A Cynic Look at Life

by Ambrose Bierce

  Human nature is pretty well balanced; for every lacking virtue there is a rough substitute that will serve at a pinch-as cunning is the wisdom of the unwise, and ferocity the courage of the coward. Nobody is altogether bad; the scoundrel who has grown rich by underpaying workmen in his factory will sometimes endow an asylum for indigent seamen. To oppress one's own workmen, and provide for the workmen of a neighbor-to skin those in charge of one's own interests while cottoning and oiling the residuary product of another's skinnery-that is not very good benevolence, nor very good sense, but it serves in place of both. The man who eats pâté de fois gras in the sweat of his girl cashier's face, or wears purple and fine linen in order that his typewriter may have an eocene gown and a pliocene hat, seems a tolerably satisfactory specimen of the genus thief; but let us not forget that in his own home-a fairly good one-he may enjoy and merit that highest and most honorable title on the scroll of woman's favor, "a good provider." One having a claim to that glittering distinction should enjoy immunity from the coarse and troublesome question, "From whose backs and bellies do you provide?"

  So much for the material results to the sex. What are the moral results? One does not like to speak of them, particularly to those who do not and can not know-to good women in whose innocent minds female immorality is inseparable from flashy gowning and the painted face; to foolish, book-taught men who honestly believe in some protective sanctity that hedges womanhood. If men of the world with years enough to have lived out of the old régime into the new would testify in this matter there would ensue a great rattling of dry bones in bodices of reform-ladies. Nay, if the young man about town, knowing nothing of how things were in the "dark backward and absym of time," but something of the moral distance between even so free-running a creature as the society girl and the average working girl of the factory, the shop and the office, would speak out (under assurance of immunity from prosecution) his testimony would be a surprise to the cartilaginous virgins, blowsy matrons, acrid relicts and hairy males of Emancipation. It would pain, too, some very worthy but unobservant persons not in sympathy with "the cause."

  Certain significant facts are within the purview of all but the very young and the comfortably blind. To the woman of to-day the man of to-day is imperfectly polite. In place of reverence he gives her "deference"; to the language of compliment has succeeded the language of raillery. Men have almost forgotten how to bow. Doubtless the advanced female prefers the new manner, as may some of her less forward sisters, thinking it more sincere. It is not; our giddy grandfather talked high-flown nonsense because his heart had tangled his tongue. He treated his woman more civilly than we ours because he loved her better. He never had seen her on the "rostrum" and in the lobby, never had heard her in advocacy of herself, never had read her confessions of his sins, never had felt the stress of her competition, nor himself assisted by daily personal contact in rubbing the bloom off her. He did not know that her virtues were due to her secluded life, but thought, dear old boy, that they were a gift of God.

  A MAD WORLD

  Let us suppose that in tracing its cycloidal curves through the unthinkable reaches of space traversed by the solar system our planet should pass through a "belt" of attenuated matter having the property of dementing us! It is a conception easily enough entertained. That space is full of malign conditions incontinuously distributed; that we are at one time traversing a zone comparatively innocuous and at another spinning through a region of infection; that away behind us in the wake of our swirling flight are fields of plague and pain still agitated by our passage through them,-all this is as good as known. It is almost as certain as it is that in our little annual circle round the sun are points at which we are stoned and brick-batted like a pig in a potato-patch-pelted with little nodules of meteoric metal flung like gravel, and bombarded with gigantic masses hurled by God knows what? What strange adventures await us in those yet untraveled regions toward which we speed?-into what malign conditions may we not at any time plunge?-to the strength and stress of what frightful environment may we not at last succumb? The subject lends itself readily enough to a jest, but I am not jesting: it is really altogether probable that our solar system, racing through space with inconceivable velocity, will one day enter a region charged with something deleterious to the human brain, minding us all mad-wise.

  By the way, dear reader, did you ever happen to consider the possibility that you are a lunatic, and perhaps confined in an asylum? It seems to you that you are not-that you go with freedom where you will, and use a sweet reasonableness in all your works and ways; but to many a lunatic it seems that he is Rameses II, or the Holkar of Indore. Many a plunging maniac, ironed to the floor of a cell, believes himself the Goddess of Liberty careering gaily through the Ten Commandments in a chariot of gold. Of your own sanity and identity you have no evidence that is any better than he has of his. More accurately, I have none of mine; for anything I know, you do not exist, nor any one of all the things with which I think myself familiarly conscious. All may be fictions of my disordered imagination. I really know of but one reason for doubting that I am an inmate of an asylum for the insane-namely, the probability that there is nowhere any such thing as an asylum for the insane.

