Reading 1911: The Devil's Dictionary

What were we reading in 1911?

Each month of the Centennial year we will look at a notable book published during 1911, and give you a glimpse of what people were reading while Loyola Marymount University was just getting started.

Our fourth review in the series comes from Head Cataloging Librarian Walter Walker. (For more information about the entire series,click here!)

After several years of distinguished soldiering in the Civil War, the almost completely self-taught Ambrose Bierce became one of the most colorful figures in late 19^th- and early 20^th-century journalism in America. In San Francisco, where he spent most of his life, he was a newspaper editor and columnist, and delighted in exposing hypocrisy and stupidity in private and public life. Bierce was known in California as “the wickedest man in San Francisco” and in London as “Bitter Bierce”. His friend H.L. Mencken said “What delighted him most in this life was the spectacle of human cowardice and folly.”  Ambrose brought his gift of satire and misanthropic attitude to writing a dictionary that was eventually entitled The Devil’s Dictionary and published in 1911.

Bierce had used the title “The Devil’s Dictionary” for newspaper columns defining words, then published the definitions from A-L in The Cynic’s Word Book in 1906. He said “Here in the East, the Devil is a sacred personage (the Fourth Person of the Trinity as an Irishman might say) and his name must not be taken in vain.” He was forced to accept the original title because of his publisher’s prudishness concerning the word “devil”, but he later restored the preferred designation. The satirical definition was quite common in nineteenth-century literature, but Bierce’s handling of it transcends the ordinary in several respects. His savage denunciation of mankind, tempered only by verbal humor and mordant wit, gradually overwhelms all but the most cynical of readers.

Here are some examples of his definitions:

Absolute, adj.  Independent, irresponsible. An absolute monarchy is one in which the sovereign does as he pleases so long as he pleases the assassins. Not many absolute monarchies are left, most of them having been replaced by limited monarchies, where the sovereign’s power for evil (and for good) is greatly curtailed, and by republics, which are governed by chance.

Absurdity, n.  A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one’s own opinion.

Academe, n.  An ancient school where morality and philosophy were taught.

Academy, n.  (from academe).  A modern school where football is taught.

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

Peace, n.  In international affairs, a period of cheating between two periods of fighting.

Positive, adj.  Mistaken at the top of one’s voice.

Wall Street, n.  A symbol of sin for every devil to rebuke. That Wall Street is a den of thieves is a belief that serves every unsuccessful thief in place of a hope in Heaven.

He often adds to the entries comical “scholarship” in prose or poetry written by such “expert commentators” as “Father Gassalasca Jape, S.J.” or “Phela Orm”.  For example, the definition for Carmelite includes a poem attributed to “G.J.” about a drunk monk, Death, and a fat horse.  Since “jape” is a trick or practical joke, the Jesuit priest Father Jape is probably a figment of Bierce’s imagination.

It is quite obvious that this book was written over a century ago when one sees the archaic attitudes toward minorities and women. He uses the n-word in the definition of African, and it is sometimes difficult to ascertain if his definitions are making fun of women or of misogynistic men. For example, Indiscretion is “The guilt of woman,” Ugliness is “The gift of the gods to certain women, entailing virtue without humility,” and Garter is “an elastic band intended to keep a woman from coming out of her stockings and desolating the country.” He also said “Ah, that we could fall into women’s arms without falling into their hands.” H. Greenbough Smith said that Bierce’s views of women were very strange. 

As a young man he was involved with a woman in her seventies, and later broke off an engagement to a young woman because of jealousy. He then married the daughter of a wealthy mining engineer and had a few children, but refused to see his wife anymore after he saw an admiring letter to her from a male friend (he said “I never take part in any competition—not even for the favor of a woman”). Soon after that, one of his sons committed suicide at age 16 after killing a rival in a duel over a girl in Chico, California. Perhaps Bierce’s difficult relationships with women, petty jealousies, and family tragedies shaped his philosophy and word definitions in The Devil’s Dictionary.

Ambrose Bierce’s book was popular 100 years ago, and many of his aphorisms are still quoted and cited today. Derek Abbott recently created Wickedictionary as an updated, contemporary version of The Devil’s Dictionary. Yet by 1927, H.L. Mencken said that it was out-of-print and difficult to find. Perhaps this illustrates that what is popular today may be forgotten 15 years later.

What happened to Ambrose Bierce? In November 1913, at the age of seventy-one, he joined Pancho Villa’s army in Mexico. He was last heard from in a letter dated December 26, 1913, and is presumed to have died in battle soon after, with his body burned when corpses were incinerated to prevent the spread of typhus. He had earlier said that he would not return from Mexico, and that “nobody will find my bones.”  After his dramatic disappearance in Mexico, his works sank into obscurity.

However, I found The Devil’s Dictionary to be quite an amusing read, and a book that you can just dip into serendipitously. A few more examples:

Love, n.  A temporary insanity curable by marriage or by removal of the patient from the influences under which he incurred the disorder.

Saint, n.  A dead sinner revised and edited.

Dictionary, n.  A malevolent literary device for cramping the growth of a language and making it hard and inelastic. This dictionary, however, is a most useful work.

(Want to read this book? If LMU's copy is checked out, here's an e-book... here's an iPhone app, and don't forget LINK+!) 

Comments

[anna harrison]

Alas! If we pruned from among our greatest artists all racits and misogynits, there would likely be few left standing. A lovely review of a fabulous read. Thank you.

[Kristine Brancolini]

Thanks, Walt! This is a fascinating glimpse into a book that many of us have heard about, but few have seen. Bierce sounds like one of those brilliant men who was thoroughly unpleasant. His definition of 'Love' must be one of the most famous -- and cynical -- of all time.