Complete Works of Ambrose Bierce (Delphi Classics)

by Ambrose Bierce

  “Colonel,” I said, “ pray tell me what is this building.”

  “This,” said he, “is the new state penitentiary. It is one of twelve, all alike.”

  “You surprise me,” I replied. “Surely the criminal element must have increased enormously.”

  “Yes, indeed,” he assented; “under the Reform régime, which began in your day, crime became so powerful, bold and fierce that arrests were no longer possible and the prisons then in existence were soon overcrowded. The state was compelled to erect others of greater capacity.”

  “But, Colonel,” I protested, “if the criminals were too bold and powerful to be taken into custody, of what use are the prisons? And how are they crowded?”

  He fixed upon me a look that I could not fail to interpret as expressing a doubt of my sanity. “What!” he said, “is it possible that the modern penology is unknown to you? Do you suppose we practise the antiquated and ineffective method of shutting up the rascals? Sir, the growth of the criminal element has, as I said, compelled the erection of more and larger prisons. We have enough to hold comfortably all the honest men and women of the state. Within these protecting walls they carry on all the necessary vocations of life excepting commerce. That is necessarily in the hands of the rogues, as before.”

  “Venerated representative of Reform,” I exclaimed, wringing his hand with effusion, “you are Knowledge, you are History, you are the Higher Education! We must talk further. Come, let us enter this benign edifice; you shall show me your dominion and instruct me in the rules. You shall propose me as an inmate.”

  I walked rapidly to the gate. When challenged by the sentinel, I turned to summon my instructor. He was nowhere visible. I turned again to look at the prison. Nothing was there: desolate and forbidding, as about the broken statue of Ozymandias, The lone and level sands stretched far away.

  A ROLLING CONTINENT

  LIKE hope, the passion for prophecy springs eternal in the human breast; man is prone to it, as the sparks fly upward. Stripped of its several disguises, a considerable part of the world’s writing and speaking is pure prediction; even the official forecaster of the weather bureau can not resist the universal urge and maintain a discreet and dignified silence befitting his office. Eliminate from politics, for example, all prophecies, expressed or implied — all the jeremiads based on assumption of the opposite party’s success and all the assurances of a golden age to ensue from its defeat — and politics will “look another thing.”

  But of all the cloud of witnesses to the kind of mountain which the mouse of our country’s future is to bring forth, none seems clearly to discern the adverse conditions environing the American prophet and foredooming to futility his vision and his dream. None appears to take account of the annulling fact that this continent is turning over like a man in bed; yet it ought to be obvious to the meanest understanding that if this movement continue it will supply conditions suitable to neither the reign of terror consequent upon the success of one’s political opponents nor the golden age dependent on the ascendency of the principles professed by oneself.

  It has been shown that the Farallon islands, just off the Pacific coast, are becoming, as Tennyson would put it, “more and more;” the lighthouse keeper out there is in progressive achievement of the role of “prominent citizen.” The bar at the mouth of San Francisco harbor is rising faster in fathoms than those farther inland in public esteem. In the steady ascension of the bottom of the bay lurks a possibility which without vanity we may affirm will astonish the astronomers of Mars. In short, the entire Pacific Coast is insurgent.

  On the Atlantic seaboard inundations from marine storms occur every year. The waves eat farther and farther into the land; the high-water mark of one decade becomes the low-water mark of the next, and diking as an agricultural method has a growing importance. It is estimated that the greater part of Manhattan island will be submerged within fifty years, and that within an even shorter period the Jersey mosquito will find no rest for the sole of his foot, and must become a pelican or quit.

  But the steady subsidence of the Atlantic littoral foreshadows changes more startling than these — more startling, at least, to some who have not the advantage to be Jersey mosquitoes. Man himself, the man of the Eastern states, Homo smugwumpus, will find himself face to face with a problem of supreme scientific interest and personal importance. Will he travel west and go up with the country, or, staying where he is, develop into a fish and be mighty quick about it? The ordinary process of evolution, whereby a million years are required to change a red worm into a rhinoceros or advance a cave-bat one step in biological preferment and make it a theologian, will not do for H. smugwumpus when the wave is at his armpits and his ancestral acres are falling away from his webless feet. Even the fittest of his species must travel with uncommon speed along the line of development in order to survive in the new environment. They must slide nimbly up the scale of being, passing every intermediate stage between smugwumphood and fishness without pausing to enjoy its advantages. Probably, however, most of them will prefer to ascend the new watercourses up the ever-steepening slope of the great plains, settling eventually on the summit of the continent, roundabout San Francisco — where it is to be hoped they will be welcome if they behave themselves. Doubtless they will miss many of the blessings of their lowland existence, but they will find in the superior altitude an immunity from sunstroke and the mad dog, which will be partial compensation for renouncing the fascinating study of the long thermometer.