  This kind of speculation has charms that get a good neck-hold upon attention. For example, if I am really a lunatic, and the persons and things that I seem to see about me have no objective existence, what an ingenious though disordered imagination I must have! What a clever coup it was to invent Mr. Rockefeller and clothe him with the attribute of permanence! With what amusing qualities I have endowed my laird of Skibo, philanthropist. What a masterpiece of creative humor is my Fatty Taft, statesman, taking himself seriously, even solemnly, and persuading others to do the same! And this city of Washington, with its motley population of silurians, parvenoodles and scamps pranking unashamed in the light of day, and its saving contingent of the forsaken righteous, their seed begging bread,-did Rabelais' exuberant fancy ever conceive so-but Rabelais is, perhaps, himself a conception.

  Surely he is no common maniac who has wrought out of nothing the history, the philosophies, sciences, arts, laws, religions, politics and morals of this imaginary world. Nay, the world itself, tumbling uneasily through space like a beetle's ball, is no mean achievement, and I am proud of it. But the mental feat in which I take most satisfaction, and which I doubt not is most diverting to my keepers, is that of creating Mr. W.R. Hearst, pointing his eyes toward the White House and endowing him with a perilous Jacksonian ambition to defile it. The Hearst is distinctly a treasure.

  On the whole, I have done, I think, tolerably well, and when I contemplate the fertility and originality of my inventions, the queer unearthliness and grotesque actions of the characters whom I have evolved, isolated and am cultivating, I cannot help thinking that if Heaven had not made me a lunatic my peculiar talent might have made me an entertaining writer.

  EPIGRAMS OF A CYNIC

  If every hypocrite in the United States were to break his leg to-day the country could be successfully invaded to-morrow by the warlike hypocrites of Canada.

  To Dogmatism the Spirit of Inquiry is the same as the Spirit of Evil, and to pictures of the latter it appends a tail to represent the note of interrogation.

  "Immoral" is the judgment of the stalled ox on the gamboling lamb.

  In forgiving an injury be somewhat ceremonious, lest your magnanimity be construed as indifference.

  True, man does not know woman. But neither does woman.

  Age is provident because the less future we have the more we fear it.

  Reason is fallible and virtue invincible; the winds vary and the needle forsakes the pole, but stupidity never errs and never intermits. Since it has been found that the axis of the earth wabbles, stupidity is indispensable as a standard of constancy.

  In order that the list of able women may be memorized for use at meetings of the oppressed sex, Heaven has considerately made it brief.

  Firmness is my persisten
cy; obstinacy is yours.

  A little heap of dust,

  A little streak of rust,

  A stone without a name-

  Lo! hero, sword and fame.

  Our vocabulary is defective; we give the same name to woman's lack of temptation and man's lack of opportunity.

  "You scoundrel, you have wronged me," hissed the philosopher. "May you live forever!"

  The man who thinks that a garnet can be made a ruby by setting it in brass is writing "dialect" for publication.

  "Who art thou, stranger, and what dost thou seek?" "I am Generosity, and I seek a person named Gratitude." "Then thou dost not deserve to find her." "True. I will go about my business and think of her no more. But who art thou, to be so wise?" "I am Gratitude-farewell forever."

  There was never a genius who was not thought a fool until he disclosed himself; whereas he is a fool then only.

  The boundaries that Napoleon drew have been effaced; the kingdoms that he set up have disappeared. But all the armies and statecraft of Europe cannot unsay what you have said.

  Strive not for singularity in dress;

  Fools have the more and men of sense the less.

  To look original is not worth while,

  But be in mind a little out of style.

  A conqueror arose from the dead. "Yesterday," he said, "I ruled half the world." "Please show me the half that you ruled," said an angel, pointing out a wisp of glowing vapor floating in space. "That is the world."

  "Who art thou, shivering in thy furs?" "My name is Avarice. What is thine?" "Unselfishness." "Where is thy clothing, placid one?" "Thou art wearing it."

  To be comic is merely to be playful, but wit is a serious matter. To laugh at it is to confess that you do not understand.

  If you would be accounted great by your contemporaries, be not too much greater than they.

  To have something that he will not desire, nor know that he has-such is the hope of him who seeks the admiration of posterity. The character of his work does not matter; he is a humorist.

  Women, and foxes, being weak, are distinguished by superior tact.

  To fatten pigs, confine and feed them; to fatten rogues, cultivate a generous disposition.

  Every heart is the lair of a ferocious animal. The greatest wrong that you can put upon a man is to provoke him to let out his beast.

  When two irreconcilable propositions are presented for assent the safest way is to thank Heaven that we are not as the unreasoning brutes, and believe both.

  Truth is more deceptive than falsehood, for it is more frequently presented by those from whom we do not expect it, and so has against it a numerical presumption.

  A bad marriage is like an electrical thrilling machine: it makes you dance, but you can't let go.

  Meeting Merit on a street-crossing, Success stood still. Merit stepped off into the mud and went around him, bowing his apologies, which Success had the grace to accept.

  "I think," says the philosopher divine, "Therefore I am." Sir, here's a surer sign: We know we live, for with our every breath we feel the fear and imminence of death.

  The first man you meet is a fool. If you do not think so ask him and he will prove it.

