London.

+

(from the headstone of a British nobleman in Kalamazoo)

+
+ +

piety, n. Reverence +for the Supreme Being, based upon His supposed resemblance to man.

+ +
+

The pig is taught by sermons and epistles
+To think the God of Swine has snout and bristles.

+

Judibras

+
+ +

pig, n. An animal +(Porcus omnivorus) closely allied to the human race by the splendor and +vivacity of its appetite, which, however, is inferior in scope, for it sticks +at pig.

+ +

pigmy, n. One of a +tribe of very small men found by ancient travelers in many parts of the world, +but by modern in Central Africa only. The Pigmies are so called to distinguish +them from the bulkier Caucasians—who are Hogmies.

+ +

Pilgrim, n. A +traveler that is taken seriously. A Pilgrim Father was one who, leaving Europe +in 1620 because not permitted to sing psalms through his nose, followed it to +Massachusetts, where he could personate God according to the dictates of his +conscience.

+ +

pillory, n. A +mechanical device for inflicting personal distinction—prototype of the +modern newspaper conducted by persons of austere virtues and blameless lives.

+ +

piracy, n. Commerce +without its folly-swaddles, just as God made it.

+ +

pitiful, adj. The +state of an enemy of opponent after an imaginary encounter with oneself.

+ +

pity, n. A failing +sense of exemption, inspired by contrast.

+ +

plagiarism, n. A +literary coincidence compounded of a discreditable priority and an honorable subsequence.

+ +

plagiarize, v. To +take the thought or style of another writer whom one has never, never read.

+ +

plague, n. In +ancient times a general punishment of the innocent for admonition of their +ruler, as in the familiar instance of Pharaoh the Immune. The plague as we of +to-day have the happiness to know it is merely Nature’s fortuitous +manifestation of her purposeless objectionableness.

+ +

plan, v.t. To +bother about the best method of accomplishing an accidental result.

+ +

platitude, n. The +fundamental element and special glory of popular literature. A thought that +snores in words that smoke. The wisdom of a million fools in the diction of a +dullard. A fossil sentiment in artificial rock. A moral without the fable. All +that is mortal of a departed truth. A demi-tasse of milk-and-mortality. The +Pope’s-nose of a featherless peacock. A jelly-fish withering on the shore of +the sea of thought. The cackle surviving the egg. A desiccated epigram.

+ +

platonic, adj. Pertaining +to the philosophy of Socrates. Platonic Love is a fool’s name for the affection +between a disability and a frost.

+ +

plaudits, n. Coins +with which the populace pays those who tickle and devour it.

+ +

please, v. To lay +the foundation for a superstructure of imposition.

+ +

pleasure, n. The +least hateful form of dejection.

+ +

plebeian, n. An +ancient Roman who in the blood of his country stained nothing but his hands. Distinguished +from the Patrician, who was a saturated solution.

+ +

plebiscite, n. A +popular vote to ascertain the will of the sovereign.

+ +

plenipotentiary, adj. Having full power. +A Minister Plenipotentiary is a diplomatist possessing +absolute authority on condition that he never exert it.

+ +

pleonasm, n. An +army of words escorting a corporal of thought.

+ +

plow, n. An +implement that cries aloud for hands accustomed to the pen.

+ +

plunder, v. To +take the property of another without observing the decent and customary +reticences of theft. To effect a change of ownership with the candid +concomitance of a brass band. To wrest the wealth of A from B and leave C +lamenting a vanishing opportunity.

+ +

pocket, n. The +cradle of motive and the grave of conscience. In woman this organ is lacking; +so she acts without motive, and her conscience, denied burial, remains ever +alive, confessing the sins of others.

+ +

poetry, n. A form +of expression peculiar to the Land beyond the Magazines.

+ +

poker, n. A game +said to be played with cards for some purpose to this lexicographer unknown.

+ +

police, n. An +armed force for protection and participation.

+ +

politeness, n. The +most acceptable hypocrisy.

+ +

politics, n. A +strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of +public affairs for private advantage.

+ +

politician, n. An +eel in the fundamental mud upon which the superstructure of organized society +is reared. When we wriggles he mistakes the agitation of his tail for the +trembling of the edifice. As compared with the statesman, he suffers the +disadvantage of being alive.

+ +

polygamy, n. A +house of atonement, or expiatory chapel, fitted with several stools of +repentance, as distinguished from monogamy, which has but one.

+ +

populist, n. A +fossil patriot of the early agricultural period, found in the old red soapstone +underlying Kansas; characterized by an uncommon spread of ear, which some +naturalists contend gave him the power of flight, though Professors Morse and +Whitney, pursuing independent lines of thought, have ingeniously pointed out +that had he possessed it he would have gone elsewhere. In the picturesque +speech of his period, some fragments of which have come down to us, he was +known as “The Matter with Kansas.”

+ +

portable, adj. Exposed +to a mutable ownership through vicissitudes of possession.

+ +
+

His light estate, if neither he did make it
+Nor yet its former guardian forsake it,
+Is portable improperly, I take it.

+

Worgum Slupsky

+
+ +

Portuguese, n.pl. A +species of geese indigenous to Portugal. They are mostly without feathers and +imperfectly edible, even when stuffed with garlic.

+ +

positive, adj. Mistaken +at the top of one’s voice.

+ +

positivism, n. A +philosophy that denies our knowledge of the Real and affirms our ignorance of +the Apparent. Its longest exponent is Comte, its broadest Mill and its thickest +Spencer.

+ +

posterity, n. An +appellate court which reverses the judgment of a popular author’s +contemporaries, the appellant being his obscure competitor.

+ +

potable, n. Suitable +for drinking. Water is said to be potable; indeed, some declare it our natural +beverage, although even they find it palatable only when suffering from the +recurrent disorder known as thirst, for which it is a medicine. Upon nothing +has so great and diligent ingenuity been brought to bear in all ages and in all +countries, except the most uncivilized, as upon the invention of substitutes +for water. To hold that this general aversion to that liquid has no basis in +the preservative instinct of the race is to be unscientific—and without science +we are as the snakes and toads.

+ +

poverty, n. A file +provided for the teeth of the rats of reform. The number of plans for its +abolition equals that of the reformers who suffer from it, plus that of the +philosophers who know nothing about it. Its victims are distinguished by +possession of all the virtues and by their faith in leaders seeking to conduct +them into a prosperity where they believe these to be unknown.

+ +

pray, v. To ask +that the laws of the universe be annulled in behalf of a single petitioner +confessedly unworthy.

+ +

Pre-Adamite, n. One +of an experimental and apparently unsatisfactory race of antedated Creation and +lived under conditions not easily conceived. Melsius believed them to have +inhabited “the Void” and to have been something intermediate between fishes and +birds. Little its known of them beyond the fact that they supplied Cain with a +wife and theologians with a controversy.

+ +

precedent, n. In +Law, a previous decision, rule or practice which, in the absence of a definite +statute, has whatever force and authority a Judge may choose to give it, +thereby greatly simplifying his task of doing as he pleases. As there are +precedents for everything, he has only to ignore those that make against his +interest and accentuate those in the line of his desire. Invention of the +precedent elevates the trial-at-law from the low estate of a fortuitous ordeal +to the noble attitude of a dirigible arbitrament.

+ +

precipitate, adj. Anteprandial.

+ +
+

Precipitate in all, this sinner

+

Took action first, and then his dinner.

+

Judibras

+
+ +

predestination, n. +The doctrine that all things occur according to programme. This doctrine should +not be confused with that of foreordination, which means that all things are +programmed, but does not affirm their occurrence, that being only an +implication from other doctrines by which this is entailed. The difference is +great enough to have deluged Christendom with ink, to say nothing of the gore. With +the distinction of the two doctrines kept well in mind, and a reverent belief +in both, one may hope to escape perdition if spared.

+ +

predicament, n. The +wage of consistency.

+ +

predilection, n. The +preparatory stage of disillusion.

+ +

pre-existence, n. An +unnoted factor in creation.

+ +

preference, n. A +sentiment, or frame of mind, induced by the erroneous belief that one thing is +better than another.

+ +

An ancient philosopher, expounding his conviction that life is no better than death, was +asked by a disciple why, then, he did not die. “Because,” he replied, “death is +no better than life.” It is longer.

+ +

prehistoric, adj. Belonging +to an early period and a museum.

+ +
+

Antedating the art and practice of perpetuating falsehood.

+

He lived in a period prehistoric,

+

When all was absurd and phantasmagoric.

+

Born later, when Clio, celestial recorded,

+

Set down great events in succession and order,

+

He surely had seen nothing droll or fortuitous

+

In anything here but the lies that she threw at us.

+

Orpheus Bowen

+
+ +

prejudice, n. A +vagrant opinion without visible means of support.

+ +

prelate, n. A +church officer having a superior degree of holiness and a fat preferment. One +of Heaven’s aristocracy. A gentleman of God.

+ +

prerogative, n. A +sovereign’s right to do wrong.

+ +

Presbyterian, n. One +who holds the conviction that the government authorities of the Church should +be called presbyters.

+ +

prescription, n. A +physician’s guess at what will best prolong the situation with least harm to the patient.

+ +

present, n. That +part of eternity dividing the domain of disappointment from the realm of hope.

+ +

presentable, adj. Hideously +appareled after the manner of the time and place.

+ +

In Boorioboola-Gha a man is presentable on occasions of ceremony if he have his abdomen painted a +bright blue and wear a cow’s tail; in New York he may, if it please him, omit +the paint, but after sunset he must wear two tails made of the wool of a sheep +and dyed black.

+ +

preside, v. To +guide the action of a deliberative body to a desirable result. In Journalese, +to perform upon a musical instrument; as, “He presided at the piccolo.”

+ +
+

The Headliner, holding the copy in hand,

+

Read with a solemn face:

+

“The music was very uncommonly grand—

+

The best that was every provided,

+

For our townsman Brown presided

+

At the organ with skill and grace.”

+

The Headliner discontinued to read,

+

And, spread the paper down

+

On the desk, he dashed in at the top of the screed:

+

“Great playing by President Brown.”

+

Orpheus Bowen

+
+ +

presidency, n. The +greased pig in the field game of American politics.

+ +

president, n. The +leading figure in a small group of men of whom—and of whom only—it is +positively known that immense numbers of their countrymen did not want any of +them for President.

+ +
+

If that’s an honor surely ‘tis a greater
+To have been a simple and undamned spectator.

+

Behold in me a man of mark and note

+

Whom no elector e’er denied a vote!—

+

An undiscredited, unhooted gent

+

Who might, for all we know, be President

+

By acclimation. Cheer, ye varlets, cheer—

+

I’m passing with a wide and open ear!

+

Jonathan Fomry

+
+ +

prevaricator, n. A +liar in the caterpillar estate.

+ +

price, n. Value, +plus a reasonable sum for the wear and tear of conscience in demanding it.

+ +

primate, n. The +head of a church, especially a State church supported by involuntary +contributions. The Primate of England is the Archbishop of Canterbury, an +amiable old gentleman, who occupies Lambeth Palace when living and Westminster +Abbey when dead. He is commonly dead.

+ +

prisonu, n. A place +of punishments and rewards. The poet assures us that—

+ +
+

“Stone walls do not a prison make,”

+

but a combination of the stone wall, the political parasite and the moral instructor is no garden +of sweets.

+
+ +

private, n. A +military gentleman with a field-marshal’s baton in his knapsack and an +impediment in his hope.

+ +

proboscis, n. The +rudimentary organ of an elephant which serves him in place of the +knife-and-fork that Evolution has as yet denied him. For purposes of humor it +is popularly called a trunk.

+ +

Asked how he knew that an elephant was going on a journey, the illustrious Jo. Miller cast a +reproachful look upon his tormentor, and answered, absently: “When it is ajar,” +and threw himself from a high promontory into the sea. Thus perished in his +pride the most famous humorist of antiquity, leaving to mankind a heritage of +woe! No successor worthy of the title has appeared, though Mr. Edward bok, of The Ladies’ Home Journal, is much +respected for the purity and sweetness of his personal character.

+ +

projectile, n. The +final arbiter in international disputes. Formerly these disputes were settled +by physical contact of the disputants, with such simple arguments as the +rudimentary logic of the times could supply—the sword, the spear, and so forth. +With the growth of prudence in military affairs the projectile came more and +more into favor, and is now held in high esteem by the most courageous. Its +capital defect is that it requires personal attendance at the point of +propulsion.

+ +

proof, n. Evidence +having a shade more of plausibility than of unlikelihood. The testimony of two +credible witnesses as opposed to that of only one.

+ +

proof-reader, n. A +malefactor who atones for making your writing nonsense by permitting the +compositor to make it unintelligible.

+ +

property, n. Any +material thing, having no particular value, that may be held by A against the +cupidity of B. Whatever gratifies the passion for possession in one and +disappoints it in all others. The object of man’s brief rapacity and long indifference.

+ +

prophecy, n. The +art and practice of selling one’s credibility for future delivery.

+ +

prospect, n. An +outlook, usually forbidding. An expectation, usually forbidden.

+ +
+

Blow, blow, ye spicy breezes—

+

O’er Ceylon blow your breath,

+

Where every prospect pleases,

+

Save only that of death.

+

Bishop Sheber

+
+ +

providential, adj. +Unexpectedly and conspicuously beneficial to the person so describing it.

+ +

prude, n. A bawd +hiding behind the back of her demeanor.

+ +

publish, n. In +literary affairs, to become the fundamental element in a cone of critics.

+ +

push, n. One of +the two things mainly conducive to success, especially in politics. The other is Pull.

+ +

pyrrhonism, n. An +ancient philosophy, named for its inventor. It consisted of an absolute +disbelief in everything but Pyrrhonism. Its modern professors have added that.

+ + + \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/P.html.annot b/lib/ebooks/devils/P.html.annot new file mode 100644 index 00000000..e69de29b diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/P.html.i b/lib/ebooks/devils/P.html.i new file mode 100644 index 00000000..a0ba7695 --- /dev/null +++ b/lib/ebooks/devils/P.html.i @@ -0,0 +1,47 @@ +20 pages +size 400 552 +length 34265 +396 2 10 body html +0 +1944 2 42 body html +22 +3960 2 77 body html +90 +5856 2 109 body html +127 +7228 2 139 body html +0 +8256 2 156 body html +265 +10628 2 202 body html +22 +12036 2 229 body html +89 +13249 2 258 body html +22 +15524 2 299 body html +22 +17760 2 340 body html +22 +19719 2 377 body html +90 +21495 2 412 body html +124 +23959 2 451 body html +36 +25650 2 486 body html +72 +27357 2 520 body html +0 +27879 2 529 body html +379 +29793 2 569 body html +22 +31481 2 600 body html +39 +33103 2 628 body html +176 +president 16 +platitude 9 +politics 10 +pleasure 9 diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/Q.html b/lib/ebooks/devils/Q.html new file mode 100644 index 00000000..33c73023 --- /dev/null +++ b/lib/ebooks/devils/Q.html @@ -0,0 +1,71 @@ + + + + + + +The Devil’s Dictionary: Q + + + + +

Q

+ +

queen, n. A woman +by whom the realm is ruled when there is a king, and through whom it is ruled +when there is not.

+ +

quill, n. An +implement of torture yielded by a goose and commonly wielded by an ass. This +use of the quill is now obsolete, but its modern equivalent, the steel pen, is +wielded by the same everlasting Presence.

+ +

quiver, n. A +portable sheath in which the ancient statesman and the aboriginal lawyer +carried their lighter arguments.

+ +
+

He extracted from his quiver,

+

Did the controversial Roman,

+

An argument well fitted

+

To the question as submitted,

+

Then addressed it to the liver,

+

Of the unpersuaded foeman.

+

Oglum P. Boomp

+
+ +

quixotic, adj. Absurdly +chivalric, like Don Quixote. An insight into the beauty and excellence of this +incomparable adjective is unhappily denied to him who has the misfortune to +know that the gentleman’s name is pronounced Ke-ho-tay.

+ +
+

When ignorance from out of our lives can banish Philology, ‘tis folly to know Spanish.

+

Juan Smith

+
+ +

quorum, n. A +sufficient number of members of a deliberative body to have their own way and +their own way of having it. In the United States Senate a quorum consists of +the chairman of the Committee on Finance and a messenger from the White House; +in the House of Representatives, of the Speaker and the devil.

+ +

quotation, n. The +act of repeating erroneously the words of another.

+ +
+

The words erroneously repeated.

+

Intent on making his quotation truer,

+

He sought the page infallible of Brewer,

+

Then made a solemn vow that we would be

+

Condemned eternally. Ah, me, ah, me!

+

Stumpo Gaker

+
+ +

quotient, n. A +number showing how many times a sum of money belonging to one person is +contained in the pocket of another—usually about as many times as it can be got there.

