Gat Huckle
EXECUTIVE, n.An officer of the Government, whose duty it is
toenforce the wishes of the legislative power until such time as thejudicial
40
THE DEVIL'S DICTIONARY
department shall be pleased to pronounce them invalid and ofno
effect.Following is an extract from an old book entitled, _TheLunarian
Astonished_ -- Pfeiffer & Co., Boston, 1803:
LUNARIAN:Then when your Congress has passed a law it
goesdirectly to the Supreme Court in order that it may at once beknown
whether it is constitutional? TERRESTRIAN:O no; it does not require the
approval of theSupreme Court until having perhaps been enforced for
manyyears somebody objects to its operation against himself -- Imean his
client.The President, if he approves it, begins toexecute it at once.
LUNARIAN:Ah, the executive power is a part of the legislative. Do your
policemen also have to approve the local ordinancesthat they enforce?
TERRESTRIAN:Not yet --at least not in their character
ofconstables.Generally speaking, though, all laws require theapproval of
those whom they are intended to restrain. LUNARIAN:I see.The death
warrant is not valid until signed bythe murderer. TERRESTRIAN:My
friend, you put it too strongly; we are not soconsistent. LUNARIAN:But
this system of maintaining an expensive judicialmachinery to pass upon
the validity of laws only after theyhave long been executed, and then only
when brought before thecourt by some private person -- does it not cause
greatconfusion? TERRESTRIAN:It does. LUNARIAN:Why then should
not your laws, previously to beingexecuted, be validated, not by the
signature of yourPresident, but by that of the Chief Justice of the
SupremeCourt? TERRESTRIAN:There is no precedent for any such
course. LUNARIAN:Precedent.What is that? TERRESTRIAN:It has been
defined by five hundred lawyers in threevolumes each.So how can any one
know?
EXHORT, v.t. In religious affairs, to put the conscience of
anotherupon the spit and roast it to a nut-brown discomfort.
EXILE, n.One who serves his country by residing abroad, yet is notan
ambassador. An English sea-captain being asked if he had read "The Exile
ofErin," replied:"No, sir, but I should like to anchor on it."Yearsafterwards,
when he had been hanged as a pirate after a career ofunparalleled
atrocities, the following memorandum was found in theship's log that he
had kept at the time of his reply:
41
THE DEVIL'S DICTIONARY
Aug. 3d, 1842.Made a joke on the ex-Isle of Erin.Coldlyreceived.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
anundesirable 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 tolose their friends.
EXTINCTION, n.The raw material out of which theology created
thefuture state.
F
FAIRY, n.A creature, variously fashioned and endowed, that
formerlyinhabited the meadows and forests.It was nocturnal in its
habits,and somewhat addicted to dancing and the theft of
children.Thefairies are now believed by naturalist to be extinct, though
aclergyman of the Church of England saw three near Colchester as latelyas
1855, while passing through a park after dining with the lord ofthe
manor.The sight greatly staggered him, and he was so affectedthat his
account of it was incoherent.In the year 1807 a troop offairies visited a
wood near Aix and carried off the daughter of apeasant, who had been
seen to enter it with a bundle of clothing.Theson of a wealthy _bourgeois_
disappeared about the same time, butafterward returned.He had seen the
abduction been in pursuit of thefairies.Justinian Gaux, a writer of the
fourteenth century, aversthat so great is the fairies' power of
transformation that he saw onechange itself into two opposing armies and
42
THE DEVIL'S DICTIONARY
fight a battle with greatslaughter, and that the next day, after it had
resumed its originalshape and gone away, there were seven hundred
bodies of the slainwhich the villagers had to bury.He does not say if any of
thewounded recovered.In the time of Henry III, of England, a law
wasmade which prescribed the death penalty for "Kyllynge, wowndynge,
ormamynge" a fairy, and it was universally respected.
FAITH, n.Belief without evidence in what is told by one who
speakswithout 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
bygluttony and drunkenness, frequently in honor of some holy
persondistinguished for abstemiousness.In the Roman Catholic
Churchfeasts are "movable" and "immovable," but the celebrants are
uniformlyimmovable until they are full.In their earliest development
theseentertainments took the form of feasts for the dead; such were held
bythe Greeks, under the name _Nemeseia_, by the Aztecs and
Peruvians,as in modern times they are popular with the Chinese; though it
43
THE DEVIL'S DICTIONARY
isbelieved that the ancient dead, like the modern, were light eaters. Among
the many feasts of the Romans was the _Novemdiale_, which washeld,
according to Livy, whenever stones fell from heaven.
FELON, n.A person of greater enterprise than discretion, who
inembracing 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) the 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!
FIB, n.A lie that has not cut its teeth.An habitual liar's
nearestapproach 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
44
THE DEVIL'S DICTIONARY
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 ahorse'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
forthe best advantage of the manager.The pronunciation of this wordwith
the i long and the accent on the first syllable is one ofAmerica's most
precious discoveries and possessions.
FLAG, n.A colored rag borne above troops and hoisted on forts
andships.It appears to serve the same purpose as certain signs that onesees
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
anotherparty.The most notable flop on record was that of Saul of
Tarsus,who has been severely criticised as a turn-coat by some of
ourpartisan journals.
