Chap­ter L opens with a stark look at Labor, which Bierce describes as an effort not for per­son­al gain but for the ben­e­fit of some­one else—typically an employ­er or mas­ter. This def­i­n­i­tion frames labor as a one-sided trans­ac­tion in which toil and time are exchanged for min­i­mal return, ques­tion­ing the dig­ni­ty often asso­ci­at­ed with hard work. He implies that work, praised as vir­tu­ous, often dis­guis­es exploita­tion beneath the lan­guage of duty. Bierce’s entry calls atten­tion to how soci­ety masks inequal­i­ty with moral rhetoric, refram­ing neces­si­ty as nobil­i­ty. The theme con­tin­ues in Land, which he presents not as nature’s gift but as a bat­tle­ground of own­er­ship, exclu­sion, and legal theft.

By describ­ing Land as a right that pre­vents oth­ers from even pass­ing through, Bierce turns tra­di­tion­al ideas of prop­er­ty on their head. He mocks how the con­cept of land ownership—seen as foun­da­tion­al to civilization—often upholds priv­i­lege at the cost of free­dom. Own­er­ship, in this view, is not a sym­bol of sta­bil­i­ty but a tool of divi­sion. The right to land, once shared among all, becomes a means of sep­a­ra­tion when con­trolled by law. His cyn­i­cism high­lights how pow­er shapes def­i­n­i­tions, turn­ing what should be shared into what must be fought over.

Lan­guage is next, described not as a bridge but a weapon. Bierce defines it as a way to manip­u­late, impress, or deceive, depend­ing on who is wield­ing it. He notes how elo­quence can be used to mask empti­ness and how words often serve as bait rather than truth. By call­ing it a tool for seduc­tion rather than under­stand­ing, he expos­es how com­mu­ni­ca­tion is often more about con­trol than con­nec­tion. His per­spec­tive chal­lenges the roman­tic view of lan­guage as a noble human trait, fram­ing it instead as a strate­gic game of influ­ence.

The myth of Lao­coön, ref­er­enced in the same sec­tion, is pre­sent­ed as sym­bol­ic of humanity’s doomed resis­tance to over­whelm­ing forces. Bierce uses the image of a man stran­gled by ser­pents to reflect on futile struggles—whether against des­tiny, soci­ety, or one’s own lim­i­ta­tions. The tragedy becomes uni­ver­sal, a metaphor for the com­mon human expe­ri­ence of being bound by sys­tems we can’t escape. From this, he shifts into Laugh­ter, which he defines not just as a response to humor but as a social virus. Its invol­un­tary nature dis­tin­guish­es humans from ani­mals, yet he ques­tions whether this reflex ele­vates us or mere­ly expos­es our absur­di­ty.

Law and Lawyer come next, with Bierce deliv­er­ing scathing def­i­n­i­tions. He por­trays Law not as jus­tice, but as a cod­i­fied expres­sion of the will of the strong—adaptable, ambigu­ous, and rarely impar­tial. Laws, he argues, change with time and inter­est, mak­ing them more polit­i­cal than moral. The Lawyer is then depict­ed as some­one who prof­its from these con­tra­dic­tions, inter­pret­ing rules to the advan­tage of who­ev­er pays best. Instead of guid­ing soci­ety toward fair­ness, the legal pro­fes­sion becomes a per­for­mance, where mas­tery of loop­holes trumps ethics.

With Lib­er­ty, Bierce peels back the ide­al­is­tic veneer and expos­es it as a con­cept every­one sup­ports in the­o­ry but few grant in prac­tice. It is cel­e­brat­ed loud­ly but con­strained qui­et­ly. Lib­er­ty, he says, becomes more of a patri­ot­ic slo­gan than a lived real­i­ty, espe­cial­ly when those in pow­er define its lim­its. Mov­ing to Life, he doesn’t try to roman­ti­cize exis­tence. Instead, he por­trays it as a tem­po­rary phe­nom­e­non filled with con­fu­sion, effort, and occa­sion­al bursts of joy. It’s a stage that ends abrupt­ly, with­out rehearsal or encore.

Love, far from being sacred, is ren­dered as a form of emo­tion­al mad­ness. Bierce paints it as irra­tional devo­tion, often blind to rea­son, risk, or con­se­quence. Instead of uplift­ing love as noble, he sug­gests it’s a tem­po­rary men­tal dis­tur­bance with long-last­ing effects. It’s not pas­sion but delu­sion that defines it, accord­ing to his inter­pre­ta­tion. This is Bierce at his most biting—transforming the most cher­ished ideals into puz­zles of con­tra­dic­tion.

Final­ly, Lumi­nary receives his sar­casm, defined as a fig­ure praised more for how bright­ly they appear than for what they actu­al­ly illu­mi­nate. These are the experts, thinkers, or celebri­ties who com­mand atten­tion with­out nec­es­sar­i­ly offer­ing sub­stance. Bierce warns against mis­tak­ing vis­i­bil­i­ty for wis­dom. In many ways, this entry wraps up the chapter’s theme—how appear­ances deceive and how lan­guage sus­tains illu­sions. With each word, he strips down assump­tions to expose uncom­fort­able truths, using satire not to mock thought, but to deep­en it. Through these def­i­n­i­tions, Bierce push­es read­ers to exam­ine how soci­ety labels things—and why.