M

by Ambrose Bierce

　　MACE,n. A staff of office signifying authority. Its form, that of a heavy club,indicates its original purpose and use in dissuading from dissent.MACHINATION, n. The method employed by one's opponents in bafflingone's open and honorable efforts to do the right thing.

　　So plain the advantages of machination

　　It constitutes a moral obligation,

　　And honest wolves who think upon't with loathing

　　Feel bound to don the sheep's deceptive clothing.

　　So prospers still the diplomatic art,

　　And Satan bows, with hand upon his heart.

　　R.S.K.

　　MACROBIAN, n. One forgotten of the gods and living to a greatage. History is abundantly supplied with examples, from Methuselah toOld Parr, but some notable instances of longevity are less well known.A Calabrian peasant named Coloni, born in 1753, lived so long that hehad what he considered a glimpse of the dawn of universal peace. Scanaviusrelates that he knew an archbishop who was so old that he could remembera time when he did not deserve hanging. In 1566 a linen draper of Bristol,England, declared that he had lived five hundred years, and that in allthat time he had never told a lie. There are instances of longevity (_macrobiosis_)in our own country. Senator Chauncey Depew is old enough to know better.The editor of

　　The American, a newspaper in New York City, has a memory that goesback to the time when he was a rascal, but not to the fact. The Presidentof the United States was born so long ago that many of the friends ofhis youth have risen to high political and military preferment withoutthe assistance of personal merit. The verses following were written bya macrobian:

　　When I was young the world was fair

　　And amiable and sunny.

　　A brightness was in all the air,

　　In all the waters, honey.

　　The jokes were fine and funny,

　　The statesmen honest in their views,

　　And in their lives, as well,

　　And when you heard a bit of news

　　'Twas true enough to tell.

　　Men were not ranting, shouting, reeking,

　　Nor women "generally speaking."

　　The Summer then was long indeed:

　　It lasted one whole season!

　　The sparkling Winter gave no heed

　　When ordered by Unreason

　　To bring the early peas on.

　　Now, where the dickens is the sense

　　In calling that a year

　　Which does no more than just commence

　　Before the end is near?

　　When I was young the year extended

　　From month to month until it ended.

　　I know not why the world has changed

　　To something dark and dreary,

　　And everything is now arranged

　　To make a fellow weary.

　　The Weather Man -- I fear he

　　Has much to do with it, for, sure,

　　The air is not the same:

　　It chokes you when it is impure,

　　When pure it makes you lame.

　　With windows closed you are asthmatic;

　　Open, neuralgic or sciatic.

　　Well, I suppose this new regime

　　Of dun degeneration

　　Seems eviler than it would seem

　　To a better observation,

　　And has for compensation

　　Some blessings in a deep disguise

　　Which mortal sight has failed

　　To pierce, although to angels' eyes

　　They're visible unveiled.

　　If Age is such a boon, good land!

　　He's costumed by a master hand!

　　Venable Strigg

　　MAD, adj. Affected with a high degree of intellectual independence;not conforming to standards of thought, speech and action derived by theconformants from study of themselves; at odds with the majority; in short,unusual. It is noteworthy that persons are pronounced mad by officialsdestitute of evidence that themselves are sane. For

　　illustration, this present (and illustrious) lexicographer is no firmerin the faith of his own sanity than is any inmate of any madhouse in theland; yet for aught he knows to the contrary, instead of the lofty occupationthat seems to him to be engaging his powers he may really be beating hishands against the window bars of an asylum and declaring himself NoahWebster, to the innocent delight of many thoughtless spectators.

　　MAGDALENE, n. An inhabitant of Magdala. Popularly, a woman foundout. This definition of the word has the authority of ignorance, Maryof Magdala being another person than the penitent woman mentioned by St.Luke. It has also the official sanction of the governments of Great Britainand the United States. In England the word is pronounced Maudlin, whencemaudlin, adjective, unpleasantly sentimental. With their Maudlin for Magdalene,and their Bedlam for Bethlehem, the English may justly boast themselvesthe greatest of revisers.

　　MAGIC, n. An art of converting superstition into coin. There areother arts serving the same high purpose, but the discreet lexicographerdoes not name them.

