Ambrose Bierce

“ Foremost among all was the Saltmaster’s son. He sprang like a deer, fought like a fiend, and bellowed like a wild bull. Among these mountaineers he was a king. I observed that many were jealous of his strength and beauty, and secretly hated him; yet all obeyed. It was beautiful to see how this young man bent his slender body while leaping and playing the games—how he threw up his head like a stag at gaze, shook his golden locks and stood in the midst of his fellows with flaming cheeks and sparkling eyes. ”

“ The tone Grew more vivacious when the Devil played. No more those luring harmonies we hear, And lo! already men forget the sound. They turn, retracing all the dubious ground O'er which it led them, pigwise, by the ear.
NOT GUILTY. "I saw your charms in another's arms," Said a Grecian swain with his blood a-boil; "And he kissed you fair as he held you there, A willing bird in a serpent's coil!" The maid looked up from the cinctured cup Wherein she was crushing the berries red, Pain and surprise in her honest eyes— "It was only one o' those gods," she said. ”

“ Barr Lassiter strode to the door by which he had entered. The moonlight on the lawn was tremulous, as if the sward were a rippling sea. The trees and their black shadows shook as in a breeze. Blended with its borders, the gravel walk seemed unsteady and insecure to step on. This young soldier knew the optical illusions produced by tears. ”

“ If I grow better in health I shall in time feel able to extend my next foray into the Lowlands as far as Oakland and Berkeley.
Here are some fronds of maiden-hair fern that I have just brought in. The first wild flowers of the season are beginning to venture out and the manzanitas are a sight to see.
With warmest regards to all your people, I am, as ever, your most unworthy uncle, Ambrose Bierce.
Angwin,
February 5,
1893. My dear Blanche,
What an admirable reporter you would be! Your account of the meeting with Miller in the restaurant and of the "entertainment" are amusing no end. ”

“ CAIN Lord, shed thy light upon his desert path, And gild his branded brow, that no man spill His forfeit life to balk thy holy will That spares him for the ripening of wrath. Already, lo! the red sign is descried, To trembling jurors visibly revealed: The prison doors obediently yield, The baffled hangman flings the cord aside. Powell, the brother's blood that marks your trail— Hark, how it cries against you from the ground, Like the far baying of the tireless hound. Faith! to your ear it is no nightingale. What signifies the date upon a stone? To-morrow you shall die if not to-day. ”

“ He struck his foot against some object on the floor, knelt by it, passed his hand over it. It was a human head - that of a woman. Lifting it by the hair this iron-nerved man returned to the half-lighted room below, carried it near the window and attentively examined it. While so engaged he was half conscious of the rapid opening and closing of the outer door, of footfalls sounding all about him. He raised his eyes from the ghastly object of his attention and saw himself the center of a crowd of men and women dimly seen; the room was thronged with them. He thought the people had broken in. ”

“ Men from the camp of a regiment near by ran in crowds to see, all shouting. Suddenly, as Thurston was on his upward curve, the shouts all ceased.
Thurston and the swing had parted—that is all that can be known; both hands at once had released the rope. The impetus of the light swing exhausted, it was falling back; the man's momentum was carrying him, almost erect, upward and forward, no longer in his arc, but with an outward curve. It could have been but an instant, yet it seemed an age. I cried out, or thought I cried out: "My God! will he never stop going up?" ”

“ If you desert Carmel I shall destroy my Jorgensen picture, build a bungalow in the Catskills and cut out California forever. (Those are the footprints of my damned canary, who will neither write himself nor let me write. Just now he is perched on my shoulder, awaiting the command to sing—then he will deafen me with a song without sense. O he's a poet all right.)
I entirely approve your allegiance to Mammon. If I'd had brains enough to make a decision like that I could now, at 65, have the leisure to make a good book or two before I go to the waste-dump. ”

