Complete Works of Ambrose Bierce (Delphi Classics)

by Ambrose Bierce

  It will be obvious to the reader that in all this no question of “principle” is involved. A well-informed Tortirran’s mental attitude with regard to the matter may be calculated with unfailing accuracy from a knowledge of his interests. If he produces anything which his countrymen want, and which in the absence of all restriction they could get more cheaply from the Stronagu than they can from him, he is in politics a Gakphew, or “Stinkpotter”; if not he is what that party derisively calls a Shokerbom, which signifies “Righteous Man” — for there is nothing which the Gakphews hold in so holy detestation as righteousness.

  Nominally, Tortirra is an hereditary monarchy; virtually it is a democracy, for under a peculiar law of succession there is seldom an occupant of the throne, and all public affairs are conducted by a Supreme Legislature sitting at Felduchia, the capital of Tanga, to which body each island of the archipelago, twenty-nine in number, elects representatives in proportion to its population, the total membership being nineteen hundred and seventeen. Each island has a Subordinate Council for the management of local affairs and a Head Chief charged with execution of the laws. There is also a Great Court at Felduchia, whose function it is to interpret the general laws of the Kingdom, passed by the Supreme Council, and a Minor Great Court at the capital of each island, with corresponding duties and powers. These powers are very loosely and vaguely defined, and are the subject of endless controversy everywhere, and nowhere more than in the courts themselves — such is the multiplicity of laws and so many are the contradictory decisions upon them, every decision constituting what is called a lantrag, or, as we might say, “precedent.” The peculiarity of a lantrag, or previous decision, is that it is, or is not, binding, at the will of the honorable judge making a later one on a similar point. If he wishes to decide in the same way he quotes the previous decision with all the gravity that he would give to an exposition of the law itself; if not, he either ignores it altogether, shows that it is not applicable to the case under consideration (which, as the circumstances are never exactly the same, he can always do), or substitutes a contradictory lantrag and fortifies himself with that. There is a precedent for any decision that a judge may wish to make, but sometimes he is too indolent to search it out and cite it. Frequently, when the letter and intent of the law under which an action is brought are plainly hostile to the decision which it pleases him to render, the judge finds it easier to look up an older law, with which it is compatible, and which the later one, he says, does not repeal, and to base his decision on that; and there is a law for everything, just as there is a precedent. Failing to find, or not caring to look for, either precedent or statute to sustain him, he can readily show that any other decision than the one he has in will would be tokoli impelly; that is to say, contrary to public morals, and this, too, is considered a legitimate consideration, though on another occasion he may say, with public assent and approval, that it is his duty, not to make the law conform to justice, but to expound and enforce it as he finds it. In short, such is the confusion of the law and the public conscience that the courts of Tortirra do whatever they please, subject only to overruling by higher courts in the exercise of their pleasure; for great as is the number of minor and major tribunals, a case originating in the lowest is never really settled until it has gone through all the intermediate ones and been passed upon by the highest, to which it might just as well have been submitted at first. The evils of this astonishing system could not be even baldly catalogued in a lifetime. They are infinite in number and prodigious in magnitude. To the trained intelligence of the American observer it is incomprehensible how any, even the most barbarous, nation can endure them.

  An important function of the Great Court and the Minor Great Court is passing upon the validity of all laws enacted by the Supreme Council and the Subordinate Councils, respectively. The nation as a whole, as well as each separate island, has a fundamental law called the Trogodal, or, as we should say, the Constitution; and no law whatever that may be passed by the Council is final and determinate until the appropriate court has declared that it conforms to the Trogodal. Nevertheless every law is put in force the moment it is perfected and before it is submitted to the court. Indeed, not one in a thousand ever is submitted at all, that depending upon the possibility of some individual objecting to its action upon his personal interests, which few, indeed, can afford to do. It not infrequently occurs that some law which has for years been rigorously enforced, even by fines and imprisonment, and to which the whole commercial and social life of the nation has adjusted itself with all its vast property interests, is brought before the tribunal having final jurisdiction in the matter and coolly declared no law at all. The pernicious effect may be more easily imagined than related, but those who by loyal obedience to the statute all those years have been injured in property, those who are ruined by its erasure and those who may have suffered the severest penalties for its violation are alike without redress. It seems not to have occurred to the Tortirrans to require the court to inspect the law and determine its validity before it is put in force. It is, indeed, the traditional practice of these strange tribunals, when a case is forced upon them, to decide, not as many points of law as they can, but as few as they may; and this dishonest inaction is not only tolerated but commended as the highest wisdom. The consequence is that only those who make a profession of the law and live by it and find their account in having it as little understood by others as is possible can know which acts and parts of acts are in force and which are not. The higher courts, too, have arrogated to themselves the power of declaring unconstitutional even parts of the Constitution, frequently annulling most important provisions of the very instrument creating them!