  Probably the turning over of the continent will in time be stayed; to the unscientific mind, at least, its complete subversion is imperfectly thinkable. But for the next few thousand years, while still the memory of the purpose and efficacy of Noah’s deluge is fresh and pleasing in Heaven, the movement will be likely to continue. By the time that it ceases the Atlantic shore will perhaps be a contour line on the eastern declivity of the Rocky Mountains, and the Pacific slope comprise all that region now underlying the “great gulf” between this world and Hawaii. As a practical settlement of the annexation question on a staying basis, this unpolitical movement is worthy of the highest commendation. With the construction of the San Francisco and Honolulu Pacific Railroad by Government and at the rate of fifty million dollars a mile in hand paid to the owners of the road, and by them kept for their honesty, the status of the descendants of Kamehameha and Kalakaua will be definitely fixed — they will be payers of All That The Traffic Will Bear.

  The upward tendency of the Pacific side of the continent will be attended, no doubt, with certain inconveniences. Already the relentless progress of its ascension has laid “effacing fingers” on the amour propre of several worthy persons who thought themselves heavy enough to hold it down.

  1892.

  A MONUMENT TO ADAM

  IT is believed that every just-minded and right-feeling American will experience a glow of gratification in the assurance that after ages of indifference, neglect, and even contumelious disparagement, Adam is at last to have a monument. The proposal to erect a “suitable memorial” to the good forefather is singularly touching; in a tranquil, business-like way it gets a tolerably firm footing in the sympathies and sentiments of the human heart, quietly occupying the citadel of the affections before the unready conservatisms of habit, prejudice, and unreason can recover from their surprise to repel it. It will be difficult for even the most impenitent obstructionist to utter himself cogently in opposition; the promoters of the filial scheme will have the argument as much their own way as have the promoters of temperance, chastity, truth, and honor. The comparison is ominous, but not entirely discouraging, inasmuch as the builders of monuments are less dependent on “right reason and the will of God” than the builders of character. Stones are not laid in logic; even the men of the plains of Shinar, desperately wrong-headed as in the light of Revelation we now perceive them to have been, and ghastly incapable of adding an inch to their moral stature, succeeded in piling up a fairish testimonial to their own
worth, and would no doubt have achieved the top course had it not happened that suddenly each appeared to be of a different mind, so that in the multitude of counselors there was little wisdom. Dr. Noah Webster being dead — heaven rest him! — and the reporters of the press being easily propitiated with libations of news, there is not likely to be any tampering with the American tongue that will not be a distinct advantage to it; so we may reasonably expect the stones of the Adamite monument to be appropriately inscribed. Many reasons occur why this ought to be so. Of Adam, even more than of Washington it may justly be said that he was “first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen.” In truth, he was first in everything and all round.

  To the patriot the plan of erecting to him a fitting memorial will especially commend itself: it is an American, and therefore a superior, plan. Contrast its glossy originality with the threadbare second-handedness of the project to import Cleopatra’s other needle! The religious mind will not fail to discover in the proposal a kind of special providence for the arrest and eventual overthrow of Infidelity, against whose dark disciples it will lift a finger of permanent admonition. Can even the most flippant scoffer look up at the reverend pile and doubt the Mosaic account of creation? If the architect have only the sagacity to omit the date of erection, and the subscribers the self-denial to forego the glory of displaying their names on it, will not posterity naturally come to think that he whose virtues it commemorates “reposes beneath”? True, the wily scientist, alarmed for his theory, or touched with a sentiment of filial piety as he understands it, may countercheck by building a similar monument to the recent Ourang-Outang, the remote Ascidian, or the ultimate Bathybius. He may even have the prudent audacity to put up a stone to the memory of that unthinkable, and therefore irrefutable, Missing Link — as the groping pagan of antiquity with his single gleam of spiritual light erected an altar “To the Unknown God.” If the hardy Evolutionist do anything of this kind it will be a clear infringement of the leges non scriptœ of copyright. Justice, religion, and reason alike will dictate the upsetting of his profane memorial with as little compunction as the wave felt for Caliban’s designs in the sea-sand.

  That the Adam monument project is seriously entertained there can be no intelligent doubt: in the list of its founders is publicly mentioned a name which, for better or for worse, is inseparably linked with that of the Great Progenitor — the name of Mark Twain, whose sobs at the paternal tomb have reverberated through the world with an authenticating energy that makes the erection of the monument a matter of comparatively trifling importance, after all.

  1878.

  HYPNOTISM

  WE are all hypnotists. Every human being has in some degree the power to influence the thought and action of another, or some others, by what we will consent to call “hypnotic suggestion,” though the term, while serviceable, is inaccurate. Most of us have the power in varying degrees of feebleness, but few know how to apply what they have of it; but some have it so strong as to be able to control an unresisting will. Assent, however, is not always, nor usually, to be inferred from consent, even when consent is given in good faith; there is such a thing as unconscious resistance. In those having no knowledge of hypnotism, resistance is the natural attitude, for they think that susceptibility to control implies a weak will or a low intelligence, which is an error. At least the contrary view is supported by my own observation; and I accept some things, despite the fact that I have observed them to be true.

