P

by Ambrose Bierce

　　PAIN,n. An uncomfortable frame of mind that may have a physical basis in somethingthat is being done to the body, or may be purely mental, caused by the goodfortune of another.PAINTING, n. The art of protecting flat surfaces from the weatherand exposing them to the critic.Formerly, painting and sculpture werecombined in the same work:

　　the ancients painted their statues. The only present alliance betweenthe two arts is that the modern painter chisels his patrons.

　　PALACE, n. A fine and costly residence, particularly that of agreat official. The residence of a high dignitary of the Christian Churchis called a palace; that of the Founder of his religion was known as afield, or wayside. There is progress.

　　PALM, n. A species of tree having several varieties, of whichthe familiar "itching palm" (Palma hominis) is most widelydistributed and sedulously cultivated. This noble vegetable exudes a kindof invisible gum, which may be detected by applying to the bark a pieceof gold or silver. The metal will adhere with remarkable tenacity. Thefruit of the itching palm is so bitter and unsatisfying that a considerablepercentage of it is sometimes given away in what are known as "benefactions."

　　PALMISTRY, n. The 947th method (according to Mimbleshaw's classification)of obtaining money by false pretences. It consists in "reading character"in the wrinkles made by closing the hand. The pretence is not altogetherfalse; character can really be read very accurately in this way, for thewrinkles in every hand submitted plainly spell the word "dupe."The imposture consists in not reading it aloud.

　　PANDEMONIUM, n. Literally, the Place of All the Demons. Most ofthem have escaped into politics and finance, and the place is now usedas a lecture hall by the Audible Reformer. When disturbed by his voicethe ancient echoes clamor appropriate responses most gratifying to hispride of distinction.

　　PANTALOONS, n. A nether habiliment of the adult civilized male.The garment is tubular and unprovided with hinges at the points of flexion.Supposed to have been invented by a humorist. Called "trousers"by the enlightened and "pants" by the unworthy.

　　PANTHEISM, n. The doctrine that everything is God, in contradistinctionto the doctrine that God is everything.

　　PANTOMIME, n. A play in which the story is told without violenceto the language. The least disagreeable form of dramatic action.

　　PARDON, v. To remit a penalty and restore to the life of crime.To add to the lure of crime the temptation of ingratitude.

　　PASSPORT, n. A document treacherously inflicted upon a citizengoing abroad, exposing him as an alien and pointing him out for specialreprobation and outrage.

　　PAST, n. That part of Eternity with some small fraction of whichwe have a slight and regrettable acquaintance. A moving line called thePresent parts it from an imaginary period known as the Future. These twogrand divisions of Eternity, of which the one is continually effacingthe other, are entirely unlike. The one is dark with sorrow and disappointment,the other bright with prosperity and joy. The Past is the region of sobs,the Future is the realm of song. In the one crouches Memory, clad in sackclothand ashes, mumbling penitential prayer; in the sunshine of the other Hopeflies with a free wing, beckoning to temples of success and bowers ofease. Yet the Past is the Future of yesterday, the Future is the Pastof to-morrow. They are one -- the knowledge and the dream.

　　PASTIME, n. A device for promoting dejection. Gentle exercisefor intellectual debility.

　　PATIENCE, n. A minor form of despair, disguised as a virtue.

　　PATRIOT, n. One to whom the interests of a part seem superiorto those of the whole. The dupe of statesmen and the tool of conquerors.

　　PATRIOTISM, n. Combustible rubbish read to the torch of any oneambitious to illuminate his name. In Dr. Johnson's famous dictionary patriotismis defined as the last resort of a scoundrel. With all due respect toan enlightened but inferior lexicographer I beg to submit that it is thefirst.

　　PEACE, n. In international affairs, a period of cheating betweentwo periods of fighting.

　　O, what's the loud uproar assailing

　　Mine ears without cease?

　　'Tis the voice of the hopeful, all-hailing

　　The horrors of peace.

　　Ah, Peace Universal; they woo it --

　　Would marry it, too.

　　If only they knew how to do it

　　'Twere easy to do.

　　They're working by night and by day

　　On their problem, like moles.

　　Have mercy, O Heaven, I pray,

　　On their meddlesome souls!

　　Ro Amil

　　PEDESTRIAN, n. The variable (an audible) part of the roadway foran automobile.

　　PEDIGREE, n. The known part of the route from an arboreal ancestorwith a swim bladder to an urban descendant with a cigarette.

　　PENITENT, adj. Undergoing or awaiting punishment.