  He who would rather inflict injustice than suffer it will always have his choice, for no injustice can be done to him.

  There are as many conceptions of a perfect happiness hereafter as there are minds that have marred their happiness here.

  We yearn to be, not what we are, but what we are not. If we were immortal we should not crave immortality.

  A rabbit's foot may bring good luck to you, but it brought none to the rabbit.

  Before praising the wisdom of the man who knows how to hold his tongue ascertain if he knows how to hold his pen.

  The most charming view in the world is obtained by introspection.

  Love is unlike chess, in that the pieces are moved secretly and the player sees most of the game. But the looker-on has one incomparable advantage: he is not the stake.

  It is not for nothing that tigers choose to hide in the jungle, for commerce and trade are carried on, mostly, in the open.

  We say that we love, not whom we will, but whom we must. Our judgment need not, therefore, go to confession.

  Of two kinds of temporary insanity, one ends in suicide, the other in marriage.

  If you give alms from compassion, why require the beneficiary to be "a deserving object?" No other adversity is so sharp as destitution of merit.

  Bereavement is the name that selfishness gives to a particular privation.

  O proud philanthropist, your hope is vain

  To get by giving what you lost by gain.

  With every gift you do but swell the cloud

  Of witnesses against you, swift and loud-

  Accomplices who turn and swear you split

  Your life: half robber and half hypocrite.

  You're least unsafe when most intact you hold

  Your curst allotment of dishonest gold.

  The highest and rarest form of contentment is approval of the success of another.

  If Inclination challenge, stand and fight-

  From Opportunity the wise take flight.

  What a woman most admires in a man is distinction among men. What a man most admires in a woman is devotion to himself.

  Those who most loudly invite God's attention to themselves when in peril of death are those who should most fervently wish to escape his observation.

  When you have made a catalogue of your friend's faults it is only fair to supply him with a duplicate, so that he may know yours.

  How fascinating is Antiquity!-in what a golden haze the ancients lived their lives! We, too, are ancients. Of our enchanting time Posterity's great poets will sing immortal songs, and its archaeologists will reverently uncover the foundations of our palaces and temples. Meantime we swap jack-knives.

  Observe, my son, with how austere a virtue the man without a cent puts aside the temptation to manipulate the market or acquire a monopoly.

  For study of the good and the bad in woman two women are a needless expense.

  "There's no free will," says the philosopher;"

  To hang is most unjust."

  "There is no free will," assents the officer;

  "We hang because we must."

  Hope is an explorer who surveys the country ahead. That is why we know so much about the Hereafter and so little about the Heretofore.

  Remembering that it was a woman who lost the world, we should accept the act of cackling geese in saving Rome as partial reparation.

  There are two classes of women who may do as they please; those who are rich and those who are poor. The former can count on assent, the latter on inattention.

  When into the house of the heart Curiosity is admitted as the guest of Love she turns her host out of doors.

  Happiness has not to all the same name: to Youth she is known as the Future; Age knows her as the Dream.

  "Who art thou, there in the mire?" "Intuition. I leaped all the way from where thou standest in fear on the brink of the bog." "A great feat, madam; accept the admiration of Reason, sometimes known as Dryfoot."

  In eradicating an evil, it makes a difference whether it is uprooted or rooted up. The difference is in the reformer.

  The Audible Sisterhood rightly affirms the equality of the sexes: no man is so base but some woman is base enough to love him.

  Having no eyes in the back of the head, we see ourselves on the verge of the outlook. Only he who has accomplished the notable feat of turning about knows himself the central figure in the universe.

  Truth is so good a thing that falsehood can not afford to be without it.

  If women did the writing of the world, instead of the talking, men would be regarded as the superior sex in beauty, grace and goodness.

  Love is a delightful day's journey. At the farther end kiss your companion and say farewell.

  Let him who would wish to duplicate his every experience pra
te of the value of life.

  The game of discontent has its rules, and he who disregards them cheats. It is not permitted to you to wish to add another's advantages or possessions to your own; you are permitted only to wish to be another.

  The creator and arbiter of beauty is the heart; to the male rattlesnake the female rattlesnake is the loveliest thing in nature.

  Thought and emotion dwell apart. When the heart goes into the head there is no dissension; only an eviction.

  If you want to read a perfect book there is only one way: write it.

  "Where goest thou, Ignorance?" "To fortify the mind of a maiden against a peril." "I am going thy way. My name is Knowledge." "Scoundrel! Thou art the peril."

  A prude is one who blushes modestly at the indelicacy of her thoughts and virtuously flies from the temptation of her desires.

  The man who is always taking you by the hand is the same who if you were hungry would take you by the cafe.

  When a certain sovereign wanted war he threw out a diplomatic intimation; when ready, a diplomat.

  If public opinion were determined by a throw of the dice, it would in the long run be half the time right.

  The gambling known as business looks with austere disfavor upon the business known as gambling.