The Devil’s Dictionary (Chap. 7)

GALLOWS, n. A stage for the performance of miracle plays, in which the leading actor is translated to heaven. In this country the gallows is chiefly remarkable for the number of persons who escape it.

&nbspWhether on the gallows high
&nbspOr where blood flows the reddest,
&nbspThe noblest place for man to die—
&nbspIs where he died the deadest.

(Old play)

GARGOYLE, n. A rain-spout projecting from the eaves of mediaeval buildings, commonly fashioned into a grotesque caricature of some personal enemy of the architect or owner of the building. This was especially the case in churches and ecclesiastical structures generally, in which the gargoyles presented a perfect rogues' gallery of local heretics and controversialists. Sometimes when a new dean and chapter were installed the old gargoyles were removed and others substituted having a closer relation to the private animosities of the new incumbents.

GARTHER, n. An elastic band intended to keep a woman from coming out of her stockings and desolating the country.

GENEROUS, adj. Originally this word meant noble by birth and was rightly applied to a great multitude of persons. It now means noble by nature and is taking a bit of a rest.

GENEALOGY, n. An account of one's descent from an ancestor who did not particularly care to trace his own.

GENTEEL, adj. Refined, after the fashion of a gent.

&nbspObserve with care, my son, the distinction I reveal:
&nbspA gentleman is gentle and a gent genteel.
&nbspHeed not the definitions your "Unabridged" presents,
&nbspFor dictionary makers are generally gents.

G.J.

GEOGRAPHER, n. A chap who can tell you offhand the difference between the outside of the world and the inside.

&nbspHabeam, geographer of wide reknown,
&nbspNative of Abu-Keber's ancient town,
&nbspIn passing thence along the river Zam
&nbspTo the adjacent village of Xelam,
&nbspBewildered by the multitude of roads,
&nbspGot lost, lived long on migratory toads,
&nbspThen from exposure miserably died,
&nbspAnd grateful travelers bewailed their guide.

Henry Haukhorn

GEOLOGY, n. The science of the earth's crust—to which, doubtless, will be added that of its interior whenever a man shall come up garrulous out of a well. The geological formations of the globe already noted are catalogued thus: The Primary, or lower one, consists of rocks, bones or mired mules, gas-pipes, miners' tools, antique statues minus the nose, Spanish doubloons and ancestors. The Secondary is largely made up of red worms and moles. The Tertiary comprises railway tracks, patent pavements, grass, snakes, mouldy boots, beer bottles, tomato cans, intoxicated citizens, garbage, anarchists, snap-dogs and fools.

GHOST, n. The outward and visible sign of an inward fear.

&nbspHe saw a ghost.
&nbspIt occupied—that dismal thing!—
&nbspThe path that he was following.
&nbspBefore he'd time to stop and fly,
&nbspAn earthquake trifled with the eye
&nbspThat saw a ghost.
&nbspHe fell as fall the early good;
&nbspUnmoved that awful vision stood.
&nbspThe stars that danced before his ken
&nbspHe wildly brushed away, and then
&nbspHe saw a post.

Jared Macphester

Accounting for the uncommon behavior of ghosts, Heine mentions somebody's ingenious theory to the effect that they are as much afraid of us as we of them. Not quite, if I may judge from such tables of comparative speed as I am able to compile from memories of my own experience.

There is one insuperable obstacle to a belief in ghosts. A ghost never comes naked: he appears either in a winding-sheet or "in his habit as he lived." To believe in him, then, is to believe that not only have the dead the power to make themselves visible after there is nothing left of them, but that the same power inheres in textile fabrics. Supposing the products of the loom to have this ability, what object would they have in exercising it? And why does not the apparition of a suit of clothes sometimes walk abroad without a ghost in it? These be riddles of significance. They reach away down and get a convulsive grip on the very tap-root of this flourishing faith.

