H

by Ambrose Bierce

　　HABEASCORPUS. A writ by which a man may be taken out of jail when confinedfor the wrong crime.HABIT, n. A shackle for the free.

　　HADES, n. The lower world; the residence of departed spirits;the place where the dead live. Among the ancients the idea of Hades wasnot synonymous with our

　　Hell, many of the most respectable men of antiquity residing there ina very comfortable kind of way. Indeed, the Elysian Fields themselveswere a part of Hades, though they have since been removed to Paris. Whenthe Jacobean version of the New Testament was in process of evolutionthe pious and learned men engaged in the work insisted by a majority voteon translating the Greek word "Aides" as "Hell"; buta conscientious minority member secretly possessed himself of the recordand struck out the objectional word wherever he could find it. At thenext meeting, the Bishop of Salisbury, looking over the work, suddenlysprang to his feet and said with considerable excitement: "Gentlemen,somebody has been razing 'Hell' here!" Years afterward the good prelate'sdeath was made sweet by the reflection that he had been the means (underProvidence) of making an important, serviceable and immortal additionto the phraseology of the English tongue.

　　HAG, n. An elderly lady whom you do not happen to like; sometimescalled, also, a hen, or cat. Old witches, sorceresses, etc., were calledhags from the belief that their heads were surrounded by a kind of balefullumination or nimbus -- hag being the popular name of that peculiar electricallight sometimes observed in the hair. At one time hag was not a word ofreproach: Drayton speaks of a "beautiful hag, all smiles," muchas Shakespeare said, "sweet wench." It would not now be properto call your sweetheart a hag -- that compliment is reserved for the useof her grandchildren.

　　HALF, n. One of two equal parts into which a thing may be divided,or considered as divided. In the fourteenth century a heated discussionarose among theologists and philosophers as to whether Omniscience couldpart an object into three halves; and the pious Father Aldrovinus publiclyprayed in the cathedral at Rouen that God would demonstrate the affirmativeof the proposition in some signal and unmistakable way, and particularly(if it should please Him) upon the body of that hardy blasphemer, ManutiusProcinus, who maintained the negative. Procinus, however, was spared todie of the bite of a viper.

　　HALO, n. Properly, a luminous ring encircling an astronomicalbody, but not infrequently confounded with "aureola," or "nimbus,"a somewhat similar phenomenon worn as a head-dress by divinities and saints.The halo is a purely optical illusion, produced by moisture in the air,in the manner of a rainbow; but the aureola is conferred as a sign ofsuperior sanctity, in the same way as a bishop's mitre, or the Pope'stiara. In the painting of the Nativity, by Szedgkin, a pious artist ofPesth, not only do the Virgin and the Child wear the nimbus, but an assnibbling hay from the sacred manger is similarly decorated and, to hislasting honor be it said, appears to bear his unaccustomed dignity witha truly saintly grace.

　　HAND, n. A singular instrument worn at the end of the human armand commonly thrust into somebody's pocket.

　　HANDKERCHIEF, n. A small square of silk or linen, used in variousignoble offices about the face and especially serviceable at funeralsto conceal the lack of tears. The handkerchief is of recent invention;our ancestors knew nothing of it and intrusted its duties to the sleeve.Shakespeare's introducing it into the play of "Othello" is ananachronism: Desdemona dried her nose with her skirt, as Dr. Mary Walkerand other reformers have done with their coattails in our own day -- anevidence that revolutions sometimes go backward.

　　HANGMAN, n. An officer of the law charged with duties of the highestdignity and utmost gravity, and held in hereditary disesteem by a populacehaving a criminal ancestry. In some of the American States his functionsare now performed by an electrician, as in New Jersey, where executionsby electricity have recently been ordered -- the first instance knownto this lexicographer of anybody questioning the expediency of hangingJerseymen.

　　HAPPINESS, n. An agreeable sensation arising from contemplatingthe misery of another.

　　HARANGUE, n. A speech by an opponent, who is known as an harrangue-outang.

　　HARBOR, n. A place where ships taking shelter from stores areexposed to the fury of the customs.

　　HARMONISTS, n. A sect of Protestants, now extinct, who came fromEurope in the beginning of the last century and were distinguished forthe bitterness of their internal controversies and dissensions.

　　HASH, x. There is no definition for this word -- nobody knowswhat hash is.

　　HATCHET, n. A young axe, known among Indians as a Thomashawk.

　　"O bury the hatchet, irascible Red,

　　For peace is a blessing," the White Man said.

