JUSTICE
JUSTICE.
L’AUDACE.
LAUS LUCIS.
LIBERTY.
LLEWELLEN POWELL
LORING PICKERING
LUCIFER OF THE TORCH
LUSUS POLITICUS.
MAD.
MAGNANIMITY
MAGNANIMITY.
MASTER OF THREE ARTS
MATTER FOR GRATITUDE
MENDAX
METEMPSYCHOSIS
METEMPSYCHOSIS.
MONTAGUE LEVERSON
MONTEFIORE.
MR. FINK’S DEBATING DONKEY.
MR. JUSTICE FIELD
MR. SHEETS
MY LORD POET
MY MONUMENT.
NANINE.
NIMROD
NOT GUILTY.
NOVUM ORGANUM.
OMNES VANITAS.
ON A PROPOSED CREMATORY.
ON STONE
ON THE PLATFORM
ON THE WEDDING OF AN AËRONAUT
ONE AND ONE ARE TWO
ONE JUDGE
ONE MOOD’S EXPRESSION.
ONE MORNING.
ONE OF THE REDEEMED
ONE OF THE SAINTS
ONE OF THE UNFAIR SEX.
ONE PRESIDENT.
ONEIROMANCY
ONEIROMANCY.
ORNITHANTHROPOS
OVER THE BORDER
PAUPER.
PAUPER:
PEACE.
PEACEABLE EXPULSION
PHIL CRIMMINS
PHILOSOPHER BIMM.
PICKERING:
POESY
POESY.
POLITICAL ECONOMY.
POLITICS.
POSTERITY’S AWARD
PRAYER
PRAYER.
PRESENTIMENT.
PSYCHOGRAPHS
PSYCHOGRAPHS.
REBUKE
REBUKE.
RECONCILIATION
REEDIFIED
RE-EDIFIED.
REJECTED
RELIGION.
RELIGIOUS PROGRESS.
REMINDED.
REPARATION
REVENGE.
ROBERT F. MORROW
RUDOLPH BLOCK
SALVINI IN AMERICA.
SAMUEL SHORTRIDGE
SIRES AND SONS.
SLANDER
SLICKENS
SOME ANTE-MORTEM EPITAPHS. STEPHEN DORSEY.
SOMETHING IN THE PAPERS.
STEPHEN DORSEY
STEPHEN J. FIELD.
STONEMAN IN HEAVEN.
STRAINED RELATIONS
STRAINED RELATIONS.
SUBSTANCE VERSUS SHADOW
SUBTERRANEAN PHANTASIES.
SUPERINTENDENT:
SUPERINTENDENT:
SUPERINTENDENT:
SURPRISED
T.A.H.
TECHNOLOGY.
TEMPORA MUTANTUR.
THANKSGIVING.
THE AESTHETES.
THE AMERICAN PARTY
THE BARKING WEASEL
THE BIRTH OF THE RAIL
THE BIRTH OF VIRTUE.
THE BOSS’S CHOICE
THE BRIDE.
THE BROTHERS.
THE CO-DEFENDANTS
THE COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC MORALS
THE CONFEDERATE FLAGS.
THE CONVICTS’ BALL
THE CYNIC’S BEQUEST
THE DAY OF WRATH.
THE DEAD KING
THE DEATH OF GRANT.
THE DEBTOR ABROAD.
THE DEGENERATE
THE DISCOVERERS
THE DIVISION SUPERINTENDENT.
THE DYING STATESMAN.
THE EASTERN QUESTION
THE EASTERN QUESTION.
THE FALL OF MISS LARKIN.
THE FOLLOWING PAIR.
THE FOOT-HILL RESORT
THE FOUNTAIN REFILLED.
THE FREE TRADER’S LAMENT.
THE FYGHTYNGE SEVENTH
THE GATES AJAR
THE GENESIS OF EMBARRASSMENT.
THE GOD’S VIEW-POINT.
THE HERMIT.
THE HESITATING VETERAN.
THE HUMORIST.
THE IN-COMING CLIMATE
THE KEY NOTE
THE KING OF BORES.
THE LAST MAN
THE LEGATEE
THE LONG FEAR
THE LORD’S PRAYER ON A COIN.
THE LOST COLONEL.
THE MACKAIAD
THE MAN BORN BLIND.
