The Devil's Dictionary. Амброз Бирс

to Britain. Caesar himself went to Britain, but does not appear to have obtained any high preferment in the Druidical Church, although his talent for human sacrifice was considerable.

      Druids performed their religious rites in groves, and knew nothing of church mortgages and the season-ticket system of pew rents. They were, in short, heathens and—as they were once complacently catalogued by a distinguished prelate of the Church of England—Dissenters.

      DUCK-BILL, n. Your account at your restaurant during the canvas-back season.

      DUEL, n. A formal ceremony preliminary to the reconciliation of two enemies. Great skill is necessary to its satisfactory observance; if awkwardly performed the most unexpected and deplorable consequences sometimes ensue. A long time ago a man lost his life in a duel.

      That dueling's a gentlemanly vice

       I hold; and wish that it had been my lot

       To live my life out in some favored spot—

       Some country where it is considered nice

       To split a rival like a fish, or slice

       A husband like a spud, or with a shot

       Bring down a debtor doubled in a knot

       And ready to be put upon the ice.

       Some miscreants there are, whom I do long

       To shoot, to stab, or some such way reclaim

       The scurvy rogues to better lives and manners,

       I seem to see them now—a mighty throng.

       It looks as if to challenge me they came, Jauntily marching with brass bands and banners!

      Xamba Q. Dar

      DULLARD, n. A member of the reigning dynasty in letters and life. The Dullards came in with Adam, and being both numerous and sturdy have overrun the habitable world. The secret of their power is their insensibility to blows; tickle them with a bludgeon and they laugh with a platitude. The Dullards came originally from Boeotia, whence they were driven by stress of starvation, their dullness having blighted the crops. For some centuries they infested Philistia, and many of them are called Philistines to this day. In the turbulent times of the Crusades they withdrew thence and gradually overspread all Europe, occupying most of the high places in politics, art, literature, science and theology. Since a detachment of Dullards came over with the Pilgrims in the Mayflower and made a favorable report of the country, their increase by birth, immigration, and conversion has been rapid and steady. According to the most trustworthy statistics the number of adult Dullards in the United States is but little short of thirty millions, including the statisticians. The intellectual centre of the race is somewhere about Peoria, Illinois, but the New England Dullard is the most shockingly moral.

      DUTY, n. That which sternly impels us in the direction of profit, along the line of desire.

      Sir Lavender Portwine, in favor at court,

       Was wroth at his master, who'd kissed Lady Port.

       His anger provoked him to take the king's head,

       But duty prevailed, and he took the king's bread,

       Instead.

      G.J.

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       Table of Contents

      EAT, v.i. To perform successively (and successfully) the functions of mastication, humectation, and deglutition.

      "I was in the drawing-room, enjoying my dinner," said Brillat-Savarin, beginning an anecdote. "What!" interrupted Rochebriant; "eating dinner in a drawing-room?" "I must beg you to observe, monsieur," explained the great gastronome, "that I did not say I was eating my dinner, but enjoying it. I had dined an hour before."

      EAVESDROP, v.i. Secretly to overhear a catalogue of the crimes and vices of another or yourself.

      A lady with one of her ears applied

       To an open keyhole heard, inside,

       Two female gossips in converse free—

       The subject engaging them was she.

       "I think," said one, "and my husband thinks

       That she's a prying, inquisitive minx!"

       As soon as no more of it she could hear

       The lady, indignant, removed her ear.

       "I will not stay," she said, with a pout,

       "To hear my character lied about!"

      Gopete Sherany

      ECCENTRICITY, n. A method of distinction so cheap that fools employ it to accentuate their incapacity.

      ECONOMY, n. Purchasing the barrel of whiskey that you do not need for the price of the cow that you cannot afford.

      EDIBLE, adj. Good to eat, and wholesome to digest, as a worm to a toad, a toad to a snake, a snake to a pig, a pig to a man, and a man to a worm.

      EDITOR, n. A person who combines the judicial functions of Minos, Rhadamanthus and Aeacus, but is placable with an obolus; a severely virtuous censor, but so charitable withal that he tolerates the virtues of others and the vices of himself; who flings about him the splintering lightning and sturdy thunders of admonition till he resembles a bunch of firecrackers petulantly uttering his mind at the tail of a dog; then straightway murmurs a mild, melodious lay, soft as the cooing of a donkey intoning its prayer to the evening star. Master of mysteries and lord of law, high-pinnacled upon the throne of thought, his face suffused with the dim splendors of the Transfiguration, his legs intertwisted and his tongue a-cheek, the editor spills his will along the paper and cuts it off in lengths to suit. And at intervals from behind the veil of the temple is heard the voice of the foreman demanding three inches of wit and six lines of religious meditation, or bidding him turn off the wisdom and whack up some pathos.