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<?xml version="1.0"?>       <!DOCTYPE package PUBLIC "+//ISBN 0-9673008-1-9//DTD OEB 1.0 Package//EN"         "http://openebook.org/dtds/oeb-1.0/oebdoc1.dtd"><html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/x-oeb1-document; charset=utf-8" /><link rel="stylesheet" type="text/x-oeb1-css" href="devil.css" /><title>The Devil&#8217;s Dictionary: P</title></head><body lang="en-US">  <h1>P</h1> <p class="entry"><span class="def">pain</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Anuncomfortable frame of mind that may have a physical basis in something that isbeing done to the body, or may be purely mental, caused by the good fortune ofanother.</p> <p class="entry"><span class="def">painting</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Theart of protecting flat surfaces from the weather and exposing them to the critic.</p> <p>Formerly, painting and sculpture were combined in the same work: </p> <p>the ancients painted their statues. The only present alliance between the two arts is thatthe modern painter chisels his patrons.</p> <p class="entry"><span class="def">palace</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A fineand costly residence, particularly that of a great official. The residence of ahigh dignitary of the Christian Church is called a palace; that of the Founderof his religion was known as a field, or wayside. There is progress.</p> <p class="entry"><span class="def">palm</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A speciesof tree having several varieties, of which the familiar “itching palm” (<i>Palmahominis</i>) is most widely distributed and sedulously cultivated. This noblevegetable exudes a kind of invisible gum, which may be detected by applying tothe bark a piece of gold or silver. The metal will adhere with remarkabletenacity. The fruit of the itching palm is so bitter and unsatisfying that aconsiderable percentage of it is sometimes given away in what are known as“benefactions.”</p> <p class="entry"><span class="def">palmistry</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The947<sup>th</sup> method (according to Mimbleshaw’s classification) of obtainingmoney by false pretences. It consists in “reading character” in the wrinklesmade by closing the hand. The pretence is not altogether false; character canreally be read very accurately in this way, for the wrinkles in every handsubmitted plainly spell the word “dupe.” The imposture consists in not readingit aloud.</p> <p class="entry"><span class="def">pandemonium </span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Literally,the Place of All the Demons. Most of them have escaped into politics andfinance, and the place is now used as a lecture hall by the Audible Reformer. Whendisturbed by his voice the ancient echoes clamor appropriate responses mostgratifying to his pride of distinction.</p> <p class="entry"><span class="def">pantaloons</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Anether habiliment of the adult civilized male. The garment is tubular andunprovided with hinges at the points of flexion. Supposed to have been inventedby a humorist. Called “trousers” by the enlightened and “pants” by theunworthy.</p> <p class="entry"><span class="def">pantheism</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Thedoctrine that everything is God, in contradistinction to the doctrine that God is everything.</p> <p class="entry"><span class="def">pantomime</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Aplay in which the story is told without violence to the language. The leastdisagreeable form of dramatic action.</p> <p class="entry"><span class="def">pardon</span>, <span class="pos">v.</span> Toremit a penalty and restore to the life of crime. To add to the lure of crimethe temptation of ingratitude.</p> <p class="entry"><span class="def">passport</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Adocument treacherously inflicted upon a citizen going abroad, exposing him asan alien and pointing him out for special reprobation and outrage.</p> <p class="entry"><span class="def">past</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> That partof Eternity with some small fraction of which we have a slight and regrettableacquaintance. A moving line called the Present parts it from an imaginaryperiod known as the Future. These two grand divisions of Eternity, of which theone is continually effacing the other, are entirely unlike. The one is darkwith sorrow and disappointment, the other bright with prosperity and joy. ThePast is the region of sobs, the Future is the realm of song. In the onecrouches Memory, clad in sackcloth and ashes, mumbling penitential prayer; inthe sunshine of the other Hope flies with a free wing, beckoning to temples ofsuccess and bowers of ease. Yet the Past is the Future of yesterday, the Futureis the Past of to-morrow. They are one—the knowledge and the dream.</p> <p class="entry"><span class="def">pastime</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Adevice for promoting dejection. Gentle exercise for intellectual debility.</p> <p class="entry"><span class="def">patience</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Aminor form of despair, disguised as a virtue.</p> <p class="entry"><span class="def">patriot</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> One towhom the interests of a part seem superior to those of the whole. The dupe ofstatesmen and the tool of conquerors.