“ Obtaining employment at first in the United States Mint, whither Albert, always his favorite brother, had preceded him, he soon gravitated to journalism, doing his first work on the San Francisco News Letter. His brother once told me that he (Ambrose) had from boyhood been eager to become a writer and was expectant of success at that pursuit.
Isolated from most men by the exalted and austere habit of his thought, Bierce finally suffered a corresponding exile of the body, and was forced to live in high altitudes, which of necessity are lonely. ”

“ Without a movement, without a sound, in the profound silence and the languor of the late afternoon, some invisible messenger of fate touched with unsealing finger the eyes of his consciousness—whispered into the ear of his spirit the mysterious awakening word which no human lips ever have spoken, no human memory ever has recalled. He quietly raised his forehead from his arm and looked between the masking stems of the laurels, instinctively closing his right hand about the stock of his rifle. ”

“ The night was pretty dark, with neither moon nor stars visible, and as Brower had never dwelt thereabout, and knew nothing of the lay of the land, he was, naturally, not long in losing himself. He could not have said if he were getting farther away from the town or going back to it—a most important matter to Orrin Brower. He knew that in either case a posse of citizens with a pack of bloodhounds would soon be on his track and his chance of escape was very slender; but he did not wish to assist in his own pursuit. Even an added hour of freedom was worth having. ”

“ Up to that last sentence Ambrose Bierce beholds this world as one where tolerance, breadth of view, simplicity of life and mind, clear thinking, are at most attainable, at least worthy of the effort to attain; he regards life as purposive, as having happiness for its end, and art and love as the means to that good end. ”

“ Sincerely yours, Ambrose Bierce.
Washington, D. C.,
January 8,
1904. My dear George,
Thank you so much for the books and the inscription—which83 (as do all other words of praise) affects me with a sad sense of my shortcomings as writer and man. Things of that kind from too partial friends point out to me with a disquieting significance what I ought to be; and the contrast with what I am hurts. Maybe you feel enough that way sometimes to understand. You are still young enough to profit by the pain; my character is made—my opportunities are gone. But it does not greatly matter—nothing does. ”

“ Why, that isn't so very Much time to have lost from a life. There's reason enough to be merry: I've not fallen down in the strife, But marched with the drum and the fife. If Hope, when she lured me and beckoned, Had pushed at my shoulders instead, And Fame, on whose favors I reckoned, Had laureled the worthiest head, I could garland the years that are dead. Believe me, I've held my own, mostly Through all of this wild masquerade; But somehow the fog is more ghostly To-night, and the skies are more grayed, Like the locks of the restaurant maid. ”

“ The colonel held the light as high as he could. The floor of the room above was broken through, the splinters pointing at all angles downward. "This casemate is not bomb-proof," said the colonel gravely. It did not occur to him that his summing up of the matter had any levity in it.
They stood about the group awhile in silence; the staff officer was thinking of his unfinished supper, the orderly of what might possibly be in one of the casks on the other side of the cellar. Suddenly the man whom they had thought dead raised his head and gazed tranquilly into their faces. ”

“ He does not draw his sabre; his right hand hangs easily at his side. The breeze catches the plume in his hat and flutters it smartly. The sunshine rests upon his shoulder-straps, lovingly, like a visible benediction. ”

“ She hastily flung the letter on the blazing coals. "Uh! I cannot bear the sight of blood!" she said. "How did he die?"
I had involuntarily risen to rescue that scrap of paper, sacred even to me, and now stood partly behind her. As she asked the question she turned her face about and slightly upward. The light of the burning letter was reflected in her eyes and touched her cheek with a tinge of crimson like the stain upon its page. I had never seen anything so beautiful as this detestable creature. ”

“ No; I will not be shot; that is not fair."
He was not conscious of an effort, but a sharp pain in his wrist apprised him that he was trying to free his hands. He gave the struggle his attention, as an idler might observe the feat of a juggler, without interest in the outcome. What splendid effort!—what magnificent, what superhuman strength! Ah, that was a fine endeavor! Bravo! The cord fell away; his arms parted and floated upward, the hands dimly seen on each side in the growing light. He watched them with a new interest as first one and then the other pounced upon the noose at his neck. ”

