The Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce


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Page 43

_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 destitute, 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 clerkship 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 classified as active and
passive; as (respectively) the feeling of a woman for her female
friends, and that which she entertains for all the rest of her sex.

HOURI, n. A comely female inhabiting the Mohammedan Paradise to make
things cheery for the good Mussulman, whose belief in her existence
marks a noble 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, cockroach, 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 God_, a building with a steeple and a mortgage on it.
_House-dog_, a pestilent beast kept on domestic premises to insult
persons passing by and appal the hardy visitor. _House-maid_, a
youngerly person of the opposing sex employed to be variously
disagreeable and ingeniously unclean in the station in which it has
pleased God 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 hoar
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 appetite, 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.

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Books | Photos | Paul Mutton | Mon 22nd Dec 2025, 17:01