Delphi Complete Works of Ambrose Bierce (Illustrated)

by Bierce, Ambrose

  Originally born in Massachusetts, but for twenty-one years a native of California and partially bald, possessing a cosmopolitan nature that loved an English shilling as well, in proportion to its value, as a Mexican dollar, the subject of our memoir was one whom it was an honour to know, and whose close friendship was a luxury that only the affluent could afford. It shall even be the writer’s proudest boast that he enjoyed it at less than half the usual rates.

  The circumstances attending his taking off were most mournful. He had been for some time very much depressed in spirits of one kind and another, and on last Wednesday morning was observed to be foaming at the mouth. No attention was paid to this; his family believing it to be a symptom of hydrophobia, with which he had been afflicted from the cradle. Suddenly a dark-eyed stranger entered the house, took the patient’s neck between his thumb and forefinger, threw the body across his shoulder, winked respectfully to the bereaved widow, and withdrew by way of the kitchen cellar. Farewell, pure soul! we shall meet again.

  .... We are reluctantly compelled to relate the untimely death of Mrs. Margaret Ann Picklefinch, which occurred about one o’clock yesterday morning. The circumstances attending the melancholy event were these: —

  Just before the hour named, her husband, the well-known temperance lecturer, and less generally known temperance lecturee, came home from an adjourned meeting of the Cold–Water Legion, and retired very drunk. His estimable lady got up and pulled off his boots, as usual. He got into bed and she lay down beside him. She uttered a mild preliminary oath of endearment and suddenly ceased speaking. It must have been about this time she died. About daylight he invited her to get up and make a fire. Detecting no movement in her body he enforced family discipline. The peculiar hard sound of his wife striking the floor first aroused his suspicions of the bereavement he had sustained, and upon rising later in the day he found his first fears realized; the lady had waived her claim to his further protection.

  We extend to Mr. P. our sincere sympathy in the greatest calamity that can befall an unmarriageable man. The inconsolable survivor called at our office last evening, conversed feelingly some moments about the virtues of the dear departed, and left with the air of a dog that has had his tail abbreviated and is forced to begin life anew. Truly the decrees of Providence appear sometimes absurd.

  .... Mr. Bildad Gorcas, whose death has cast a wet blanket of gloom over our community, was a man comparatively unknown, but his life furnishes an instructive lesson to fast livers. Mr. Gorcas never in his life tasted ardent spirits, ate spiced meats, or sat up later than nine o’clock in the evening. He rose, summer and winter, at two A. M., and passed an hour and three quarters immersed in ice water. For the last twenty years he has walked fifteen miles daily before breakfast, and then gone without breakfast. During his waking hours he was never a moment idle; when not hard at work he was trying to think. Up to the time of his death, which occurred last Sunday, he had never spoken to a doctor, never had occasion to curse a dentist, had a luxurious growth of variegated hair, and there was not a wrinkle upon any part of his body. If he had not been cut off by falling across a circular saw at the early age of thirty-two, there is no telling how long he might have weathered it through.

  A life like his is so bright and shining an example that we are almost sorry he died.

  .... During the week just rolled into eternity, our city has been plunged into the deepest grief. He who doeth all things well, though to our weak human understanding His acts may sometimes seen to savour of injustice, has seen fit to remove from amongst us one whose genius and blameless life had endeared him to friend and foe alike.

  In saying that Mr. Jowler was a dog of preeminent abilities and exceptional virtues, we but faintly echo the verdict of a bereaved Universe. Endowed with a gigantic intellect and a warm heart, modest in his demeanour genial in his intercourse with friends and acquaintances, and forbearing towards strangers (with whom he ever maintained the most cordial relations, unmarred by the gross familiarity-too common among dogs of inferior breeds), inoffensive in his daily walk and conversation, the deceased was universally respected and his loss will be even more generally deplored.

  It would be a work of supererogation to give a résumé of the public career of one so well known-one whose name has become a household word. In private life his character was equally estimable. He had ever a wag of encouragement for the young, the ill-favoured, the belaboured, and the mangy. Though his gentle spirit has passed away, he has left with us the record of his virtues as a shining example for all puppies; and the writer is pleased to admit that so far as in him lay he has himself endeavoured to profit by it.

  Pagans.

  .... Yo Hop is dead! He was last seen alive about three o’clock yesterday morning by a white labourer who was returning home after an elongated orgie at a Barbary Coast inn, and at the time seemed to be in undisputed possession of all his faculties; the remainder of his personal property having been transferred to the white labourer aforesaid. At the moment alluded to, Mr. Hop was in the act of throwing up his arms, as if to ward off some impending danger in the hands of the sole spectator. An instant later he experienced one of those sudden deaths which have made this city popularly famous and surgically interesting.