　　MAGNET, n. Something acted upon by magnetism.

　　MAGNETISM, n. Something acting upon a magnet.The two definitionsimmediately foregoing are condensed from the works of one thousand eminentscientists, who have illuminated the subject with a great white light,to the inexpressible advancement of human knowledge.

　　MAGNIFICENT, adj. Having a grandeur or splendor superior to thatto which the spectator is accustomed, as the ears of an ass, to a rabbit,or the glory of a glowworm, to a maggot.

　　MAGNITUDE, n. Size. Magnitude being purely relative, nothing islarge and nothing small. If everything in the universe were increasedin bulk one thousand diameters nothing would be any larger than it wasbefore, but if one thing remain unchanged all the others would be largerthan they had been. To an understanding familiar with the relativity ofmagnitude and distance the spaces and masses of the astronomer would beno more impressive than those of the microscopist. For anything we knowto the contrary, the visible universe may be a small part of an atom,with its component ions, floating in the life- fluid (luminiferous ether)of some animal. Possibly the wee creatures peopling the corpuscles ofour own blood are overcome with the proper emotion when contemplatingthe unthinkable distance from one of these to another.

　　MAGPIE, n. A bird whose thievish disposition suggested to someonethat it might be taught to talk.

　　MAIDEN, n. A young person of the unfair sex addicted to clewlessconduct and views that madden to crime. The genus has a wide geographicaldistribution, being found wherever sought and deplored wherever found.The maiden is not altogether unpleasing to the eye, nor (without her pianoand her views) insupportable to the ear, though in respect to comelinessdistinctly inferior to the rainbow, and, with regard to the part of herthat is audible, bleating out of the field by the canary -- which, also,is more portable.

　　A lovelorn maiden she sat and sang --

　　This quaint, sweet song sang she;

　　"It's O for a youth with a football bang

　　And a muscle fair to see!

　　The Captain he

　　Of a team to be!

　　On the gridiron he shall shine,

　　A monarch by right divine,

　　And never to roast on it -- me!"

　　Opoline Jones

　　MAJESTY, n. The state and title of a king. Regarded with a justcontempt by the Most Eminent Grand Masters, Grand Chancellors, Great Incohoneesand Imperial Potentates of the ancient and honorable orders of republicanAmerica.

　　MALE, n. A member of the unconsidered, or negligible sex. Themale of the human race is commonly known (to the female) as Mere Man.The genus has two varieties: good providers and bad providers.

　　MALEFACTOR, n. The chief factor in the progress of the human race.

　　MALTHUSIAN, adj. Pertaining to Malthus and his doctrines. Malthusbelieved in artificially limiting population, but found that it couldnot be done by talking. One of the most practical exponents of the Malthusianidea was Herod of Judea, though all the famous soldiers have been of thesame way of thinking.

　　MAMMALIA, n.pl. A family of vertebrate animals whose females ina state of nature suckle their young, but when civilized and enlightenedput them out to nurse, or use the bottle.

　　MAMMON, n. The god of the world's leading religion. The chieftemple is in the holy city of New York.

　　He swore that all other religions were gammon,

　　And wore out his knees in the worship of Mammon.

　　Jared Oopf

　　MAN, n. An animal so lost in rapturous contemplation of what hethinks he is as to overlook what he indubitably ought to be. His chiefoccupation is extermination of other animals and his own species, which,however, multiplies with such insistent rapidity as to infest the wholehabitable earh and Canada.

　　When the world was young and Man was new,

　　And everything was pleasant,

　　Distinctions Nature never drew

　　'Mongst kings and priest and peasant.

　　We're not that way at present,

　　Save here in this Republic, where

　　We have that old regime,

　　For all are kings, however bare

　　Their backs, howe'er extreme

　　Their hunger. And, indeed, each has a voice

　　To accept the tyrant of his party's choice.

　　A citizen who would not vote,

　　And, therefore, was detested,

　　Was one day with a tarry coat

　　(With feathers backed and breasted)

　　By patriots invested.

　　"It is your duty," cried the crowd,

　　"Your ballot true to cast

　　For the man o' your choice." He humbly bowed,

　　And explained his wicked past:

　　"That's what I very gladly would have done,

　　Dear patriots, but he has never run."

