naturalists have never been able to find aliving specimen of either.Freedom, as every schoolboy knows, Once shrieked as Kosciusko fell;On every wind, indeed, that blows I hear her yell.She screams whenever monarchs meet, And parliaments as well, Tobind the chains about her feet And toll her knell.And when the sovereign people cast The votes they cannot spell, Uponthe pestilential blast Her clamors swell.For all to whom the power's given To sway or to compel, Amongthemselves apportion Heaven And give her Hell.Blary O'GaryFREEMASONS, n.An order with secret rites, grotesque ceremoniesandfantastic costumes, which, originating in the reign of Charles II,amongworking artisans of London, has been joined successively by thedead ofpast centuries in unbroken retrogression until now it embracesall thegenerations of man on the hither side of Adam and is drummingupdistinguished recruits among the pre-Creational inhabitants ofChaos andFormless Void.The order was founded at different times byCharlemagne,Julius Caesar, Cyrus, Solomon, Zoroaster, Confucious,Thothmes, andBuddha.Its emblems and symbols have been found in theCatacombs ofParis and Rome, on the stones of the Parthenon and theChinese Great Wall,among the temples of Karnak and Palmyra and in theEgyptian Pyramids -always by a Freemason.FRIENDLESS, adj.Having no favors to bestow.Destitute of fortune.Addicted to utterance of truth and common sense.FRIENDSHIP, n.A ship big enough to carry two in fair weather,butonly one in foul.The sea was calm and the sky was blue; Merrily, merrily sailed we two.(High barometer maketh glad.) On the tipsy ship, with a dreadful shout,The tempest descended and we fell out. (O the walking is nasty bad!)49THE DEVIL'S DICTIONARYArmit Huff BettleFROG, n.A reptile with edible legs.The first mention of frogsinprofane literature is in Homer's narrative of the war between themandthe mice.Skeptical persons have doubted Homer's authorship ofthework, but the learned, ingenious and industrious Dr. Schliemann hassetthe question forever at rest by uncovering the bones of the slainfrogs.Oneof the forms of moral suasion by which Pharaoh wasbesought to favor theIsraelities was a plague of frogs, but Pharaoh,who liked them _fricasees_,remarked, with truly oriental stoicism,that he could stand it as long as thefrogs and the Jews could; so theprogramme was changed.The frog is adiligent songster, having a goodvoice but no ear.The libretto of his favoriteopera, as written byAristophanes, is brief, simple and effective -"brekekex-koax"; themusic is apparently by that eminent composer,Richard Wagner.Horseshave a frog in each hoof -- a thoughtful provisionof nature, enablingthem to shine in a hurdle race.FRYING-PAN, n.One part of the penal apparatus employed inthatpunitive institution, a woman's kitchen.The frying-pan was inventedbyCalvin, and by him used in cooking span-long infants that had diedwithoutbaptism; and observing one day the horrible torment of a trampwho hadincautiously pulled a fried babe from the waste-dump anddevoured it, itoccurred to the great divine to rob death of itsterrors by introducing thefrying-pan into every household in Geneva. Thence it spread to all cornersof the world, and has been ofinvaluable assistance in the propagation ofhis sombre faith.Thefollowing lines (said to be from the pen of his GraceBishop Potter)seem to imply that the usefulness of this utensil is notlimited tothis world; but as the consequences of its employment in thislifereach over into the life to come, so also itself may be found on theotherside, rewarding its devotees:Old Nick was summoned to the skies. Said Peter:"Your intentions Aregood, but you lack enterprise Concerning new inventions."Now, broiling in an ancient plan Of torment, but I hear it Reportedthat the frying-pan Sears best the wicked spirit."Go get one -- fill it up with fat -- Fry sinners brown and good in't." "Iknow a trick worth two o' that," Said Nick -- "I'll cook their food in't."50THE DEVIL'S DICTIONARYFUNERAL, n.A pageant whereby we attest our respect for the deadbyenriching the undertaker, and strengthen our grief by an expenditurethatdeepens our groans and doubles our tears.The savage dies -- they sacrifice a horse To bear to happy huntinggrounds the corse. Our friends expire -- we make the money fly In hopetheir souls will chase it to the sky.Jex WopleyFUTURE, n.That period of time in which our affairs prosper,ourfriends are true and our happiness is assured.GGALLOWS, n.A stage for the performance of miracle plays, inwhichthe leading actor is translated to heaven.In this country thegallows ischiefly remarkable for the number of persons who escape it.Whether on the gallows high Or where blood flows the reddest, Thenoblest place for man to die -- Is where he died the deadest.