Complete Works of Ambrose Bierce (Delphi Classics)

by Ambrose Bierce

  From extant fragments of Jobblecopper’s History of Invention it appears that in America alone there were at one time no fewer than ten million aeroplanes in use. In and about the great cities the air was so crowded with them and collisions resulting in falls were so frequent that prudent persons neither ventured to use them nor dared to go out of cover. As a poet of the time expressed it:

  With falling fools so thick the sky is filled

  That wise men walk abroad but to be killed.

  Small comfort that the fool, too, dies in falling,

  For he’d have starved betimes in any calling.

  The earth is spattered red with their remains:

  Blood, flesh, bone, gristle — everything but brains.

  The reaction from this disagreeable state of affairs seems to have been brought about by a combination of causes.

  First, the fierce animosities engendered by the perils to pedestrians and “motorists” — a word of disputed meaning. So savage did this hostility become that firing at aeroplanes in flight, with the newly invented silent rifle, grew to the character of a national custom. ‘ Dimshouck has found authority for the statement that in a single day thirty-one aeronauts fell from the heavens into the streets of Nebraska, the capital of Chicago, victims of popular disfavor; and a writer of that time relates, not altogether lucidly, the finding in a park in Ohio of the bodies of “the Wright brothers, each pierced with bullets from hip to shoulder, the ears cut off, and without other marks of identification.”

  Second in importance of these adverse conditions was the natural disposition of the ancients to tire of whatever had engaged their enthusiasm — the fickleness that had led to abandonment of the bicycle, of republican government, of baseball, and of respect for women. In the instance of the aeroplane this reaction was probably somewhat hastened by the rifle practice mentioned.

  Third, invention of the electric leg. As a means of going from place to place the ancients had from the earliest ages of history relied largely on the wheel. Just how they applied it, not in stationary machinery, as we do ourselves, but as an aid to locomotion, we cannot now hope to know, for all the literature of the subject has perished; but it was evidently a crude and clumsy device, giving a speed of less than two hundred miles (four and a half sikliks) an hour, even on roadways specially provided with rails for its rapid revolution. We know, too, that wheels produced an intolerable jolting of the body, whereby many died of a disease known as “therapeutics.” Indeed, a certain class of persons who probably traveled faster than others came to be called “rough riders,” and for their sufferings were compensated by appointment to the most lucrative offices in the gift of the sovereign. Small wonder that the men of that day hailed the aeroplane with intemperate enthusiasm and used it with insupportable immoderation!

  But when the younger Eddy invented that supreme space-conquering device, the electric leg, and within six months perfected it to virtually what it is to-day, the necessity for flight no longer existed. The aeroplane, ending its brief and bloody reign a discredited and discarded toy, was “sent to the scrap-heap,” as one of our brightest and most original modern wits has expressed it. The wheel followed it into oblivion, whither the horse had preceded it, and Civilization lifted her virgin fires as a dawn in Eden, and like Cytherea leading her moonrise troop of nymphs and graces, literally legged it o’er the land!

  III — AN ANCIENT HUNTER

  In the nineteenth century of what, in honor of Christopher Columbum, a mythical hero, the ancients called the “Christian era,” Africa was an unknown land of deserts, jungles, fierce wild beasts, and degraded savages. It is believed that no white man had ever penetrated it to a distance of one league from the coast. All the literature of that time relating to African exploration, conquest, and settlement is now known to be purely imaginative — what the ancients admired as “fiction” and we punish as felony.

