The Devil's Dictionary Part 6

GRAVITATION, n. The tendency of all bodies to approach one another with a strength proportion to the quant.i.ty of matter they contain -- the quant.i.ty of matter they contain being ascertained by the strength of their tendency to approach one another. This is a lovely and edifying ill.u.s.tration 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 cla.s.s Because he is the greatest a.s.s.

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 sh.e.l.l. 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 ent.i.tled 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 Was.h.i.+ngton."

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 h.e.l.l, 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 "h.e.l.l"; 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 'h.e.l.l' 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 G.o.d 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 sanct.i.ty, 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 a.s.s 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 ign.o.ble 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 "Oth.e.l.lo" 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 s.h.i.+ps 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 -- n.o.body 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 t.i.the 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 a.s.sess. Plain iron forceps we employ To mitigate the miser's joy Who h.o.a.rds, 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.

HEa.r.s.e, n. Death's baby-carriage.

HEART, n. An automatic, muscular blood-pump. Figuratively, this useful organ is said to be the seat 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 trans.m.u.ted 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 Ident.i.ty of the Spiritual Affections and Certain Intestinal Gases Freed in Digestion_ -- 4to, 687 pp.) In a scientific work ent.i.tled, I believe, Delectatio Demonorum (John Camden Hotton, London, 1873) this view of the sentiments receives a striking ill.u.s.tration; 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 wors.h.i.+p 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 h.e.l.l!

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] a.s.sisted 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, p.r.o.n. His.

HIBERNATE, v.i. To pa.s.s 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 pa.s.sed the winter months in the mud at the bottom of their brooks, clinging together in globular ma.s.ses. 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 appet.i.te and serving to ill.u.s.trate 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 d.i.c.ky-bird is Porcus Rockefelleri. Mr. Rockefeller did not discover the hog, but it is considered his by right of resemblance.

h.o.m.oEOPATHIST, n. The humorist of the medical profession.

h.o.m.oEOPATHY, 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 h.o.m.ocide: felonious, excusable, justifiable, and praiseworthy, but it makes no great difference to the person slain whether he fell by one kind or another -- the cla.s.sification 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 dest.i.tute, 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 clerks.h.i.+p 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 cla.s.sified as active and pa.s.sive; as (respectively) the feeling of a woman for her female friends, and that which she entertains for all the rest of her s.e.x.

HOURI, n. A comely female inhabiting the Mohammedan Paradise to make things cheery for the good Mussulman, whose belief in her existence marks a n.o.ble 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, beetle, c.o.c.kroach, 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 G.o.d, a building with a steeple and a mortgage on it. House-dog, a pestilent beast kept on domestic premises to insult persons pa.s.sing by and appal the hardy visitor. House-maid, a youngerly person of the opposing s.e.x employed to be variously disagreeable and ingeniously unclean in the station in which it has pleased G.o.d 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 h.o.a.r 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 appet.i.te, 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-fas.h.i.+oned 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 despises.

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 p.r.o.noun 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 G.o.ds and G.o.ddesses 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!"