GHOUL, n. A demon addicted to the reprehensible habit of devouring the dead. The existence of ghouls has been disputed by that class of controversialists who are more concerned to deprive the world of comforting beliefs than to give it anything good in their place. In 1640 Father Secchi saw one in a cemetery near Florence and frightened it away with the sign of the cross. He describes it as gifted with many heads an an uncommon allowance of limbs, and he saw it in more than one place at a time. The good man was coming away from dinner at the time and explains that if he had not been "heavy with eating" he would have seized the demon at all hazards. Atholston relates that a ghoul was caught by some sturdy peasants in a churchyard at Sudbury and ducked in a horsepond. (He appears to think that so distinguished a criminal should have been ducked in a tank of rosewater.) The water turned at once to blood "and so contynues unto ys daye." The pond has since been bled with a ditch. As late as the beginning of the fourteenth century a ghoul was cornered in the crypt of the cathedral at Amiens and the whole population surrounded the place. Twenty armed men with a priest at their head, bearing a crucifix, entered and captured the ghoul, which, thinking to escape by the stratagem, had transformed itself to the semblance of a well known citizen, but was nevertheless hanged, drawn and quartered in the midst of hideous popular orgies. The citizen whose shape the demon had assumed was so affected by the sinister occurrence that he never again showed himself in Amiens and his fate remains a mystery.

GLUTTON, n. A person who escapes the evils of moderation by committing dyspepsia.

GNOME, n. In North-European mythology, a dwarfish imp inhabiting the interior parts of the earth and having special custody of mineral treasures. Bjorsen, who died in 1765, says gnomes were common enough in the southern parts of Sweden in his boyhood, and he frequently saw them scampering on the hills in the evening twilight. Ludwig Binkerhoof saw three as recently as 1792, in the Black Forest, and Sneddeker avers that in 1803 they drove a party of miners out of a Silesian mine. Basing our computations upon data supplied by these statements, we find that the gnomes were probably extinct as early as 1764.

GNOSTICS, n. A sect of philosophers who tried to engineer a fusion between the early Christians and the Platonists. The former would not go into the caucus and the combination failed, greatly to the chagrin of the fusion managers.

GNU, n. An animal of South Africa, which in its domesticated state resembles a horse, a buffalo and a stag. In its wild condition it is something like a thunderbolt, an earthquake and a cyclone.

&nbspA hunter from Kew caught a distant view
&nbspOf a peacefully meditative gnu,
&nbspAnd he said: "I'll pursue, and my hands imbrue
&nbspIn its blood at a closer interview."
&nbspBut that beast did ensue and the hunter it threw
&nbspO'er the top of a palm that adjacent grew;
&nbspAnd he said as he flew: "It is well I withdrew
&nbspEre, losing my temper, I wickedly slew
&nbspThat really meritorious gnu."

Jarn Leffer

GOOD, 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 some occult process of nature, are penetrated and suffused with various degrees of the bird's intellectual energies and emotional character, so that when inked and drawn mechanically across paper by a person called an "author," there results a very fair and accurate transcript of the fowl's thought and feeling. The difference in geese, as discovered by this ingenious method, is considerable: many are found to have only trivial and insignificant powers, but some are seen to be very great geese indeed.

GORGON, n.

&nbspThe Gorgon was a maiden bold
&nbspWho turned to stone the Greeks of old
&nbspThat looked upon her awful brow.
&nbspWe dig them out of ruins now,
&nbspAnd swear that workmanship so bad
&nbspProves 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 and Euphrosyne, who attended upon Venus, serving without salary. They were at no expense for board and clothing, for they ate nothing to speak of and dressed according to the weather, wearing whatever breeze happened to be blowing.

GRAMMAR, n. A system of pitfalls thoughtfully prepared for the feet for the self-made man, along the path by which he advances to distinction.

GRAPE, n.

&nbspHail noble fruit!—by Homer sung,
&nbspAnacreon and Khayyam;
&nbspThy praise is ever on the tongue
&nbspOf better men than I am.

&nbspThe lyre in my hand has never swept,
&nbspThe song I cannot offer:
&nbspMy humbler service pray accept—
&nbspI'll help to kill the scoffer.
&nbspThe water-drinkers and the cranks
&nbspWho load their skins with liquor—
&nbspI'll gladly bear their belly-tanks
&nbspAnd tap them with my sticker.

&nbspFill up, fill up, for wisdom cools
&nbspWhen e'er we let the wine rest.
&nbspHere's death to Prohibition's fools,
&nbspAnd every kind of vine-pest!

Jamrach Holobom

GRAPESHOT, n. An argument which the future is preparing in answer to the demands of American Socialism.

GRAVE, n. A place in which the dead are laid to await the coming of the medical student.