　　PERFECTION, n. An imaginary state of quality distinguished fromthe actual by an element known as excellence; an attribute of the critic.Theeditor of an English magazine having received a letter pointing out theerroneous nature of his views and style, and signed "Perfection,"promptly wrote at the foot of the letter: "I don't agree with you,"and mailed it to Matthew Arnold.

　　PERIPATETIC, adj. Walking about. Relating to the philosophy ofAristotle, who, while expounding it, moved from place to place in orderto avoid his pupil's objections. A needless precaution -- they knew nomore of the matter than he.

　　PERORATION, n. The explosion of an oratorical rocket. It dazzles,but to an observer having the wrong kind of nose its most conspicuouspeculiarity is the smell of the several kinds of powder used in preparingit.

　　PERSEVERANCE, n. A lowly virtue whereby mediocrity achieves aninglorious success.

　　"Persevere, persevere!" cry the homilists all,

　　Themselves, day and night, persevering to bawl.

　　"Remember the fable of tortoise and hare --

　　The one at the goal while the other is -- where?"

　　Why, back there in Dreamland, renewing his lease

　　Of life, all his muscles preserving the peace,

　　The goal and the rival forgotten alike,

　　And the long fatigue of the needless hike.

　　His spirit a-squat in the grass and the dew

　　Of the dogless Land beyond the Stew,

　　He sleeps, like a saint in a holy place,

　　A winner of all that is good in a race.

　　Sukker Uffro

　　PESSIMISM, n. A philosophy forced upon the convictions of theobserver by the disheartening prevalence of the optimist with his scarecrowhope and his unsightly smile.

　　PHILANTHROPIST, n. A rich (and usually bald) old gentleman whohas trained himself to grin while his conscience is picking his pocket.

　　PHILISTINE, n. One whose mind is the creature of its environment,following the fashion in thought, feeling and sentiment. He is sometimeslearned, frequently prosperous, commonly clean and always solemn.

　　PHILOSOPHY, n. A route of many roads leading from nowhere to nothing.

　　PHOENIX, n. The classical prototype of the modern "smallhot bird."

　　PHONOGRAPH, n. An irritating toy that restores life to dead noises.

　　PHOTOGRAPH, n. A picture painted by the sun without instructionin art. It is a little better than the work of an Apache, but not quiteso good as that of a Cheyenne.

　　PHRENOLOGY, n. The science of picking the pocket through the scalp.It consists in locating and exploiting the organ that one is a dupe with.

　　PHYSICIAN, n. One upon whom we set our hopes when ill and ourdogs when well.

　　PHYSIOGNOMY, n. The art of determining the character of anotherby the resemblances and differences between his face and our own, whichis the standard of excellence.

　　"There is no art," says Shakespeare, foolish man,

　　"To read the mind's construction in the face."

　　The physiognomists his portrait scan,

　　And say: "How little wisdom here we trace!

　　He knew his face disclosed his mind and heart,

　　So, in his own defence, denied our art."

　　Lavatar Shunk

　　PIANO, n. A parlor utensil for subduing the impenitent visitor.It is operated by pressing the keys of the machine and the spirits ofthe audience.

　　PICKANINNY, n. The young of the Procyanthropos, or Americanusdominans. It is small, black and charged with political fatalities.

　　PICTURE, n. A representation in two dimensions of something wearisomeinthree.

　　"Behold great Daubert's picture here on view --

　　Taken from Life." If that description's true,

　　Grant, heavenly Powers, that I be taken, too.

　　Jali Hane

　　PIE, n. An advance agent of the reaper whose name is Indigestion.

　　Cold pie was highly esteemed by the remains.

　　Rev. Dr. Mucker

　　(in a funeral sermon over a British nobleman)

　　Cold pie is a detestable

　　American comestible.

　　That's why I'm done -- or undone --

　　So far from that dear London.

　　(from the headstone of a British nobleman in Kalamazoo)

　　PIETY, n. Reverence for the Supreme Being, based upon His supposedresemblance to man.

　　The pig is taught by sermons and epistles

　　To think the God of Swine has snout and bristles.

　　Judibras

　　PIG, n. An animal (Porcus omnivorus) closely allied tothe human race by the splendor and vivacity of its appetite, which, however,is inferior in scope, for it sticks at pig.

　　PIGMY, n. One of a tribe of very small men found by ancient travelersin many parts of the world, but by modern in Central Africa only. ThePigmies are so called to distinguish them from the bulkier Caucasians-- who are Hogmies.

　　PILGRIM, n. A traveler that is taken seriously. A Pilgrim Fatherwas one who, leaving Europe in 1620 because not permitted to sing psalmsthrough his nose, followed it to Massachusetts, where he could personateGod according to the dictates of his conscience.