+ + + \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/Q.html.annot b/lib/ebooks/devils/Q.html.annot new file mode 100644 index 00000000..e69de29b diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/Q.html.i b/lib/ebooks/devils/Q.html.i new file mode 100644 index 00000000..b9a953ce --- /dev/null +++ b/lib/ebooks/devils/Q.html.i @@ -0,0 +1,7 @@ +2 pages +size 400 552 +length 3077 +396 2 10 body html +0 +1442 2 38 body html +39 diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/R.html b/lib/ebooks/devils/R.html new file mode 100644 index 00000000..915a3506 --- /dev/null +++ b/lib/ebooks/devils/R.html @@ -0,0 +1,728 @@ + + + + + + +The Devil’s Dictionary: R + + + + + +

R

+ +

rabble, n. In a +republic, those who exercise a supreme authority tempered by fraudulent +elections. The rabble is like the sacred Simurgh, of Arabian fable—omnipotent +on condition that it do nothing. (The word is Aristocratese, and has no exact +equivalent in our tongue, but means, as nearly as may be, “soaring swine.”)

+ +

rack, n. An +argumentative implement formerly much used in persuading devotees of a false +faith to embrace the living truth. As a call to the unconverted the rack never +had any particular efficacy, and is now held in light popular esteem.

+ +

rank, n. Relative +elevation in the scale of human worth.

+ +
+

He held at court a rank so high

+

That other noblemen asked why.

+

“Because,” ‘twas answered, “others lack

+

His skill to scratch the royal back.”

+

Aramis Jukes

+
+ +

ransom, n. The +purchase of that which neither belongs to the seller, nor can belong to the +buyer. The most unprofitable of investments.

+ +

rapacity, n. Providence +without industry. The thrift of power.

+ +

rarebit, n. A +Welsh rabbit, in the speech of the humorless, who point out that it is not a +rabbit. To whom it may be solemnly explained that the comestible known as +toad-in-a-hole is really not a toad, and that riz-de-veau +a la financiere is not the smile of a calf prepared after the recipe +of a she banker.

+ +

rascal, n. A fool +considered under another aspect.

+ +

rascality, n. Stupidity +militant. The activity of a clouded intellect.

+ +

rash, adj. Insensible +to the value of our advice.

+ +
+

“Now lay your bet with mine, nor let

+

These gamblers take your cash.”

+

“Nay, this child makes no bet.” “Great snakes!

+

How can you be so rash?”

+

Bootle P. Gish

+
+ +

rational, adj. Devoid +of all delusions save those of observation, experience and reflection.

+ +

rattlesnake, n. Our +prostrate brother, Homo ventrambulans.

+ +

razor, n. An +instrument used by the Caucasian to enhance his beauty, by the Mongolian to make +a guy of himself, and by the Afro-American to affirm his worth.

+ +

reach, n. The +radius of action of the human hand. The area within which it is possible (and +customary) to gratify directly the propensity to provide.

+ +
+

This is a truth, as old as the hills,

+

That life and experience teach:

+

The poor man suffers that keenest of ills,

+

An impediment of his reach.

+

G. J.

+
+ +

reading, n. The +general body of what one reads. In our country it consists, as a rule, of +Indiana novels, short stories in “dialect” and humor in slang.

+ +
+

We know by one’s reading

+

His learning and breeding;

+

By what draws his laughter

+

We know his Hereafter.

+

Read nothing, laugh never—

+

The Sphinx was less clever!

+

Jupiter Muke

+
+ +

radicalsim, n. The +conservatism of to-morrow injected into the affairs of to-day.

+ +

radium, n. A +mineral that gives off heat and stimulates the organ that a scientist is a fool +with.

+ +

railroad, n. The +chief of many mechanical devices enabling us to get away from where we are to +wher we are no better off. For this purpose the railroad is held in highest +favor by the optimist, for it permits him to make the transit with great expedition.

+ +

ramshackle, adj. Pertaining +to a certain order of architecture, otherwise known as the Normal American. Most +of the public buildings of the United States are of the Ramshackle order, +though some of our earlier architects preferred the Ironic. Recent additions to +the White House in Washington are Theo-Doric, the ecclesiastic order of the +Dorians. They are exceedingly fine and cost one hundred dollars a brick.

+ +

realism, n. The +art of depicting nature as it is seem by toads. The charm suffusing a landscape +painted by a mole, or a story written by a measuring-worm.

+ +

reality, n. The +dream of a mad philosopher. That which would remain in the cupel if one should +assay a phantom. The nucleus of a vacuum.

+ +

really, adv. Apparently.

+ +

rear, n. In +American military matters, that exposed part of the army that is nearest to Congress.

+ +

reason, v.i. To +weight probabilities in the scales of desire.

+ +

reason, n. Propensitate of prejudice.

+ +

reasonable, adj. Accessible +to the infection of our own opinions.

+ +

Hospitable to persuasion, dissuasion and evasion.

+ +

rebel, n. A +proponent of a new misrule who has failed to establish it.

+ +

recollect, v. To +recall with additions something not previously known.

+ +

reconciliation, n. +A suspension of hostilities. An armed truce for the purpose of digging up the dead.

+ +

reconsider, v. To +seek a justification for a decision already made.

+ +

recount, n. In +American politics, another throw of the dice, accorded to the player against +whom they are loaded.

+ +

recreation, n. A +particular kind of dejection to relieve a general fatigue.

+ +

recruit, n. A +person distinguishable from a civilian by his uniform and from a soldier by his gait.

+ +
+

Fresh from the farm or factory or street,

+ +

His marching, in pursuit or in retreat,

+

Were an impressive martial spectacle

+

Except for two impediments—his feet.

+ +

Thompson Johnson

+
+ +

rector, n. In the +Church of England, the Third Person of the parochial Trinity, the Cruate and +the Vicar being the other two.

+ +

redemption, n. Deliverance +of sinners from the penalty of their sin, through their murder of the deity +against whom they sinned. The doctrine of Redemption is the fundamental mystery +of our holy religion, and whoso believeth in it shall not perish, but have +everlasting life in which to try to understand it.

+ +
+

We must awake Man’s spirit from his sin,

+

And take some special measure for redeeming it;

+

Though hard indeed the task to get it in

+

Among the angels any way but teaming it,

+

Or purify it otherwise than steaming it.

+

I’m awkward at Redemption—a beginner:

+

My method is to crucify the sinner.

+

Golgo Brone

+
+ +

redress, n. Reparation +without satisfaction.

+ +

Among the Anglo-Saxon a subject conceiving himself wronged by the king was permitted, on +proving his injury, to beat a brazen image of the royal offender with a switch +that was afterward applied to his own naked back. The latter rite was performed +by the public hangman, and it assured moderation in the plaintiff’s choice of a switch.

+ +

red-skin, n. A +North American Indian, whose skin is not red—at least not on the outside.

+ +

redundant, adj. Superfluous; +needless; de trop.

+ +
The Sultan said: “There’s evidence abundant
+To prove this unbelieving dog redundant.”
+To whom the Grand Vizier, with mien impressive,
+Replied: “His head, at least, appears excessive.”
+

Habeeb Suleiman

+
+ +

Mr. Debs is a redundant citizen. Theodore Roosevelt

+ +

referendum, n. A +law for submission of proposed legislation to a popular vote to learn the +nonsensus of public opinion.

+ +

reflection, n. An +action of the mind whereby we obtain a clearer view of our relation to the +things of yesterday and are able to avoid the perils that we shall not again encounter.

+ +

reform, v. A thing +that mostly satisfies reformers opposed to reformation.

+ +

refuge, n. Anything +assuring protection to one in peril. Moses and Joshua provided six cities of +refuge—Bezer, Golan, Ramoth, Kadesh, Schekem and Hebron—to which one who had +taken life inadvertently could flee when hunted by relatives of the deceased. This +admirable expedient supplied him with wholesome exercise and enabled them to +enjoy the pleasures of the chase; whereby the soul of the dead man was +appropriately honored by observations akin to the funeral games of early +Greece.

+ +

refusal, n. Denial +of something desired; as an elderly maiden’s hand in marriage, to a rich and +handsome suitor; a valuable franchise to a rich corporation, by an alderman; +absolution to an impenitent king, by a priest, and so forth. Refusals are +graded in a descending scale of finality thus: the refusal absolute, the +refusal condition, the refusal tentative and the refusal feminine. The last is +called by some casuists the refusal assentive.

+ +

regalia, n. Distinguishing +insignia, jewels and costume of such ancient and honorable orders as Knights of +Adam; Visionaries of Detectable Bosh; the Ancient Order of Modern Troglodytes; +the League of Holy Humbug; the Golden Phalanx of Phalangers; the Genteel +Society of Expurgated Hoodlums; the Mystic Alliances of Georgeous Regalians; Knights and Ladies +of the Yellow Dog; the Oriental Order of Sons of the West; the Blatherhood of +Insufferable Stuff; Warriors of the Long Bow; Guardians of the Great Horn +Spoon; the Band of Brutes; the Impenitent Order of Wife-Beaters; the Sublime Legion +of Flamboyant Conspicuants; Worshipers at the Electroplated Shrine; Shining +Inaccessibles; Fee-Faw-Fummers of the inimitable Grip; Jannissaries of the +Broad-Blown Peacock; Plumed Increscencies of the Magic Temple; the Grand Cabal +of Able-Bodied Sedentarians; Associated Deities of the Butter Trade; the Garden +of Galoots; the Affectionate Fraternity of Men Similarly Warted; the Flashing +Astonishers; Ladies of Horror; Cooperative Association for Breaking into the Spotlight; Dukes of Eden; +Disciples Militant of the Hidden Faith; Knights-Champions of the Domestic Dog; the Holy +Gregarians; the Resolute Optimists; the Ancient Sodality of Inhospitable Hogs; +Associated Sovereigns of Mendacity; Dukes-Guardian of the Mystic Cess-Pool; the Society for +Prevention of Prevalence; Kings of Drink; +Polite Federation of Gents-Consequential; the Mysterious Order of the +Undecipherable Scroll; Uniformed Rank of Lousy Cats; Monarchs of Worth and +Hunger; Sons of the South Star; Prelates of the Tub-and-Sword.

+ +

religion, n. A +daughter of Hope and Fear, explaining to Ignorance the nature of the Unknowable.

+ + +

“What is your religion my son?” inquired the Archbishop of Rheims.

+

“Pardon, monseigneur,” replied Rochebriant; “I am ashamed of it.”

+

“Then why do you not become an atheist?”

+

“Impossible! I should be ashamed of atheism.”

+

“In that case, monseiegneur, you should join the Protestants.”

+ + +

reliquary, n. A +receptacle for such sacred objects as pieces of the true cross, short-ribs of +the saints, the ears of Balaam’s ass, the lung of the cock that called Peter to +repentance and so forth. Reliquaries are commonly of metal, and provided with a +lock to prevent the contents from coming out and performing miracles at +unseasonable times. A feather from the wing of the Angel of the Annunciation +once escaped during a sermon in Saint Peter’s and so tickled the noses of the +congregation that they woke and sneezed with great vehemence three times each. It +is related in the “Gesta Sanctorum” that a sacristan in the Canterbury +cathedral surprised the head of Saint Dennis in the library. Reprimanded by its +stern custodian, it explained that it was seeking a body of doctrine. This +unseemly levity so raged the diocesan that the offender was publicly +anathematized, thrown into the Stour and replaced by another head of Saint +Dennis, brought from Rome.

+ +

renown, n. A +degree of distinction between notoriety and fame—a little more supportable than +the one and a little more intolerable than the other. Sometimes it is conferred +by an unfriendly and inconsiderate hand.

+ +
+

I touched the harp in every key,

+

But found no heeding ear;

+

And then Ithuriel touched me

+

With a revealing spear.

+

Not all my genius, great as ‘tis,

+

Could urge me out of night.

+

I felt the faint appulse of his,

+

And leapt into the light!

+

W. J. Candleton

+
+ +

reparation, n. Satisfaction +that is made for a wrong and deducted from the satisfaction felt in committing it.

+ +

repartee, n. Prudent +insult in retort. Practiced by gentlemen with a constitutional aversion to +violence, but a strong disposition to offend. In a war of words, the tactics of +the North American Indian.

+ +

repentance, n. The +faithful attendant and follower of Punishment. It is usually manifest in a +degree of reformation that is not inconsistent with continuity of sin.

+ +
+

Desirous to avoid the pains of Hell,

+

You will repent and join the Church, Parnell?

+

How needless!—Nick will keep you off the coals +And add you to the woes of other souls.

+

Jomater Abemy

+
+ +

replica, n. A +reproduction of a work of art, by the artist that made the original. It is so +called to distinguish it from a “copy,” which is made by another artist. When +the two are mae with equal skill the replica is the more valuable, for it is +supposed to be more beautiful than it looks.

+ +

reporter, n. A +writer who guesses his way to the truth and dispels it with a tempest of words.

+ +
+

“More dear than all my bosom knows, O thou Whose ‘lips are sealed’ and will not disavow!” So +sang the blithe reporter-man as grew Beneath his hand the leg-long “interview.”

+

Barson Maith

+
+ +

repose, v.i. To +cease from troubling.

+ +

representative, n. +In national politics, a member of the Lower House in this world, and without +discernible hope of promotion in the next.

+ +

reprobation, n. In +theology, the state of a luckless mortal prenatally damned. The doctrine of +reprobation was taught by Calvin, whose joy in it was somewhat marred by the +sad sincerity of his conviction that although some are foredoomed to perdition, +others are predestined to salvation.

+ +

republic, n. A +nation in which, the thing governing and the thing governed being the same, +there is only a permitted authority to enforce an optional obedience. In a +republic, the foundation of public order is the ever lessening habit of +submission inherited from ancestors who, being truly governed, submitted +because they had to. There are as many kinds of republics as there are +graduations between the despotism whence they came and the anarchy whither they +lead.

+ +

requiem, n. A mass +for the dead which the minor poets assure us the winds sing o’er the graves of +their favorites. Sometimes, by way of providing a varied entertainment, they sing a dirge.

+ +

resident, adj. Unable +to leave.

+ +

resign, v.t. To +renounce an honor for an advantage. To renounce an advantage for a greater advantage.

+ +
+

‘Twas rumored Leonard Wood had signed

+

A true renunciation

+

Of title, rank and every kind

+

Of military station—

+

Each honorable station.

+

By his example fired—inclined

+

To noble emulation,

+

The country humbly was resigned

+

To Leonard’s resignation—

+

His Christian resignation.

+

Politian Greame

+
+ +

resolute, adj. Obstinate +in a course that we approve.

+ +

respectability, n. +The offspring of a liaison between a bald head and a bank account.

+ +

respirator, n. An +apparatus fitted over the nose and mouth of an inhabitant of London, whereby to +filter the visible universe in its passage to the lungs.

+ +

respite, n. A +suspension of hostilities against a sentenced assassin, to enable the Executive +to determine whether the murder may not have been done by the prosecuting +attorney. Any break in the continuity of a disagreeable expectation.

+ +
+

Altgeld upon his incandescend bed

+

Lay, an attendant demon at his head.

+

“O cruel cook, pray grant me some relief—

+

Some respite from the roast, however brief.”

+

“Remember how on earth I pardoned all Your friends in Illinois when held in thrall.”

+

“Unhappy soul! for that alone you squirm O’er fire unquenched, a never-dying worm.

+

“Yet, for I pity your uneasy state,

+

Your doom I’ll mollify and pains abate.

+

“Naught, for a season, shall your comfort mar,

+

Not even the memory of who you are.”

+

Throughout eternal space dread silence fell;

+

Heaven trembled as Compassion entered Hell.

+

“As long, sweet demon, let my respite be As, governing down here, I’d respite thee.”

+

“As long, poor soul, as any of the pack You thrust from jail consumed in getting back.”

+

A genial chill affected Altgeld’s hide While they were turning him on t’other side.

+

Joel Spate Woop

+
+ +

resplendent, adj. Like +a simple American citizen beduking himself in his lodge, or affirming his +consequence in the Scheme of Things as an elemental unit of a parade.

+ +

The Knights of +Dominion were so resplendent in their velvet- and-gold that their masters would +hardly have known them. “Chronicles of the Classes”

+ +

respond, v.i. To +make answer, or disclose otherwise a consciousness of having inspired an interest +in what Herbert Spencer calls “external coexistences,” as Satan “squat like a +toad” at the ear of Eve, responded to the touch of the angel’s spear. To +respond in damages is to contribute to the maintenance of the plaintiff’s +attorney and, incidentally, to the gratification of the plaintiff.

+ +

responsibility, n. +A detachable burden easily shifted to the shoulders of God, Fate, Fortune, Luck +or one’s neighbor. In the days of astrology it was customary to unload it upon a star.

+ +
+

Alas, things ain’t what we should see

+

If Eve had let that apple be;

+

And many a feller which had ought

+

To set with monarchses of thought,

+

Or play some rosy little game

+

With battle-chaps on fields of fame,

+

Is downed by his unlucky star

+

And hollers: “Peanuts!—here you are!”