THE MILITIAMAN.
THE MUMMERY
THE NATIONAL GUARDSMAN
THE NAVAL CONSTRUCTOR.
THE NEW ENOCH.
THE NEW ULALUME.
THE NIGHT OF ELECTION
THE OAKLAND DOG
THE OLEOMARGARINE MAN
THE OPPOSING SEX.
THE PASSING OF BOSS SHEPHERD.
THE PASSING SHOW.
THE PERVERTED VILLAGE
THE PIUTE
THE POLITICIAN
THE POLITICIAN.
THE PSORIAD.
THE PUN.
THE RETROSPECTIVE BIRD
THE REV. JOSEPH
THE RICH TESTATOR.
THE ROYAL JESTER.
THE SAINT AND THE MONK.
THE SCURRIL PRESS.
THE SHAFTER SHAFTED
THE SLEEPING LION
THE SPIRIT OF A SPONGE
THE STATESMEN.
THE SUBDUED EDITOR
THE SUNSET GUN.
THE TABLES TURNED.
THE TOWN OF DAE.
THE TRANSMIGRATIONS OF A SOUL
THE TWO CAVEES
THE UNFALLEN BRAVE
THE UNPARDONABLE SIN.
THE VAIN CAT
THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF THEFT
THE VAN NESSIAD
THE VETERAN
THE VIDUATE DAME
THE WEATHER WIGHT.
THE WHIRLIGIG OF TIME
THE WISE AND GOOD.
THE WOFUL TALE OF MR. PETERS
THE WOMAN AND THE DEVIL.
THE YEARLY LIE.
THERSITES
TIDINGS OF GOOD
TINKER DICK
TO A CENSOR.
TO A CRITIC OF TENNYSON
TO A CRITIC OF TENNYSON.
TO A DEJECTED POET.
TO A PROFESSIONAL EULOGIST.
TO A STRAY DOG
TO A SUMMER POET.
TO A WORD-WARRIOR
TO AN ASPIRANT.
TO AN INSOLENT ATTORNEY
TO COLONEL DAN. BURNS
TO E.S. SALOMON
TO EITHER
TO HER
TO HER.
TO MAUDE.
TO MY LAUNDRESS.
TO MY LIARS
TO NANINE.
TO ONE ACROSS THE WAY.
TO ONE DETESTED
TO OSCAR WILDE.
TO THE BARTHOLDI STATUE.
TO THE FOOL-KILLER
TO THE HAPPY HUNTING GROUNDS
TO W.H.L.B.
TO-DAY.
TWIN UNWORTHIES
TWO METHODS.
TWO ROGUES.
TWO SHOWS.
TWO STATESMEN
TWO TYPES
TWO TYPES.
UNARMED
UNCOLONELED
UNDERSTATED
UNEXPOUNDED
UNEXPOUNDED.
VANISHED AT COCK-CROW
VANISHED AT COCK-CROW.
VICE VERSA.
VISIONS OF SIN.
W.H.L. BARNES
WITH MINE OWN PETARD.
WOMAN
WOMAN IN POLITICS.
WOMAN.
Y’E FOE TO CATHAYE
YORICK.
The Non-Fiction
Bierce’s final home, 1368 Euclid St., NW, Washington, DC
THE SHADOW ON THE DIAL, AND OTHER ESSAYS
The Shadow on the Dial and Other Essays appeared in 1909, published by A. M. Robertson of San Francisco. As with his stories and poems, Bierce’s non-fiction has its strong advocates and v
irulent detractors. Of this collection, the contemporary reviewer in The Nation complained, “Mr. Bierce now forces the note, talks about matters he does not perfectly understand, says habitually more than he means, counts that sentence lost which contains no paradox, and contradicts himself without a blush.” The same unsigned reviewer praised Bierce’s stories but said that the essays demonstrate “the fatal effect of a lifetime of journalism on a fine talent.” Hildegarde Hawthorne of the New York Times, however, wrote, “If Mr. Bierce does not contribute vastly to the knowledge of the world, he assuredly adds delightfully to its amusement.”