　　Apperton Duke

　　MANES, n. The immortal parts of dead Greeks and Romans. They werein a state of dull discomfort until the bodies from which they had exhaledwere buried and burned; and they seem not to have been particularly happyafterward.

　　MANICHEISM, n. The ancient Persian doctrine of an incessant warfarebetween Good and Evil. When Good gave up the fight the Persians joinedthe victorious Opposition.

　　MANNA, n. A food miraculously given to the Israelites in the wilderness.When it was no longer supplied to them they settled down and tilled thesoil, fertilizing it, as a rule, with the bodies of the original occupants.

　　MARRIAGE, n. The state or condition of a community consistingof a master, a mistress and two slaves, making in all, two.

　　MARTYR, n. One who moves along the line of least reluctance toa desired death.

　　MATERIAL, adj. Having an actual existence, as distinguished froman imaginary one. Important.

　　Material things I know, or fell, or see;

　　All else is immaterial to me.

　　Jamrach Holobom

　　MAUSOLEUM, n. The final and funniest folly of the rich.

　　MAYONNAISE, n. One of the sauces which serve the French in placeof a state religion.

　　ME, pro. The objectionable case of I. The personal pronoun inEnglish has three cases, the dominative, the objectionable and the oppressive.Each is all three.

　　MEANDER, n. To proceed sinuously and aimlessly. The word is theancient name of a river about one hundred and fifty miles south of Troy,which turned and twisted in the effort to get out of hearing when theGreeks and Trojans boasted of their prowess.

　　MEDAL, n. A small metal disk given as a reward for virtues, attainmentsor services more or less authentic. It is related of Bismark, who hadbeen awarded a medal for gallantly rescuing a drowning person, that, beingasked the meaning of the medal, he replied: "I save lives sometimes."And sometimes he didn't.

　　MEDICINE, n. A stone flung down the Bowery to kill a dog in Broadway.

　　MEEKNESS, n. Uncommon patience in planning a revenge that is worthwhile.

　　M is for Moses,

　　Who slew the Egyptian.

　　As sweet as a rose is

　　The meekness of Moses.

　　No monument shows his

　　Post-mortem inscription,

　　But M is for Moses

　　Who slew the Egyptian.

　　The Biographical Alphabet

　　MEERSCHAUM, n. (Literally, seafoam, and by many erroneously supposed

　　to be made of it.) A fine white clay, which for convenience in coloringit brown is made into tobacco pipes and smoked by the workmen engagedin that industry. The purpose of coloring it has not been disclosed bythe manufacturers.

　　There was a youth (you've heard before,

　　This woeful tale, may be),

　　Who bought a meerschaum pipe and swore

　　That color it would he!

　　He shut himself from the world away,

　　Nor any soul he saw.

　　He smoke by night, he smoked by day,

　　As hard as he could draw.

　　His dog died moaning in the wrath

　　Of winds that blew aloof;

　　The weeds were in the gravel path,

　　The owl was on the roof.

　　"He's gone afar, he'll come no more,"

　　The neighbors sadly say.

　　And so they batter in the door

　　To take his goods away.

　　Dead, pipe in mouth, the youngster lay,

　　Nut-brown in face and limb.

　　"That pipe's a lovely white," they say,

　　"But it has colored him!"

　　The moral there's small need to sing --

　　'Tis plain as day to you:

　　Don't play your game on any thing

　　That is a gamester too.

　　Martin Bulstrode

　　MENDACIOUS, adj. Addicted to rhetoric.

　　MERCHANT, n. One engaged in a commercial pursuit. A commercialpursuit is one in which the thing pursued is a dollar.

　　MERCY, n. An attribute beloved of detected offenders.

　　MESMERISM, n. Hypnotism before it wore good clothes, kept a carriageand asked Incredulity to dinner.

　　METROPOLIS, n. A stronghold of provincialism.

　　MILLENNIUM, n. The period of a thousand years when the lid isto be screwed down, with all reformers on the under side.

　　MIND, n. A mysterious form of matter secreted by the brain. Itschief activity consists in the endeavor to ascertain its own nature, thefutility of the attempt being due to the fact that it has nothing butitself to know itself with. From the Latin mens, a fact unknownto that honest shoe-seller, who, observing that his learned competitorover the way had displayed the motto "Mens conscia recti,"emblazoned his own front with the words "Men's, women's and children'sconscia recti."