  Authentic African history begins in the early years of the twentieth century of the “era” mentioned, and its most stupendous events are the first recorded, the record being made, chiefly, by the hand that wrought the work — that of Tudor Rosenfelt, the most illustrious figure of antiquity. Of this astonishing man’s parentage and early life nothing is certainly known: legend is loquacious, but history is silent. There are traditions affirming his connection with a disastrous explosion at Bronco, a city of the Chinese province of Wyo Ming, his subjugation of the usurper Tammano in the American city of N’yorx (now known to have had no existence outside the imagination of the poets) and his conquest of the island of Cubebs; but from all this bushel of fable we get no grain of authenticated fact. The tales appear to be merely hero-myths, such as belong to the legendary age of every people of the ancient world except the Greeks and Romans. Further than that he was an American Indian nothing can be positively affirmed of Tudor Rosenfelt before the year “1909” of the “Christian [Columbian] era.” In that year we glimpse him disembarking from two ships on the African coast near Bumbassa, and, with one foot in the sea and the other on dry land, swearing through clenched teeth that other forms of life than Man shall be no more. He then strides, unarmed and unattended, into the jungle, and is lost to view for ten years!

  Legend and myth now reassert their ancient reign. In that memorable decade, as we know from the ancient author of “Who’s Whoest in Africa,” the most incredible tales were told and believed by those who, knowing the man and his mission, suffered insupportable alternations of hope and despair. It was said that the Dark Continent into which he had vanished was frequently shaken from coast to coast as by the trampling and wrestling of titanic energies in combat and the fall of colossal bulks on the yielding crust of the earth; that mariners in adjacent waters heard recurrent growls and roars of rage and shouts of triumph — an enormous uproar that smote their ships like a gale from the land and swept them affrighted out to sea; that so loud were these terrible sounds as to be simultaneously audible in the Indian and Atlantic oceans, as was proved by comparing the logs of vessels arriving from both seas at the port of Berlin. As is quaintly related in one of these marine diaries, “ The noise was so strenuous that our ears was nigh to busting with the volume of the sound.” Through all this monstrous opulence of the primitive rhetorical figure known as the Lie we easily discern a nucleus of truth: something uncommon was going on in Africa.

  At the close of the memorable decade (circa “1919”) authentic history again appears in the fragmentary work of Antrolius: Rosenfelt walks out of the jungle at Mbongwa on the side of the continent opposite Bumbassa. He is now attended by a caravan of twenty thousand camels and ten thousand native porters, all bearing trophies of the chase. A complete list of these would require more pages than Homer Wheeler Wilcox’s catalogue of ships, but among them were heads of elephants with antlers attached; pelts of the checkered lion and the spiny hippopotentot, respectively the most ferocious and the most venomous of their species; a skeleton of the missing lynx (Pithecanthropos erectus compilatus); entire bodies of pterodactyls and broncosauruses; a slithy tove mounted on a fine specimen of the weeping wanderoo; the downy electrical whacknasty (Ananias flabber gastor); the carnivorous mastodon; ten specimens of the skinless tiger (Felis decorticata); a saber-toothed python, whose bite produced the weeping sickness; three ribnosed gazzadoodles; a pair of blood-sweating bandicoots; a night-blooming jeewhillikins; three and a half varieties of the crested skynoceros; a purring crocodile, or buzz-saurian; two Stymphalian linnets; a skeleton of the three footed swammigolsis — afterwards catalogued at the Podunk Museum of Defective Types as Talpa unopede noninvento; a hydra from Lerna; the ring-tail mollycoddle and the fawning polecat (Givis nondesiderabilis).

  These terrible monsters, which from the dawning of time had ravaged all Africa, baffling every attempt at exploration and settlement, the Exterminator, as he came to be called, had strangled or captured with his bare hands; and the few remaining were so cowed that they gave milk. Indeed, such was their terror of his red right arm that all forsook their ev
il ways, offered themselves as beasts of burden to the whites that came afterward, and in domestication and servitude sought the security that he denied to their ferocity and power. Within a single generation prosperous colonies of Caucasians sprang up all along the coasts, and the silk hat and pink shirt, immemorial pioneers and promoters of civilization, penetrated the remotest fastnesses, spreading peace and plenty o’er a smiling land!