  The lamented was forty years of age; how much longer he might have lived, in his own country, it is impossible to determine; but it is to be remarked that the climate of California is a very trying one to people of his peculiar organization. The body was kindly taken in charge by a resident of the vicinity, and now lies in state in his back yard, where it is being carefully prepared for burial by those skilful meathounds, Messrs. Lassirator, Mangler, and Chure, whose names are a sufficient guarantee that the mournful rites will be attended to in a manner befitting the solemn occasion.

  We tender the bereaved widow our sincere sympathy at the regular rates. The cause of Mr. Hop’s demise is unknown. It is unimportant.

  .... A dead Asian was recently found in a ditch in Nevada county. His head, like that of a toad, had a precious jewel imbedded in it, about the size of an ordinary watermelon, and a clear majority of his fingers, toes, and features had received Christian burial in the stomachs of several contiguous hogs with roving commissions. As he seemed unwilling to state who he was, or how he got his deserts, he was tenderly replaced in his last ditch, and his discoverers proceeded leisurely for the coroner. Upon the arrival of that public functionary some days later, a pile of nice clean bones was discovered, with this touching epitaph inscribed with a lead pencil upon a segment of the skull:

  “Yur lize wot cant be chawd of Chineece jaik; xekewted bi me fur a plitikle awfens, and et bi mi starven hogs, wich aint hed nuthin afore sence jaix boss stoal mi korn. BIL ROPER, and ov sich is Kingdem cum.”

  .... The following report of an autopsy is of peculiar interest to physicians and Christians: — Case 81st. — Felo de se. Yow Kow, yellow, male, Chinese, aged 94; found dead on the street; addicted to opium. Autopsy-sixteen hours after death. Slobbering at the mouth; head caved in; immense rigor mortis; eyes dilated and gouged out; abdomen lacerated; hemorrhage from left ear. Head. Water on the brain; scalp congested, rather; when burst with a mallet interior of head resembled a war map. Thorax. Charge of buckshot in left lung; diaphragm suffused; heart wanting-finger marks in that vicinity; traces of hobnails outside. Abdomen. Lacerated as aforesaid; small intestines cumbered with brick dust; slingshot in duodenum; boot-heel imbedded in pelvis; butcher’s knife fixed rigidly in right kidney.

  Remarks: Chinese immigration will ruin any country in the world.

  Musings, Philosophical and Theological.

  .... Seated in his den, in the chill gloom of a winter twilight, comforting his stomach with hoarded bits of cheese and broad biscuits, Mr. Grile thinketh unto himself after this fashion of thought:

  I.

  To eat biscuits and cheese before dining is to confess that you do not expect to dine.

  II.

  “Once bit, twice shy,” i
s a homely saying, but singularly true. A man who has been swindled will be very cautious the second time, and the third. The fourth time he may be swindled again more easily and completely than before.

  III.

  A four-footed beast walks by lifting one foot at a time, but a four-horse team does not walk by lifting one horse at a time. And yet you cannot readily explain why this is so.

  IV.

  If a jackass were to describe the Deity he would represent Him with long ears and a tail. Man’s ideal is the higher and truer one; he pictures Him as somewhat resembling a man.

  V.

  The bald head of a man is a very common spectacle. You have never seen the bald head of a woman.

  VI.

  Baldheaded women are a very common spectacle.

  VII.

  Piety, like small-pox, comes by infection. Robinson Crusoe, however, caught it alone on his island. It is probable that he had it in his blood.

  VIII.

  The doctrine of foreknowledge does not imply the truth of foreordination. Foreordination is a cause antedating an event. Foreknowledge is an effect, not of something that is going to occur, which would be absurd, but the effect of its being going to occur.

  IX.

  Those who cherish the opposite opinion may be very good citizens.

  X.

  Old shoes are easiest, because they have accommodated themselves to the feet. Old friends are least intolerable because they have adapted themselves to the inferior parts of our character.

  XI.

  Between old friends and old shoes there are other points of resemblance.

  XII.

  Everybody professes to know that it would be difficult to find a needle in a haystack, but very few reflect that this is because haystacks seldom contain needles.

  XIII.

  A man with but one leg is a better man than a man with two legs, for the reason that there is less of him.

  XIV.

  A man without any legs is better than a man with one leg; not because there is less of him, but because he cannot get about to enact so much wickedness.

  XV.

  When an ostrich is pursued he conceals his head in a bush; when a man is pursued he conceals his property. By instinct each knows his enemy’s design.

  XVI.

  There are two things that should be avoided; the deadly upas tree and soda water. The latter will make you puffy and poddy.

  XVII.

  This list of things to be avoided is necessarily incomplete.

  XVIII.

  In calling a man a hog, it is the man who gets angry, but it is the hog who is insulted. Men are always taking up the quarrels of others.

  XIX.

  Give an American a newspaper and a pie and he will make himself comfortable anywhere.

  XX.

  The world of mind will be divided upon the question of baptism so long as there are two simple and effective methods of baptising, and they are equally disagreeable.