　　The Savage concurred, and that weapon interred,

　　With imposing rites, in the White Man's head.

　　John Lukkus

　　HATRED, n. A sentiment appropriate to the occasion of another'ssuperiority.

　　HEAD-MONEY, n. A capitation tax, or poll-tax.

　　In ancient times there lived a king

　　Whose tax-collectors could not wring

　　From all his subjects gold enough

　　To make the royal way less rough.

　　For pleasure's highway, like the dames

　　Whose premises adjoin it, claims

　　Perpetual repairing. So

　　The tax-collectors in a row

　　Appeared before the throne to pray

　　Their master to devise some way

　　To swell the revenue. "So great,"

　　Said they, "are the demands of state

　　A tithe of all that we collect

　　Will scarcely meet them. Pray reflect:

　　How, if one-tenth we must resign,

　　Can we exist on t'other nine?"

　　The monarch asked them in reply:

　　"Has it occurred to you to try

　　The advantage of economy?"

　　"It has," the spokesman said: "we sold

　　All of our gray garrotes of gold;

　　With plated-ware we now compress

　　The necks of those whom we assess.

　　Plain iron forceps we employ

　　To mitigate the miser's joy

　　Who hoards, with greed that never tires,

　　That which your Majesty requires."

　　Deep lines of thought were seen to plow

　　Their way across the royal brow.

　　"Your state is desperate, no question;

　　Pray favor me with a suggestion."

　　"O King of Men," the spokesman said,

　　"If you'll impose upon each head

　　A tax, the augmented revenue

　　We'll cheerfully divide with you."

　　As flashes of the sun illume

　　The parted storm-cloud's sullen gloom,

　　The king smiled grimly. "I decree

　　That it be so -- and, not to be

　　In generosity outdone,

　　Declare you, each and every one,

　　Exempted from the operation

　　Of this new law of capitation.

　　But lest the people censure me

　　Because they're bound and you are free,

　　'Twere well some clever scheme were laid

　　By you this poll-tax to evade.

　　I'll leave you now while you confer

　　With my most trusted minister."

　　The monarch from the throne-room walked

　　And straightway in among them stalked

　　A silent man, with brow concealed,

　　Bare-armed -- his gleaming axe revealed!

　　G.J.

　　HEARSE, n. Death's baby-carriage.

　　HEART, n. An automatic, muscular blood-pump. Figuratively, thisuseful organ is said to be the esat of emotions and sentiments -- a verypretty fancy which, however, is nothing but a survival of a once universalbelief. It is now known that the sentiments and emotions reside in thestomach, being evolved from food by chemical action of the gastric fluid.The exact process by which a beefsteak becomes a feeling -- tender ornot, according to the age of the animal from which it was cut; the successivestages of elaboration through which a caviar sandwich is transmuted toa quaint fancy and reappears as a pungent epigram; the marvelous functionalmethods of converting a hard-boiled egg into religious contrition, ora cream-puff into a sigh of sensibility -- these things have been patientlyascertained by M. Pasteur, and by him expounded with convincing lucidity.(See, also, my monograph, The Essential Identity of the Spiritual Affectionsand Certain Intestinal Gases Freed in Digestion -- 4to, 687 pp.) Ina scientific work entitled, I believe, Delectatio Demonorum (JohnCamden Hotton, London, 1873) this view of the sentiments receives a strikingillustration; and for further light consult Professor Dam's famous treatiseon Love as a Product of Alimentary Maceration.

　　HEAT, n.

　　Heat, says Professor Tyndall, is a mode

　　Of motion, but I know now how he's proving

　　His point; but this I know -- hot words bestowed

　　With skill will set the human fist a-moving,

　　And where it stops the stars burn free and wild.

　　_Crede expertum_ -- I have seen them, child.

　　Gorton Swope

　　HEATHEN, n. A benighted creature who has the folly to worshipsomething that he can see and feel. According to Professor Howison, ofthe California State University, Hebrews are heathens.

　　"The Hebrews are heathens!" says Howison. He's

　　A Christian philosopher. I'm

　　A scurril agnostical chap, if you please,

　　Addicted too much to the crime

　　Of religious discussion in my rhyme.

　　Though Hebrew and Howison cannot agree

　　On a modus vivendi -- not they! --

　　Yet Heaven has had the designing of me,

　　And I haven't been reared in a way

　　To joy in the thick of the fray.

