CONTENTS P AGE TAN G EN TIAL VIEWS SO ME P RIVATIONS OF THE COMING MAN CIVILI Z ATION OF THE MON K EY C — HE IS THE SO IALIST WHAT , AND WHY G EORGE THE MADE - OVER JOHN SMITH ’ S ANCESTORS THE MOON IN LETTERS COLUM B US THE R ELIGION OF THE TAB LE R EVISION D OWNWARD THE ART OF CONTROVERSY “ IN THE INFANCY O P TRUSTS P C V OVERTY, RIME AND ICE D ECADENCE O P THE AMERICAN FOOT THE CLOTHING OF G HOSTS SOME ASP ECTS OF EDUCATION THE R EIGN OF THE R ING FIN DE SIECLE H R TIMOTHY . EARDEN THE P ASSING OF THE HORSE N EWSP AP ERS A B ENIGN INVENTIO N ACTO RS AND ACTING THE VALUE OF TRUTH SYM BOLS AND FETISHES D ID WE EAT O N E ANOTHER ? THE B ACILLUS OF CRIME CON TEN TS

THE G AME OF B UTTO N SLEE P CONCERNING P ICTURES MODERN WARFARE CHRISTMAS AND THE N Ew YEAR

’ ’ O N P UTTING ONE S HEAD INTO ONE S B ELLY THE AMERICAN CHAIR “ ANOTHER COLD S P ELL THE LOVE OP COUNTY DISIN TRODUCTIO N S THE TYRANNY OF FASHION B REACHES OF P ROMISE THE TUR KO - G RECIAN WAR CATS OF CHEYENNE THAN KSGIVING D AY THE HOUR AND THE MAN MORTUARY ELECTROP LATING THE AGE R OMANTIC THE WAR EVERLASTING O N THE USES OF EUTHANASIA THE SCOURGE OF LAUGHTER THE LATE LAMENTED DETHRONEMENT OF THE ATOM DOGS FOR THE K LONDI K E MONSTERS AND EGGS MUSIC MALFEASANCE IN OFFICE FOR STANDING R OOM THE JEw WHY THE HUMAN N OSE HAS A WESTERN E! P OSURE IAL VIEWS

SOME PR IVATIONS OF THE COM ING M AN

GER MAN physician o f some note on c e gav e it out as his sol em n conviction that civilized man is gradu ally but surely los ing the sense of smell through dis use . It is a fact that we have noses less keen than the v w fo r sa ages ; which is el l for us , we have “ ” a dozen w ell - defined and sev eral bad i ib o ne. s i o dors to their It poss le , ndeed , that it i s to the al arm ing p rev alen c e o f bad odors that our olfacto ry inferiority i s in some degree ’ d ue : civilized man s habit o f holding his nose h as begotten in that organ an obedi ent habit o f holding itself . This by the v f way, lea es both his hands ree to hold his u m k tongue , though as a r le he p refers to a e o f another and less pleasing use them . With a nose dow ered with p rimitive activity civil i z ed man w ould find it difficult to retain his supremacy over the forces of Nature ; her as s a ss i n a ting odors w o ul d engage him in a n ew m struggle for existence , incomparably ore 1 7 1 8 THE COLLECTED WOR KS arduous than any o f which he has present ex e w e p erienc . And herein get an intimation o f a hitherto unsuspected cause o f the rapid decadenc e o f sav age peoples when brought into contact with civilization . Various causes doubtless are concerned , but the slaughter the as house , the glue factory , g main , the sewer and the other sources o f exhalations “ that rise like the steam o f rich - distilled per ” fumes (which in no other quality they t e semble) are the actual culprits . Unprepared with a means o f defense at the point where he is most accessible to assault, the reclaimed savage falls into a decline and accepting the Christian religion for wh at he conceives it to to be worth , turns his nose the wall and dies f in the secret hope o an inodorous eternity . With efi ac ement o f the sense o f smell we shall doubtless lose the feature which serves

' as intake to what it feeds upon ; and that will in many ways be an advantage . It will , for fi example , put a new dif culty in the way of i that disagreeable person , the caricaturist rather, it will shear him o f much o f his pres ent power . The fellow never tires o f furnish ing forth the rest o f us incredibly snouted in an infinite variety of wicked ways . When noses are no more , caricature will have stilled OF AMBR O SE B IER CE 9

' some o f its thunder and we can all venture to be eminent . M is i s eantime , history full of noses , as the — literature o f imagination some o f them fig u r a tivel y, some literally, shining beacons th at “ Splendor the dark backward and abysm o f ” ’ time . Of the world s great, it may almost be said that by their noses we know them . Where would have been Cyrano de B ergerac in m o d ern story without his nose ? By the unlearned it is thought that the immortal Bardolph is a ’ creation of Shaksp ea re s genius . Not so ; an ingenious scholar long ago identified him as ’ an historical character who but fo r the poet s fine app reciation o f noses might h ave blushed i eternally unseen . It s nothing that his true name is no longer in evidence in the annals o f men ; as Bardolph his fame is secure from the o f ravening tooth time . Even when a nasal peculiarity is due to an accident o f its environment it confers no i n considerable distinction , apart from its pos ’ s esso r s other and perhaps superior claims to o f M An renown , as in the instances ichael

gelo , Tycho Brahe and the beloved Thack c ray, in whose altered frontispiece we are all the more interested because o f hi s habit o f i dipping t in the Gascon wine . 20 THE COLLECTED WOR K S

The Sp reading nose o f Socrates was no f doubt a source o great regret to him , whether ’ its faults and failings were o f ! anthippe s o r ZO rus ha d making , as py the incivility to thiev inform him , inherited from drunken , ing and lascivious ancestors ; yet who would willingly forego the emotions and sentiments inspired by that unusual nose ? It seems a o f precious part his philosophy . The connection between the poetic emin ence o f Ovid and the noses from which his a son es family, the N , derived its name is h doubtless more t an accidental , and to our knowledge of his hereditary nasal equipment, albeit we know not the precise nature of the o f endowment, must be ascribed a part our interest in his work . He to whom the secret o f metamorphosis was an Open book is not affi rmed to have made any attempt to alter a s the family feature , he doubtless would have done had he not recognized its essential rela tion to his genius . Plutarch declares that Cicero owed his su r name to the fact that his nose had the shape ’ —c zc er of a vetch . Anyhow, his nose was as f remarkable as his eloquence , in its dif erent way . Gibbon and the late Prince G o rts c ha f had n s n o fo r kof ose u c mmonly . minute men OF AMBR OSE B IER CE 21 o f commanding ability, which may have been fo r a good thing them , compelling them to rely upon their own endeavors to make their who mark in the world . H e cannot climb to eminence upon his ow n nose will naturally seek ano ther footing . Addison had a smooth

G recian nose , significantly suggestive of his ’ so literary style . Tennyson s nose was long ; o f are some his sermons in verse . J ulius ae to o C sar , , was gifted with a long nose , which a writer in a recent review has aptly called “ ” e enterprising . That Ca sar was an enter p rising man some o f his contemporaries could feelingly have attested . — w a s ! The nose of Dante ah , there a nose What words could do it justice ? It is o n e o f ’ history s most priceless possessions . One hesitates to s ay what powers and potencies lay latent in that superb organ ; o n e can only re ‘gret that he did not give more time to the cultivation of its magnificent possibilities and less to evening up matters between himself and his enemies when peopling Hell as he h ad the happiness to conceive it . Considering how many of the world ’ s great and good men have been distinguished from their inferiors by noses o f note and couse uenc e h q , it is difficult to understand that suc 22 THE COLLECTED WOR KS gifts of grace divine as these uncommon p rotuberances should be so sensitive to the blaze and blare of publicity. One would ex p ec t that in the fierce light that beats about an uncommon nose its fortunate owner would bask as contentedly as a python in the noon a s un d y , happy in the benign beam and p roud o f every inch of his revealed identity . ’ efi a cement To art, of the nose will be of inestimable benefit . In statuary, for example , we shall be able to hurl a qualified defiance at Time the iconoclast, who now hastens to assail our cherished carven images in that th e most vulnerable part, nose , tweaking it off and throwing it away almost before the sculpt ’ ' o r s ow n nose is blue and cold beneath the f daisies . In the statue o the future there will be no nose , consequently no damage to it ; and although the statue may when new and per fec t differ but little from the mutilated a n tiques that we now have, there will be a cert ain satisfaction in knowing that it has not ” o f been retouched . In the case portrait statues and busts the advantage is obvious . When the nose goes the likeness goes with it ; all men will look pretty nearly alike , and a bust o r Statue will serve about a s well for one an a o n h r m s f r a ot e , O F. AMBR OSE B IER CE 23

Perhaps the best effect o f all will be felt in o f literatu re . To that capital bore letters , the the a s scribbling physiognomist, nose is almost a necessary s to the caricaturist . He is never done finding strength of mind and spirit in h o f large noses , t ough the small ones Gibbon Go rtschakoff and shrieked against his creed, “ ” and intellectual feebleness in pugs , though ’ o u s o Kosciusk s was the p gge t f its time . When there are no noses the physiognomist can base t on no heories them . It would be worth something to live long enough to be rid o f f even a part o his gabble . The conditions under which we live may so alter that the sense o f smell may be again a d v anta eous g in the struggle for existence , and by the survival o f those in whom it is keenest regain its pristine place in ou r meager equip ment o f powers and capacities . But phi l oso phers to whom millstones are transp arent will deem it significant that the sense in ques tion and the facial feature devoted to its service have fallen into something o f the disrepute i s 0 that foretokens deposal . It now hardly p o f lite to speak smells and smelling, without the use o f softened language ; and the nose is f requently subjected to contumelious a n d jocose remark u nwa rranted by anything in its 2 4 THE COLLECTED WOR KS personal appearance o r the nature of its pur It suits . is as if man had withdrawn his lip sun s ervice from the nasal setting . i s t of It , then , well unders ood , even outside ” th e scientific circles , that incompossibility o f civilization and the human nose is more In d b than a golden dream o f the optimist . u i tably that once indispensable organ is fall l o f ing into the sere and yellow eaf disuse , and in the course o f a few thousand genera tions will have been wiped o ff the face o f the o f earth . Its utility as an organ sense de — creases year by year except a s a support for the kind o f eyeglasses bearing its name in French ; not a sufficiently important serv ice to ef warrant nature in preserving it . The final fac ement has been foreseen from the earliest

of . dawn art The ancient Grecian sculptors , for example , who were great trimmers and were ever eager to kn ow which way the physiognomical cat would jump , tried to rep resent the human face of the future rather than that o f their period ; and it is noticeable that most o f their statues and busts are dis tin uishEd a s g by a striking lack of nose , above

“ intimated . That is justly regarded a s a most — significant circumstance a prophecy o f the conclusion now reached by mode rn science OF AMBR OSE B IER CE 25

working along other lines . The Coming Man — i s to be noseless that is settled ; and there are not wanting those who support with enthusi asm the doctrine th at he is to be hairless as well . r f It is to be Obse ved that these two ef ects , planing down o f the human nose and up root ing o f the human hair are to be b rought about — , difi e rently a t least the main agency in the n o e case is different from that in the other . The nose is depa rting from among us because o f f o f its high sense o duty . Most the odors o f civilization being distinctly disagreeable , and in the selection o f our food chemical analysis having taken the place o f olfactory i s investigation , there little for the modern nose to d o that the modern nose - owner is will ing to have done . One o f the most useful o f all our natural endowments is what I may venture to call the o f o f conscience the organs . None the bodily, organs is willing to be maintained in a state — o f idleness and dependence to eat the b read so fo r of charity, to speak . Whenever any cause o ne o f them is put upon the retired list a nd deprived of its functions and just i nflu ence in the physical economy it begins to with f draw from the scheme o things by atrophy . 2 6 THE COLLECTED WOR KS

th e It withers away, and place that knew it

knows it no more forever . That is what is occurring in the instance o f the human nose . We make very little us e o f it in testing o u r —i t food has , in truth, lost its cunning in that —in o ur way tracking game , or in taking note o f a windward enemy ; albeit to most o f the enemies o f the race the nose is almost as goo d an annunciator as the organs which they more consciously address . So the idle nose is leav us— ing more in sorrow than in anger, let us hO e p . f With the hair the case is dif erent . It goes , not merely because its mandate is exhausted , but because it is really detrimental to us in the struggle for existence . Its departure is an o f o f instance , pure and Simple the su rvival the fittest . Little reflection is required to Show f the superior fitness o the man that is bald . i s t IS Baldness respectabili y , baldness piety , rectitude and general worth . Persons hold ing responsible and well - salaried positions are — commonly bald bank presidents especially . The p rosperous merchant is usually o f shin ing pate ; the heads o f most o f the great co r t o h po ations are thinly thatched . Of tw ot er wise equal applicants for a position o f trust no t and profit, who would instinctively

28 THE COLLECTED WOR KS

h . vantage to t em, if, indeed, any hair at all is For the - wiping bowie knife , the paint b rush o r the pen , hair, no doubt, is useful , but hardly

- mor e so than the coat sleeve . Even in these instances , then , where at first thought there might seem to be a relation o f cause and effect f between length of hair and length o life , the

- appearance is fallacious . A bald headed cow to boy would , however, be less liable scalping

R . ed . by the M an It appears , then , that Dr M uller’ s cheerful prediction regarding the heads of Posterity rests upon a foundation of t ruth . ’ o f t Some the doctor s argumen s , however, Fo r seem erroneous . example, he thinks the masculine fashion of cutting o ff the hair an evidence that men instinctively know hair to — s a be injurious th at is to y, a disadvantage in a d the struggle for existence . This I can not mit ; it does not follow, for testators have a

of - fashion cutting off legatees expectant, yet

- — legatees expectant are not injuriou s until ’ known to be cut o ff ; and then the testator s fo r struggle existence is commonly finished . Capitalists have a fashion of cutting o ff cou pons ; it hardly needs to be pointed out that coupons are not amongst the malign i nflu enc es o f tending to the shortening life . OF AMBR OSE B IER CE 29

hO e I have tried (with some success , I p ) to

Show that hair is a disadvantage , but this view derives no supp o rt from the scissors . If the o f hair men were obviously, conspicuously beneficial ; if it made them healthy, wealthy and as wise as they care to be ; if they needed it in their business ; if they could not at all get — o n without i t they would doubtless cut it a little oftener and a little closer than they do

now . M en are that way .

The truth o f the matter is plain enough . M en become bald because they keep cutting their hair . Every man has a certain amount o f so s a . capillary energy, to y He can pro duce such a length of hair and no more , as the Spider can Spin only so much web and then must cease to be a spinster . By cutting the hair we keep it exhausting its allowance o f energy by growth ; when all is gone growth stops , and the roots , having no longer a use , decay . By letting their h air grow as long as f it will women retain it . The dif erence is the o f same as that between two coils rope , equal on e o f in length , which is constantly payed o ut , the other not . I f this explanation do not compose the immemorial controversy about ’ the cause o f men s b aldness the prospect o f its composure by that phenomenon ’ s universality 30 THE COLLECTED WOR KS will be hailed with delight by all who love a quiet life . The first generation to forget that men ever had hair will be the first to know the happiness of peace ; the succeeding o n e will begin a dispute about the cause o f hair in woman . An important discovery made and stated with confidence is that to the human tooth , also , civilization is hateful and insupportable .

Dr . Denison Pedley, whose name carries great weight ( and would to whomsoever it might belong) examined the teeth o f no fewer than 0 o f children , and only 7 7 had full sets sound ones . That was in England ; what would be shown by a look - i n at the mouths of the young of a more highly civilized race s ay the Missou ri answ one shudders to conject o ne u re . That nearly all the savages whom meets have good enough teeth is a matter o f common obse rvation ; and missionaries in some of the remoter parts o f Starkest Africa ll attest this fact with much feeling . Yet in a enlightened countries the p rosperous dentist n abou ds in quantity . But perhaps the most significant testimony a n is that of another English gentleman , with — other honored name J . K . Mummery, who examined every skull that he could lay his O E AMBR OSE B I E R CE 31

on f eyes during twenty years . He a firms an almost total absence o f c a r i es among the old est specimens , those belonging to the Stone

Age . Among the Celts , who succeeded these and who knew enough to make metal w eap o ns e , but not nough to refrain from using o f them , the decayed tooth was an incident more frequent occurrence ; and the R oman conquest introduced it in great profusion . When the R omans were driven o ut they took the fl aw their back teeth along with them , but less incisor, the hale bicuspid are afterward fi rarely encountered . Craniologists af rm a similar state o f things wherever there have been successive o r overlapping civilizations — the skulls all tell the same sto ry their vote is f en unanimous . If the alarming progress o lightenment be no t stayed the hairless and noseless man o f the future will undoubtedly subsist, not as we , upon his neighbo r, but upon

- spoon victuals and memories of the past . 82 THE COLLECTED WOR KS

CIVILIZATION O F TH E M ONKEY

R O FESSO R R R has GA NE , who penetrated the mystery o f the sibil ants and gutturals with which

monkeys p refer to converse , is said to entertain the glittering hO p e that by means o f his discoveries these contemporary anc es t ors of ours may be elevated to civilization .

The p rospect is fascinating exceedingly . It opens to conjecture an almost limitless domain o f human interest . It illuminates , with a light o f of as revelation , numberless paths endeavor leading to glorious goals o f achievement . The crying need o f our time is more civil i z ati on . We have made a rather lamentable failure in the attempt to elevate certain o f the lower races , such as the Chinese , the Sabbat arians and the Protectionists ; and to still others we have imparted only dim and trans i n e t o ur . gleams of great light Some , indeed , we have civilized so imperfectly that they might almost as well have been left in outer darkness for example the Negroes o f the ; , — South . Our utmost efforts aided , in many O F AMBR OS E B I ER CE 33

the the instances , by shotgun, bloodhound and — the fagot- and - Stake have given a faulty t e o f re sult, and many these obdurate persons a s main , the late Parson B rownlow would “ have said , steeped to the nose and chin in rofli ac R political p g y, voting the epublican whenever ermitted Fo r ticket p . fou r centuries we have hunted the R ed Indian from cover is no t R ed to cover, and he a very nice Indian o f f yet, some his vices and superstitions dif er

our own . mOto rc a rman ing widely from The , shutting his eyes to the glory and advantage o f hi s a enlightenment, still urges indocile p paratus along the line o f least insistence ; and the organist from the ove rseas p ractices his black art at the street corner , inaccessible to i reclamation . A hundred urban tribes m ght ’ i r recl a imabl es be named among civilization s , o f without mentioning any the religious sects . At every turn the gentleman who is desirous of making- over his faulty fellow- men en counters a baffl ing apathy o r a Spirited host ility to change . Possibly the higher quad rumana may p rove more pregnable to light and reason—more to a willing become s we . Perhaps when we can all talk Monkey we shall be able to s et forth the advantages of our happy state more 34 THE COLLECTED WOR KS graphically than we have succeeded in doing — in any of the tongues including o u r own known to the wicked and stiff- necked genera tions mentioned . In that sp arkling speech we may, for example , make it clear that a condi tion in which nine - tenths o f the reformed monkeys will live a life o f toil and disc om fort, holding their subsistence by the most pre subservi c eable carious tenure, is conspicuously to that chastened and humble frame of mind which is so joyously different from the empty intellectual pride that comes o f pelting one another with cocoanuts and depending from h branches by prehensile tails . Per aps in the pithecan vocabulary i s such copiousness that we can easily set forth the unspeakable p rofit o f living a long way from where we want to go at a considerable peril to life and limb which i s what steam and electricity enable us to do . We may reasonably hope to be : able to convince the gorilla o f the futility o f his habit o f beating his breast and roaring when in the presence o f the en emy ; the history o f a few o f ou r great bat tles, carefully translated into his noble tongue , will make him first endure, then pity, then our embrace more effective military methods, to the unspeakable b enefit of his hea rt and

36 THE COLLE CTED WOR KS black is not only white but a beautiful écru green . The next step will natu rally be the invest ing them with citizenship and the right to vote according to the dictates o f the bosses . When by that investiture they have been duly in “ ” o f the stated in the seats power, monk eys will form o n e o f the most p recious o f ou r political elements , though hardly distinguish able from some o f the political elements with which we are now blest . Their enfranchising will be no radical innovation ; it will merely — make the political pile complete though the possible defecti on o f the philosopher element in the near future may somewhat mar the symmetry o f the edifice until the gap can be stopped by enfranchisement o f dogs and horses . Even if all this is but the gorgeous d ream o f a too hopeful optimism, it is nevertheless good to know that Professor Garn er can un d e rs ta n d M th e onkey . I f we fail to persuade monkeys forward along the line o f progress to o u r advanced position it will be pleasant to have from them an occasional word o f chee r a and welcome s we are led back to theirs . OF AMB R O SE B IER CE 37

— TH E SOC IALIST WHAT H E IS , AND WHY

MER ICAN socialism is not a polit

ical doctrine ; it is a state of mind . A man is an acti ve socialist becaus e he is affl icted with congenital i n

: . no t surgency he was born a rebel He rebels , only against “ the es tablished orde r ” in gov e rnm en t t r t , but against pret y nearly eve y hing that takes his attention and enlists his thought, no o is though t m an y things d . He hospitable to o n e r o f only idea at a time , in the se vice which he foregoes the advantage o f kn owing

o f . much anything else He commonly, how ever, has an obse rving eye and a deep dises teem for the d ecent customs and convention li e a ti s o f his ti me and place . The m an in j ail for publication of immoralities is always a the has socialist, and socialist organ usually a p rofitable line o f indecent adve rti se ments . As the socialist erroneous ly regards the s o re criminal , he is himself rightly to be

. to garded He is no heretic be reclaimed , A n ! ”7 fl 38 THE COLLE CTED WOR KS

but a patient to be restrained . He is sick . Yo u cannot cure him ; it is useless to say to “ ” him : Thou a iles t here and there ; i t is use less to say anything to him but “ Thou shalt ” i s not . His unreason is what he a socialist o f fi with . That, too , is the cause his inef ciency fo r h in the competitions of life , whic , natur “ ally, he would substitute something more ’ nearly to the heart s desire -an order of things in which all would share the rewards i o f effi ciency . Always it s the incapable who most loudly p reaches the gospel of Equality —h and Fraternity w ich , being interp reted , means stand and deliver and look pleasant o f about it . In the Cave Adullam the cre d enti a li n g Shibboleth is Love me , damn you , ” as I love myself . A distinguishing feature of socialism as we have the happiness to know it in this country

is its servitude to anarchism . In theory the

two are directly antithetical . They are the

North and the South Pole of political thought, leagues and leagues removed from zones of “ intellectual fertility . Anarchism says : Ye ” “ shall have no l aw ; socialism : Law is all ” “ that ye shall have . They pool their issues

and make common cause , but let them succeed in their work of destruction and their warfare M R R 39 OF A B OSE B IE CE . would not be accomplished : there would t e main the congenial task of destroying each o f other . The present alliance is no figure

Speech . I t is a fact, unknown to the follow m - y leader socialist, but not to his leader ; not to observers having acquaintance with the p roselyting methods o f the time ; not at the headquarters of anarchism in Paterson , New o f Je rsey, where a great body socialist “ ” literature is written , printed and set going . He who is not suffi ciently “ advanced ” for anarchism is persuaded to socialism . The b abe i s fed wi th malted milk until strong enough fo r the double - distilled thunder - and lightning o f a more candid pu rveyance . Whatever makes for discontent b rings nearer the reign o f reprisal . Our good friends who think with their tongues and pens are ever clamant about the national perils a lu rk in luxury : it causes decay in men and states , blights patriotism , invites invasion , impoverishes the p aupers and bites a dog . Luxury will make a boy strike his father ( feebly) and persuade the old man to a life of shame . It is well known that it so enervated the R omans that they fell o ff the map . One does not need to believe all that, of nor any it. The wealthy, living under 40 THE COLLE CTED WOR KS

sanitary conditions , well housed , well fed , clean , free from fatigue (which is a poison) are, as a class , distinctly superior to the poor, physically, mentally and morally . It is among the well - to - do that gymnasia flourish and

- athletic clubs abound . Your all around ath lete is commonly in possession o f a comfort able income ; the ha rdy o ut- o f- door Sports are practiced almost exclusively by those who do n o t to - have to do manual labor . The p hatted clubman can manhandle the hulking day laborer with ease and accuracy . His female is larger and fitter than the other gentleman ’ s a nd underfed and overworked mate , brings forth a better quality of young . All this is obvious to any but the most delinquent ob se rv ation ; yet wealth and its attendant luxury are prophecies and forerunners o f the decay o f nations .

Ha r a re the s e s s o - e n in flin ties t roc d t p , l w h w k , Sta tes c limb to po we r by ; s lippery those with gold D o n c e e o ern a oc w whi h th y s tumbl t et l m k.

To o ne having knowledge o f the prevalence and power o f some o f the p rimal brute pas sions o f the human mind the reason is clear enough : riches and luxurious living provoke envy in the vast multitude to whom they are O F AMBR OSE B IER CE 41 inaccessible through lack o f effi ciency ; and from envy to revenge and revolution the transition is natural and easy . In the youth Of a nation there is virtual o f — equality fortunes all are poo r. Sixty years ago there were probably not a half dozen millionaires in America ; the number now is not definitely known , but it runs into thous ands ; that o f persons o f less but considerable wealth—enough to take attention— into the o hund reds f thousands . Poverty used to be rather p roud o f o u r millionaires ; they were so few that the poor man seldom or never saw them , to mark the contrast between thei r abundance and his p rivation . Now the two are everywhere neighbors . The poor man sees “ the idle rich ” (who mostly work like beavers ) in their carriages , while himself “ him so walks and , if it please to do , takes ” their dust He looks into the windows o f b allrooms and erroneously believes that the gorgeous creatures within are happier than he . If he happen to be s o intellectual as to o r be distinguished in letters , art some other rofitless p pursuit as to be sought by them , all the keener is his sense of the difference ; all the more humiliating his inability to suffer their

particular kind of disillusion . Partly because 42 THE COLLECTED WOR KS o f that and partly because he is not a thinker but a feeler, the poet, the artist or the musician is almost invariably an audible socialist . True , some of these intellectuals ” ( they might better be called emo tion a ls ) are themselves

' fairly thrifty and prosperous , and in the redis tribution of wealth which many of them im p uden tly propose would be first to experience “ ” o f the mischance restitution . But doubt less they do not expect their blessed “ new order of things to come in their day . Mean time there are p rofit and a certain picturesque “ ” o f o ne ness in hailing the dawn a better , just as if it had already struck “ the Sultan ’ s ” tower with a shaft o f light . The socialist notion appears to be that the ’ t world s wealth is a fixed quanti y, and A can o f acquire only by depriving B . He is fond figuring the rich as living upon the poor o n riding their b acks , as Tolstoi (staggering h under the weight of his wife , to w om he had given his vast estate) was pleased to signify o f the situation . The plain truth the matter — is that the poor live mostly on the rich en ti rely unless with their ow n hands they dig a bare subsistence out of their ow n farms o r gravel claims ; if they do better than that they no are t poor . A man may remain in poverty

44 THE COLLECTED WOR KS

A socialist was damning the wicked extrav aganc e o f the rich . A thoughtful person said : In New York City was a wealthy

M . family, the Bradley artins They were driven out o f the country by public indigna tion because they spent their money with a free hand . In the same city was a wealthy R re man named ussell Sage . He was no less viled and calumniated , because he Spent as h little as e could and lent the rest . In which ’ instance was ou r fierce democ rac i e wise and righteous ? ”

w . CO ious ! The ans er was prompt and , O , so p Before it ceased to flow that philosopher was im a mile away from the subject, lost in an o f penetrable forest words . Of course R ussell Sage was no less valuable an asset to the “ wage slave ” than the Bradley M one artins , for there is no way by which can get p rofit or pleasure o ut o f money except by ow n paying it out, either by his hand directly , o r o f indirectly by the hand another, for wages o r to labor . Eventually, sooner later, it all reaches the pocket of the producer, the work i n ma n g . We have s o good a country here that more than a million a year of Europe ’ s poor come over to share its advantages . In the patent O F AMBR OSE B IER CE 45 fact that it is a land of Opportuni ty and pros perity we feel a justifiable pride ; yet the crowning p roof and natural result of this the great number that do p rosper the mult — i tu de of millionaires has come to be re sented as an intolerable wrong, and he who is most clamorous fo r opportunity (which he has never fo r a moment been without) most aus te rely condemns those who have made the best use of it. An instinctive antipathy to all in p rosperity is the common ground upon which ana rchists and socialists stand to debate thei r several interp retations of anarchism and s oc l i a i sm . On that rock they build their church , and the gates o f - the quotation is imperfectly applicable : the gates are friendly and hospit denomi n a tion a ri es able to of their faith . Another thing that these worthies have in common—and in common with many unas sorted sen timen ta lite rs and e ffemin innies in — this age o f unreason is sympathy with crime . No avowed socialist but advocates a rosewater penology that coddl es the felon who has broken into p rison to enjoy a life of peace and plenty ; none but would expel the warden o f and flog the turnkey . All are proponents the holy homily ; all deny that punishment deters from crime , although the discharged 4' 6 THE COLLE CTED WOR KS convict never renews his offense until driven by hunger o r again persuaded by his poor b rute brain that he can escape detection ; he does not enter and rob the first house that he comes to, nor murder the first enemy that he meets .

- n That there are honest, clean mi ded patri otic socialists goes without saying . They are theorists and dreamers with a knowledge o f life and affairs a little profounder than that o f a h o rse but not quite so profound as that o f “ ” a cow . But the movement as a social and political force is , in this country, born of envy, o f the true purpose its activities , revenge . In the shadow of o u r national p rosperity it whets its knife for the throats of the prosperous . It unleashes the hounds of hate upon the track — o f success the only kind o f success that it covets and derides . How bit and bridle this wild ass o f civiliza tion ? How make the socialist behave him in o r self , as Germany , unmask himself , as in

France ? It looks as if this cannot be done . It looks as if we may eventually have to pre vent the multiplication o f millionaires by set ting a legal limit to private fortunes . By some such cowardly and statesmanlike con cession we may perhaps anticipate and fore OF AMBR OSE B IER CE 47 stall the more drastic action o f ou r political o f Apaches , incited by Envy, wrecker empires and assassin of civilization . M eantime , let us put poppies in our hair and be Democrats R and epublicans . 1 1 0 9 . 148 THE COLLECTED WOR KS

GEOR GE THE MADE- OVER

HE English have a distinctly higher and better opinion o f Washington r than is held in this count y . Wash i n to n g , if he could have a choice in the matter , would indubitably prefer his position in the minds of educated Englishmen to the one that he holds in the hearts of his — count rymen not the o ne that he is said to o f h hold . The superior validity the Englis

- re view is due to the better view point . It is mote , as the American will be when several more generations shall have passed and Amer i c a ns are devoid ( as Englishmen are devoid now) of passions and prejudices engendered “ ” in the heat of ou r R evolution . We should remember that it was no t to the English a revolution , but a small and distant squabble , which cut no great figure in the larger a f fairs in which they were engaged ; and the very memory o f it was nearly effaced in that o f the next generation by the stupendous events of the French R evolution and the N a OF AMBR OSE B IER CE 9

n i p oleo c wars . To ears filled with the thun o f ders of Waterloo , the crepitating echoes the spat at Bunker Hill were inaudible . N o benign personage in the calendar of secular saints i s really less loved than Wash i n ton a n / i g . The romancing historians d b o g raphe rs have adorned him with a thousand so impossible virtues , naturally, and in dehu m ani z ing him have s et him beyond and above f the longest reach o human sympathies . His character, as it pleased them to create it, is fo like nothing that we know about and care r . o f He is a monster goodness and wisdom , with about as much o f light and fire as the snow Adam of the small boy playing at creation o n f the campus o a public school . The Wash i ngton - making Franke nsteins h ave done their work s o badly that their creature is an i nsup de ec portable bore , diffusing an infectious j o r tion . Try to fancy an historical novel — drama with him for hero a poem with him for subject ! Possibly such have been written ;

I do not recall any at the moment, and the i proposition s hardly thinkable . The ideal o Washington is a soulless c nception , absolutely without power o n the imagination . Within the area o f his gelid effi ation the flowers o f fancy open only to wither, and any sentiment 50 THE COLLECTED WOR KS endeavoring to transgress the boundary of that desolate domain falls frosted in its flight . o ne— — Some Colonel Ingersoll , I fancy has said that Washington is a steel engraving . i That s hardly an adequate conception , being derived from the sense o f sight only ; the ear h a s sa something to y in the matter, and there is o f much in a name . Before my studies his character h ad effaced my childish impression I used always to picture him in the act Of bending over a tub . There are two George Washingtons—the natural and the artificial . They are now “ ” equally great, but the former was choke “ o l full of the d Adam . He swore like our F ” army in landers , loved a bottle like a brother and had an inter - colonial reputation

- as a lady killer . He was indeed a singularly , ,— interesting and magnetic o ld boy one whom any sane and honest lover o f the picturesque in life and character would deem it an honor and an education to have known in the flesh . He is now known to but few ; you must dig pretty deeply into the tumulus o f rubbishy — panegyric scan pretty closely the inedited s ee annals of his time , in order to him as he

- was . Criss crossed upon these failing parch ments o f the past are the lines of the Sleek

52 THE COLLE CTE D WOR KS but once illustrious c o -workers in council and camp , and in no way comparable with H am ilton . He towers above his fellows because he stands upon a pile o f books The supreme indignity to the memo ry of this really worthy man has been performed by

- the i eta ri es the Sunday scholiasts , p , the truly

- - - good , the example to American youth folk . These canting creatures have managed to nake him o f his last remaining rag o f flesh and drain o ut his ultimate red corpuscle Of human blood . In order that he may be a c c eptabl e to themselves they have made him a bore to everyone else . To give him value as “ ” an example to the unripe intelligences o f their following they have whitewashed him

fi - an inch thick , draped him , g leafed him and ou o f gilded him t all semblance to man . To prepare his character for the juvenile moral tooth they have boned it, and to make it di estible un g to the juvenile moral paunch , s alted it by maceration in the milk- and - water o f so their own minds . And we have him to

- day . In a single century the great hearted gentleman o f history has become the good f — boy o literature the public p r ig . Washing ton is the capon o f o u r barnyard Pantheon revised and edited for the table . OF AM BR OSE B IER CE 53

JO HN SM ITH ’ S AN CESTOR S

R o f EADE mine , wisest mortals o u that y are , do you feel sure that you know how to deal with a p rop o si tio n , which is at the s ame time unquestionable and impossible—which must ? be true , yet can not be true Do you know just what degree o f intellectual hospitality to — give to such a p roposition whether to receive and entertain it ( and if so how) or cast it from ? o u you , and how to do that Possibly y were never consciously at bay before a proposition o f that kind , and therefore lack the advantage iS o sa l o f d . skill in its Attend , then O child — p , o f mortality consider and be wise : o r — You have, have had, two parents whom

God p rosper if they live and rest if dead . Each of them had two parents ; in other words , you had at some time and somewhere four grandparents , and right worthy persons ’ they were, I ll be sworn , albeit you may not be able to name them without stopping to

- take thought . Of great grandp arents you s no — s a urely had fewer than eight that is to y, 54 THE COLLECTED WOR KS no further away than three generations your now ancestors numbered eight persons , in heaven . In countries which are pleased to call themselves civilized and enlightened “ a ” - generation means about thirty four years .

t - im Not long ago it meant thir y three , but o f p roved methods distribution , sanitation and so forth have added a year to the average dur ation of human life , though they have not pointed o ut any profitable use to make o f the addition . All this amounts to saying ( accept a t o f ably, I trust) that each remove thirty four years back toward Adam and his time you double the number o f your ancestors . so Among many some, naturally, were truly ’ modest persons , and I don t know that you would care to have so much said about them s a o u as I shall h ave to y ; so , if y please , we ’ o f M r n will speak . John Smith s i stead .