A first edition copy published by A. M. Robertson, 1909
CONTENTS
THE SHADOW ON THE DIAL
CIVILIZATION
THE GAME OF POLITICS
SOME FEATURES OF THE LAW
ARBITRATION
INDUSTRIAL DISCONTENT
CRIME AND ITS CORRECTIVES
THE DEATH PENALTY
RELIGION
IMMORTALITY
OPPORTUNITY
CHARITY
EMANCIPATED WOMAN
THE OPPOSING SEX
THE AMERICAN SYCOPHANT
A DISSERTATION ON DOGS
THE ANCESTRAL BOND
THE RIGHT TO WORK
THE RIGHT TO TAKE ONESELF OFF
A NOTE BY THE AUTHOR
IT WAS expected that this book would be included in my “Collected Works” now in course of publication, but unforeseen delay in the date of publication has made this impossible. The selection of its contents was not made by me, but the choice has my approval and the publication my authority.
AMBROSE BIERCE.
Washington, D. C. March 14. 1909.
PREFACE
THE note of prophecy! It sounds sharp and clear in many a vibrant line, in many a sonorous sentence of the essays herein collected for the first time. Written for various Californian journals and periodicals and extending over a period of more than a quarter of a century, these opinions and reflections express the refined judgment of one who has seen, not as through a glass darkly, the trend of events. And having seen the portentous effigy that we are making of the Liberty our fathers created, he has written of it in English that is the despair of those who, thinking less clearly, escape not the pitfalls of diffuseness and obscurity. For Mr. Bierce, as did Flaubert, holds that the right word is necessary for the conveyance of the right thought and his sense of word values rarely betrays him into error. But with an odd — I might almost say perverse — indifference to his own reputation, he has allowed these writings to lie fallow in the old files of papers, while others, possessing the knack of publicity, years later tilled the soil with some degree of success. President Hadley, of Yale University, before the Candlelight Club of Denver, January 8, 1900, advanced, as novel and original, ostracism as an effective punishment of social highwaymen. This address attracted widespread attention, and though Professor Hadley’s remedy has not been generally adopted it is regarded as his own. Mr. Bierce wrote in “The Examiner,” January 20, 1895, as follows: “We are plundered because we have no particular aversion to plunderers.”
The ‘predatory rich’ (to use Mr. Stead’s felicitous term) put their hands into our pockets because they know that, virtually, none of us will refuse to take their hands in our own afterwards, in friendly salutation. If notorious rascality entailed social outlawry the only rascals would be those properly — and proudly — belonging to the ‘criminal class.’
Again, Edwin Markham has attracted to himself no little attention by advocating the application of the Golden Rule in temporal affairs as a cure for evils arising from industrial discontent In this he, too, has been anticipated. Mr. Bierce, writing in “The Examiner,” March 25, 1894, said: “When a people would avert want and strife, or having them, would restore plenty and peace, this noble commandment offers the only means — all other plans for safety and relief are as vain as dreams, and as empty as the crooning of fools. And, behold, here it is: ‘All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them.’”
Rev. Charles M. Sheldon created a nine days’ wonder, or rather a seven, by conducting for a week a newspaper as he conceived Christ would have done. Some years previously, June 28, 1896, to be exact, the author of these essays wrote: “That is my ultimate and determining test of right—’What, under the circumstances, would Christ have done?’ — the Christ of the New Testament, not the Christ of the commentators, theologians, priests and parsons.”
I am sure that Mr. Bierce does not begrudge any of these gentlemen the acclaim they have received by enunciating his ideas, and I mention the instances here merely to forestall the filing of any other claim to priority.
The essays cover a wide range of subjects, embracing among other things government, dreams, writers of dialect, and dogs, and always the author’s point of view is fresh, original and non-Philistine. Whether one cares to agree with him or not, one will find vast entertainment in his wit that illuminates with lightning flashes all he touches. Other qualities I forbear allusion to, having already encroached too much upon the time of the reader.
S. O. HOWES.
THE SHADOW ON THE DIAL
I.