+

“The Sturdy Beggar”

+
+ +

restitutions, n. The +founding or endowing of universities and public libraries by gift or bequest.

+ +

restitutor, n. Benefactor; +philanthropist.

+ +

retaliation, n. The +natural rock upon which is reared the Temple of Law.

+ +

retribution, n. A +rain of fire-and-brimstone that falls alike upon the just and such of the +unjust as have not procured shelter by evicting them.

+ +

In the lines following, addressed to an Emperor in exile by Father Gassalasca Jape, the +reverend poet appears to hint his sense of the improduence of turning about to +face Retribution when it is talking exercise:

+ +

What, what! Dom Pedro, you desire to go

+ +

Back to Brazil to end your days in quiet?

+ +

Why, what assurance have you ‘twould be so?

+ +

‘Tis not so long since you were in a riot,

+ +

And your dear subjects showed a will to fly at

+ +

Your throat and shake you like a rat. You know That empires are ungrateful; are you certain +Republics are less handy to get hurt in?

+ +

reveille, n. A +signal to sleeping soldiers to dream of battlefields no more, but get up and +have their blue noses counted. In the American army it is ingeniously called +“rev-e-lee,” and to that pronunciation our countrymen have pledged their lives, +their misfortunes and their sacred dishonor.

+ +

revelation, n. A +famous book in which St. John the Divine concealed all that he knew. The +revealing is done by the commentators, who know nothing.

+ +

reverence, n. The +spiritual attitude of a man to a god and a dog to a man.

+ +

review, v.t.

+ +
+

To set your wisdom (holding not a doubt of it,

+

Although in truth there’s neither bone nor skin to it)

+

At work upon a book, and so read out of it

+

The qualities that you have first read into it.

+
+ +

revolution, n. In +politics, an abrupt change in the form of misgovernment. Specifically, in +American history, the substitution of the rule of an Administration for that of +a Ministry, whereby the welfare and happiness of the people were advanced a +full half-inch. Revolutions are usually accompanied by a considerable effusion +of blood, but are accounted worth it—this appraisement being made by +beneficiaries whose blood had not the mischance to be shed. The French +revolution is of incalculable value to the Socialist of to-day; when he pulls +the string actuating its bones its gestures are inexpressibly terrifying to +gory tyrants suspected of fomenting law and order.

+ +

rhadomancer, n. One +who uses a divining-rod in prospecting for precious metals in the pocket of a fool.

+ +

ribaldry, n. Censorious +language by another concerning oneself.

+ +

ribroaster, n. Censorious +language by oneself concerning another. The word is of classical refinement, +and is even said to have been used in a fable by Georgius Coadjutor, one of the +most fastidious writers of the fifteenth century—commonly, indeed, regarded as +the founder of the Fastidiotic School.

+ +

rice-water, n. A +mystic beverage secretly used by our most popular novelists and poets to +regulate the imagination and narcotize the conscience. It is said to be rich in +both obtundite and lethargine, and is brewed in a midnight fog by a fat which +of the Dismal Swamp.

+ +

rich, adj. Holding +in trust and subject to an accounting the property of the indolent, the +incompetent, the unthrifty, the envious and the luckless. That is the view that +prevails in the underworld, where the Brotherhood of Man finds its most logical +development and candid advocacy. To denizens of the midworld the word means +good and wise.

+ +

riches, n.

+ +

A gift from Heaven signifying, “This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased.” John D. Rockefeller

+ +

The reward of toil and virtue. J.P. Morgan

+ +

The sayings of many in the hands of one. Eugene Debs

+ +

To these excellent definitions the inspired lexicographer feels that he can add nothing of value.

+ +

ridicule, n. Words +designed to show that the person of whom they are uttered is devoid of the +dignity of character distinguishing him who utters them. It may be graphic, +mimetic or merely rident. Shaftesbury is quoted as having pronounced it the +test of truth—a ridiculous assertion, for many a solemn fallacy has undergone +centuries of ridicule with no abatement of its popular acceptance. What, for +example, has been more valorously derided than the doctrine of Infant +Respectability?

+ +

right, n. Legitimate +authority to be, to do or to have; as the right to be a king, the right to do +one’s neighbor, the right to have measles, and the like. The first of these +rights was once universally believed to be derived directly from the will of +God; and this is still sometimes affirmed in +partibus infidelium outside the enlightened realms of Democracy; as +the well known lines of Sir Abednego Bink, following:

+ +
+

By what right, then, do royal rulers rule?

+

Whose is the sanction of their state and pow’r?

+

He surely were as stubborn as a mule

+

Who, God unwilling, could maintain an hour +His uninvited session on the throne, or air +His pride securely in the Presidential chair.

+

Whatever is is so by Right Divine;

+

Whate’er occurs, God wills it so. Good land!

+

It were a wondrous thing if His design

+

A fool could baffle or a rogue withstand!

+

If so, then God, Isay (intending no offence)

+

Is guilty of contributory negligence.

+
+ +

righteousness, n. A +sturdy virtue that was once found among the Pantidoodles inhabiting the lower +part of the peninsula of Oque. Some feeble attempts were made by returned +missionaries to introduce it into several European countries, but it appears to +have been imperfectly expounded. An example of this faulty exposition is found +in the only extant sermon of the pious Bishop Rowley, a characteristic passage +from which is here given:

+ +

“Now righteousness consisteth not merely in a holy state of mind, nor yet in performance of +religious rites and obedience to the letter of the law. It is not enough that +one be pious and just: one must see to it that others also are in the same +state; and to this end compulsion is a proper means. Forasmuch as my injustice +may work ill to another, so by his injustice may evil be wrought upon still +another, the which it is as manifestly my duty to estop as to forestall mine +own tort. Wherefore if I would be righteous I am bound to restrain my neighbor, +by force if needful, in all those injurious enterprises from which, through a +better disposition and by the help of Heaven, I do myself restrain.”

+ +

rime, n. Agreeing +sounds in the terminals of verse, mostly bad. The verses themselves, as +distinguished from prose, mostly dull. Usually (and wickedly) spelled “rhyme.”

+ +
+

rimer, n. A poet +regarded with indifference or disesteem.

+

The rimer quenches his unheeded fires,
+The sound surceases and the sense expires.
+Then the domestic dog, to east and west,
+Expounds the passions burning in his breast.

+

The rising moon o’er that enchanted land

+

Pauses to hear and yearns to understand.

+

Mowbray Myles

+
+ +

riot, n. A popular +entertainment given to the military by innocent bystanders.

+ +

R.I.P. A careless abbreviation of requiescat in pace, +attesting to indolent goodwill to the dead. According to the learned Dr. +Drigge, however, the letters originally meant nothing more than reductus in pulvis.

+ +

riteE, n. A +religious or semi-religious ceremony fixed by law, precept or custom, with the +essential oil of sincerity carefully squeezed out of it.

+ +

ritualism, n. A +Dutch Garden of God where He may walk in rectilinear freedom, keeping off the +grass.

+ +

road, n. A strip +of land along which one may pass from where it is too tiresome to be to where +it is futile to go.

+ +
+

All roads, howsoe’er they diverge, lead to Rome,
+Whence, thank the good Lord, at least one leads back home.

+

Borey the Bald

+
+ +

robber, n. A +candid man of affairs.

+ +

It is related of Voltaire that one night he and some traveling companion lodged at a wayside +inn. The surroundings were suggestive, and after supper they agreed to tell +robber stories in turn. “Once there was a Farmer-General of the Revenues.” Saying +nothing more, he was encouraged to continue. “That,” he said, “is the story.”

+ +

romance, n. Fiction +that owes no allegiance to the God of Things as They Are. In the novel the +writer’s thought is tethered to probability, as a domestic horse to the +hitching-post, but in romance it ranges at will over the entire region of the +imagination—free, lawless, immune to bit and rein. Your novelist is a poor +creature, as Carlyle might say—a mere reporter. He may invent his characters +and plot, but he must not imagine anything taking place that might not occur, +albeit his entire narrative is candidly a lie. Why he imposes this hard +condition on himself, and “drags at each remove a lengthening chain” of his own +forging he can explain in ten thick volumes without illuminating by so much as +a candle’s ray the black profound of his own ignorance of the matter. There are +great novels, for great writers have “laid waste their powers” to write them, +but it remains true that far and away the most fascinating fiction that we have +is “The Thousand and One Nights.”

+ +

rope, n. An +obsolescent appliance for reminding assassins that they too are mortal. It is +put about the neck and remains in place one’s whole life long. It has been +largely superseded by a more complex electrical device worn upon another part +of the person; and this is rapidly giving place to an apparatus known as the +preachment.

+ +

rostrum, n. In +Latin, the beak of a bird or the prow of a ship. In America, a place from which +a candidate for office energetically expounds the wisdom, virtue and power of +the rabble.

+ +

roundhead, n. A +member of the Parliamentarian party in the English civil war—so called from his +habit of wearing his hair short, whereas his enemy, the Cavalier, wore his +long. There were other points of difference between them, but the fashion in +hair was the fundamental cause of quarrel. The Cavaliers were royalists because +the king, an indolent fellow, found it more convenient to let his hair grow +than to wash his neck. This the Roundheads, who were mostly barbers and +soap-boilers, deemed an injury to trade, and the royal neck was therefore the +object of their particular indignation. Descendants of the belligerents now +wear their hair all alike, but the fires of animosity enkindled in that ancient +strife smoulder to this day beneath the snows of British civility.

+ +

rubbish, n. Worthless +matter, such as the religions, philosophies, literatures, arts and sciences of +the tribes infesting the regions lying due south from Boreaplas.

+ +

ruin, v. To +destroy. Specifically, to destroy a maid’s belief in the virtue of maids.

+ +

rum, n. Generically, +fiery liquors that produce madness in total abstainers.

+ +

rumor, n. A +favorite weapon of the assassins of character.

+ +
+

Sharp, irresistible by mail or shield,

+

By guard unparried as by flight unstayed,

+

O serviceable Rumor, let me wield

+

Against my enemy no other blade.

+

His be the terror of a foe unseen,

+

His the inutile hand upon the hilt,

+

And mine the deadly tongue, long, slender, keen,

+

Hinting a rumor of some ancient guilt. So shall I slay the wretch without a blow, Spare me to +celebrate his overthrow, And nurse my valor for another foe.

+

Joel Buxter

+
+ +

Russian, n. A +person with a Caucasian body and a Mongolian soul. A Tartar Emetic.

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S

+ +

Sabbath, n. A +weekly festival having its origin in the fact that God made the world in six +days and was arrested on the seventh. Among the Jews observance of the day was +enforced by a Commandment of which this is the Christian version: “Remember the +seventh day to make thy neighbor keep it wholly.” To the Creator it seemed fit +and expedient that the Sabbath should be the last day of the week, but the +Early Fathers of the Church held other views. So great is the sanctity of the +day that even where the Lord holds a doubtful and precarious jurisdiction over +those who go down to (and down into) the sea it is reverently recognized, as is +manifest in the following deep-water version of the Fourth Commandment:

+ +

Six days shalt thou labor and do all thou art able, And on the seventh holystone the deck and +scrape the cable.

+ +

Decks are no longer holystoned, but the cable still supplies the captain with opportunity to +attest a pious respect for the divine ordinance.

+ +

sacerdotalist, n. One +who holds the belief that a clergyman is a priest. Denial of this momentous +doctrine is the hardest challenge that is now flung into the teeth of the +Episcopalian church by the Neo-Dictionarians.

+ +

sacrament, n. A +solemn religious ceremony to which several degrees of authority and +significance are attached. Rome has seven sacraments, but the Protestant +churches, being less prosperous, feel that they can afford only two, and these +of inferior sanctity. Some of the smaller sects have no sacraments at all—for +which mean economy they will indubitable be damned.

+ +

sacred, adj. Dedicated +to some religious purpose; having a divine character; inspiring solemn thoughts +or emotions; as, the Dalai Lama of Thibet; the Moogum of M’bwango; the temple +of Apes in Ceylon; the Cow in India; the Crocodile, the Cat and the Onion of +ancient Egypt; the Mufti of Moosh; the hair of the dog that bit Noah, etc.

+ +
+

All things are either sacred or profane.

+

The former to ecclesiasts bring gain;

+

The latter to the devil appertain.

+

Dumbo Omohundro

+
+ +

sandlotter, n. A +vertebrate mammal holding the political views of Denis Kearney, a notorious +demagogue of San Francisco, whose audiences gathered in the open spaces +(sandlots) of the town. True to the traditions of his species, this leader of +the proletariat was finally bought off by his law-and-order enemies, living +prosperously silent and dying impenitently rich. But before his treason he +imposed upon California a constitution that was a confection of sin in a +diction of solecisms. The similarity between the words “sandlotter” and +“sansculotte” is problematically significant, but indubitably suggestive.

+ +

safety-clutch, n. A +mechanical device acting automatically to prevent the fall of an elevator, or +cage, in case of an accident to the hoisting apparatus.

+ +
+

Once I seen a human ruin

+

In an elevator-well,

+

And his members was bestrewin’

+

All the place where he had fell.

+

And I says, apostrophisin’

+

That uncommon woful wreck:

+

“Your position’s so surprisin’

+

That I tremble for your neck!”

+

Then that ruin, smilin’ sadly

+

And impressive, up and spoke:

+

“Well, I wouldn’t tremble badly,

+

For it’s been a fortnight broke.”

+

Then, for further comprehension

+

Of his attitude, he begs

+

I will focus my attention

+

On his various arms and legs—

+

How they all are contumacious;

+

Where they each, respective, lie;

+

How one trotter proves ungracious,

+

T’other one an alibi.

+

These particulars is mentioned

+

For to show his dismal state,

+

Which I wasn’t first intentioned

+

To specifical relate.

+

None is worser to be dreaded

+

That I ever have heard tell

+

Than the gent’s who there was spreaded

+

In that elevator-well.

+

Now this tale is allegoric—

+

It is figurative all,

+

For the well is metaphoric

+

And the feller didn’t fall.

+

I opine it isn’t moral

+

For a writer-man to cheat,

+

And despise to wear a laurel

+

As was gotten by deceit.

+

For ‘tis Politics intended

+

By the elevator, mind,

+

It will boost a person splendid

+

If his talent is the kind.

+

Col. Bryan had the talent

+

(For the busted man is him)

+

And it shot him up right gallant

+

Till his head begun to swim.

+

Then the rope it broke above him

+

And he painful come to earth

+

Where there’s nobody to love him

+

For his detrimented worth.

+

Though he’s livin’ none would know him,

+

Or at leastwise not as such.

+

Moral of this woful poem:

+

Frequent oil your safety-clutch.

+

Porfer Poog

+
+ +

saint, n. A dead +sinner revised and edited.

+ +

The Duchess of Orleans relates that the irreverent old calumniator, Marshal Villeroi, who in +his youth had known St. Francis de Sales, said, on hearing him called saint: “I +am delighted to hear that Monsieur de Sales is a saint. He was fond of saying +indelicate things, and used to cheat at cards. In other respects he was a +perfect gentleman, though a fool.”

+ +

salacity, n. A +certain literary quality frequently observed in popular novels, especially in +those written by women and young girls, who give it another name and think that +in introducing it they are occupying a neglected field of letters and reaping +an overlooked harvest. If they have the misfortune to live long enough they are +tormented with a desire to burn their sheaves.

+ +

salamander, n. Originally +a reptile inhabiting fire; later, an anthropomorphous immortal, but still a pyrophile. +Salamanders are now believed to be extinct, the last one of which we have an +account having been seen in Carcassonne by the Abbe Belloc, who exorcised it +with a bucket of holy water.

+ +

sarcophagus, n. Among +the Greeks a coffin which being made of a certain kind of carnivorous stone, +had the peculiar property of devouring the body placed in it. The sarcophagus +known to modern obsequiographers is commonly a product of the carpenter’s art.

+ +

Satan, n. One of +the Creator’s lamentable mistakes, repented in sashcloth and axes. Being +instated as an archangel, Satan made himself multifariously objectionable and +was finally expelled from Heaven. Halfway in his descent he paused, bent his +head in thought a moment and at last went back. “There is one favor that I +should like to ask,” said he.

+

“Name it.”

+

“Man, I understand, is about to be created. He will need laws.”

+

“What, wretch! you his appointed adversary, charged from the dawn

+

of eternity with hatred of his soul—you ask for the right to make his laws?”

+

“Pardon; what I have to ask is that he be permitted to make them himself.”

+

It was so ordered.

+ +

satiety, n. The +feeling that one has for the plate after he has eaten its contents, madam.

+ +

satire, n. An +obsolete kind of literary composition in which the vices and follies of the +author’s enemies were expounded with imperfect tenderness. In this country +satire never had more than a sickly and uncertain existence, for the soul of it +is wit, wherein we are dolefully deficient, the humor that we mistake for it, +like all humor, being tolerant and sympathetic. Moreover, although Americans +are “endowed by their Creator” with abundant vice and folly, it is not +generally known that these are reprehensible qualities, wherefore the satirist +is popularly regarded as a soul-spirited knave, and his ever victim’s outcry +for codefendants evokes a national assent.

