The Devil's Dictionary — Ambrose Bierce

The Devil's Dictionary

Ambrose Bierce · רישיון: Public domain · מקור

• 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. ¶1438
• RIOT, n. A popular entertainment given to the military by innocent bystanders. ¶1440
• R.I.P. A careless abbreviation of _requiescat in pace_, attesting an indolent goodwill to the dead. According to the learned Dr. Drigge, however, the letters originally meant nothing more than _reductus in pulvis_. ¶1441
• RITE, n. A religious or semi-religious ceremony fixed by law, precept or custom, with the essential oil of sincerity carefully squeezed out of it. ¶1442
• RITUALISM, n. A Dutch Garden of God where He may walk in rectilinear freedom, keeping off the grass. ¶1443
• 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. ¶1444
• All roads, howsoe'er they diverge, lead to Rome, Whence, thank the good Lord, at least one leads back home. ¶1445
• 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. ¶1450
• RUBBISH, n. Worthless matter, such as the religions, philosophies, literatures, arts and sciences of the tribes infesting the regions lying due south from Boreaplas. ¶1452
• RUIN, v. To destroy. Specifically, to destroy a maid's belief in the virtue of maids. ¶1453
• RUM, n. Generically, fiery liquors that produce madness in total abstainers. ¶1454
• RUMOR, n. A favorite weapon of the assassins of character. ¶1455
• RUSSIAN, n. A person with a Caucasian body and a Mongolian soul. A Tartar Emetic. ¶1458
• Six days shalt thou labor and do all thou art able, And on the seventh holystone the deck and scrape the cable. ¶1461
• Decks are no longer holystoned, but the cable still supplies the captain with opportunity to attest a pious respect for the divine ordinance. ¶1462
• 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. ¶1463
• All things are either sacred or profane. The former to ecclesiasts bring gain; The latter to the devil appertain. ¶1466
• 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. ¶1469
• Once I seen a human ruin In an elevator-well, And his members was bestrewin' All the place where he had fell. ¶1470
• And I says, apostrophisin' That uncommon woful wreck: "Your position's so surprisin' That I tremble for your neck!" ¶1471
• Then that ruin, smilin' sadly And impressive, up and spoke: "Well, I wouldn't tremble badly, For it's been a fortnight broke." ¶1472
• Then, for further comprehension Of his attitude, he begs I will focus my attention On his various arms and legs-- ¶1473
• How they all are contumacious; Where they each, respective, lie; How one trotter proves ungracious, T'other one an _alibi_. ¶1474
• These particulars is mentioned For to show his dismal state, Which I wasn't first intentioned To specifical relate. ¶1475
• None is worser to be dreaded That I ever have heard tell Than the gent's who there was spreaded In that elevator-well. ¶1476
• Now this tale is allegoric-- It is figurative all, For the well is metaphoric And the feller didn't fall. ¶1477
• I opine it isn't moral For a writer-man to cheat, And despise to wear a laurel As was gotten by deceit. ¶1478
• For 'tis Politics intended By the elevator, mind, It will boost a person splendid If his talent is the kind. ¶1479
• Col. Bryan had the talent (For the busted man is him) And it shot him up right gallant Till his head begun to swim. ¶1480
• Then the rope it broke above him And he painful come to earth Where there's nobody to love him For his detrimented worth. ¶1481
• Though he's livin' none would know him, Or at leastwise not as such. Moral of this woful poem: Frequent oil your safety-clutch. ¶1482
• SAINT, n. A dead sinner revised and edited. ¶1484
• 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. ¶1487
• 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. ¶1488
• "Man, I understand, is about to be created. He will need laws." ¶1491
• "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?" ¶1492
• "Pardon; what I have to ask is that he be permitted to make them himself." ¶1493
• SATIETY, n. The feeling that one has for the plate after he has eaten its contents, madam. ¶1495
• 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. ¶1497
• 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. ¶1500

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