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Bierce, Ambrose

"The Devils Dictionary"


The rising moon o'er that enchanted land
Pauses to hear and yearns to understand.
Mowbray Myles
RIOT, n. A popular entertainment given to the military by innocent
bystanders.
R.I.P. A careless abbreviation of _requiescat in pace_, attesting to
indolent goodwill to the dead. According to the learned Dr. Drigge,
however, the letters originally meant nothing more than _reductus in
pulvis_.
RITE, n. A religious or semi-religious ceremony fixed by law, precept
or custom, with the essential oil of sincerity carefully squeezed out
of it.
RITUALISM, n. A Dutch Garden of God where He may walk in rectilinear
freedom, keeping off the grass.
ROAD, n. A strip of land along which one may pass from where it is
too tiresome to be to where it is futile to go.
All roads, howsoe'er they diverge, lead to Rome,
Whence, thank the good Lord, at least one leads back home.
Borey the Bald
ROBBER, n. A candid man of affairs.
It is related of Voltaire that one night he and some traveling
companion lodged at a wayside inn. The surroundings were suggestive,
and after supper they agreed to tell robber stories in turn. "Once
there was a Farmer-General of the Revenues.


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