John Smith , then , whom I know very well , and greatly esteem , and who is approaching a o a n middle age, had , about 34 years g , two

c esto rs . 1 0 2 s a About years ago , y in the year o f 1 2 — grace 79 , he had eight though he did not have himself . You can do the rest of the figuring yourself if you care to go on and are unwilling to take my word fo r what follows r - the astonishing state of things which I am OF AMBR OSE B IER CE 55

about to thrust upon your attention . Just keep doubling the number of John Smith ’ s ancestors until you get the number o o 82 4 . N w when do y u suppose it was th at es M r . Smith had that number o f living a nc t

o rs ? M . ake your calculation , allowing 34 years for each time that you have multiplied by two , and you will find that it was about the year 879. I t seems a rather modern date and a goodish number of persons to be concerning b e themselves , however unconsciously , in the f t getting o Neighbor John , but hat is not ” where it hurts . The point is that the num o f so ber his ancestors , far as we have gone , ’ is about the number o f the earth s inhabitants ! — at that date little and big ; white , black, b rown , yellow and blue ; males , females and ’ M r o u . girls . I do not care to point t Smith s presumption in professing himself an Anglo Saxon— with all that mixed blood in the veins of him ; perhaps he has never made this calc ul a tion and does not know from just what stock he has the honor to have descended , though truly this distinguished scion o f an illustrious race might seem to be justified in calling himself a Son o f Earth . But is he not more than that ? In th e gen cration immediately p receding the one u nder 5 6 THE COLLECTED WOR K S

’ consideration the number o f the gentleman s a s ancestors must have been twice great, — namely, more th an two thous and millions , or some five hundred millions i s more than Earth infested with even now . — Where did all those people live P in M ars ? And to what political o r other causes was due

e n ma ss e o f the migration to Earth , , thei r sons and daughters in the next generation ? r Does the reader care to follow up M . Smith ’ s long illustrious line any further ’ o f back to the wee, sma years the Christian ? era , for example Well and good , but I a warn him that geometrical p rogression , s he “ ” h as already observed , counts up . Long before his calculations have reached back to M r the first merry Christmas he will find . Smith ’ s ancestors—if they were really all ter — restri al in their habits piled many- deep over the o f entire surface all the continents, islands

- fl oe and ice s of this distracted globe . A de cent respect for the religious convictions of my countrymen forbids me even to hint at what the calculation would Show if carried f b ack to the time o Adam and Eve . It will perhaps b e observed that I have left o u t of consideration the circumstance that ‘John Smith ( my particular John) is not the O M R R 57 F A B OSE B IE CE , sole living inhabitant o f Earth to - day : there o f are others , though mostly the same name , whose ancestors would somewhat swell the i totals . In mercy to the reader I have g fi nored them , one man being suf cient for my purpose . Must not John Smith have had all those ? a n ancestors Certainly . Could all those c esto rs o f John Smith have existed ? Cer

f . no t ainly not H ave I , therefore , as I p rom “ ised to do , conducted the reader against a proposition which is at the same time un ” — questionable and impossible a statement ” ? which must be true , yet can not be true f According to the best o my belief he is there .

And there I leave him . Any gentleman not content to remain there with his face to the wall is at liberty to go over it or through it if he can . Doubtless the world will be de lighted to hear him expose the fallacy of my reasoning and the falsehood of my figures .

And I shall be pleased myself . 1 8 94. 58 THE COLLECTED WOR KS

TH E MOON IN LETTER S

O R some months my friends had been benumbing the membranes o f my two c a rs with p raises of the then

newest literary pet, who exulted in a name disagreeably suggestive of Death on a R Pale Horse , M r . H . ider H aggard , and I meekly assented to his greatness . They had insisted that I read him , but this monstrous demand I had hitherto had the strength to B ut ou r o f resist . we all have moments weak

- five ness , so I squandered twenty cents on the ” ’ Seaside edition o f the great man s greatest ’ o l o o i e S m n s M n s . 8 work, n On page 4. e I found something that interest d me , some ‘ how thing astronomical , showing keenly the famous author observes the commonest phe o f nomena nature . Turning down a leaf and on bearing the matter in mind , I read . At page 97 I turned down another leaf , and at page 1 1 2 a third . On these three pages are related astronomical events occurring in Af o n o f 2 o fi rica the evening June , the evening

60 THE COLLECTED WOR KS

phases is William Black . In the third chap ter of his P r i n c es s of Thule i s the following “ sentence : Was Sheila about to sing in this clear strange twilight while they sat there and watched the yellow moon come up behind the ” Southern hills ? The Spectacle o f the moon rising in the south is one which Heaven has denied to all except the characters in Black’ s “ is novels . It not surprising that Sheila was ” about to sing : she must have felt something of the exultation which swells the bosom of

‘ o f the that favored child Destiny, small boy who has crept in under the canvas when the menagerie people are p ainting the tiger . It may be borne in mind that B lack’ s south rising moon came up during the twilight

sa . that is to y, shortly after sunset I t would “ ” - be, therefore , nearly half full to the eye o f the terrestrial observer ; but referring to a later hou r o f the same evening Black says ! “ There into the beautiful dome rose the c r es c en t o f golden the moon , warm in color as though it still retained the last rays o f the ” Of sunset . Concerning the last clause this astonishing sentence it may be asked from what source Black supposed the moon ’ s light o r to be derived , if he regarded her as self i luminous . The truth probably s that he had OF AM BR OSE B IER CE 61

no definite ideas about the matter at all . He was in the same comfortable mental state as the worthy countryman who , being asked o f what he thought total depravity, promptly replied that if it was in the Bible he w a s in o f favor it . In dismissing Black I can not forbear to add th at even if the moon could rise in the south ; even if rising in the south it should continue rising into the dome when it shoul d be setting ; even if rising in the south soon

- after sunset a half moon , as it would necessar ily be , and continuing to rise into the dome when it should be setting, it could dwindle to

o f . a crescent, it could not be a warm color The crescent moon is as cold in color as a new — - dime almost as cold as a quarter dollar . In a bench - show of astronomers I doubt if Black would have been awarded a blue ribbon . M r I have been reading a Story by . Edgar : o f —a Saltus A M aid Athens story which , like a forgotten candle, burns on well enough to the end and then dies in its ow n grease . But that is no t the point ; I find this passage “ sk Beneath descending night, the y was

- gold barred and green . In the east the moon ’ ” glittered like a sickle o f tin . r u c om I shall have to add M . Salt s to my 62 THE COLLECTED WOR KS pany of authors with private systems of as m trono y . The imagination robust enough to conceive a crescent moon in the east at night fall might even claim a place in a dime museum . Spielhagan has his full moon on the hori zon at midnight by the castle clock . But the novelists are not alone in their ign o r ance o f what is before their eyes all their blessed lives : the poets know no more than

S o n s o the N i ht- Wa tc hes they . In her g f g Jean Ingelow compels a slender moon ” to “ float up from behind ” a person looking at

the sunset sky, and afterward makes the full moon “ behind some ruined roof swim up at dayb reak To rout out the moon so early

and make it get up , when it must have been up all night attending to its duty as a full moon o f orderly habits , is a trifle heartless . In M ” Daylight and oonlight, Longfellow, who seems imperfectly to have known how the lat

ter was produced , tells of a time when at mid day he saw the moon

Sa n fa n a nd e ili g high , but i t whit ’ As a sc oo o s a er e h lb y p p kit .

N ow if it was sailing high at noon it must OF AMBR OSE B IER CE 63

as o n have been , seen from earth , nearly a line sun—t i s s a with the hat to y, but little more “ — s a than new that is to y, invisible in the o f daytime . But that is not the worst this is not business . A new moon only invisible at noon , but sets soon after sunset, and would no give but little light if it did t. Yet this unearthly observer after relating how night came o n adds

T en the oon in all her r e h m , p id , L e a s r or fie ik pi it gl i d , Fill ed a n d overflow ed the n ight W re e a ons o f her ith v l ti light .

It is mournful to think that this popular poet lived ou t his long serene life without any hi s ff body suspecting condition , nor o ering him the comforts o f an asylum . I have found similar blunders in the poems o f M Wordsworth , Coleridge , Schiller, oore ,

Shelley, Tennyson and B ayard Taylor . Of course a poet is entitled to any kind o f uni hi s verse that may best suit purpose , and if he could give us better poetry by making the moon rise full - orbed in the northwest and “ ” s et like a tin sickle in the zenith I should ‘ go in for letting him have h is fling. But I 64 THE COLLECTED WOR KS do not discern any gain in sweetness and ” light from thes e despotic readjustments of the relations among sun , earth and moon , and must set it all down to the account of igno r ance , which , in any degree and however ex l Con c us ab e . , is not a thing to be admired cerning nothing is it more general , more deep , more dark , more invincible , nor withal , more needless , than it is with regard to movements o f o r How o ne and visible aspects u satellite . can have eyes and not know the pranks of the several heavenly bodies i s possibly obvious to

Omniscience , but a finite mind cannot rightly understand it . We will suppose th at ou r planet is without a satellite The nights are b rilliant o r star less , as the clouds may determine, but in all the measureless reaches o f space is no world o f having a visible disk, with vicissitudes light o f sc i and shadow . One day a famous man ence announces in the public prints a startling o r discovery . He has found an b , smaller a than the earth but of considerable m gnitude , moving in such a direction and at such a rate o f speed that at a stated time the next year it will have approached ou r sphere so closely, as to be caught by its attractive power and held , a prisoner, wheeling round and round O F AMBR OS E B IER CE 65

o n in a vain endeavor to escap e . He goes to explain that the invisible tether will be, astro ’ no mi c a ll y speaking, but a stone s throw in length : the captive world will h ave in fact th e astonishing p ropinquity of only a quarter o f ! see a million miles We shall be able to , even with unassisted eyes , the very mountains o f and valleys upon its surface , while a glass moderate power will show, not only these mountains ( many times higher than those of o ur ow n o rb ) with perfect definition , their long black shadows p rojected upon the plains , but will reveal the details o f extinct craters wide enough to engulf a terrestrial province , h o and w deep Heaven knows . Upon this o n strange new world , the great man goes to s a the y, we shall be able to observe mutations o f o f its day and night, tracing the lines its dawn and sunset exactly as , if we were there , wecould observe the more rapid changes upon the body o f o u r ow n planet ; and surely it would be worth something to stand away from o u r Spinning o rb and take in all its visible vicissitudes in one comprehensive view . It is easy to see the effect o f such an a n n o u nc em ent o f , verified by the apparition the o rb at the calculated place and time . All the civilized nations would be in a ferment . The 6 6 THE COLLECTED WOR KS

newspapers would be full o f the subject . Journalism would be conducted by the astron omers and nothing but the coming o rb would be talked o f ; many would go mad from ex i em en c t . t And when the celestial monster , moving aimless through space , should swim into the earth ’ s attraction and go whirling in its new orbit how we should study it, attent ive to its every visible aspect, alertly sensible to its changes and profoundly moved by the desolate sublimity o f its stupendous scenery . Fo r a half of every lunar month the churches , — o f i ns truc lyceums , theaters all the places tion o r amusement where people now assem ble by artificial light would close at sunset and the whole population would take to the hills . Colleges , societies and clubs would be founded for the new knowledge ; every human being, with opportunity and capacity , would become a Specialist in selenography and selen — i a h s . ology lunar expert, devoted to science N o t to know all about the moon would be considered as discreditable as illiteracy is co n l s id ered . a now Well , the moon we have o ne ways with us , and not man in a thousand nor one author in a hundred knows any more about it than that it is frequently invisible an n n h r d commonly ot rou d. O n ot e subjects

68 THE COLLECTED WO R K S

COLUMBUS

H E human mind is affected with a singular disabili ty to get a sense o f an historical event without a gi ga n tic figure in the foreground hi As overtopping all s fellows . surely as o ne God liveth , if hundred congenital idiots o f were set adrift in a scow to get rid them , and , borne by favoring currents into eyeshot o f an unknown continent, should simultane “ ” o usl ! y shout, Land ho instantly drowning one o f in their own drool , we should have them figuring in history ever thereafter with a growing glory as an illustrious discoverer o f a his time . I do not s y that Columbus was a no r navigator and discoverer of that kind , that he did anything of that kind in that way ; the parallel is perfect only in what history has done to Columbus ; and some seven ty mil lions o f Americans are authenticating the im posture all they know how . In this whole black business hardly o ne element o f false hood is lacking . w a Columbus s not a learned man , but an OF AMBR OSE B IER CE 69

ignorant . He was not an honorable man , but a p rofessional pirate . He was , in the most hateful sense of the word , an adventurer . Hi s voyage was undertaken with a view solely

“ to hi s o f own advantage, the gratification an o f incredible avarice . In the lust gold he o f o committed deeds cruelty, treachery and p p ression for which no fitting names are found in the vocabulary of any modern tongue . To the harmless and hospitable peoples among whom he came he was a terror and a curse .

H e tortured them , he murdered them , he sent them over the s ea as slaves . So monstrous so were his crimes , conscienceless his ambi s o a s o tion , ins tiable his greed , black his treachery to his sovereign , that in his mere imprisonment and disgrace we have a notable “ ” instance of the miscarriage o f justice . In ’ the black abysm o f this man s character we may pile falsehood upon falsehood , but we shall never build the monument high enough to o hi top the shadow f s shame . Upon the culm and crown o f that reverend pile eve ry angel will still look down and weep . We are told that Columbus w as no worse — than the men o f his race and generation that f ” his vices were those o his time . No vices are peculiar to any time ; this world has been 70 !THE COLLE CTED WOR KS

the vicious from dawn of history , and eve ry sin To o f race has reeked with . say a man that he i s like hi s contemporaries is to s ay that he is a scoundrel without excuse . The virtues w a . s are accessible to all Athens vicious , yet R Socrates was virtuous . ome was corrupt, but M arcus Aurelius was not corrupt. To offset Nero the gods gave Seneca . When litera ry France groveled at the feet of the third Napoleon Hugo stood erect . It will be a dark day for the worl d when in fractions o f the moral law by A and B are

accepted as justification o f the sins o f C . But even in the days of Columbus men were not all pirates ; God inspired enough o f them to be merchants to serve as prey fo r the others ; and while turning his honest penny by plun

dering them , the great Christopher was worsted by a Venetian trading galley a nd had to pickle his pelt in a six - mile swim to the

a w ette r . Portuguese coast, a wiser and thief If he had had the hard luck to d rown we might o f none us have been Americans , but the gods would have missed the revolting spectacle o f an entire people prostrate before the blood o f beslubbered image a moral idiot, perform ing solemn rites o f adoration with a litany o f

l ies . O F AMBR OSE B IER CE 71 In comparison with the crimes of Columbus his follies cut a sorry figure . Yet the fool hardy enterprise to whose failure he owes his f n ame is entitled to distinction . With se se enough to understand the earth ’ s spheroid form (he thought it p ear - shaped) but without o f s i z e he knowledge its , believed that he could reach India by sailing westward and died in ' — th e d el IIsi on that he had done so a trifling — miscalculation a matter o f eight o r ten thous f o ands o miles . I f this continent had n t hap pened to lie right across his way he and his merry men would all have gone fishing, with

!themselves for bait and the devil a hook among them . Firmness is persistence in the right ; obstinacy is persistence in the wrong .

With the light that he had , Columbus was s o wildly, dismally and fantastically wrong that his refusal to turn back was nothing

- less than pig headed unreason , and his crews would have been abundantly justified f in deposing him . The wisdom o an act is not to be determined by the outcome , but ’ by the performer s reasonable expectation o f success . And after all , the expedition failed o f lamentably . It accomplished no part ac c om its purpose , but by a happy chance it li shed —fo s p something better r u . As to the 72 THE COLLE CTED WOR KS

o f red Indians , such them as have been good enough to assist in apotheosis o f the man whom their ancestors had the deep misfortune to discover may justly boast themselves the f most magnanimous o mammals . And when all is conceded there remains the a ffronting falsehood that Columbus disc ov ered America . Surely in all these drunken — orgies o f b ea tific a tion in all this carnival o f b e lies there should , found some small place fo r Lief Ericsson and his wholesome North men , who discovered , colonized and aban domed this continent five hundred years b e o f fore , and whom we are forbidden to think

- as corsairs and slave catchers . The eulogist is always a calumniator . The crown that he sets upon the unworthy head he first tears from the head that is worthy . So the honest fame o f Lief Ericsson is cast as rubbish to the void , and the Genoese pirate is pedestaled in his place . But falsehood and ingratitude are sins trifl e against Nature , and Nature is not to be d

. o r with Already we feel , ought to feel , the o f h smart her las . Our follies are finding us o a ut. Our Columbi n Exhibition has for its chief exhibit our national stupidity, and dis o u r plays shame . Our Congress improves O F AMBR OSE B IER CE 73 the occasion to make a disgraceful surrender to the Cha db a n ds and S tigginses o f churches by a bitter observance o f the Sabbath . M an agers of the show steal the first one thousand dollars that come into their h ands by bestow ing them upon a schoolgirl related to one o f “ ” h fo r t emselves , a Commemoration Ode as long as the language and as foolish as its gram — ta less mar the ragged , g and bobtailed yellow o f his dog commemoration odes . And t while f Whittier lived to suf er the insult, and Holmes o f to resent it . What further exhibits our national stupidity and lack o f moral sense space has been engaged for in the world ’ s o ne contempt can only conjecture . In the meantime state appropriations are being o f looted , art is in process caricature , literat ure is debauched , and we have a Columbian Bureau o f Investigation and Suppression with a daily mail as voluminous as that o f a c om m e rc i f a l city . If at the finish o this reveal ing revelry self - respecting Americans shall not have lost through excessive use the power to blush , and all Europe the ability to laugh , another Darwin should write another book o n the expression of the emotions in men and animals . That nothing might be lacking to the a h 74 THE COLLECTED WOR KS f surdi ty o the scheme , the falsehood marking o f all the methods its execution , we must needs avail ourselves o f an alteration in the calendar and have two anniversary celebrations o f one o f event. And in culmination this comedy of falsehood , the later date must formally open , with dedicatory rites , an exhibition which will not be open for s ix months . One false hood begets another and another in the line of o f succession , until the father them all shall have colonized his whole p rogeny upon the congenial soil o f this new Dark Continent . Why should not the fou r- hundredth anni v e rsa ry of the rediscovery o f America have been made memorable by fi tly celebrating it with a becoming sense o f the stupendous im o f portance the event, without thrusting into the forefront o f the rites the dismal person ality o f the very small man who made the find ? Could not the most p rosperous and vain people of the earth s ee anything to cele brate in the fou r centuries between San Sal vador and Chicago but it must sophisticate history by picking that offensive creature out

of his shame to make him a central , dominat ? ing figure of the festival Thank Heaven , there is o ne thing that all the genius of the a nthro ol a ter p s can not do . ! uarrel as we

76 THE COLLECTED WOR KS

THE R ELIGION OF THE TABLE

HEN the starving peasantry o f France were bearing with i n im it able fortitude their great b e reavem en t in the death o f Louis le G rand , how cheerfully they must have bowed their necks to the easy yoke of Philip o f Orleans , who set them an example in eat ing which he had not the slightest objection to their following . A monarch skilled in the mysteries o f the cuisine must wield the scepter all the more gently for his schooling in hand a ling the l dle . In royalty, the delicate man i ul a tion o f soufflé p an omelette is, at once an o f o f evidence genius , and an assurance a ten der forbearance in state policy . All good h rulers ave been good livers , and if most bad ones have been the same this merely proves that even the worst o f men have still some i n thing divine them . There is more in a good dinner than is dis closed by removal of the covers . Where the eye o f hunger perceives only a juicy roast that of faith detects a smoking god . A well cooked joint is redolent of religion , and a OF AMBR OSE B IER CE 77

delicate pasty crisp with charity . The man who can light his after - dinner H avana with o ut feeling full to the neck with all the card inal virtues is either steeped in iniquity or has dined badly . In either case he is no true man im . It is here held that it is morally possible fo r a man to dine daily upon the fat of the land in courses and yet deny a future state of existence b ea tific with beef and ecsta t o i c with all edibles . A falsity f history is ’ that o f Heliogabalus dining on nightingales

“ 0 d tongues . N true gourmet woul d ever sen a nightingale to the shambles so long as scarcer, and therefore , better songsters might be obtained . It is a fine natural instinct that teaches the hungry and cadaverous to avoid the temples o f religion , and a shortsighted and misdirected R e zeal that would gather them into it . li i on - g is for the oleaginous , the fat bellied ,

e - f chyl satu rated devotees o the table . Unless the stomach be lined with good things , the par son may s ay as many as he can and his truths shall not be swallowed nor his wisdom inly digested . Probably the highest, ripest, and most acceptable form o f worship is performed with a knife and fork ; and whosoever o n the resurrection morning can produce from 78 THE COLLECTED WOR KS amongst the lumber o f his cast - o ff flesh a thin coated and elastic stomach showing evidences of daily stretchings done in the body will find it his readiest passport and best credential . Surely God will not hold him guiltless who eats with his knife , but if the deadly steel be always well laden with toothsome morsels di vine justice will be tempered with mercy to ’ o f The that man s soul . When the author L os t Ta les of M iletus represented Sisyphus as K o f capturing his guest, the ing Terrors , and ' stuffing the o ld glutton with meat and drink

- d until he became a jolly, rubicund, tun bellie ” “ haze Death , he gave us a tale that needs no ” a b ula d o c e t f to point out the moral . I verily believe that ShakSp ea re writ down ’ 0 Fat J ack at his last gasp , as babbling, not ’ 0 green fields , but green turtle , and that starve m ling, Colley Cibber, altered the text fro ’ o f sheer envy a good man s death . To die well we must live well , is a familiar platitude . M o f orality is , course, best promoted by the o u r good quality of fare , but quantitative ex c ell en c e Cast is by no means to be despised . e r is a r ib us p , the man who eats much is a better Christian than the man who eats little ; and h e who eats little will live more godly than he who eats nothing . M R R 9 OF A B OSE B IE CE 7 .

R EVISION DOWNWAR D

HE big man ’ s belief in himself is o f not surprising, and in respect a trial o f muscular strength it is well

founded , but the preference of all fo r nations , thei r parliaments and people , tall “ ” r soldiers is a su vival , an inherited faith M en held without examination . in battle no longer come into actual personal contact with their enemies in such a way that superior weight and strength are advantageous ; and superior size is a disadvantage , for it means a larger mark for bullets . In o u r civil war the big men were soonest invalided and sent home . They soonest gave in to the fatigues o f campaign and charge . “ ” The little fellows , more wiry and endur ing were the better material . I am com p elle d to a fli rm this from personal observa tion , knowing no other authority, though for so obvious a fact other authority must exist. t Incidentally, I may explain hat I am nearly six feet long . 80 THE COLLE CTED WOR KS f What is true o men is true of horses .

Strength , which implies size , is necessary in the horse militant, particularly in the ar tillery ; but it is got at the expense o f agility “ ” and endurance . The toughest American ” horse is the little Western cayuse , the In ” o dian pony f o u r early literature . “ This matter o f so - called degeneration in the stature of men and animals has a more no t than military interest . It is without meaning that all peoples have traditions o f

' o f re giants , and that all literatures are full fe ren c es to a remote ancest ry o f superior size he and strength . Even Homer tells of his ‘roes before the walls of Troy hurling at one another such stones as ten strong men o f his degenerate day could not have lifted from the earth . The kernel o f truth in all this is that the human race is actually decreasing in size . “ ” no But this is t degeneration . It is imp rove ment . Where are the megatherium , the dino s au ru s ? , the mammoth and the mastodon Where is the pterodactyl ? What has hap pened to the moa and the other gigantic bird whose name I do not at this moment recall maybe the epiornis ? Condemned and exe c uted by Nature for unfitness in the struggle OF AMBR O SE B IER CE 81

h o ta . i o for existence The elephant, the pp p mus and the rhinoceros are traveling the same road to extinction , and the late American h bison could show t em the way . i s the disadvantage o f bulk in ani _ What mals ? Feebleness . For an animal twice as heavy as another of the same Species to have the same activity it would h ave to be no t twice as strong, but four times as strong ; and for a t some reason to this deponent unknown , N o u re does not make it s . I f fou r times as large , it would need to be sixteen times as strong .

Observe the large birds ; the little ones , the ” swallows and hummers , can fly circles o f around them . The biggest them can not

fly at all and their wings , from disuse , are vest

i i a l . M g any insects can fly, not only p ropor tiona tely faster and farther th an even the

- humming bird , but actually . Is there , pos s ibl y, a lesson in this for the ingenious gentle men who expect the freight and passenger business o f the future to be done in the air ? We are all familiar with the fact that if a man were as strong and agile in p roportion as a flea he could leap several miles ; o ne can

figure o ut the exact number for oneself . If a s strong as an ant he could shoulder and lug 8 2 THE COLLECTED WOR KS

- away a six inch rifle and its carriage . Doubt less in the course o f evolution ( if evolution is permanent) man ( if man i s spared) will have ’ — ’ the ant s strength and the ant s size . Considering the advantages that the smaller insects and animalcul ae have in the struggle for existence and the wonderful powers and capacities it must have developed in them which we know, indeed , from such observers as Sir John Lubbock it actually h as developed in the ant - I can s ee no reason to doubt that some o f them have attained a high degree o f civilization and enlightenment . To this view it may be said in objection that we , not they, are masters of the world . That has nothing to do with it ; to insect civiliza no tion dominion may t be at all desirable . But are we masters ? Wait till we have sub ' - fl dued the red flea and the house y ; then , as o u r b ecom we lay off armor , we may more In l g y boast .

1 90 3.

8 4 THE COLLECTED WO R KS l o i a n so g , on the contra ry , is never irrational ow n as in his trade ; for, whatever religion e i s o f may b , theology a thing unreason alto o f gether , an edifice assumptions and dreams , a superstructure without a substructure , an invention of the devil . It is to religion what law is to justice , what etiquette is to courtesy, astrology to astronomy, alchemy to chemistry and medicine to hygiene . The theologian not fo r can reason , persons who can reason do : not go in for theology . Its name refutes it theology means discourse of God , concern ing whom some o f its expounders say that he ha s no existence and all the others that he can not be known . I set ou t to Show the folly of men who think they think—to give a few typical examples of what they are pleased to call “ evidence ” supporting their views . I shall take them from the work o f a man of far more than the average intelligence dealing with the doctrine o f immortality . He is a believer and thinks it possible that immortal human souls are on inhab an endless journey from star to star, he iting them in turn . And proves it thus : “ No o ne thinks of space without knowing that it can be traversed ; consequently the con O F AMBR O SE B IER CE 85 c ep tion o f space implies the ability to tra ” verse it . But how far ? He could as cogently s ay N 0 o ne thinks of the ocean without knowing that it can be swum in ; consequently the con c ep tio n o f ocean implies the ability to swim ” from New York to Liverpool . Here is another p recious bit o f testimony : “ The fact that man can conceive the idea Of space without beginning o r end implies that man is on a journey without beginning o r o f im end . In fact, it is strong evidence the ” o f mortality man . Good— now observe the possibilities in th at “ ” kind o f reasoning : The fact that a pig can conceive the idea o f a turnip implies that the pig is climbing a tree bearing turnips— which is strong evidence that the pig is a fish . In ’ each o f the gentleman s di c ta the first part no more “ implies ” what follows than it implies a weeping baboon on a crimson iceberg . Of the same unearthly sort are two more o f this innocent’ s deliveries “ The fact that we do not remember ou r former lives is no proof o f ou r never haVIng existed . We would remember them if we had accomplished something worth remem ” bering. 86 THE COLLE CTED WOR KS

' Note the unconscious petiti o pr i n c ipzi i n “ volved in the first o u r and the pure as sumption in the second sentence . “ We all know that character, traits and habits are as distinct in young children as in adults . This shows that if we had no p re existence all men would have the same char acter and traits and appearance and would be turned out on the same model . o r o r As apples are , for example , pebbles , “ ” cats . Unfortunately we do not all know , n o r o f does any us know, nor is it true, that young children have as much individuality o r as adults . And if we did all know it, if o f any us knew it, or if it were true , neither the fact itself nor the knowledge of it would show any such thing as that the di fferences

- could be produced by pre existence only. o r They might be due to the will of God , to some agency that no man has ever thought o r h about, has t ought about but has not known f to h ave that ef ect . In point of fact, we know that such peculiarities o f character and dispo s itio n as a young child has are not brought from a former life across a gulf whose brinks are death and birth , but are endowments from o f the lives others here . They are not indi O F M R R 87 A B OSE B IE CE .

— no t a n vidual , but hereditary vestigial , but tra l c es .

” The kind o f argument here illustrated by horrible example is not peculiar to relig ious nor doctrinal themes , but characterizes ’ i men s reasoning in general . It s the rule h — i n everyw ere oral discussion , in books , in newspapers . Assertions that mean nothing, testimony that is not evidence , facts having no relation to the matter in hand , and ( every where and always ) the sickening n o n s e q uitur the conclusion that has nothing to do with the

. no t p remises I know if there is another life , but if there is I do hope that to obtain it all will have to pass a rigid examination in logic and the art o f not being a fool .

In an unfriendly controversy it is import ant to remember that the public , in most cases , neither cares for the outcome of the fray, nor will remember its incidents The controversi alist should therefore confine his efforts and powers to accomplishment o f two main pur — poses I entertainment o f the reader : 2 Fo r o f personal gratification . the first these objects no rules can be given ; the good writer 88 THE COLLE CTED WOR KS

the one will entertain and bad will not, no matter what is the subject . The second is accomplishable ( a) by guarding your self ’ respect ; (b ) by destroying your adversary s

- him self respect ; ( c) by making respect you , against his will , as much as you respect you r self ; ( d ) by p rovoking him into the blunder o f permitting you to despise him . It follows that any falsification , p revarication , dodging, misrepresentation o r other cheating on the part o f one antagonist is a distinct advantage to the other, and by him devoutly to be wished .

