Produced by David Schwan
A SON OF THE GODS
and
A HORSEMAN IN THE SKY
By Ambrose Bierce
Including an Introduction by W. C. Morrow
Western Classics No. Four
The Photogravure Frontispiece After A Painting by Will Jenkins
The Introduction
Brilliant and magnetic as are these two studies by Ambrose Bierce, andespecially significant as coming from one who was a boy soldier in theCivil War, they merely reflect one side of his original and many-facetedgenius. Poet, critic, satirist, fun-maker, incomparable writer of fablesand masterly prose sketches, a seer of startling insight, a reasonermercilessly logical, with the delicate wit and keenness of an Irving oran Addison, the dramatic quality of a Hugo,--all of these, and still inthe prime of his powers; yet so restricted has been his output and solittle exploited that only the judicious few have been impressed.
Although an American, he formed his bent years ago in London, wherehe was associated with the younger Hood on Fun. There he laid thefoundation for that reputation which he today enjoys: the distinction ofbeing the last of the scholarly satirists. With that training he cameto San Francisco, where, in an environment equally as genial, his talentgrew and mellowed through the years. Then he was summoned to New York toassist a newspaper fight against a great railroad, since the conclusionof which brilliant campaign eastern journalism and magazine work haveclaimed his attention.
Two volumes, "The Fiend's Delight" and "Cobwebs from an Empty Skull"titles that would damn modern books--were collections published yearsago from his work on London Fun. Their appearance made him at once thechief wit and humorist of England, and, combined with his satiricalwork on Fun, led to his engagement by friends of the exiled Eugenieto conduct a periodical against her enemies, who purposed to make herrefuge in England untenable by means of newspaper attacks. It is easyto imagine the zest with which the chivalrous Bierce plunged intopreparations for the fight. But the struggle never came; it wassufficient to learn that Bierce would be the Richmond; the attack uponthe stricken ex-empress was abandoned.
When he was urged in San Francisco, years afterward, to write more ofthe inimitable things that filled those two volumes, he said that it wasonly fun, a boy's work. Only fun! There has never been such deliciousfun since the beginning of literature, and there is nothing better thanfun. Yet it held his own peculiar quality, which is not that of Americanfun,--quality of a brilliant intellectuality: the keenness of a rapier,a teasing subtlety, a contempt for pharisaism and squeamishness, andabove all a fine philosophy. While he has never lost his sense of thewhimsical, the grotesque, the unusual, he--unfortunately, perhaps--cameoftener to give it the form of pure wit rather than of cajoling humor.Few Americans know him as a humorist, because his humor is not builton the broad, rough lines that are typically American. It belongs to anolder civilization, yet it is jollier than the English and bolder thanthe French.
At all times his incomparable wit and satire has appealed rather to thecultured, and even the emotional quality of his fiction is frequently soprofound and unusual as to be fully enjoyed only by the intellectuallyuntrammelled. His writing was never for those who could only read andfeel, not think.
Another factor against his wider acceptance has been the infrequency andfragmentary character of his work, particularly his satire. No sustainedfort in that field has come from him. His satire was born largely ofa transient stimulus, and was evanescent. Even his short stories are,generally, but blinding flashes of a moment in a life. He laughinglyascribes the meagerness of his output to indolence; but there may be adeeper reason, of which he is unconscious. What is more dampening thana seeming lack of appreciation? "Tales of Soldiers and Civilians" hada disheartening search for an established publisher, and finally wasbrought out by an admiring merchant of San Francisco. It attracted somuch critical attention that its re-publication was soon undertaken by aregular house.
Had Bierce never produced anything but these prose tales, his right to aplace high in American letters would nevertheless be secure, and of allhis work, serious or otherwise, here is his greatest claim to popularand permanent recognition. No stories for which the Civil War hasfurnished such dramatic setting surpass these masterpieces of shortfiction, either in power of description, subtlety of touch or literaryfinish. It is deeply to be regretted that he has not given us more suchprose.
W. C. Morrow.
A Son of the Gods, and A Horseman in the Sky Page 1