</p> <p class="entry"><span class="def">patriotism</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Combustiblerubbish read to the torch of any one ambitious to illuminate his name.</p> <p>In Dr. Johnson’s famous dictionary patriotism is defined as the last resort of a scoundrel. Withall due respect to an enlightened but inferior lexicographer I beg to submitthat it is the first.</p> <p class="entry"><span class="def">peace</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Ininternational affairs, a period of cheating between two periods of fighting.</p> <div class="poem"><p class="poetry">O, what’s the loud uproar assailing</p><p class="poetry">Mine ears without cease?</p><p class="poetry">‘Tis the voice of the hopeful, all-hailing</p><p class="poetry">The horrors of peace.</p><p class="poetry">Ah, Peace Universal; they woo it—</p><p class="poetry">Would marry it, too.</p><p class="poetry">If only they knew how to do it</p><p class="poetry">‘Twere easy to do.</p><p class="poetry">They’re working by night and by day</p><p class="poetry">On their problem, like moles.</p><p class="poetry">Have mercy, O Heaven, I pray,</p><p class="poetry">On their meddlesome souls!</p><p class="citeauth">Ro Amil</p></div> <p class="entry"><span class="def">pedestrian</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Thevariable (an audible) part of the roadway for an automobile.</p> <p class="entry"><span class="def">pedigree</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Theknown part of the route from an arboreal ancestor with a swim bladder to anurban descendant with a cigarette.</p> <p class="entry"><span class="def">penitentN</span>, <span class="pos">adj.</span> Undergoingor awaiting punishment.</p> <p class="entry"><span class="def">perfection</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Animaginary state of quality distinguished from the actual by an element known asexcellence; an attribute of the critic.</p> <p class="indentpara">The editor of an English magazine having received a letter pointing out the erroneous nature ofhis views and style, and signed “Perfection,” promptly wrote at the foot of theletter: “I don’t agree with you,” and mailed it to Matthew Arnold.</p> <p class="entry"><span class="def">peripatetic</span>, <span class="pos">adj.</span> Walkingabout. Relating to the philosophy of Aristotle, who, while expounding it, movedfrom place to place in order to avoid his pupil’s objections. A needlessprecaution—they knew no more of the matter than he.</p> <p class="entry"><span class="def">peroration</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Theexplosion of an oratorical rocket. It dazzles, but to an observer having thewrong kind of nose its most conspicuous peculiarity is the smell of the severalkinds of powder used in preparing it.</p> <p class="entry"><span class="def">perseverance</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Alowly virtue whereby mediocrity achieves an inglorious success.</p> <div class="poem"><p class="poetry">“Persevere, persevere!” cry the homilists all,<br />Themselves, day and night, persevering to bawl.<br />“Remember the fable of tortoise and hare—</p><p class="poetry">The one at the goal while the other is—where?”<br />Why, back there in Dreamland, renewing his lease<br />Of life, all his muscles preserving the peace,<br />The goal and the rival forgotten alike,<br />And the long fatigue of the needless hike.</p><p class="poetry">His spirit a-squat in the grass and the dew</p><p class="poetry">Of the dogless Land beyond the Stew,</p><p class="poetry">He sleeps, like a saint in a holy place,</p><p class="poetry">A winner of all that is good in a race.</p><p class="citeauth">Sukker Uffro</p></div> <p class="entry"><span class="def">pessimism</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Aphilosophy forced upon the convictions of the observer by the dishearteningprevalence of the optimist with his scarecrow hope and his unsightly smile.</p> <p class="entry"><span class="def">philanthropist</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span>A rich (and usually bald) old gentleman who has trained himself to grin whilehis conscience is picking his pocket.</p> <p class="entry"><span class="def">philistine</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Onewhose mind is the creature of its environment, following the fashion inthought, feeling and sentiment. He is sometimes learned, frequently prosperous,commonly clean and always solemn.</p> <p class="entry"><span class="def">philosophy</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Aroute of many roads leading from nowhere to nothing.</p> <p class="entry"><span class="def">Phoenix</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> The classicalprototype of the modern “small hot bird.”</p> <p class="entry"><span class="def">phonograph</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Anirritating toy that restores life to dead noises.</p> <p class="entry"><span class="def">photograph</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Apicture painted by the sun without instruction in art. It is a little betterthan the work of an Apache, but not quite so good as that of a Cheyenne.</p> <p class="entry"><span class="def">phrenology</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Thescience of picking the pocket through the scalp. It consists in locating andexploiting the organ that one is a dupe with.</p> <p class="entry"><span class="def">physician</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Oneupon whom we set our hopes when ill and our dogs when well.</p> <p class="entry"><span class="def">physiognomy</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Theart of determining the character of another by the resemblances and differencesbetween his face and our own, which is the standard of excellence.</p> <div class="poem"><p class="poetry">“There is no art,” says Shakespeare, foolish man,</p><p class="poetry">“To read the mind’s construction in the face.”</p><p class="poetry">The physiognomists his portrait scan,</p><p class="poetry">And say: “How little wisdom here we trace! He knew his face disclosed his mind and heart, So,in his own defence, denied our art.”</p><p class="poetry">Lavatar Shunk</p></div> <p class="entry"><span class="def">piano</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A parlorutensil for subduing the impenitent visitor. It is operated by pressing thekeys of the machine and the spirits of the audience.</p> <p class="entry"><span class="def">pickaninny</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Theyoung of the <i>Procyanthropos</i>, or <i>Americanus dominans</i>. It is small, black and charged with politicalfatalities.</p> <p class="entry"><span class="def">picture</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Arepresentation in two dimensions of something wearisome in three.</p> <div class="poem"><p class="poetry">“Behold great Daubert’s picture here on view—</p><p class="poetry">Taken from Life.” If that description’s true, Grant, heavenly Powers, that I be taken, too.</p><p class="citeauth">Jali Hane</p></div> <p class="entry"><span class="def">pie</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> An advanceagent of the reaper whose name is Indigestion.</p> <div class="poem"><p class="poetry">Cold pie was highly esteemed by the remains.</p><p class="poetry">Rev. Dr. Mucker</p><p class="poetry">(in a funeral sermon over a British nobleman)</p><p class="poetry">Cold pie is a detestable</p><p class="poetry">American comestible.</p><p class="poetry">That’s why I’m done—or undone—</p><p class="poetry">So far from that dear London.</p><p class="citeauth">(from the headstone of a British nobleman in Kalamazoo)</p></div> <p class="entry"><span class="def">piety</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Reverencefor the Supreme Being, based upon His supposed resemblance to man.</p> <div class="poem"><p class="poetry">The pig is taught by sermons and epistles<br />To think the God of Swine has snout and bristles.</p><p class="citeauth">Judibras</p></div> <p class="entry"><span class="def">pig</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> An animal(<i>Porcus omnivorus</i>) closely allied to the human race by the splendor andvivacity of its appetite, which, however, is inferior in scope, for it sticksat pig.</p> <p class="entry"><span class="def">pigmy</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> One of atribe of very small men found by ancient travelers in many parts of the world,but by modern in Central Africa only. The Pigmies are so called to distinguishthem from the bulkier Caucasians&#8212;who are Hogmies.</p> <p class="entry"><span class="def">Pilgrim</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Atraveler that is taken seriously. A Pilgrim Father was one who, leaving Europein 1620 because not permitted to sing psalms through his nose, followed it toMassachusetts, where he could personate God according to the dictates of hisconscience.</p> <p class="entry"><span class="def">pillory</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Amechanical device for inflicting personal distinction&#8212;prototype of themodern newspaper conducted by persons of austere virtues and blameless lives.</p> <p class="entry"><span class="def">piracy</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Commercewithout its folly-swaddles, just as God made it.</p> <p class="entry"><span class="def">pitiful</span>, <span class="pos">adj.</span> Thestate of an enemy of opponent after an imaginary encounter with oneself.</p> <p class="entry"><span class="def">pity</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A failingsense of exemption, inspired by contrast.</p> <p class="entry"><span class="def">plagiarism</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Aliterary coincidence compounded of a discreditable priority and an honorable subsequence.</p> <p class="entry"><span class="def">plagiarize</span>, <span class="pos">v.</span> Totake the thought or style of another writer whom one has never, never read.</p> <p class="entry"><span class="def">plague</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Inancient times a general punishment of the innocent for admonition of theirruler, as in the familiar instance of Pharaoh the Immune. The plague as we ofto-day have the happiness to know it is merely Nature’s fortuitousmanifestation of her purposeless objectionableness.</p> <p class="entry"><span class="def">plan</span>, <span class="pos">v.t.</span> Tobother about the best method of accomplishing an accidental result.</p> <p id="platitude" class="entry"><span class="def">platitude</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Thefundamental element and special glory of popular literature. A thought thatsnores in words that smoke. The wisdom of a million fools in the diction of adullard. A fossil sentiment in artificial rock. A moral without the fable. Allthat is mortal of a departed truth. A demi-tasse of milk-and-mortality. ThePope’s-nose of a featherless peacock. A jelly-fish withering on the shore ofthe sea of thought. The cackle surviving the egg. A desiccated epigram.</p> <p class="entry"><span class="def">platonic</span>, <span class="pos">adj.</span> Pertainingto the philosophy of Socrates. Platonic Love is a fool’s name for the affectionbetween a disability and a frost.</p> <p class="entry"><span class="def">plaudits</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Coinswith which the populace pays those who tickle and devour it.</p> <p class="entry"><span class="def">please</span>, <span class="pos">v.</span> To laythe foundation for a superstructure of imposition.</p> <p id="pleasure" class="entry"><span class="def">pleasure</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Theleast hateful form of dejection.</p> <p class="entry"><span class="def">plebeian</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Anancient Roman who in the blood of his country stained nothing but his hands. Distinguishedfrom the Patrician, who was a saturated solution.</p> <p class="entry"><span class="def">plebiscite</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Apopular vote to ascertain the will of the sovereign.</p> <p class="entry"><span class="def">plenipotentiary,</span> <span class="pos">adj.</span> Having full power.A Minister Plenipotentiary is a diplomatist possessingabsolute authority on condition that he never exert it.</p> <p class="entry"><span class="def">pleonasm</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Anarmy of words escorting a corporal of thought.</p> <p class="entry"><span class="def">plow</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Animplement that cries aloud for hands accustomed to the pen.</p> <p class="entry"><span class="def">plunder</span>, <span class="pos">v.</span> Totake the property of another without observing the decent and customaryreticences of theft. To effect a change of ownership with the candidconcomitance of a brass band. To wrest the wealth of A from B and leave Clamenting a vanishing opportunity.</p> <p class="entry"><span class="def">pocket</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Thecradle of motive and the grave of conscience. In woman this organ is lacking;so she acts without motive, and her conscience, denied burial, remains everalive, confessing the sins of others.</p> <p class="entry"><span class="def">poetry</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A formof expression peculiar to the Land beyond the Magazines.</p> <p class="entry"><span class="def">poker</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A gamesaid to be played with cards for some purpose to this lexicographer unknown.</p> <p class="entry"><span class="def">police</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Anarmed force for protection and participation.</p> <p class="entry"><span class="def">politeness</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Themost acceptable hypocrisy.</p> <p id="politics" class="entry"><span class="def">politics</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Astrife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct ofpublic affairs for private advantage.</p> <p class="entry"><span class="def">politician</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Aneel in the fundamental mud upon which the superstructure of organized societyis reared. When we wriggles he mistakes the agitation of his tail for thetrembling of the edifice. As compared with the statesman, he suffers thedisadvantage of being alive.</p> <p class="entry"><span class="def">polygamy</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Ahouse of atonement, or expiatory chapel, fitted with several stools ofrepentance, as distinguished from monogamy, which has but one.</p> <p class="entry"><span class="def">populist</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Afossil patriot of the early agricultural period, found in the old red soapstoneunderlying Kansas; characterized by an uncommon spread of ear, which somenaturalists contend gave him the power of flight, though Professors Morse andWhitney, pursuing independent lines of thought, have ingeniously pointed outthat had he possessed it he would have gone elsewhere. In the picturesquespeech of his period, some fragments of which have come down to us, he wasknown as “The Matter with Kansas.”</p> <p class="entry"><span class="def">portable</span>, <span class="pos">adj.</span> Exposedto a mutable ownership through vicissitudes of possession.</p> <div class="poem"><p class="poetry">His light estate, if neither he did make it<br />Nor yet its former guardian forsake it,<br />Is portable improperly, I take it.</p><p class="citeauth">Worgum Slupsky</p></div> <p class="entry"><span class="def">Portuguese</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span>pl. Aspecies of geese indigenous to Portugal. They are mostly without feathers andimperfectly edible, even when stuffed with garlic.</p> <p class="entry"><span class="def">positive</span>, <span class="pos">adj.</span> Mistakenat the top of one’s voice.