THERE is a deal of confusion and uncertainty in the use of the words “Socialist,” “Anarchist,” and “Nihilist.” Even the ‘1st himself commonly knows with as little accuracy what he is as the rest of us know why he is. The Socialist believes that most human affairs should be regulated and managed by the State — the Government — that is to say, the majority. Our own system has many Socialistic features and the trend of republican government is all that way. The Anarchist is the kind of lunatic who believes that all crime is the effect of laws forbidding it — as the pig that breaks into the kitchen garden is created by the dog that chews its ear! The Anarchist favors abolition of all law and frequently belongs to an organization that secures his allegiance by solemn oaths and dreadful penalties. “Nihilism” is a name given by Turgenieff to the general body of Russian discontent which finds expression in antagonizing authority and killing authorities. Constructive politics would seem, as yet, to be a cut above the Nihilist’s intelligence; he is essentially a destructionary. He is so diligently engaged in unweeding the soil that he has not given a thought to what he will grow there. Nihilism may be described as a policy of assassination tempered by reflections upon Siberia. American sympathy with it is the offspring of an unholy union between the tongue of a liar and the ear of a dupe.
Upon examination it will be seen that political dissent, when it takes any form more coherent than the mere brute dissatisfaction of a mind that does not know what it wants to want, finds expression in one of but two ways — in Socialism or in Anarchism. Whatever methods one may think will best substitute for a system gradually evolved from our needs and our natures a system existing only in the minds of dreamers, one is bound to choose between these two dreams. Yet such is the intellectual delinquency of many who most strenuously denounce the system that we have that we not infrequently find the same man advocating in one breath, Socialism, in the next, Anarchism. Indeed, few of these sons of darkness know that even as coherent dreams the two are incompatible. With Anarchy triumphant the Socialist would be a thousand years further from realization of his hope than he is today. Set up Socialism on a Monday and on Tuesday the country would be en fête, gaily hunting down Anarchists. There would be little difficulty in trailing them, for they have not so much sense as a deer, which, running down the wind, sends its tell-tale fragrance on before.
Socialism and Anarchism are the two extremes of political thought; they are parts of the same dung, in the sense that the terminal points of a road are parts of the same road. Between them, about midway, lies the system that we have the happiness to endure. It is a “blend” of Socialism and Anarchism in about equal parts: all that is not one is the other. Everything serving the common interest, or looking to the welfare of the whole people, is socialistic in the strictest sense of th
e word as understood by the Socialist Whatever tends to private advantage or advances an individual or class interest at the expense of a public one, is anarchistic. Cooperation is Socialism; competition is Anarchism. Competition carried to its logical conclusion (which only cooperation prevents or can prevent) would leave no law in force no property possible no life secure.
Of course the words “cooperation” and “competition” are not here used in a merely industrial and commercial sense; they are intended to cover the whole field of human activity. Two voices singing a duet — that is cooperation — Socialism. Two voices singing each a different tune and trying to drown each other — that is competition — Anarchism: each is a law unto itself — that is to say, it is lawless. Everything that ought to be done the Socialist hopes to do by associated endeavor, as an army wins battles; Anarchism is socialistic in its means only: by cooperation it tries to render cooperation impossible — combines to kill combination. Its method says to its purpose: “Thou fool!”
II.
Everything foretells the doom of authority. The killing of kings is no new industry; it is as ancient as the race. Always and everywhere persons in high place have been the assassin’s prey. We have ourselves lost three Presidents by murder, and will doubtless lose many another before the book of American history is closed. If anything is new in this activity of the regicide it is found in the choice of victims. The contemporary “avenger” slays, not the merely great, but the good and the inoffensive — an American President who had struck the chains from millions of slaves; a Russian Czar who against the will and work of his own powerful nobles had freed their serfs; a French President from whom the French people had received nothing but good; a powerless Austrian Empress, whose weight of sorrows touched the world to tears; a blameless Italian King beloved of his people; such is a part of the recent record of the regicide whose every entry is a tale of infamy unrelieved by one circumstance of justice, decency or good intention.
And the great Brazilian liberator died in exile.
This recent uniformity of malevolence in the choice of victims is not without significance. It points unmistakably to two facts: first, that the selections are made, not by the assassins themselves, but by some central control inaccessible to individual preference and unaffected by the fortunes of its instruments; second, that there is a constant purpose to manifest an antagonism, not to any individual ruler, but to rulers; not to any system of government, but to Government. It is a war, not upon those in authority, but upon Authority. The issue is defined, the alignment made, the battle set: Chaos against Order, Anarchy against Law.
Complete Works of Ambrose Bierce (Delphi Classics) Page 188