“ Galbraith tried the door. It was fast. But the minister was a man of courage, a man, moreover, of Herculean strength. He retired a pace or two and rushed against the door, striking it with his right shoulder and bursting it from the frame with a loud crash. In a moment the three were inside. Darkness and silence! The only sound was the beating of their hearts.
Mr. Maren had provided himself with matches and a candle. With some difficulty, begotten of his excitement, he made a light, and they proceeded to explore the place, passing from room to room. ”

“ Again he directs his eyes forward; they slowly traverse that malign and awful crest. He addresses a calm word to his bugler. Tra-la-la! Tra-la-la! The injunction has an imperiousness which enforces it. It is repeated by all the bugles of all the sub-ordinate commanders; the sharp metallic notes assert themselves above the hum of the advance and penetrate the sound of the cannon. To halt is to withdraw. The colors move slowly back; the lines face about and sullenly follow, bearing their wounded; the skirmishers return, gathering up the dead. ”

“ Put your tongue in sheath!— Scars got in battle, even if on the breast, May be a shameful record if, beneath, A robber heart a lawless strife attest. John Sullivan had wounds, and Paddy Ryan— Nay, as to that, even Masten has, and Bryan. 'Tis willingly conceded you've a knack At holding the attention of the town; The worse for you when you have on your back What did not grow there—prithee put it down! For pride kills thrift, and you lack board and lodging, Even while the brickbats of renown you're dodging. ”

“ There is a story that when the war was over he tossed up a coin to determine what should be his career. Whatever the determining auguries, he came at once to San Francisco to join his favorite brother Albert—there were ten brothers and sisters to choose from—and for a short time worked with him in the Mint; he soon began writing paragraphs for the weeklies, particularly the Argonaut and the News Letter.
"I was a slovenly writer in those days," he observes in a letter forty years later, "though enough better than my neighbors to have attracted my own attention. ”

“ On every side lay cultivated fields showing no sign of war and war’s ravages. From the chimneys of the farmhouses thin ascensions of blue smoke signaled preparations for a day’s peaceful toil. Having stilled its immemorial allocution to the moon, the watchdog was assisting a Negro who, prefixing a team of mules to the plow, was flatting and sharping contentedly at his task. The hero of this tale stared stupidly at the pastoral picture as if he had never seen such a thing in all his life ”

“ By the way, I should not believe in the love of a strong one, wife, widow or maid.
It looks as if I may get to Sag Harbor for a week or so in the middle of the month. It is really not a question of expense, but Neale has blocked out a lot of work for me. He wants two more volumes—even five more if I'll make 'em. Guess I'll give him two. In a week or so I shall be able to180 say whether I can go Sagharboring. If so, I think we should have a night in New York first, no? You could motor-boat up and back.
Sincerely yours, Ambrose Bierce. ”

“ Ten thousand pairs of eyes are fixed upon him with an intensity that he can hardly fail to feel; ten thousand hearts keep quick time to the inaudible hoof-beats of his snowy steed. He is not alone—he draws all souls after him. ”

“ The aged did not wish to die without beholding the consummation of the love they had seen bud in their youth; and the young [pg 191] did not wish to die at all. But no one liked to interfere; it was feared that counsel to the woman would be rejected, and a thrashing to the man would be misunderstood. At last the parson took heart of grace to make or mar the match. Like a reckless gambler he staked his fee upon the cast of a die. He went one day and removed the two stools—now worn extremely thin—to another corner of the milking-yard. ”

“ That poem is itself sufficiently dedicatory if printed by itself in the forepages of the book and labeled "Dedication—To Ambrose Bierce." I'm sure that vanity has nothing to do, or little to do, with my good opinion of the verses. And, after all, they show that I have said to you all that I could say to the reader in your praise and encouragement. What do you think?
As to dedicating individual poems to other fellows, I have not the slightest hesitancy in advising you against it. The practice smacks of the amateur and is never, I think, pleasing to anybody but the person so honored. ”