Complete Works of Ambrose Bierce (Delphi Classics)

by Ambrose Bierce

  Let the flag flap, and let “our ill-starred fellow citizens” who are unable to get a firm mental grasp on what it stands for knuckle down upon their knees before it and lift the voice. But, God bless them! how they would be shocked to observe the indifference with which it is regarded by soldiers in battle! One of the sharpest and most righteous rebukes I ever got from high authority was for permitting my color-sergeant to flaunt his gaudy symbol in the face of a battery. To civilian orators and poets the flag is sacred; to the intelligent soldier it is merely useful: it marks the battle line, preserves the unity of the regiment and “inspires” the soldier that is unintelligent.

  A singularly disagreeable instance of fetishism is related of the Hon. William Jennings Bryan. While in Tokio, the story goes — among his admirers — he purchased a stool upon which Admiral Togo had sat at a Shinto ceremony. The story has it that the sale was reluctantly made, for the stool had been long a sacred object before it was newly consecrated by contact with the person of the renowned sailor; but the custodians did not feel at liberty to disappoint so illustrious an American as Mr. Bryan. On learning this, the great man magnanimously returned it and contented himself, as well as he could, with a common chair upon which Togo had sat in a restaurant.

  It is disagreeable to think of Mr. Bryan in the character of a sycophantic souvenir hunter. It is disagreeable to think that even the humblest and obscurest American citizen can have so little self-respect. Anthropolatry is but a shade less base and barbarous than that other primitive religion, fetishism; and the two, as in this instance, are often in coexistence. No superstition seems ever wholly to die. Both these are rife and rampant in the civilization of to-day, and one can name, offhand, a dozen of their customary manifestations by persons who would be shocked by the revelation of their close relationship to the shagpate cave-dweller, the remoter pithecanthropes erectus, and, at the back of them both, the quadrumanal arborean with a vestigial swim-bladder.

  DID WE EAT ONE ANOTHER?

  THERE is no doubt of it. The unwelcome truth has been long suppressed by interested parties who find their account in playing sycophant to that self-satisfied tyrant Modern Man; but to the impartial philosopher it is as plain as the nose upon the elephant’s face that our ancestors ate one another. The custom of the Fiji Islanders, which is their only stock-in-trade, their only claim to notoriety, is a relic of barbarism; but it is a relic of our barbarism.

  Man is naturally a carnivorous animal. That none but green-grocers will dispute. That he was formerly less vegetarian in his diet than at present, is clear from the fact that market gardening increases in the ratio of civilization. So we may safely assume that at some remote period Man subsisted on an exclusively flesh diet. Our uniform vanity has given us the human mind as the acme of intelligence, the human face and figure as the standard of beauty. Of course we cannot deny to human fat and lean an equal superiority over beef, mutton and pork. It is plain that our meat-eating ancestors would think in this way, and being unrestrained by the mawkish sentiment attendant on high civilization, would act habitually on the obvious suggestion. A priori, therefore, it is clear that we ate ourselves.

  Philology is about the only thread that connects us with the prehistoric past. By picking up and piecing together the scattered remnants of language, we form a patchwork of wondrous design and significance. Consider the derivation of the word “sarcophagus,” and see if it be not suggestive of potted meats. Observe the significance of the phrase “sweet sixteen.” What a world of meaning lurks in the expression “she is as sweet as a peach,” and how suggestive of luncheon are the words “tender youth.” A kiss is but a modified bite, and a fond mother, when she says her babe is “almost good enough to eat,” merely shows that she is herself only a trifle too good to eat it.

  These evidences might be multiplied ad infinitum; but if enough has been said to induce one human being to revert to the diet of his forefathers the object of this essay is accomplished.

  ;l868«

  THE BACILLUS OF CRIME

  FOR a number of years it has been known to all but a few ancient physicians — survivals from an exhausted régime — that all disease is caused by bacilli, which worm themselves into the organs that secrete health and enjoin them from the performance of that rite. The medical conservatives mentioned attempt to whittle away the value and significance of this theory by affirming its inadequacy to account for such disorders as broken heads, sunstroke, superfluous toes, Home-sickness, burns and strangulation on the gallows; but against the testimony of so eminent bacteriologers as Drs. Koch and Pasteur their carping is as that of the impatient angler. The bacillus is not to be denied; he has brought his blankets and is here to stay until evicted. Doubtless we may confidently expect his eventual supersession by a fresher and more ingenious disturber of the physiological peace, but he is now chief among ten thousand evils and the one altogether lovely, and it is futile to attempt to read him out of the party.

