The Devil's Dictionary, Tales, and Memoirs: The Devil's Dictionary, Tales, and Memoirs

by Ambrose Bierce

  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.

  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 immortal 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 tailed animals have no souls. Concerning these two theories, it is best to suspend judgment by believing both.

  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 sacred 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 crafty 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 an 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 incubæ, and succubæ, 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 brow 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 of the matter.

  “Your prompt decision to attack,” said General 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 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.”

  INDISCRETIO
N, 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.

  INFERIÆ, 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 that 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 mediæval flavor to this story, and as it has not been traced back further than Père 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, abbés, 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, curés, sophis, mutifs and pumpums.

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

  INFRALAPSARIAN, 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 staffin 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 foreordinational 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 I grieve to state

  The 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, gumarabic 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.

  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 me to be S. Wood.

  O Man, let not ambition trouble you,

  Is the advice of Silas W.”

  “Richard Ha
ymon, 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.