  A popular folly in Tortirra is the selection of representatives in the Councils from among that class of men who live by the law, whose sole income is derived from its uncertainties and perplexities. Obviously, it is to the interest of these men to make laws which shall be uncertain and perplexing — to confuse and darken legislation as much as they can. Yet in nearly all the Councils these men are the most influential and active element, and it is not uncommon to find them in a numerical majority. It is evident that the only check upon their ill-doing lies in the certainty of their disagreement as to the particular kind of confusion which they may think it expedient to create. Some will wish to accomplish their common object by one kind of verbal ambiguity, some by another; some by laws clearly enough (to them) unconstitutional, others by contradictory statutes, or statutes secretly repealing wholesome ones already existing. A clear, simple and just code would deprive them of their means of livelihood and compel them to seek some honest employment.

  So great are the uncertainties of the law in Tortirra that an eminent judge once confessed to me that it was his conscientious belief that if all cases were decided by the impartial arbitrament of the do-tusis (a process similar to our “throw of the dice”) substantial justice would be done far more frequently than under the present system; and there is reason to believe that in many instances cases at law are so decided — but only at the close of tedious and costly trials which have impoverished the litigants and correspondingly enriched the lawyers.

  Of the interminable train of shames and brutalities entailed by this pernicious system, I shall mention here only a single one — the sentencing and punishment of an accused person in the midst of the proceedings against him, and while his guilt is not finally and definitively established. It frequently occurs that a man convicted of crime in one of the lower courts is at once hurried off to prison while he has still the right of appeal to a higher tribunal, and while that appeal is pending. After months and sometimes years of punishment his case is reached in the appellate court, his appeal found valid and a new trial granted, resulting in his acquittal. He has been imprisoned for a crime of which he is eventually declared not to have been properly convicted. But he has no redress; he is simply set free to bear through all his after life the stain of dishonor and nourish an ineffectual resentme
nt. Imagine the storm of popular indignation that would be evoked in America by an instance of so foul injustice!

  In the great public square of Itsami, the capital of Tortirra, stands a golden statue of Estari–Kumpro, a famous judge of the Civil Court.2 This great man was celebrated throughout the kingdom for the wisdom and justice of his decisions and the virtues of his private life. So profound were the veneration in which he was held and the awe that his presence inspired, that none of the advocates in his court ever ventured to address him except in formal pleas: all motions, objections, and so forth, were addressed to the clerk and by him disposed of without dissent: the silence of the judge, who never was heard to utter a word, was understood as sanctioning the acts of his subordinate. For thirty years, promptly at sunrise, the great hall of justice was thrown open, disclosing the judge seated on a loftly dais beneath a black canopy, partly in shadow, and quite inaccessible. At sunset all proceedings for the day terminated, everyone left the hall and the portal closed. The decisions of this august and learned jurist were always read aloud by the clerk, and a copy supplied to the counsel on each side. They were brief, clear and remarkable, not only for their unimpeachable justice, but for their conformity to the fundamental principles of law. Not one of them was ever set aside, and during the last fifteen years of the great judge’s service no litigant ever took an appeal, although none ever ventured before that infallible tribunal unless conscientiously persuaded that his cause was just.

  2 Klikat um Delu Ovwi.

  One day it happened during the progress of an important trial that a sharp shock of earthquake occurred, throwing the whole assembly into confusion. When order had been restored a cry of horror and dismay burst from the multitude — the judge’s head lay flattened upon the floor, a dozen feet below the bench, and from the neck of the rapidly collapsing body, which had pitched forward upon his desk, poured a thick stream of sawdust! For thirty years that great and good man had been represented by a stuffed manikin. For thirty years he had not entered his own court, nor heard a word of evidence or argument. At the moment of the accident to his simulacrum he was in his library at his home, writing his decision of the case on trial, and was killed by a falling chandelier. It was afterward learned that his clerk, twenty-five years dead, had all the time been personated by a twin brother, who was an idiot from birth and knew no law.

  Hither

  Listening to the history of the golden statue in the great square, as related by a Tortirran storyteller, I fell asleep. On waking I found myself lying in a cot-bed amidst unfamiliar surroundings. A bandage was fastened obliquely about my head, covering my left eye, in which was a dull throbbing pain. Seeing an attendant near by I beckoned him to my bedside and asked: “Where am I?”

  “Hospital,” he replied, tersely but not unkindly. He added: “You have a bad eye.” “Yes,” I said, “I always had; but I could name more than one Tortirran who has a bad heart.”

  “What is a Tortirran?” he asked.

  The Short Story Collections

  Warsaw Community High School, Indiana — most likely the school attended by Bierce

  THE FIEND’S DELIGHT

  In 1872, Ambrose Bierce and his wife Mollie moved to England, where he hoped to achieve literary success. In fact, he published his first book there. The Fiend’s Delight appeared under Ambrose Bierce’s pseudonym, “Dod Grile,” published in 1873 by John Camden Hotten, of London. This early collection was a hodgepodge of Bierce’s fiction, poetry, essays and personal reflection. Many of the pieces, published earlier in American journals, demonstrate his combative, though often darkly humorous journalistic style, showcasing his witty satire and often biting sarcasm.