The public cares nothing for it, and if de c eiv ed will forget the deception ; but he never forgets . I would no more willingly let my opponent find a flaw in my truth , honesty and frankness than in fencing I would let him o f beat down my guard . Of that part victory which consists in respecting yourself and mak ing your adversary respect you you can be always sure if you are worthy o f respect ; o f that part which consists in despising him and making him despise himself you are no t sure ; o n that depends his skill . He may be a very despicable person yet so cunning of fence sa w that is to y, so frank and honest in riting o u R e that you will not find t his unworth . member that wh at you want is not so much to OF AMBR OSE B IER CE 89 disclose his meanness to the reader (who cares nothing about it) as to make him dis

! close it to your private discernment . That is the whole gospel of controversial strategy . Yo u are o ne of two gladiators in the arena your fi rst duty is to amuse the multitude . But as the multitude is not going to remember ve ry long after leaving the show who was no t victorious , it is worth while to take any hurts for a merely visible advantage . So fight as to p rove to yourself and to you r a d vers a ry that you are the abler swordsman that is , the more honorable man . Victory in fo r eu that is important, it is lasting, and is joyed ever afterward when you see or think o f the vanquished . I f in the battle I get a foul stroke , that is a distinct gain , for I never by any possibility forget that the man who delivered it is a foul man . That is what I wanted to think him , and the very thing which he should most strenuously have striven to prevent my knowing . I may meet him in the street, at the club , any place where I can not help it ; under whatever circumstances he becomes p resent to my consciousness I find a fresh delight in recalling my moral superi o rit y and in despising him anew . Is it not

t - strange , then , that nine y nine disputants in a 90 THE COLLECTED WOR KS hundred deliberately and in cold blood con cede to their antagonists this supreme and de c isiv e advantage in pursuit o f one which is ? o f merely illusory Their faults are, first, o f o f course , lack character ; second , lack en sense . They are like an enraged mob gaged in hostilities without having taken the o trouble to know something o f the art f war . fo r Happily them , if they are defeated they do not know it : they have no t even the sense to ascribe their sufferings to their wounds . 1 8 99.

92 THE COLLECTED WOR KS thing except in c omb a ting its own methods ‘ in the other . The newspaper denounces the — o ne o r the other and joins a syndicate o f “ ” newspapers . Department stores sp ring up o f all over the land, draw the fire the dema gogue and are impotently condemned in the platform o f the political trust that he adorns . Our great hotels are examples of the same fi centripetal law, and of ces move to the center into buildings overlooking the church spires . Small farms are disappearing ; railways ab sorb other railways and by pooling interests with those unabsorbed , evoke impotent legisla “ ” tion and vain decisions . Cities swallow

' and digest their suburbs . There are such things as guilds of authors ; tramps devastate in organized bodies , and there has been even o f a congress religions . In the larger politics we observe the same tendency to aggregation ; eve rywhere the unit o f control is enlarging . In the Western Hem i sphe re we have had Pan - American con g resses and seen the genesis o f the Dominion o f Canada . The United States have set up , h and must enceforth maintain , what is virtu ally a protectorate of American R epublics a policy which commits us to thei r defense in every dispute with a European power, gives OF AMBR OSE B IER CE 93 us a living interest in all their affairs and m akes every square foot o f South America in some sense United States territory .

Beyond the Atlantic it is the same . The entire continent o f Africa is being parted among a few European nations already swoll en to enormous growth by vast accretions o f colonial dominion . And all over the world h colonial federation is in t e air . In Europe itself states are drawn together into kingdoms , kingdoms into empires . United I taly and United Germany are conspicuous and s ign ific in ant examples . Whether the Othe r World a movement is afoot to establish Greater Heaven by annexing Hell nei ther the celes tial ambassadors have informed us from the pulpit, nor the infernal from the tribune . “ Multiplication of international c onv en “ ” v ention s and treaties is o ne o f the most striking of contemporary political phenomena . They are a minor Species o f international federation , attesting and perpetuating a com muni ty o f interest which statesmen no longer venture to ignore . By some hopeful spirits they are regarded as p reliminary committee ’ “ ” o f n work Tennyson s Parliament o f M a . International arbitration is a blind step in the

same direction , profitable chiefly as evidence 94 THE COLLECTED WOR KS

o f o f the general trend . The set the currents of human interests is from all points o f the compass toward fewer and fewer nuclei of — control . We may dislike the direction may clamor against the current that seems to be affec ting a particular interest, but we can neither stay nor turn it . We may utter ( from “ ” o u r o f the pocket) disrelish the trust , the ” ” combine , the monopoly ; they are phases of the movement and we shall shriek in vain . A few o f the public advantages o f c omb i n a tions in p roduction may be mentioned .

Economy is the most obvious . A syndicate or trust requires just as many miners to dig o f a million tons coal , for example , as a dozen independent companies did ; but it does not o fli c e rs require nearly so many salaried , nor o fli c es nearly so many expensive . The man who is in danger o f losing his place is not the laborer, yet it is the laborers who are loudest in their wail . A little reflection will suggest many other ways in which economy o f production is served by combination ; but refl eotion o f deeper , with some knowledge commercial phenomena , is required to make it clear that economy o f production benefits of o anybody but the producer . It is some p tenti a l advantage , at least, to the consumer OF AMBR OSE B IER CE 95

that the p roducer is able , without bankruptcy, to low er the price o f the product if Heaven should put it into his heart to do so . Stability of employment is promoted by of combination capital . A single concern employing ten thousand workmen will not hold them subject to the whims and caprices o f a single mind conscious o f HS ability to replace them , as is the case with a man em ploying only a dozen . To a rich corporation carrying on a large business a strike means a great loss ; to a score o f small concerns it means a comparatively small loss each , and is incurred with a light heart . Labor may be ve ry sure o f having its demands attentively considered by those who cannot afford to be a day without it . A great p art o f the clamor against trusts is the honest expression o f a belief ( p romoted by many writers o n political economy) that in commercial matters the only influence con cerned in reduction o f price is competition . Nearly all workingmen are more o r less dis contented with the “ competitive system in ff industrial a airs , but few have learned to

challenge its benignity in trade . Competition on e o f e is , in fact, only the sev ral forces con

cerned in cheapening commodities and , gen 96 THE COL LECTED WOR KS e ra ll not y speaking, by any means the most considerable . It requires only a brief ex per i enc e in producing and selling to convince an intelligent man that his prosperi ty is to be found in the large sales o f his product that o f o f come low prices . H aving control his market and a free hand in the management of his business such a man studies to reduce his selling p rice to the lowest possible point . An enlightened selfishness moves him to undersell his himself whenever he can , as if he were o w n competitor . N o t all men managing large commercial f o f af airs are intelligent . Some the trusts are o rganized and conducted with a view to en h anc ing rather than reducing prices ; but these are bound to fail . By tempting the small

t e - concerns to remain in or enter the field , the trust cuts its own throat . Its primary purpose is to “ crush out ” the independent “ small o ne dealer, and this it can do in only way lure away his customers by underselling him . I f consumers really think that is so wicked a thing to do they have the remedy in their o w n hands . Let them refuse to leave the small dealer, and continue to pay him the higher price . This course would entail a bit o f sacrifice, maybe, but it woul d have the M R R 97 OF A B O SE BIE CE . merit of freedom from cant and hypocrisy . I know o f nothing more ludicrous than the spectacle of these solemn consumers appealing to the law and public opinion to avenge upon the trusts the injuries o f themselves and the small dealer—they having no injuries to avenge and the small dealer only such as themselves have inflicted by assisting the trusts to pluck him . The trust is condemned when it puts up prices , for that harms the consumer ; it is condemned when it puts them down , for i h r ' a se h . e t e c t at harms the small dealer In , both consumer and small dealer make com mon cause against the enemy that can harm neither without helping the othe r . If the history o f human folly shows anything more absurd surely the historian must have been R “ abelais , laughing sardonically in his easy ” chair .

The trusts , it is feared , will become too rich and powerful to be controlled . I do not The a l think so . reason that some of them o f ready defy the power the states is that, s o n ot a t being few, they have until now tracted the serious attention o f legislatures . And even now o u r anti - trust legislation is more concerned with the impossible task o f abolition and prevention than with the praet~ 98 THE COLLECTED WOR KS

i c able one of regulation . When we have learned by blundering what we can not do we do s hall easily enough learn what we can , and c i n find it quite sufli e t. Governmental owner ship and governmental control are what we are coming to by leaps and bounds ; and with the industries and trade of the country in fewer hands the task o f regulating them will be greatly simplified, for it is easier to manage on e defendant in a single jurisdiction than many in a hundred .

But, it will be asked , is this to become a nation of employees working fo r a few f ? N o hundreds o taskmasters t at all . The Spirited and provident employee can become his own employer and the employer o f others by investing his savings in the stock o f a

trust . The greater its gains , the greater will “ ” f out be his share o them . The crushed ec b e small dealer, too , can r oup himself by a o f o t coming part what crushed him u . N aturally the tendency o f the trusts will be “ ” ” to work the stock market, to put up jobs

o n so . the small investors , and forth Preven tion o f that sort o f thing is a legitimate pur re pose for legislation , and promises better “ ” s ults than drastic measures to destroy the To h trusts themselves . do t e latte r the laws

1 00 THE COLLECTED WO R KS

R R M E POVE TY, C I AND VI CE

N D R EW CAR NEGIE once said in an address to a young men ’ s Bible class The cry goes up to abolish s a d n poverty, but it will indeed be a day whe poverty is no longer with us . Where will your inventor, your artist, your philan thro i st p , your reformer, in fact, anybody of ? m note , come from then They all come fro the ranks of the poor . God does not call his f ” great men from the ranks o the rich .

That is not altogether true . The notable men do not all come from the ranks o f the h poor, though M r . Carnegie does , and t at gives him the right to point out the sweet ” a s Sha ks e a re uses of adversity, did p and o many others . The rich supply their quota f men naturally great, but through l ack of a s ufli c i ently sharp incentive many of these give h e n us less than t e b st that is in them . Whe M R R 1 01 OF, A B OSE B IE CE

God is giving o ut genius he does not study he t assessment rolls .

M r . . As to the rest, Carnegie is quite right A worl d without poverty would be a world o f o r incapables . Poverty may be due to one more of many causes , but in a large , general ’ way it i s Nature s punishment fo r incapacity I and mprovidence Paraphrasing the poet, s a we may y that some are born poor, some t e achieve pover y, and some have pov rty thrust —“ b ” upon them y the wicked rich , quoth the ol d demagogue . Dear, delicious , dema gogue l— whatever should we do if all w ere too rich to support him , and his voice were heard no more in the land ?

Frequently a curse to the individual , pov t the e ty is a blessing to race , not only because by effacing the unfit ( Heaven rest them !) it aids in the su rvival of the fit ; not only b e i t o f cause is a school fortitude , industry, per v i rt severance , ingenuity , and many another u e ; but because it directly begets such warm and elevating sentiments as compassion , gen e ro sit - y, self denial , thoughtfulness for others — in no t a word , altruism . It does beget enough of all this , but think what we shoul d be with none o f it ! If there were no help lessness there would be no helpfulness . That 1 02 THE COLLECTED WOR KS

pi ty is akin to love is sufli ci ently familiar to

c a r one the , but how profound a truth it is no

seems to suspect . Why, pity is the sole origin o u r no t o f love . We love children , because

they are ours , but because they are helpless ou o u r they need r tenderness and care , as do M a n domestic animals and our pets . loves woman because she is weak ; woman loves fo r man , not because he is strong, but because , h e r . all his strength , he is needy ; he needs M inor affections and good will have a simil

‘ ar origin . Friendship came of mutual p ro tec tio n v esti and assistance . Hospitality is g ial ; primarily it was compassion fo r the way

farer, the homeless , the hungry . If among “ ” o u r rude forefathers none had needed food “ - en and shelter, we should have to day no ”

o i . tertaining , no social pleasures any kind on e Poverty is kind of helplessness . I t is an appeal to “ what we have the likest God within the soul In its relief we are made

acquainted with ingratitude . Ingratitude , o r like spanking, ridicule , or disappointment i in love , hurts without harming . It s a bit

ter tonic, but wholesome and by habit may ,

doubtless , become agreeable . This , there on a fore , is how we demonstrate e of the d vantages o f poverty : Without poverty there OF AMBR OSE B IER CE 1 03

could be no benevolence ; without benevolence , no ingratitude— whereby human nature would i ts lack supreme credential . no t I go further than M r . Carnegie ; only do I think poverty necessary to p rogress and civilization , but I am persuaded that crime , too , is indispensable to the moral and material f ef welfare o the race . In the ever needful fort to limit and supp ress it ; in the immemo r ial and incessant war between the good and the evil forces o f this world ; in the constant vigilance necessa ry to the security of life and p roperty ; in the strenuous task o f safe - guard the ing young, the weak and the unfortunate against the cruel ty and rapacity ever a lu rk — and alert to prey upon them in all these forms o f the struggle fo r o u r racial existence are generated and developed such higher v i rt ues and capabilities as we have . A country withou t crime would breed a population with o u f t sense . In a few generations o security i ts people would suffer a great annual mort ality by falling over their feet . They would be devoured by their dogs and enslaved by their cows . Poverty and crime are teachers in Nature ’ s great training school . Does it follow that we should cease to resist them—should encou rage 1 04 THE COLLECTED WOR KS and promote them ? Not at all ; their best b eneficence is found in our struggle to sup press, overcome or evade them . The hope o f eventual success is itself a spiritual good o f no mean magnitude . Let all the chaplains o f our forces encourage and hope and pray fo r that success ; but for my part, if I thought o victory imminent r possible , I should run away . Some Chicago millionaires once set afoot a g iant scheme for settling the slum p o pulation o f our great cities on farms . This was a p ro j ec t foredoomed to failure : one might as well attempt to colonize o n the hills the fishes o f o f the sea . The experiment taking the slum folk from the Slums and making them agri a a l culturists has been tried ag in and again , ways with the best intention , always with the worst result : in a few years all are back again in the congenial slums . Of course it ought not to be that way ; these unfortunate persons ought not to have inherited from countless o f generations urban ancestors the tastes , feel ings and capacities binding them to th ei r mode of life as strongly as the children of t m s er prosperi y are bound to theirs . The y t ious suasion O f their environment ought not to exert its incessant, irresistible pull . The OF AMBR OSE B IER CE 1 05 call o f the slum should sound through their very dreams with a less iron authority . If with ou r sup erior wisdom we had made this — — world you and I men and women o f all degrees would tu rn their faces ever to the th e o f light, and line least resistance would lead always upward . Their tastes and their instincts would never war with their inter o ne ests , and the longer had remained in bondage to the taskmasters of Egypt the more o ne eagerly would seek the Promised Land , e th more contentedly dwell in it . In the world as we have it matters are differently sl um fo lk o rdered . The way to help the is to improve the slums ; not enough to drive them — o ut there should be no worse places for them to go to ; just enough to give them a not alto gether intolerable p rosperi ty where they are . Earth has no more hopeless being than a re

- novated slum dweller, uncongenially p rosper o s u and inapp rop riately clean .

That there is in this country a deep - seated and growing distrust of the rich by the poor is a truth which every right - headed and right - hearted man is compelled to perceive 1 06 THE COLLECTED WOR KS

o f and deplore . That many the rich have thoughtlessly and selfishly done much to p ro voke it is equally obvious and equally d eplo r i s able ; but largely, I think, it due to the per nic ious teachings o f those o f both classes who Fo r find a profit in p romoting it . neither the rich nor the poor constitute a brotherhood bound by the ties o f a common interest ; and o n the do fo r whole , it is well that they not, loyalty in defense is usually associated with loyalty in aggression , and those accustomed to stand together for their rights too frequently think that the best foothold is found upon the N o t rights of those opposing them . all the o f o rich are men prey, but to those who are , n quarry is more alluring than the other rich , no t only in the way of direct spoliation in business , but by catching the pennies of the applauding poor through that kind of apos

tasy that poses as superior virtue . A great part o f the sullen animosity o f pov e t ty to wealth is undoubtedly the produc t of o ne o f mere envy, the black elements o f hu man nature whose strength and activity are

commonly underestimated , even by the most o f discerning observers , which all modern pessimists , Schopenhauer seems most clearly to

have perceived . Hatred o f the wealthy by

1 08 THE COLLECTED WOR KS envy is not present to feed the rancor . Nor is there any profit in the business o f kindling and keeping alight the fires o f hostili ty to the poor ; the demagogue h a s among the rich no professional antagonist p ractising his methods .

True , the wealthy do , as a rule , hold them selves aloof from the poor ; even usually from those with whom they associated before their days o f prosperity ; sometimes from their ow n less prosperous relatives . There are several “ ” reasons ; the inexperienced capitalist who suspects that none of them is valid can try his luck at making no ch ange in his associa tions . He will be wiser after a while , but will have fewer friends and less ready money . It will be more economical to learn from some o ne who has prospered before him even from a person known to have merely a fair salary and not known to have any de pendents . Doubtless colossal fortunes have their

disadvantages , chiefly, I think, to those in pos session ; but as a general p roposition , money making may safely be permitted , for there is no way under the sun to get any good o ut of

money except by parting with it . One may pay it to a tradesman for goods ; the tradesman O F AMBR OSE B I E R CE 1 09

pays it to another, but eventually it goes to

the man that makes the goods , the workman .

O r one may lend it on interest, the borrower

lending it again at a higher interest, or invest

ing it ; it may pass through a dozen hands , but — the ultimate man pays it o ut for labor the sole purpose and meaning of the entire series o f transactions . All the money in the world , except the small part hoarded by misers or o ut fo r a lost, is p aid labor, flows b ck in con verging streams as capital , and is again dis

i n ' e tributed w a g s . Does the socialist know this ? He knows nothing ; he learned it from

Karl M arx and Upton Sinclair. The man ow n who , making money in his country, o r spends it in another, may may not be mis chi evous to his countrymen ; that depends on h what he buys . To his race e is harmless and beneficial .

On the whole, the unfortunate rich man , cowering as a p risoner in the dock before the o f austere tribunal public Opinion , has a pretty good defense if he only knew it . As he seems imperfectly provided with counsel and is not saying much himself , it would be only just for the court to enter a plea o f not guilty for e him , and to hear a little more t stimony than that so abundantly proffered by swift and

‘ r on willin witnesses for the os ec uti . 1 1 0 THE COLLECTED WOR KS

Abolition Of poverty is not all that our t e formers propose— they would abolish all that i s disagreeable . Let us suppose them to have accomplished their amiable purposes . We t have , then , a country in which are no pover y, o r no contention , no tyranny opp ression , no — o r s o . peril to life limb , no disease and forth How delightful ! What a good and happy eO l e ! ! p p Alas , no With poverty have van i shed benevolence , p rovidence , and the fore o f o f sight which , born the fear individual want, stands guard at a thousand gates to de im fend the general good . The charitable pulse is dead in every b reast, and gratitude , atrophied by disuse, has no longer a place among human sentiments and emotions . With no more fighting among ourselves we have lost the power o f resentment and resistance : a car - load o f Mexicans or a shipful of Jap ’ anese can invade o ur fool s paradise and eu us slave , as the Spaniards overran Peru and “ the British subdued India . ( Hailers o f the ” o f dawn the new era will, I trust, provide that it dawn everywhere at once o r here last o f all . ) Having no opp ression to resist and

1 1 2 THE COLLECTED WOR KS

DECADEN CE OF THE AMER I CAN FOOT

HE ultimate destiny o f the Americ

an foot is a subject which , through e an enlightened s lfishness , must more and more engage the interest of the American head and the sympathies o f the American heart . Even apart from the question o f its final fate and place in the e scheme of things , the human foot, Am rican and foreign , has many features of peculiar t o f interest . In the singular complexi y its a fli rm structure , closely ( and as the scientists , o f significantly) resembling that the hand , lurk possibilities o f controversy suffi cient in themselves to tempt attention and invite re ’ search . In truth this honorable member s framework may be said to consist mainly of R fi bones of contention . eligion af rms of its arched instep , its flexible toes , its padded sole , and the other peculiarities of its intricate con struction an obvious adaptability o f means to : an end p roof positive of intelligent design , and therefore of an intelligent Designer OF AMBR OSE B IER CE 1 1 3

wid e Wha tel e a s s im . re y, p Science coldly plies by pointing to the serviceable foot of the o f bear, which lacks the arched instep , and the horse , which is without the flexible toes , o r toes of any kind , and in which no use is o f made the padded sole . To the simple pur

-a n poses to which the hum foot is applied , i ts t says the scientist, complexi y is in no sense nor degree contributory ; it would perform all i ts O fli ces equally well if it were a hoof . All the distinguishing features of the human foot, as contrasted with that, for example , of the horse or sheep , he avers to be such , vari o usl m y odified by long and regrettable disuse ,

as. fit animals for climbing trees and dwelling in the b ranches . The human foot is , in short, according to this view of the matter, nothing but an expurgated edition o f that o f the monk e o f our y, and a standing evidence descent

- from that tree dwelling philosopher . Into this controversy I do not purpose to enter ; I prefer to stand afar o ff and suggest a c o ntention a r compromise , whereby each y may ’ he retain , with t other s assent, all that essen tial part o f his belief which is precious to his mind and heart . Let the scientist surrender s o much o f his theory as is incompatible with o f re the assumption creative design , the M 4 THE COLLE CTED WOR KS l igion ist so much o f his faith a s traverses the assertion o f arboreal activity . The new the o r y, taking broad enough ground for all to h stand upon , may be formulated somew at as follows : The human foot as we have it was designed by an intelligent Power in order to

fit mankind for an arboreal future .

Than this nothing could be fairer . I t ac s eems acceptable , and I hope it will be c epted by persons o f every shade o f religious fai th and scientific conviction . I t leaves the

Christian his Adam , the Darwinian his Ape . R a evealed in it, as in a m gic crystal , we dis cern the engaging truth that the hope o f Heaven and the belief in a more advanced stage of evolution are virtually the same — thing each in its way a p rophecy o f another and higher life . That we shall enjoy that

' superior existence in the fl esh is a happiness that is but slightly impaired by the circum stance that it will be in the flesh of Posterity .

This is a consideration indeed , that does not f o f at all af ect the interest the evolutionist, fo r he never has had any expectations ; and to the religious person there is a peculiar joy inhering in renunciation o f his individual o f hope for the assurance a racial advantage . In contemplation of Posteri ty frolicking

1 1 6 THE COLLECTED WOR KS

o utm a tes o f the house and sucking the in . With the general adoption o f the traveling carpet, carrying chairs among the several rooms , the last vestigial excuse for the Amer ff ican urban foot will have been e aced , and that member will not lag superfluous o n the ’ stage, but in obedience to Nature s mandate step down and out forthwith . In the rural districts it will doubtless have c on a longer lease of life, owing p artly to the se rv a tive o f diffi character the people , the culty of hoeing corn while sitting, the saving badness of the roads—inhibiting vehicular —tra fli c by all but the hardiest adventurers and the intricacy of the trails , which for bids the general use o f the steam bicycle in driving home the cows . Eventually these disabilities will be over come by American ingenuity, and the rural foot having no longer a function in the physic a l economy, will be absorbed into the char

. o f acter Its relegation , with that its urban ’ c on en i to r - g , to Nature s waste dump in the tenebrous realm of things that are no more will mark the dawn o f a new era in o u r life and be followed by radical and profound

changes , particularly in the tactical move of r ments infant y . OF AMBR OSE B IER CE 1 1 7

THE CLOTH ING OF GHOSTS

B LIEP in ghosts and app aritions is

general , almost universal ; possibly it

is shared by the ghosts themselves . We are told that this wide distrib u tion o f the faith and its persistence through the ages are powerful evidences o f its truth .

As to that, I do not remember to have heard the basis o f the argument frankly stated ; it can be nothing else than that whatever i s gen e ra ll o f y and long believed is true , for course there can be nothing in the particular belief under consideration making it peculiarly n demo strable by counting noses . The world has more Buddhists than Christians . Is ‘B uddhism therefore the truer religion ? B e fore the day o f Galileo there was a general though not quite universal conviction that the earth was a motionless body, the sun passing around it daily . That was a matter in which “ ” the united testimony o f mankind ought to have counted for more than it should in the o f fo r matter ghosts , all can observe the earth sun s ee and , but not many p rofess to ghosts, 1 1 8 THE COLLECTED WOR K S and no one holds that the circumstances’ in which they are seen are favorable to calm and critical observation . Ghosts are notoriously addicted to the habit o f evasion ; Heine says “ that it is because they are afraid of us . The ” united testimony o f m ankind has a notable — knack at establishing only one thing the i n credibility o f the witnesses . If the ghosts care to prove their existence as objective phenomena they are unfortunate in always d iscovering themselves to i n ac c u r s a o f ate observers , to y nothing the bad luck of frightening them into fits . That the seers o f ghosts are inaccurate observers , and there fore incredible witnesses , is clear from their o n w stories . Who ever heard o f a naked ghost ? The apparition is always said to pre sent himself ( as he certainly Should) p roperly “ ” o r clothed , either in his habit as he lived f in the apparel o the grave . Herein the wit ness must be at fault : whatever power of a p p a ri tio n after dissolution may inhere in mort a l flesh and blood, we can hardly be expected n to believe that cotton , silk, wool and line have the same mysterious gift . I f textile fabrics had that property they would some o ne d times manifest it independently, woul h — “ ” t ink would m aterialize visibly without;

1 20 THE COLLECTED WOR KS

d . No, we raw the line at clothing The materialized spook appealing to ou r senses for recognition o f his ghostly character must authenticate himself otherwise than by famil iar and remembered habiliments . He must be credentialed by nudity—and that regard less of temperature o r who may happen to be present . Nay, it is to be feared that he must eschew his hair, as well as his habiliments , “ ” and swim into ou r ken utterly bald ; for the scientists tell us with becoming solemnity that hair is a purely vegetable growth and no o f us essential part . If he deem these to be hard conditions he is at liberty to remain on his reservation and try to endow us with a of terrifying sense himself by other means . the In brief, conditions under which the ghost must appear in order to command the faith of an enlightened world are so onerous that he may p refer to remain away— to the unspeakable impoverishment o f letters and art . 1 0 9 2 . O F AMBR O SE B IER CE 1 2 1

SOME ASPECTS OF EDUCATION

HEN R ichard Olney was Secret Of ary State , Ouida (who had nothing to do with the matter) addressed to him a remonstrance of against exclusion illiterate immigrants , ex plaining that the analphabets in her employ were better servants than those who could “ ” h e . s read I have had for twenty years , said , ‘ ’ an ol d man (what is called the odd man in

England) , and he can be sent with fifty com missions to purchase objects . Detail him orally and he will execute these commissions ” with no single error . Illiteracy may be a valuable quality in a servant, but we are not taking in immigrants with a view to the bet te rment of o u r domestic se rvice ; it may qual i f to do y a man errands , but as a help to him in reading a ballot it does not amount to much . As a claim to high political prefer ment it is distinctly less valid than a bald head and a knack at gabble .

Nevertheless , Ouida was not altogether 1 22 THE COLLECTED WOR K S

wrong . A man is not made intelligent by mere abili ty to read and write : his little learn ing is a dangerous thing to himself and to his country. The only reading that such men do is o f the most degrading kind : it debases them , mind and heart, gives them a false o f estimate their worth , magnifies their woes , and fills them with a sense of thei r numbers a nd their power . Eventually they rise and have to be shot . O r they succeed , and hav ing first put to death the gifted rascals who s et incited and led them , they up a Govern ment o f Unreason which they lack the sense to maintain , and their last state is no better old than their first . That is the dull , dreary s o sequence of events , familiar to the student o f history . That is the beaten path leading trav el edi back to its beginning, which must be again and again without a break in the mo noton o f — y the march . That is Progress the o f resub brute revolt the ignorant mass , their j ecti on by the intelligent few ; nowhere just ice , nowhere righteousness , everywhere and in s . always force , greed, selfishness and That is the universal struggle— sometimes sluggish s out ometimes turbulent, always without an f ne ? come and with no hope o o . Along that hideous path our American free feet are mer

1 24 THE COLLECTED WOR KS hard and hateful work, but he will no longer perform it cheerfully and well . — What is the remedy P educate him still more ? Then he will no longer perform it at — all he will die first ! Those o f us who have tried both may assure him that head - work is

- out harder than hand work, that it takes more o f o ne , that its rewards give no greater hap piness ; he Observes that none of us renounces fo it r the other kind . He does not believe

f . us , and it would not af ect him if he did o f a d What, as a matter fact, is the public vantage o f even that higher education which we tax ourselves more and more to make gen ? o ur eral Look at overcrowded p rofessions , whose “ ethics ” and practices grow worse and N ot one worse from increasing competition . “ ” o f them is any longer a really honorable profession . Look at the monstrous over o f ou r growth cities , those congested b rains o f the nation . They draw to themselves all the output o f the colleges and the universi f ties , and as much o that of the country schools as can get a p recarious foothold and — — “ live God knows how in hope to better ” t : its condition A pret y picture , truly a population roughly divisible into a con sc iencel ess crowd of b rain - workers who have OF AMBR OSE B IER CE 1 25 s o bettered their condition as to live by prey ; a sullen multitude o f manu al laborers blowing the coals of discontent and plotting one a universal overthrow . Above the perch “ ” the primping monkeys of society, chatter ing in meaningless glee ; below the other the b rute tramp welters in his grime . And with it all a national wealth that amazes the world — ’ and profits nobody the country s wonder, o n pride and curse . Still we go with a ma n i ac al hope , adding school to school , college — un to college , university to university , and conscious provision for their p roduct— alms houses , asylums and p risons in p rodigal abundance . I am far from a fli rming that the industrial discontent which for more than a half cent u ry has been an augmenting menace to o u r c d national life , has its sole origin in popular u c a tion conjoined with the higher education o f e too many . For any social phenom non

no . there is lack of causes For this there are , o f among others , two special importance .

First, the duplication of the labor force by that female competition which , beginning its t th e displacements pret y well up in scale , drives the unlucky male to lower and lower out o f levels , until forced the lowest by inva 1 26 THE COLLECTED WOR KS sion by his own sex from higher ones , he finds no rest for the sole of his foot and takes to the road , an irreclaimable tramp . Second , the ” amazing multiplication of labor - saving machinery , whose disadvantages are swift, and advantages slow— which throws men out o f work, who starve while awaiting restitu tion in the lower price of its products , many o f which , even when cheap , are imperfectly edible . So I do not say that the schoolmaster is the only pestilence that walketh at noon — o n e day . But I do say and with half an eye can observe it for himself and in his own per — s on that learning in any degree indisposes to manual toil in some degree ; that the scholar musc lew is e will not labor if he can help it, nor with a contented Spirit when h e can no t help it . In his Founders ’ Day address at Stanford o f University, the President another univers ity said

Us a an e ca on a e en en the u lly du ti will p y, but v wh fe o p ro ss i n s a r e c rowded a n d he ! the c ollege man ! c a n fin d no pl ace he is s till the better for it if he will but a cce s o e o e r oc c a on in e pt m l w up ti lif .