  . It follows that in order to deal intelligently with the criminal impulse in our afflicted fellow-citizens we must discover the bacillus of crime, which we now know is merely disease with another name. To that end we think that the bodies of hanged assassins and such patients of low degree as have been gathered to their fathers by the cares of public office or consumed by the rust of inactivity in prison should be handed over to a microscopical society for examination. The bore, too, offers a fine field for research, and might justly enough be examined alive. Whether there is one general — or as the ancient and honorable orders prefer to say, “grand” — bacillus, producing a general (or grand) criminal impulse generating a multitude of sins, or an infinite number of well defined and several bacilli, each inciting to a particular crime, is a question to the determination of which the most distinguished microscopist might be proud to devote the powers of his eye. If the latter is the case it will somewhat complicate the treatment, for clearly the patient afflicted with chronic assassination will require different-medicines from those which might be efficacious in a gentleman suffering from constitutional theft or the desire to represent his district in Congress. But it is permitted to us to hope that all the crimes, like all the arts, are essentially one; that murder, commerce and respectability are but different symptoms of the same physical disorder, at the back of which is a microbe vincible to a single medicament, albeit the same awaits discovery.

  In the fascinating theory of the unity of crime we may not unreasonably hope to find another evidence of the brotherhood of man, another spiritual bond tending to draw the several classes of society more closely together. If such should be the practical effect of the great truth something will have been gained, even if the discovery of a suitable medicine to restore our enemies to health be delayed until all too late to save them from rude and primitive treatment by the sheriff.

  1893.

  THE GAME OF BUTTON

  AMONG the countless evils besetting us in our passage through this vale of tears “to where beyond these voices there is peace,” the button holds a conspicuous place, and is apparently inaccessible to the spirit of reform. Less shocking than war, pestilence or famine, less destructive than the Dingley tariff and less irritating than the Indiana novel, it is thought by many observers to be, in the sum of its effects in reducing the gayety of nations, superior to any of these maleficent agencies, and by some to excel them all together. In the persistent currency of the story of the man who killed himself because of his weariness in buttoning and unbuttoning his clothes we have strong confirmatory testimony to the button’s “natural magic and dire property on wholesome life.” The story itself appears to be destitute of authentication, and but for its naturalness, its inherent credibility and the way that these bring it home to men’s business and bosoms it would probably have had as evanescent a vogue as the immortal works discovered weekly by the literary critics of the newspapers. As it is, this simple and touching tale will probably live as long as any language, possibly as long as the button itself. For the butt
on is apparently immortal. It has struck root deeply into human conservatism — more deeply, 1 am constrained to admit, than it has, generally speaking, into the textile fabrics with which it is commonly but somewhat precariously connected.

  That the button is in some sense a benefaction is not lightly to be denied. In its unostentatious way, and when it stays on, it does a good deal for the comfort of mankind, as, the police permitting, one may readily convince himself by walking a few blocks without its artful aid. Its splendid opportunities of usefulness, however, are the creations, not so much of our ingenuity, as of our limitations. If the human race had been born omniscient (in the tops of trees, as is thought to be held by the Darwinians) instead of achieving omniscience too lately to overcome the button habit, we should not have had the primitive appliance thrust upon us, for we should never have thrust ourselves into the tubular clothing which seems to require its ministrations.

  Even in the endurance of that capital affliction we are not intelligently aided by the button. It badly serves a needless need and the common sense of the race cries out against it as clumsy, ugly, inefficient and frequently absent from duty at a critical moment which it has malevolently foreseen. It is better than nothing, doubtless, but when considered along with the hook-and-eye, for example, it breaks down at every point of the comparison. The tailor who, disregarding the mandates of conservatism and tradition, and filled with a divine compassion for his race, should rise to the great occasion and with one foot upon the sea and the other upon the land declare that buttons should be no more would accomplish an enduring fame and dispute with Washington and draw-poker the first place in the hearts of his countrymen. He would have only to replace the button, where it serves as a fastener, with some simple adaptation of the hook-and-eye, and where it exists as a mere survival (as for example at the back of a frock-coat, where it once assisted in supporting the sword-belt) put nothing at all, and the millions yet to be would rise up and call him blest.

  I have preferred to consider this matter with reference mainly to the woes and wants of the coarser sex, but the button is known to woman. With the charming superiority to reason which her detractors term perversity she prefers it on the left-hand side of her garments, but it dominates her life and poisons her peace none die less for that; albeit she offers herself the solace of turning it into an ornament more or less fearfully and wonderfully made.

  In modern religious history Avomen and buttons have a connection which is as singular as interesting. To the great movement which resulted in establishing Protestantism the name “Reformation” is not universally deemed appropriate, but there is one of his many aspects in which Martin Luther may be contemplated by all as a true reformer. Before his day women invariably used the hook-and-eye exclusively, which was well enough. Unfortunately, however, they had conceived the remarkable notion that this simple and useful appliance for joining together what man is not permitted to put asunder, would abate something of its efficacy if placed where reason would naturally suggest. All women’s dresses were made to hook behind, and in being fastened required the services of another person than the wearer. For this reason, and because God had made him so, Luther assailed the custom with all the fire and fierceness of his polemical nature. So long as women could not dress themselves without assistance, he argued, they must be slaves, and their spiritual natures must remain undeveloped until they should fasten their frocks in front. Calvin, on the contrary, found nothing in the Scriptures authorizing women to enter their clothing backward and set his face like a flint against the impious innovation. The contest between the disciples of these two mighty minds was waged with great bitterness, notwithstanding the efforts of the gentle Melancthon, who stood for peace and tried to part them in the middle, enacting, indeed, the role of Mr. Facing-both-ways. In the end Luther conquered. All good Protestant dames and maidens save those of his antagonist’s immediate following adopted his views and eventually the Catholic ladies swung into line, too. But in some of the dark corners of Europe and America a vestige of the Calvinist influence survives, and ladies’ gowns open behind like the chrysalis of a locust.