　　PILLORY, n. A mechanical device for inflicting personal distinction-- prototype of the modern newspaper conducted by persons of austere virtuesand blameless lives.

　　PIRACY, n. Commerce without its folly-swaddles, just as God madeit.

　　PITIFUL, adj. The state of an enemy of opponent after an imaginaryencounter with oneself.

　　PITY, n. A failing sense of exemption, inspired by contrast.

　　PLAGIARISM, n. A literary coincidence compounded of a discreditablepriority and an honorable subsequence.

　　PLAGIARIZE, v. To take the thought or style of another writerwhom one has never, never read.

　　PLAGUE, n. In ancient times a general punishment of the innocentfor admonition of their ruler, as in the familiar instance of PharaohtheImmune. The plague as we of to-day have the happiness to know it ismerely Nature's fortuitous manifestation of her purposeless objectionableness.

　　PLAN, v.t. To bother about the best method of accomplishing anaccidental result.

　　PLATITUDE, n. The fundamental element and special glory of popularliterature. A thought that snores in words that smoke. The wisdom of amillion fools in the diction of a dullard. A fossil sentiment in artificialrock. A moral without the fable. All that is mortal of a departed truth.A demi-tasse of milk-and-mortality. The Pope's-nose of a featherless peacock.A jelly-fish withering on the shore of the sea of thought. The cacklesurviving the egg. A desiccated epigram.

　　PLATONIC, adj. Pertaining to the philosophy of Socrates. PlatonicLove is a fool's name for the affection between a disability and a frost.

　　PLAUDITS, n. Coins with which the populace pays those who tickleand devour it.

　　PLEASE, v. To lay the foundation for a superstructure of imposition.

　　PLEASURE, n. The least hateful form of dejection.

　　PLEBEIAN, n. An ancient Roman who in the blood of his countrystained nothing but his hands. Distinguished from the Patrician, who wasa saturated solution.

　　PLEBISCITE, n. A popular vote to ascertain the will of the sovereign.

　　PLENIPOTENTIARY, adj. Having full power. A Minister Plenipotentiaryis a diplomatist possessing absolute authority on condition that he neverexert it.

　　PLEONASM, n. An army of words escorting a corporal of thought.

　　PLOW, n. An implement that cries aloud for hands accustomed tothe

　　pen.

　　PLUNDER, v. To take the property of another without observingthe decent and customary reticences of theft. To effect a change of ownershipwith the candid concomitance of a brass band. To wrest the wealth of Afrom B and leave C lamenting a vanishing opportunity.

　　POCKET, n. The cradle of motive and the grave of conscience. Inwoman this organ is lacking; so she acts without motive, and her conscience,denied burial, remains ever alive, confessing the sins of others.

　　POETRY, n. A form of expression peculiar to the Land beyond theMagazines.

　　POKER, n. A game said to be played with cards for some purposeto this lexicographer unknown.

　　POLICE, n. An armed force for protection and participation.

　　POLITENESS, n. The most acceptable hypocrisy.

　　POLITICS, n. A strife of interests masquerading as a contest ofprinciples. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage.

　　POLITICIAN, n. An eel in the fundamental mud upon which the superstructureof organized society is reared. When we wriggles he mistakes the agitationof 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, fittedwith several stools of repentance, as distinguished from monogamy, whichhas but one.

　　POPULIST, n. A fossil patriot of the early agricultural period,found in the old red soapstone underlying Kansas; characterized by anuncommon spread of ear, which some naturalists contend gave him the powerof flight, though Professors Morse and Whitney, pursuing independent linesof thought, have ingeniously pointed out that had he possessed it he wouldhave gone elsewhere. In the picturesque speech of his period, some fragmentsof which have come down to us, he was known as "The Matter with Kansas."

　　PORTABLE, adj. Exposed to a mutable ownership through vicissitudesof possession.

　　His light estate, if neither he did make it

　　Nor yet its former guardian forsake it,

　　Is portable improperly, I take it.

　　Worgum Slupsky

　　PORTUGUESE, n.pl. A species of geese indigenous to Portugal. Theyare mostly without feathers and imperfectly edible, even when stuffedwith garlic.

　　POSITIVE, adj. Mistaken at the top of one's voice.

　　POSITIVISM, n. A philosophy that denies our knowledge of the Realand affirms our ignorance of the Apparent. Its longest exponent is Comte,its broadest Mill and its thickest Spencer.

