B

by Ambrose Bierce

　　BAAL,n. An old deity formerly much worshiped under various names. As Baal hewas popular with the Phoenicians; as Belus or Bel he had the honor to beserved by the priest Berosus, who wrote the famous account of the Deluge;as Babel he had a tower partly erected to his glory on the Plain of Shinar.From Babel comes our English word "babble." Under whatever nameworshiped, Baal is the Sun-god. As Beelzebub he is the god of flies, whichare begotten of the sun's rays on the stagnant water. In Physicia Baal isstill worshiped as Bolus, and as Belly he is adored and served with abundantsacrifice by the priests of Guttledom.BABE or BABY, n. A misshapen creature of no particularage, sex, or condition, chiefly remarkable for the violence of the sympathiesand antipathies it excites in others, itself without sentiment or emotion.There have been famous babes; for example, little Moses, from whose adventurein the bulrushes the Egyptian hierophants of seven centuries before doubtlessderived their idle tale of the child Osiris being preserved on a floatinglotus leaf.

　　Ere babes were invented

　　The girls were contended.

　　Now man is tormented

　　Until to buy babes he has squandered

　　His money. And so I have pondered

　　This thing, and thought may be

　　'T were better that Baby

　　The First had been eagled or condored.

　　Ro Amil

　　BACCHUS, n. A convenient deity invented by the ancients as anexcuse for getting drunk.

　　Is public worship, then, a sin,

　　That for devotions paid to Bacchus

　　The lictors dare to run us in,

　　And resolutely thump and whack us?

　　Jorace

　　BACK, n. That part of your friend which it is your privilege tocontemplate in your adversity.

　　BACKBITE, v.t. To speak of a man as you find him when he can'tfind you.

　　BAIT, n. A preparation that renders the hook more palatable. Thebest kind is beauty.

　　BAPTISM, n. A sacred rite of such efficacy that he who finds himselfin heaven without having undergone it will be unhappy forever. It is performedwith water in two ways -- by immersion, or plunging, and by aspersion,or sprinkling.

　　But whether the plan of immersion

　　Is better than simple aspersion

　　Let those immersed

　　And those aspersed

　　Decide by the Authorized Version,

　　And by matching their agues tertian.

　　G.J.

　　BAROMETER, n. An ingenious instrument which indicates what kindof weather we are having.

　　BARRACK, n. A house in which soldiers enjoy a portion of thatof which it is their business to deprive others.

　　BASILISK, n. The cockatrice. A sort of serpent hatched form theegg of a cock. The basilisk had a bad eye, and its glance was fatal. Manyinfidels deny this creature's existence, but Semprello Aurator saw andhandled one that had been blinded by lightning as a punishment for havingfatally gazed on a lady of rank whom Jupiter loved. Juno afterward restoredthe reptile's sight and hid it in a cave. Nothingis so well attested bythe ancients as the existence of the basilisk, but the cocks have stoppedlaying.

　　BASTINADO, n. The act of walking on wood without exertion.

　　BATH, n. A kind of mystic ceremony substituted for religious worship,with what spiritual efficacy has not been determined.

　　The man who taketh a steam bath

　　He loseth all the skin he hath,

　　And, for he's boiled a brilliant red,

　　Thinketh to cleanliness he's wed,

　　Forgetting that his lungs he's soiling

　　With dirty vapors of the boiling.

　　Richard Gwow

　　BATTLE, n. A method of untying with the teeth of a political knotthat would not yield to the tongue.

　　BEARD, n. The hair that is commonly cut off by those who justlyexecrate the absurd Chinese custom of shaving the head.

　　BEAUTY, n. The power by which a woman charms a lover and terrifiesa husband.

　　BEFRIEND, v.t. To make an ingrate.

　　BEG, v. To ask for something with an earnestness proportionedto the belief that it will not be given.

　　Who is that, father?

　　A mendicant, child,

　　Haggard, morose, and unaffable -- wild!

　　See how he glares through the bars of his cell!

　　With Citizen Mendicant all is not well.

　　Why did they put him there, father?

　　Because

　　Obeying his belly he struck at the laws.

　　His belly?

　　Oh, well, he was starving, my boy --

　　A state in which, doubtless, there's little of joy.

　　No bite had he eaten for days, and his cry

　　Was "Bread!" ever "Bread!"

　　What's the matter with pie?

　　With little to wear, he had nothing to sell;

　　To beg was unlawful -- improper as well.

　　Why didn't he work?

　　He would even have done that,

　　But men said: "Get out!" and the State remarked: "Scat!"

　　I mention these incidents merely to show

　　That the vengeance he took was uncommonly low.

　　Revenge, at the best, is the act of a Siou,

　　But for trifles --

　　Pray what did bad Mendicant do?

　　Stole two loaves of bread to replenish his lack

　　And tuck out the belly that clung to his back.

　　Is that _all_ father dear?

　　There's little to tell:

　　They sent him to jail, and they'll send him to -- well,

　　The company's better than here we can boast,

　　And there's --

　　Bread for the needy, dear father?

　　Um -- toast.

　　Atka Mip

　　BEGGAR, n. One who has relied on the assistance of his friends.

　　BEHAVIOR, n. Conduct, as determined, not by principle, but bybreeding. The word seems to be somewhat loosely used in Dr. Jamrach Holobom'stranslation of the following lines from the Dies Irae:

　　Recordare, Jesu pie,

　　Quod sum causa tuae viae.

　　Ne me perdas illa die.