　　MINE, adj. Belonging to me if I can hold or seize it.

　　MINISTER, n. An agent of a higher power with a lower responsibility.In diplomacy and officer sent into a foreign country as the visible embodimentof his sovereign's hostility. His principal qualification is a degreeof plausible inveracity next below that of an ambassador.

　　MINOR, adj. Less objectionable.

　　MINSTREL, adj. Formerly a poet, singer or musician; now a niggerwith a color less than skin deep and a humor more than flesh and bloodcan bear.

　　MIRACLE, n. An act or event out of the order of nature and unaccountable,as beating a normal hand of four kings and an ace with four aces and aking.

　　MISCREANT, n. A person of the highest degree of unworth. Etymologically,the word means unbeliever, and its present signification may be regardedas theology's noblest contribution to the development of our language.

　　MISDEMEANOR, n. An infraction of the law having less dignity thana felony and constituting no claim to admittance into the best criminalsociety.

　　By misdemeanors he essays to climb

　　Into the aristocracy of crime.

　　O, woe was him! -- with manner chill and grand

　　"Captains of industry" refused his hand,

　　"Kings of finance" denied him recognition

　　And "railway magnates" jeered his low condition.

　　He robbed a bank to make himself respected.

　　They still rebuffed him, for he was detected.

　　S.V. Hanipur

　　MISERICORDE, n. A dagger which in mediaeval warfare was used bythe foot soldier to remind an unhorsed knight that he was mortal.

　　MISFORTUNE, n. The kind of fortune that never misses.

　　MISS, n. The title with which we brand unmarried women to indicatethat they are in the market. Miss, Missis (Mrs.) and Mister (Mr.) arethe three most distinctly disagreeable words in the language, in soundand sense. Two are corruptions of Mistress, the other of Master. In thegeneral abolition of social titles in this our country they miraculouslyescaped to plague us. If we must have them let us be consistent and giveone to the unmarried man. I venture to suggest Mush, abbreviated to Mh.

　　MOLECULE, n. The ultimate, indivisible unit of matter. It is distinguishedfrom the corpuscle, also the ultimate, indivisible unit of matter, bya closer resemblance to the atom, also the ultimate, indivisible unitof matter. Three great scientific theories of the structure of the universeare the molecular, the corpuscular and the atomic. A fourth affirms, withHaeckel, the condensation of precipitation of matter from ether -- whoseexistence is proved by the condensation of precipitation. The presenttrend of scientific thought is toward the theory of ions. The ion differsfrom the molecule, the corpuscle and the atom in that it is an ion. Afifth theory is held by idiots, but it is doubtful if they know any moreabout the matter than the others.

　　MONAD, n. The ultimate, indivisible unit of matter. (See Molecule.)According to Leibnitz, as nearly as he seems willing to be understood,the monad has body without bulk, and mind without manifestation -- Leibnitzknows him by the innate power of

　　considering. He has founded upon him a theory of the universe, which thecreature bears without resentment, for the monad is a gentlmean. Smallas he is, the monad contains all the powers and possibilities needfulto his evolution into a German philosopher of the first class -- altogethera very capable little fellow. He is not to be

　　confounded with the microbe, or bacillus; by its inability to discernhim, a good microscope shows him to be of an entirely distinct species.

　　MONARCH, n. A person engaged in reigning. Formerly the monarchruled, as the derivation of the word attests, and as many subjects havehad occasion to learn. In Russia and the Orient the monarch has stilla considerable influence in public affairs and in the disposition of thehuman head, but in western Europe political administration is mostly entrustedto his ministers, he being somewhat preoccupied with reflections relatingto the status of his own head.

　　MONARCHICAL GOVERNMENT, n. Government.

　　MONDAY, n. In Christian countries, the day after the baseballgame.

　　MONEY, n. A blessing that is of no advantage to us excepting whenwe part with it. An evidence of culture and a passport to polite society.Supportable property.

　　MONKEY, n. An arboreal animal which makes itself at home in genealogicaltrees.