　　POSTERITY, n. An appellate court which reverses the judgment ofa popular author's contemporaries, the appellant being his obscure competitor.

　　POTABLE, n. Suitable for drinking. Water is said to be potable;indeed, some declare it our natural beverage, although even they findit palatable only when suffering from the recurrent disorder known asthirst, for which it is a medicine. Upon nothing has so great and diligentingenuity been brought to bear in all ages and in all countries, exceptthe most uncivilized, as upon the invention of substitutes for water.To hold that this general aversion to that liquid has no basis in thepreservative instinct of the race is to be unscientific -- and withoutscience we are as the snakes and toads.

　　POVERTY, n. A file provided for the teeth of the rats of reform.The number of plans for its abolition equals that of the reformers whosuffer from it, plus that of the philosophers who know nothing about it.Its victims are distinguished by possession of all the virtues and bytheir faith in leaders seeking to conduct them into a prosperity wherethey believe these to be unknown.

　　PRAY, v. To ask that the laws of the universe be annulled in behalfof a single petitioner confessedly unworthy.

　　PRE-ADAMITE, n. One of an experimental and apparently unsatisfactoryrace of antedated Creation and lived under conditions not easily conceived.Melsius believed them to have inhabited "the Void" and to havebeen something intermediate between fishes and birds. Little its knownof them beyond the fact that they supplied Cain with a wife and theologianswith a controversy.

　　PRECEDENT, n. In Law, a previous decision, rule or practice which,in the absence of a definite statute, has whatever force and authoritya Judge may choose to give it, thereby greatly simplifying his task ofdoing as he pleases. As there are precedents for everything, he has onlyto ignore those that make against his interest and accentuate those inthe line of his desire. Invention of the precedent elevates

　　the trial-at-law from the low estate of a fortuitous ordeal to the nobleattitude of a dirigible arbitrament.

　　PRECIPITATE, adj. Anteprandial.

　　Precipitate in all, this sinner

　　Took action first, and then his dinner.

　　Judibras

　　PRECEDENT, n. In Law, a previous decision, rule or practice which,in the absence of a definite statute, has whatever force and authoritya Judge may choose to give it, thereby greatly simplifying his task ofdoing as he pleases. As there are precedents for everything, he has onlyto ignore those that make against his interest and accentuate those inthe line of his desire. Invention of the precedent elevates

　　the trial-at-law from the low estate of a fortuitous ordeal to the nobleattitude of a dirigible arbitrament.

　　PRECIPITATE, adj. Anteprandial.

　　Precipitate in all, this sinner

　　Took action first, and then his dinner.

　　Judibras

　　PREDESTINATION, n. The doctrine that all things occur accordingto programme. This doctrine should not be confused with that of foreordination,which means that all things are programmed, but does not affirm theiroccurrence, that being only an implication from other doctrines by whichthis is entailed. The difference is great enough to have deluged Christendomwith ink, to say nothing of the gore. With the distinction of the twodoctrines kept well in mind, and a reverent belief in both, one may hopeto escape perdition if spared.

　　PREDICAMENT, n. The wage of consistency.

　　PREDILECTION, n. The preparatory stage of disillusion.

　　PRE-EXISTENCE, n. An unnoted factor in creation.

　　PREFERENCE, n. A sentiment, or frame of mind, induced by the erroneousbelief that one thing is better than another.An ancient philosopher, expoundinghis conviction that life is no better than death, was asked by a disciplewhy, then, he did not die. "Because," he replied, "deathis no better than life."It is longer.

　　PREHISTORIC, adj. Belonging to an early period and a museum. Antedatingthe art and practice of perpetuating falsehood.

　　He lived in a period prehistoric,

　　When all was absurd and phantasmagoric.

　　Born later, when Clio, celestial recorded,

　　Set down great events in succession and order,

　　He surely had seen nothing droll or fortuitous

　　In anything here but the lies that she threw at us.

　　Orpheus Bowen

　　PREJUDICE, n. A vagrant opinion without visible means of support.

　　PRELATE, n. A church officer having a superior degree of holinessand a fat preferment. One of Heaven's aristocracy. A gentleman of God.

　　PREROGATIVE, n. A sovereign's right to do wrong.

　　PRESBYTERIAN, n. One who holds the conviction that the governmentauthorities of the Church should be called presbyters.

　　PRESCRIPTION, n. A physician's guess at what will best prolongthe situation with least harm to the patient.

　　PRESENT, n. That part of eternity dividing the domain of disappointmentfrom the realm of hope.

