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

Ambrose Bierce The Devil’s Dictionary
whistles and, wearing silken bristles, live ever in clover, and
cows fly over, delivering milk at every door, and Justice never
is heard to snore, and every assassin is made a ghost and,
howling, is cast into Baltimost!
Polydore Smith
Z
ZANY, n. A popular character in old Italian plays, who imitated with
ludicrous incompetence the _buffone_, or clown, and was therefore the
ape of an ape; for the clown himself imitated the serious characters
of the play. The zany was progenitor to the specialist in humor, as
we to‐day have the unhappiness to know him. In the zany we see an
example of creation; in the humorist, of transmission. Another
excellent specimen of the modern zany is the curate, who apes the
rector, who apes the bishop, who apes the archbishop, who apes the
devil.
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