&nbspBeside a lonely grave I stood—
&nbspWith brambles 'twas encumbered;
&nbspThe winds were moaning in the wood,
&nbspUnheard by him who slumbered,

&nbspA rustic standing near, I said:
&nbsp"He cannot hear it blowing!"
&nbsp"'Course not," said he: "the feller's dead—
&nbspHe can't hear nowt [sic] that's going."

&nbsp"Too true," I said; "alas, too true—
&nbspNo sound his sense can quicken!"
&nbsp"Well, mister, wot is that to you?—
&nbspThe deadster ain't a-kickin'."

&nbspI knelt and prayed: "O Father, smile
&nbspOn him, and mercy show him!"
&nbspThat countryman looked on the while,
&nbspAnd said: "Ye didn't know him."

Pobeter Dunko

GRAVITATION, n. The tendency of all bodies to approach one another with a strength proportion to the quantity of matter they contain— the quantity of matter they contain being ascertained by the strength of their tendency to approach one another. This is a lovely and edifying illustration of how science, having made A the proof of B, makes B the proof of A.

GREAT, adj.

&nbsp"I'm great," the Lion said—"I reign
&nbspThe monarch of the wood and plain!"

&nbspThe Elephant replied: "I'm great—
&nbspNo quadruped can match my weight!"

&nbsp"I'm great—no animal has half
&nbspSo long a neck!" said the Giraffe.

&nbsp"I'm great," the Kangaroo said—"see
&nbspMy femoral muscularity!"

&nbspThe 'Possum said: "I'm great—behold,
&nbspMy tail is lithe and bald and cold!"

&nbspAn Oyster fried was understood
&nbspTo say: "I'm great because I'm good!"

&nbspEach reckons greatness to consist
&nbspIn that in which he heads the list,

&nbspAnd Vierick thinks he tops his class
&nbspBecause he is the greatest ass.

&nbspArion Spurl Doke

GUILLOTINE, n. A machine which makes a Frenchman shrug his shoulders with good reason.

In his great work on Divergent Lines of Racial Evolution, the learned Professor Brayfugle argues from the prevalence of this gesture —the shrug—among Frenchmen, that they are descended from turtles and it is simply a survival of the habit of retracing the head inside the shell. It is with reluctance that I differ with so eminent an authority, but in my judgment (as more elaborately set forth and enforced in my work entitled Hereditary Emotions—lib. II, c. XI) the shrug is a poor foundation upon which to build so important a theory, for previously to the Revolution the gesture was unknown. I have not a doubt that it is directly referable to the terror inspired by the guillotine during the period of that instrument's activity.

GUNPOWDER, n. An agency employed by civilized nations for the settlement of disputes which might become troublesome if left unadjusted. By most writers the invention of gunpowder is ascribed to the Chinese, but not upon very convincing evidence. Milton says it was invented by the devil to dispel angels with, and this opinion seems to derive some support from the scarcity of angels. Moreover, it has the hearty concurrence of the Hon. James Wilson, Secretary of Agriculture.

Secretary Wilson became interested in gunpowder through an event that occurred on the Government experimental farm in the District of Columbia. One day, several years ago, a rogue imperfectly reverent of the Secretary's profound attainments and personal character presented him with a sack of gunpowder, representing it as the sed of the Flashawful flabbergastor, a Patagonian cereal of great commercial value, admirably adapted to this climate. The good Secretary was instructed to spill it along in a furrow and afterward inhume it with soil. This he at once proceeded to do, and had made a continuous line of it all the way across a ten-acre field, when he was made to look backward by a shout from the generous donor, who at once dropped a lighted match into the furrow at the starting-point. Contact with the earth had somewhat dampened the powder, but the startled functionary saw himself pursued by a tall moving pillar of fire and smoke and fierce evolution. He stood for a moment paralyzed and speechless, then he recollected an engagement and, dropping all, absented himself thence with such surprising celerity that to the eyes of spectators along the route selected he appeared like a long, dim streak prolonging itself with inconceivable rapidity through seven villages, and audibly refusing to be comforted. "Great Scott! what is that?" cried a surveyor's chainman, shading his eyes and gazing at the fading line of agriculturist which bisected his visible horizon. "That," said the surveyor, carelessly glancing at the phenomenon and again centering his attention upon his instrument, "is the Meridian of Washington."