The Devil's Dictionary (18 page)

PASTIME, n. A device for promoting dejection. Gentle exercise for
intellectual debility.

PATIENCE, n. A minor form of despair, disguised as a virtue.

PATRIOT, n. One to whom the interests of a part seem superior to
those of the whole. The dupe of statesmen and the tool of conquerors.

PATRIOTISM, n. Combustible rubbish read to the torch of any one
ambitious to illuminate his name.

In Dr. Johnson's famous dictionary patriotism is defined as the
last resort of a scoundrel. With all due respect to an enlightened
but inferior lexicographer I beg to submit that it is the first.

PEACE, n. In international affairs, a period of cheating between two
periods of fighting.

O, what's the loud uproar assailing
Mine ears without cease?
'Tis the voice of the hopeful, all-hailing
The horrors of peace.
Ah, Peace Universal; they woo it—
Would marry it, too.
If only they knew how to do it
'Twere easy to do.
They're working by night and by day
On their problem, like moles.
Have mercy, O Heaven, I pray,
On their meddlesome souls!

Ro Amil

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

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

PENITENT, adj. Undergoing or awaiting punishment.

PERFECTION, n. An imaginary state of 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, adj. 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, n. 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, n. 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, n. 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, n. A rich (and usually bald) old gentleman who has
trained himself to grin while his conscience is picking his pocket.

PHILISTINE, n. 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, n. A route of many roads leading from nowhere to nothing.

PHOENIX, n. The classical prototype of the modern "small hot bird."

PHONOGRAPH, n. An irritating toy that restores life to dead noises.

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

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

PHYSIOGNOMY, n. 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, n. A parlor utensil for subduing the impenitent visitor. It
is operated by pressing the keys of the machine and the spirits of the
audience.

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

PICTURE, n. 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, n. An advance agent of the reaper whose name is Indigestion.

Cold pie was highly esteemed by the remains.

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

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

PITIFUL, adj. The state of an enemy of opponent after an imaginary
encounter with oneself.

PITY, n. A failing sense of exemption, inspired by contrast.

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

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

PLAGUE, n. 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 to-day have the happiness to know it is
merely Nature's fortuitous manifestation of her purposeless
objectionableness.

PLAN, v.t. To bother about the best method of accomplishing an
accidental result.

PLATITUDE, n. 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 demi-tasse of milk-and-mortality. The Pope's-nose
of a featherless peacock. A jelly-fish withering on the shore of the
sea of thought. The cackle surviving the egg. A desiccated epigram.

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

PLAUDITS, n. Coins with which the populace pays those who tickle and
devour it.

PLEASE, v. To lay the foundation for a superstructure of imposition.

PLEASURE, n. The least hateful form of dejection.

PLEBEIAN, n. An ancient Roman who in the blood of his country stained
nothing but his hands. Distinguished from the Patrician, who was a
saturated solution.

PLEBISCITE, n. A popular vote to ascertain the will of the sovereign.

PLENIPOTENTIARY, adj. Having full power. A Minister Plenipotentiary
is a diplomatist possessing absolute authority on condition that he
never exert it.

PLEONASM, n. An army of words escorting a corporal of thought.

PLOW, n. An implement that cries aloud for hands accustomed to the
pen.

PLUNDER, v. To take the property of another without observing the
decent and customary reticences of theft. To effect a change of
ownership with the candid concomitance of a brass band. To wrest the
wealth of A from B and leave C lamenting a vanishing opportunity.

POCKET, n. The cradle of motive and the grave of conscience. In
woman this organ is lacking; so she acts without motive, and her
conscience, denied burial, remains ever alive, confessing the sins of
others.

POETRY, n. A form of expression peculiar to the Land beyond the
Magazines.

POKER, n. A game said to be played with cards for some purpose to
this lexicographer unknown.

POLICE, n. An armed force for protection and participation.

POLITENESS, n. The most acceptable hypocrisy.

