The Devil’s Dictionary, Ambrose Bierce [spicy books to read .TXT] 📗

pray,
On their meddlesome souls! —⁠Ro Amil Pedestrian

The variable (an audible) part of the roadway for an automobile.

Pedigree

The known part of the route from an arboreal ancestor with a swim bladder to an urban descendant with a cigarette.

Penitent

Undergoing or awaiting punishment.

Perfection

An imaginary state or quality distinguished from the actual by an element known as excellence; an attribute of the critic.

The editor of an English magazine having received a letter pointing out the erroneous nature of his views and style, and signed “Perfection,” promptly wrote at the foot of the letter: “I don’t agree with you,” and mailed it to Matthew Arnold.

Peripatetic

Walking about. Relating to the philosophy of Aristotle, who, while expounding it, moved from place to place in order to avoid his pupil’s objections. A needless precaution⁠—they knew no more of the matter than he.

Peroration

The explosion of an oratorical rocket. It dazzles, but to an observer having the wrong kind of nose its most conspicuous peculiarity is the smell of the several kinds of powder used in preparing it.

Perseverance

A lowly virtue whereby mediocrity achieves an inglorious success.

“Persevere, persevere!” cry the homilists all,
Themselves, day and night, persevering to bawl.
“Remember the fable of tortoise and hare⁠—
The one at the goal while the other is⁠—where?”
Why, back there in Dreamland, renewing his lease
Of life, all his muscles preserving the peace,
The goal and the rival forgotten alike,
And the long fatigue of the needless hike.
His spirit a-squat in the grass and the dew
Of the dogless Land beyond the Stew,
He sleeps, like a saint in a holy place,
A winner of all that is good in a race.

—⁠Sukker Uffro Pessimism

A philosophy forced upon the convictions of the observer by the disheartening prevalence of the optimist with his scarecrow hope and his unsightly smile.

Philanthropist

A rich (and usually bald) old gentleman who has trained himself to grin while his conscience is picking his pocket.

Philistine

One whose mind is the creature of its environment, following the fashion in thought, feeling and sentiment. He is sometimes learned, frequently prosperous, commonly clean and always solemn.

Philosophy

A route of many roads leading from nowhere to nothing.

Phoenix

The classical prototype of the modern “small hot bird.”

Phonograph

An irritating toy that restores life to dead noises.

Photograph

A picture painted by the sun without instruction in art. It is a little better than the work of an Apache, but not quite so good as that of a Cheyenne.

Phrenology

The science of picking the pocket through the scalp. It consists in locating and exploiting the organ that one is a dupe with.

Physician

One upon whom we set our hopes when ill and our dogs when well.

Physiognomy

The art of determining the character of another by the resemblances and differences between his face and our own, which is the standard of excellence.

“There is no art,” says Shakespeare, foolish man,
“To read the mind’s construction in the face.”
The physiognomists his portrait scan,
And say: “How little wisdom here we trace!
He knew his face disclosed his mind and heart,
So, in his own defence, denied our art.”

—⁠Lavatar Shunk Piano

A parlor utensil for subduing the impenitent visitor. It is operated by depressing the keys of the machine and the spirits of the audience.

Pickaninny

The young of the Procyanthropos, or Americanus dominans. It is small, black and charged with political fatalities.

Picture

A representation in two dimensions of something wearisome in three.

“Behold great Daubert’s picture here on view⁠—
Taken from Life.” If that description’s true,
Grant, heavenly Powers, that I be taken, too.

—⁠Jali Hane Pie

An advance agent of the reaper whose name is Indigestion.

Cold pie was highly esteemed by the remains.

—⁠The Rev. Dr. Mucker, in a Funeral Sermon Over a British Nobleman

Cold pie is a detestable
American comestible.
That’s why I’m done⁠—or undone⁠—
So far from that dear London.

—⁠From the Headstone of a British Nobleman in Kalamazoo Piety

Reverence for the Supreme Being, based upon His supposed resemblance to man.

The pig is taught by sermons and epistles
To think the God of Swine has snout and bristles.

—⁠Judibras Pig

An animal (Porcus omnivorus) closely allied to the human race by the splendor and vivacity of its appetite, which, however, is inferior in scope, for it sticks at pig.

Pigmy

One of a tribe of very small men found by ancient travelers in many parts of the world, but by modern in Central Africa only. The Pigmies are so called to distinguish them from the bulkier Caucasians⁠—who are Hogmies.

Pilgrim

A traveler that is taken seriously. A Pilgrim Father was one who, leaving Europe in 1620 because not permitted to sing psalms through his nose, followed it to Massachusetts, where he could personate God according to the dictates of his conscience.

Pillory

A mechanical device for inflicting personal distinction⁠—prototype of the modern newspaper conducted by persons of austere virtues and blameless lives.

Piracy

Commerce without its folly-swaddles, just as God made it.

Pitiful

The state of an enemy or opponent after an imaginary encounter with oneself.

Pity

A failing sense of exemption, inspired by contrast.

Plagiarism

A literary coincidence compounded of a discreditable priority and an honorable subsequence.

Plagiarize

To take the thought or style of another writer whom one has never, never read.

Plague

In ancient times a general punishment of the innocent for admonition of their ruler, as in the familiar instance of Pharaoh the Immune. The plague as we of today have the happiness to know it is merely Nature’s fortuitous manifestation of her purposeless objectionableness.

Plan

To bother about the best method of accomplishing an accidental result.

Platitude

The fundamental element and special glory of popular literature. A thought that snores in words that smoke. The wisdom of a million fools in the diction of a dullard. A fossil sentiment in artificial rock. A moral without the fable. All that is mortal of a departed truth. A demitasse of milk-and-mortality. The Pope’s-nose of a featherless peacock. A jellyfish withering on the shore of the sea of thought. The cackle surviving the egg. A desiccated epigram.

Platonic

Pertaining to the philosophy of Socrates. Platonic Love is a fool’s name for the affection between a disability and a frost.

Plaudits

Coins with which