TOPE, v. To tipple, booze, swill, soak, guzzle, lush, bib, or swig. In the individual, toping is regarded with disesteem, but toping nations are in the forefront of civilization and power. When pitted against the hard-drinking Christians the absemious Mahometans go down like grass before the scythe. In India one hundred thousand beef- eating and brandy-and-soda guzzling Britons hold in subjection two hundred and fifty million vegetarian abstainers of the same Aryan race. With what an easy grace the whisky-loving American pushed the temperate Spaniard out of his possessions From the time when the Berserkers ravaged all the coasts of western Europe and lay drunk in every conquered port it has been the same way everywhere the nations that drink too much are observed to fight rather well and not too righteously. Wherefore the estimable old ladies who abolished the canteen from the American army may justly boast of having materially augmented the nation's military power.
More Quotes from Ambrose Gwinett Bierce:
LORE, n. Learning --particularly that sort which is not derived from a regular course of instruction but comes of the reading of occult books, or by nature. This latter is commonly designated as folk-lore and embraces popularly myths and superstitions. In Baring-Gould's Curious Myths of the Middle Ages the reader will find many of these traced backward, through various people son converging lines, toward a common origin in remote antiquity. Among these are the fables of Teddy the Giant Killer, The Sleeping John Sharp Williams, Little Red Riding Hood and the Sugar Trust, Beauty and the Brisbane, The Seven Aldermen of Ephesus, Rip Van Fairbanks, and so forth. The fable with Goethe so affectingly relates under the title of The Erl- King was known two thousand years ago in Greece as The Demos and the Infant Industry. One of the most general and ancient of these myths is that Arabian tale of Ali Baba and the Forty Rockefellers.Ambrose Gwinett Bierce
MAGDALENE, n. An inhabitant of Magdala. Popularly, a woman found out. This definition of the word has the authority of ignorance, Mary of Magdala being another person than the penitent woman mentioned by St. Luke. It has also the official sanction of the governments of Great Britain and the United States. In England the word is pronounced Maudlin, whence maudlin, adjective, unpleasantly sentimental. With their Maudlin for Magdalene, and their Bedlam for Bethlehem, the English may justly boast themselves the greatest of revisers.
Ambrose Gwinett Bierce
REGALIA, n. Distinguishing insignia, jewels and costume of such ancient and honorable orders as Knights of Adam Visionaries of Detectable Bosh the Ancient Order of Modern Troglodytes the League of Holy Humbug the Golden Phalanx of Phalangers the Genteel Society of Expurgated Hoodlums the Mystic Alliances of Georgeous Regalians Knights and Ladies of the Yellow Dog the Oriental Order of Sons of the West the Blatherhood of Insufferable Stuff Warriors of the Long Bow Guardians of the Great Horn Spoon the Band of Brutes the Impenitent Order of Wife-Beaters the Sublime Legion of Flamboyant Conspicuants Worshipers at the Electroplated Shrine Shining Inaccessibles Fee-Faw-Fummers of the inimitable Grip Jannissaries of the Broad-Blown Peacock Plumed Increscencies of the Magic Temple the Grand Cabal of Able-Bodied Sedentarians Associated Deities of the Butter Trade the Garden of Galoots the Affectionate Fraternity of Men Similarly Warted the Flashing Astonishers Ladies of Horror Cooperative Association for Breaking into the Spotlight Dukes of Eden Disciples Militant of the Hidden Faith Knights-Champions of the Domestic Dog the Holy Gregarians the Resolute Optimists the Ancient Sodality of Inhospitable Hogs Associated Sovereigns of Mendacity Dukes-Guardian of the Mystic Cess-Pool the Society for Prevention of Prevalence Kings of Drink Polite Federation of Gents-Consequential the Mysterious Order of the Undecipherable Scroll Uniformed Rank of Lousy Cats Monarchs of Worth and Hunger Sons of the South Star Prelates of the Tub-and-Sword.
Ambrose Gwinett Bierce
DULLARD, n. A member of the reigning dynasty in letters and life. The Dullards came in with Adam, and being both numerous and sturdy have overrun the habitable world. The secret of their power is their insensibility to blows tickle them with a bludgeon and they laugh with a platitude. The Dullards came originally from Boeotia, whence they were driven by stress of starvation, their dullness having blighted the crops. For some centuries they infested Philistia, and many of them are called Philistines to this day. In the turbulent times of the Crusades they withdrew thence and gradually overspread all Europe, occupying most of the high places in politics, art, literature, science and theology. Since a detachment of Dullards came over with the Pilgrims in the Mayflower and made a favorable report of the country, their increase by birth, immigration, and conversion has been rapid and steady. According to the most trustworthy statistics the number of adult Dullards in the United States is but little short of thirty millions, including the statisticians. The intellectual centre of the race is somewhere about Peoria, Illinois, but the New England Dullard is the most shockingly moral.
Ambrose Gwinett Bierce
DISABUSE, v.t. The present your neighbor with another and better error than the one which he has deemed it advantageous to embrace.
Ambrose Gwinett Bierce
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