POLITICS, n. A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of
principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage.

POLITICIAN, n. An eel in the fundamental mud upon which the
superstructure of organized society is reared. When we wriggles he
mistakes the agitation of his tail for the trembling of the edifice.
As compared with the statesman, he suffers the disadvantage of being
alive.

POLYGAMY, n. A house of atonement, or expiatory chapel, fitted with
several stools of repentance, as distinguished from monogamy, which
has but one.

POPULIST, n. A fossil patriot of the early agricultural period, found
in the old red soapstone underlying Kansas; characterized by an
uncommon spread of ear, which some naturalists contend gave him the
power of flight, though Professors Morse and Whitney, pursuing
independent lines of thought, have ingeniously pointed out that had he
possessed it he would have gone elsewhere. In the picturesque speech
of his period, some fragments of which have come down to us, he was
known as "The Matter with Kansas."

PORTABLE, adj. Exposed to a mutable ownership through vicissitudes of
possession.

His light estate, if neither he did make it
Nor yet its former guardian forsake it,
Is portable improperly, I take it.

Worgum Slupsky

PORTUGUESE, n.pl. A species of geese indigenous to Portugal. They
are mostly without feathers and imperfectly edible, even when stuffed
with garlic.

POSITIVE, adj. Mistaken at the top of one's voice.

POSITIVISM, n. A philosophy that denies our knowledge of the Real and
affirms our ignorance of the Apparent. Its longest exponent is Comte,
its broadest Mill and its thickest Spencer.

POSTERITY, n. An appellate court which reverses the judgment of a
popular author's contemporaries, the appellant being his obscure
competitor.

POTABLE, n. Suitable for drinking. Water is said to be potable;
indeed, some declare it our natural beverage, although even they find
it palatable only when suffering from the recurrent disorder known as
thirst, for which it is a medicine. Upon nothing has so great and
diligent ingenuity been brought to bear in all ages and in all
countries, except the most uncivilized, as upon the invention of
substitutes for water. To hold that this general aversion to that
liquid has no basis in the preservative instinct of the race is to be
unscientific—and without science we are as the snakes and toads.

POVERTY, n. A file provided for the teeth of the rats of reform. The
number of plans for its abolition equals that of the reformers who
suffer from it, plus that of the philosophers who know nothing about
it. Its victims are distinguished by possession of all the virtues
and by their faith in leaders seeking to conduct them into a
prosperity where they believe these to be unknown.

PRAY, v. To ask that the laws of the universe be annulled in behalf
of a single petitioner confessedly unworthy.

PRE-ADAMITE, n. One of an experimental and apparently unsatisfactory
race of antedated Creation and lived under conditions not easily
conceived. Melsius believed them to have inhabited "the Void" and to
have been something intermediate between fishes and birds. Little its
known of them beyond the fact that they supplied Cain with a wife and
theologians with a controversy.

PRECEDENT, n. In Law, a previous decision, rule or practice which, in
the absence of a definite statute, has whatever force and authority a
Judge may choose to give it, thereby greatly simplifying his task of
doing as he pleases. As there are precedents for everything, he has
only to ignore those that make against his interest and accentuate
those in the line of his desire. Invention of the precedent elevates
the trial-at-law from the low estate of a fortuitous ordeal to the
noble attitude of a dirigible arbitrament.

PRECIPITATE, adj. Anteprandial.

Precipitate in all, this sinner
Took action first, and then his dinner.

Judibras

PREDESTINATION, n. The doctrine that all things occur according to
programme. This doctrine should not be confused with that of
foreordination, which means that all things are programmed, but does
not affirm their occurrence, that being only an implication from other
doctrines by which this is entailed. The difference is great enough
to have deluged Christendom with ink, to say nothing of the gore.
With the distinction of the two doctrines kept well in mind, and a
reverent belief in both, one may hope to escape perdition if spared.