(Old play)GARGOYLE, n.A rain-spout projecting from the eaves ofmediaevalbuildings, commonly fashioned into a grotesque caricature ofsomepersonal enemy of the architect or owner of the building.Thiswasespecially the case in churches and ecclesiastical structuresgenerally,in which the gargoyles presented a perfect rogues' galleryof local hereticsand controversialists.Sometimes when a new deanand chapter wereinstalled the old gargoyles were removed and otherssubstituted having acloser relation to the private animosities of thenew incumbents.GARTHER, n.An elastic band intended to keep a woman from comingoutof her stockings and desolating the country.GENEROUS, adj.Originally this word meant noble by birth andwasrightly applied to a great multitude of persons.It now means noblebynature and is taking a bit of a rest.GENEALOGY, n.An account of one's descent from an ancestor whodidnot particularly care to trace his own.GENTEEL, adj.Refined, after the fashion of a gent.51THE DEVIL'S DICTIONARYObserve with care, my son, the distinction I reveal: A gentleman isgentle and a gent genteel. Heed not the definitions your "Unabridged"presents, For dictionary makers are generally gents.GEOGRAPHER, n.A chap who can tell you offhand the differencebetweenthe outside of the world and the inside.Habeam, geographer of wide reknown, Native of Abu-Keber's ancienttown, In passing thence along the river Zam To the adjacent village ofXelam, Bewildered by the multitude of roads, Got lost, lived long onmigratory toads, Then from exposure miserably died, And gratefultravelers bewailed their guide.Henry HaukhornGEOLOGY, n.The science of the earth's crust -- to which,doubtless,will be added that of its interior whenever a man shall comeupgarrulous out of a well.The geological formations of the globealreadynoted are catalogued thus:The Primary, or lower one,consists of rocks,bones or mired mules, gas-pipes, miners' tools,antique statues minus thenose, Spanish doubloons and ancestors.TheSecondary is largely made upof red worms and moles.The Tertiarycomprises railway tracks, patentpavements, grass, snakes, mouldyboots, beer bottles, tomato cans,intoxicated citizens, garbage,anarchists, snap-dogs and fools.GHOST, n.The outward and visible sign of an inward fear.He saw a ghost. It occupied --that dismal thing! --The path that hewas following. Before he'd time to stop and fly, An earthquake trifled withthe eye That saw a ghost. He fell as fall the early good; Unmoved thatawful vision stood. The stars that danced before his ken He wildly brushedaway, and then He saw a post.Jared MacphesterAccounting for the uncommon behavior of ghosts, Heinementionssomebody's ingenious theory to the effect that they are asmuchafraid of us as we of them.Not quite, if I may judge from suchtablesof comparative speed as I am able to compile from memories ofmy ownexperience. There is one insuperable obstacle to a belief in ghosts.Aghostnever comes naked:he appears either in a winding-sheet or "in52THE DEVIL'S DICTIONARYhishabit as he lived."To believe in him, then, is to believe that notonlyhave the dead the power to make themselves visible after there isnothingleft of them, but that the same power inheres in textilefabrics.Supposingthe products of the loom to have this ability,what object would they havein exercising it?And why does not theapparition of a suit of clothessometimes walk abroad without a ghostin it?These be riddles ofsignificance.They reach away down andget a convulsive grip on the verytap-root of this flourishing faith.GHOUL, n.A demon addicted to the