+ +
+

Hail Satire! be thy praises ever sung

+In the dead language of a mummy’s tongue,
+For thou thyself art dead, and damned as well—
+Thy spirit (usefully employed) in Hell.
+Had it been such as consecrates the Bible
+Thou hadst not perished by the law of libel.
+

Barney Stims

+
+ +

satyr, n. One of +the few characters of the Grecian mythology accorded recognition in the Hebrew. +(Leviticus, xvii, 7.) The satyr was at first a member of the dissolute +community acknowledging a loose allegiance with Dionysius, but underwent many +transformations and improvements. Not infrequently he is confounded with the +faun, a later and decenter creation of the Romans, who was less like a man and more +like a goat.

+ +

sauce, n. The one +infallible sign of civilization and enlightenment. A people with no sauces has +one thousand vices; a people with one sauce has only nine hundred and +ninety-nine. For every sauce invented and accepted a vice is renounced and +forgiven.

+ +

saw, n. A trite +popular saying, or proverb. (Figurative and colloquial.) So called because it +makes its way into a wooden head. Following are examples of old saws fitted +with new teeth.

+ +
+

A penny saved is a penny to squander.

+

A man is known by the company that he organizes.

+

A bad workman quarrels with the man who calls him that.

+

A bird in the hand is worth what it will bring.

+

Better late than before anybody has invited you.

+

Example is better than following it.

+

Half a loaf is better than a whole one if there is much else.

+

Think twice before you speak to a friend in need.

+

What is worth doing is worth the trouble of asking somebody to do it.

+

Least said is soonest disavowed.

+

He laughs best who laughs least.

+

Speak of the Devil and he will hear about it.

+

Of two evils choose to be the least.

+

Strike while your employer has a big contract.

+

Where there’s a will there’s a won’t.

+
+ +

Sacrabaeus, n. The +sacred beetle of the ancient Egyptians, allied to our familiar “tumble-bug.” It +was supposed to symbolize immortality, the fact that God knew why giving it its +peculiar sanctity. Its habit of incubating its eggs in a ball of ordure may +also have commended it to the favor of the priesthood, and may some day assure +it an equal reverence among ourselves. True, the American beetle is an inferior +beetle, but the American priest is an inferior priest.

+ +

Scarabee, n. The +same as scarabaeus.

+ +
+

He fell by his own hand
+Beneath the great oak tree.
+He’d traveled in a foreign land.
+He tried to make her understand
+The dance that’s called the Saraband,
+But he called it Scarabee.
+He had called it so through an afternoon,
+And she, the light of his harem if so might be,
+Had smiled and said naught. O the body was fair to see,
+All frosted there in the shine o’ the moon—
+Dead for a Scarabee And a recollection that came too late.
+O Fate!
+They buried him where he lay,
+He sleeps awaiting the Day,
+In state, And two Possible Puns, moon-eyed and wan,
+Gloom over the grave and then move on.
+Dead for a Scarabee!

+

Fernando Tapple

+
+ +

scarification, n. A +form of penance practised by the mediaeval pious. The rite was performed, +sometimes with a knife, sometimes with a hot iron, but always, says Arsenius +Asceticus, acceptably if the penitent spared himself no pain nor harmless +disfigurement. Scarification, with other crude penances, has now been +superseded by benefaction. The founding of a library or endowment of a +university is said to yield to the penitent a sharper and more lasting pain +than is conferred by the knife or iron, and is therefore a surer means of +grace. There are, however, two grave objections to it as a penitential method: the +good that it does and the taint of justice.

+ +

scepter, n. A +king’s staff of office, the sign and symbol of his authority. It was originally +a mace with which the sovereign admonished his jester and vetoed ministerial +measures by breaking the bones of their proponents.

+ +

scimetar, n. A +curved sword of exceeding keenness, in the conduct of which certain Orientals +attain a surprising proficiency, as the incident here related will serve to +show. The account is translated from the Japanese by Shusi Itama, a famous +writer of the thirteenth century.

+ +

When the great Gichi-Kuktai was Mikado he condemned to decapitation Jijiji Ri, a high officer +of the Court. Soon after the hour appointed for performance of the rite what +was his Majesty’s surprise to see calmly approaching the throne the man who +should have been at that time ten minutes dead!

+ +

“Seventeen hundred impossible dragons!” shouted the enraged monarch. “Did I not sentence you to +stand in the market-place and have your head struck off by the public +executioner at three o’clock? And is it not now 3:10?”

+ +

“Son of a thousand illustrious deities,” answered the condemned minister, “all that you say is so +true that the truth is a lie in comparison. But your heavenly Majesty’s sunny +and vitalizing wishes have been pestilently disregarded. With joy I ran and +placed my unworthy body in the market-place. The executioner appeared with his +bare scimetar, ostentatiously whirled it in air, and then, tapping me lightly +upon the neck, strode away, pelted by the populace, with whom I was ever a +favorite. I am come to pray for justice upon his own dishonorable and +treasonous head.”

+ +

“To what regiment +of executioners does the black-boweled caitiff belong?” asked the Mikado.

+ +

“To the gallant Ninety-eight Hundred and Thirty-seventh—I know the man. His name is +Sakko-Samshi.”

+ +

“Let him be +brought before me,” said the Mikado to an attendant, and a half-hour later the +culprit stood in the Presence.

+ +

“Thou bastard son +of a three-legged hunchback without thumbs!” roared the sovereign—“why didst +thou but lightly tap the neck that it should have been thy pleasure to sever?”

+ +

“Lord of Cranes of +Cherry Blooms,” replied the executioner, unmoved, “command him to blow his nose +with his fingers.”

+ +

Being commanded, +Jijiji Ri laid hold of his nose and trumpeted like an elephant, all expecting +to see the severed head flung violently from him. Nothing occurred: the +performance prospered peacefully to the close, without incident.

+ +

All eyes were now +turned on the executioner, who had grown as white as the snows on the summit of +Fujiama. His legs trembled and his breath came in gasps of terror.

+ +

“Several kinds of +spike-tailed brass lions!” he cried; “I am a ruined and disgraced swordsman! I +struck the villain feebly because in flourishing the scimetar I had +accidentally passed it through my own neck! Father of the Moon, I resign my office.”

+ +

So saying, he +gasped his top-knot, lifted off his head, and advancing to the throne laid it +humbly at the Mikado’s feet.

+ +

scrap-book, n. A +book that is commonly edited by a fool. Many persons of some small distinction +compile scrap-books containing whatever they happen to read about themselves or +employ others to collect. One of these egotists was addressed in the lines +following, by Agamemnon Melancthon Peters:

+ +
+

Dear Frank, that scrap-book where you boast
+You keep a record true
+Of every kind of peppered roast
+That’s made of you;
+Wherein you paste the printed gibes
+That revel round your name,
+Thinking the laughter of the scribes
+Attests your fame;
+Where all the pictures you arrange
+That comic pencils trace—
+Your funny figure and your strange
+Semitic face—
+Pray lend it me. Wit I have not,
+Nor art, but there I’ll list
+The daily drubbings you’d have got
+Had God a fist.

+
+ +

scribbler, n. A +professional writer whose views are antagonistic to one’s own.

+ +

scriptures, n. The +sacred books of our holy religion, as distinguished from the false and profane +writings on which all other faiths are based.

+ +

seal, n. A mark +impressed upon certain kinds of documents to attest their authenticity and +authority. Sometimes it is stamped upon wax, and attached to the paper, +sometimes into the paper itself. Sealing, in this sense, is a survival of an +ancient custom of inscribing important papers with cabalistic words or signs to +give them a magical efficacy independent of the authority that they represent. In +the British museum are preserved many ancient papers, mostly of a sacerdotal +character, validated by necromantic pentagrams and other devices, frequently +initial letters of words to conjure with; and in many instances these are +attached in the same way that seals are appended now. As nearly every +reasonless and apparently meaningless custom, rite or observance of modern +times had origin in some remote utility, it is pleasing to note an example of +ancient nonsense evolving in the process of ages into something really useful. Our +word “sincere” is derived from sine cero, +without wax, but the learned are not in agreement as to whether this refers to +the absence of the cabalistic signs, or to that of the wax with which letters +were formerly closed from public scrutiny. Either view of the matter will serve +one in immediate need of an hypothesis. The initials L.S., commonly appended to +signatures of legal documents, mean locum sigillis, the place of the seal, +although the seal is no longer used—an admirable example of conservatism +distinguishing Man from the beasts that perish. The words locum sigillis are humbly suggested as a +suitable motto for the Pribyloff Islands whenever they shall take their place +as a sovereign State of the American Union.

+ +

seine, n. A kind +of net for effecting an involuntary change of environment. For fish it is made +strong and coarse, but women are more easily taken with a singularly delicate +fabric weighted with small, cut stones.

+ +
+

The devil casting a seine of lace,
+(With precious stones ‘twas weighted)
+Drew it into the landing place
+And its contents calculated.
+All souls of women were in that sack—
+A draft miraculous, precious!
+But ere he could throw it across his back
+They’d all escaped through the meshes.

+

Baruch de Loppis

+
+ +

self-esteem, n. An +erroneous appraisement.

+ +

self-evident, adj. +Evident to one’s self and to nobody else.

+ +

selfish, adj. Devoid +of consideration for the selfishness of others.

+ +

senate, n. A body +of elderly gentlemen charged with high duties and misdemeanors.

+ +

serial, n. A +literary work, usually a story that is not true, creeping through several issues +of a newspaper or magazine. Frequently appended to each installment is a +“synposis of preceding chapters” for those who have not read them, but a direr +need is a synposis of succeeding chapters for those who do not intend to read them. A synposis of the entire work would +be still better.

+ +

The late James F. Bowman was writing a serial tale for a weekly paper in collaboration with a +genius whose name has not come down to us. They wrote, not jointly but +alternately, Bowman supplying the installment for one week, his friend for the +next, and so on, world without end, they hoped. Unfortunately they quarreled, +and one Monday morning when Bowman read the paper to prepare himself for his +task, he found his work cut out for him in a way to surprise and pain him. His +collaborator had embarked every character of the narrative on a ship and sunk +them all in the deepest part of the Atlantic.

+ +

severalty, n. Separateness, +as, lands in severalty, i.e., lands held individually, not in joint ownership. Certain +tribes of Indians are believed now to be sufficiently civilized to have in +severalty the lands that they have hitherto held as tribal organizations, and +could not sell to the Whites for waxen beads and potato whiskey.

+ +
+

Lo! the poor Indian whose unsuited mind
+Saw death before, hell and the grave behind;
+Whom thrifty settler ne’er besought to stay—
+His small belongings their appointed prey;
+Whom Dispossession, with alluring wile,
+Persuaded elsewhere every little while!
+His fire unquenched and his undying worm
+By “land in severalty” (charming term!)
+Are cooled and killed, respectively, at last,
+And he to his new holding anchored fast!

+
+ +

sheriff, n. In +America the chief executive office of a country, whose most characteristic +duties, in some of the Western and Southern States, are the catching and +hanging of rogues.

+ +
+

John Elmer Pettibone Cajee
+(I write of him with little glee)
+Was just as bad as he could be.

+ +

‘Twas frequently remarked: “I swon!
+The sun has never looked upon
+So bad a man as Neighbor John.”

+ +

A sinner through and through, he had
+This added fault: it made him mad
+To know another man was bad.

+ +

In such a case he thought it right
+To rise at any hour of night
+And quench that wicked person’s light.

+ +

Despite the town’s entreaties, he
+Would hale him to the nearest tree
+And leave him swinging wide and free.

+ +

Or sometimes, if the humor came,
+A luckless wight’s reluctant frame
+Was given to the cheerful flame.

+ +

While it was turning nice and brown,
+All unconcerned John met the frown
+Of that austere and righteous town.

+ +

“How sad,” his neighbors said, “that he
+So scornful of the law should be—
+An anar c, h, i, s, t.”

+ +

(That is the way that they preferred
+To utter the abhorrent word,
+So strong the aversion that it stirred.)

+ +

“Resolved,” they said, continuing,
+“That Badman John must cease this thing
+Of having his unlawful fling.

+ +

“Now, by these sacred relics”—here
+Each man had out a souvenir
+Got at a lynching yesteryear—

+ +

“By these we swear he shall forsake
+His ways, nor cause our hearts to ache
+By sins of rope and torch and stake.

+ +

“We’ll tie his red right hand until
+He’ll have small freedom to fulfil
+The mandates of his lawless will.”

+ +

So, in convention then and there,
+They named him Sheriff. The affair
+Was opened, it is said, with prayer.

+

J. Milton Sloluck

+
+ +

siren, n. One of several +musical prodigies famous for a vain attempt to dissuade Odysseus from a life on +the ocean wave. Figuratively, any lady of splendid promise, dissembled purpose +and disappointing performance.

+ +

slang, n. The +grunt of the human hog (Pignoramus intolerabilis) with an audible memory. The +speech of one who utters with his tongue what he thinks with his ear, and feels +the pride of a creator in accomplishing the feat of a parrot. A means (under +Providence) of setting up as a wit without a capital of sense.

+ +

smithareen, n. A +fragment, a decomponent part, a remain. The word is used variously, but in the +following verse on a noted female reformer who opposed bicycle-riding by women +because it “led them to the devil” it is seen at its best:

+ +
+

The wheels go round without a sound—
+The maidens hold high revel;
+In sinful mood, insanely gay,
+True spinsters spin adown the way
+From duty to the devil!
+They laugh, they sing, and—ting-a-ling!
+Their bells go all the morning;
+Their lanterns bright bestar the night
+Pedestrians a-warning.
+With lifted hands Miss Charlotte stands,
+Good-Lording and O-mying,
+Her rheumatism forgotten quite,
+Her fat with anger frying.
+She blocks the path that leads to wrath,
+Jack Satan’s power defying.
+The wheels go round without a sound
+The lights burn red and blue and green.
+What’s this that’s found upon the ground?
+Poor Charlotte Smith’s a smithareen!

+

John William Yope

+
+ +

sophistry, n. The +controversial method of an opponent, distinguished from one’s own by superior +insincerity and fooling. This method is that of the later Sophists, a Grecian +sect of philosophers who began by teaching wisdom, prudence, science, art and, +in brief, whatever men ought to know, but lost themselves in a maze of quibbles +and a fog of words.

+ +
+

His bad opponent’s “facts” he sweeps away, And drags his sophistry to light of day;
+Then swears they’re pushed to madness who resort To falsehood of so desperate a sort.
+Not so; like sods upon a dead man’s breast, He lies most lightly who the least is pressed.

+

Polydore Smith

+
+

sorcery, n. The +ancient prototype and forerunner of political influence. It was, however, +deemed less respectable and sometimes was punished by torture and death. Augustine +Nicholas relates that a poor peasant who had been accused of sorcery was put to +the torture to compel a confession. After enduring a few gentle agonies the +suffering simpleton admitted his guilt, but naively asked his tormentors if it +were not possible to be a sorcerer without knowing it.

+ +

soul, n. A +spiritual entity concerning which there hath been brave disputation. Plato held +that those souls which in a previous state of existence (antedating Athens) had +obtained the clearest glimpses of eternal truth entered into the bodies of +persons who became philosophers. Plato himself was a philosopher. The souls +that had least contemplated divine truth animated the bodies of usurpers and +despots. Dionysius I, who had threatened to decapitate the broad- browed +philosopher, was a usurper and a despot. Plato, doubtless, was not the first to +construct a system of philosophy that could be quoted against his enemies; +certainly he was not the last.

+ +

“Concerning the nature of the soul,” saith the renowned author +of Diversiones Sanctorum, “there hath been hardly more argument +than that of its place in the body. Mine own belief is that the soul hath her +seat in the abdomen—in which faith we may discern and interpret a truth +hitherto unintelligible, namely that the glutton is of all men most devout. He +is said in the Scripture to ‘make a god of his belly’—why, then, should he +not be pious, having ever his Deity with him to freshen his faith? Who so well +as he can know the might and majesty that he shrines? Truly and soberly, the +soul and the stomach are one Divine Entity; and such was the belief of Promasius, +who nevertheless erred in denying it immortality. He had observed that its +visible and material substance failed and decayed with the rest of the body +after death, but of its immaterial essence he knew nothing. This is what we +call the Appetite, and it survives the wreck and reek of mortality, to be +rewarded or punished in another world, according to what it hath demanded in +the flesh. The Appetite whose coarse clamoring was for the unwholesome viands +of the general market and the public refectory shall be cast into eternal +famine, whilst that which firmly through civilly insisted on ortolans, caviare, +terrapin, anchovies, pates de foie gras +and all such Christian comestibles shall flesh its spiritual tooth in the souls +of them forever and ever, and wreak its divine thirst upon the immortal parts +of the rarest and richest wines ever quaffed here below. Such is my religious +faith, though I grieve to confess that neither His Holiness the Pope nor His +Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury (whom I equally and profoundly revere) will +assent to its dissemination.”

