The Devil's Dictionary - Ambrose Bierce (ebook reader for pc and android txt) 📗

— “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.

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