reprehensible habit ofdevouringthe dead.The existence of ghouls has been disputed by that classofcontroversialists who are more concerned to deprive the worldofcomforting beliefs than to give it anything good in their place.In1640Father Secchi saw one in a cemetery near Florence and frightenedit awaywith the sign of the cross.He describes it as gifted withmany heads an anuncommon allowance of limbs, and he saw it in morethan one place at atime.The good man was coming away from dinner atthe time and explainsthat if he had not been "heavy with eating" hewould have seized thedemon at all hazards.Atholston relates that aghoul was caught by somesturdy peasants in a churchyard at Sudburyand ducked in a horsepond.(Heappears to think that so distinguisheda criminal should have been duckedin a tank of rosewater.)The waterturned at once to blood "and so contynuesunto ys daye."The pond hassince been bled with a ditch.As late as thebeginning of thefourteenth century a ghoul was cornered in the crypt ofthe cathedralat Amiens and the whole population surrounded theplace.Twenty armedmen with a priest at their head, bearing a crucifix,entered andcaptured the ghoul, which, thinking to escape by the stratagem,hadtransformed itself to the semblance of a well known citizen, butwasnevertheless hanged, drawn and quartered in the midst ofhideouspopular orgies.The citizen whose shape the demon had assumedwas soaffected by the sinister occurrence that he never again showedhimselfin Amiens and his fate remains a mystery.GLUTTON, n.A person who escapes the evils of moderationbycommitting dyspepsia.GNOME, n.In North-European mythology, a dwarfish imp inhabiting53THE DEVIL'S DICTIONARYtheinterior parts of the earth and having special custody ofmineraltreasures.Bjorsen, who died in 1765, says gnomes were commonenoughin the southern parts of Sweden in his boyhood, and he frequentlysawthem scampering on the hills in the eveningtwilight.LudwigBinkerhoof saw three as recently as 1792, in the BlackForest, andSneddeker avers that in 1803 they drove a party of miners outof aSilesian mine.Basing our computations upon data supplied bythesestatements, we find that the gnomes were probably extinct as earlyas1764.GNOSTICS, n.A sect of philosophers who tried to engineer afusionbetween the early Christians and the Platonists.The former wouldnotgo into the caucus and the combination failed, greatly to the chagrinofthe fusion managers.GNU, n.An animal of South Africa, which in its domesticatedstateresembles a horse, a buffalo and a stag.In its wild condition itissomething like a thunderbolt, an earthquake and a cyclone.A hunter from Kew caught a distant view Of a peacefully meditativegnu, And he said:"I'll pursue, and my hands imbrue In its blood at a closerinterview." But that beast did ensue and the hunter it threw O'er the top ofa palm that adjacent grew; And he said as he flew:"It is well I withdrewEre, losing my temper, I wickedly slew That really meritorious gnu."Jarn LefferGOOD, adj.Sensible, madam, to the worth of this present writer.Alive, sir, to the advantages of letting him alone.GOOSE, n.A bird that supplies quills for writing.These, by someoccultprocess of nature, are penetrated and suffused with variousdegrees of thebird's intellectual energies and emotional character,so that when inked anddrawn mechanically across paper by a personcalled an "author," thereresults a very fair and accurate transcriptof the fowl's thought andfeeling.The difference in geese, asdiscovered by this ingenious method, isconsiderable:many are foundto have only trivial and insignificant powers,but some are seen to bevery great geese indeed.GORGON, n.The Gorgon was a maiden bold Who turned to stone the Greeks of old54THE DEVIL'S DICTIONARYThat looked upon her awful brow. We dig them out of ruins now, Andswear that workmanship so bad Proves all the ancient sculptors mad.GOUT, n.A physician's name for the rheumatism of a rich patient.GRACES, n.Three beautiful goddesses, Aglaia, Thalia andEuphrosyne,who attended upon Venus, serving without salary.They wereat noexpense for board and clothing, for they ate nothing to speak ofanddressed according to the weather, wearing