The Devil's Dictionary

Unlike that reptile, he will not let go.

Gelasma, if it paid you to devote

Your talent to the service of a goat,

Showing by forceful logic that its beard

Is more than Aaron’s fit to be revered;

If to the task of honoring its smell

Profit had prompted you, and love as well,

The world would benefit at last by you

And wealthy malefactors weep anew —

Your favor for a moment’s space denied

And to the nobler object turned aside.

Is’t not enough that thrifty millionaires

Who loot in freight and spoliate in fares,

Or, cursed with consciences that bid them fly

To safer villainies of darker dye,

Forswearing robbery and fain, instead,

To steal (they call it “cornering”) our bread

May see you groveling their boots to lick

And begging for the favor of a kick?

Still must you follow to the bitter end

Your sycophantic disposition’s trend,

And in your eagerness to please the rich

Hunt hungry sinners to their final ditch?

In Morgan’s praise you smite the sounding wire,

And sing hosannas to great Havemeyher!

What’s Satan done that him you should eschew?

He too is reeking rich — deducting you.

SYLLOGISM, n. A logical formula consisting of a major and a minor assumption and an inconsequent. (See LOGIC.)

SYLPH, n. An immaterial but visible being that inhabited the air when the air was an element and before it was fatally polluted with factory smoke, sewer gas and similar products of civilization. Sylphs were allied to gnomes, nymphs and salamanders, which dwelt, respectively, in earth, water and fire, all now insalubrious. Sylphs, like fowls of the air, were male and female, to no purpose, apparently, for if they had progeny they must have nested in accessible places, none of the chicks having ever been seen.

SYMBOL, n. Something that is supposed to typify or stand for something else. Many symbols are mere “survivals” — things which having no longer any utility continue to exist because we have inherited the tendency to make them; as funereal urns carved on memorial monuments. They were once real urns holding the ashes of the dead. We cannot stop making them, but we can give them a name that conceals our helplessness.

SYMBOLIC, adj. Pertaining to symbols and the use and interpretation of symbols.

They say ‘tis conscience feels compunction;

I hold that that’s the stomach’s function,

For of the sinner I have noted

That when he’s sinned he’s somewhat bloated,

Or ill some other ghastly fashion

Within that bowel of compassion.

True, I believe the only sinner

Is he that eats a shabby dinner.

You know how Adam with good reason,

For eating apples out of season,

Was “cursed.” But that is all symbolic:

The truth is, Adam had the colic.

G.J.

T

T, the twentieth letter of the English alphabet, was by the Greeks absurdly called tau. In the alphabet whence ours comes it had the form of the rude corkscrew of the period, and when it stood alone (which was more than the Phoenicians could always do) signified Tallegal, translated by the learned Dr. Brownrigg, “tanglefoot.”

TABLE D’HOTE, n. A caterer’s thrifty concession to the universal passion for irresponsibility.

Old Paunchinello, freshly wed,

Took Madam P. to table,

And there deliriously fed

As fast as he was able.

“I dote upon good grub,” he cried,

Intent upon its throatage.

“Ah, yes,” said the neglected bride,

“You’re in your table d’hotage.”

Associated Poets

TAIL, n. The part of an animal’s spine that has transcended its natural limitations to set up an independent existence in a world of its own. Excepting in its foetal state, Man is without a tail, a privation of which he attests an hereditary and uneasy consciousness by the coat-skirt of the male and the train of the female, and by a marked tendency to ornament that part of his attire where the tail should be, and indubitably once was. This tendency is most observable in the female of the species, in whom the ancestral sense is strong and persistent. The tailed men described by Lord Monboddo are now generally regarded as a product of an imagination unusually susceptible to influences generated in the golden age of our pithecan past.

TAKE, v.t. To acquire, frequently by force but preferably by stealth.

TALK, v.t. To commit an indiscretion without temptation, from an impulse without purpose.

TARIFF, n. A scale of taxes on imports, designed to protect the domestic producer against the greed of his consumer.

The Enemy of Human Souls

Sat grieving at the cost of coals;

For Hell had been annexed of late,

And was a sovereign Southern State.

“It were no more than right,” said he,

“That I should get my fuel free.

The duty, neither just nor wise,

Compels me to economize —

Whereby my broilers, every one,

Are execrably underdone.

What would they have? — although I yearn

To do them nicely to a turn,

I can’t afford an honest heat.

This tariff makes even devils cheat!

I’m ruined, and my humble trade

All rascals may at will invade:

Beneath my nose the public press

Outdoes me in sulphureousness;

The bar ingeniously applies

To my undoing my own lies;

My medicines the doctors use

(Albeit vainly) to refuse