“ B ut usually he will not ; he will wedge

1 28 THE COLLECTED WOR KS civilization are hundreds o f thousands o f

- scholars , becomingly stoop shouldered and ’ l b e- fit y spectacled , whom a day s wage of an American farm h and would support in un fo r accustomed luxury a week . B ut not a ’ mother s son o f them will perform manual o f labor if he can help it. No r will any the corresponding class here or elsewhere . To “ ” educate the ma n with a hoe is to divorce — him from his hoe a p rompt and irrevocable o f separation . A good deal hoeing is needful in this world , and not so much lawing and physicking and preaching and writing and o f painting and the rest it . If I were dictator I woul d abolish every ” institution o f learning above the grammar

s tw o . chools , excepting one or universities I t would make a universi y in fact, as well as in name . It should not only turn o ut the finest scholars in the world , but it should be a place o f original research in a Sense that none o f o u r universities now is . From the grammar school to its portal the student should make — his upward way unaided enough woul d a c complish the feat and thereby prove their fit ness ; and those who failed would not be f greatly harmed by the ef ort . I am not quite sure if I should limit the number o f students O F AMBR OS E B IER CE 1 29 by law ; probably that could best be done by of the rigor examinations . Under my d ic ta t o rship we would not be a community of col lege graduates , mostly men of prey, but neither should we be s o top - heavy that in some social convulsion the country would “ turn ” on i t turtle and stand s head . 1 897. 130 THE COLLECTED WOR KS

R THE R EIGN O F. TH E ING

H E statement is made o n what s eems as good authority a s in such a matter can be cited that in Europe the custom o f wearing — “ fi nger- rings is going out to come in again , doubtless , with renewed vitality . It is hardly to be expected that it will suffer a per manent extinction while human character t e mains what i t is ; and the acutest observer can discern no symptoms of change in that . The original impulse moving the gentlemen and ladies of the Stone Age to circumclude their untidy digits with annular sections of the shin bones of their vanquished foemen while await ing a knowledge o f the metals i s apparently not nearly exhausted, and we are far less likely to see the end of it than it is to see the end o f us . It is more probable , indeed , that the nose ring will return to bless us than that the fin ger - ring will add itself to the melancholy list o f good things gone before . Amongst; the several trib es of our species

1 32 THE COLLECTED WOR KS ters o f business the ring w a s a power - o f- a t s u torney . Its usefulness in this way was g fi o f gested , doubtless , by the dif culty impost ure : written authorization may easily be forged , but a ring can not well be obtained from the finger o f its owner without his con sent . The attribution o f magical and medicinal virtues to rings pervades all ancient and

ae . o f medi val story Gyges , King Lydia , had a ring by which the wearer coul d become i n —a h visible result accomplishable , t ough

' o f sometimes too tardily, by our modern plan o f K o f going away . One the ings Lombardy 'had a ring which told him in what direction to travel . It may have contained a compass , though to that theory is opposed the obj ec tion that he antedated the invention o f that instrument . But ( I make the suggestion with humility) may not his have been the compass afterward invented ? Medicated rings were R efli c a in popular use in ancient ome . An c i ous design for these, according to Trallian , of a physician the fourth centu ry, was Her emae a n cules strangling the N lion . This , he assures us , is , if well engraved , a specific for

- stomach ache . Throughout mediwval Europ e belief in the healing powe r o f certain rings OF AMBR OSE B IER CE 1 33 w a s ff n widely di used ; but then , as now , perso s free from gross superstitions p referred to treat their disorders by touching the relics of saints . R ings engraved with the names o f the M agi 1 6 were once in great medical repute , but in 74 a learned prelate th rew discredit upon them by showing that the true names were not known , being variously given as M elchior , A ellius Ame rus B althasar and J asper ; p , and

P etra to r a s . Damascus ; Ator, Sator and As the author o f B en - Hu r has given the weight o f his authority to the first three names , the healing - ring may with some confidence be en graved with them and pushed back into its o ld place in public esteem . But before risking any money in the manufacture it would be p rudent to test upon a few patients the a c ’ curacy o f General Wallace s historical knowl edge by administering the names o f his choice internally . A ring presented to Edward the Confessor o f cu red epilepsy, and after the death the royal owner by another and hardier disease it was preserved as a relic in Westminster Ab R bey . ings which had been blessed , or even h touc ed , by the sovereign were for some cent u ri es considered worthy of a place in the fl 34 THE COLLECTED WOR KS

B ritish ma ter ia medi ca ; and such would doubtless command a high price to - day in the American market—not to keep the purchaser his in good health , but to make neighbors sick with envy . Of all rings possessing magical o r medicinal virtues the toadstone ring o f o ur fathers was the most interesting . I t was well known to those ingenious naturalists that

the oa a nd enomo s t d , ugly v u , ea rs et a rec o s e e in his ea W y p i u j w l h d ,

ha r u as S kspea e was at the trouble to point o t. It was customary to set this in a ring and wear o f it, for it had the useful property changing color and sweating when poison was about . As poison was o ne of the commonest means by which o u r easy - going ancestors a c c om ’ p li she d the end o f on e another s sojourn in this vale o f tears a monitor of that kind was extremely useful to have literally o n hand at ” - meal time . Certain stones were once regarded as hav ing m a leficent properties and were never set in rings . A chronicler relates that a certain knight in o ne of the crusades possessed him s elf of a costly scimitar belonging to a Sara

136 THE COLLECTED WOR KS till our time Aldermen would have been at

- considerable expense for thumb rings , for their fingers are all thumbs everywhere but in d the public pocket. As engagements and we d ings subtend a p retty wide angle in the circle o f human life in modern times the ring is per haps a more important facto r in the happiness o f at least one- half the race than ever before ; and that half is the more conservative h alf ; N o t it and its customs are not soon parted . that engagement rings and wedding rings are a new thing under the s un : amongst several ancient peoples the wedding ring was an i n ’ ti utio f s t n o p rime importance . The bride s investiture with that sign and symbol o f wife hood was not merely in attestation o f the wedd a ing ; it w s the wedding . Divorce consisted in pulling it off and that simple act- com , — m on ly performed by the husb and was not complicated with any questions o f counsel

o f . fees , alimony and custody the children The finge r- ring will probably maintain its i ancient, solitary reign for some t me yet . The custom o f wearing it is too deeply rooted in the nature of things , and the root has too many ramifications to be lightly renounced “ by virtue of any royal rescript o f the queens ” o f fashion in Paris , London or New York . OF AMBR OSE B IER CE 1 37 It is not a mere garden plant growing loosely

- o f t in the artificial top soil human vani y, but a hardy perennial , having a firm hold in many o f substrata character and tradition , and elic

hu - iting nourishment from all . The ger ring 13 o n to stay . 1 38 THE COLLECTED WOR KS

FIN DE SI ECLE

— - N end - o f the century horse is doubt less p retty much the same as a o f horse another period , but is

there not in literature, art, polit ics and in intellectual and moral matters gen e ra ll y, an element, a spirit peculiar to the time and not altogether discernible to observa — a n tion something which , not hitherto oted , “ s or at least not so noticeable , now pe rvade and animates the whole ? ” It seems to me that there is . Precisely what is its nature ?. That is not easy to answer ; the thing is felt a d rather than observed . It is subtle , elusive , fo r dressing, perhaps , only those sensibilities whose needs of exp ression ou r English vocab ulary makes little provision . I should with o f some misgiving call it the note despair, o r , more accurately, desperation . It sounds through the tumult o f o u r lives as the boat swain ’ s whistle penetrates with a vibrant power the uproar of the storm— the singing and shouting of the wind in the cordage , the hissing of the waves , the shock and thunder

1 40 THE COLLECTED WOR KS

the feeling . ! uite the same it colors his moods , his character , his very manner of life o f and action . He has something the ghastly gaiety of the plague - smitten soldiers in the song, who drank to those already dead and n d e hurrahed for those about to die . The fi

' s teele spirit i s fairly exp ressible by an i nten tion to make the most o f a vanishing oppo r n tu i ty by doing something out o f the common . Nearly everywhere we observe this spirit translating itself into acts and phenomena . In religion it finds manifestation in repair o f “ ” o f n creeds outworn , in acceptance moder miracles , in pilgrimages , in strange and futile u nific a ti o n— attempts at even in toleration . In politics it has overspread the earth with a n a rc hism s u f , socialism , communism , woman frage and actual antagonism between the sexes . Industrial affairs Show it in unnatural animosities and destructive struggles between

i n - employers and employees , wild aspirations o f for impossible advantages , in resurrection crude convictions and methods o f antiqui ty . im In literature it has given us realism , in art ressi on ism p , and in both as much else that is false and extravagant as it is possible to name . In morals it has gone to the length o f denying the expedience of morality . In all civilized OF AM BR OSE B IER CE 1 41

soc iolo countries crime is so augmenting, the gists tell us , that national earnings will not much longer be suffi cient to support the ma M sui chinery for its repression . adness and “ ” cide are advancing by leaps and bounds , and wars were never s o needless and reason a o less s n w . Everywhere are a wild welter of action and thought, a cutting loose from all that is conservative and restraining, a carni ” o f o f val crime , a reign unreason . Not everywhere : superior to all this mad o f ness , tranquil in the midst it, and to some d i n ac c ess egree controlling it, stands Science , ible to its malign influence and un a ffec table Wh P— ? by the tumult . y how God knows ; I only perceive that the scientific mind has an o f To imagination its ow n kind . him who has been trained to accurate observation and d efin ite though t a centu ry of years does no t seem — to have an end i t is simply o n e hundred tim es round the sun ; and at the last moment o f o u r s t e e le we shall be just where we have f been a million times before , under no dif er ent cosmic conditions . He is not imp ressed ” with the sadness o f it feels no desperation — , sees nothing in it . He keeps his head which , by the way, is worth keeping. 1 8 8 9 . 1 42 THE COLLECTED WOR KS

M R R TI OTHY H . EA DEN

N the death o f Judge R earden the world experienced a loss that is more likely adequately to be estimated in a n

other generation than in this . A law A' yer dies and his practice passes to others . judge falls in harness , another is appointed or o f o n elected , and the business the court goes

‘ as before, frequently better . But for the vacant place o f a scholar and man o f letters a there are no applic nts . To him there is no successor : neither the President has the ap pointing power nor the people the power to elect. The vacancy is permanent, the loss irreparable ; something has gone o ut o f the better and higher life o f the community which no t can be replaced , and the void is the dead ’ man s best monument, invisible but eternal . Other scholars and men o f letters will come forward in the new generation , but of none can it be said that he carries forward on the w “ ” same lines the ork of the vanished h and , nor declares exactly those truths of nature and

1 44 THE COLLECTED WOR K S f tongues o modern Europe, but their several dialects as well . To know a language is no thing, but to know its literature from the v eri t beginning, and to have incorporated its able essence and sp irit into mind and character — that is much ; and that is what R earden had done with regard to all these tongues . Doubtless this is not the meat upon which i n tellec tual ae C sars feed ; doubtless , too , he did no t make that full use of his attainments “ ” which the world app roves as p ractical , and o dd at which he smiled in his , tolerant way, as o ne m ay smile at the earnest work of a child _ making mud pies ; yet his was not altogether ’ a barren pen . O f B ret H arte s b right band o f literary coadjutors on the old O v er la nd M onthl y he was among the first and best, and at several times , though irregularly and all too

The a li o r n ia n infrequently, he enriched C f and other periodicals with noble contributions in es prose and verse . Among the former were says on Petrarch and Tennyson ; the latter i n

' cluded a poem o f no mean merit o n the

Charleston earthquake , and another which he

' had intended to read before the George H . Thomas Post of the Grand Army o f the R e

hi . public , but was p revented by s last illness R ead now in the solemn light that lies along O F AMBR OSE B IER CE 1 45

o f d his p ath through the Valley the Sha ow, the initial stanza seems to have a significance almost p rO phetic

’ L fe s fe ere da ec nes its r e tw fa n i v d y d li ; pu pl ilight lli g, D ra ws l en gthen in g sh a dows from the b roken fla nks ; ’ An d fro m the c olumn s hea d a vi ewl ess c hief is c alli n g — ” e r d ose e ran s Guid ight up th k .

Some o f his p apers for the Chitchat Club could not easily be matched by selections from the magazines and reviews , and if a collection were made o f the pieces that he loved to put out In that wasteful way we should have a volume of notable reading, distinguished for a sharply accented individuality o f thought and style . For a number o f years before his death R earden was engaged in constructing ( the word writing here i s inadequate) a work on

Sappho , which , as I understand the matter, was to be a kind o f compendium o f all the little that is known and pretty nearly all the much that has been conjectured and said o f

' h e r . I t was to be profusely illustrated by

- eu master hands , copiously annotated and — riched with variorum readings a book for bookworms . Of its fate I am not advised , but 1 46 THE COLLECTED WOR KS

trust that none o f this labor o f love may be for lost. A work which many years engaged

the hand and the heart of such a man can not, o f whatever else it may be devoid , lack that distinction which is to literature what it is to —i ts character life , its glory and its crown . 1 8 92 .

1 48 THE COLLECTED WOR KS

will not come to fruitage . It is not seen just why a generation of selfish and somewhat pre occupied human beings who know not the horse as an animal o f utility should cherish him as a creature of merit . We have already o ne pensioner o n ou r boun ty who does little that is useful in return for his keep and an incalculable multitude o f things which we would prefer that he Should not do if he could be persuaded to forego them—the domestic dog, to wit . We are not likely to augment o r u burden by addition of the obsolete horse . o f o f t Those us who , through stress necessi y o r o f o ur the p romptings Paris , have tested teeth upon him know that he is not very good to eat ; he will hardly be cultivated for the the table , like otherwise inutile and altogether o f unhandsome pig . The p resent vogue the horse as a comestible , a viand , is without the o f knowledge and assent the consumer, but an abattoir having its outlying corrals gorged with waiting horses would be an object o f public suspicion and constabular inquiry . As a provision against human hunger th e horse f o ut o . may be considered the running H ard , f indeed , were the heart o the father who would regale the returning prodigal with a fatted colt . “ There will he no horses in our leisure O F AMBR OSE B IER CE

fo l r . c ass , there will be no horses The spe cies will be a s effectually effaced by the auto i f mobile as it had run over them . If the new machine fulfills all the hopes that now begin to cluster about it the man o f the future will find a deal o f ou r literature and art unin tel To fo r ligible . him the equestrian statue , example , will be an even more astonishing phenomenon than it commonly is to us . There is a suggestion in all this to ou r good and great friends , the vegetarians . They do not easily tire o f pointing out the b rutali ty o f a l slaughtering animals to get their meat, though it is not obvious that we could eat o f them alive . We should b reed some these fo r h edible creatures anyhow, they serve ot er needs than those of appetite ; but others , like the late Belgian hare , who virtually p assed away as soon as the b reeders and dealers failed to convince us that we were eating him , would o f become extinct . M any millions meat bearing animals ow e whatever o f life we grant them to the fact th at we mean eventually to deprive them of it . Seeing that they are so “ ” soon to be done for, they may not under ” stand what they were begun fo r ; but if life o f is a blessing, as most us believe and them selves seem to believe , for they manifest a cer

‘ tain reluctance to ive it u w h even a short 1 50 THE COLLECTED WOR KS life is a thing to be thankful for . If we had n o t intended to kill them they would not have lived at all . From this superior point of view even the royal Sport of slaughtering such prese rved game as the English pheasant seems a trifle less brutal than it is commonly affi rmed to be by those of us who are not invited to the kill a ing . This argument, too , has an obvious p plication in the instance of that worthy R us sian sect that denies the right o f man to en ’ fo r slave horses , oxen , etc . But man s fell purpose of enslaving them there would be n one . And what about the American negro ? Had it not been for the cruel greed o f certain Southern planters and Yankee skippers where would he be ? Would he be anyw here ? So we see how all things work together for the general good , and evil itself is a blessing in

. 0 disguise N African slavery, no American negro ; no American negro , no Senator ’ Hanna s picturesque bill to pension his su r vivi n g ancestors . And without that we should indubitably be denied the glittering hope of a similar bill pensioning the entire negro race ! 1 0 9 3.

1 52 THE COLLE CTED WOR KS est blaze will be its last . The despot whose path to power it illumined will extinguish it f with a dash o ink .

An elective judiciary is slow ! to enforce the law against men before whom its members come every few years in the character of sup pliants for favor ; and how abjectly these d sue learned can idates can , how basely bid ’ fo r a newspaper s support, one must have been an editor to know . The p ress has grown into a tyranny to which the courts themselves are o f servile . To rule all classes and conditions men with an iron authority the newsp apers have only to learn a single trick, against the terrible power of which , when p ractised by “ ” others , they continually do cry, with appar ently never a thought o f the advantage it — might be to themselves the trick o f combina L t . t ion This lesson once learned, iber y may r bu y her own remains , for assuredly none will perform that pious o fli ce for her with im

unit . p y It has not come to that yet, but when by virtue o f controlling a newspaper a man is permitted to print and circulate thousands o f copies o f a slander which neither he nor any ’ man would dare to speak before his victim s OF AMBR OSE B IER CE 1 53 friends a long step has been taken toward the f i r reS ons ibilit Au goal o entire p y . George gustus Sala said that from s ea to sea America ’ sh e was woman s kingdom , which ruled with absolute sway . Yet in America the father no t s on does protect his daughter, the his mother, the brother his sister nor the husband his wife , except in the theatrical p rofession , o f by way advertisement . The noblest and most vi rtuous lady in the land may be coarsely S h er fi derided , her reputation tabbed , face , g u re o r toilet made the subject o f a scurrile o f jest, and no killing ensue , provided the fense be committed with such circumstances o f dissemination and publici ty a s types alone can give it .

I f the editor o f a newspaper has any regard for his judgment ; that is , if he has any judg

no t . ment, he will indulge in prophecy The most conspicuous instances o f the folly o f pre dictions are those that occu r in a political ” campaign . There is a venerable and hoary tradition among those ignorant persons who conduct party organs that the best and most effective way to make their party win is

- w il in to assert and re assert that it l . This 1 54 THE COLLE CTE D WOR KS

a d na us ea m fantile notion they act upon , and doubtless lose by it a good many votes for t their p ar y that it would otherwise receive , by making the more credulous among their read ers s o sure of success that they do not think it worth while to vote . If you could convince an unborn b abe that it w as going to be born with a silver spoon in its mouth it would not exert itself to procure that Spoon . But making all due allowance for what the babes first above mentioned do from “ pol ” icy, it remains true that partisan editors whose bump of common sense is countersunk till it would hold a hen ’ s egg—actually believe in the inevitable success o f their ticket every time and once more . The election comes and a half o f them are shown to thei r readers in the true character o f persons whose judgment is not worth a pin on any matter under the The sun . mantle o f the prophet having been raped away from the partisan editor’ s shoul ders , it is seen that motley is his only wear and — , his readers themselves of equal incapacity feel for him ever thereafter the contempt which he made such sacrifices to deserve . Does it teach him anything ? Something Sol — omon hath said o n this point something about a fool and a mo rtar .

1 56 THE COLLECTED WOR K S to share with him the dirty last ditch of his broken hope every few years . The notion that an editor must “ identify ” himself with all the wild and fallacious hopes o f his read ers , with all their blind , brute p rejudices and with the punishment of them , is a discredit able tradition of the newspaper business , hav o f ing nothing in it . The traditions every o f business are the creation little, timid men

- whose half success is achieved , not by their d of metho s , but in Spite them , and because of t f the scarci y o men o f brains . I f these were plentiful there would be nothing left for the o f traditionaries to accomplish . The man b rains makes his success by the clarity o f his understanding : by discerning beneath the tra ~ ditio ns the principles , and, ignoring the own former, applying the latter in his way which his competitors and successors fondly believe they can imitate by following his o r methods . In nothing has a great success , o f rather a succession great successes , been made except by cutting loose from the tradi tions and doing what the veteran experts gasp to observe . IV — Some years ago as lately as the p residen — tial contest between Cleveland and Blaine i t OF AMBR OSE B IER CE 1 57 was a cast- iron tradition o f journalism that personal defamation was a necessary and ef fective aid to success . True , every newspaper d ep recated it in a general way, and rose at it, shrieking when it hurt ; but nearly all p r ac is d o t e it and always had done so . Eve ry p l i ti c a l campaign was a disgraceful welter o f

' ‘ ou t detraction and calumniation . To snout a candidate ’ s “ personal record ” and if it was — , found clean befoul i t that was what the part isan editor regarded as his first and highest

o f duty to his party . The besmirching can did a tes was a tradition sacred and inviolable ; it is now a dead p ractice , and we have prob

- ably seen the last campaign o f mud slinging . The thing might advantageously have been stopped at any time . The people did not de mand it ; they were a s decent then as now . The case w as that newspaper men did not know their business ; and in respect o f many other disreputable su rvivals they do not know it now . I could name a full dozen newspaper traditions now in full and strenuous vitality that are as needless and mischievous as the ilific a ion v t o f candidates . They will all die h ard , but die they must, for the world will r f sun inally fall into the , which will consume them . 1 5 8 THE COLLECTED WOR KS

That the newspapers might with advantage to the community be made a deal cleaner is a p roposition hardly Open to question . In my judgment this could be done without loss to c o nsid their owners , but that is an irrelevant

“ e r a ti o n . It is not permitted to them to urge that a decenter course would ruin them , for the community is under no obligation to make To publication of newspapers p rofitable . the “ ” a n editorial argument, I have to live , the “ swer is , Yes , but not in that way . That plea is p recisely as valid when made by the o n burglar . Every e w ho has not committed a capital crime has a right to live , but no one has a right to live by mischief .

Clean newspapers if enterp rising, honest and clever do thrive ; so what is really meant “ by the right to live is the right to live in — luxury the right to a great income , instead o f a smaller one . There is no such right . I f there were it would spare from condemnation the grocer who sells poisonous goods because there is a demand for them , the noctivagant

Dago crying his rotten tamales , the quack ’ doctor in pursuit of his patient s health .

There is no such right .

1 60 THE COLLECTED WOR KS

- that is dishonest . It is dishonest to unload his responsibility upon the shoulders o f even the sinners whose sins he relates . They break o f no t the laws decency, but they do compel fo r him to . They do not force him to expose sale narratives o f thei r O ffenses ; they p refer that he do not . He has no mandate to make the way o f the transgressor hard : we have laws for that . He has only the mandate of his pocket ; if in obeying it he damage or disgust o r distress the best persons among whom he lives he can not plead the profit that he makes o f h in gratification t e others . It is no way desirable that they be gratified . OF AMBR O SE B IER CE 1 61

A BENIGN INVENTION

HE phonograph ha s no t a cc om li shed o f p all that was expected it, yet it has p roved a most interesting o f and valuable invention . One its achievements is o f the nature o f a revelation it has p roved that even the most loquacious person is unacquainted with the sound o f his w o n . voice As reproduced by the machine , ’ one s voice seems to be that o f a stranger : his ear does not recognize it, and he is with dif fi c ul ty convinced that he hears himself as others hear him . Commonly, it is said , the effect is deeply disappointing ; the tones are not so rich and mellow as he had a right to expect, and he leaves the instrument with a chastened spirit and a broken pride . The instrument has herein a broad field o f o f usefulness . As a teacher humility it takes rank with the parson , the flirt, the mirror and the banana peel on the sidewalk . It humbles the orator and strews repentant ashes on the 1 62 TH E COLLECTED WOR KS head o f the ardent young woman who has taken lessons in elocution but none in forbear ance . The amateu r who has always a cold when pressed to sing takes on an added t e nc e o f l ucta having in it an element sincerity . In the meek taciturnity o f the good convers a ti o n ali st society finds a new edific ation and delight . For these and similar benefactions let us be truly thankful ; but we should not hope fo r too much . The blessing is b right, but it may i not be lasting . It s not in human nature to wear sackcloth and ashes as a permanent a p no parel . In the valley of humility are old i s fi o f residents . As much as herein af rmed the phonograph might with equal reason have been expected from its elder brother, the phot h “ ” o ra . g p Who , it might once have been un asked , will have the hardihood to go veiled and unblushing after experiencing the ” awful revelations o f the camera ? Alas ! h as man was created up right, but he sought o ut N o many improvements . sooner had the merciless sun - picture begun to take the con c c it out o f us than some ingenious malefactor rushed to the rescue with a process called re ” touching, whereby the once honest camera was made to lie like a lover ; men and women

1 64 THE COLLECTED WOR KS

we shall cultivate loquacity as an art and re practice prolixity as a virtue . In the touched phonogram lurk the promise and po t~ ency o f a pleasure incomparably more mis c hievous than the confusion of tongues on the o f plain Shinar .

There appears to b e no reason to doubt that ’ th M r . Edison s most remarkable invention , e

‘ heo c O e t s . p , has a great future before it An instrument that enables us to see another as he sees himself must accomplish great good by promoting clear understandings between o f man and man , and subjecting estimates o f personal character to the chance revision .

As matters now stand , and have stood from time immemorial , our opinion of even a man whom we have known from infancy is formed by a series o f what are known to journalism as Star Chamber p roceedings , in which the man himself is not heard with that fulness and frankness that are desirable . It is hardly o r — fair either to convict to acquit him nay, even to honor or reward him—upon indirect testimony , introduced by him for another pur ' pos e. True ju stice obviously requires that A O F AMBR OSE B IER CE 1 65 in making up his mind about B should in a d some way, if possible , avail himself of the vantage o f looking into a mind already made — up a mind enriched and instructed by longer and nearer observation o f the subject upon ’ : which light is sought in short, B s mind . If ’ r M . Edison s invention make this as practic

' if i s im e r a tive able as ( p racticable) it p , he “ ” has indeed brought joy to the a fll i c ted in a way to make the proprietor of a p atent med c i i n e grow green with envy . That he should call his marvelous and delic ate appliance a theosc ope appears at first thought a reasonless and wanton exercise o f the right of nomenclature ; but o n reflection the name seems singul arly approp riate . “ ” Theosc o e p , I venture to inform the reader u nacquainted with Greek, is from the words

O cds o xorrew . , god , and , to view The theo scope is therefore an instrument with which o n e to look at gods . When man sees another as the other sees himself, the image , naturally, is one of supernatural digni ty and importance ’ —0 n e worthy of divine honors , even if tis n o t in mortals to command them . One to hardly knows which admire the more , the ingenui ty that invented the theo sco pe or the inspiration that named it . 1 66 TH E COLLE CTED WOR KS

Most readers are more o r less disposed to agree with Burns that the gift to see ourselves as others see us would from many a blunder

free us , and foolish notion ; but few, p rob on a d ably, have reflected the considerable vantage o f seeing others as they see them I i . t t selves seems certain , for example , that would notably minish the acerbities of debate if each of two disputants could behold in the

- m a lefa c t other, not an obstinate , pig headed o r endeavoring by unfair means to establish

h - an idiotic proposition , but a igh hearted philanthropist, benevolent and infallible , ten ’ d e rly concerned for an erring opponent s r e clamation and intellectual prosperity . The general use o f the theo sc op e in newspaper o fli c es can hardly fail profoundly to modify and mollify discussion , in range and heat . When the editor of the C o w C o u n ty O pi n i o n ’ a to r has written down the editor of the H og s B a c h A ll ega ti o n is t as a loathsome contem po r a ry whose moral depravi ty is only ex c eed ed by his social degradation , and whose skill in horse - stealing has been thought worthy of record in the books o f a court which ” - his ill gotten gold was unable to corrupt, it may occur to him to ring up his enemy and inveigle him to the other end of the appar

1 68 THE COLLECTED WOR KS less did something toward discrediting his ow n r conceptions and justifying theirs . There a e persons whom nothing will reform , but it would be possible to make a long list o f “ prominent citizens ” who would be lifted to the breezy altitudes o f a higher and better life by the consciousness , however erroneous , o f the power so to p resent their true person a lities o f that he who runs may read, instead s o that he who reads runs, as now . OF AMBR OSE B IER CE 69

ACTOR S AND ACTING

AS Sir Henry I rving a great act or ? Possibly ; there is abundant

testimony, little evidence . The testimony o f Englishmen is to be received with caution , for I rving was an Englishman ; that of Americans with greater n caution , for the same reason . The arrowest provincialism in the world is that o f great t cities , and London is the greatest ci y . What London says all England repeats ; and Amer fi ica af rms it on oath . It is understood , as a o f matter of course , that in the judgment

England the best English actor, writer or art Is t is the best in the world . If one has con quered his way to the foremost place in the o f approval a small London clique , not, in the

o f - case an actor, exceeding a half dozen men promoted to power by a p rocess o f selection with which ability has had nothing to do , one has conquered half the world . It would be easy to name the half - dozen who made Henry 1 70 THE COLLECTED WOR KS

’ ’ I rving s fame and set it sailing o e r the seas with bellying canvas and flag apeak . On ’ this side no one ever demanded the ship s p a Ec hol and o f pers . This is , home the ditto maniac . We are freemen , but not bigoted ones For aught I know Irving may have been as good an actor as his countrymen who saw him h thought him . Nay, he may ave been half as good as my countrymen who did not s ee s a him think him . I myself w him play only two or three times . He was not then a good actor, but that was a long time before his death ; judgment from the fading memory o f a performance decades ago would hardly do . o f i n Wherein , then , lies excuse this present — ’ fervency this cry qu z v in e at th e outpost o f ? ’ the camp Herein . Not only were I rving s credentials defective ; there is a strong pre sumption that the defect was irreparable “ ” that they certificate a sham . This defect un was racial . The English are , if not an emotional , an undemonstrative people . When sad the Englishman does not weep , when pleased he does not laugh . Anger him and he will neither stamp nor tear his hair ; startle

h im . and he jumps not an inch . His convers ation is destitute of vivacity and unaided by

1 72 THE COLLECTED WOR KS

- excitable the French and Italians , for

examples , who have produced the only really good actors of modern times . Our own act o rs are better than the English , but not good ; o ne sees better acting about a dining- table in Paris than has ever been seen on the stage o f — London o r New York excepting when it is held by players in whose veins is the fire of

Southern suns , whose nerves dance to the rhythmic beat of M editerranean ripples and

’ ‘ ee Ca r s s n n fo n a ns k p , with p i u y u t i , P e r e a o a p tu l h lid y .

One pale globule o f o u r cold Teutonic blood

“ queers the whole performance . For Ger man , English and American actors society “ ” should provide homes , with light employ ment, good plain food and , when they keep their mouths shut and their limbs quiet, thun o f ders artificial applause .

Few respectable Shams are to me more dis tasteful than the affectation o f delight in the performance of an actor who speaks his lines in a tongue unknown to the audience , as did O F AMBR OS E B I E R CE 1 73 sometimes the late Signor R ossi in the rOle o f “ ” Otello . It is o f the essence and validity o f acting that it address the understanding through the ear as well as the eye . The tones ’ o f an actor s voice , however pleasing, do not address the understanding at all without in telligible words ; they are no more than the notes of a violin— the pleasure they give is purely sensual , and the speaker might as well o r articulate no words at all . A play, a part in a play, performed in unfamiliar speech is h hardly better than a pantomime , and t ose who profess to find in it an intellectual grat ific a tion— well , they may be very estimable persons , for aught I know .

It is not enough , in order to enjoy ” “ ” o r Othello Hamlet, that the audience h ave a general familiarity with the part ; their knowledge o f it must be minute and p recise . They must know o f what particular sentiment a facial exp ression is the visible exponent ; of what particular word a ges ture is the a ecom an imen p t. Else how can they know that the the ? look is natural , motion imp ressive I f o ne v e r ba tim had memorized the part , and

the meaning of every word , the accidental f omission o a sentence would b reak the chain , and all that the eye should afterward report 1 74 THE COLLECTED WOR KS

o f the passage would be meaningless . How “ shall you know that the actor suits the a c tion to the word ” if you know not the word ? To a mind ignorant of Italian the Otello o f Signor R ossi may have been a noble exe r cise in guessing ; as acting it can have had no value .

We are all familiar with the hoary o ld dic ~ tum that the public has no concern with the o private lives f the show folk . I must ask ff leave to di er . I must insist that the public has a most serious interest in the chastity of f girls and the fidelity o wives . It is not good for the public that its women be taught by conspicuous example that to her who pos a n sesses a single talent, or y number of talents , a life o f shame is no bar to public adulation . Every young and inexperienced woman be li eves herself to have some commanding qual ity which properly fostered will bring her h h fame . If s e knows that s e can do nothing else she thinks that she can write poetry . Is not the father mad who shows his ambitious daughter how little men really care for virtue — how tolerant they are o f vice if it be gilded with genius ? Worse and most shameful o f

1 76 THE COLLECTED WOR KS

She knew that American fathers , husbands , so brothers , sons and lovers would be base as a nd to come and bring her gold , that Amer ican mothers , wives , sisters , daughters and sweethearts would be bad enough to a cc om pany them , to gaze without a blush at the posings o f a simpleton recommended by a prince . She gathered her sheaves and went

re - away . She came back to the ripening har Go vest, hoping that d would postpone the de struction of a corrupt land until she could get o ut f o it . Heav eri forbid that I should set myself up as a censor o f any offenders save those who have the hardihood to continue infamous ; I only beg to point out that when Christ shielded the woman taken in adultery he did not tell her that if she were a good singer she in might go her way and s more . That is how “ I answer the ever- ready sneer about casting ” the first stone . That is how I cast it . I f o f the fallen woman , finding herself possessed a single talent, had gone into business as a show without reforming her private morals Christ would not have been found standing all night in line to buy tickets for himself and the Blessed Virgin .

I am for p reserving the ancient, primitive R R 1 7 OF AMB O SE BIE CE 7.

d istinction between right and wrong . The o f s virtues Socrate , the wisdom of Aristotle , the examples o f M arcus Aurelius and Jesus Christ are good enough to engage my admira tion and rebuke my life . From my fog scourged and plague - smitten morass I lift reverent eyes to the shining summits of cterm a l S truth , where they stand ; I train my senses to catch the law th at they deliver . In every a ge and clime vice and folly have shared the o f throne a double dominance , dictating cus l toms and fashions . At no time has the devi been idle , but his freshest work few eyes are gifted with th e faculty to discover . We trace him where the ce n turies have hardened his c h tra ks into istory, but round about us his noiseless footfalls awaken no sense o f his near activity . The subject is too serious to be humorously ’ o f d iscussed . This glorification the world s higher ha rlo ta ge is o ne o f the great conti nenta l facts that no ingenuity, no sophistry, no o f sublimity lying can circumnavigate . It marks a civilization that is ripe and rotten . It characterizes an age that has lost the land o f marks right reason . These actors and act resses o f — untidy lives they reek audibly . We should not Speak of going to see them ; 1 78 THE COLLECTED WOR KS I am going to smell M iss Molocha Mont ‘ ’ fl umm ery in Juliet - that would ade qua tely describe the moral situation . Brains and hearts these persons have none ; they are

destitute of manners , modesty and sense . The sight of their painted faces , the memory of their horrible slang, their simian cleverness , “ a lia s es their vulgar , their dissolute lives , half emotion and half wine—these are a sick ness to any cleanly soul . M oreover, I advance the belief that any o r woman who publicly, for gain glo ry, char i t o f y or caprice , makes public exhibition any she to talent or grace that may happen have , o f maculates the chastity her womanhood , and f 0 is thenceforth unworthy o a manly love . N man of sensibility but feels a twinge o n read ’ ’ ’ o r o r ing his wife s , his Sister s , his daughter s

' name in p rint ; none but trembles to hear it the You upon lips of strangers . might easily prove the absurdity o f this feeling ; but she is the wisest, and cleanest, and sweetest, and best beloved who is not at the pains to dis re gard it . Gentlemen , charge you r glasses here’ s a health to the woman that is not a show . 1 8 93.