  The later history of this remarkable man is clouded in obscurity. Much of his own account of his exploits, curiously intertangled with those of an earlier hero named Hercules, is extant, but it closes with his re-embarkation for America. Some hold that on returning to his native land he was assailed with opprobrium, loaded with chains, and cast into Chicago; others contend that he was enriched by gifts from the sovereigns of the world, received with acclamation by his grateful countrymen, and even mentioned for the presidency to succeed Samuel Gompers — an honor that he modestly declined on the ground of inexperience and unfitness. Whatever may be the truth of these matters, he doubtless did not long suffer affliction nor enjoy prosperity, for in the great catastrophe of the year 254 B. S. the entire continent of North America and the contiguous island of Omaha were swallowed up by the sea. Fortunately his narrative is preserved in the Royal Library of Timbuktu, in which capital of civilization stands his colossal statue of ivory and gold. In the shadow of that renowned memorial I write this imperfect tribute to his worth.

  OBJECTIVE IDEAS

  WE all remember that the sound of a trumpet has been described as scarlet. The fact that we do remember it is evidence that the incident of a physical sensation masquerading in a garment appropriate to the guest of another sense than the one entertaining it is a general, not an individual, experience. Not, of course, that a trumpet-call impresses us all with a sense of color, but the odd description would long ago have been forgotten had not each mind recognized it as the statement of a fact belonging to a class of facts of which itself has had knowledge. For myself, I never hear good music without wishing to paint it — which I should certainly do with divine success if I understood music and could paint. The hackneyed and tiresome fashion of calling certain pictures “symphonies” in this or that color has a basis of reason — which will somewhat discredit it in the esteem of those whom it has enslaved. I never hear a man talking of “symphonies” in gray, green, pepper-and-salt, crushed banana, ashes-of-heretic or toper’s-nose without thinking with satisfaction of the time when he will himself be a symphony in flame-color, lighting up the landscape of the underworld like a flamingo in the dun expanse of a marsh in the gloaming.

  I have in mind a notable instance of a sensation taking on three dimensions — one for which I am not indebted, probably, to the courtesy of some forgotten experience producing an association of ideas. It will be conceded that it is at least unlikely that one should ever enjoy simultaneously the double gratification of eating a pine-apple and seeing a man hanged; such felicity is reserved, I fancy, for creatures more meritorious than poor sinful human beings. Nevertheless, I never taste pine-apple without a lively sense of a man with his head in a black bag, depending from his beam. It is not that I am at the same time conscious of the fruit and of that solemn spectacle; it simply seems to me that a man hanging is the taste of that fruit. It is needless to add that when thinking of those unworthy persons, my enemies, I derive a holy delight from consuming generous slices of pine-apple.

  There is a class of mental phenomena which, so far as my knowledge goes, has never been “spread upon the record.” Possibly they are peculiar to my own imperfect understanding, and a saner consciousness is innocent of them. If so it will gratify my pride of monopoly to admit the public to a view of my intellectual chattels. The mental process of enumeration is with me a gliding upward in various directions from i to 100; not along a column of successive figures, like a cat scampering up a staircase, but along a smooth, pale-bluish, angular streak, with the hither-and-yon motion of a soaring snipe. From i to 10 the line runs upward, and to the right at an angle with the horizon of about sixty degrees. There it turns sharply back to the left and the grade to 20 is nearly flat. Thence to 30 the ascent is vertical. From 30 to 50 there is an ascent of 10 degrees to the right and slightly away from me. The course to 60 is to the left again, the angle, say 10 degrees. From 60 to 90 there is no break, the course, too, is almost level and directly away; thence to 100 nearly vertical. It will be observed that the angles are all at 10 and its multiples, but there is no angle at 40, none at 70, nor at 80. I may explain that the interval between 10 and 20 is greatly longer than it ought to be, and I venture to protest against the exceptional and unwarrantable brevity of that between 90 and 100.

  Every time I count I am compelled to ascend some part of this reasonless and ridiculous Jacob’s-ladder, with a “hitchety, hatchety, up I go” movement, like Jack mounting his bean-stalk; and it is ludicrously true that I feel a sense of relief on arriving at the more nearly level stages, and on them am conscious of an augmented speed. I can count from 60 to 70 twice as quickly as I can from 90 to 100. Investigation and comparison of such conceptions as these can but result in unspeakable advancement of knowledge. If any gentleman has similar ones and a little leisure for their discussion I hope he will consent to meet me in Heaven.