+ +

spooker, n. A +writer whose imagination concerns itself with supernatural phenomena, +especially in the doings of spooks. One of the most illustrious spookers of our +time is Mr. William D. Howells, who introduces a well-credentialed reader to as +respectable and mannerly a company of spooks as one could wish to meet. To the +terror that invests the chairman of a district school board, the Howells ghost +adds something of the mystery enveloping a farmer from another township.

+ +

story, n. A +narrative, commonly untrue. The truth of the stories here following has, +however, not been successfully impeached.

+ +

One evening Mr. Rudolph Block, of New York, found himself seated at dinner alongside Mr. +Percival Pollard, the distinguished critic.

+ +

“Mr. Pollard,” said he, “my book, The Biography of a Dead +Cow, is published anonymously, but you can hardly be ignorant of its +authorship. Yet in reviewing it you speak of it as the work of the Idiot of the +Century. Do you think that fair criticism?”

+ +

“I am very sorry, sir,” replied the critic, amiably, “but it did not occur to me that you really +might not wish the public to know who wrote it.”

+ +

Mr. W.C. Morrow, who used to live in San Jose, California, was addicted to writing ghost stories +which made the reader feel as if a stream of lizards, fresh from the ice, were +streaking it up his back and hiding in his hair. San Jose was at that time +believed to be haunted by the visible spirit of a noted bandit named Vasquez, +who had been hanged there. The town was not very well lighted, and it is +putting it mildly to say that San Jose was reluctant to be out o’ nights. One +particularly dark night two gentlemen were abroad in the loneliest spot within +the city limits, talking loudly to keep up their courage, when they came upon +Mr. J.J. Owen, a well-known journalist.

+ +

“Why, Owen,” said one, “what brings you here on such a night as this? You told me that this is +one of Vasquez’ favorite haunts! And you are a believer. Aren’t you afraid to be out?”

+ +

“My dear fellow,” the journalist replied with a drear autumnal cadence in his speech, like the +moan of a leaf-laden wind, “I am afraid to be in. I have one of Will Morrow’s +stories in my pocket and I don’t dare to go where there is light enough to read it.”

+ +

Rear-Admiral Schley and Representative Charles F. Joy were standing near the Peace Monument, +in Washington, discussing the question, Is success a failure? Mr. Joy suddenly +broke off in the middle of an eloquent sentence, exclaiming: “Hello! I’ve heard +that band before. Santlemann’s, I think.”

+ +

“I don’t hear any band,” said Schley.

+ +

“Come to think, I don’t either,” said Joy; “but I see General

+ +

Miles coming down the avenue, and that pageant always affects me in the same way as a brass band. One has to +scrutinize one’s impressions pretty closely, or one will mistake their origin.”

+ +

While the Admiral was digesting this hasty meal of philosophy General Miles passed in review, a +spectacle of impressive dignity. When the tail of the seeming procession had +passed and the two observers had recovered from the transient blindness caused +by its effulgence—

+ +

“He seems to be enjoying himself,” said the Admiral.

+ +

“There is nothing,” assented Joy, thoughtfully, “that he enjoys one-half so well.”

+ +

The illustrious statesman, Champ Clark, once lived about a mile from the village of Jebigue, in +Missouri. One day he rode into town on a favorite mule, and, hitching the beast +on the sunny side of a street, in front of a saloon, he went inside in his +character of teetotaler, to apprise the barkeeper that wine is a mocker. It was +a dreadfully hot day. Pretty soon a neighbor came in and seeing Clark, said:

+ +

“Champ, it is not right to leave that mule out there in the sun.

+ +

He’ll roast, sure!—he was smoking as I passed him.”

+ +

“O, he’s all right,” said Clark, lightly; “he’s an inveterate smoker.”

+ +

The neighbor took a lemonade, but shook his head and repeated that it was not right.

+ +

He was a conspirator. There had been a fire the night before: a stable just around the +corner had burned and a number of horses had put on their immortality, among +them a young colt, which was roasted to a rich nut-brown. Some of the boys had +turned Mr. Clark’s mule loose and substituted the mortal part of the colt. Presently +another man entered the saloon.

+ +

“For mercy’s sake!” he said, taking it with sugar, “do remove that mule, barkeeper: it smells.”

+ +

“Yes,” interposed Clark, “that animal has the best nose in Missouri. But if he doesn’t mind, you +shouldn’t.”

+ +

In the course of human events Mr. Clark went out, and there, apparently, lay the incinerated and +shrunken remains of his charger. The boys idd not have any fun out of Mr. +Clarke, who looked at the body and, with the non-committal expression to which +he owes so much of his political preferment, went away. But walking home late +that night he saw his mule standing silent and solemn by the wayside in the +misty moonlight. Mentioning the name of Helen Blazes with uncommon emphasis, +Mr. Clark took the back track as hard as ever he could hook it, and passed the +night in town.

+ +

General H.H. Wotherspoon, president of the Army War College, has a pet rib-nosed baboon, an +animal of uncommon intelligence but imperfectly beautiful. Returning to his +apartment one evening, the General was surprised and pained to find Adam (for +so the creature is named, the general being a Darwinian) sitting up for him and +wearing his master’s best uniform coat, epaulettes and all.

+ +

“You confounded remote ancestor!” thundered the great strategist, “what do you mean by being +out of bed after naps?—and with my coat on!”

+ +

Adam rose and with a reproachful look got down on all fours in the manner of his kind and, +scuffling across the room to a table, returned with a visiting-card: General +Barry had called and, judging by an empty champagne bottle and several +cigar-stumps, had been hospitably entertained while waiting. The general +apologized to his faithful progenitor and retired. The next day he met General +Barry, who said:

+ +

“Spoon, old man, when leaving you last evening I forgot to ask you about those excellent cigars. +Where did you get them?”

+ +

General Wotherspoon did not deign to reply, but walked away.

+ +

“Pardon me, please,” said Barry, moving after him; “I was joking of course. Why, I knew it was not +you before I had been in the room fifteen minutes.”

+ +

success, n. The +one unpardonable sin against one’s fellows. In literature, and particularly in +poetry, the elements of success are exceedingly simple, and are admirably set +forth in the following lines by the reverend Father Gassalasca Jape, entitled, +for some mysterious reason, “John A. Joyce.”

+ +
+

The bard who would prosper must carry a book,
+Do his thinking in prose and wear
+A crimson cravat, a far-away look
+And a head of hexameter hair.
+Be thin in your thought and your body’ll be fat;
+If you wear your hair long you needn’t your hat.

+
+ +

suffrage, n. Expression +of opinion by means of a ballot. The right of suffrage (which is held to be +both a privilege and a duty) means, as commonly interpreted, the right to vote +for the man of another man’s choice, and is highly prized. Refusal to do so has +the bad name of “incivism.” The incivilian, however, cannot be properly +arraigned for his crime, for there is no legitimate accuser. If the accuser is +himself guilty he has no standing in the court of opinion; if not, he profits +by the crime, for A’s abstention from voting gives greater weight to the vote +of B. By female suffrage is meant the right of a woman to vote as some man +tells her to. It is based on female responsibility, which is somewhat limited. The +woman most eager to jump out of her petticoat to assert her rights is first to +jump back into it when threatened with a switching for misusing them.

+ +

sycophant, n. One +who approaches Greatness on his belly so that he may not be commanded to turn +and be kicked. He is sometimes an editor.

+ +
+

As the lean leech, its victim found, is pleased
+To fix itself upon a part diseased
+Till, its black hide distended with bad blood,
+It drops to die of surfeit in the mud,
+So the base sycophant with joy descries
+His neighbor’s weak spot and his mouth applies,
+Gorges and prospers like the leech, although, +Unlike that reptile, he will not let go.
+Gelasma, if it paid you to devote
+Your talent to the service of a goat,
+Showing by forceful logic that its beard
+Is more than Aaron’s fit to be revered;
+If to the task of honoring its smell
+Profit had prompted you, and love as well,
+The world would benefit at last by you
+And wealthy malefactors weep anew—
+Your favor for a moment’s space denied
+And to the nobler object turned aside.
+Is’t not enough that thrifty millionaires
+Who loot in freight and spoliate in fares,
+Or, cursed with consciences that bid them fly
+To safer villainies of darker dye,
+Forswearing robbery and fain, instead,
+To steal (they call it “cornering”) our bread
+May see you groveling their boots to lick
+And begging for the favor of a kick?
+Still must you follow to the bitter end
+Your sycophantic disposition’s trend,
+And in your eagerness to please the rich
+Hunt hungry sinners to their final ditch?
+In Morgan’s praise you smite the sounding wire, +And sing hosannas to great Havemeyher!
+What’s Satan done that him you should eschew?
+He too is reeking rich—deducting you.

+
+ +

syllogism, n. A +logical formula consisting of a major and a minor assumption and an +inconsequent. (See logic.)

+ +

sylph, n. An +immaterial but visible being that inhabited the air when the air was an element +and before it was fatally polluted with factory smoke, sewer gas and similar +products of civilization. Sylphs were allied to gnomes, nymphs and salamanders, +which dwelt, respectively, in earth, water and fire, all now insalubrious. Sylphs, +like fowls of the air, were male and female, to no purpose, apparently, for if +they had progeny they must have nested in accessible places, none of the chicks +having ever been seen.

+ +

symbol, n. Something +that is supposed to typify or stand for something else. Many symbols are mere +“survivals”—things which having no longer any utility continue to exist because +we have inherited the tendency to make them; as funereal urns carved on +memorial monuments. They were once real urns holding the ashes of the dead. We +cannot stop making them, but we can give them a name that conceals our helplessness.

+ +

symbolic, adj. Pertaining +to symbols and the use and interpretation of symbols.

+ +
+

They say ‘tis conscience feels compunction;
+I hold that that’s the stomach’s function,
+For of the sinner I have noted
+
That when he’s sinned he’s somewhat bloated,
+Or ill some other ghastly fashion
+Within that bowel of compassion.
+True, I believe the only sinner
+Is he that eats a shabby dinner.
+You know how Adam with good reason,
+For eating apples out of season,
+Was “cursed.” But that is all symbolic:
+The truth is, Adam had the colic.

+

G. J.

+
+ + + \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/S.html.annot b/lib/ebooks/devils/S.html.annot new file mode 100644 index 00000000..e69de29b diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/S.html.i b/lib/ebooks/devils/S.html.i new file mode 100644 index 00000000..79015d2a --- /dev/null +++ b/lib/ebooks/devils/S.html.i @@ -0,0 +1,64 @@ +30 pages +size 400 552 +length 44914 +396 2 10 body html +0 +1760 2 37 body html +39 +3547 2 67 body html +39 +3773 2 71 body html +523 +3773 2 71 body html +1063 +3773 2 71 body html +1603 +7045 2 136 body html +73 +8967 2 165 body html +0 +10281 2 191 body html +90 +11355 2 210 body html +360 +13065 2 239 body html +172 +15249 2 282 body html +0 +16848 2 310 body html +0 +18464 2 342 body html +36 +19444 2 368 body html +175 +21497 2 397 body html +187 +23557 2 437 body html +90 +24748 2 461 body html +263 +24748 2 461 body html +806 +27777 2 536 body html +70 +29053 2 566 body html +121 +30698 2 591 body html +170 +33246 2 628 body html +34 +34990 2 656 body html +0 +36077 2 677 body html +119 +37436 2 702 body html +153 +39361 2 735 body html +0 +41224 2 767 body html +19 +41224 2 767 body html +563 +44294 2 827 body html +138 +soul 20 diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/T.html b/lib/ebooks/devils/T.html new file mode 100644 index 00000000..72479e6d --- /dev/null +++ b/lib/ebooks/devils/T.html @@ -0,0 +1,397 @@ + + + + + + +The Devil’s Dictionary: T + + + + + +

T

+ +

T, the twentieth letter of the English alphabet, was by the Greeks absurdly +called tau. In the alphabet whence ours comes it +had the form of the rude corkscrew of the period, and when it stood alone +(which was more than the Phoenicians could always do) signified Tallegal, translated by the learned Dr. +Brownrigg, “tanglefoot.”

+ +

Table D’Hote, n. A +caterer’s thrifty concession to the universal passion for irresponsibility.

+ +
+

Old Paunchinello, freshly wed,
+Took Madam P. to table,
+And there deliriously fed
+As fast as he was able.
+“I dote upon good grub,” he cried,
+Intent upon its throatage.
+“Ah, yes,” said the neglected bride,
+“You’re in your table d’hotage.”

+ +

Associated Poets

+
+ +

tail, n. The part +of an animal’s spine that has transcended its natural limitations to set up an +independent existence in a world of its own. Excepting in its foetal state, Man +is without a tail, a privation of which he attests an hereditary and uneasy +consciousness by the coat-skirt of the male and the train of the female, and by +a marked tendency to ornament that part of his attire where the tail should be, +and indubitably once was. This tendency is most observable in the female of the +species, in whom the ancestral sense is strong and persistent. The tailed men +described by Lord Monboddo are now generally regarded as a product of an +imagination unusually susceptible to influences generated in the golden age of +our pithecan past.

+ +

take, v.t. To +acquire, frequently by force but preferably by stealth.

+ +

talk, v.t. To +commit an indiscretion without temptation, from an impulse without purpose.

+ +

tariff, n. A scale +of taxes on imports, designed to protect the domestic producer against the +greed of his consumer.

+ +
+

The Enemy of Human Souls
+Sat grieving at the cost of coals;
+For Hell had been annexed of late,
+And was a sovereign Southern State.

+ +

“It were no more than right,” said he,
+“That I should get my fuel free.
+The duty, neither just nor wise,
+Compels me to economize—
+Whereby my broilers, every one,
+Are execrably underdone.
+What would they have?—although I yearn
+To do them nicely to a turn,
+I can’t afford an honest heat.
+This tariff makes even devils cheat!
+I’m ruined, and my humble trade
+All rascals may at will invade:
+Beneath my nose the public press
+Outdoes me in sulphureousness;
+The bar ingeniously applies
+To my undoing my own lies;
+My medicines the doctors use
+(Albeit vainly) to refuse
+To me my fair and rightful prey
+And keep their own in shape to pay;
+The preachers by example teach
+What, scorning to perform, I teach;
+And statesmen, aping me, all make
+More promises than they can break.
+Against such competition I
+Lift up a disregarded cry.
+Since all ignore my just complaint,
+By Hokey-Pokey! I’ll turn saint!”
+Now, the Republicans, who all
+Are saints, began at once to bawl
+Against his competition; so
+There was a devil of a go!
+They locked horns with him, tete-a-tete
+In acrimonious debate,
+Till Democrats, forlorn and lone,
+Had hopes of coming by their own.
+That evil to avert, in haste
+The two belligerents embraced;
+But since ‘twere wicked to relax
+A tittle of the Sacred Tax,
+‘Twas finally agreed to grant
+The bold Insurgent-protestant
+A bounty on each soul that fell
+Into his ineffectual Hell.

+

Edam Smith

+
+ +

technicality, n. In +an English court a man named Home was tried for slander in having accused his +neighbor of murder. His exact words were: “Sir Thomas Holt hath taken a cleaver +and stricken his cook upon the head, so that one side of the head fell upon one +shoulder and the other side upon the other shoulder.” The defendant was +acquitted by instruction of the court, the learned judges holding that the +words did not charge murder, for they did not affirm the death of the cook, +that being only an inference.

+ +

tedium, n. Ennui, +the state or condition of one that is bored. Many fanciful derivations of the +word have been affirmed, but so high an authority as Father Jape says that it +comes from a very obvious source—the first words of the ancient Latin hymn Te +Deum Laudamus. In this apparently natural derivation there is something that +saddens.

+ +

teetotaler, n. One +who abstains from strong drink, sometimes totally, sometimes tolerably totally.

+ +

telephone, n. An +invention of the devil which abrogates some of the advantages of making a +disagreeable person keep his distance.

+ +

telescope, n. A +device having a relation to the eye similar to that of the telephone to the +ear, enabling distant objects to plague us with a multitude of needless +details. Luckily it is unprovided with a bell summoning us to the sacrifice.

+ +

tenacity, n. A +certain quality of the human hand in its relation to the coin of the realm. It +attains its highest development in the hand of authority and is considered a +serviceable equipment for a career in politics. The following illustrative +lines were written of a Californian gentleman in high political preferment, who +has passed to his accounting:

+ +
+

Of such tenacity his grip
+That nothing from his hand can slip.
+Well-buttered eels you may o’erwhelm
+In tubs of liquid slippery-elm
+In vain—from his detaining pinch
+They cannot struggle half an inch!
+‘Tis lucky that he so is planned
+That breath he draws not with his hand,
+For if he did, so great his greed
+He’d draw his last with eager speed.
+Nay, that were well, you say. Not so
+He’d draw but never let it go!