1 80 THE COLLECTED WOR K S have observed ( and possibly the phenomenon has not been overlooked by all others) that the man whom the word “ liar maddens to crime is commonly not maddened to anything in particular by the consciousness o f being

o ne . The philosophy o f the matter is that truth fulness , like all the other virtues , takes rank as such because in the long run , and in the greater number of instances , it is expedient .

Whatever is , generally speaking, expedient, i s o f that to say, conducive to the welfare the race, comes to be considered a virtue ; what n ot ever, with only the same limitations , does o f promote , but obstructs , the welfare the race i M s n . has is held to be a orality , and can h ave , no other basis than expediency . A vir ‘ tue is no t an end ; it is a means ; the end is that in only conceivable welfare , happiness . To — crease the sum o f happiness that is the only worthy ambition , the only creditable motive . Whatever does that is right ; whatever does the contrary is wrong . An act that does neither the o ne nor the other has no moral o r character at all . That an act can be right wrong without regard to its consequences is to a sane und erstanding an unthinkable p ro i n/ position . It is diffi cult to imagine a world O F AM BR OSE B IER CE 1 81 which happiness would commonly be pro moted by falsehood, but in such a world false hood would indubitably be considered , and rightly considered , a virtue , and to be called

- a truth teller would be resented as an insult, especially by those most irreclaimably a d dicted to the habit . During a recent trial o f a postal - service grafter ” a witness confessed with candor that o ne of his commercial habits was that o f “ ” “ ’ s Yo aying the thing that is not . u can t ” help telling lies in business , he explained . But you can ; you can tell the truth for the good o f you r soul and make an assignment fo r, o f the benefit your creditors . o f b e To be serious , no man sense really li eves that falsehood is necessary to success in o f business . The p ractices and customs every. trade and profession are those which com o f mend themselves to approval small men , men with an impediment in their thought . I t is they who virtually conduct the affairs o f the to o o f world , for there are few the other s ort to count for much . These little fellows , “ ” t s et herefore , the fashion , determine the t ethics and raditions in business , in law, in medicine , in politics , in religion , in journal o f ism . The most conspicuous characteristic 1 82 THE COLLECTED WOR KS this pigmy band is a predisposition to small deceits . The first word that rises to their lips is a lie ; the last word that leaves them is a lie . Go into the first shop you find and ask for something not kept there, but which you know ’ o r all about . Observe the salesman s , , alas , ’ saleswoman s , alacrity in telling you a lie to induce you to abandon your preference in favor of something that is kept there . Do you fancy it is different in dealing with those higher in the scale o f commercial being ? A wealthy and most respectable business man once told me that among the two o r three scores of similar men with whom he daily dealt there was not o n e that he could believe ; he had to try to discern their secret wishes and intentions through the fog o f falsehood in which they sought to conceal them . He had himself a m ethod quite as misleading ; he de c eived them by telling the truth . They couldn ’ t imagine a man doing a thing like him that, so they disbelieved and he got the o f better them . o f That is his account the matter . Perhaps — it is true he may have wanted me to think him a liar . Anyhow, the method of deceit that he professed has sometimes been success fully followed ih large affairs notably by the

1 84 THE COLLE CTED WOR KS when happy ; do you know any one who con siders himself happy when prosperous ? In the sweat of their consciences most men r i eat bread . I doubt if they find it p a t c ul arly sweet, even when , having a whole loaf , they see a neighbor with none . They are tor illic m m en ted with a craving for p u . (There — is no such dish as pillic um that i s why they crave it . ) Go to, all ye that pursue shadows , o r fly from them . Learn to be content with what you have . True, if all were that way there would be an end to civilization , which is the daughter o f discontent and worthy o f ff its mother ; but that is not your a air . You are custodians o f your ow n happiness and have ’ 0 a right to peace , health and sweet sleep o f nights . You are not bound to take account hypothetical perils ; it will be time to con s ider the extinction of civilization when you observe that all are becoming content . Con tentmen t is a virtue which at p resent seems to be confined mainly to the wise and the i n

famous .

1 90 3. O F AMBR OSE B IER CE 1 85

SYMBOLS AND FETISHES

ER ALD R Y dies hard . It is of

purely savage origin , having its roots in the ancient necessity of ou r tribal classification . Before ancestors h a d a written language their tribes and families found it convenient to distin guish themselves from one another by rude o f a s pictures such objects they knew about, with imp rovements by the artist of the period

- - - the six legged lion , the two headed eagle , the Spear - point lily and the thistle - with - a - dif ac ference . The modifications were infinite ; c esso r i es developed into essentials and the o f n science heraldry was evolved , to explai what the pictures were and expound their meaning. Like the priests and the medicine o f men all times , and the lawyers and all other o f p rofessionals our time , heralds were swift to discern a p rofit in complicating their fad with an unthinkable multitude of invented additions and technical shibboleths i ntelligi 186 THE COLLECTED WOR KS

- ble to nobody but themselves ; and to day, when the entire scheme has long ceased to have any practical relation to th e lives o f men t o f and the poli y nations , there are in Europe high offi cers of government charged with the , o f duty its exposition and conservation , and with the custody of its ludicrous muniments and paraphernalia . And men and women accounted intelligent and modest are proud o f devices owing their origin to barbarism , their signification to the thrifty ingenuity o f drones and leeches and their perpetuation to the same naked and unashamed vanity as th at “ o f men who decorate their b reasts with o r ders and crosses ” certifying their personal merit . Where these thi ngs exist as survivals their use is at least a supportable stupidity ; but in America , where they come by cold blooded adoption essentially simian , they are o ffensive M any of the devices upon the seals o f o u r states are no less ridiculous than those used ( or the use o f any) by some o f our gen teel families to hint at an illustrious descent . — Our national coat -o f arms itself is almost enough to make a self - respecting American forswear his allegiance . From a shield with an eagle on it we have developed an eagle

1 88 THE COLLECTED WOR KS to attribute to the symbol the virtues o f the thing symbolized . It evidently did not occur to the patriotic gentleman who wrote the quoted sentence , and much else in the same “ ” Spirit, that the flag being only an emblem o f freedom and civilization ( our kind of free dom and civilization , by the way) is not at all entitled to the love and worship that he so l ic its fo r not it ; these should go , to the flag , but to the things of which it i s an emblem to freedom and civilization . His idolatrous tendency and his truly heathenish confusion o f mind are still further shown in his reference “ ” o f the benefit which it ( the flag, observe) “ ” o n i u t confers mankind . His s a typical te r a nc e : the vestigial idolatry o f the cave dweller and the sylvan nomad is still strong

fl a - o ne in the race, and g worship is of its most reasonless manifestations . Everywhere and always in these days of war we hear and read words about the flag which a thinking human being would be ashamed to utter o f an actual b eneficent deity . There is no room whatever for doubt that what the average patriot a c claims and honors is the actual colored silk o r bunting, not what it represents . To the con c eption o f abstractions he comes unfitly equipped , but he can see a tinted rag . I do OF AMBR OSE B IER CE 1 89 not know that any harm comes o f his fetish ism ; i r is noted merely a s an interesting and — significant phenomenon o ne of a thousand p roving the brevity o f o u r advance along the line of progress toward enlightenment. It is ’ o f a piece o f the average human being s more o r less sincere respect fo r truth , justice , chast i t s o y and forth , not as p racticable means to o f the end human happiness , but as things creditable and desirable in themselves , even when subversive o f thei r actual purpose by p romoting mise ry . “ - Let the flag flap , and let our ill starred fellow citizens ” who are unable to get a firm mental grasp on what it stands fo r knuckle down upon thei r 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 o f the sharpest and most righteous re bukes I ever got from high authori ty was for permitting my color - sergeant to flaunt his gaudy symbol in the face o f a battery . To civilian orators and poets the flag is sacred ; to the intelligent soldier it is merely useful : it o f marks the b attle line , preserves the unity the regiment and inspires ” the soldier that is unintelligent . 1 90 THE COLLECTED WOR KS

A singularly disagreeable instance of fe i hism o f t s is related the Hon . William Jen n in s g 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 o f the renowned sailor ; but the custodians did not feel at lib e rty to disappoint so illustrious an American M r as . 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 restan rant . I r t is disagreeable to think of M . Bryan in the character of a sycophantic souvenir hunter . It is disagreeable to think that even the hum blest and obscurest American citizen can

so - have little self respect . Anthropolatry is but a shade less base and b arbarous than that other primitive religion , fetishism ; and the h two , as in t is instance , are often in coexist ence . No superstition seems ever wholly to die . Both these are rife and rampant in the

- one o ff civilization of to day, and can name , a hand , dozen of their customary manifesta

1 92 THE COLLECTED WO R KS

DID WE EAT O N E ANOTH ER ?

R o f un HE E is no doubt it . The welcome truth has been long sup p ressed by interested p arties who find their account in playing syc o phant to that self - s a ti sfied tyrant Modern M a n ; but to the impartial philosopher it is as plain as the nose upon the elephant’ s face that o u r ancestors ate o ne another The custom o f the Fiji Islanders , which is their only stock i n - trade , their only claim to notoriety, is a relic o f barbarism ; but it is a relic o f our bar b a rism .

M a n is naturally a carnivorous animal .

- That none but green grocers will dispute . That he was formerly less vegetarian in hi s diet than at present, is clear from the fact that market gardening increases in the ratio o f civ ili z a tio n . So we may safely assume that at some remote period M an subsisted on an ex c lusi l ve y flesh diet . Our uniform vanity has given us the human mind as the acme o f i n telli en c e g , the human face and figure as the e standard of beau ty . Of cours we cannot deny to human fat and lean an egual superi OF AMBR OSE B IER CE 1 93 o ri t y 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 civiliza o n s tion , would act habitually the obviou sug A r i o r i i . s gestion p , therefore, it clear that we ate ourselves . Philology is about the only thread that c on n ec ts us with the prehistoric past . By pick ing up and piecing together the scattered o f remnants language, we form a p atchwork f Con o wondrous design and significance . sider the derivation o f the word sarco ” see phagus , and if it be not suggestive of f potted meats . Observe the significance o the “ ” phrase sweet sixteen . What a world of meaning lurks in the exp ression She is as ” o f sweet as a peach , and how suggestive “ ” 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 ” sh e ‘ enough to eat, merely shows that is her self only a trifle too good to eat it . These evidences might be multiplied a d i nfin itu m; but if enough has been said to i n duce o ne human being to revert to the diet o f his forefathers the object o f this essay is a c complished .

R868. 1 94 THE COLLECTED WOR KS

THE BACILLUS OF CR IME

O R a number o f years it has been known to all but a few ancient phy — s i c i a ns survivals from an exhausted regime—that all disease is caused by ba c illi o r , which worm themselves into the gans that secrete health and enjoin them from the performance o f that rite . The medical conservatives mentioned attempt to whittle away the value and significance o f this theory by a fli rming its inadequacy to account fo r such su e rfl u disorders as b roken heads , sunstroke , p o us - toes , home sickness , burns and strangula tion o n the gallows ; but against the testimony e ri o K of so eminent b a c t logers as Drs . och and Pasteur their carping is as that of the im

ba c ill us patient angler . The is not to be de nied ; he has b rought his blankets and is here to stay until evicted . Doubtless we may con fid ently expect his eventual supersession by a fresher and more ingenious disturber of the physiological peace , but he is now chief among ten thousand evils a nd the one alto

1 96 THE COLLECTED WOR KS c ious in a gentleman suffering from co n sti tu ti on al theft o r the desire to represent his dis us tri c t in Congress . But it is permitted to to hope that all the crimes , like all the arts , one are essentially ; that murder, commerce and respectability are but different symptoms o f the same physical disorder , at the b ack of which is a microbe vincible to a single medic ament, albeit the same awaits discovery . In the fascinating theory o f the unity of crime we may not unreasonably hope to find o f another evidence of the brotherhood man , another spiritual bond tending to draw the several classes of society mo re closely to gether . If Such should be the p ractical effect o f the great truth something will have been o f gained , even if the discovery a suitable medicine to restore ou r enemies to health be delayed until all too late to save them from rude and primitive treatment by the sheriff. 1 8 93. O F AMBR OSE B IER CE 1 97

THE GAME O F BUTTON

MONG the countless evils besetting us in o u r p assage through this vale “ o f tears to where beyond these ” voices there is peace, the button holds a conspicuous place , and is apparently o f inaccessible to the Spirit reform . Less o r shocking than war, pestilence famine , less destructive than the Dingley tari ff and less irritating than the Indiana novel , it is thought r e f by many obse vers to be , in the sum of its fec ts o f su in reducing the gayety nations , m a l efic ent perior to any of these agencies , and o by some t excel them all together . In the persistent currency o f the story o f the man who killed himself because of his weariness in buttoning and unbuttoning his clothes we have strong confirmatory testimony to the but ’ “ ton 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 b ring it home to men s bus r ness and bosoms it would probably have had 1 98 THE COLLECTED WOR KS as evanescent a vogue as the immortal works discovered weekly by the literary critics o f As the newspapers . it is , this simple and touching tale will p rob ably live as long as any language , possibly as long as the button itself .

For the button is app arently immortal . It has struck root deeply into human c onserv a t — a d ism more deeply, I am constrained to m it , than it h as , generally speaking, into the textile fabrics with which it is commonly but s omewhat p recariously connected . That the button is in some sens e a b enefa c i tion is not lightly to be denied . In ts unos n o n tentatio s way, and when it stays , it does a good deal for the comfort of mankind , as , the one police permitting, may readily convince himself by walking a few blocks without its o f artful aid . Its splendid Opportunities use fulness , however, are the creations , not so

o f o u r o f o u r . much ingenuity, as limitations I f the human race had been born omniscient

' i n o f ( the tops trees , as is thought to be held by the Darwinians) instead o f a chIevmg om n isc i enc e too lately to overcome the button no t habit, we should have had the p rimitive

appliance thrust upon us , for we should never have thrust ourselves into the tubular cloth

ing which seems to require its ministrations .

200 THE COLLE CTED WOR KS with reference mainly to the woes and wants o f the coarser sex, but the button is known to woman . With the charming superiority to reason which her detractors term perversity s he prefers it on the left- hand side o f her gar ments , but it dominates her life and poisons her peace none the less for that ; albeit she offers herself the solace o f turning it into an ornament more o r less fearfully and wonder fully made . In modern religious history ;women and buttons have a connection which is as singular as interesting . To the great movement which resulted in establishing Protestantism the ” name R eformation is no t universally o ne o f deemed appropriate , but there is his many aspects in which M artin Luther may be B e contemplated by all as a true reformer . fore 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 o f its effi cacy if placed where ’ reason would naturally suggest . All women s b e dresses were made to hook behind , and in ing fastened required the services o f another OF AMBR O SE BIER CE 201

Fo r person than the wearer . this reason , and because God had made him so , Luther as

’ sailed the custom with a ll the fire and fie rc e o f hi ness s polemical nature . So long as women could not dress themselves without as s i sta nc e , he argued , they must be slaves , and their spiritual natures must remain un d ev el oped until they should fasten their frocks in o n front . Calvin , the contrary , found no thing in the Scriptures authorizing women to enter thei r clothing b ackward and set his face like a flint against the impious innovation . The contest between the disciples o f these two migh ty minds was waged with great bitter tw f ness , no ithstanding the ef orts of the gentle M el a n c thon w ho , stood for peace and tried to m part them in the iddle, enacting, indeed , the

f - - role o M r . Facing both ways . In the end

Luther conquered . All good Protestant dames and maidens save those of his a n ta g ’ o n is t s immediate following adopted his views and eventually the Catholic ladies swung into o f line , too . But in some the dark corners of Europe and America a vestige of the Calvin ’ ist influence survives , and ladies gowns open h f behind like t e ch rysalis o a locust . The o n e change entailed another ; for many — he years until , indeed, the button habit had 202 THE COLLECTED WOR KS — come invincible i t did not occur to any o f the hair sex that the hook- and - eye could be used in front as well as surreptitiously behind has the back . That truth 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 her o f the male of species , and neither does it usu manifest a disposition to let go . It has ally its buttonhole to bear it company, and doubtless looks fo rward to a long season o f domestic felicity and profound repose while engaged in the business o f b reaking up fam ili es and promoting breaches o f the peace by o f sapping the foundation temper, leveling the outworks o f p atience and desolating the whole domain of the Christian virtues .

204 THE COLLECTED WOR KS

fewer hours than savage ones , and , among the civilized , dwellers in cities fewer than coun try folk . The reason is not far to seek : it is o f a matter light .

M an - Primitive , like the savage of to day, had at night no other light than that o f the moon and that of wood fires . For countless o ur ages ancestors lived without candles , and when they had learned the trick of burning rushes soaked in the fat of neighboring tribes B e men their state was not greatly better . yond Primitive M a n we may dimly discern his a nc esto rsw unmen tion abl e to c a rs un - Dar w i ni z e — d who had no artificial light at all . In the darkness o f 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 o f o n e another n could not be carried o in darkness . They did nothing, naturally assuming the most comfortable posture in which to do it, the earlier sort suspending themselves by thei r tails , the later, having no tails , lying down as

- - l aw we do to day, or rather to night . It is a o f o r nature that when the body, 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 OF AMBR O SE B IER CE 2 05

— in energy short, the creature begins to die , and can be restored to full life only by r e o f o o f newal b dily activity . In the instance the b rain this torpor means unconsciousness that is to say, sleep . To put the matter b riefly, darkness compels inaction , inaction begets sleep . — Another law o f nature a rather comical o ne— is that acts which we do regularly, from t choice or necessi y, set up a tendency in us to ’ do them involuntarily when we don t care to ; and when the original impulse has been re placed by this new and more imperative o ne we give it the name o f habit and flatter o u r h ou r selves t at we have explained it . Because i thec a n thrO o id a u to c thon i c p p and forefathers , u nable by reason o f darkness to indulge during the whole twenty- fou r hours in the one - sided pleasures o f the chase and the mutual j oy o f o n e w e b raining another, had to sleep , have to sleep ; although we have (by p aying sorely fo r it) plen ty o f light for many kinds o f ma t lign activi y . But little by little we are overcoming the o f sleep habit without loss health , if not with positive sanitary advantage . As before ou t o f o u r pointed , the people lighted cities sleep less than th e rural population ; and this 206 THE COLLECTED WOR KS sleeps less than it did before the improvement

. i s in lamps Nothing more certain , despite

popular opinion to the contrary, than that the men o f cities are superior in strength and en o f ab un d durance to those the country, as is l a n t e . y attested in army life , in camp and fi ld That this is wholly o r even greatly due to thei r noctu rnal activi ty i s not a fli rm ed ; only that thei r addiction to the joys o f insomnia has not appreciably counteracted the sanitary — advantages o f city life amongst which an honorable prominence should be given to de fec tive drainage and drinking- water that is largely solution o f dog and hydrate o f 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 o f o ur grandmothers . Not only will the streets and shops and dwellings o f ou r cities be il l umina ted 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 app arently are no t creat o f not d ures habit) do nee sleep , and that by continuous light the profits o f agriculture could be enormously increased . The farmers

208 THE COLLECTED WOR KS

CON CER NING PICTUR ES

HOLD with Story and others whose talents and accomplishments so bril li a n tl y illustrate their faith , that the great artist is almost necessarily a man o f high attainments in general knowledge and o ne in more than branch of art . He who o ne knows but art knows none . The Muses do not singly disclose themselves ; for the o n e favor of you must sue to all . Consider the great Italian painters , from Angelo and R afael down the line o f merit to the modern masters . As a rule they were men of wisdom , accomplished in all the learning o f their time .

They were statesmen , scientists , engineers

o f . men affairs They knew literature, archi tecture , sculpture and music , as well as paint e ing . With here and there a notable exc p tion— more notable as an exception than as a painter—the same is true in many a country besides Italy, and many an age besides that in which the genius o f her sons kindled the im OF AMBR OSE B IER CE 209 perishable Splendor that burns about her name .

Perception is not the same as discernment, and he who sees with his eyes only will paint t h the with no hing but his and . R uskin says “ artist is the man who knows what is going ” o n . To him the primrose is a primrose and — so méthing more a primrose plus what it is doing, saying, thinking, and what is being done, said , thought by its whole environment . The great artist makes everything live ; he gives to death itself and desolation a person ality and a breathing soul . The rooted rock could move if it wished ; trees understand o ne another ; the river is prescient of the sea .

- Not a pebble , not a grass blade but is alert with a significant life to further the general conspiracy .

Understand me . This activi ty is entirely distinct from muscular action , locomotion , motion o f any kind o r any of the coarser sorts o f energy flagrantly depicted . The por o f t trait of a corpse may be full it, the pic ure o f a bounding horse altogether destitute . — Everything in nature every single object, every group , every landscape , has a visible expression , as a face has . This can generally be denoted in terms of human emotion . We 2 10 THE COLLECTED WOR KS all know what is meant by an angry sky “ ” o r we ob a threatening billow, for have served what follows . But we are not all o f equally sensitive to the joyous aspect a tree , the sulking of a rock, the menace or the bene diction that may speak from a hillside, the reticence o f one building and the garrulity o f o f another, the p athos a blank window, the tendernesses and the terrors that smile and u glower everywhere about s . These are no fancies . True , they are but the outward and visible signs of an inner mood ; but the objects that bear them beget the mood . No true art i st but feels it, and all feel it nearly alike . o T discern , to feel , to seize upon this dom i n ant expression and make it predominant in his — a s picture this, Taine rightly says , is the ’ painter s function . I stood once upon the slope o f a deep gulch ; the o f with me a friend , quick certainty whose artistic insight was always to me a Source o f

surprise and delight . Across the gulch , a

- quarter mile away, stood two trees , a giant o ak , whose great roots corded the rocks like

“ o f -fish the tentacles a devil , and a slender

pine , Springing from clear ground nearby . o ak o u The reached t a long, muscular arm r toward the othe tree which, leaning sharply

2 12 THE COLLE CTED WOR KS time a n object o f adoration for artist pilgrims from all over Europe , none detected its Spur ious character. That is clear from the facts M r that it was later that . Vanderbilt agreed to take it, and that while negotiations were going o n Herr Nicole borrowed twelve thous and dollars o n it from a banker who has it yet. That could hardly have been true if the pilgrims to i ts shrine at Lausanne h a d had their transports moderated by a suspicion that it was not so good as it looked .

The reader will kindly repress his hilarity .

This is no joke . If a picture can not be bet ter than it looks how does it happen that this o n e is not so valuable after the exposure as it was before ? The notion that a picture c a n be better o r worse than it looks does seem ab o n e surd when stops to think about it . It is not original with me ; the late Bill Nye once s et the country smiling by solemnly explain ing that he had been told that Wagner’ s music was better than it sounded . But why did we laugh ? We do not laugh “ ” r when a wealthy patron of art, o a p aternal government pays an enormous price for a painting b e c a us e it is p ronounced by experts “ to be a genuine work o f a famous old mas ” — s ter . And we do not laugh not all of u O F AMBR OSE B IER CE 2 1 3 h w en , as in the p resent instance , the value d rops to nearly nothing because the painting o r the o f p roves to be a copy only, work an unknown hand . — — I am no artist Heaven fo rbi d l nor even a connoisseur . I f I were I should doubtless understa nd why a copy that is as beautiful as an original is not so desirable a possession why it does no t give so great pleasure to the

‘ eye and the mind and the heart . I should understand why the work o f an obscure or unknown artist is not so valuable as the work o f a famous artist if it happens to be as good . — one One would suppose that is , unac qu a inted with art might be conceived as sup — posing that the value o f a painting woul d b e appraised without reference to the ques tion : Who made it ? It seems ( to the um enlightened) as if it would make no difference what name was borne by the person that — painted i t just as the Ilia d or the O dys s ey would be equ ally pleasing whether written by Homer o r by another man o f the same ” r name , o another name . I have the hardi hood to declare that it is—and here I am on “ o fli rm— w n . a my ground I nay , swear tip — toed with lifted hand that the pleasure o f ” any reason able man in reading Ossian is 2 1 4 THE COLLECTED WOR KS not abated by knowledge that the author w as M a herson ; that to a sane judgment the “ R owley ” poems are altogether as delight ful as if the secret o f their composition had been carried into the next world by little “ ” Chatterton when he perished in his p ride . is the S hakS ea re What it to me , or to you , if p plays were written by Bacon ? We have the plays ; let us read and be thankful Shak

Speare and Bacon may fight it out in Elysium , with Ignatius Donnelly as umpire ; o f the de cisio n , it boots not to inquire . If that is the mental attitude o f the true is lover of letters , and it is , why the true lover o f ? art differently constituted , if he is Why “ ” are the still vexed B ermo o thes of his soul still vexed ? Why can not he make up his o f o r mind that a work art is good, is bad , and let it go at that, serenely unconcerned about “ ” the irrelevant, incompetent and immaterial babble of the experts in authenticity ? B eing ignorant, I thank Heaven for the ex i stence o f artists obscure by fortune o r by choice , skilful enough to imitate in line or style the work of the great and famous p aint o n ers . For gratification of my w eye I would as lief see and possess their work as the work

- that they imitate . So would anybody for

2 1 6 THE COLLE CTED WOR KS

MODER N WAR FAR E

HE dream of a time when the na tions shall war no more i s a pleas

ant dream , and an ancient . Count I less generations have ndulged it, and to countless others , doubtless , it will p rove o ne a solace and a benefaction . Yet may be permitted to doubt if its ultimate realization is to be accomplished by diligent and general so application to the task of learning war, as no t many worthy folk believe . That every able advance in the art of destroying human life should be “ hailed ” by these good people as a step in the direction of universal peace must be accounted a phenomenon entirely creditable to the hearts , if not to the heads , o f those in whom it is manifest . It shows in them a constitution of mind opposed to blood shed , for thei r belief having nothing to do — with the facts being, indeed , inconsistent — with them is obviously an inspiration of the will . OF AMBR OSE B IER CE 2 1 7

War , these excellent persons reason , will at last become so dreadful that men will ” — no longer engage in i t happily unconscious ’ o f the fact that men s sense o f their power to make it dreadful is p recisely the thing which most encou rages them to wage it . Another popular promise of peace is seen in the enorm o us cost o f modern armaments and military f methods . The shot and cartridge o a heavy

o f - l gun to day cost hundreds of dol ars , the f gun itself tens o thousands . I t is at an ex pense o f thousands that a torpedo is dis charged , which may or may not wreck a ship worth millions . To secure its safety from the machinations o f i ts wicked neighbors while it o f o f self engaged in the arts peace , a nation to - day must have an immense sum o f money o f invested in military plant alone . It is not the nature o f man to impoverish himself by investments from which he hopes fo r no re turn except security in the condition entailed M en ex ens by the outlay . do not construct p ive machinery, taxing themselves poor to keep it in working order, without ultimately o f setting it going . The more its income a na to tion has Spend in preparation for war, the a r more certainly it will go to w . Its means o f defense are means of aggression, and the 2 1 8 THE COLLECTED WOR KS stronger it feels itself to strike fo r its altars and its fires , the more spirited becomes its desire to go across the border to upset the altars and extinguish the fires of its neighbors . But the notion that improved weapons give modern armies and navies an increased kill — ing ability that the warfare o f the future will be a bloodier business than that which we have the happiness to know— is an erro r which the observant lover of peace is denied f o . the satisfaction entertaining Compare ,

- for example , a n aval engagement of to day

o r . with Salamis , Lepanto Trafalgar Com pare the famous duel between the M o n ito r and the M er r im a c with almost any encounte r

- o f— between the old wooden line battle Ships , continued , as was the rep rehensible custom , u o ne o f ntil or both , with hundreds dead and wounded , incarnadined the seas by going to the bottom . As long ago as 1 861 a terrific engagement o f occurred in the harbor Charleston , South

Carolina . It lasted forty hours , and was fought with hundreds of the biggest and best o guns of the period . N t a man was killed n o r wounded . o f 1 862 In the sp ring , below New Orleans , Porter’ s mortar boats bombarded Fort Jack

220 THE COLLECTED WOR KS

In the Stubbornest land engagements o f ou r o f great rebellion , and the later and more sci entific Franco - German and Turko - R ussian w as no t wars , the proportionate mortality nearly so great as in those where “ G reek met ” R Greek hand to hand , or where the oman with his short sword , the most destructive weapon ever invented , played at give and take with the naked barbarian o r the R oman o f another political faith . True , we must make some allowance for exaggeration in the a c o f f counts these ancient af airs , not forgetting Niebuhr’ s assurance that R oman history is nine parts lying . But as European and American history run it pretty hard in respect o f a c that, something too may be allowed in , , — counts o f modern battles particularly where the historian foots up the losses of the side which had no t the military advantage o f his sympathies .

Imp rovements in guns , armor, fortification and shipbuilding have been pushed so near to perfection that naval and semi - naval en gagements may justly be counted amongst the arts of peace , and must eventually obtain the medical recognition which is their due as o f im means sanitation . The most notable ro n p veme ts are those in small arms . Our OF AMBR OSE B IER CE 221 young scapegrace grandfathers fought the R evolutionary War with so miserable fi re arms that they could not make themselves de c ently objectionable to the minions o f mo n archy at a greater distance than forty yards . They had to go up so close that many of them lost their tempers . With the modern rifle , incivilities can be carried o n at a distance o f

- - a - a mile and half, with thin lines and a cheer u n ful disposition . The dynamite shell has ,

fortunately, done much to gloom this sunni ness by suggesting a scattered formation , which makes conversation diffi cult and begets to s u i c id e loneliness . Isolation leads . , and sui “ ” cide is mortality . So the dynamite shell is really not the life - saving device that i t

looks . But on the whole we seem to be mak ing reasonably good p rogress toward that “ happy time , not when war shall be no

more , but when , being healthful , it will be

universal and perpetual . The soldier of the future will die of age ; and may God have mercy on his cowardly soul ! It has been said that to kill a man in battle ’ a man s weigh t in lead is required . But if the battle happens to be fought by modern o r warships forts , or both , about a hundred tons o f iron would seem to be a reasonable 222 THE COLLE CTED WOR KS

allowance fo r the making o f a military corpse . In fighting in the open the figures are more ou r cheering . What it cost in civil war to kill a Confederate soldier is not accurately ’ computable ; we don t know exactly how many we had the good luck to kill . But the

best estimates are easily accessible .

In the Ce n tury magazine several years ago was a paper on machine guns and dynamite guns . As might have been expected , it opened with a prediction by a distinguished general o f the Union armies that, so murderous have “ warlike weapons become , the next war will be marked by terrific and fearful slaughter . This is naturally followed by the writer’ s smug and comfortable assurance that in the extreme ' mortality o f modern war will be found the only hope that man can have of even ” a partial cessation of war . If this were so , s e let us e how it would work . The chrono logical sequence o f events would necessarily o n e (obviously, would think) be something like this 1 M o f . urderous perfection warlike weapons . “ 2 . War marked by terrific and fearful slaughter .