　　For this of my creed is the soul and the gist,

　　And the truth of it I aver:

　　Who differs from me in his faith is an 'ist,

　　And 'ite, an 'ie, or an 'er --

　　And I'm down upon him or her!

　　Let Howison urge with perfunctory chin

　　Toleration -- that's all very well,

　　But a roast is "nuts" to his nostril thin,

　　And he's running -- I know by the smell --

　　A secret and personal Hell!

　　Bissell Gip

　　HEAVEN, n. A place where the wicked cease from troubling you withtalk of their personal affairs, and the good listen with attention whileyou expound your own.

　　HEBREW, n. A male Jew, as distinguished from the Shebrew, an altogethersuperior creation.

　　HELPMATE, n. A wife, or bitter half.

　　"Now, why is yer wife called a helpmate, Pat?"

　　Says the priest. "Since the time 'o yer wooin'

　　She's niver [sic] assisted in what ye were at --

　　For it's naught ye are ever doin'."

　　"That's true of yer Riverence [sic]," Patrick replies,

　　And no sign of contrition envices;

　　"But, bedad, it's a fact which the word implies,

　　For she helps to mate the expinses [sic]!"

　　Marley Wottel

　　HEMP, n. A plant from whose fibrous bark is made an article ofneckwear which is frequently put on after public speaking in the openair and prevents the wearer from taking cold.

　　HERMIT, n. A person whose vices and follies are not sociable.

　　HERS, pron. His.

　　HIBERNATE, v.i. To pass the winter season in domestic seclusion.There have been many singular popular notions about the hibernation ofvarious animals. Many believe that the bear hibernates during the wholewinter and subsists by mechanically sucking its paws. It is admitted thatit comes out of its retirement in the spring so lean that it had to trytwice before it can cast a shadow. Three or four centuries ago, in England,no fact was better attested than that swallows passed the winter monthsin the mud at the bottom of their brooks, clinging together in globularmasses. They have apparently been compelled to give up the custom andaccount of the foulness of the brooks. Sotus Ecobius discovered in CentralAsia a whole nation of people who hibernate. By some investigators, thefasting of Lent is supposed to have been originally a modified form ofhibernation, to which the Church gave a religious significance; but thisview was strenuously opposed by that eminent authority, Bishop Kip, whodid not wish any honors denied to the memory of the Founder of his family.

　　HIPPOGRIFF, n. An animal (now extinct) which was half horse andhalf griffin. The griffin was itself a compound creature, half lion andhalf eagle. The hippogriff was actually, therefore, a one-quarter eagle,which is two dollars and fifty cents in gold. The study of zoology isfull of surprises.

　　HISTORIAN, n. A broad-gauge gossip.

　　HISTORY, n. An account mostly false, of events mostly unimportant,which are brought about by rulers mostly knaves, and soldiers mostly fools.

　　Of Roman history, great Niebuhr's shown

　　'Tis nine-tenths lying. Faith, I wish 'twere known,

　　Ere we accept great Niebuhr as a guide,

　　Wherein he blundered and how much he lied.

　　Salder Bupp

　　HOG, n. A bird remarkable for the catholicity of its appetiteand serving to illustrate that of ours. Among the Mahometans and Jews,the hog is not in favor as an article of diet, but is respected for thedelicacy and the melody of its voice. It is chiefly as a songster thatthe fowl is esteemed; the cage of him in full chorus has been known todraw tears from two persons at once. The scientific name of this dicky-birdis Porcus Rockefelleri. Mr. Rockefeller did not discover the hog,but it is considered his by right of resemblance.

　　HOMOEOPATHIST, n. The humorist of the medical profession.

　　HOMOEOPATHY, n. A school of medicine midway between Allopathyand Christian Science. To the last both the others are distinctly inferior,for Christian Science will cure imaginary diseases, and they can not.

　　HOMICIDE, n. The slaying of one human being by another. Thereare four kinds of homocide: felonious, excusable, justifiable, and praiseworthy,but it makes no great difference to the person slain whether he fell byone kind or another -- the classification is for advantage of the lawyers.

　　HOMILETICS, n. The science of adapting sermons to the spiritualneeds, capacities and conditions of the congregation.

　　So skilled the parson was in homiletics

　　That all his normal purges and emetics

　　To medicine the spirit were compounded

　　With a most just discrimination founded

　　Upon a rigorous examination

　　Of tongue and pulse and heart and respiration.

　　Then, having diagnosed each one's condition,

　　His scriptural specifics this physician

　　Administered -- his pills so efficacious

　　And pukes of disposition so vivacious

　　That souls afflicted with ten kinds of Adam

　　Were convalescent ere they knew they had 'em.