+
+ +

theosophy, n. An +ancient faith having all the certitude of religion and all the mystery of +science. The modern Theosophist holds, with the Buddhists, that we live an +incalculable number of times on this earth, in as many several bodies, because +one life is not long enough for our complete spiritual development; that is, a +single lifetime does not suffice for us to become as wise and good as we choose +to wish to become. To be absolutely wise and good—that is perfection; and the +Theosophist is so keen-sighted as to have observed that everything desirous of +improvement eventually attains perfection. Less competent observers are +disposed to except cats, which seem neither wiser nor better than they were +last year. The greatest and fattest of recent Theosophists was the late Madame +Blavatsky, who had no cat.

+ +

tights, n. An +habiliment of the stage designed to reinforce the general acclamation of the +press agent with a particular publicity. Public attention was once somewhat +diverted from this garment to Miss Lillian Russell’s refusal to wear it, and +many were the conjectures as to her motive, the guess of Miss Pauline Hall +showing a high order of ingenuity and sustained reflection. It was Miss Hall’s +belief that nature had not endowed Miss Russell with beautiful legs. This +theory was impossible of acceptance by the male understanding, but the +conception of a faulty female leg was of so prodigious originality as to rank +among the most brilliant feats of philosophical speculation! It is strange that +in all the controversy regarding Miss Russell’s aversion to tights no one seems +to have thought to ascribe it to what was known among the ancients as +“modesty.” The nature of that sentiment is now imperfectly understood, and +possibly incapable of exposition with the vocabulary that remains to us. The +study of lost arts has, however, been recently revived and some of the arts +themselves recovered. This is an epoch of renaissances, +and there is ground for hope that the primitive “blush” may be dragged from its +hiding-place amongst the tombs of antiquity and hissed on to the stage.

+ +

tomb, n. The House +of Indifference. Tombs are now by common consent invested with a certain +sanctity, but when they have been long tenanted it is considered no sin to +break them open and rifle them, the famous Egyptologist, Dr. Huggyns, +explaining that a tomb may be innocently “glened” as soon as its occupant is +done “smellynge,” the soul being then all exhaled. This reasonable view is now +generally accepted by archaeologists, whereby the noble science of Curiosity +has been greatly dignified.

+ +

tope, v. To tipple, +booze, swill, soak, guzzle, lush, bib, or swig. In the individual, toping is +regarded with disesteem, but toping nations are in the forefront of +civilization and power. When pitted against the hard-drinking Christians the +absemious Mahometans go down like grass before the scythe. In India one hundred +thousand beef-eating and brandy-and-soda guzzling Britons hold in subjection +two hundred and fifty million vegetarian abstainers of the same Aryan race. With +what an easy grace the whisky-loving American pushed the temperate Spaniard out +of his possessions! From the time when the Berserkers ravaged all the coasts of +western Europe and lay drunk in every conquered port it has been the same way: everywhere +the nations that drink too much are observed to fight rather well and not too +righteously. Wherefore the estimable old ladies who abolished the canteen from +the American army may justly boast of having materially augmented the nation’s +military power.

+ +

tortoise, n. A +creature thoughtfully created to supply occasion for the following lines by the +illustrious Ambat Delaso:

+ +
+

TO MY PET TORTOISE

+ +

My friend, you are not graceful—not at all;
+Your gait’s between a stagger and a sprawl.
+Nor are you beautiful: your head’s a snake’s
+To look at, and I do not doubt it aches.
+As to your feet, they’d make an angel weep.
+‘Tis true you take them in whene’er you sleep.
+No, you’re not pretty, but you have, I own,
+A certain firmness—mostly you’re [sic] backbone.
+Firmness and strength (you have a giant’s thews)
+Are virtues that the great know how to use—
+I wish that they did not; yet, on the whole,
+You lack—excuse my mentioning it—Soul.
+So, to be candid, unreserved and true,
+I’d rather you were I than I were you.

+ +

Perhaps, however, in a time to be,
+When Man’s extinct, a better world may see
+Your progeny in power and control,
+Due to the genesis and growth of Soul.

+ +

So I salute you as a reptile grand
+Predestined to regenerate the land.

+ +

Father of Possibilities, O deign
+To accept the homage of a dying reign!
+In the far region of the unforeknown
+I dream a tortoise upon every throne.

+ +

I see an Emperor his head withdraw
+Into his carapace for fear of Law;

+ +

A King who carries something else than fat,
+Howe’er acceptably he carries that;
+A President not strenuously bent
+On punishment of audible dissent—

+ +

Who never shot (it were a vain attack)
+An armed or unarmed tortoise in the back;
+Subject and citizens that feel no need
+To make the March of Mind a wild stampede;
+All progress slow, contemplative, sedate,
+And “Take your time” the word, in Church and State.
+O Tortoise, ‘tis a happy, happy dream,
+My glorious testudinous regime!

+ +

I wish in Eden you’d brought this about
+By slouching in and chasing Adam out.

+
+ +

tree, n. A tall +vegetable intended by nature to serve as a penal apparatus, though through a +miscarriage of justice most trees bear only a negligible fruit, or none at all. +When naturally fruited, the tree is a beneficient agency of civilization and an +important factor in public morals. In the stern West and the sensitive South +its fruit (white and black respectively) though not eaten, is agreeable to the +public taste and, though not exported, profitable to the general welfare. That +the legitimate relation of the tree to justice was no discovery of Judge Lynch +(who, indeed, conceded it no primacy over the lamp-post and the bridge-girder) +is made plain by the following passage from Morryster, who antedated him by two +centuries:

+ +

While in yt londe +I was carried to see ye Ghogo tree, whereof I had hearde moch talk; but sayynge +yt I saw naught remarkabyll in it, ye hed manne of ye villayge where it grewe +made answer as followeth:

+ +

“Ye tree is not nowe in fruite, but in his seasonne you shall see dependynge fr. his braunches +all soch as have affroynted ye King his Majesty.”

+ +

And I was furder tolde yt ye worde “Ghogo” sygnifyeth in yr tong ye same as “rapscal” in our +owne.

+ +

Trauvells in ye Easte

+ +

trial, n. A formal +inquiry designed to prove and put upon record the blameless characters of +judges, advocates and jurors. In order to effect this purpose it is necessary +to supply a contrast in the person of one who is called the defendant, the +prisoner, or the accused. If the contrast is made sufficiently clear this +person is made to undergo such an affliction as will give the virtuous +gentlemen a comfortable sense of their immunity, added to that of their worth. In +our day the accused is usually a human being, or a socialist, but in mediaeval +times, animals, fishes, reptiles and insects were brought to trial. A beast +that had taken human life, or practiced sorcery, was duly arrested, tried and, +if condemned, put to death by the public executioner. Insects ravaging grain +fields, orchards or vineyards were cited to appeal by counsel before a civil +tribunal, and after testimony, argument and condemnation, if they continued in +contumaciam the matter was taken to a high ecclesiastical court, where they +were solemnly excommunicated and anathematized. In a street of Toledo, some +pigs that had wickedly run between the viceroy’s legs, upsetting him, were arrested +on a warrant, tried and punished. In Naples and ass was condemned to be burned +at the stake, but the sentence appears not to have been executed. D’Addosio +relates from the court records many trials of pigs, bulls, horses, cocks, dogs, +goats, etc., greatly, it is believed, to the betterment of their conduct and +morals. In 1451 a suit was brought against the leeches infesting some ponds +about Berne, and the Bishop of Lausanne, instructed by the faculty of +Heidelberg University, directed that some of “the aquatic worms” be brought +before the local magistracy. This was done and the leeches, both present and +absent, were ordered to leave the places that they had infested within three +days on pain of incurring “the malediction of God.” In the voluminous records +of this cause celebre nothing is +found to show whether the offenders braved the punishment, or departed +forthwith out of that inhospitable jurisdiction.

+ +

trichinosis, n. The +pig’s reply to proponents of porcophagy.

+ +

Moses Mendlessohn +having fallen ill sent for a Christian physician, who at once diagnosed the +philosopher’s disorder as trichinosis, but tactfully gave it another name. “You +need and immediate change of diet,” he said; “you must eat six ounces of pork +every other day.”

+ +

“Pork?” shrieked the patient—“pork? Nothing shall induce me to touch it!”

+ +

“Do you mean that?” the doctor gravely asked.

+ +

“I swear it!”

+ +

“Good!—then I will undertake to cure you.”

+ +

Trinity, n. In the +multiplex theism of certain Christian churches, three entirely distinct deities +consistent with only one. Subordinate deities of the polytheistic faith, such +as devils and angels, are not dowered with the power of combination, and must +urge individually their clames to adoration and propitiation. The Trinity is +one of the most sublime mysteries of our holy religion. In rejecting it because +it is incomprehensible, Unitarians betray their inadequate sense of theological +fundamentals. In religion we believe only what we do not understand, except in +the instance of an intelligible doctrine that contradicts an incomprehensible +one. In that case we believe the former as a part of the latter.

+ +

Troglodyte, n. Specifically, +a cave-dweller of the paleolithic period, after the Tree and before the Flat. A +famous community of troglodytes dwelt with David in the Cave of Adullam. The +colony consisted of “every one that was in distress, and every one that was in +debt, and every one that was discontented”—in brief, all the Socialists of +Judah.

+ +

truce, n. Friendship.

+ +

truth, n. An +ingenious compound of desirability and appearance. Discovery of truth is the +sole purpose of philosophy, which is the most ancient occupation of the human +mind and has a fair prospect of existing with increasing activity to the end of time.

+ +

truthful, adj. Dumb +and illiterate.

+ +

trust, n. In +American politics, a large corporation composed in greater part of thrifty +working men, widows of small means, orphans in the care of guardians and the +courts, with many similar malefactors and public enemies.

+ +

turkey, n. A large +bird whose flesh when eaten on certain religious anniversaries has the peculiar +property of attesting piety and gratitude. Incidentally, it is pretty good eating.

+ +

twice, adv. Once +too often.

+ +

type, n. Pestilent +bits of metal suspected of destroying civilization and enlightenment, despite +their obvious agency in this incomparable dictionary.

+ +

Tzetze (or Tsetse) Fly, n. An African +insect (Glossina morsitans) whose bite is commonly +regarded as nature’s most efficacious remedy for insomnia, though some patients +prefer that of the American novelist (Mendax interminabilis).

+ + + \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/T.html.annot b/lib/ebooks/devils/T.html.annot new file mode 100644 index 00000000..e69de29b diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/T.html.i b/lib/ebooks/devils/T.html.i new file mode 100644 index 00000000..136e8ee5 --- /dev/null +++ b/lib/ebooks/devils/T.html.i @@ -0,0 +1,30 @@ +13 pages +size 400 552 +length 20645 +396 2 10 body html +0 +1344 2 38 body html +107 +2653 2 60 body html +327 +2653 2 60 body html +873 +6271 2 141 body html +73 +8124 2 176 body html +22 +10082 2 204 body html +39 +11331 2 223 body html +242 +11331 2 223 body html +781 +14716 2 298 body html +0 +14753 2 300 body html +498 +17685 2 347 body html +175 +20307 2 391 body html +56 +truth 11 diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/TitlePage.html b/lib/ebooks/devils/TitlePage.html new file mode 100644 index 00000000..c1c23bef --- /dev/null +++ b/lib/ebooks/devils/TitlePage.html @@ -0,0 +1,25 @@ + + + + + + +The Devil’s Dictionary + + + +

The Devil’s Dictionary

+ +

AMBROSE BIERCE

+ +

Originally published by Neale Publishing Company in 1911.

+ +

This version began as a plain ASCII text from Project +Gutenberg, and was entered by Aloysius of &tSftDotIotE (aloysius@west.darkside.com)

+ +

Open eBook formatting and editing was performed July–September, 2000 by +Peter K. Sheerin (psheerin@petesguide.com), with formatting based on that found in the 1993 +Dover Publications edition.

+ + \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/TitlePage.html.annot b/lib/ebooks/devils/TitlePage.html.annot new file mode 100644 index 00000000..e69de29b diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/TitlePage.html.i b/lib/ebooks/devils/TitlePage.html.i new file mode 100644 index 00000000..3d930afd --- /dev/null +++ b/lib/ebooks/devils/TitlePage.html.i @@ -0,0 +1,5 @@ +1 pages +size 400 552 +length 969 +396 2 10 body html +0 diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/U.html b/lib/ebooks/devils/U.html new file mode 100644 index 00000000..0327426f --- /dev/null +++ b/lib/ebooks/devils/U.html @@ -0,0 +1,118 @@ + + + + + + +The Devil’s Dictionary: U + + + + +

U

+ +

ubiquity, n. The +gift or power of being in all places at one time, but not in all places at all +times, which is omnipresence, an attribute of God and the luminiferous ether +only. This important distinction between ubiquity and omnipresence was not +clear to the mediaeval Church and there was much bloodshed about it. Certain +Lutherans, who affirmed the presence everywhere of Christ’s body were known as +Ubiquitarians. For this error they were doubtless damned, for Christ’s body is +present only in the eucharist, though that sacrament may be performed in more +than one place simultaneously. In recent times ubiquity has not always been +understood—not even by Sir Boyle Roche, for example, who held that a man cannot +be in two places at once unless he is a bird.

+ +

ugliness, n. A +gift of the gods to certain women, entailing virtue without humility.

+ +

ultimatum, n. In +diplomacy, a last demand before resorting to concessions.

+ +

Having received an ultimatum from Austria, the Turkish Ministry met to consider it.

+ +

“O servant of the Prophet,” said the Sheik of the Imperial Chibouk to the Mamoosh of the +Invincible Army, “how many unconquerable soldiers have we in arms?”

+ +

“Upholder of the Faith,” that dignitary replied after examining his memoranda, “they are in +numbers as the leaves of the forest!”

+ +

“And how many impenetrable battleships strike terror to the hearts of all Christian swine?” +he asked the Imaum of the Ever Victorious Navy.

+ +

“Uncle of the Full Moon,” was the reply, “deign to know that they are as the waves of the ocean, +the sands of the desert and the stars of Heaven!”

+ +

For eight hours the broad brow of the Sheik of the Imperial Chibouk was corrugated with +evidences of deep thought: he was calculating the chances of war. Then, “Sons +of angels,” he said, “the die is cast! I shall suggest to the Ulema of the +Imperial Ear that he advise inaction. In the name of Allah, the council is adjourned.”

+ +

un-American, adj. Wicked, +intolerable, heathenish.

+ +

unction, n. An +oiling, or greasing. The rite of extreme unction consists in touching with oil +consecrated by a bishop several parts of the body of one engaged in dying. Marbury +relates that after the rite had been administered to a certain wicked English +nobleman it was discovered that the oil had not been properly consecrated and +no other could be obtained. When informed of this the sick man said in anger:

+ +

“Then I’ll be damned if I die!”

+ +

“My son,” said the priest, “this is what we fear.”

+ +

understanding, n. A +cerebral secretion that enables one having it to know a house from a horse by +the roof on the house. Its nature and laws have been exhaustively expounded by +Locke, who rode a house, and Kant, who lived in a horse.

+ +
+

His understanding was so keen
+That all things which he’d felt, heard, seen,
+He could interpret without fail
+If he was in or out of jail.
+He wrote at Inspiration’s call
+Deep disquisitions on them all,
+Then, pent at last in an asylum,
+Performed the service to compile ‘em.
+So great a writer, all men swore,
+They never had not read before.

+

Jorrock Wormley

+
+ +

Unitarian, n. One +who denies the divinity of a Trinitarian.

+ +

universalist, n. One +who forgoes the advantage of a Hell for persons of another faith.

+ +

urbanity, n. The +kind of civility that urban observers ascribe to dwellers in all cities but New +York. Its commonest expression is heard in the words, “I beg your pardon,” and +it is not consistent with disregard of the rights of others.

+ +
+

The owner of a powder mill
+Was musing on a distant hill—
+Something his mind foreboded—
+When from the cloudless sky there fell
+A deviled human kidney! Well,
+The man’s mill had exploded.
+His hat he lifted from his head;
+“I beg your pardon, sir,” he said;
+“I didn’t know ‘twas loaded.”

+

Swatkin

+
+ +

usage, n. The First +Person of the literary Trinity, the Second and Third being Custom and +Conventionality. Imbued with a decent reverence for this Holy Triad an +industrious writer may hope to produce books that will live as long as the fashion.

+ +

uxoriousness, n. A +perverted affection that has strayed to one’s own wife.

