Bitter Bierce

As I've been doing for some time now, I'm reading three different books. It takes longer to finish books this way, but I like variety. The three I'm in the midst of reading -- an edited collection called Renewing Rhetoric's Relation to Composition: Essays in Honor of Theresa Jarnagin Enos, Allen Barra's The Last Coach: The Life of Paul "Bear" Bryant, and the Library of America's edition of The Devil's Dictionary, Tales, & Memoirs of Ambrose Bierce -- are all interesting but very different as you could probably imagine.

With the last book of the three listed, I started with The Devil's Dictionary instead of beginning with what the collection leads with -- Bierce's stories. 

I've read various definitions from what was called at the time it first came out as The Cynic's Word Book (before Bierce made his later publishers change it back to the title he wanted), but I'm going from A to Z in the complete work . 

As of right now, I've gotten up to N, and I'd thought I'd share some of my favorite definitions:

• Abnormal, adj. Not conforming to standard. In matters of thought and conduct, to be independent is to be abnormal, to be abnormal is to be detested....
• Accountability, n. The mother of caution. 
• Bacchus, n. A convenient deity invented by the ancients as an excuse for getting drunk.
• Bore, n. A person who talks when you wish him to listen. 
• Compromise, n. Such an adjustment of conflicting interests as gives each adversary the satisfaction of thinking he has got what he ought not to have, and is deprived of nothing except what was justly his due.
• Cynic, n. A blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not as they ought to be. Hence the custom among the Scythians of plucking out a cynic's eyes to improve his vision.
• Debt, n. An ingenious substitute for the chain and whip of the slave-driver. 
• Distance, n. The only thing that the rich are willing for the poor to call theirs, and keep. 
• Elysium, n. An imaginary delightful country which the ancients foolishly believe to be inhabited by the spirits of the good. This ridiculous and mischievous fable was swept off the face of the earth by the early Christians--may their souls be happy in Heaven!
• Enough, pro. All there is in the world if you like it. 
• Folly, n. That "gift and faculty divine" whose creative and controlling energy inspires Man's mind, guides his actions and adorns his life
• Ghost, n. The outward and visible sign of an inward fear....
• I is the first letter of the alphabet, the first word of the language, the first thought of the mind, the first object of affection.... The frank yet graceful use of "I" distinguishes a good writer from a bad; the latter carries it with the manner of a thief trying to cloak his loot. 
• Influence, n. In politics, a visionary quo given in exchange for a substantial quid.
• Justice, n. A commodity which in a more or less adulterated condition the State sells to the citizen as a reward for his allegiance, taxes and personal service. 
• Laziness, n. Unwarranted repose of manner in a person of low degree.
• Mammon, n. The god of the world's leading religion. The chief temple is in the holy city of New York.
• Mugwump, n. In politics one afflicted with self-respect and addicted to the vice of independence. A term of contempt. 

I wished I would have started reading the complete version of The Devil's Dictionary decades ago. Bierce speaks to me. For grumpy bastards like me, selecting one's favorite definitions works like a personality test. 

And I'm looking forward to reading his stories based on his experiences during the Civil War since he was a veteran of numerous battles, such as Shiloh, Chickamauga, Missionary Ridge, and Kennesaw Mountain.