  First edition published by John Camden Hotton of London in 1873

  CONTENTS

  PREFACE.

  SOME FICTION.

  One More Unfortunate.

  The Strong Young Man of Colusa.

  The Glad New Year.

  The Late Dowling, Senior.

  Love’s Labour Lost.

  A Comforter.

  Little Isaac.

  The Heels of Her.

  A Tale of Two Feet.

  The Scolliver Pig.

  Mr. Hunker’s Mourner.

  A Bit of Chivalry.

  The Head of the Family.

  Deathbed Repentance.

  The New Church that was not Built.

  A Tale of the Great Quake.

  Johnny.

  The Child’s Provider.

  Boys who Began Wrong.

  A Kansas Incident.

  Mr. Grile’s Girl.

  His Railway.

  Mr. Gish Makes a Present.

  A Cow–County Pleasantry.

  The Optimist, and What He Died Of.

  The Root of Education.

  Retribution.

  Margaret the Childless.

  The Discomfited Demon.

  The Mistake of a Life.

  L. S.

  The Baffled Asian.

  Tall Talk.

  A Call to Dinner.

  On Death and Immortality.

  Music–Muscular and Mechanical.

  The Good Young Man.

  The Average Parson.

  Did We Eat One Another?

  Your Friend’s Friend.

  Le Diable est aux Vaches.

  Angels and Angles.

  A Wingless Insect.

  Pork on the Hoof.

  The Young Person.

  A Certain Popular Fallacy.

  Pastoral Journalism.

  Mendicity’s Mistake.

  Picnicking considered as a Mistake.

  Thanksgiving Day.

  Flogging.

  Reflections upon the Beneficent Influence of the Press.

  Charity.

  The Study of Human Nature.

  Additional Talk–Done in the Country.

  Current Journalings.

  Obituary Notices.

  Christians.

  Pagans.

  Musings, Philosophical and Theological.

  Laughorisms.

  “Items” from the Press of Interior California.

  Poesy.

  Ye Idyll of Ye Hippopopotamus.

  Epitaph on George Francis Train.

  Jerusalem, Old and New.

  Communing with Nature.

  Conservatism and Progress.

  Inter Arma Silent Leges.

  Quintessence.

  Resurgam.

  THE FIEND’S DELIGHT.

  BY DOD GRILE.

  “Count that day lost whose low descending sun

  Views from thy hand no

  TO

  THE IMMUTABLE AND INFALLIBLE GODDESS,

  GOOD TASTE,

  IN GRATITUDE FOR HER CONDEMNATION OF ALL SUPERIOR AUTHORS,

  AND IN THE HOPE OF PROPITIATING HER CREATORS

  AND EXPOUNDERS,

  This Volume is reverentially Dedicated

  BY HER DEVOUT WORSHIPPER,

  THE AUTHOR.

  PREFACE.

  The atrocities constituting this “cold collation” of diabolisms are taken mainly from various Californian journals. They are cast in the American language, and liberally enriched with unintelligibility. If they shall prove incomprehensible on this side of the Atlantic, the reader can pass to the other side at a moderately extortionate charge. In the pursuit of my design I think I have killed a good many people in one way and another; but the reader will please to observe that they were not people worth the trouble of leaving alive. Besides, I had the interests of my collaborator to consult. In writing, as in compiling, I have been ably assisted by my scholarly friend Mr. Satan; and to this worthy gentleman must be attributed most of the views herein set forth. While the plan of the work is partly my own, its spirit is wholly his; and this illustrates the ascendancy of the creative over the merely imitative mind. Palmam qui meruit ferat-I shall be content with the profit.

  DOD GRILE.

  SOME FICTION.

  One More Unfortunate.

 
It was midnight-a black, wet, midnight-in a great city by the sea. The church clocks were booming the hour, in tones half-smothered by the marching rain, when an officer of the watch saw a female figure glide past him like a ghost in the gloom, and make directly toward a wharf. The officer felt that some dreadful tragedy was about to be enacted, and started in pursuit. Through the sleeping city sped those two dark figures like shadows athwart a tomb. Out along the deserted wharf to its farther end fled the mysterious fugitive, the guardian of the night vainly endeavouring to overtake, and calling to her to stay. Soon she stood upon the extreme end of the pier, in the scourging rain which lashed her fragile figure and blinded her eyes with other tears than those of grief. The night wind tossed her tresses wildly in air, and beneath her bare feet the writhing billows struggled blackly upward for their prey. At this fearful moment the panting officer stumbled and fell! He was badly bruised; he felt angry and misanthropic. Instead of rising to his feet, he sat doggedly up and began chafing his abraded shin. The desperate woman raised her white arms heavenward for the final plunge, and the voice of the gale seemed like the dread roaring of the waters in her ears, as down, down, she went — in imagination — to a black death among the spectral piles. She backed a few paces to secure an impetus, cast a last look upon the stony officer, with a wild shriek sprang to the awful verge and came near losing her balance. Recovering herself with an effort, she turned her face again to the officer, who was clawing about for his missing club. Having secured it, he started to leave.