　　But Slander's tongue -- itself all coated -- uttered

　　Her bilious mind and scandalously muttered

　　That in the case of patients having money

　　The pills were sugar and the pukes were honey.

　　_Biography of Bishop Potter_

　　HONORABLE, adj. Afflicted with an impediment in one's reach. Inlegislative bodies it is customary to mention all members as honorable;as, "the honorable gentleman is a scurvy cur."

　　HOPE, n. Desire and expectation rolled into one.

　　Delicious Hope! when naught to man it left --

　　Of fortune destitute, of friends bereft;

　　When even his dog deserts him, and his goat

　　With tranquil disaffection chews his coat

　　While yet it hangs upon his back; then thou,

　　The star far-flaming on thine angel brow,

　　Descendest, radiant, from the skies to hint

　　The promise of a clerkship in the Mint.

　　Fogarty Weffing

　　HOSPITALITY, n. The virtue which induces us to feed and lodgecertain persons who are not in need of food and lodging.

　　HOSTILITY, n. A peculiarly sharp and specially applied sense ofthe earth's overpopulation. Hostility is classified as active and passive;as (respectively) the feeling of a woman for her female friends, and thatwhich she entertains for all the rest of her sex.

　　HOURI, n. A comely female inhabiting the Mohammedan Paradise tomake things cheery for the good Mussulman, whose belief in her existencemarks a noble discontent with his earthly spouse, whom he denies a soul.By that good lady the Houris are said to be held in deficient esteem.

　　HOUSE, n. A hollow edifice erected for the habitation of man,rat, mouse, beelte, cockroach, fly, mosquito, flea, bacillus and microbe.House of Correction, a place of reward for political and personalservice, and for the detention of offenders and appropriations. Houseof God, a building with a steeple and a mortgage on it. House-dog,a pestilent beast kept on domestic premises to insult persons passingby and appal the hardy visitor. House-maid, a youngerly personof the opposing sex employed to be variously disagreeable and ingeniouslyunclean in the station in which it has pleased God to place her.

　　HOUSELESS, adj. Having paid all taxes on household goods.

　　HOVEL, n. The fruit of a flower called the Palace.

　　Twaddle had a hovel,

　　Twiddle had a palace;

　　Twaddle said: "I'll grovel

　　Or he'll think I bear him malice" --

　　A sentiment as novel

　　As a castor on a chalice.

　　Down upon the middle

　　Of his legs fell Twaddle

　　And astonished Mr. Twiddle,

　　Who began to lift his noddle.

　　Feed upon the fiddle-

　　Faddle flummery, unswaddle

　　A new-born self-sufficiency and think himself a [mockery.]

　　G.J.

　　HUMANITY, n. The human race, collectively, exclusive of the anthropoidpoets.

　　HUMORIST, n. A plague that would have softened down the hoar austerityof Pharaoh's heart and persuaded him to dismiss Israel with his best wishes,cat-quick.

　　Lo! the poor humorist, whose tortured mind

　　See jokes in crowds, though still to gloom inclined --

　　Whose simple appetite, untaught to stray,

　　His brains, renewed by night, consumes by day.

　　He thinks, admitted to an equal sty,

　　A graceful hog would bear his company.

　　Alexander Poke

　　HURRICANE, n. An atmospheric demonstration once very common butnow generally abandoned for the tornado and cyclone. The hurricane isstill in popular use in the West Indies and is preferred by certain old-fashionedsea-captains. It is also used in the construction of the upper decks ofsteamboats, but generally speaking, the hurricane's usefulness has outlastedit.

　　HURRY, n. The dispatch of bunglers.

　　HUSBAND, n. One who, having dined, is charged with the care ofthe plate.

　　HYBRID, n. A pooled issue.

　　HYDRA, n. A kind of animal that the ancients catalogued undermany heads.

　　HYENA, n. A beast held in reverence by some oriental nations fromits habit of frequenting at night the burial-places of the dead. But themedical student does that.

　　HYPOCHONDRIASIS, n. Depression of one's own spirits.

　　Some heaps of trash upon a vacant lot

　　Where long the village rubbish had been shot

　　Displayed a sign among the stuff and stumps --

　　"Hypochondriasis." It meant The Dumps.

　　Bogul S. Purvy

　　HYPOCRITE, n. One who, professing virtues that he does not respectsecures the advantage of seeming to be what he depises.