  The mysterious force which in its more spectacular manifestations we call hypnotism, and one form of which is known as “mind-reading,” is at the back of all kinds and degrees of affection and persuasion. Why is one person loved better than another person more worthy of love? Because he has more “personal magnetism.” This term is an old acquaintance; for many decades we have been using it to signify an engaging manner. We thought it a figurative expression; that is why it commended itself to us. But it denotes a fact with literalness; some persons have a quality, or rather a property, which actually does draw other persons toward and to them, as a magnet attracts steel; and it is the same property in magnet and in man, and can be augmented by the scientific use of apparatus. A favorite “subject” of mine when blindfolded and turned loose in a room and commanded to find a hidden object will sometimes fail. But she never fails if the object is a horse-shoe magnet.

  Did you ever, by oral argument, convince anyone that he was wrong and you right? Not often, of course, but sometimes, you think. If you are a member of Congress you are very sure about it; that is what you are a member of Congress for. I venture to believe that you never did. It was by unconscious hypnotism that you did the trick. Your argument (on the cogency and eloquence of which I congratulate you) served only to hold your victim’s attention to the matter in hand. Without it he might, have thought you wanted him to become a horse, and would indubitably have neighed and pranced.

  In the Twenty-first Century, doubtless, a legislator will owe his election to the confidence of his constituents in his ability to exert this kind of suasion. The candidate who can not by the power of his unaided eye compel his opponent to eat shoe-blacking and jump over a broomstick will not have the ghost of a chance at the polls.

  Suppose, madam, that your husband had relied upon argument to convince you that you ought to marry him. Of course he did have to plead long and hard — that is conceded; but suppose that while doing so he had always worn green spectacles. Or suppose that in all his long and arduous courtship he had never looked you squarely (and impudently) in the eyes — gloated upon you. I deem it certain, madam, that you would now be the wife of a wiser man, probably a deaf mute.

  In our present stage of controversial progress speech is not without a certain clumsy utility. It enables you to apprise your opponent of the views to which you invite his allegiance. But for the purpose of inducing him to accept them it is destitute of effect — is not at all superior to the plunk-plunking of a banjo, or that favorite political argument, the braying of a brass band. Your success in convincing another person depends upon (1) the degree of your hypnotic power, (2) your opportunities of exerting it and (3) his susceptibility to it. In brief, the business of converting the several kinds of heathens is a thing which, like checking the too rapid increase of population, cannot be done by talking. I have tried to show you how it can be done if you have the gift. If you have not, be thankful, for you will escape much defamation from those who believe hypnotism a kind of sorcery liable to the basest abuses and pracnotize a thief I can make him steal. If I can hypnotize a bad girl — but that would be needless. Whatever in one’s normal state one is tised only for purposes of sin. Is it possible so to practice it? Why, yes, if I can hyp-willing to do, or wants to do, one can be made to do by hypnotic control. That is as far as the power can go; it cannot make a sinner out of a saint, a demagogue out of a gentleman, nor a mute out of Theodore Roosevelt

  AT THE DRAIN OF THE WASHBASIN

  THE Prohibitionists, good souls, are funny. They are all “down upon” license — high or low — because it is a legal “recognition” of the liquor trade. As reasonably they might condemn fines for misdemeanor as legal recognition of misdemeanor. Until the liquor trade is forbidden it is legally recognized, whether licensed or not. Why can not militant aquarians accustom themselves to think of a license fee as an ante facto fine? I am not loaded down with controversial weapons for the fray between liquor and water; I love neither the one liquid nor the other; but I enjoy the quarrels of others, am enamored of effective means in battle and should be miserable if I had failed to point out to any combatant in any contention how he could obtain an honest advantage.

  Do I not drink water? Yes, a little — when instigated by thirst. Does any one drink it under any other circumstances? Does any one drink it because he likes it? — or rather, does any one like it when not suffering from a disagreeable disorder? We take water as medicine for the disease thirst. It is to be considered as a remedial agent — but so v
ilely compounded in nature’s laboratory and so distasteful to the normal palate that the world in all ages has been virtually united in avoiding it. Nothing has so stimulated human ingenuity and invited such constant investments as the discovery, invention and manufacture of palatable substitutes for plain water; and nothing could be more unphilosophical than to attribute this universal movement to perversity or caprice. Extravagant as are some of its manifestations, deplorable as are some of its consequences, at the back of it all, as at the back of every wide and persistent trend of human activity, is some imperious and unsleeping necessity.

  Consider, if you will be so good, what “drinking-water” actually is. It is the world’s sewage. It is what that dirty boy, the earth, has washed his face with. The wells, rivers and rills are nature’s slop-buckets, and the lowland springs are not much better; all soluble substances on or near the surface of the earth eventually get into them. Melted mountain snow is pure enough, but by the time it reaches the lip of the flatlander it is a solution of abomination. It is macerated man. It is hydrate of dead dog with an infusion of all that is untidy — infested with germs of nameless plagues, carrying ferocious anthropophagi and loaded with mordant minerals. By many scientists it is held that age is simply a disease caused, mainly, by cumulative deposits of lime and other inorganic matter in the organs of the body, most of them taken in water. If our drink were free of minerals and depeopled of its little reptiles it is probable that we might live a thousand years and die of the minerals and reptiles in our food — those of us who are not shot or hanged.