　　Pray remember, sacred Savior,

　　Whose the thoughtless hand that gave your

　　Death-blow. Pardon such behavior.

　　BELLADONNA, n. In Italian a beautiful lady; in English a deadlypoison. A striking example of the essential identity of the two tongues.

　　BENEDICTINES, n. An order of monks otherwise known as black friars.

　　She thought it a crow, but it turn out to be

　　A monk of St. Benedict croaking a text.

　　"Here's one of an order of cooks," said she --

　　"Black friars in this world, fried black in the next."

　　"The Devil on Earth" (London, 1712)

　　BENEFACTOR, n. One who makes heavy purchases of ingratitude, without,however, materially affecting the price, which is still within the meansof all.

　　BERENICE'S HAIR, n. A constellation (Coma Berenices) namedin honor of one who sacrificed her hair to save her husband.

　　Her locks an ancient lady gave

　　Her loving husband's life to save;

　　And men -- they honored so the dame --

　　Upon some stars bestowed her name.

　　But to our modern married fair,

　　Who'd give their lords to save their hair,

　　No stellar recognition's given.

　　There are not stars enough in heaven.

　　G.J.

　　BIGAMY, n. A mistake in taste for which the wisdom of the futurewill adjudge a punishment called trigamy.

　　BIGOT, n. One who is obstinately and zealously attached to anopinion that you do not entertain.

　　BILLINGSGATE, n. The invective of an opponent.

　　BIRTH, n. The first and direst of all disasters. As to the natureof it there appears to be no uniformity. Castor and Pollux were born fromthe egg. Pallas came out of a skull. Galatea was once a block of stone.Peresilis, who wrote in the tenth century, avers that he grew up out ofthe ground where a priest had spilled holy water. It is known that Arimaxuswas derived from a hole in the earth, made by a stroke of lightning. Leucomedonwas the son of a cavern in Mount Aetna, and I have myself seen a man comeout of a wine cellar.

　　BLACKGUARD, n. A man whose qualities, prepared for display likea box of berries in a market -- the fine ones on top -- have been openedon the wrong side. An inverted gentleman.

　　BLANK-VERSE, n. Unrhymed iambic pentameters -- the most difficultkind of English verse to write acceptably; a kind, therefore, much affectedby those who cannot acceptably write any kind.

　　BODY-SNATCHER, n. A robber of grave-worms. One who supplies theyoung physicians with that with which the old physicians have suppliedthe undertaker. The hyena.

　　"One night," a doctor said, "last fall,

　　I and my comrades, four in all,

　　When visiting a graveyard stood

　　Within the shadow of a wall.

　　"While waiting for the moon to sink

　　We saw a wild hyena slink

　　About a new-made grave, and then

　　Begin to excavate its brink!

　　"Shocked by the horrid act, we made

　　A sally from our ambuscade,

　　And, falling on the unholy beast,

　　Dispatched him with a pick and spade."

　　Bettel K. Jhones

　　BONDSMAN, n. A fool who, having property of his own, undertakesto become responsible for that entrusted to another to a third.Philippeof Orleans wishing to appoint one of his favorites, a dissolute nobleman,to a high office, asked him what security he would be able to give. "Ineed no bondsmen," he replied, "for I can give you my word ofhonor." "And pray what may be the value of that?" inquiredthe amused Regent. "Monsieur, it is worth its weight in gold."

　　BORE, n. A person who talks when you wish him to listen.

　　BOTANY, n. The science of vegetables -- those that are not goodto eat, as well as those that are. It deals largely with their flowers,which are commonly badly designed, inartistic in color, and ill- smelling.

　　BOTTLE-NOSED, adj. Having a nose created in the image of its maker.

　　BOUNDARY, n. In political geography, an imaginary line betweentwo nations, separating the imaginary rights of one from the imaginaryrights of the other.

　　BOUNTY, n. The liberality of one who has much, in permitting onewho has nothing to get all that he can.

　　A single swallow, it is said, devours ten millions of insects

　　every year. The supplying of these insects I take to be a signal

　　instance of the Creator's bounty in providing for the lives of His

　　creatures.

　　Henry Ward Beecher

　　BRAHMA, n. He who created the Hindoos, who are preserved by Vishnuand destroyed by Siva -- a rather neater division of labor than is foundamong the deities of some other nations. The Abracadabranese, for example,are created by Sin, maintained by Theft and destroyed by Folly. The priestsof Brahma, like those of Abracadabranese, are holy and learned men whoare never naughty.

　　O Brahma, thou rare old Divinity,

　　First Person of the Hindoo Trinity,

　　You sit there so calm and securely,

　　With feet folded up so demurely --

　　You're the First Person Singular, surely.

　　Polydore Smith

　　BRAIN, n. An apparatus with which we think that we think. Thatwhich distinguishes the man who is content to be something fromthe man who wishes to do something. A man of great wealth, or onewho has been pitchforked into high station, has commonly such a headfulof brain that his neighbors cannot keep their hats on. In our civilization,and under our republican form of government, brain is so highly honoredthat it is rewarded by exemption from the cares of office.

　　BRANDY, n. A cordial composed of one part thunder-and-lightning,one part remorse, two parts bloody murder, one part death-hell-and-the-grave and four parts clarified Satan. Dose, a headful all the time. Brandyis said by Dr. Johnson to be the drink of heroes. Only a hero will ventureto drink it.

　　BRIDE, n. A woman with a fine prospect of happiness behind her.

　　BRUTE, n. See HUSBAND.