　　MONOSYLLABIC, adj. Composed of words of one syllable, for literarybabes who never tire of testifying their delight in the vapid compoundby appropriate googoogling. The words are commonly Saxon -- that is tosay, words of a barbarous people destitute of ideas and incapable of anybut the most elementary sentiments and emotions.

　　The man who writes in Saxon

　　Is the man to use an ax on

　　Judibras

　　MONSIGNOR, n. A high ecclesiastical title, of which the Founderof our religion overlooked the advantages.

　　MONUMENT, n. A structure intended to commemorate something whicheither needs no commemoration or cannot be commemorated.

　　The bones of Agammemnon are a show,

　　And ruined is his royal monument,

　　but Agammemnon's fame suffers no diminution in consequence. The monumentcustom has its reductiones ad absurdum in monuments "to theunknown dead" -- that is to say, monuments to perpetuate the memoryof those who have left no memory.

　　MORAL, adj. Conforming to a local and mutable standard of right.Having the quality of general expediency.

　　It is sayd there be a raunge of mountaynes in the Easte, on

　　one syde of the which certayn conducts are immorall, yet on the other

　　syde they are holden in good esteeme; wherebye the mountayneer is much

　　conveenyenced, for it is given to him to goe downe eyther way and act

　　as it shall suite his moode, withouten offence.

　　Gooke's Meditations

　　MORE, adj. The comparative degree of too much.

　　MOUSE, n. An animal which strews its path with fainting women.As in Rome Christians were thrown to the lions, so centuries earlier inOtumwee, the most ancient and famous city of the world, female hereticswere thrown to the mice. Jakak-Zotp, the historian, the only Otumwumpwhose writings have descended to us, says that these martyrs met theirdeath with little dignity and much exertion. He even attempts to exculpatethe mice (such is the malice of bigotry) by declaring that the unfortunatewomen perished, some from exhaustion, some of broken necks from fallingover their own feet, and some from lack of restoratives. The mice, heavers, enjoyed the pleasures of the chase with composure. But if "Romanhistory is nine-tenths lying," we can hardly expect a smaller proportionof that rhetorical figure in the annals of a people capable of so incrediblecruelty to a lovely women; for a hard heart has a false tongue.

　　MOUSQUETAIRE, n. A long glove covering a part of the arm. Wornin New Jersey. But "mousquetaire" is a might poor way to spellmuskeeter.

　　MOUTH, n. In man, the gateway to the soul; in woman, the outletof the heart.

　　MUGWUMP, n. In politics one afflicted with self-respect and addictedto the vice of independence. A term of contempt.

　　MULATTO, n. A child of two races, ashamed of both.

　　MULTITUDE, n. A crowd; the source of political wisdom and virtue.In a republic, the object of the statesman's adoration. "In a multitudeof consellors there is wisdom," saith the proverb. If many men ofequal individual wisdom are wiser than any one of them, it must be thatthey acquire the excess of wisdom by the mere act of getting together.Whence comes it? Obviously from nowhere -- as well say that a range ofmountains is higher than the single mountains composing it. A multitudeis as wise as its wisest member if it obey him; if not, it is no wiserthan its most foolish.

　　MUMMY, n. An ancient Egyptian, formerly in universal use amongmodern civilized nations as medicine, and now engaged in supplying artwith an excellent pigment. He is handy, too, in museums in gratifyingthe vulgar curiosity that serves to distinguish man from the lower animals.

　　By means of the Mummy, mankind, it is said,

　　Attests to the gods its respect for the dead.

　　We plunder his tomb, be he sinner or saint,

　　Distil him for physic and grind him for paint,

　　Exhibit for money his poor, shrunken frame,

　　And with levity flock to the scene of the shame.

　　O, tell me, ye gods, for the use of my rhyme:

　　For respecting the dead what's the limit of time?

　　Scopas Brune

　　MUSTANG, n. An indocile horse of the western plains. In Englishsociety, the American wife of an English nobleman.

　　MYRMIDON, n. A follower of Achilles -- particularly when he didn'tlead.

　　MYTHOLOGY, n. The body of a primitive people's beliefs concerningits origin, early history, heroes, deities and so forth, as distinguishedfrom the true accounts which it invents later.