  XXI.

  They are not equally disagreeable, but each is disagreeable enough to attract disciples.

  XXII.

  The face of a pig is a more handsome face than the face of a man-in the pig’s opinion.

  XXIII.

  A pig’s opinion upon this question is as likely to be correct as is a man’s opinion.

  XXIV.

  It is better not to take a wife than to take one belonging to some other man: for if she has been a good wife to him, she has adapted her nature to his, and will therefore be unsuited to yours. If she has not been a good wife to him she will not be to you.

  XXV.

  The most gifted people are not always the most favoured: a man with twelve legs can derive no benefit from ten of them without crawling like a centipede.

  XXVI.

  A woman and a cow are the two most beautiful creatures in the world. For proof of the beauty of a cow, the reader is referred to an ox; for proof of the beauty of a woman, an ox is referred to the reader.

  XXVII.

  There is reason to believe that a baby is less comely than a calf, for the reason that all kine esteem the calf the more comely beast, and there is one man who does not esteem the baby the more comely beast.

  XXVII.

  To judge of the wisdom of an act by its result is a very shallow plan. An action is wise or unwise the moment it is decided upon.

  XXIX.

  If the wisdom of an action may not be determined by the result, it is very difficult to determine it.

  XXX.

  It is impossible.

  XXXI.

  The moon always presents the same side to the earth because she is heaviest on that side. The opposite side, however, is more private and secluded.

  XXXII.

  Camels and Christians receive their burdens kneeling.

  XXXIII.

  It was never intended that men should be saints in heaven until they are dead and good for nothing else. On earth they are mostly

  XXXIV.

  Fools.

  I, Grile, have arranged these primal truths in the order of their importance, in the hope that some patient investigator may amplify and codify them into a coherent body of doctrine, and so establish a new religion. I would do it myself were it not that a very corpulent and most unexpected pudding is claiming my present attention.

  O, steaming enigma! O, savoury mountain of hidden mysteries! too long neglected for too long a sermon. Engaging problem, let me reveal the secrets latent in thy breast, and unfold thine occult philosophy! [Cutting into the pudding.] Ah! here, and here alone is-[Eating it].

  Laughorisms.

  .... When a favourite dog has an incurable pain, you “put him out of his misery” with a bullet or an axe. A favourite child similarly afflicted is preserved as long as possible, in torment. I do not say that this is not right; I claim only that it is not consistent. There arc two sorts of kindness; one for dogs, and another for children. A very dear friend, wallowing about in the red mud of a battle-field, once asked me for some of the dog sort. I suspect, if no one had been looking, he would have got it.

  .... It is to be feared that to most men the sky is but a concave mirror, showing nothing behind, and in looking into which they see only their own distorted images, like the reflection of a face in a spoon. Hence it needs not surprise that they are not very devout worshippers; it is a great wonder they do not openly scoff.

  .... The influence of climate upon civilization has been more exhaustively treated than studied. Otherwise, we should know how it is that some countries that have so much climate have no civilization.

  .... Whoso shall insist upon holding your attention while he expounds to you things that you have always thriven without knowing resembles one who should go about with a hammer, cracking nuts upon other people’s heads and eating the kernels himself.

  .... There are but two kinds of temporary insanity, and each has but a single symptom. The one was discovered by a coroner, the other by a lawyer. The one induces you to kill yourself when you are unwell of life; the other persuades you to kill somebody else when you are fatigued of seeing him about.

  .... People who honour their fathers and their mothers have the comforting promise that their days shall be long in the land. They are not sufficiently numerous to make the life assurance companies think it worth their while to offer them special rates.

  .... There are people who dislike to die, for apparently no better reason than that there are a few vices they have not had the time to try; but it must be confessed that the fewer there are of these untasted sweets, the more loth are they to leave them.

  .... Men ought to sin less in petty details, and more in the lump; that they might the more conveniently be brought to repentance when they are ready. They should imitate the touching solicitude of the lady for the burglar, whom she spares much trouble by keeping her jewels well together in a box.

  .... I once knew a man who made me a map of the opposite hemisphere of the moon. He was crazy. I kn
ew another who taught me what country lay upon the other side of the grave. He was a most acute thinker-as he had need to be.

  .... Those who are horrified at Mr. Darwin’s theory, may comfort themselves with the assurance that, if we are descended from the ape, we have not descended so far as to preclude all hope of return.

  .... There is more poison in aphorisms than in painted candy; but it is of a less seductive kind.

  .... If it were as easy to invent a credible falsehood as it is to believe one, we should have little else in print. The mechanical construction of a falsehood is a matter of the gravest import.

  .... There is just as much true pleasure in walloping one’s own wife as in the sinful enjoyment of another man’s right. Heaven gives to each man a wife, and intends that he shall cleave to her alone. To cleave is either to “split” or to “stick.” To cleave to your wife is to split her with a stick.