　　PRESENTABLE, adj. Hideously appareled after the manner of thetime and place. In Boorioboola-Gha a man is presentable on occasions ofceremony if he have his abdomen painted a bright blue and wear a cow'stail; in New York he may, if it please him, omit the paint, but aftersunset he must wear two tails made of the wool of a sheep and dyed black.

　　PRESIDE, v. To guide the action of a deliberative body to a desirableresult. In Journalese, to perform upon a musical instrument; as, "Hepresided at the piccolo."

　　The Headliner, holding the copy in hand,

　　Read with a solemn face:

　　"The music was very uncommonly grand --

　　The best that was every provided,

　　For our townsman Brown presided

　　At the organ with skill and grace."

　　The Headliner discontinued to read,

　　And, spread the paper down

　　On the desk, he dashed in at the top of the screed:

　　"Great playing by President Brown."

　　Orpheus Bowen

　　PRESIDENCY, n. The greased pig in the field game of American politics.

　　PRESIDENT, n. The leading figure in a small group of men of whom-- and of whom only -- it is positively known that immense numbers oftheir countrymen did not want any of them for President.

　　If that's an honor surely 'tis a greater

　　To have been a simple and undamned spectator.

　　Behold in me a man of mark and note

　　Whom no elector e'er denied a vote! --

　　An undiscredited, unhooted gent

　　Who might, for all we know, be President

　　By acclimation. Cheer, ye varlets, cheer --

　　I'm passing with a wide and open ear!

　　Jonathan Fomry

　　PREVARICATOR, n. A liar in the caterpillar estate.

　　PRICE, n. Value, plus a reasonable sum for the wear and tear ofconscience in demanding it.

　　PRIMATE, n. The head of a church, especially a State church supportedby involuntary contributions. The Primate of England is the Archbishopof Canterbury, an amiable old gentleman, who occupies Lambeth Palace whenliving and Westminster Abbey when dead. He is commonly dead.

　　PRISON, n. A place of punishments and rewards. The poet assuresus that --"Stone walls do not a prison make," but a combinationof the stone wall, the political parasite and the moral instructor isno garden of sweets.

　　PRIVATE, n. A military gentleman with a field-marshal's batonin his knapsack and an impediment in his hope.

　　PROBOSCIS, n. The rudimentary organ of an elephant which serveshim in place of the knife-and-fork that Evolution has as yet denied him.For purposes of humor it is popularly called a trunk.Asked how he knewthat an elephant was going on a journey, the illustrious Jo. Miller casta reproachful look upon his tormentor, and answered, absently: "Whenit is ajar," and threw himself from a high promontory into the sea.Thus perished in his pride the most famous humorist of antiquity, leavingto mankind a heritage of woe! No successor worthy of the title has appeared,though Mr. Edward bok, of The Ladies' Home Journal, is much respectedfor the purity and sweetness of his personal character.

　　PROJECTILE, n. The final arbiter in international disputes. Formerlythese disputes were settled by physical contact of the disputants, withsuch simple arguments as the rudimentary logic of the times could supply-- the sword, the spear, and so forth. With the growth of prudence inmilitary affairs the projectile came more and more into favor, and isnow held in high esteem by the most courageous. Its capital defect isthat it requires personal attendance at the point of propulsion.

　　PROOF, n. Evidence having a shade more of plausibility than ofunlikelihood. The testimony of two credible witnesses as opposed to thatof only one.

　　PROOF-READER, n. A malefactor who atones for making your writingnonsense by permitting the compositor to make it unintelligible.

　　PROPERTY, n. Any material thing, having no particular value, thatmay be held by A against the cupidity of B. Whatever gratifies the passionfor possession in one and disappoints it in all others. The object ofman's brief rapacity and long indifference.

　　PROPHECY, n. The art and practice of selling one's credibilityfor future delivery.

　　PROSPECT, n. An outlook, usually forbidding. An expectation, usuallyforbidden.

　　Blow, blow, ye spicy breezes --

　　O'er Ceylon blow your breath,

　　Where every prospect pleases,

　　Save only that of death.

　　Bishop Sheber

　　PROVIDENTIAL, adj. Unexpectedly and conspicuously beneficial tothe person so describing it.

　　PRUDE, n. A bawd hiding behind the back of her demeanor.

　　PUBLISH, n. In literary affairs, to become the fundamental elementin a cone of critics.

　　PUSH, n. One of the two things mainly conducive to success, especiallyin politics. The other is Pull.

　　PYRRHONISM, n. An ancient philosophy, named for its inventor.It consisted of an absolute disbelief in everything but Pyrrhonism. Itsmodern professors have added that.