FLY-SPECK, n.The prototype of punctuation.It is observed
byGarvinus that the systems of punctuation in use by the variousliterary
nations depended originally upon the social habits andgeneral diet of the
flies infesting the several countries.Thesecreatures, which have always
been distinguished for a neighborly andcompanionable familiarity with
authors, liberally or niggardlyembellish the manuscripts in process of
growth under the pen,according to their bodily habit, bringing out the
sense of the work bya species of interpretation superior to, and
45
THE DEVIL'S DICTIONARY
independent of, thewriter's powers.The "old masters" of literature -- that is
to say,the early writers whose work is so esteemed by later scribes
andcritics in the same language -- never punctuated at all, but workedright
along free-handed, without that abruption of the thought whichcomes from
the use of points.(We observe the same thing in childrento-day, whose
usage in this particular is a striking and beautifulinstance of the law that
the infancy of individuals reproduces themethods and stages of
development characterizing the infancy ofraces.)In the work of these
primitive scribes all the punctuation isfound, by the modern investigator
with his optical instruments andchemical tests, to have been inserted by
the writers' ingenious andserviceable collaborator, the common house-fly
-_Musca maledicta_. In transcribing these ancient MSS, for the purpose
of either makingthe work their own or preserving what they naturally
regard as divinerevelations, later writers reverently and accurately copy
whatevermarks they find upon the papyrus or parchment, to the
unspeakableenhancement of the lucidity of the thought and value of the
work. Writers contemporary with the copyists naturally avail themselves
ofthe obvious advantages of these marks in their own work, and with
suchassistance as the flies of their own household may be willing togrant,
frequently rival and sometimes surpass the older compositions,in respect
at least of punctuation, which is no small glory.Fully tounderstand the
important services that flies perform to literature itis only necessary to lay
a page of some popular novelist alongside asaucer of cream-and-molasses
in a sunny room and observe "how the witbrightens and the style refines"
in accurate proportion to theduration of exposure.
FOLLY, n.That "gift and faculty divine" whose creative andcontrolling
energy inspires Man's mind, guides his actions and adornshis 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
46
THE DEVIL'S DICTIONARY
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
speculationand diffuses himself through the channels of moral activity.He
isomnific, omniform, omnipercipient, omniscience, omnipotent.He it
waswho invented letters, printing, the railroad, the steamboat, thetelegraph,
the platitude and the circle of the sciences.He createdpatriotism and taught
the nations war -- founded theology, philosophy,law, medicine and
Chicago.He established monarchical and republicangovernment.He is
from everlasting to everlasting -- such ascreation's dawn beheld he fooleth
now.In the morning of time he sangupon primitive hills, and in the
noonday of existence headed theprocession of being.His grandmotherly
hand was warmly tucked-in theset sun of civilization, and in the twilight
he prepares Man's eveningmeal of milk-and-morality and turns down the
covers of the universalgrave.And after the rest of us shall have retired for
the night ofeternal oblivion he will sit up to write a history of
humancivilization.
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
twomalefactors.
FOREORDINATION, n.This looks like an easy word to define, but
when Iconsider that pious and learned theologians have spent long lives
inexplaining it, and written libraries to explain their explanations;when I
remember the nations have been divided and bloody battlescaused by the
difference between foreordination and predestination,and that millions of
treasure have been expended in the effort toprove and disprove its
compatibility with freedom of the will and theefficacy of prayer, praise,
and a religious life, -- recalling theseawful facts in the history of the word,
I stand appalled before themighty problem of its signification, abase my
47
THE DEVIL'S DICTIONARY
spiritual eyes, fearingto contemplate its portentous magnitude, reverently
uncover and humblyrefer it to His Eminence Cardinal Gibbons and His
Grace Bishop Potter.
FORGETFULNESS, n.A gift of God bestowed upon doctors in
compensationfor their destitution of conscience.
FORK, n.An instrument used chiefly for the purpose of putting
deadanimals into the mouth.Formerly the knife was employed for
thispurpose, and by many worthy persons is still thought to have
manyadvantages over the other tool, which, however, they do not
altogetherreject, but use to assist in charging the knife.The immunity
ofthese persons from swift and awful death is one of the most
strikingproofs of God's mercy to those that hate Him.
FORMA PAUPERIS.[Latin]In the character of a poor person -
amethod by which a litigant without money for lawyers is
consideratelypermitted 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.
FRANKALMOIGNE, n.The tenure by which a religious corporation
holdslands on condition of praying for the soul of the donor.In
mediaevaltimes many of the wealthiest fraternities obtained their estates
inthis simple and cheap manner, and once when Henry VIII of England
sentan officer to confiscate certain vast possessions which a fraternityof
monks held by frankalmoigne, "What!" said the Prior, "would youmaster
stay our benefactor's soul in Purgatory?""Ay," said theofficer, coldly, "an
ye will not pray him thence for naught he muste'en roast.""But look you,
my son," persisted the good man, "thisact hath rank as robbery of
God!""Nay, nay, good father, my masterthe king doth but deliver him from
the manifold temptations of toogreat wealth."
FREEBOOTER, n.A conqueror in a small way of business,
48
THE DEVIL'S DICTIONARY
whoseannexations lack of the sanctifying merit of magnitude.
FREEDOM, n.Exemption from the stress of authority in a beggarly
halfdozen of restraint's infinite multitude of methods.A politicalcondition
that every nation supposes itself to enjoy in virtualmonopoly.Liberty.The
distinction between freedom and liberty isnot accurately known;