224 TH E COLLECTED WOR KS and precision o f firearms began . If a man M a rlbo r who fought under John Sobieski , ough or the first N apoleon could be haled out o f his obliterated grave and shown a battle o f to - day with all our murderous weapons in full thunder, he would p robably knuckle the “ - o u t : Yes leaf mould of his eyes and say yes , — , it is most i nspi ri ng l but where is the enemy ? ” I t is a fact that in the battle o f to - day the soldier seldom gets more than a distant and transitory glimpse o f the men whom he is

fighting . He is still supplied with the sab re “ ” if he is horse , with the bayonet if he is “ ” o f foot, but the value these weapons is a o ne moral . When commanded to draw the “ ” o ne o r fix the other he knows he is expected to advance as far as he dares to go ; but he too knows , , if he is not a very raw recruit, that he will not get within sabring o r bayon — e ting d istance o f his antagonists who will either b reak and run away o r drop so many of his comrades that he will himself b reak o r — and run away . In u civil war and that is very ancient history to the long - range tac ti — c i a n o f to - day i t was my fortune to assist at a suffi c ing number of assaults with bayonet h and assaults with sabre , but I ave never had O F AMBR OSE B I E R CE 225

- the gratification to see a half dozen men , friends or enemies , who had fallen by either o ne o r the weapon the other . Whenever the opposing lines actually met it was the rifle , o r the carbine , the revolver that did the work . “ ” In these days o f arms of precision they do not meet . There is reason , too , to suspect “ ” h not that, therefore , t ey do get mad and execute all the mischief that they are capable f o . It is certain that the machine gun will keep its temper under the severest provo cation . Another great improvement in warfare is a mirror or screen which is placed at the rear

o f . heavy guns , reflecting everything in front By means o f certain mechanism the gun can be trained upon anything so reflected . This enables the gunners to keep out o f danger in the bottom of their well and so live to a green o l c onsid d age . The advantage to them is e ra bl e and too obvious to require exposition to anyone but an agnostic ; b ut whether in the long run their country will find any p rofit in preserving the lives o f men who are afraid — to die for i t that is another matter . It might be better to incur the expense entailed by having relays o f men to be killed in battle than to try to win battles with men who know 226 THE COLLECTED WOR KS

o f nothing the spirit, enthusiasm and heroism o f that come peril . All mechanical devices tend to make c ow o f M en ards those whom they protect . long accustomed to the security o f even such slight earthworks as are thrown up by armies oper ating against each other in the Open country lose something o u t o f thei r general efli c iency . The particular thing that they lose is cour age . In long sieges the sallies and assaults f are commonly feeble , spiritless a fairs , easily ’ repelled . So manifestly does a soldier s com p a ra tive safety indispose him to incur even such perils as beset him in it that during the o u r last years of civil war, when it was cus toma ry fo r armies in the field to cover their b rea stvvo rks o f fronts with , many intelligent fi c e rs , conceding the need of some protection , yet made their works much slighter than was easily possible . Except when the firing was “ - heavy, close and continuous , head logs ( for example) for the men to fire under were distinctly demoralizing . The soldier who has least security is least reluctant to forego i s sa what security he has . That to y, he is the bravest . R ight sensibly General Miles once tried to call a halt in the progress of military extr av

228 THE COLLECTED WOR KS o f them is the disappearing gun , another the

- combination stop watch and tack hammer .

Americans must learn , preferably in time o f o f peace , that no people has a monopoly ingenuity and military aptitude . Great wars o f f the future , like great wars o the past, will be conducted with an intelligence and know ledge common to both belligerents , and with o f such appliances as both possess . The art attack and the art o f defense will balance each other as now, any advance in the first being always p romptly met with a corre s on in i s p d g advance in the second . Genius o f no country ; it is not peculiar to the United

States . It is not to be doubted that if it should be discovered that silver is a better gun metal than any now in use, and some ingenious scoundrel should invent a diamond - pointed shell of superior penetrating power, these “ weapons o f precision a n d effi ciency would be adopted by all the military powers . Their use would at least produce a gratifying mort ali ty among civilians who pay military a p on p rop ri a ti s ; so something would be gained . The purpose o f modern artillery appears to be Slaughter o f the taxpayer behind the gun . If fifty yea rs ago the leading nations o f OF AMBR OSE B IER CE 2 29 Europe and America had united in making invention o f offensive and defensive devices a capital crime, they would during all this intervening time have been o n relatively the now same military footing that they are, and would have been Spared an expenditure of a o f mountain money . In the mad competition for p rimacy in war power n o t one of them has gained any permanent advantage ; the entire “ ” benefit o f the imp rovements h as gone to the clever persons who have thought them out and been permitted to patent them . Until these are forbidden by law to eat cake in the sweat of the taxpayer’ s face we must con tinue to clutch o u r purse and tremble at their in power . We are willing to admire their enu i t g y, cheer their patriotism and envy their o f lack heart, but it would be better to take them from their arms o f precision to those of the public hangman . The military inventor is said now to have thought out a missile that will make a hole in any p racticable armo r plate as easily as you can put a hot knife through a pat o f butter . From all that can be learned by way o f the fan - light over the door o f ofli c i a l secrecy it appears to be a pointed steel bolt greased with

graphite . Its performances are said to be 230 THE CO L LE CTE D WO R K S eminently satisfactory to the man behind the patent, who is confident that it will serve the purpose of its being by penetrating the United

States Treasury . Well , here at least is ” an imp rovement in weapons of destruction , to which the non - militant taxpayer can accord a hearty welcome . If it is really irresistible out o f to armor, armor to resist it will go use “ ” and ships again fight in their shirtsleeves . It will sadden us to renounce the familiar 550 - dollars - a - ton steel plating endeared to us by a thousand tender recollections o f the as s e sment s rate, but time heals all earthly sor row o u r , and eventually we shall renew joy the o f o f in blue the skies , the fragrance the

- fl ut flowers , the dew Sp angled meadows , the ing and warbling and trilling o f the politi c i a ns . In the meantime , while awaiting our perfect consolation , we may derive a minor o f comfort from the high p rice graphite . o r When in personal collision , imminent of expectation it, with a gentleman cherishing ’ o ne the view that is needless , one s attention does no t wander from the business in hand to f dwell upon the lilies and languors o peace .

One is interested in the proceedings , and if he survive them experiences in the retrospection a pleasure that was not discernible in the t e

232 THE COLLECTED WOR KS the rigors o f his lot were ameliorated by ' a sight of his enemy and by some small oppo r tuni ty of distinction in the neighborhood o f ’ To - that gentleman s throat . day he is denied — the pleasure o f meeting him never even so much as sees him unless fortunate enough to e mak him take to his boats . As opportunity for personal adventure and distinction a mod ern sea - fight is considerably inferior to a day

- fi ht in the penitentiary . Like a land g , it has o f to enough danger keep the men awake , but for variety and excitement it is inferior to a comb at between an isosceles triangle and the fourth dimension . When the patriot’ s heart is duly fired by his newspaper and his politician he will prob ably enlist henceforth , as he h as done here a nd tofore, be as ready to assist in covering ’ the enemy s half o f the landscape with a rain o f bullets, falling where it shall please his w as to Heaven , as bellicose ancestor meet the foeman in the flesh and engage him in personal combat ; but it will be a stupid busi ness , despite all that the special correspond ent can do fo r its celebration by verbal fi re “ ” o f works . Tales the firing line emanating from the chimney corner o f the future will urge the young male afield with a weaker O F AMBR OSE B IER CE 233

suasion . By the way, I do not remember to ” have heard the term firing line during o u r o f civil war . We had the thing, course , but it did not last long enough ( excep t in siege operations , when it was called something else) “ ” on to get a name . Troops the firing line either held their fire until the enemy signified fo r it o r a desire it by coming to get , they themselves advanced and served him with it where he stood . I should no t like to s ay that this is an age o f human cowardice ; I s ay only that the men o f all civilized nations are taking a deal of pains to invent offensive weapons that will wield themselves and defenses that can take the place o f the human b reast . A modern battle is a quarrel o f skulkers trying to have all the kill ing done a long way from their persons . They will attack at a distance ; they will de i f o f fend inaccessible . As much the fighting a s r possible is done by machine y, preferably automatic When we sh all so have perfected o u r arms o f p recision and other destructive weapons that they will need no human agency to start and keep them going, war will be foremost among the arts o f peace .

Meantime it is still a trifle perilous , some times fatal ; those who practice it must expect 234 THE COLLECTED WOR KS

be bloody noses and cracked crowns . It may to the advantage of o ur countrymen to know that if they have no forethought but thrift they can h ave no safety but peace ; that in the ' school o f emergency nothing is taught but how to weep ; that there are no effective s ub sti ’ e tut s for cou rage and devotion . America s best defenses are the b reasts o f American sol diers and the b rains o f American command ” ers . Confidence in any revolutionizing device is a fatal faith . 1 899.

236 THE COLLECTED WOR KS is supposed i n most cases fi tly to be shadowed c om a ra t forth by a cedar bough , while a p i vely innocuous but equally inedible i n d ig e no us comestible figures as the fatal English “ o plum pudding . Nearly all ur Christ

l on o i n ter va ll o mas literature is , g , European D i ckensish in spirit and in form . In short, we have Christmas merely because we were in the line of succession . We h ave taken it w as as it transmitted , and we try to make the o f worst it. The approach o f the season is apparent in the manner of the friend o r relative whose ow n orbs furtively explore your , seeking a sign o f what you are going to give him ; in the irrepressible solicitations o f babes and c l outlings ; in wild cascades o f such literat

G r e en lea o n E v id e n c e o r B o s u re as f , f y “ ” ' ’ - The Little G zr ls Il ( Boot Leg series ) , l us tr a ted D iffe r e n tia l Ca l c u l us and A u n t ’

He tt s R a b ela is one . y , in words of syllable Most clearly is the advent o f the blessed a n n ive rsa ry manifest in maddening iteration of the greeting wherein , with a p recision that e never by any chance mistakes its adjectiv , you are wished a “ merry ” Christmas by the same person who a week later will be making ” ninety- nine happies out o f a possible hun OF AMBR OSE B IER CE 237 dred in New Year greetings similarly insin um cere and similarly insufferable . It is known to me why a Christmas should be a l ways merry but never happy, and why the happiness app ropriate to the New Year should not be expressed in merriment . These be mysteries in whose penetration abundance o f human stupidity might be disclosed . By “ the time th at o ne has been wished a merry ” “ Christmas o r a happy New Year some scores o f times in the course of a morning walk, by persons who he knows care nothing o r about either his merriment his happiness , he is disposed , if he is a person of right feel “ o f ing, to take a pessimist view the compli ” ments o f the season and o f the season o f compliments . He cherishes , according to o r disposition , a bitter animosity a tolerant contempt toward his race . He relinquishes for another year his hO p e o f meeting some day a brilliant genius o r inspired idiot who will have the intrepidity to vary the adjective “ and wish him a happy Christmas o r a “ merry New Year o r with an even more captivating originality, keep his mouth shut . As to the sum o f sinceri ty and genuine good will that utters itself in making and accept ing gifts ( the other distinctive feature of holi 238 THE COLLECTED WOR KS

day time) statistics , unhappily, are wanting and estimates untrustworthy. It may reason ably be assumed that the custom , though largely a su rvival— gifts having originally been given in a propitiatory way by the weak — to the powerful i s something more ; the p resent of a goggle - eyed doll from a man six feet high to a baby twenty - nine inches long n o t being lucidly explainable by assumption o f an interested motive . To the children the day is delightful and s ee instructive . It enables them to their eld ers in all the various stages of interesting idiocy, and teaches them by means of the Santa Claus deception that exceedingly hard liars may be good mothers and fathers and miscellaneous relatives—thus habituating the infant mind to charitable judgment and establishing an elastic standard of truth that will be useful in their later life . The annual recurrence o f the carnival o f ” crime at Christmas has been variously a c counted for by different authorities . By some it is supposed to be a p rovidential dispensa tion intended to heighten the holiday joys o f those who are fortunate enough to escape with their lives . Others attribute it to the lax morality consequent upon the demand for

240 THE COLLECTED WOR KS

not ter . He can shed his nails , but believes he can renounce his vices . Unable to cradic a ate freckle from his skin , he is confident he o o f can decree a habit ut his conduct . An improvident fl' l Cll d o f mine writes upon his o f mirror with a bit soap the cabalistic word , AFAHMAS P a ! a x . This is the fl t to create o f h the shining virtue t rift, for it means , A

Fool And His Money Are Soon Parted . ’ What need have we o f morality s countless ministries ; the complicated machinery of the church ; recurrent suasions o f precept and u m ceasing counsel o f example ; pursuing din o f homily ; still small voice o f solicitude and i n , — audible argument o f surroundings if one may make o f himself what he will with a mirror and a bit o f soap ? But ( it may be o ne how urged) if can not reform himself, h ? can he reform ot ers Dear reader, let us have a frank understanding . He can not . The p ractice o f inflating the midnight Steam - shrieker and belaboring the nocturnal ding- dong to frighten the encroaching New i s f Year obviously inef ectual , and might prof i tabl y be discontinued . It is no whit more sensible and dignified than the custom of sav ages who beat their sounding dogs to scare

' away an eclipse . If one elect to live with O F AMBR OSE B IER CE 241

one barbarians , must endure the barbarous n o f oises their barbarous superstitions , but the disagreeable simpleton who sits up till mid night to ring a bell o r fire a gun because the earth has arrived at a given point in its orbit should nevertheless be deprecated as an en hi to emy to s race . H e is a sore trial the en feelings , an affliction almost too sharp for durance . I f he and his sentimental abettors might be melted and cast into a great bell , every right - minded man would derive an in o n nocent delight from pounding it, not only

J anuary first but all the year long . 242 TH E COLLE CTED WOR KS

ON PUTTING ONE’ S HEAD INTO ONE ’ S BELLY

R R . HEN Y HOLT, a publisher, has uttered his mind at no i nc o n s id e ra bl e length in dep recation “ of what h e calls the c omm e rc ”

i ali z a tion o f . literature That literature , in r this count y and England at least, has some what fallen from its h igh estate and is t e garded even by many o f its purveyors as a

mere trade is unfortunately true , as we see in “ the genesis and development o f the literary ” syndicates ; in the unholy alliance between the book reviewer and the head o f the advert “ ising department ; in the systematic boom

ing of certain books and authors by methods , su ertab ul a r s ubm anual both p and , not materi ally different from those used for the promo tion of a patent medicine ; in the reverent a t titu de of editors and publishers toward au “ thors of best sellers , and in more things

than can be here set down . In the last cent

ury when , surely by no fortuitous happening, ‘American literature was made by such men as

244 THE COLLECTED WOR KS appropriate to the defenders in a servile i n surrection .

is . With a candor that most becoming, M r Holt expressly b ewails the passing of the o ld — “ régime fi he dep arted days when authors had other resources than authorship . This is the Second time that it has been my melancholy p rivilege to hear the head o f a prosperous

American publishing house make this moan . o ne Another , a few years ago , in addressing a o f company authors , solemnly advised them to have some means of support additional to no t as writing . I was then , and am not now, sured that publishers find it necessary to have any means o f support additional to publish ing . OF AMBR OSE B IER CE 245

THE AMER I CAN CHAI R

LONDON philosopher w as once pleased to remark that the Amer ican habit o f sitting o n the middle o f the back with the feet elevated might in time profoundly alter the American physical Structure , p roducing a race having “ o u r its type in the Bactrian camel . I f cousins across the water understood this matter they would not adopt the fl ipp a nt tone n ow toward us that they do , but in place of ridicule would bestow compassion . Before en deavo ring to clear away the misconceptions so to surrounding the subject, as let in upon ourselves the holy light of British sympathy I must explain that the practice o f sitting in the manner which the British philosopher somewhat inaccurately describes i s confined mostly to the males o f ou r race ; the American o f woman will not, I trust, partake the struct ural modification foreseen by the scientific

. eye , but remain , as now, simply and sweetly dromedarian . True , Nature may punish her 246 THE COLLECTED WOR KS

for being found in bad company, but at the first Stroke o f the lash she will doubtless for sake us and seek sanctuary in the companion

o f - ship that bolt upright verteb rate , the Eng lish nobleman .

The national peculiarity which , one is sorry to observe , provokes nothing but levity in the — B ritish mind and British levity is no light — a ffli c tion is not o u r fault but ou r misfortune .

Like every other people , we Americans are o ne o f the slaves of those who serve us . Not us in a thousand (so busy are we in subduing the wilderness and guarding o ur homes against the R edskins ) has leisure to plan and order his surroundings ; and to the few whom Fortune has favored with leisure she has de nied the means . We take everything ready — made our houses , grounds , carriages , furnit o f rov id ure and all . In some these things P ence has by special interposition introduced new designs and revived old ones , but in most of them there is neither change nor the

o f - Shadow turning . They are to day what

they were a century ago , and a century hence

- will be what they are to day . The chair

maker, for example , is the obscure intelligence and in di rigible energy that his grandfather was before him : the Ame rican chair main

248 THE COLLECTED WOR KS chosen to invent anything to mitigate the bit terness o f the situation as by their genius for evil they have made it. I humbly submit that in all this there is nothing deserving o f ridicule . It is a situa o f ow n tion with a pathos its , which ought to appeal strongly to a people suffering so many

o f c onse rvi tu de . the ills of , as do the English I t is all very well ( to use their ow n pet locu tion ) to ask why we do not abolish the Amer ican chair, but really the question ought not to come from a nation that endures M r .

P u n c h o f , pities the House Lords and em o f b races that Hanover . The American chair was p robably divinely designed and sent upon us for the chastening of o u r n ational

Spirit, and we accept it with the same rever ent submission that distinguishes o ur English critic in bowing his neck to the heavy yoke of his own humor . OF AMBR OSE B IER CE 249

AN OTHER COLD SPELL

H E late Professor H ayden , a distin gui shed ofli ci al o f the Coast Sur

vey, held disquieting views regard ing the significance o f certain seis o r mic and meteorological phenomena , , as s a they y in English , earthquakes and storms . It is the p rofessor’ s notion that stupendous changes are going on in the center of the earth . As the human race does not live in that locality, it may be thought that these changes are insuffi ciently important to engage n fo rtun the attention of the public p ress . U ately, we are not permitted to entertain that pleasing illusion , for the learned scientist has traced an obscurely marked , but indubitable connection between them and the blizzards and cyclones o f the Northwest . In a manner “ ” not clearly explained , the central changes o f which the earthquake is the outward and visible Sign , beget also a nipping and an ” eager air singularly distasteful to the M o n

- h tana cattle grower, and afflict D akota wit 250 TH E COLLECTED WOR K S

hu that kind of zephyr which , as a nameless “ m o ri st on has averred, just sits its hind legs ” and howls . Here , again , we are denied the double gratification o f Seeing the N o rthw est ern States and Territories devastated and feel ing ourselves secure from the same mischance . — Professor H ayden whose good will is un — questionable had no hope o f confining thes e frigo rific activities to the region o f their birth and overcoming them by some scientific c o up ' d e ma i n , as the man beat the gout by herding

o ff . it into his great toe, then cutting the toe “ ” No ; the blizzard , both Still and Sparkling, will spread all over the globe with increasing intensity and vehemence, to the no small dis o f comfort the unacclimated, though greatly, o f no doubt, to the innocent glee Esquimau , h o f Innuit, Aleut and ot er natives those “ thrilling regions

Where the pl ayful P ol a r b ea r s he n er na a re N ip t hu t u w .

In short, as the p rofessor puts it, scientific men here and abroad concur in the opinion that we are app roaching an extremely interest ” ing period .

252 THE COLLECTE D WOR KS H aving been encouraged by Professor Hayden to nou rish anticipations of an inter esting period p regnant with such pleasing t possibilities as hese, we are inexp ressibly dis sa appointed to have him y, as he does , that the operation of the great “ central changes ” to which we are to be indebted for all this is s o n slow that it may be a thousand years , or eve to longer, before they get their work with fi one perceptible ef cacy. Of course must recognize the stern necessity that dominates — the scientific prophet he has to carry the ful fi lment so far into the future as to avoid the

o f - melancholy fate short range prophets , like Zadkiel ; and therein we discern the true dif ference between the scientist and the impostor . o f Nevertheless , in a matter such pith and moment it would have been agreeable to be permitted to hope that these fascinating events o ur would begin to occur in day, and their author ( if one may reverently venture to call him so ) would have done a graceful thing if he had s o far departed from the strictly scient ific as o f method to assu re us that some us , at least, might reasonably expect to be frozen o f into the advancing wall ice, like the famous o f b e Siberian mastodon blessed memory, and come objects o f interest to the possible OF AMBR OSE B IER CE 2 53

o A has H aydens f a later dispensation . s he denied us the gratification which he could so c heaply have given to our curiosity and am _ u one bitio , feels justified in denouncing him as a miscreant and a viper. 254 THE COLLECTED WOR KS

THE LOVE O F COUNTY

ISTO R IAN S , homilists , orators , poets and magazine poets have for ages been justly extolling the love of country as o n e o f the no

' blest of hum a n sen tim en ts ; and it has been o fli c i ally recommended to th e fai r members ’ o f the Women s Press Association as an appro — “ p r i a te subject to write about as the vani ty ” o f life was by the good - natured traveler sug gested to the inquiring hermit as a suitable theme for meditation . Through all the ages o f has sounded the praise patriotism , the love o f o f country . Philanthropy, the love man a —a kind , is modern invention newfangled notion with which it is unp rofitable to reckon . But while th e love of country has been so so generally and justly extolled , too little has been said in praise o f that still more highly concentrated virtue , the love of county . This noble sentiment is even more nearly general

(where there are counties) than the other . That it is a stronger and more fervent passion

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o f reason , though , in the case those last men tio ne d , commonly without rhyme . In the love of county the gifted ladies o f the Women ’ s Press Association would find a t o ne theme surpassed in sublimi y by but other, o namely the love f township . Of that sacred passion no uninspired pen would dare to

write . OF AMBR OSE BIER CE 257

D IS IN TR O D UCTIO N S

HE devil is a citizen o f every coun o u r ow n try, but only in are we in constant peril of an introduction

to him . That is democracy . All men are equal ; the devil is a man ; therefore , i the devil is equal . I f that s not a good and suffi cient syllogism I should be pleased to a know wh t is the matter with it . To write in riddles when one is not p ro phe sying is to o much trouble ; what I am affi rm ing is the horror o f the characteristic Amer o f un ican custom promiscuous , unsought and authorized introductions . Yo u incautiously meet your friend Smith in the street ; if you had been prudent you would have remained indoors . Your help lessness makes you desperate and yo u plunge into conversation with him , knowing entirely well the disaster that is in cold storage for you . The expected occurs : another man comes along and is promptly halted by Smith and 2 58 THE COLLECTED WOR KS

! ou you are introduced Now, y have not given to the Smith the right to enlarge your circle o f acquaintance and select the addition himself ; why did he do this thing ? The per son whom he has condemned you to shake hands with may be an admirable person , though there is a strong numerical p resump tion against it ; but fo r all that the Smith knows he may be your bitterest enemy . The

Smith has never thought of that . Or you may have evidence ( independent of the fact of the introduction) that he is some kind of thief - there are one thousand and fifty kinds o f thieves . But the Smith has never thought of

ha . . s that In short, the Smith never thought Smitho c ra c In a y all men , as aforesaid , being equal , all are equally agreeable to one another . That is a logical extension o f the Declara o f e r tion American Independence . If it is roneous the assumption that a man will be pleasing to me because he is pleasing to a n other is erroneous too , and to introduce me to o ne that I have no t asked nor consented to — know is an invasion o f my rights a denial and limitation of my liberty to a voice in my ff own a airs . It is like determining what kind o f clothing I shall wear, what books I shall

or ha n r . read, w t my di ne shall be

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MR I — . H TE M r W . B lack , knowing the low o u esteem in which y hold each other, I have n the honor to disi trod uce you from M r .

Green . M R LACK b ow i n — . B ( g ) Sir, I have long de sired the advantage o f your unacquaintance . REE b o i n — u MR . G N ( w g ) Charmed to n ou meet y , Sir . Our acquaintance ( the work o f a most inconsiderate and unworthy person) has distressed me beyond expression . We are greatly indebted to our good friend here for his tact in repairing the mischance . — ’ MR . HITE W Thank you . I m sure you will become very good strangers . This is only the ghost of a suggestion ; of course the plan is capable o f an infinite elab oration . Its capital defect is that the persons who are now so liberal with their unwelcome introductions , will be equally lavish with their ' disi ntro duc tions , and will estrange the best of friends with as little ceremony as they now observe in their more fiendish work . 1 0 9 2 . O F AMBR OSE B IER CE 261

THE TYR ANNY OF FASHION

H E mindless male of o ur species is commonly engaged in committing an indelicate assault upon woman ’ s

taste in dress . He is graciously pleased to dislike the bright colors that she wears . Her dazzling headgear, her blind ing parasol , her gorgeous frock with its burn ing bows and sunset streamers , the iridescence o f o f her neckwear, the radiant glories her scarves and the flaming splendor o f her hose - these various and varied brilliances pain the f o s a d . eyes this weakling, making him He seems so miserable that it is chari ty to wish that he had died when he was little—when he was himself in hue ( and cry) a blazing scar let. Every man to his taste ; doubtless mine is barbaric . Anyhow, I like the rich , b right b ravery that the ladies wear . It is not a healthy eye that is offended by intensity of 262 THE COLLECTED WOR KS

color . It is not an honest taste that admires f it in a butter ly, a humming bird or a sunset, and derides it in a woman . N ature is Opul ent of color ; on e has to look more than twice to see what a wealth o f brilli ant h ues are about

so . him , used to them have our eyes become —o n They are everywhere the hills , in the air, the water, the cloud . They float like ban h 0 ners in t e sunlight and lurk in shadows . N artist can p aint them ; none dares to if he s a could . The critics would y he had gone mad and th e public would believe them .

And it is wicked to believe a critic . Nature has no taste ; she makes odious and hideous combinations o f tints that swear at one another like quarreling cats—hues that un a r mutually rend and slay . She has the p a llel ed stupidity to spread a blue Sky above a to green plain and draw it down the horizon , Where the two colors exhaust themselves in de f bating their di ferences . To be quite plain

old . about it, Nature is a dowdy vulgarian S haks ea re She has no more taste than p . Just as Sha kSp ea re poured out the unas sorted jewels o f his inexhaustible understand — ing cut , uncut, p recious , bogus , crude , con tem tibl e s o p and superb , all together, Nature o f prodigally lavishes her largess color . I am

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To he also a universal law . be comely in t — eyes o f the male that is the end and j ustific

' f sh o e . ation her being, and knows it More o f she over, to the task its accomplishment b rings an intelligence distinctly superior to t hat with which we judge the result . We ’ may s ay that we don t like her to have a fledged head ; and that may be true enough : o u r error consists in thinking that this is the ’ same proposition as that we don t like her with : her head fledged . Clearly, we do we like her better with her feathers than without, and Shall continue to prefer her that way as long as she is likely to hold the feathers in service ; then we shall again like her better without h t em , even as we liked her better with them . The lesson whereof is that what are called the caprices o f fashion have an underlying law as constant as that of gravitation . In this one thing the woman is wise in her day and generation . She may be unable to formulate her wisdom ; it must, indeed be con fessed that She commonly makes a pretty bad attempt at explanation of anything ; but she knows a de al more than she knows that she o f knows . One the things that She perfectly apprehends is the evanescence o f aesthetic o f gratification , entailing the necessity infinite OF AMBR OSE B IER CE 265 variety in the method o f its p roduction ; and n the knowledge of this is power . In cou tries where the women o f one generation adorn themselves as the women of another did , they h are slaves , and t eir bondage, I am con sa strained to y, is just. E fface the caprices of —l our fashion et women look always the same , even their loveliest, and in a few years we d shoul be driving them in harness . I f the fowls o f the air can serve her in averting the catastrophe , woman is right in employing M — a their artful aid . oreover point hitherto — overlooked i t is mostly men who kill the fowls .

U rged to its logical conclusion , the argu ment o f the Audubon Society ( named in honor o f the most eminent avicide o f his time) against th e killing o f song- birds to decorate their betters withal would forbid the killing o f the sheep , an amiable quadruped ; the fur — seal extremely graceful in the water ; the domestic cow—distinguished for matronly

virtues ; and the donkey, which , although it

has no voice , is gifted with a fine ear and

works up well into a superior foreign sausage .

In short, we should emancipate ourselves from Nature’ s universal law of mutual de ff struction , and , lest we e ace something which 266 THE COLLECTED WOR KS has the accidental property o f pleasing some o f our senses , go naked , feed upon the view less wind and sauce our privation with the i n cessant spectacle of song- birds pitching into o n e another with tigerish ferocity and c om mitting monstrous excesses on bees and butter

flies . “ We need no t concern ourselves about ex ” termination ; the fashion is not going to last fo r long enough that, and if it threatened to a do so the true remedy is not bstention , but b reeding . Probably there was a time when appeals were made for p reservation o f what ” — is now the domestic rooster a truly gor eou g s bird to look at. If he had not been good to eat ( in his youth) and his wife a p a tient layer their race would have been long extinct . All that preserves the ostrich is the fo demand r its plumage . If dead pigs were n ot erroneously considered palatable there would n o t be a living pig within reach of ’ man s avenging arm . Who but for the value o f th eir scalps would be at the trouble and expense o f breeding coyotes ? Thus we see how it is in the economy o f nature that out o f the nettle danger the lower animals pluck the flower safety ; and it may easily be that the harbird will owe its life to the profit that we

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o f tions , and have even persuaded the rest us i t— that there is something in as much , at least f as there was in the pocket o Lady Locket . It has not even s o much in it as that ; not the “ ’ half of it : the phrase women s slavery to

n o o ne fashion has absolutely meaning, and about to use it might as profitably use, instead , ’ John Stuart Mill s faultless example o f j ar ” gon Hump ty Dumpty is an abracadabra . Woman can not be called submissive to fash s ubmi tt ion , for the submission and the thing ed to are the same thing . Even a woman can not be called a slave to slavery ; and it is

is the slavery that the fashion . What else “ ” us can we possibly mean by fashion , when ing the word with reference to women ’ s bond ’ o f age , than women s habit dressing alike and ? badly It can not mean , in this connection , “ the s tyle o f their clothing ; that cannot en slave and we do not Speak o f slavery to any e thing good and desirable . H abit and addi

o n e . tion to habit are not two things , but In o f short, women , having chosen to make fools themselves , have personified thei r folly and persuaded men to see in it a tyrant with a chain and whip . The word fashion is used as a convenient generic term for a multitude of related stu O F AMBR OSE B IER CE 269

’ p idi ti es and cowardices in character and con duct, and for the results of them . To say that “ ” o ne must follow the fashions is to say that o ne is compelled to be stupid and cowardly . What compels ? Under what stress o f com pulsion are women in making themselves hideous in on e way o r another all the time each year a different kind o f hideousness ? Who commands them to get their shoulders above their heads , blow up their sleeves and elongate their lapels to suggest the collar points of a negro minstrel ? When have no t men tried to prevent them from doing these things and remain content with a tideless im — pulchritude a n ugliness having sligh t and slow vicissitudes , such as themselves are satis ’ fie d withal ? Doubtless women s quarrel with their outward and visible appearance is a natural and reasonable sentiment, a noble dis content ; for they do look scarecrows , and no mistake ; but the effect which they have at any given time achieved , and at which they afterward are aghast, is not to be bettered by h eternal tinkering with t e same tools . In new b rains and a new taste lies th eir only hO pe of repair ; lacking which , they would do well to o u r let Time the healer touch wounded eyes , and inurement bring toleration . 270 THE COLLECTED WOR KS

The iron hand of custom and tradition , “ o f wails one the female disputants , makes a ” ' pitiable race o f us What a way to put it ! Could it not occur to this gentle creature that if we were not a pitiable race— pitiable for — o u r b rute stupidi ty custom and tradition would not be iron - handed ? We are savages ’ in the same sense that the N ga mw a n ee is a savage , who will not appear at any festival

- without his belly painted a joyous sky blue . But among us none is so amusing a savage as “ she who squeals like a pig in a gate at the t yranny of custom , when nothing is pinching her .

An error analogous to this personification o f her own folly as a pitiless oppressor is that o f considering at length and with gravity the o f character, fortunes , motives and duties “ ” — woman . Woman does not exist there are women . Of woman nothing that has more o r than a suggestive , literary rhetorical value ” can be said . Like the word fashion , the o f word woman is convenient, and legitim ate use by persons o f sense who understand that it is not the name of anything o n the earth , in the heavens above the earth,

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o f power Him evoking it . These linked as ’ ’ s ump ti ons o f God s worth and God s i nc om peten ce are made variously : sometimes by im dis plication , sometimes with a directness that tresses the agnostic and makes the atheist “ n blush . One disputant says : Would a woma be less womanly because conceited M an had granted her the rights that God intended she ” ? the Should have Now, if man really has power to baffl e the divine will and make the divine intentions void of effect he may reason ably enough cherish a fairly good Opinion of — himself perhaps any degree o f conceit that is consistent with his scriptural character of poor worm o f the dust . A noble example o f piety undimmed by dis respect is that of a Presbyterian minister, who

' began his remarks thus “ Has woman to day all the rights she ought to have—all the rights Christ meant her to have ? I fully con h ” cede S e has not . This is not very good s a English , but I dare y it is good religion , “ this conception o f Christ as a well - meaning ” oh person , but without much influence in taining favors for his friends . Anyhow, it is

- authenticated by the clerical sign manual , which sets it at a longer remove from blas hem p y than at first sight it may seem to be , O E AMBR OSE B IER CE 273 and makes it so holy that I hardly dared to s a mention it . I hope it i s not irreverent to y s o no t ; it is said in that spirit, but I can not help thinking that if I were God I Should find some way to carry o ut my intentions ; and that if I were Christ and had no t a suffi cient influence to secure for Lively Woman the rights that I meant her to have I should re tire from public life , sever my connection o with the Presbyterian church and go t work .

