 | The collected works of Ambrose Bierce |  |
B
Babe or Baby, n.
A misshapen creature of no particular age, sex, or condition, chiefly remarkable for the violence of the sympathies and antipathies it excites in others, itself without sentiment or emotion. There have been famous babes; for example, little Moses, from whose adventure in the bulrushes the Egyptian hierophants of seven centuries before doubtless derived their idle tale of the child Osiris being preserved on a floating lotus leaf.
[Ere babes were invented]
Ere babes were inventedThe girls were contented.
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.
Bacchus, n.
[Is public worship, then, a sin]
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?
Baptism, n.
A sacred rite of such efficacy that he who finds himself in heaven without having undergone it will be unhappy forever. It is performed with water in two ways—by immersion, or plunging, and by aspersion, or sprinkling.
[But whether the plan of immersion]
But whether the plan of immersionIs better than simple aspersion
Let those immersed
And those aspersed
Decide by the Authorized Version,
And by matching their agues tertian.
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]
The man who taketh a steam bathHe 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.
Beg, v.
[Who is that, father?]
Who is that, father?Haggard, morose, and unaffable—wild!
See how he glares through the bars of his cell!
With Citizen Mendicant all is not well.
Obeying his belly he struck at the laws.
A state in which, doubtless, there's little of joy.
No bite had he eaten for days, and his cry
Was “Bread!” ever “Bread!”
To beg was unlawful—improper as well.
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—
And tuck out the belly that clung to his back.
They sent him to jail, and they'll send him to—well,
The company's better than here we can boast,
And there's—
Behavior, n.
Conduct, as determined, not by principle, but by breeding. The word seems to be somewhat loosely used in Dr. Jamrach Holobom's translation of the following lines in the Dies Iræ:
[Recordare, Jesu pie]
Quod sum causa tuæ viæ.
Ne me perdas illa die.
Whose the thoughtless hand that gave your
Death-blow. Pardon such behavior.
Benedictines, n.
[She thought it a crow, but it turned out to be]
She thought it a crow, but it turned out to beA 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.”
Berenice's Hair, n.
A constellation (Coma Berenices) named in 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.
Who'd give their lords to save their hair,
No stellar recognition's given.
There are not stars enough in heaven.
Body-snatcher, n.
A robber of grave-worms. One who supplies the young physicians with that with which the old physicians have supplied the 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.
We saw a wild hyena slink
About a new-made grave, and then
Begin to excavate its brink!
A sally from our ambuscade,
And, falling on the unholy beast,
Dispatched him with a pick and spade.”
Brahma, n.
He who created the Hindoos, who are preserved by Vishnu and destroyed by Siva—a rather neater division of labor than is found among the deities of some other nations. The Abracadabranese, for example, are created by Sin, maintained by Theft and destroyed by Folly. The priests of Brahma, like those of the Abracadabranese, are holy and learned men who are never naughty.
[O Brahma, thou rare old Divinity]
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.
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