whatever breeze happenedtobe blowing.GRAMMAR, n.A system of pitfalls thoughtfully prepared for thefeetfor the self-made man, along the path by which he advancestodistinction.GRAPE, n.Hail noble fruit! -- by Homer sung, Anacreon and Khayyam; Thypraise is ever on the tongue Of better men than I am.The lyre in my hand has never swept, The song I cannot offer: Myhumbler service pray accept -- I'll help to kill the scoffer. The waterdrinkers and the cranks Who load their skins with liquor -- I'll gladly beartheir belly-tanks And tap them with my sticker.Fill up, fill up, for wisdom cools When e'er we let the wine rest. Here'sdeath to Prohibition's fools, And every kind of vine-pest!Jamrach HolobomGRAPESHOT, n.An argument which the future is preparing inanswer tothe demands of American Socialism.GRAVE, n.A place in which the dead are laid to await the comingofthe medical student.Beside a lonely grave I stood -- With brambles 'twas encumbered; Thewinds were moaning in the wood, Unheard by him who slumbered,A rustic standing near, I said: "He cannot hear it blowing!" "'Coursenot," said he:"the feller's dead -- He can't hear nowt [sic] that's going.""Too true," I said; "alas, too true -- No sound his sense can quicken!""Well, mister, wot is that to you? -- The deadster ain't a-kickin'."I knelt and prayed:"O Father, smile On him, and mercy show him!"That countryman looked on the while, And said:"Ye didn't know him."Pobeter Dunko55THE DEVIL'S DICTIONARYGRAVITATION, n.The tendency of all bodies to approach oneanotherwith a strength proportion to the quantity of matter they contain -the quantity of matter they contain being ascertained by the strengthoftheir tendency to approach one another.This is a lovely andedifyingillustration of how science, having made A the proof of B,makes B theproof of A.GREAT, adj."I'm great," the Lion said -- "I reign The monarch of the wood andplain!"The Elephant replied:"I'm great -- No quadruped can match myweight!""I'm great -- no animal has half So long a neck!" said the Giraffe."I'm great," the Kangaroo said -- "see My femoral muscularity!"The 'Possum said:"I'm great --behold, My tail is lithe and bald andcold!"An Oyster fried was understood To say:"I'm great because I'm good!"Each reckons greatness to consist In that in which he heads the list,And Vierick thinks he tops his class Because he is the greatest ass.Arion Spurl DokeGUILLOTINE, n.A machine which makes a Frenchman shrug hisshoulderswith good reason. In his great work on _Divergent Lines ofRacial Evolution_, thelearned Professor Brayfugle argues from theprevalence of this gesture-- the shrug -- among Frenchmen, that they aredescended from turtlesand it is simply a survival of the habit of retracingthe head insidethe shell.It is with reluctance that I differ with so eminentanauthority, but in my judgment (as more elaborately set forthandenforced in my work entitled _Hereditary Emotions_ -- lib. II, c.XI)the shrug is a poor foundation upon which to build so importantatheory, for previously to the Revolution the gesture was unknown.Ihavenot a doubt that it is directly referable to the terror inspiredby theguillotine during the period of that instrument's activity.GUNPOWDER, n.An agency employed by civilized nations forthesettlement of disputes which might become troublesome ifleftunadjusted.By most writers the invention of gunpowder is ascribed56THE DEVIL'S DICTIONARYtothe Chinese, but not upon very convincing evidence.Milton says itwasinvented by the devil to dispel angels with, and this opinionseems toderive some support from the scarcity of angels.Moreover,it has the heartyconcurrence of the Hon. James Wilson, Secretary ofAgriculture. SecretaryWilson became interested in gunpowder through an eventthat occurred onthe Government experimental farm in the District ofColumbia.One day,several years ago, a rogue imperfectly reverent ofthe Secretary's profoundattainments and personal character presentedhim with a sack ofgunpowder, representing it as the sed of the_Flashawful flabbergastor_, aPatagonian cereal of great commercialvalue, admirably adapted to thisclimate.The good Secretary wasinstructed to spill it along in a furrow and