+ + + \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/U.html.annot b/lib/ebooks/devils/U.html.annot new file mode 100644 index 00000000..e69de29b diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/U.html.i b/lib/ebooks/devils/U.html.i new file mode 100644 index 00000000..debc39d7 --- /dev/null +++ b/lib/ebooks/devils/U.html.i @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +4 pages +size 400 552 +length 5657 +396 2 10 body html +0 +1821 2 38 body html +34 +3346 2 66 body html +39 +4742 2 96 body html +138 diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/V.html b/lib/ebooks/devils/V.html new file mode 100644 index 00000000..3da23d23 --- /dev/null +++ b/lib/ebooks/devils/V.html @@ -0,0 +1,57 @@ + + + + + + +The Devil’s Dictionary: V + + + + +

V

+ +

valor, n. A +soldierly compound of vanity, duty and the gambler’s hope.

+ +

“Why have you halted?” roared the commander of a division and Chickamauga, who had ordered a +charge; “move forward, sir, at once.”

+ +

“General,” said the commander of the delinquent brigade, “I am persuaded that any further +display of valor by my troops will bring them into collision with the enemy.”

+ +

vanity, n. The +tribute of a fool to the worth of the nearest ass.

+ +
+

They say that hens do cackle loudest when
+There’s nothing vital in the eggs they’ve laid;
+And there are hens, professing to have made
+A study of mankind, who say that men
+Whose business ‘tis to drive the tongue or pen
+Make the most clamorous fanfaronade
+O’er their most worthless work; and I’m afraid
+They’re not entirely different from the hen.
+Lo! the drum-major in his coat of gold,
+His blazing breeches and high-towering cap—
+Imperiously pompous, grandly bold,
+Grim, resolute, an awe-inspiring chap!
+Who’d think this gorgeous creature’s only virtue Is that in +battle he will never hurt you?

+ +

Hannibal Hunsiker

+
+ +

virtues, n.pl. Certain +abstentions.

+ +

vituperation, n. Saite, +as understood by dunces and all such as suffer from an impediment in their wit.

+ +

vote, n. The +instrument and symbol of a freeman’s power to make a fool of himself and a +wreck of his country.

+ + + \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/V.html.annot b/lib/ebooks/devils/V.html.annot new file mode 100644 index 00000000..e69de29b diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/V.html.i b/lib/ebooks/devils/V.html.i new file mode 100644 index 00000000..4d91c1ad --- /dev/null +++ b/lib/ebooks/devils/V.html.i @@ -0,0 +1,7 @@ +2 pages +size 400 552 +length 2289 +396 2 10 body html +0 +1025 2 27 body html +240 diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/W.html b/lib/ebooks/devils/W.html new file mode 100644 index 00000000..49e9e950 --- /dev/null +++ b/lib/ebooks/devils/W.html @@ -0,0 +1,275 @@ + + + + + + +The Devil’s Dictionary: W + + + + +

W

+ +

W (double U) has, +of all the letters in our alphabet, the only cumbrous name, the names of the +others being monosyllabic. This advantage of the Roman alphabet over the Grecian +is the more valued after audibly spelling out some simple Greek word, like epixoriambikos. Still, it is now thought +by the learned that other agencies than the difference of the two alphabets may +have been concerned in the decline of “the glory that was Greece” and the rise +of “the grandeur that was Rome.” There can be no doubt, however, that by +simplifying the name of W (calling it “wow,” for example) our civilization +could be, if not promoted, at least better endured.

+ +

Wall Street, n. A +symbol for sin for every devil to rebuke. That Wall Street is a den of thieves +is a belief that serves every unsuccessful thief in place of a hope in Heaven. Even +the great and good Andrew Carnegie has made his profession of faith in the +matter.

+ +
+

Carnegie the dauntless +has uttered his call To battle: “The brokers are parasites all!” Carnegie, +Carnegie, you’ll never prevail;

+ +

Keep the wind of your slogan to belly your sail, Go back to your isle of perpetual brume, +Silence your pibroch, doff tartan and plume:

+ +

Ben Lomond is calling his son from the fray—

+ +

Fly, fly from the region of Wall Street away! While still you’re possessed of a single baubee (I +wish it were pledged to endowment of me) ‘Twere wise to retreat from the wars +of finance Lest its value decline ere your credit advance. For a man ‘twixt a +king of finance and the sea, Carnegie, Carnegie, your tongue is too free!

+ +

Anonymus Bink

+
+ +

war, n. A by-product of the arts of +peace. The most menacing political condition is a period of +international amity. The student of history who has not been taught +to expect the unexpected may justly boast himself inaccessible to the +light. “In time of peace prepare for war” has a deeper meaning than +is commonly discerned; it means, not merely that all things earthly +have an end—that change is the one immutable and eternal law—but +that the soil of peace is thickly sown with the seeds of war and +singularly suited to their germination and growth. It was when Kubla Khan +had decreed his “stately pleasure dome”—when, that is to say, there +were peace and fat feasting in Xanadu—that he heard from afar +Ancestral voices prophesying war.

+ +

One of the +greatest of poets, Coleridge was one of the wisest of men, and it was not for +nothing that he read us this parable. Let us have a little less of “hands +across the sea,” and a little more of that elemental distrust that is the +security of nations. War loves to come like a thief in the night; professions +of eternal amity provide the night.

+ +

Washingtonian, n. A +Potomac tribesman who exchanged the privilege of governing himself for the +advantage of good government. In justice to him it should be said that he did +not want to.

+ +
+

They took away his vote and gave instead
+The right, when he had earned, to eat his bread.
+In vain—he clamors for his “boss,” pour soul,
+To come again and part him from his roll.

+ +

Offenbach Stutz

+
+ +

weaknesses, n.pl. Certain +primal powers of Tyrant Woman wherewith she holds dominion over the male of her +species, binding him to the service of her will and paralyzing his rebellious +energies.

+ +

weather, n. The +climate of the hour. A permanent topic of conversation among persons whom it +does not interest, but who have inherited the tendency to chatter about it from +naked arboreal ancestors whom it keenly concerned. The setting up official +weather bureaus and their maintenance in mendacity prove that even governments +are accessible to suasion by the rude forefathers of the jungle.

+ +
+

Once I dipt into +the future far as human eye could see, And I saw the Chief Forecaster, dead as +any one can be—

+ +

Dead and damned +and shut in Hades as a liar from his birth, With a record of unreason seldom +paralleled on earth. While I looked he reared him solemnly, that incadescent +youth, From the coals that he’d preferred to the advantages of truth. He cast +his eyes about him and above him; then he wrote On a slab of thin asbestos what +I venture here to quote—

+ +

For I read it in +the rose-light of the everlasting glow:

+ +

“Cloudy; variable +winds, with local showers; cooler; snow.”

+ +

Halcyon Jones

+
+ +

wedding, n. A +ceremony at which two persons undertake to become one, one undertakes to become +nothing, and nothing undertakes to become supportable.

+ +

werewolf, n. A +wolf that was once, or is sometimes, a man. All werewolves are of evil +disposition, having assumed a bestial form to gratify a beastial appetite, but +some, transformed by sorcery, are as humane and is consistent with an acquired +taste for human flesh.

+ +

Some Bavarian peasants having caught a wolf one evening, tied it to a post by the tail and +went to bed. The next morning nothing was there! Greatly perplexed, they +consulted the local priest, who told them that their captive was undoubtedly a +werewolf and had resumed its human for during the night. “The next time that +you take a wolf,” the good man said, “see that you chain it by the leg, and in +the morning you will find a Lutheran.”

+ +

Whangdepootenawah, n. In the +Ojibwa tongue, disaster; an unexpected affliction that strikes hard.

+ +
+

Should you ask me whence this laughter,

+

Whence this audible big-smiling,

+

With its labial extension,

+

With its maxillar distortion

+

And its diaphragmic rhythmus

+

Like the billowing of an ocean,

+

Like the shaking of a carpet,

+

I should answer, I should tell you:

+

From the great deeps of the spirit,

+

From the unplummeted abysmus

+

Of the soul this laughter welleth

+

As the fountain, the gug-guggle,

+

Like the river from the canon [sic],

+

To entoken and give warning

+

That my present mood is sunny.

+

Should you ask me further question—

+

Why the great deeps of the spirit,

+

Why the unplummeted abysmus

+

Of the soule extrudes this laughter,

+

This all audible big-smiling,

+

I should answer, I should tell you

+

With a white heart, tumpitumpy,

+

With a true tongue, honest Injun:

+

William Bryan, he has Caught It,

+

Caught the Whangdepootenawah!

+

Is’t the sandhill crane, the shankank,

+

Standing in the marsh, the kneedeep,

+

Standing silent in the kneedeep

+

With his wing-tips crossed behind him

+

And his neck close-reefed before him,

+

With his bill, his william, buried

+

In the down upon his bosom,

+

With his head retracted inly,

+

While his shoulders overlook it?

+

Does the sandhill crane, the shankank,

+

Shiver grayly in the north wind,

+

Wishing he had died when little,

+

As the sparrow, the chipchip, does?

+

No ‘tis not the Shankank standing,

+

Standing in the gray and dismal

+

Marsh, the gray and dismal kneedeep.

+

No, ‘tis peerless William Bryan

+

Realizing that he’s Caught It,

+

Caught the Whangdepootenawah!

+
+ +

wheat, n. A cereal +from which a tolerably good whisky can with some difficulty be made, and which +is used also for bread. The French are said to eat more bread per capita of population than any other +people, which is natural, for only they know how to make the stuff palatable.

+ +

white, adj. and n. +Black.

+ +

widow, n. A +pathetic figure that the Christian world has agreed to take humorously, +although Christ’s tenderness towards widows was one of the most marked features +of his character.

+ +

wine, n. Fermented +grape-juice known to the Women’s Christian Union as “liquor,” sometimes as +“rum.” Wine, madam, is God’s next best gift to man.

+ +

wit, n. The salt +with which the American humorist spoils his intellectual cookery by leaving it +out.

+ +

witch, n. (1) Any +ugly and repulsive old woman, in a wicked league with the devil. (2) A +beautiful and attractive young woman, in wickedness a league beyond the devil.

+ +

witticism, n. A +sharp and clever remark, usually quoted, and seldom noted; what the Philistine +is pleased to call a “joke.”

+ +

woman, n.

+ +

An animal usually +living in the vicinity of Man, and having a rudimentary susceptibility to +domestication. It is credited by many of the elder zoologists with a certain +vestigial docility acquired in a former state of seclusion, but naturalists of +the postsusananthony period, having no knowledge of the seclusion, deny the +virtue and declare that such as creation’s dawn beheld, it roareth now. The +species is the most widely distributed of all beasts of prey, infesting all +habitable parts of the globe, from Greeland’s spicy mountains to India’s moral +strand. The popular name (wolfman) is incorrect, for the creature is of the cat +kind. The woman is lithe and graceful in its movement, especially the American +variety (felis pugnans), is omnivorous and can be taught not to talk.

+ +

Balthasar Pober

+ +

worms’-meat, n. The +finished product of which we are the raw material. The contents of the Taj +Mahal, the Tombeau Napoleon and the Granitarium. Worms’-meat is usually +outlasted by the structure that houses it, but “this too must pass away.” Probably +the silliest work in which a human being can engage is construction of a tomb +for himself. The solemn purpose cannot dignify, but only accentuates by +contrast the foreknown futility.

+ +
+

Ambitious fool! so mad to be a show!
+How profitless the labor you bestow
+Upon a dwelling whose magnificence
+The tenant neither can admire nor know.
+Build deep, build high, build massive as you can,
+The wanton grass-roots will defeat the plan
+By shouldering asunder all the stones
+In what to you would be a moment’s span.
+Time to the dead so all unreckoned flies
+That when your marble is all dust, arise,
+If wakened, stretch your limbs and yawn—
+You’ll think you scarcely can have closed your eyes.
+What though of all man’s works your tomb alone +Should stand till Time himself be overthrown?
+Would it advantage you to dwell therein
+Forever as a stain upon a stone?

+ +

Joel Huck

+
+ +

worship, n. Homo +Creator’s testimony to the sound construction and fine finish of Deus Creatus. A +popular form of abjection, having an element of pride.

+ +

wrath, n. Anger of +a superior quality and degree, appropriate to exalted characters and momentous +occasions; as, “the wrath of God,” “the day of wrath,” etc. Amongst the +ancients the wrath of kings was deemed sacred, for it could usually command the +agency of some god for its fit manifestation, as could also that of a priest. The +Greeks before Troy were so harried by Apollo that they jumped out of the +frying-pan of the wrath of Cryses into the fire of the wrath of Achilles, +though Agamemnon, the sole offender, was neither fried nor roasted. A similar +noted immunity was that of David when he incurred the wrath of Yahveh by +numbering his people, seventy thousand of whom paid the penalty with their +lives. God is now Love, and a director of the census performs his work without +apprehension of disaster.

+ + + \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/W.html.annot b/lib/ebooks/devils/W.html.annot new file mode 100644 index 00000000..e69de29b diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/W.html.i b/lib/ebooks/devils/W.html.i new file mode 100644 index 00000000..326f22ee --- /dev/null +++ b/lib/ebooks/devils/W.html.i @@ -0,0 +1,23 @@ +10 pages +size 400 552 +length 14117 +396 2 10 body html +0 +1443 2 31 body html +159 +3459 2 69 body html +22 +4746 2 95 body html +157 +6679 2 136 body html +72 +6679 2 136 body html +612 +6679 2 136 body html +1152 +9503 2 188 body html +0 +11587 2 226 body html +0 +13208 2 261 body html +0 diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/X.html b/lib/ebooks/devils/X.html new file mode 100644 index 00000000..87cefdd5 --- /dev/null +++ b/lib/ebooks/devils/X.html @@ -0,0 +1,25 @@ + + + + + + +The Devil’s Dictionary: X + + + + +

X

+ +

X in our alphabet being a needless letter has an added invincibility to the attacks of the +spelling reformers, and like them, will doubtless last as long as the language. +X is the sacred symbol of ten dollars, and in such words as Xmas, Xn, etc., +stands for Christ, not, as is popular supposed, because it represents a cross, +but because the corresponding letter in the Greek alphabet is the initial of +his name—Xristos. If it represented a cross it would stand for St. Andrew, who “testified” upon one of +that shape. In the algebra of psychology x stands for Woman’s mind. Words +beginning with X are Grecian and will not be defined in this standard English dictionary.

+ + + \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/X.html.annot b/lib/ebooks/devils/X.html.annot new file mode 100644 index 00000000..e69de29b diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/X.html.i b/lib/ebooks/devils/X.html.i new file mode 100644 index 00000000..2837c016 --- /dev/null +++ b/lib/ebooks/devils/X.html.i @@ -0,0 +1,5 @@ +1 pages +size 400 552 +length 1145 +396 2 10 body html +0 diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/Y.html b/lib/ebooks/devils/Y.html new file mode 100644 index 00000000..aea3f7e8 --- /dev/null +++ b/lib/ebooks/devils/Y.html @@ -0,0 +1,72 @@ + + + + + + +The Devil’s Dictionary: Y + + + + +

Y

+ +

Yankee, n. In +Europe, an American. In the Northern States of our Union, a New Englander. In +the Southern States the word is unknown. (See DAMNYANK.)

+ +

year, n. A period +of three hundred and sixty-five disappointments.

+ +

yesterday, n. The +infancy of youth, the youth of manhood, the entire past of age.

+ +
+

But yesterday I should have thought me blest
+To stand high-pinnacled upon the peak
+Of middle life and look adown the bleak
+And unfamiliar foreslope to the West,
+Where solemn shadows all the land invest
+And stilly voices, half-remembered, speak
+Unfinished prophecy, and witch-fires freak
+The haunted twilight of the Dark of Rest.
+Yea, yesterday my soul was all aflame
+To stay the shadow on the dial’s face
+At manhood’s noonmark! Now, in God His name
+I chide aloud the little interspace
+Disparting me from Certitude, and fain
+Would know the dream and vision ne’er again.

+ +

Baruch Arnegriff

+
+ +

It is said that in his last illness the poet Arnegriff was attended at different times by seven +doctors.

+ +

yoke, n. An +implement, madam, to whose Latin name, jugum, +we owe one of the most illuminating words in our language—a word that defines +the matrimonial situation with precision, point and poignancy. A thousand +apologies for withholding it.

+ +

youth, n. The +Period of Possibility, when Archimedes finds a fulcrum, Cassandra has a +following and seven cities compete for the honor of endowing a living Homer.

+ +

Youth is the true Saturnian Reign,
+the Golden Age on earth again,
+when figs are grown on thistles,
+and pigs betailed with whistles and,
+wearing silken bristles,
+live ever in clover,
+and clows fly over,
+delivering milk at every door,
+and Justice never is heard to snore,
+and every assassin is made a ghost
+and, howling, is cast into Baltimost!

