The Devil's Dictionary. Амброз Бирс

hail, Delusion! Were it not for thee

       The world turned topsy-turvy we should see;

       For Vice, respectable with cleanly fancies,

       Would fly abandoned Virtue's gross advances.

      Mumfrey Mappel

      DENTIST, n. A prestidigitator who, putting metal into your mouth, pulls coins out of your pocket.

      DEPENDENT, adj. Reliant upon another's generosity for the support which you are not in a position to exact from his fears.

      DEPUTY, n. A male relative of an office-holder, or of his bondsman. The deputy is commonly a beautiful young man, with a red necktie and an intricate system of cobwebs extending from his nose to his desk. When accidentally struck by the janitor's broom, he gives off a cloud of dust.

      "Chief Deputy," the Master cried,

       "To-day the books are to be tried

       By experts and accountants who

       Have been commissioned to go through

       Our office here, to see if we

       Have stolen injudiciously.

       Please have the proper entries made,

       The proper balances displayed,

       Conforming to the whole amount

       Of cash on hand—which they will count.

       I've long admired your punctual way—

       Here at the break and close of day,

       Confronting in your chair the crowd

       Of business men, whose voices loud

       And gestures violent you quell

       By some mysterious, calm spell—

       Some magic lurking in your look

       That brings the noisiest to book

       And spreads a holy and profound

       Tranquillity o'er all around.

       So orderly all's done that they

       Who came to draw remain to pay.

       But now the time demands, at last,

       That you employ your genius vast

       In energies more active. Rise

       And shake the lightnings from your eyes;

       Inspire your underlings, and fling

       Your spirit into everything!"

       The Master's hand here dealt a whack

       Upon the Deputy's bent back,

       When straightway to the floor there fell

       A shrunken globe, a rattling shell

       A blackened, withered, eyeless head!

       The man had been a twelvemonth dead.

      Jamrach Holobom

      DESTINY, n. A tyrant's authority for crime and fool's excuse for failure.

      DIAGNOSIS, n. A physician's forecast of the disease by the patient's pulse and purse.

      DIAPHRAGM, n. A muscular partition separating disorders of the chest from disorders of the bowels.

      DIARY, n. A daily record of that part of one's life, which he can relate to himself without blushing.

      Hearst kept a diary wherein were writ

       All that he had of wisdom and of wit.

       So the Recording Angel, when Hearst died,

       Erased all entries of his own and cried:

       "I'll judge you by your diary." Said Hearst:

       "Thank you; 'twill show you I am Saint the First"—

       Straightway producing, jubilant and proud,

       That record from a pocket in his shroud.

       The Angel slowly turned the pages o'er,

       Each stupid line of which he knew before,

       Glooming and gleaming as by turns he hit

       On Shallow sentiment and stolen wit;

       Then gravely closed the book and gave it back.

       "My friend, you've wandered from your proper track:

       You'd never be content this side the tomb—

       For big ideas Heaven has little room,

       And Hell's no latitude for making mirth,"

       He said, and kicked the fellow back to earth.

      "The Mad Philosopher"

      DICTATOR, n. The chief of a nation that prefers the pestilence of despotism to the plague of anarchy.

      DICTIONARY, n. A malevolent literary device for cramping the growth of a language and making it hard and inelastic. This dictionary, however, is a most useful work.

      DIE, n. The singular of "dice." We seldom hear the word, because there is a prohibitory proverb, "Never say die." At long intervals, however, some one says: "The die is cast," which is not true, for it is cut. The word is found in an immortal couplet by that eminent poet and domestic economist, Senator Depew:

      A cube of cheese no larger than a die

       May bait the trap to catch a nibbling mie.

      DIGESTION, n. The conversion of victuals into virtues. When the process is imperfect, vices are evolved instead—a circumstance from which that wicked writer, Dr. Jeremiah Blenn, infers that the ladies are the greater sufferers from dyspepsia.

      DIPLOMACY, n. The patriotic art of lying for one's country.

      DISABUSE, v.t. To present your neighbor with another and better error than the one which he has deemed it advantageous to embrace.

      DISCRIMINATE, v.i. To note the particulars in which one person or thing is, if possible, more objectionable than another.

      DISCUSSION, n. A method of confirming others in their errors.

      DISOBEDIENCE, n. The silver lining to the cloud of servitude.

      DISOBEY, v.t. To celebrate with an appropriate ceremony the maturity of a command.

      His right to govern me is clear as day,

       My duty manifest to disobey;

       And if that fit observance e'er I shut

       May I and duty be alike undone.

      Israfel Brown

      DISSEMBLE, v.i. To put a clean shirt upon the character.

       Let us dissemble.

      Adam

      DISTANCE, n. The only thing that the rich are willing for the poor to call theirs, and keep.

      DISTRESS, n. A disease incurred by exposure to the prosperity of a friend.

      DIVINATION, n. The art of nosing out the occult. Divination is of as many kinds as there are fruit-bearing varieties of the flowering dunce and the early fool.

      DOG, n. A kind of additional or subsidiary Deity designed to catch the overflow and surplus of the world's worship. This Divine Being in some of his smaller and silkier incarnations takes, in the affection of Woman, the place to which there is no human male aspirant. The Dog is a survival—an anachronism. He toils not, neither does he spin, yet Solomon in all his glory never lay upon a door-mat all day long, sun-soaked and fly-fed and fat, while his master worked for the means wherewith to purchase the idle wag of the Solomonic tail, seasoned with a look of tolerant recognition.

      DRAGOON, n. A soldier who combines dash and steadiness in so equal measure that he makes his advances on foot and his retreats on horseback.

      DRAMATIST, n. One who adapts plays from the French.

      DRUIDS, n. Priests and ministers of