  MY CREDENTIALS

  MY death occurred on the 17th day of June, 1879 — I shall never forget it. The day had been uncommonly hot, and the doctor kept telling me that unless it grew cooler he would hardly be able to pull me through. He said he was willing to do his best and prolong my life to the latest possible moment if I wished him to, but in any case I should have to die in a few days. I directed him to keep on prolonging, but the heat grew greater and finally overcame him, and I died. That is to say, while he was absent at an adjacent saloon after a sherry cobbler one of my “bad spells” came on and I fell a victim to inattention. Things turned out exactly as medical science had foretold.

  The funeral was largely attended and a society reporter was good enough to describe it as an “enjoyable occasion.” I had been a prominent member of one hundred and fifty societies, including the Sovereigns of Glory, the Confederated Idiots, Knights and Ladies of Indigence, Gorgeous Obsequies Guarantee Fraternity, Protective League of Adult Orphans, Ancient and Honorable Order of Divorced Men, Society for Converting Lawyers to Christianity, Murderers’ Mutual Resentment Association, League of Persons Having Moles on Their Necks, Brotherhood of Grand Flashing Inaccessibles, Mutual Pall Bearers, and Floral Tribute Consolation Guard. All these societies, and many more, were represented at my funeral, some in “regalia.” I was buried under more auspices than you could count. Soon after, I was ushered into the Other World.

  It is not like what you have been told, but I am forbidden to say what it is like. Suffice it that its inhabitants know all that goes on in the world we have left. Imagine, then, the delight with which I read in all the daily papers the various “resolutions of respect” adopted by the societies of which I had been a member. The Sovereigns of Glory said:

  Whereas, Providence has found a pleasure in removing from among us His Majesty, Peter Wodel Mocump, our Order’s Serene Reigner over the Records; and Whereas, Our royal hearts are deeply touched by this exercise of the divine prerogative; — , Resolved, That in all the relations of life he was truly majestic and imperial.

  Resolved, That we tender our royal sympathy to his surviving Queen and the Princess and Princesses of his dynasty.

  Resolved, That in testimony to his worth these resolutions be engrossed on parchment and publicly displayed for thirty days in the windows of a dry-goods shop.

  The Protective League of Adult Orphans held a meeting before I was cold, and passed the resolutions following:

  Whereas, The flower that bloomed under the name of Peter Wodel Mocump has been ruthlessly cut down by the Reaper whose name is Death; and Whereas, He was a pansy; be it, therefore, Resolved, That in his removal this League has lost a sturdy champion of the rights of orphans; and be it furth
er Resolved, That a general boycott be, and hereby is, declared against all orphans outside this Protective League.

  The Ancient and Honorable Order of Divorced Men eulogized me in the strongest language as one who had possessed in a high and conspicuous degree every qualification for membership in their Order. By the Murderers’ Mutual Resentment Association I was described as one whose time, talent and fortune were ever at the service of those injured in the world’s esteem by the judicial practice of alluding to the past. The League of Persons Having Moles on Their Necks said that, apart from the unusual size of my mole, I had ever shown a strong zeal for the public welfare and the advancement of civilization.

  I gathered up these various evidences of worth. I got together all the obituary notices from the newspapers, which showed with a singular unanimity that I was greatly addicted to secret almsgiving (how did they know it?) and that I was without a fault of character or disposition. I copied the inscription on my headstone and the verses in the death-column of the Morning Buglehorn — some of its death editor’s happiest and most striking lines. Altogether, this literature made a pretty large volume of eulogy. I had it printed and bound (in the Other World sense) and copiously indexed. It was the best reading I ever saw.

  The time arrived for me to appear at the gate of Heaven and make a personal demand for admission. I was notified of the hour when I would be heard, and was on hand. St. Peter received me with a smile and said: