THE DEVIL'S DICTIONARY. Амброз Бирс

sect as

       to what it was that they ate. In this controversy some five hundred

       thousand have already been slain, and the question is still unsettled.

      EULOGY, n. Praise of a person who has either the advantages of wealth and power, or the consideration to be dead.

      EVANGELIST, n. A bearer of good tidings, particularly (in a religious sense) such as assure us of our own salvation and the damnation of our neighbors.

      EVERLASTING, adj. Lasting forever. It is with no small diffidence that I venture to offer this brief and elementary definition, for I am not unaware of the existence of a bulky volume by a sometime Bishop of Worcester, entitled, A Partial Definition of the Word "Everlasting," as Used in the Authorized Version of the Holy Scriptures. His book was once esteemed of great authority in the Anglican Church, and is still, I understand, studied with pleasure to the mind and profit of the soul.

      EXCEPTION, n. A thing which takes the liberty to differ from other things of its class, as an honest man, a truthful woman, etc. "The exception proves the rule" is an expression constantly upon the lips of the ignorant, who parrot it from one another with never a thought of its absurdity. In the Latin, "Exceptio probat regulam" means that the exception tests the rule, puts it to the proof, not confirms it. The malefactor who drew the meaning from this excellent dictum and substituted a contrary one of his own exerted an evil power which appears to be immortal.

      EXCESS, n. In morals, an indulgence that enforces by appropriate penalties the law of moderation.

      Hail, high Excess—especially in wine,

       To thee in worship do I bend the knee

       Who preach abstemiousness unto me—

       My skull thy pulpit, as my paunch thy shrine.

       Precept on precept, aye, and line on line,

       Could ne'er persuade so sweetly to agree

       With reason as thy touch, exact and free,

       Upon my forehead and along my spine.

       At thy command eschewing pleasure's cup,

       With the hot grape I warm no more my wit;

       When on thy stool of penitence I sit

       I'm quite converted, for I can't get up.

       Ungrateful he who afterward would falter

       To make new sacrifices at thine altar!

      EXCOMMUNICATION, n.

      This "excommunication" is a word

       In speech ecclesiastical oft heard,

       And means the damning, with bell, book and candle,

       Some sinner whose opinions are a scandal—

       A rite permitting Satan to enslave him

       Forever, and forbidding Christ to save him.

      Gat Huckle

      EXECUTIVE, n. An officer of the Government, whose duty it is to enforce the wishes of the legislative power until such time as the judicial department shall be pleased to pronounce them invalid and of no effect. Following is an extract from an old book entitled, The Lunarian Astonished—Pfeiffer & Co., Boston, 1803:

      LUNARIAN: Then when your Congress has passed a law it goes

       directly to the Supreme Court in order that it may at once be

       known whether it is constitutional?

       TERRESTRIAN: O no; it does not require the approval of the

       Supreme Court until having perhaps been enforced for many

       years somebody objects to its operation against himself—I

       mean his client. The President, if he approves it, begins to

       execute it at once.

       LUNARIAN: Ah, the executive power is a part of the legislative.

       Do your policemen also have to approve the local ordinances

       that they enforce?

       TERRESTRIAN: Not yet—at least not in their character of

       constables. Generally speaking, though, all laws require the

       approval of those whom they are intended to restrain.

       LUNARIAN: I see. The death warrant is not valid until signed by

       the murderer.

       TERRESTRIAN: My friend, you put it too strongly; we are not so

       consistent.

       LUNARIAN: But this system of maintaining an expensive judicial

       machinery to pass upon the validity of laws only after they

       have long been executed, and then only when brought before the

       court by some private person—does it not cause great

       confusion?

       TERRESTRIAN: It does.

       LUNARIAN: Why then should not your laws, previously to being

       executed, be validated, not by the signature of your

       President, but by that of the Chief Justice of the Supreme

       Court?

       TERRESTRIAN: There is no precedent for any such course.

       LUNARIAN: Precedent. What is that?

       TERRESTRIAN: It has been defined by five hundred lawyers in three

       volumes each. So how can any one know?

      EXHORT, v.t. In religious affairs, to put the conscience of another upon the spit and roast it to a nut-brown discomfort.

      EXILE, n. One who serves his country by residing abroad, yet is not an ambassador.

      An English sea-captain being asked if he had read "The Exile of Erin," replied: "No, sir, but I should like to anchor on it." Years afterwards, when he had been hanged as a pirate after a career of unparalleled atrocities, the following memorandum was found in the ship's log that he had kept at the time of his reply:

      Aug. 3d, 1842. Made a joke on the ex-Isle of Erin. Coldly

       received. War with the whole world!

      EXISTENCE, n.

      A transient, horrible, fantastic dream,

       Wherein is nothing yet all things do seem:

       From which we're wakened by a friendly nudge

       Of our bedfellow Death, and cry: "O fudge!"

      EXPERIENCE, n. The wisdom that enables us to recognize as an undesirable old acquaintance the folly that we have already embraced.

      To one who, journeying through night and fog,

       Is mired neck-deep in an unwholesome bog,

       Experience, like the rising of the dawn,

       Reveals the path that he should not have gone.

      Joel Frad Bink

      EXPOSTULATION, n. One of the many methods by which fools prefer to lose their friends.

      EXTINCTION, n. The raw material out of which theology created the future state.