</p> <p class="entry"><span class="def">positivism</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Aphilosophy that denies our knowledge of the Real and affirms our ignorance ofthe Apparent. Its longest exponent is Comte, its broadest Mill and its thickestSpencer.</p> <p class="entry"><span class="def">posterity</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Anappellate court which reverses the judgment of a popular author’scontemporaries, the appellant being his obscure competitor.</p> <p class="entry"><span class="def">potable</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Suitablefor drinking. Water is said to be potable; indeed, some declare it our naturalbeverage, although even they find it palatable only when suffering from therecurrent disorder known as thirst, for which it is a medicine. Upon nothinghas so great and diligent ingenuity been brought to bear in all ages and in allcountries, except the most uncivilized, as upon the invention of substitutesfor water. To hold that this general aversion to that liquid has no basis inthe preservative instinct of the race is to be unscientific—and without sciencewe are as the snakes and toads.</p> <p class="entry"><span class="def">poverty</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A fileprovided for the teeth of the rats of reform. The number of plans for itsabolition equals that of the reformers who suffer from it, plus that of thephilosophers who know nothing about it. Its victims are distinguished bypossession of all the virtues and by their faith in leaders seeking to conductthem into a prosperity where they believe these to be unknown.</p> <p class="entry"><span class="def">pray</span>, <span class="pos">v.</span> To askthat the laws of the universe be annulled in behalf of a single petitionerconfessedly unworthy.</p> <p class="entry"><span class="def">Pre-Adamite</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Oneof an experimental and apparently unsatisfactory race of antedated Creation andlived under conditions not easily conceived. Melsius believed them to haveinhabited “the Void” and to have been something intermediate between fishes andbirds. Little its known of them beyond the fact that they supplied Cain with awife and theologians with a controversy.</p> <p class="entry"><span class="def">precedent</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> InLaw, a previous decision, rule or practice which, in the absence of a definitestatute, has whatever force and authority a Judge may choose to give it,thereby greatly simplifying his task of doing as he pleases. As there areprecedents for everything, he has only to ignore those that make against hisinterest and accentuate those in the line of his desire. Invention of theprecedent elevates the trial-at-law from the low estate of a fortuitous ordealto the noble attitude of a dirigible arbitrament.</p> <p class="entry"><span class="def">precipitate</span>, <span class="pos">adj.</span> Anteprandial.</p> <div class="poem"><p class="poetry">Precipitate in all, this sinner</p><p class="poetry">Took action first, and then his dinner.</p><p class="citeauth">Judibras</p></div> <p class="entry"><span class="def">predestination</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span>The doctrine that all things occur according to programme. This doctrine shouldnot be confused with that of foreordination, which means that all things areprogrammed, but does not affirm their occurrence, that being only animplication from other doctrines by which this is entailed. The difference isgreat enough to have deluged Christendom with ink, to say nothing of the gore. Withthe distinction of the two doctrines kept well in mind, and a reverent beliefin both, one may hope to escape perdition if spared.</p> <p class="entry"><span class="def">predicament</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Thewage of consistency.</p> <p class="entry"><span class="def">predilection</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Thepreparatory stage of disillusion.</p> <p class="entry"><span class="def">pre-existence</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Anunnoted factor in creation.</p> <p class="entry"><span class="def">preference</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Asentiment, or frame of mind, induced by the erroneous belief that one thing isbetter than another.</p> <p>An ancient philosopher, expounding his conviction that life is no better than death, wasasked by a disciple why, then, he did not die. “Because,” he replied, “death isno better than life.” It is longer.</p> <p class="entry"><span class="def">prehistoric</span>, <span class="pos">adj.</span> Belongingto an early period and a museum. </p> <div class="poem"><p class="poetry">Antedating the art and practice of perpetuating falsehood.</p><p class="poetry">He lived in a period prehistoric,</p><p class="poetry">When all was absurd and phantasmagoric.</p><p class="poetry">Born later, when Clio, celestial recorded,</p><p class="poetry">Set down great events in succession and order,</p><p class="poetry">He surely had seen nothing droll or fortuitous</p><p class="poetry">In anything here but the lies that she threw at us.</p><p class="citeauth">Orpheus Bowen</p></div> <p class="entry"><span class="def">prejudice</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> Avagrant opinion without visible means of support.</p> <p class="entry"><span class="def">prelate</span>, <span class="pos">n.</span> A

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