Ladies of “ health culture clubs are sharply concerned about the length o f the o f o r skirts they wear . The purpose their a n i z a ti o ns g , indeed , is to p rotect them against their habit o f wearing the skirts too long . I t has apparently not occurred to them that here , too , nobody is compelling them to continue a h W o f disagreeable practice , and t at ith a pair scissors any woman can accomplish for herself all that she wants the clubs to do for her . If the long skirt no longer please , why not drop N o it ? Nothing is easier . concert of action definitely agreed o n was required to bring it ente r ri s in ; none is required to oust it . The p ing gentleman who , h aving laid hold of the 274 THE COLLECTED WO R KS tail of a bear, called lustily for somebody to help him let go , acted from an intelligible motive, but I submit that if a woman stop fol lowing a disagreeable fashion it will not turn and rend her . N 0 more hideous garment than the skirt is knowable or thinkable . In its every aspect it discloses an inherent and irremediable im O f im a pulchritude . It is devoid even the g i n a r o f n o t y beauty utility, for it is only need less but obstruent, impeditive, oppugnant . o f Promoting the sense restraint, it enslaves one the character . H ad been asked to invent a garment that should make its weare r servile in spirit One would have consulted the fore most living opp ressor and designed the skirt . That reasonless habiliment ought long ago to have been flung into N ature’ s vacant lot and found everlasting peace along with gone - b e

- fore cats , late lamented dogs , unsouled tin cans and other appurtenances and proofs of mortality . There is not a valid reason in the o r world why a Skirt of any length , Shape ma teri al should ever have been worn ; and o n e o f ’ the strongest evidences o f women s unfitness for a part in the larger affairs of the race is — their obstinacy in clinging to the skirt o r rather in permitting it to cling to them . So

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1n o f his fe is b ad enough this way, but that h male 13 a standing challenge to t e fool killer. Considering the use and purpose o f the human leg, it seems almost incredible that this ham pering garment could have been imposed upon women by anything less imperative than a divine commandment . One reads a deal about the immodesty o f t the skirtless costume , not, I hink, because on e any believes it immodest, but because its opponents find in that theme an assured im munity from p rosecution in making an inde o f o f cent exposure their minds . This talk immodes ty is simply one manifestation of — public immorality the immorality o f an age in which it is considered right and reputable for women and girls , in company with men , to witness the capering of actresses and dancers who in the name o f art strip them selves to the ultimate inch—whose every mo tion in their saltatory rites is nicely calculated to display as much o f the person as the law allows ! Why else do they whirl and spin till thei r make - believe Skirts are horizontal ? Why else do they Spring into the air and come down like a collapsed parachute ? These mo tions have nothing o f grace ; in point o f art they are distinctly disagreeable . Their sole O F AMBR OSE B IER CE 2 77

purpose is indelicate suggestion . Every male spectator knows this ; every female as well ; yet we lie to ourselves and to one another in — j ustifi c a tion lie knowing that no o ne is thereby deceived as to the nature of the per n fo rm a c e and o ur motives i n attending it .

We call it art, and if that flimsy fiction were fi insuf cient would doubtless call it duty . The only person that affects no illusion in the mat ter is the exhibiting hussy herself . She at — least is free of the sin o f hypocrisy save when condemning “ bloomers in the public p ress . AS censors of morals the ladies of the ballet

—- are perhaps half a tr ifl e insincere ; I like bet ter the simple good faith o f the austere society dame who to a large and admiring audience ’ o f semi - nude men displays her daughter s o f h charms person at the bathing beac , with an occasional undress parade of her own a m

ple endowments . She is in deadly earnest, — the good o ld girl she is entirely persuaded “ ”

f f . o the wickedness o the bloomers Why , it would hardly be more indelicate (she says ) to wear her b athing habit in the street or drawing - room ! If she were no t altogether destitute o f reason she would deprive herself o f th at illustration , for a costume is no more 278 THE COLLECTED WOR KS

indelicate in one public place than in another . O ne of the congenital ear - marks o f the P hilis t i nc understanding i s inability to distinguish inappropriateness from immodesty—b ad taste from faulty morals . The blush that would crimson the cheek o f a woman shopping in evening dress ( and women who wear evening dress sometimes retain the blush - habit ; such are the wonders o f heredity !) would i n d ubi t ably have its origin in a keen sense o f expos ure . It would make a cat laugh , but it would be an honest blush and eminently nat ex l a n u ral . The phenomenon requiring an p ation is th e no - blush when she is caught in the same costume at a b all or a dinner . In nations that cover the body for another purpose than decoration and protection from o f the weather, disputes as to how much it, and in what circumstances , should be covered are inevitable and uncomposable . Alike in the o f nature and in art, question the nude will be always demanding adjustment and be l never adjusted . This wrangle we have a ways with us as a penal ty for the p rudery o f concealment, creating and suggesting the p ru t i enc e o f exposure .

O ffen ded N a ture hid es her l a sh n the r e- ac a e mustac e I pu pl bl k of dy d h ,

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that is tolerated by the police . As to the ” o f in bloomers , they have not a suggestion o f delicacy, and the person who professes to s ee in it in them I , for one , am fatigued and disposed ; and I confidently affi rm the a d vantage to the commonwealth o f binding him to his own back and removing the organ that he is an idiot with . I have the vanity to think it already kn own to me why our women wear the skirt—just as it is known to me why the women of certain African tribes load themselves with enormous m etal neck- rings and the male o f their variety

- attaches a cow tail to his b arren rear . But what these impedimental adornments are for, the wearers can no more explain than the “ Caucasian female ( assisted by her man o f ” equal mind ) can expound the purpose of her skirt, nor even be made to understand that its utility is actually challenged . But what would one have ? Wisdom comes o f mental freedom ; are we to look for that in victims and advocates of physical restraint? Can we reasonably expect large intellectual strides in ? those who voluntarily hampe r. their legs Is it to be believed that an unremittent sense o f hindrance will not affect the mind and cha r ’ acter ? With woman s inconsiderable reason OF AMBR O SE B IER CE 281

ing power the skirt, the corset and the finery

‘ a have had s much to do as anything . I f she wants emancipation from the imaginary o f M tyranny M an the onster, let her show herself worthy o f it by overthrowing the act ual despotism maintained by herself . Let her unbind her body and liberate her legs ; then we shall know if She has a mind that can be taught to stand alone and march without the suasion o f a bayonet . 1 8 95. 2 82 THE COLLECTED WOR KS

BR EACHES O F PR OM ISE

HER E should be no such thing as an action for a breach o f promise

o f marriage . An action for prom ise of marriage would be in some fo r it ways preferable , where damages ensue is the promise that has caused them . Doubt less the hurt heart Of on e who is abandoned by her lover, especially after p roviding the trousseau and kindly apprising all her rivals , is justly entitled to sympathetic commisera o ne tion , but the pain is that the law can not undertake to heal . In theory at least it con cerns itself with actual privation o f such p e c un i a ry advantages as would h ave accrued to the plaintiff from marriage with the defend ant, and such other losses as can be denoted o f by the figures arithmetic . If the defend ant were liable fo r the pain he inflicted by b reaking his promise he might justly demand compensation for the joy that he gave in mak ing it . Where the courtship had been long there might be a considerable balance in his

284 THE COLLECTED WOR KS and whatever merely sentimental injuries t e sult from its infraction might justly be squared by a merely sentimental reparation . Perhaps it would be enough if the injured plaintiff in a breach of promise suit were awarded the illusory advantage but accept ’ able gratification O f wigging the defendant s attorney . ’ It may be said that the defend ant s equ iv al ent for his p romise was the lady’ s tender of such services as wives perfo rm for husbands — among which the peasant- born humorist o f the period loves to enumerate such mysterious functions as “ building the fire ” and assisting

- to search for the soap in the b ath tub . But it must not be o verlooked that this tender is itself only a p romise whereof the perform o f o ne ance fails , along with that the . for which it is given in exchange : the fire re mains unbuilded and the soap is lost . One ro 1 unfulfilled p ml s e 8 no better than another .

; Nay, it is not So good But if we are to have suits for b reach o f p romise o f marriage it can at least be so o r dered that there shall be no question of p roof . f An act o the legislature is enough for that . Let there be a law that marriage engagements o t be valid shall be in writing . This would O E AMB R OSE B IER CE 285

work no hardship to anybody, and would be a pleasing contrast to the law which does n o t require any authenticating formality for the marriage itself . If a man really wish and mean to marry he will not b e unwilling to say s o his d ecl a r over hand and seal , and have the o f evi d ation duly attested . The lack such ence as this Should be a bar to any action . It is admitted that this rigorous requirement would be pretty hard on such ladies as rich bachelors and widowers have the hardihood to to be civil , and that it would deprive the intelligent juror o f such delight as he derives from giving away another man’ s property Its without loss to himself . advantage would be found in its tendency to prevent the courts of law from being loaded up with the o f class cases under consideration , to the ex e lusion of much other business . The number o f wealthy men increases yearly with the ’ t country s p rosperi y, and they grow more and more unmarried . Under the present system o f they are easy prey, but the operation de Spoiling them is tedious ; wherefore worthy assassins are compelled to wait an unco nsc i on ably long time for acquittal . The reform that I ventu re to suggest would ' disembarrass “ ” the courts o f the ambitious l a difrend and 2 86 THE COLLECTED WOR KS d the scheming omestic, and give the murder o f ers a chance . As a matter expediency, I think a man should be permitted to change his mind as to whom he will marry, as frequently as it may please him to do so ; almost any change in the mind o f a man in love must be o f in the direction imp rovement.

288 THE COLLECTED WOR KS deal damnation round on heads that wear the fez . Like the Bulgarian massacres o f a few so b years ago , which pained the lameless soul r of Christendom and drew from holy M .

Gladstone that Christianly charitable term , “ the unspeakable Turk, the Armenian massacres ” are mostly moonshine—as mas sacres . I t Should never be forgotten that our accounts o f these deplorable events come a l most altogether from Christian missionaries t narrow, bigoted zealots , who doub less stand well in the other world, but in this world are u ntrustworthy historians o f the troubles which their impenitent meddlesomeness incites . n They are swift and willing wit esses, and thei r interest lies in the direction of exaggeration . Not much o f moderation and disinterested ness can under any circumstances be expected o f persons who make it the business o f their lives to go ab road to crack theological nuts upon the heads o f others and eat the kernels f themselves . A man o sane heart and right reason will no more interfere with the spir i tual affairs o f others than with their temp on oral . This much any e may know who has the sense to learn : that th e troubles in r Armenia are not religious pe secutions , but R R 289 OF AMB OSE B IE CE .

M O political disturbances , and that next to hammed an Kurds the most incor rigible i n scamps Asia are Armenian Christians . Among military men the superior character o f Turkish soldiers is a familiar considera o r “ tion . The war minister general who should order o r conduct a campaign against them without conceding to their terrible fight ing qualities a particular attention in reckon ing the chances o f success would Show a la m en a l e t b ignorance of his business . For that veritable folly the Greeks recently p aid through the nose . With a childish trust in an enthusiasm that hardly outlasted the smoke o f the first gun , they threw their undisciplined crowds against superior numbers o f these formidable fighters in a quarrel in which their only hope of national existence if beaten lay in the magnanimity o f the Powers whose p rotection they disclaimed . It is by the suf fera nc e and grace of these Powers that the name o f G reece remains on the map o f

Europe . All this sentiment about the debt that civil i z a ti on owes to Greece is foolish : the G reece to which civilization is indebted for its glor o f ious heritage art, philosophy and literat — ure is dead these many ages a memory and 2 90 TH E COLLECTED WOR KS

a name . The debtor is without a creditor, the claimant without a claim . Greece would herself be justly liable fo r her share o f the debt if there were anybody to whom to p ay “ As o f our re it. to the claims common l i i on our g ( that is , the right to assistance in ’ violating o u r common religion s fundamental and most precious precepts) it should be su f fi ci ent to say that if the modern Greek is a

Christian Ch rist was not . If Christ were among the Athenians to - day they would part his raiment among them before crucifixion and cast lots for his vesture with loaded dice . From the first the cause o f the Greeks was hopeless . They were a feeble nation making o n unjust war against a strong e. They were a merely warlike people attacking a military e — p ople the worst soldiers in Europe, with o ut the commanders , challenging best soldiers in the world led by two able strategists .

Without resources , without credit, without allies , and relying upon miracles , they flung themselves upon an enemy favored by united w as o f Europe . It the act not heroes , but of madmen . Had they been content to accept the autonomy of Crete their action in oc c u pying that island would have commanded at least the respect of every poker- player in the

292 THE COLLECTED WOR KS ical rush by those of another and inferior faith . H ardly less brilliant were the accounts o f M oslem cruelty, particularly to prisoners , under whom their captors kindled discom fi res—a fo r forting needless labor, it would have been greatly easier to make the fire on unoccupied ground and superpose the pris o f oner afterward . The customary rites part ing the heads of women and eviscerating babes were not neglected : all the require ments o f invasion received careful attention as they did in Cuba , as they once did in

France , as they previously did in the South o f ou r ern States Union , and before that in o f Ed the revolted colonies Great B ritain . hem Pasha was a strict constructionist of the popular law ; a s a conscientious invader oper ating among an inhospitable populace , he thoughtfully gave himself the trouble to be a “ — butcher as Cornwallis w as in the Colon ies , as Grant was in the South , as Von a s Moltke was in France , and Weyler was in

Cuba . If it were not for picturesque nar r a tives mul tisec ted of tortured prisoners , a women , children ingeniously b yoneted and o ld men fearfully and wonderfully defaced o f an c on by the hand artist, the literature of O F AMBR OSE B IER CE 293 q uest would lack the salt that keeps it sweet in the memory and the Spice that gives it glow . Of course it is all nonsense : cruelties are n o t p racticed in mod ern wars between civil i d ze . o r nations ( It is true that the Turks , o f so some them, are uncivilized as to have a o f Tu rkesses number each , but th at is not visi bly bad for them , and appears to be con ' d emned on the ground that it is somehow bad ’ for us . ) Indubitably Turkey s doom as a European Power w as long ago p ronounced R she in the ussian language , but dies with a d ignity befitting her glorious history . Foot ’to foot and sword to sword She struggles with o n the hosts assailing her, now this side , and n ow on that . Against attack by her power ful neighbors and insurrection of her hetero eneous she g provinces , has manifested a cour a t o f age , vitali y, a fertility resource , a con tinuity and tenaci ty o f pu rpose which in a Christian nation would command ou r respect o u r and engage enthusiasm . Unfortunately h for t em , her people worship God in a way ou r that is different from way, and with a sin c erit u s y which in would be zeal if we had it, but which in them is fanaticism . Therefore un they are hateful . Therefore they are

speakable . Therefore we lie about them and, 294 THE COLLECTED WOR KS

o f o f because the respectability the witnesses , o r w i no us u o n . s t believe lies Truth in , nor the sense o f its need ; charity nor the memory o f its primacy among virtues 1 8 97.

296 THE COLLECTED WOR KS epidemic Spreading by contagion until it a i h feets the cats of the w ole world , and perhaps those o f Denver The musical outlook is dis c ou ra ging : the orchestration o f a feline luna tic i n one of its deuced intervals can be nothing less than appalling ! Fancy a mani o f th acal male the species , benea his favorite window o f the dormitory o f a hospital for nervous insomnia , securely casemented in an emp ty crate and courting rather than avoid ing the assaults o f the wild boo tj ac que rie his fiddle above , while twanging disordered strings for the production of

a lon g u nmeas ured tone To orta ns re s n no n m l mi t l y u k w , and then executing such variants of his theme as no rational cat has ever been able o r willing ! to com—pose The cause o f the outbreak was no less re markable than the outbreak itself : the cats o f Cheyenne incurred mental confusion from Fo r being supercharged with electricity . a period of seven weeks the wind blew across the delightful region o f which that ci ty is the o capital , at a calculated average velocity f “ thirty miles an hour . The ground in conse OF AMBR O SE B IER CE 2 97

uence q , according to a resident scientist,

has become extremely dry, and the friction o f the wind in passing over it has produced t f an enormous quanti y o electricity, and every ” o ne is more o r less charged So seriously indeed were some o f the newer residents a f fec ted that they have had to leave Cheyenne and go to California for relief ; and o f those remaining it is related that even now when they shake hands there is a distinct and pain ful shock to him who is the less electrified . The performance of this social rite has there “ ” fore fallen into innocuous desuetude , men conscious of being imperfectly charged ey ing every approaching friend with natural suspicion , and p referring to pain him with a distant b ow rather than incur the thunderbolt o f a re a more familiar greeting . It is not pp hended that ou r most sacred American cus tom is menaced wi th a nything more than local ’ and temporary suspension , but it is feared that the American cat is on the eve o f stupendous intellectual and musical changes that will make the name o f Cheyenne memorable forever . 2 98 THE COLLECTED WO R KS

THAN KSGIVING DAY

HER E be those whose memories though vexed with a rake would

yield no matter for gratitude . With a waistcoat fitted to the occa ’ i s sion , it easy enough to eat one s allowance ’ o f turkey and hide away one s dishonest share o f t the wine ; if his be returning thanks , why , then , gratitude is considerably easier, and “ r o ff vastly mo e agreeable , than falling a ” '

a nd m a o ne . log, y be acquired in easy lesson — But if mOr e than this be required if to be i s grateful more than merely to be gluttonous , your true philosopher ( he o f the austere b row Upon which l ogic ha s stamped its eternal im ‘

. p ress , and from whose heart sentiment has been banished along with other vestigial vices ) will think twice and a ga iri before lev eling his serviceable shins in humble O b s erv a nce of the For here is e nut of reason that he is com pelled to crack for the kernel of emotion a p ro ri p p ate to the rite . Unless the blessings

300 THE COLLECTED WOR KS

erim en t p in the manner scientific , as here related .

Ex e r im en I p t . A quantity of grass was put into a leathern bottle and a gill o f the gast ric fluid o f a Sheep introduced . In ten min utes the neck of the bottle emitted a contented bleat . x er i en o f sub E p m t II . A pound beef was stituted for the grass and the fluid o f a dog o f for that the sheep . The result was a cheer o f ful bark , accompanied by agitation the o f the bottom bottle , as if an attempt were making to wag it .

er E xp im en t III . The bottle was charged o f o f with a handful chopped turkey, a glass o ld port, and fou r ounces of human gastric

fluid obtained from a coroner . At first no thing escaped from the neck but a deep sigh o f satisfaction , followed by a grunt like that of o f a banqueting pig . The proportion turkey being increased and the gas confined , the w a s disten ded a ea ri n bottle greatly , . pp g to f suf er a slight uneasiness . The restriction being removed , the experimenter had the hap i ness p to hear, distinctly articulated , the “ : Words Praise God , from whom all bless ' R R 301 OF AMB OSE B IE CE . — ings fl ow p raise Him all bottles here below ! ” Against such demonstration as this all theo logical interpretation o f the phenomena o f ra t1tu de i s o f g no avail . 1 869. 302 THE COLLECTED WOR KS

THE HOU R AND THE MAN

O N TR AR Y “ to popular belief , the hou r ” does not always bring “ the ” man . It did not bring him for 1 8 ou r France in 70 . In civil war it brought him for the Confederacy, but a o ff o f chance bullet took him . Every defeat a cause discredits anew the superstition about “ ” the hour and the man . When the hour strikes , the man may be already present and “ M not hear . The mute , inglorious ilton , no dying with all his music in him , is more real a character than the mute, inglorious Cms a r unsus trudging along in the ranks , pec te d by his comrades and unaware o f him o f ow n c on sum self . Even if conscious his o f mate genius , and impressing a sense it upon others , it is by no means certain that he will come to the control . An intrigue, the selfish o f jealousy some little soul in authority , the o f un caprice a woman behind the throne , an o f fortunate peculiarity manner in himself , a — on e stumbling horse, a random bullet any

304 THE COLLECTED WOR KS

e in c p t g Tolstoi . The importance of the indi fo r vidual will , consciously striving the o f attainment definitive ends , yet subject to i re all the caprices of chance and accident, s stored in the minds o f men to its own reign o f reason . Considering the matter only in the limited o f view its relation to military success , we all s ee o r see M , suppose ourselves to , that if arl borough had died o f measles when he w as John Churchill ; if Frederick had burst a blood vessel in one o f his blind rages before he became the Great ; if Carnot had fallen d own a cellar stairway when he was a b oy ; if Napoleon had been knocked over at the o f o r bridge Arcola , Von Moltke had de se t ted to the French and been given command o f fo r the column that was headed Berlin , the historian o f to - day would have had a Eu rope to deal with which it is impossible now “ ” even to conceive . Suppose that the hour had not brought John Sobieski to confront o f the victorious Turk a couple centuries ago . Europe might now be Mohammedan and the R f onsid word ussia destitute o meaning . C e ra tions o f this character may advantageously be permitted to teach us humility in the mat o f ter prophecy, and particularly with refer OF AMBR OSE B IER CE 305

ence to military undertakings , than the result o f which nothing is more beset with accident an d dependent upon the unknowable and incalculable . l/3o6 THE COLLECTED WOR KS

MOR TUAR Y ELECTR O P LATIN G

O the proposition that electroplating the dead is the best way to dispose o f them there is this considerable — objection i t does not dispose of a dv a nt them . The plan is not without its o f ages , Some which are obvious enough to fo r mention . Nothing , example , can be more satisfactory to a husband engaged in dy ing than the reflection that as a nickel plated statue o f himself he may still adorn the conjugal fireside and become an object o f peculiar interest and sympathy to i n his successor . There are few remains ,

deed , to whom this would not seem a softer billet than “ to lie in cold Obstruction ” in a o ne cemetery, from which , after all , is usu ally routed out in a few years to accommodate

- a corner grocery or a boarding house . The light cost o f ornamenting our public

buildings with distinguished men themselves , as compared with the p resent enormous ex o f o f pense obtaining statues them , will com

308 THE COLLECTED WOR KS

” the deceased in his habit as he lived, tex tile fabrics not being susceptible to the magic o f its method ; but the figures o f eminent de cedents exposed in public places to fire the ambition of American youth could be pro v i ded - with real tailor made suits, either in the fashion o f their time and Congressional o r R district in that Of ancient ome , as might be p referred by the public taste for the time ’ being, and the tailors bills would p robably,

in some instances , be almost as interesting , if so not nearly startling, as that item in an early

- English Passion play account, in which the management is charged five Shillings and s ix ” fo r o dd pence for a cote G . To that entire class of decedents whom we

- - O b may call eminent public services men , the j ection that electroplating the dead does not permanently dispose o f them has no practical

application . Of them we do not wish to dis pose ; we want to retain them for embellish o f o f ou r ment our parks , the facades public

buildings and the walls o f ou r art galleries . “ But in its relation to vulgar deaths un ” known to fame the objection i s indeed fatal . I f this mortal is going to put on immortality — in so strictly literal a sense if the dead are to be still with us in a tangible and visible O F AMBR O SE B IER CE 309

the reality, fact will be embarrassing, no é ' doubt . Under a r gime in which a dead man one will take up as much room as a living , it is evident that the dead in general will take up a deal more than the living, and the dis p roportion will increase a t an alarming rate . — Science assures us that but fo r death i n — cluding decay the world would now be SO overcrowded that there would be “ standing ” El ec ro l t . t a room only, even for scientists p I a d i ing proposes to enjoin decay . S it v s able ? Is it wise ? Is it fair to posterity ? Shall we impose ourselves upon those who ” fo r inherit us , without providing the ex pense o f ou r warehousing ? I t can hardly be expected that even the most well - preserved ” o ld gentleman will be an object o f venera tion and affection to his great - great- great grandchild , even if he is so fortunate as to be — authentic unless , indeed, he h appen to be he . t plated with gold In hat case , though , would be hardly likely to descend intact to so remote a generation . An unusually comely elec tropl a tee o f the Opposing sex might be o f a joy forever as a work art, and the task o f polishing her be a labor o f love fo r many centuries ; but the common ruck of hard - shell a t ancestors , although bearing inscriptions 31 0 THE COLLECTED WOR KS testing their possession o f the loftiest virtues in their day and generation , would inspire an insuffi ciently tender emotion to pay fo r their lodging . our The time when beautiful , but not alto gether wholesome , cemeteries Shall be no o f more , and in the place them countless myriads o f battered and rusted images shall be corded up like firewood all over the smil ing land is a time which we may be thankful o u r that we shall not live to see , and which love o f display should not make us selfishly assist in expediting . It is a glittering temp ta ti on , but in fair play to posterity (which has never done anything to embarrass us) it ought to be put resolutely aside .

3 1 2 THE COLLECTED WOR KS i d b eb ra ed . wonderfully , his ornate footgear How he shines in the light o f his uncommon i entit l— d y how dull we look , how odious in the comparison ! Can it be possible that this glorious creation envies us the engaging sim pli c i ty of our h abiliments and the charm of o ur unstudied incivility ? And does he ex ” e cute a rapture over the title Mister and “ o f the soft, musical vocables the name John H en ry Smith ” ? Who would care to lose his life in ascend ing White Mountain by a new trail ? But — f Mont Blanc that is dif erent .

M on t Blanc is the monarch o f mounta ins ; T e c ro ne on a o h y w d him l g g , but be sure it was no Frenchman that did the crowning —not with such a name as that ! And if the exigencies o f the literary situa tion had compelled Coleridge to think of him in the vernacular he would never have stood in the valley of Chamouni asking him who sank his sunless pillars deep in earth . “ White Mountain ” is well enough in its way if o ne think only o f its color ; but there is the d isquieting possibili ty that it was named in honor of its discoverer ( Ezekiel OF AMBR OSE B IER CE 3 1 3

o f White , Podunk) like the eminences that “ stand dressed in living green ” down in New

H ampshire . Call Capri “ Goat Island ” and you class it with an abomination of that name in the o f Fran c i c o To harbor San s s . the Neapolitan looking

Acros s the cha rmed bay ’ W os e e a es ee Ca r s s n n fo n a ns h blu w v k p , with p i u y u t i , P erp etua l h olida y

it is just Goat Island , and it is nothing more . The sunny fountains and the famous sea no h caverns do t interest him . T ey are pos s ibl y fine , but indubitably familiar . All this has perhaps something to do with contentment ; it may go a Short way toward making us willing to be alive . We hear much from the writer - folk about the horrors of this commercial age, the dull monotony o f modern life , the depressing daily contact the with things we loathe , to wit, railways ,

t - steamships , telephones , electric s reet cars and other p rosaic things which , when we are o f not boasting them , we are reviling . We shudder to think o f the railway from Joppa to Jerusalem ( if there is o ne ) and sigh for 3 1 4 THE COLLECTED WOR K S the good old days o f the camel - even as we

o f - sigh for those the stage coach , whereby the traveler met with many romantic adventures in lonely roads and at wayside inns . Well , is as to all that, it still possible to renounce one’ s purse to a “ road agent ” between Squaw Gulch and Ginger Gap if one wish

- no un to , and hold ups are t altogether known to those who in default of the stage coach are compelled to travel by exp ress trains . Is any spectacle really more interesting ‘t ? han a railway train in motion Why, even o r the stolidest laborer in the field , the most bla s é o ff t o ff switchman du y, takes a moment to stare at it . By night, with its dazzling headlight, its engine eating fire and breath fl o f ing steam and smoke , its ashes red light upon the trees as its furnace doors are opened o f and closed , its long line gleaming win the o f dows , roar and clang its p rogress not in the world is anything more fascinating , more artistic nor, but for its familiarity, more picturesque . It is so all round : the Atlantic liner is ' a nobler Sight than the clipper ship of ou r

fathers , as that was a nobler sight than the their carvel of fathers , and that than the

3 1 6 THE COLLECTED WOR KS

N o t and romantic a period . in literature, not in art, but in those things that touch the interest and hold the attention o f all classes r to alike , the last centu y was as superior all those that went before as a bird of paradise is superior in beauty and interest to a slug o f S the field . cience and invention have made o ur world a Spectacular extravaganza , a f dream o delight to the senses and the mind . M an has employment for all his eyes and all his ears . Yet always he throws a longing look backward to the barbarism to which eventually he will return .

1 90 2 . OF AMBR OSE B IER CE 3 1 7

THE WAR EVER LASTING

— O R thousands o f years doubtless for — hundreds o f thousands a n incessant civil war has been going o n in every country that has even a rudimentary o f civilization , and the prospect peace is no b righter to - day than it was at the beginning o f hostilities . This war, with its dreadful mortality and suffering, loses none of its viol o f n ence in times peace ; i deed, a condition o f national tranquillity appears to be most favorable to its relentless p rosecution : when the people are not fighting foreigners they o r n have more time f fighting o e another . This never- ending internal strife is between ’ - - the law breaking and the law abiding classes . — The latter is the larger force a t least it is the is Stronger and constantly victorious , yet never takes the full benefit Of its victory . The commander o f an army who should s o neglect his Opportunities would be recalled f in disgrace, for it is a rule o warfare to take

the utmost possible advantage o f success . 3 1 8 THE COLLECTED WOR KS There should be no such person as an habit ual criminal , and there would be none if crim i n als were not permitted to breed . There are — several ways to prevent them some , like per etu al to o p imp risonment, expensive ; others o f impossible discussion here . The best practical and discussible way is to kill them .

And in this is no injustice . The man who will not live at peace with his countrymen has no inherent right to live at all . The com munity against which he wages private war has as clear a right to deprive him o f his life o f as his liberty by imprisonment, or his prop r e ty by fines . We grade crimes and punishments only for

- expediency, not because there are degrees of guilt, for it is as easy to obey the law against a d theft as the law against murder, n the true criminality o f an offense against the state lie s the in its infraction of law, not in the damage t to its victim . The venerable dic um that, whereas

It is a s in to s ea a in t l p , It is a r ea er to s ea a otater g t t l p ,

h is brilliant, but erroneous . Logically t ere are no degrees o f crime ; a misdemeanor is

320 THE COLLECTED WOR KS a generation o r two by the forthright a nd f merciful plan of e facing the criminal class . Of course I do not mean to advocate the death penalty for every premeditated i n frac no r c on tion of the law, do I know how many vi ctions should be considered as proving the o ffender an habitual criminal ; but certainly a l I think that, having exceeded the number his h lowed him , rig t to life should be held to have lapsed and he Should be removed from o f this vale tears forthwith . The fact that a man who habitually breaks the law may be better than another who habitually obeys it, o r the fact that he who i s convicted may be less guilty than he who escapes conviction , has nothing to do with the matter . I f we can not r emove all th e i rreclaimable the greater is the expediency o f removing all that ’ we can catch and convict . The law s inad e u a c q y and inconsistency are patent, but they constitute the silliest plea for “ mercy ” that stupidity has ever invented .