+ +

Polydore Smith

+ + + \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/Y.html.annot b/lib/ebooks/devils/Y.html.annot new file mode 100644 index 00000000..e69de29b diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/Y.html.i b/lib/ebooks/devils/Y.html.i new file mode 100644 index 00000000..a94153cf --- /dev/null +++ b/lib/ebooks/devils/Y.html.i @@ -0,0 +1,7 @@ +2 pages +size 400 552 +length 2842 +396 2 10 body html +0 +1669 2 44 body html +0 diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/Z.html b/lib/ebooks/devils/Z.html new file mode 100644 index 00000000..3f3917aa --- /dev/null +++ b/lib/ebooks/devils/Z.html @@ -0,0 +1,96 @@ + + + + + + +The Devil’s Dictionary: Z + + + + +

Z

+ +

zany, n. A popular +character in old Italian plays, who imitated with ludicrous incompetence the buffone, or clown, and was therefore the +ape of an ape; for the clown himself imitated the serious characters of the +play. The zany was progenitor to the specialist in humor, as we to-day have the +unhappiness to know him. In the zany we see an example of creation; in the +humorist, of transmission. Another excellent specimen of the modern zany is the +curate, who apes the rector, who apes the bishop, who apes the archbishop, who +apes the devil.

+ +

Zanzibari, n. An +inhabitant of the Sultanate of Zanzibar, off the eastern coast of Africa. The +Zanzibaris, a warlike people, are best known in this country through a +threatening diplomatic incident that occurred a few years ago. The American +consul at the capital occupied a dwelling that faced the sea, with a sandy +beach between. Greatly to the scandal of this official’s family, and against +repeated remonstrances of the official himself, the people of the city +persisted in using the beach for bathing. One day a woman came down to the edge +of the water and was stooping to remove her attire (a pair of sandals) when the +consul, incensed beyond restraint, fired a charge of bird-shot into the most +conspicuous part of her person. Unfortunately for the existing entente cordiale between two great +nations, she was the Sultana.

+ +

zeal, n. A certain +nervous disorder afflicting the young and inexperienced. A passion that goeth +before a sprawl.

+ +
+

When Zeal sought Gratitude for his reward
+He went away exclaiming: “O my Lord!”
+“What do you want?” the Lord asked, bending down.
+“An ointment for my cracked and bleeding crown.”

+ +

Jum Coople

+
+ +

zenith, n. The +point in the heavens directly overhead to a man standing or a growing cabbage. A +man in bed or a cabbage in the pot is not considered as having a zenith, though +from this view of the matter there was once a considerably dissent among the +learned, some holding that the posture of the body was immaterial. These were +called Horizontalists, their opponents, Verticalists. The Horizontalist heresy +was finally extinguished by Xanobus, the philosopher-king of Abara, a zealous +Verticalist. Entering an assembly of philosophers who were debating the matter, +he cast a severed human head at the feet of his opponents and asked them to +determine its zenith, explaining that its body was hanging by the heels +outside. Observing that it was the head of their leader, the Horizontalists +hastened to profess themselves converted to whatever opinion the Crown might be +pleased to hold, and Horizontalism took its place among fides defuncti.

+ +

Zeus, n. The chief +of Grecian gods, adored by the Romans as Jupiter and by the modern Americans as +God, Gold, Mob and Dog. Some explorers who have touched upon the shores of +America, and one who professes to have penetrated a considerable distance to +the interior, have thought that these four names stand for as many distinct +deities, but in his monumental work on Surviving Faiths, Frumpp insists that +the natives are monotheists, each having no other god than himself, whom he +worships under many sacred names.

+ +

zigzag, v.t. To +move forward uncertainly, from side to side, as one carrying the white man’s +burden. (From zed, z, and jag, +an Icelandic word of unknown meaning.)

+ +
+

He zedjagged so uncomen wyde
+Thet non coude pas on eyder syde;
+So, to com saufly thruh, I been
+Constreynet for to doodge betwene.

+ +

Munwele

+
+ +

zoology, n. The science +and history of the animal kingdom, including its king, the House Fly (Musca +maledicta). The father of Zoology was Aristotle, as is universally conceded, +but the name of its mother has not come down to us. Two of the science’s most +illustrious expounders were Buffon and Oliver Goldsmith, from both of whom we +learn (L’Histoire generale des animaux and A History of Animated Nature) +that the domestic cow sheds its horn every two years.

+ + + \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/Z.html.annot b/lib/ebooks/devils/Z.html.annot new file mode 100644 index 00000000..e69de29b diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/Z.html.i b/lib/ebooks/devils/Z.html.i new file mode 100644 index 00000000..4d5f9c32 --- /dev/null +++ b/lib/ebooks/devils/Z.html.i @@ -0,0 +1,9 @@ +3 pages +size 400 552 +length 5097 +396 2 10 body html +0 +2130 2 41 body html +19 +3447 2 64 body html +141 diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/devil.css b/lib/ebooks/devils/devil.css new file mode 100644 index 00000000..5f997114 --- /dev/null +++ b/lib/ebooks/devils/devil.css @@ -0,0 +1,203 @@ +p { + text-align: justify + } + +p.title { + margin-bottom: 1em + } + +p.entry { + margin-top: .33em; + text-indent: 0em; + margin-bottom: 0em + } + +p.firstpara { + text-indent: 0pt; + } + +p.indentpara { + text-indent: 1em; + } + +p.poem { + font-size: smaller; + text-align: left; + text-indent: 0em + } + +p.po { + font-size: smaller; + text-align: left; + margin-bottom: 0; + margin-top: 0em; + text-indent: 0em + } + +p.poind1 { + font-size: smaller; + text-align: left; + margin-bottom: 0; + margin-top: 0em; + text-indent: 1em + } +p.poind2 { + font-size: smaller; + text-align: left; + margin-bottom: 0; + margin-top: 0em; + text-indent: 2em + } +p.poind3 { + font-size: smaller; + text-align: left; + margin-bottom: 0; + margin-top: 0em; + text-indent: 3em + } + +div.poem { +text-align: center +} + +span.stanza { + page-break-inside: avoid; + margin-bottom: 1em +} +div.stanza { + page-break-inside: avoid; + margin-bottom: 1em +} + +blockquote.poem { + page-break-inside: avoid +} + +table.poem { + float: center; + text-align: center +} + +td.poem { + margin-bottom: 1em +} + +p.citepoet { + font-style: italic; + font-size: smaller; + text-align: right; + margin-top: 0; + } + +p.citeauth { + font-style: italic; + font-size: smaller; + text-align: right; + margin-top: 0; + } + +p.quote { + text-indent: 1em; + margin-top: 0em; + margin-bottom: .5em; + font-size: smaller + } + +cite { + text-indent: 12pt; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + font-size: smaller + } + +.title { + text-align: center + } + +span.def { + font-weight: bold + } + +span.pos { + font-style: italic; + } /* part of speech formatting */ + +/*SPAN.smallcap { + text-transform: small-caps; + } +*/ + +span.rj { + text-align: right + } + +span.ind1 { + margin-left: 30px + } +span.ind2 { + margin-left: 2em + } +span.ind3 { + margin-left: 3em + } +span.ind4 { + margin-left: 4em + } +span.ind5 { + margin-left: 5em + } +span.ind6 { + margin-left: 6em + } + +a:link { + color: rgb(204,0,0); + text-decoration: none +} + +a:visited {color: rgb(51,0,153)} + +a:active {color: rgb(255,204,51)} + +body { + color: rgb(0,0,0); + background-color: rgb(255,255,255); + font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, Serif} + +h1 { + font-weight: normal; + font-style: normal; + font-size: 24pt; + text-align: center + } + +/*H1.title { + text-transform: capitalize + } +*/ + +h2 { + font-weight: normal; + font-style: normal; + font-size: 18pt} + +h3 { + font-weight: normal; + font-style: normal; + font-size: 14pt} + +h4 { + font-weight: normal; + font-style: normal; + font-size: 12pt} + +h5 { + font-weight: normal; + font-style: normal; + font-size: 10pt} + +h6 { + font-weight: normal; + font-style: normal; + font-size: 8pt + } \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/foreword.html b/lib/ebooks/devils/foreword.html new file mode 100644 index 00000000..3d1304be --- /dev/null +++ b/lib/ebooks/devils/foreword.html @@ -0,0 +1,99 @@ + + + + + + +The Devil’s Dictionary: Editor’s Foreword + + + +

Editor’s Foreword

+ +

This Open eBook edition of The Devil’s Dictionary was begun as a way for +me to learn the Open eBook (OEB) structure and how to write clean XHTML that duplicates the original formatting of the +typeset edition.

+ +

Having hit the limitations of the OEB format and current OEB readers in this attempt, I am +posting this early version of my conversion effort as a test document that illustrates the shortcomings of the +format and is meant to encourage the developers to address these issues in forthcoming versions of their software +and the OEB specification itself.

+ +

The most difficult problem I have faced in formatting The Devil’s Dictionary +has been poetry. The print copy I own has the poems formatted so that the attribution line is right justified +with the end of the longest line of the poem, no stanza is broken across pages, and the whole thing is centered +within the margins of the body text. This is a very natural way to format the poetry, yet it is impossible to +duplicate this structure with the current eBook readers—most notably, with Microsoft Reader.

+ +

First, the only +way to create the desired justification and centering with HTML is to place the whole poem inside one table. This +works for small poems, but not for larger ones because MS Reader cuts off all text in a table cell when the end +of the page is reached, preventing long poems from being displayed in their entirity. Additionally, if each stanza +is placed inside a pair of paragraph tags (as would seem natural) many of the indents must be accomplished by +adjusting the left margin of that individual line with a <span> tag. This should work, since +both this tag and the left margin property are applied to all elements (block and inline) according to the HTML and +CSS specifications. MS Reader, however, ignores this instruction. An example of this formatting +is found in the “A” section of the Dictionary.

+ +

An alternate way to format the poems is to enclose each poem in a <blockquote> tag, +each line in its own paragraph tag (with different CSS classes to handle the needed indents and close up +the line spacing) and, each stanza in a <span> tag (with the CSS page-break-after property set +to avoid breaking across pages). However, the blockquote’s margins causes many poems towrap, does not +center the poem, places the attribution line (and any right-justified lines of the poem) almost at the right margin +of the book (sometimes far away from the poem itself), and MS Reader ignores the instructions to not +wrap the stanzas. This method is demonstrated in the “B” section of the Dictionary.

+ +

As I was writing this, I thought of what should have been an obvious construct for these poems: putting +each stanza in a separate table cell. This solves many, but not all, of the problems described above. For poems +with short- or medium-length stanzas viewed with the PC version of MS Reader on a large-screen laptop +it should work fine. But for a PocketPC, or even for poems with long single stanzas on a PC, the bottom of each long +stanza will still be lost. You can see the results of this experiment in the “C” section of the +Dictionary.

+ +

These issues can best be demonstrated by one representative poem in each of the first three sections, when +reading the book in the desktop version of MS Reader. Abracadabra should +be separated into stanzas with 1em of space between each, but since Reader ignores the <span> +tag, it is just one long block. The poem cited under the definition of beg exemplifies +the problems with the wide right margin described above. Although not perfect, the poem cited under +carmelite is presented almost exactly as it should be. The poem is properly +centered, the indents and right justification appear as intended, and the poem is broken across pages only +between stanzas. But when viewed on a smaller screen (almost certainly with a Pocket PC) the first stanza +alone will likely be cut off.

+ +

A major additional problem, not specific to this book, is the inability of any current OEB reader to handle +Unicode text, as mandated in the OEB specification. An example of how such a Unicode document appears is +demonstrated in sections “D” (UTF-8) and “E” (UTF-16) of the Dictionary. Notice that +the Unicode signature/byte-order mark which appears at the beginning of each of these files causes problems with +both the readers and with the authoring tools. The MobiPocket Publisher can not complete the conversion +process at all, and while ReaderWorks handles both relatively OK, MS Reader can not display UTF-8 files +correctly (the Unicode signature causes it to ignore all CSS formatting and UTF-8 characters are displayed +as their literal byte sequence, something specifically forbidden by the OEB specification) and the whole +section “E” disappears because of the byte-order mark.

+ +

Most sections beyond E have not yet been fully formatted, so please do not expect them to look pretty.

+ +

Project Gutenberg

+ +

Another goal is much broader. I have long known of Project Gutenberg, but have +always found its insistence on plain ASCII to be a handicap that limited its appeal and usability. Don’t +get me wrong—the effort has provided a tremendous resource, and at the time the project was begun +(and until very recently) plain ASCII was clearly the best choice. But you can’t properly format a book +with just ASCII characters. Not only must basic things such as *bold* and _italics_ be indicated in a funky +manner, it is simply impossible to preserve the accented characters, ligatures, and many other important +features. And trying to display such a work legibly on a PDA or eBbook reader with a small screen is +impossible, given the hard line breaks that are present (keeping the text from flowing properly).

+ +

With is footing solidly in HTML and XML and its completely open nature, the Open eBook +format is the ideal structure in which to continue the goals of Project Gutenberg on into the 21st +century. So this edition of The Devil’s Dictionary is not meant just as a personal learning +project, but as an example of the benefits to offering current and future editions as Open eBooks. I don’t +dispute the benefits of the current plain ASCII versions, but with the right automation tools, future editions +could begin as Open eBooks and then be converted to plain ASCII, making both versions available without +duplicated effort. This would be far preferable to starting with plain ASCII versions and converting them to +Open eBook. This is the method I obviously used for this edition, and I assure you that it is quite tedious +and not well-suited as a standard practice.

+ +

Peter K. Sheerin

+ + \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/foreword.html.annot b/lib/ebooks/devils/foreword.html.annot new file mode 100644 index 00000000..e69de29b diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/foreword.html.i b/lib/ebooks/devils/foreword.html.i new file mode 100644 index 00000000..a1b60537 --- /dev/null +++ b/lib/ebooks/devils/foreword.html.i @@ -0,0 +1,13 @@ +5 pages +size 400 552 +length 7632 +421 2 10 body html +0 +1633 2 29 body html +119 +3826 2 54 body html +34 +5770 2 76 body html +0 +6646 2 87 body html +238 diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/index.html b/lib/ebooks/devils/index.html new file mode 100644 index 00000000..00d10b5e --- /dev/null +++ b/lib/ebooks/devils/index.html @@ -0,0 +1,44 @@ + + + + + + +The Devil’s Dictionary: Table of Contents + + +

Table of Contents

+

Title Page

+

Foreword

+

Author’s Preface

+ + + diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/index.html.annot b/lib/ebooks/devils/index.html.annot new file mode 100644 index 00000000..e69de29b diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/index.html.i b/lib/ebooks/devils/index.html.i new file mode 100644 index 00000000..bfd13d14 --- /dev/null +++ b/lib/ebooks/devils/index.html.i @@ -0,0 +1,7 @@ +2 pages +size 400 552 +length 1530 +400 2 10 body html +0 +603 2 15 body html +357 diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/preface.html b/lib/ebooks/devils/preface.html new file mode 100644 index 00000000..19c585ca --- /dev/null +++ b/lib/ebooks/devils/preface.html @@ -0,0 +1,48 @@ + + + + + + +The Devil’s Dictionary: Preface + + + +

Preface

+ +

The Devil’s Dictionary +was begun in a weekly paper in 1881, and was continued in a desultory way at +long intervals until 1906. In that year a large part of it was published in +covers with the title The Cynic’s Word Book, +a name which the author had not the power to reject or happiness to approve. To +quote the publishers of the present work:

+ +

“This more reverent title had previously been forced upon him by the religious scruples of +the last newspaper in which a part of the work had appeared, with the natural +consequence that when it came out in covers the country already had been +flooded by its imitators with a score of ‘cynic’ books—The Cynic’s This, The Cynic’s That, +and The Cynic’s t’Other. Most of these books +were merely stupid, though some of them added the distinction of silliness. +Among them, they brought the word ‘cynic’ into disfavor so deep that any book +bearing it was discredited in advance of publication.”

+ +

Meantime, too, some of the enterprising humorists of the country had helped themselves to such +parts of the work as served their needs, and many of its definitions, +anecdotes, phrases and so forth, had become more or less current in popular +speech. This explanation is made, not with any pride of priority in trifles, +but in simple denial of possible charges of plagiarism, which is no trifle. In +merely resuming his own the author hopes to be held guiltless by those to whom +the work is addressed—enlightened souls who prefer dry wines to sweet, sense to +sentiment, wit to humor and clean English to slang.

+ +

A conspicuous, and it is hope not unpleasant, feature of the book is its abundant illustrative +quotations from eminent poets, chief of whom is that learned and ingenius +cleric, Father Gassalasca Jape, S.J., whose lines bear his initials. To Father +Jape’s kindly encouragement and assistance the author of the prose text is +greatly indebted.

+ +

A. B.

+ + + \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/preface.html.annot b/lib/ebooks/devils/preface.html.annot new file mode 100644 index 00000000..e69de29b diff --git a/lib/ebooks/devils/preface.html.i b/lib/ebooks/devils/preface.html.i new file mode 100644 index 00000000..00fec609 --- /dev/null +++ b/lib/ebooks/devils/preface.html.i @@ -0,0 +1,7 @@ +2 pages +size 400 552 +length 2629 +405 2 10 body html +0 +1546 2 30 body html +170 -- cgit v1.2.3