THE DEVIL'S DICTIONARY Ambrose Bierce - Sunny Hills High School

Ambrose Bierce The Devil’s Dictionary
mistakes the agitation of his tail for the trembling of the edifice.
As compared with the statesman, he suffers the disadvantage of being
alive.
POLYGAMY, n. A house of atonement, or expiatory chapel, fitted with
several stools of repentance, as distinguished from monogamy, which
has but one.
POPULIST, n. A fossil patriot of the early agricultural period, found
in the old red soapstone underlying Kansas; characterized by an
uncommon spread of ear, which some naturalists contend gave him the
power of flight, though Professors Morse and Whitney, pursuing
independent lines of thought, have ingeniously pointed out that had he
possessed it he would have gone elsewhere. In the picturesque speech
of his period, some fragments of which have come down to us, he was
known as "The Matter with Kansas."
PORTABLE, adj. Exposed to a mutable ownership through vicissitudes of
possession.
His light estate, if neither he did make it
Nor yet its former guardian forsake it,
Is portable improperly, I take it.
Page | 262