  The one change entailed another; for many years — until, indeed, the button habit had become invincible — it did not occur to any of the hair sex that the hook-and-eye could be used in front as well as surreptitiously behind the back. That truth has now penetrated the female mind and sometimes warms it into action: but for the most part lovely woman is infested with the parasitic button as badly as the male of her species, and of neither does it manifest a disposition to let go. It has usually its buttonhole to bear it company, and doubtless looks forward to a long season of domestic felicity and profound repose while engaged in the business of breaking up families and promoting breaches of the peace by sapping the foundation of temper, leveling the outworks of patience and desolating the whole domain of the Christian virtues.

  SLEEP

  IT is hardly a “burning question”; it is not even a “problem that presses for solution.” Nevertheless, to minds not incurious as to the future it has a mild, pleasing interest, like that of the faintly heard beating of the bells of distant cows that will come in and demand attention later.

  It by no means appears that sleep is a natural function, the necessity of which inheres in animal life and the constitution of things; there is reason to regard it as a phenomenon due rather to stress of circumstances — a kind of intermittent disorder incurred by exposure to conditions that are being slowly but surely removed. Precisely as sanitary and medical science and improved methods of living are gradually extending the length of human life in every civilized country and threatening the king of shadows himself with death ere, in the poet’s sense, “Time shall throw a dart” at him, so we may observe already the initial stages of a successful campaign against his brother “Sleep.” Civilized peoples sleep fewer hours than savage ones, and, among the civilized, dwellers in cities fewer than country folk. The reason is not far to seek: it is a matter of light.

  Primitive Man, like the savage of to-day, had at night no other light than that of the moon and that of wood fires. For countless ages our ancestors lived without candles, and when they had learned the trick of burning rushes soaked in the fat of neighboring tribesmen their state was not greatly better. Beyond Primitive Man we may dimly discern his ancestors — unmentionable to ears un-Darwinized — who had no artificial light at all. In the darkness of the night and the forest what could these ancient worthies do? They had little enough to do at any time, but even their rudest pursuit — that of one another — could not be carried on in darkness. They did nothing, naturally assuming the most comfortable posture in which to do it, the earlier sort suspending themselves by their tails, the later, having no tails, lying down as we do to-day, or rather to-night. It is a law of nature that when the body, or any organ of it, is inactive a kind of torpor ensues; the blood circulates in it with a more feeble flow; molecular changes take place with a lessened energy — in short, the creature begins to die, and can be restored to full life only by renewal of bodily activity. In the instance of the brain this torpor means unconsciousness — that is to say, sleep. To put the matter briefly, darkness compels inaction, inaction begets sleep.

  Another law of nature — a rather comical one — is that acts which we do regularly, from choice or necessity, set up a tendency in us to do them involuntarily when we don’t care to; and when the original impulse has been replaced by this new and more imperative one we give it the name of habit and flatter ourselves that we have explained it. Because our pithecanthropoid and autocthonic forefathers, unable by reason of darkness to indulge during the whole twenty-four hours in the one-sided pleasures of the chase and the mutual joy of braining one another, had to sleep, we have to sleep; although we have (by paying sorely for it) plenty of light for many kinds of malign activity.

  But little by little we are overcoming the sleep habit without loss of health, if not with positive sanitary advantage. As before pointed out, the people
of our lighted cities sleep less than the rural population; and this sleeps less than it did before the improvement in lamps. Nothing is more certain, despite popular opinion to the contrary, than that the men of cities are superior in strength and endurance to those of the country, as is abundantly attested in army life, in camp and field. That this is wholly or even greatly due to their nocturnal activity is not affirmed; only that their addiction to the joys of insomnia has not appreciably counteracted the sanitary advantages of city life — amongst which an honorable prominence should be given to defective drainage and drinking-water that is largely solution of dog and hydrate of husband from the city reservoir.

  The electric light has apparently “come to stay,” but more likely it will in good time be replaced by something that as far exceeds it as itself beats the hallowed tallow candle of our grandmothers. Not only will the streets and shops and dwellings of our cities be illuminated all night with a splendor of which we can have hardly a conception, but the country districts as well; for it is now known that plants (which apparently are not creatures of habit) do not need sleep, and that by continuous light the profits of agriculture could be enormously increased. The farmers will no longer retire with the lark, but will work night shifts, as is already done in factories and mines, and eventually work all the time, in order to support the rest of us in the style to which we have been accustomed.