This is an age of mercy to the merciless . “ fo r The good Scriptural code , An eye an ” eye , a tooth for a tooth , has fallen into the O F AMBR OSE B IER CE 321

n sere and yellow leaf : it is a creed outwor . We have replaced it with a régime of re ”

a o f . formation , penology persuasion In o ur o w n country this sign and consequence o f moral degeneration , this power and prev o f alence the mollycoddle, are especially o u marked . We no longer kill r assassins ; as a rule , the only disadvantages they suffer for killing us are those incident to detention for acquittal , with a little preaching to remind f ou r them o thei r mortality . Wherefore homicide list is about twice annually that o f the f t battle o Get ysburg . The American prison o f to - day is carefully ou tfitted with the comforts of home . Those w ho succeed in b reaking into it find them selves distinctly advantaged in point o f hous ing, and are clothed and fed better than they

o r . ever were before , will be elsewhere c lea nli Light employment, gentle exercise, ness , and sound sleep reward them , and when n expelled their o e ambition is to go back . The “ reformation consists in lifting them to a higher plane of criminality : the man who enters as a stupid thief is graduated a c ompet ent forger, and comes b ack ( if he can ) with an augmented self - respect and an ambition to f l kill the w a rden . Some o us o d fogies think 322 THE COLLECTED WOR KS that a prison w a s best worth its price to the community when it was a place that a rascal would rather die out of than get into ; but we are v o c es i n d es er to and in the ramp and roar o f the new penology altogether unheard . These remarks are suggested by something

- in France . In that half sister republic the guillotine , though still a lawful dissuader the o f no t from error assassination , is at the o f time writing in actual use . Murderers are still sentenced to it, but always the sentence is commuted to imprisonment during life or good behavior . Coincidently with the de cline o f the guillotine there is a notable rise in the rate of assassination . Somebody hav ing had the sagacity to suggest the possibili ty o f something more than an accidental relation between the two phenomena, it occurred to a Parisian editor to collect “ views ” as to the

' expedi en cy o f again b ringing knife and neck o l together in the good d way . He got views o f o f a l all sorts kinds , naturally, and knows most a s much about public opinion as he did before . It is interesting to note that the lit cra ry class is nearly a unit against the chopp

- : ing block, as was to be expected persons who work with the head naturally set a high — value upon it an ove r- appraisement in thei r

324 THE COLLECTED WOR KS unreason from the dark ages when in all

Europe laws were made and enforced , with o f no great scruples conscience , by conquerors and the descendants o f conquerors alien in blood, language and manners . Between these and the masses o f the original inhabitants there was no love lost . The peasantry hated thei r foreign opp ressors with a silent a n ti a th p y which , like a covered fire , burned with a sullen and more lasting fervor for lack o f o f vent . H atred the oppressor emb raced o f hatred all his works and ways , his laws h o f included , and from atred p articular laws of to hatred all law the transition was easy, natural and, human nature being what it is , inevitable . So there is a distinctly traceable connection between wars of conquest and sympathy with crime- between the subjugation o f races and their disrespect of law . Here we find the o f true fountain and origin anarchism . A “ ” country occupied implies a people im bruted . It may some time assimilate with its conquerors , bringing to the new compound , as in the instance of the Anglo - Saxon com - o f bination with the Norman French , some the sturdiest virtues o f the new national life ; but along with these it will surely bring serv O F AMBR OSE B IER CE 325 ile vices acquired during the period of i n harmony . There is no doubt that much of whatever turbulence and la essness distin guish the American people from the more orderly communities across the Sea is the work o f William the Conqueror and his men - a t l arms . The evil that they did ives after them in the congenial conditions supplied by a re public . What manner o f men the Anglo - Saxons b e came under Norman dominion before the moral renascence is Shown in all the chron i cle o f R s the time . A oman historian has described the Saxon of the period as a naked slu brute , who lay all day by his fireside gg i sh an d dirty, always eating and drinking . Even after the assimilation was nearly com — “ pl ete no longer ago than the Spacious ” o f times great Elizabeth , who, by the way, used to thwack her courtiers on the mazzard when they displeased her—the homogeneous race was a lawless lot . Speaking o f their fondness for violent bbdily exercise and their inaccessibility to the softer sentiments , Taine says

T s is man who for ree c en r es ha d ee hi why , th tu i b n a o es c a n a w as s a os a sa a e eas an d d m ti im l , till lm t v g b t , 326 THE COLLECTED WOR KS the fo rce o f his muscl es an d the s trength o f his nerves o n d ener of his ass ons Loo i nc rease d the b ld nes s a gy p i . k t ese nc a e men men of the eo e how sud a th u ultiv t d , p pl , d enly the blood wa rms a n d ri ses to th ei r faces ; th ei r fis ts o e e r s ress o e er a n d e r oro s o es d ubl , th i lip p t g th th i vig u b di n n ac on The c o r ers o f a t a e ere r us h a t o ce i to ti . u ti th g w

’ r m n o f th eo e T e ha d the sa e tas e like ou e e p pl . h y m t fo r the exerc se of e r s the s a e n fferen ce to i th i limb , m i di the nc e enc es o f the ea er the s a e coarseness o f i l m i w th , m

a n a e the sa e n s se s ens a t . l gu g , m u di gui d u li y

too Before he grew fat, Henry VII I was s o fond of wrestling that he took a fall out o f

Francis I o n the field of the Cloth o f Gold .

T a s a s the s or an o f En s era re h t , y hi t i gli h lit tu , how a c o mm on s oldier o r a b rickl ayer nowa d ays t ries a n ew co ra e In fac t e re a r e ross es s a n d m d . t , h y g d d g j t r al ffoo ner es as a se en s as s o ers a nd r c b ut bu i mu m t , ldi b i k

a er e o ns s a n d. l y s do now . Th y th ught i ult

- o scen t a o e . T e ere fo o e e s ene b i y j k h y w ul m uth d , th y li t d ’ to R a e a s or s n e a n d e e in con ersa b l i w d u dilut d , d light d v on a o re o us e had no res ect o r ti th t w uld v lt . Th y p f huma n ity ; the r ul es o f p rop r i eties a n d the h abits o f goo d ree n e a n on in the e of Lo s ! IV a n d b di g b g ly tim ui , by ” a t on o f th Fren imit i e ch .

Such were o u r sturdy Anglo - Saxon a n c esto rs from whom we inherit ou r no good opinion o f the law and ou r selfish indisposi

tion to the penal ty of death .

328 THE COLLECTED WOR KS o r re y is charged with instances , observed or o f lated, piteous appeals for death from the o f white lips agony, yet how rarely can these formulate the prayer !

To its concession , regulated by law, there is the objection that law is frangible and judg ment fallible . But that objection has no greater cogency in this than in Other matters ; laws we must have , and execute them with such care as we can . Our courts sometimes err in the diagnosis of crime , yet they war rant o ur trust in the general service o f o ur ’ need . The mariner s compass is fallible , the winds baffl e and the waves destroy ; yet we have navigation . Even the anarchist cries o ut b eéa use no t a o against law, not it does i ts complish purpose, but because , roughly, it does We build civilization with such tools as we have ; if we waited for perfect ones the structure would never rise . The juror is no more nearly just an d infallible than the phy s i c i a n ; if we can entrust ourselves with death as a penal ty for crime we need not shrink from the no more awful responsibili ty o f accord ing it as a boon to hopeless pain . In neither case can a blunder do more than hasten the “ ” inevitable . When I was born I cried, said OF AMBR O SE B IER CE 329 a philosopher ; now I know why He did not know why ; it was because at the moment o f his birth Nature spoke the sentence o f his d eath . It may be that proponents o f euthanasia for suffering incurables are pushing their advent u ro us feet too far ahead in the march o f mind to expect anything better in the nature o f en c ou ra gem en t than a Copious dead - catting and

- b ad egging from laggard processionists arear . h Sometimes , owever, they get decenter treat ment than they have the hardihood to claim occasionally, through the roar of calumnia tion is heard the voice o f dull and dignified protestation , even of argument . For exam The B r i tis h M e d i c a l J o u r na l ple, once o ut t pointed , with more gravi y than gram mar, that the medical p rofession has always strongly set its face against a measure that would inevitably pave the way to the grossest abuses , and which would degrade them to the o f position executioners . I don ’ t know that the medical p rofession speaks with any Special authority in a mat ter of this kind . Perhaps it knows a little better than other trades and p rofessions that cases o f hopeless agony are of frequent oc

o f reliev currence , but as to the expediency 330 THE COLLECTED WOR KS ing them by the compassionate c o up d e gr ac e of that a physician is no better judge than o f anyone else . As to the fear being de graded to the position of executioners , the o f position is not degrading . The office ex — ecu tione r even when execution is punish — c onsid ment, not mercy is , and should be o fli c e ered , an almost sacred . Its popular disrepute harks b ack to the bad ol d days when a majority of the people in countries now partly civilized were criminal in act o r sym pathy, living in hate and terror of the law the days o f Tyburn Tree with its roaring mobs , cheering the malefactor and pelting the no o f hangman . It was t from fear a merely social rep robation that the m edize v a l heads man wore a mask ; it was from fear o f being torn to pieces if ever recognized unguarded

o f - a m in the public street . A man to day , bi ti o us to prove his descent from a criminal ancestry, can most easily do so by damning the hangman . H is humble origin is no dis grace to him if he is a good citizen , but it makes him invincible to the suasion o f ar umen t ro fit g against his fad . One might as p ably attempt to reform the color o f his eyes o r dissuade him from the shape of his nose .

332 TH E COLLECTED WOR KS

as a guide to conduct is virtually nothing . i c ke o D r . N rs n believes he may go so far as o M n t . to kill the patient he can cure oreover, afli rms o f he candidly his habit doing so . I am told that he is a distinguished physician ; there is apparently nothing in his frank avowal to lessen his distinction . It would not surprise , indeed , if his fame should take attention from even the o fli c e rs of the law . To make himself an object of lively interest in quarters where the several kinds of dis tinction in his profession are commonly over looked he has only to descend from generals to particulars , naming the patients whom he has turned o u t o f the frying- pan o f physical pain into whatever state awaited them , and the means ( under Providence) which he em ployed to that end . A man may be the best judge o f what he is fo r , but by laymen unskilled in physic it is ’ u sually held that a physician s business is not f only to cure disease and alleviate su fering, — but to p rolong life to save it altogether b e ing impossible , for all must eventually die . But laymen have no mandate always to be right ; now and again they have been in error . The righteousness and expediency of r elea s ing a n i n curable sufferer from the horrors o f O F AMBR OSE B IER CE 333 life should not be clouded and discredited by an erring advocacy . When a horse or a dog incu rs the mischance o f a broken back no question is raised as to ” o the propriety o f putting it o ut f its misery .

Unable to cure it, we kill it, and in doing so feel a comfortable sense of benevolence , a consciousness o f having performed a disagree t o f able du y, having discharged an obligation inseparable from o u r dominion over the beasts o f i n the field . It may be said that in the stance o f a human being similarly incurable the dominion is lacking . But that does not go to the root of the matter, and is , moreover, untrue ; for a helpless man is as much subject o u r to power as a helpless animal , and as

. o much a charge upon u r good will . And in many cases he is as little cap able o f deciding wisely what is good for him . A wounded bird o r squirrel will manifest a strong indis “ ” o u t position to be put of misery, by strug gling to escape into the bush ; a man will sometimes beg for death , even when he does not know himself incurable . If there should be a difference in the treatment o f the two in respect o f the matter in hand it would seem that the beast should be spared and the man killed . 334 THE COLLECTED WOR KS

’ i cker on But D r . N s s critics think that a dif fe rent is rule should hold , because the man an immortal soul , whereas the beast is a thing “ ” o f - to day, divinely ordained to perish . To this it may be said in reply : All the stronger o f reason for a reversal our practice , for in putting the man out of his misery you would no t really kill , but only change, him ; but the animal having only one life, in taking that ' ” ou y make him poor indeed , depriving him o f all that he has .

That the man is an immortal soul is , how o f ever; a p roposition which , after centuries discussion , remains unsettled ; and those who ’ i c ker on hold Dr . N s s view must in conscience forego the advantage o f the argument which their generous opponents try to thrust upon them . I f we actually knew human beings to be immortal many of the current popular oh ec tio n s j to killing them would disappear, and no t only soldiers but physicians and assassins could work at their trades with a compara r ivel y free hand , along lines of usefulness not always and entirely divergent . Surely there could be no great wrong in removing ” a good Christian , whether he were ill at ease or not : to translate him to the shining altitudes o f Paradise is distinctly to augment the sum

336 THE COLLECTED WOR KS h as not apprised me o f its advantages to o r no t others to Himself, I am bound to as sume that it has any such advantages . If when in my despair I ask why I ought to con tinue a life O f suffering I am uncivilly de no t nied an answer, I am bound to believe , and o f in lack light may be unable to believe , that the answer if given would satisfy me . So the game having gone against me and the dice appearing to be loaded , I may rightly and reasonably quit . That is the way that a logical patient would p robably reason if incu rable and in great pain . I confess my inability to discern the fallacy o f his argument . Indeed , it seems to me that so far as concerns baffling the divine purpose the p atient who calls in a physician and tries to r ecover is more obviously guilty o f a ttempt ing to do that than the patient who tries to To c die . an understanding that a cepts life as a gift from God , illness might very natu r ’ ally seem a divine intimation o f God s altered mind . To one thinking after that fashion voluntary death would necessarily appear as cheerful submission to the divine will , and the taking of medicine as impious rebellion . The right of suicide implies and carrie s with it the right to put to death a sufferer i n~ O F AMBR OSE B IER CE 337 curably ill ; for the relief which we claim for ourselves we cannot righteously deny to those o r in u care . We would naturally expect a medical advocate o f suicide to kill a patient O occasionally, as humanity may suggest and p ’ o rtun i i c ke rson s p ty serve . Dr . N frankness on o f is shocking, but a su rvey the entire ques tion it seems a good deal easier to point o ut his infractions o f the law than his disloyalty to reason and the higher sentiments which dis in i h h t gu s us from t e priests that perish .

1 899. 338 THE COLLECTED WOR KS

THE SCOU R GE OF LAUG HTER

An HE world is growing wiser . cient Error is drawing o ff his de

feated forces , the rear guard blink ing in the destructive light of rea o n s and science . It has now been ascertained that wrinkles are not caused by care and grief , o f but by laughing . Such is the dictum an eminent physician , and it is becoming in us laymen to accept it with due humility and govern ourselves accordingly, subduing the rebellious diaphragm and mortifying the M h countenance . ore easily said t an done , doubtless , but what that is easily done is worth ' doing? It is to be feared that much of the laugh ing that is done has its energizing motive in some fundamental principle of human nature not affectable by human will ; that we fre quently laugh from causes beyond ou r con trol , between which and the thing we think we laugh at there is no other relation than n coincidence 1 point of time . That which w e . happen to have in attention at the time of

340 THE COLLE CTED WOR KS

n exciting causes . If we fi d ourselves within ear - shot o f the candidate attesting his love of the people we can close our ears and retire .

Seeing a pig p reparing to stand on its head , we may turn away o u r eyes and fix the mind upon some solemn subject— M ark Twain at o f the grave of Adam , or Adam at the grave the M ark Twain . Catching sense of a H ar vey editorial we can lay down the paper and o n a put a Stone it . So shall our f ces retain their p ristine smoothness , enabling us to fals i fy with impunity the family B ible record o f with regard to date birth . It i s o f course impossible to enumerate here many o f the things to be sought o r avoided in order not to laugh and grow wrinkled , but tw o are so obviously important that they force themselves forward for mention . Our read ing Should be confined as much a s possible to the comic weeklies , and we should give a wide berth to those dailies which deem it their duty to rebuke the commercial spirit o f

the age . It is believed that by taking these two precautions a ga inst the furrow ing finge rf nails of Mirth one can retain a fresh and youthful rotundity of countenance to the end ’ of one s days and tr ansmit it to those w ho

come after . OF AMBR OSE BIER CE 341

THE LATE LAM EN TED

OW long o ne must be dead before his relics —including not only

his remains p rop er, but the sever a l appurtenances thereunto b e “ ” — e to longing c ase be sacred , is a question

‘ which ha s n eve r been settled . London was 1n once divided in opinion , or rather feeling, as to the prop riety of publicly exhibiting the body- linen worn by Charles I when that un happy monarch had the uncommon expe ri o f ence losing his head . Not only was this underwear shown , but also some of the royal hair which was cut away by the headsman . M any persons considered the exhibition dis tasteful and in a measure sacrilegious . But the entire body o f the great R ameses has been dug o ut and is freely shown without p rovo k ing a protest . R ameses was a mightier king than Charles , and a more famous . He was the veritable Pharaoh o f sacred history whose daughter who sa o hi ( , I regret to y, was als s wife) found 342 THE COLLECTED WO R KS

the infant Moses in the bulrushes . He coul d also point with p ride to his record in profane w a s history, and , altogether, a most respect

the ' ow e r able person . Between p , splendor and civilization of the Egypt of R ameses and the England of Charles there is no comp ari s on : in the imperishable glory o f the former ‘ n the latter seems a natio of savage pigmies . o f Why, then , are the actual remains the one monarch considered a fit and proper “ ex ” hibit in a museum and the mere personal adornments of the other too sacred for dese cration by the public eye ? P robably polit

‘ ical a n d ethni c considerations have something to do with it : perhaps in Cairo the sentim ent

would be the other way, though the stoical indifference o f successive Egyptian Govern ments to mummy - mining by the thrifty Eu

ro pean does not sustain that view . Schliemann and many of his moling pre d ec essors have dug up and removed the sleep ing ancients from what these erroneously b e li eved to be their last resting- places in Asia

Minor and the other classic countries , with

‘ o ut rebuke, and the funeral u rn of an illustri o us R oman can be innocently haled from

- c o lu m a r i m O bn its pigeon hole in a b u . We p the bu ri al mounds of our Indian predecessors

344 THE COLLE CTED WOR KS

DETH R ONEMENT OF THE ATOM

T is o f course to be expected that the a d vance of scientific knowledge will de

stroy, here and there , a cherished so illusion . It was when Darwin h showed us t at we are not made of mud , but “ ” have just growed . At least that is what

Darwin is by many held to have done , and deep is their resentment . In a general way it may be said that the path o f scientific p rogress is strewn with the mouldering bones of our dearest creations . To this melancholy company must now be added the precious Atom . It has had a fairly long reign , has the atom ; the youths who first worshiped at its shrine are in the lean and o f slippered pantaloon stage existence . It will be all the harder for them to s ee their e e esta l ed idol d p d . That the atom was the ultimate unit of mat ter, the absolute smallest thing in the universe — , a fraction incapable o f further division that is what we had been commanded to believe OF AMBR OSE B IER CE 345 by those in authority ove r the many things of science . And with such powers of conviction as we are gifted withal we had believed . N ow — ? , what do we hear what do we hear o f Why, that an atom is an aggregation elec trons ! These are so much smaller than atoms that the latter can be easily conceived as cut — in halves nay, chopped into hash . Before i nven— — o f the that is to say, the discovery the electron such a thing as that was unthink S o able . , at each enlargement of the field o f knowledge the human mind receives new powers . The time may come when we shall be able (with an effort) to conceive the di f vision o an electron . o r The difference in magnitude , rather min itude m , between our old friend the ato ’ e and this new though doubtless exc llent thing, the other thing, is characteristically ex pounded thus : I f an electron is represented by a Sphere n o n an i ch in diameter , an atom the same scale is a mile and a half . Or , if an atom is o f represented by the size a theater, an elec tron is represented on the same scale by a ’ ” printer s full Stop . no t The electron , it seems , is only unthink n m ably little ; it is impalpable, i visible , i aud 346 THE COLLECTED WOR K S

ible and probably insipid and inodorous . In brief, it is immaterial . It is not matter, o f though matter is composed it . That is easy to understand if one has a SC1entific mind . o r Not only are electrons immaterial , at least inconceivably attenuated ; they are im mense distances apart—immense in compari on b i n s . with their ulk . Likewise , they are conceivably rapid in motion about a common center . The electrons fo rming a Single atom ou r are analogous to solar system , but whether there is a big electron in the center science does not as yet tell us . When a steam hammer descends upon a piece o f steel it merely strikes the outside of an infinite aggregation of moving, impalpable things widely separated in space . But they stop the hammer . Scientists know these facts and we know — , that they know them this is our delightful part in the matter . But we do not know how — they know them that is no t granted . to ou r humble degree of merit . As we grow in grace , we may perhaps hope to be told , p re fe rabl o f one y in words syllable , how they learned it all ; how they count the electrons ; how they measure them ; with what kind of instrument they determine their actual a nd

348 THE COLLECTED WOR KS

DOGS FO R THE KLONDI KE

HE spectacle o f great tides o f men sweeping hither and thither across the face o f the globe under suasion o f so mean a passion as cupidity, as o f the waters ocean are led by the moon , is more spectacular than pleasant . See in it however much o ne p rophetically may of fut u re empire and civilizations growing where — none grew before h ear as one can on every b reeze that blows from the newest and richest the o f th e placers hum the factory to be, song o f the plowman (such as it is) and the drone “ o f etul the Sunday sermon , replacing the p ant pop of the pistol —yet one can not be altogether insensible to the hideousness o f the motive o u t of which all these pleasing results are to come . Doubtless in looking at the

' pond - lily a healthy mind makes light account o f the muck and slime at the bottom o f the pond , whence it derives its glories ; but while the muck and Slime only are in evidence , the water and the flower mere presumptions of f t . the future , the case is a rifle dif erent O F AMBR OS E B IER CE 349

It is conceded that out o f this mad move ment to the Klondike great good may come . M any of those who go to dig will remain to plow, jocundly driving their teams afield to 1n 1nea l es tickle the tundra till it laughs p pp , bananas and guavas . It is not denied that great cities (with roof - gardens and Slums ) will rise like exhalations along the mighty no r h Yukon , t at that noble stream will know the voice of the gondolier and the lute o f the f . o lover In place the moose and the caribou , the patient camel will kneel in the shade of palms to receive his cargo of dates , Spices and native silks . But just now the Klondike region is a trifle raw . In the stark simplicity of life there men do not veil their characters with a shin ing hypocrisy ; all , by their presence in that o f unutterable country, being convicted the greed for gold , every man feels that it is use less to profess any o f the virtues ; as the dis charged inmate o f a refo rmatory institution ha s o f no choice but a life crime . Later , when the b enefic ent influences that track the miner to his gulch shall have set up a more complex social system under which the pre o f sumption a b ase motive may be less strong, h o f D awson i a ns we s all hear, doubtless, and 350 THE COLLE CTED WOR KS even S ka gw egi a ns who would take the trouble to deny an accusation of theft and to affi rm a disposition to go to church between drinks on a Sunday . ” Ugly a s these rushes to mining regions , seem to one unskilled in use o f the muck- rake and a Stranger to avarice—discouraging as they are to the good optimist, and correspond i n l g y delightful to his natural enemy, the wicked pessimist—yet it must be confessed that in the present rush there is o ne feature that goes far in mitigation o f its general un pleasantness : it has created in distant and un wholesome regions a demand for th e domestic dog . Fo r the first time in his immemorial exist ence this comfortable creature has thrown open to him a wide field o f usefulness of ex — a c tly the kind that he deserves a long way o f r from the comforts home , impe fectly sup

- h plied with beef steaks , cold as blazes , wit plenty of hard wo rk and the worst society in the world ! “ Good long- haired dogs are quoted in D awson at one hundred and fifty to two hundred dollars . Such prices ought to result in drawing all that kind of dogs o u t o f the o f rest the country, which in itself would be a

352 THE COLLECTED WOR KS and strength would there be his best rec om n hi m en d a tio s ; here they are s worst . H av ’ ing a giant s strength he uses it as a giant, and his multiplication in the land is a terror and a curse . His manner of unloading a bicycle has been justly described as the acme o f -in considerateness . Moreover, he is increasing all the time in magnitude a s well as in quan ti ty ; at his present rate of gr owth he will within a decade or so overtop the horse and outnumber the sheep . There will be no resist h ing him . But w at an excellent roadster he would be in Alaska ! The brevity of his hair is really an advantage : in calculating his load less allowance will need to be made for icicles . Indubitably the value of a Great Dane in

Dawson is at least one thousand dollars . The most pernicious varieties o f the species —the small animated pestilences upon which o u r ladies waste so much o f the affection which , it is reverently submitted, might with better results be bestowed upon the males of — their own species these pampered l aplings are unfortunately not useful for draught pur in f poses the Arctic . One o them could not pull a tin plate from S quo tta coo ta to Ni cka “ ” lin qua . So they are not quoted in the OF AMBR OSE B IER CE 353

D awson market reports . But something has been overlooked : the incomparable excellence o f their flesh ! I t is respectfully suggested that a few o f these curled darlings and glossy K sweethearts be sent to the londike , suitably canned and Spiced as commercial samples . The miners may be assured that the flesh is n o t only wholesome , but is entirely free from th at objectionable delicacy that distinguishes , fo r - example , the yellow legged pullet ; it is honestly rank and strong and has plen ty o f — chew in i t just the right kind o f meat for founders o f empires and heralds o f civiliza o f o r tion . A dozen cans Dandy Dinmont King Charles Spaniel should have in Dawson an actual value of three thousand dollars , but doubtless could be supplied at a much smaller a s price . So much that would hardly be o ne needed in any outfit, for such is the nu tri ti ous property of small dog that most per a o f sons would find Single can it enough . We are able to Supply all Alaska and the

Northwest Territory with dogs and with dog . in Every township has always a surplus . I vite attention to ou r peerless canine wealth and to the eminent fitness o f its units for serv ice on the north ern trails and along the north~ 354 THE COLLE CTED WOR KS ern alimentary canal . Before purchasing elsewhere let the judicious Klondiker exam to r ine our stock . H e is o fa away to look at it, but when the wind is in the southeast i s needless . 1 8 8 9 .

356 THE COLLE CTED WOR KS nourishing him to a proper growth and suit able flavor for the table . In the gastronomical curriculum of the southern R ed M an the Gila Monster has a l ways held an honorable place when well roasted by exposure to the climate of his ’ choice ; and that aboriginal trencherman s 'dietetic practices have frequently pointed the o f way to reform at the tables the Paleface , a notable instance being his advocacy o f the c onsum potato and the tobacco leaf , in the p tion o f which he had long been happy before he discovered Columbus and Sir Walter

R . aleigh In the spud and the quid we have , d oubtless , his best benefactions to Caucasian gastronomy ; but if the seed of his example with regard to the Gila Monster do not fall u pon the stony soil of a reasonless c onserv a t ism the minor pleasures o f existence may be augmented by an addition distinctly precious , and the female gull be accepted and vener

ated as a philanthropist of the deepest dye . By knowledge not only of the gratifying ’ M but fact that the onster eats gulls eggs , o f the at least interesting o ne that he does

n ot eat the Eastern tourist, we attain to some thing like an understanding o f his disposi h i een t e a and hu~ tion , whic s s o b pe ceable OF AMBR OS E B IER CE 357

mane . It is therefore probable that he is no more venomous when he bites than poisonous when bitten . The current stories attesting o f the noxiousness his tooth have their origin , o f perhaps , in a strong sense his destitution o f beauty ; for it must be frankly confessed that the impulchri tud e o f his expression and general make - up is disquieting to the last de h gree . But, for t at matter, so is that of the — toad not only the horned toad , which is known to be harmless , but the common hop toad of the garden , whose bite is believed by ha ks e a re some to be actually wholesome . S p o f Sha ks ea re was a different conviction , but p was not very strong in zoology, nor was he over - conscientious in verification of all the statements that he put into the mouths of his characters - a circumstance which seems to have been overlooked by those who are most addicted to quoting him . Science having done so much for the Gila M ow n onster and , in a sense , made him its , will be expected by the public to carry the fo r good work forward by settling, once all , the vexed question o f his b rotherhood to the rattlesnake and the woman scorned . Is he really venomous ? With a view to d etermin ing the point it is to be hoped that some un 358 THE COLLECTE D WO R K S selfish investigator may permit himself to be bitten by the accused ; and I think a very p roper person to make the experiment is Dr . R zoOlo ist Theodore oosevelt, the illustrious g who wrote the monograph on the invertebracy o f the Spineless cactus .

3 60 THE COLLECTED WOR KS do not possess ; as the married have a tacit un d erta king to wreathe their chains with flow e rs , smile away their wounds , and exhibit as becoming ornaments the handles of the dag gers rusting in their hearts ; as priesthoods plate with gold their emp ty Sh rines ; as the 'dead swear in stone and brass that they were — virtuous and great so the musical are in con S i rac p y to magnify and exalt their art . I t is : o f a pretty art it is rich in elements joy, pur v eyin g to the sense a refined and keen delight . no t But it is not what they s ay it is . It is ? what the uninitiated believe it . What is — I am led to these refl ections provoked — were the better word by reading o ne Kreh ”

. K biel Wagner, M r . rehbiel explains ,

strove to exp ress artistic truths , not to tickle the ear, and therefore his work will stand , while Italian opera , which is founded on sens ual enjoyment, must pass away . A more amusing n o n s eq ui tu r it would be diffi cult for the most accomplished logician to construct. Because the city is founded on a rock it will topple down ! I think I could name several sorts o f sensual enjoyment which give promise o f enduring as long as the senses . Among them I should give a high place to whatever kind o f music the sense of hearing most en O F AMBR OSE B IER CE 361

i n joys . I f posterity is going to be such an finite fool as to stop its ears to sounds which please them , I thank Heaven that I live in antiquity . The enjoyment o f music is a purely sensual “ ” enjoyment . I t tickles the ear, and it does nothing else . The ear being skilfully tickled after the fashion which the composer and the executant understand , emotion ensues ; but not — b . thought, save by association y memory Music does not touch the Springs o f the intel lect . I t never generated a p rocess of reason “ ” o r ing, nor expressed a truth , artistic other, which could be formulated in a definitive proposition . It has no intellectual character whatever . I have heard this disputed scores o f times , but never by one who had himself much intellect . And , in truth , musicians , if

I must say it, are not commonly distinguished above their fellows by mental capacity . The the greater thei r gift, less they know ; and when you find a tremendously skilful and en . thusi a stic executant you will have as nearly sensual an animal a s you care to catch . To those having knowledge o f the essential o f meaning music , its original place among the influences that wrought their results upon

primitive man , this will seem natural and 362 THE COLLECTED WOR KS M s equent. usic was originally vocal ; before men became wise enough and deft enough to make instruments they merely sang, as the — birds do now, and certain animals the latter pretty badly, it must be confessed . But why did the p rimitive man and woman sing ? To commend themselves in the matter of love, as the birds do , and the beasts . Abundant vest iges of this practice su rvive among us . , The young woman who bangs her piano and her hair has a single motive in the double habit . She is hardly conscious of it ; she has inhe r i ted it along with the desire to brandish her m a n sl a eyes , and otherwise y. Consider , my tuneless youth , how slender is your chance in rivalry with the fellow who can sing . He “ ” will knock you out with a b ar of music better than a Chinese highbinder could with f no ou r a b ar o iron . It did t occu r to good o f arboreal ancestor ( him the prehensile tail , aswing upon his b ranch ) to address his wood notes wild to a mixed audience for gate money ; he sought to charm a single p air o f

a n d . ears , those more hairy than critical hum a ni n Later, as the race went on g, there grew complexity of sentiment and varying emotional needs , for the gratification whereof song took on a matching complexity and vari

364 THE COLLECTED WOR KS

MALFEASAN CE IN OFFI CE

N these days o f societies for the preven o f tion this and that, why can not we have a Society for the Prevention o f M alfeasance in Offi ce ? More than half o f all the money paid in taxes is in o ne

r way o another stolen . From the humblest j anitorship up to the chief magistracy o f the state (both inclusive) the o fli c es are held by men o f whom a majority are as scu rvy knaves as many of those in the penitentiaries . There is no exaggeration in this statement ; it is liter i t ally, absolutely true . Then why , may be asked , does not the press expose all this cor ? ruption For many reasons , among them these : the corruption of the press ; the circum stance that malfeasance in offi ce is no news ; the absence of a public opinion that will do more than passively approve , whereas the private animosities engendered by exposure

are active , implacable , and dangerous ; the

absence of such a society as the o ne suggested . ' An additional reason may be called , softly, N o the rascality of the courts . t all horses OF AMBR O SE B IER CE 365

are sorrel , and not all judges rogues . Not all a t pigs have Spiral tails , nor all p rosecuting o t rneys crooked morals . Nevertheless he who lightly incurs law suits , relying upon the o f justice his cause , has no need to wear mot ley, for assuredly none will think him other than a fool . It is in ou r courts that o fli c e rs and mem bers of the Society for the Prevention o f M al feasance in Offi ce would b e least welcome and b e most terrifying . Their p resence would to o u r boss - made judges and thrifty district attorneys what the sudden apparition o f the d r a en late M r . Henry Bergh used to be to yg tlem n e engaged in tormenting thei r horses .

It would be easy, without stopping to take o f thought or breath , to name a score judges o f o u r higher courts , in present incumbency o r newly retired , whose perturbations from that cause would attain to the dignity of a p anic .

The thing is easily feasible . It requires , o f mainly, liberal endowment by that class the wealthy whose interests do not lie in the Z i n stability of misgovernment . ealous and fi corruptible of cers to investigate , able attorn

eys to prosecute , honest newspapers to assist

and sp read the light . These will come o f 366 THE COLLECTED WOR KS

themselves . A few successful p rosecutions of o fli ci a l f re of enders , a few impeachments and mova ls , a few hitherto invincible rascals sent o f to the penitentiary, a little educating the people to the fact that a new power for good is risen among them , and money will come in R abundantly . ightly conducted the Society will become a popular favorite, accredited alike by alliance o f the wise and hostility of un knaves , and fairly good government by o fli c i a l supervision become an accomplished o fact . Apparently there is no ther way whereby it may be obtained . Of cou rse the S O C1ety need not be named o f what I have called it, and the scope its act ivity should be greater than that name im I plies . t should aim to prevent (by exposure and punishment) not only malfeasance in o fli ce o f , but all manner sins and stupidities in public life . Our existing machinery for obtaining honest and intelligent government is altogether inadequate ; it breaks down at all — e — points and fatal def c t l i t is not automatic . — The laws do no t enforce themselves not even the laws for enforcing the laws . The “ ” “ ” wheels o f justice are easily blocked b e cause nobody is concerned to put his shoulder ro to them . Who will come forward and p

368 THE COLLECTED WOR KS

FO R STANDING R OOM

T no time in the world ’ s history have the relations between laborers and employers of labor received s o

much attention as now . All men o f who think are thinking them , the medita tion being quickened by the importance o f the interests involved , the sharp significance o f some o f their observed phenomena and the conditions entailing them . Among these last, o ne o f the most important is ov e rp O pul a tion in civilized countries ; and it is only in such countries that any controversy has arisen between—to Speak in the current phrase capital and labor . Despite the magnitude and of frequency modern wars , the population of all civilized countries increases in the most astonishing way . In the six great nations of Europe the increase since the Napoleonic wars has been between fifty and sixty per cent . In this country our progression is geometrical — w e double our population every twen ty- five years ! Conquest and commerce have brought the OF AMBR OSE B IER CE 369 whole world under contribution to the strong — n ations . Inter communication has reduced the areas o f privation and almost effaced those o f R famine . ailways and steamships and banks and exchanges have diminished the fric s a n tion between producer and consumer . By i ta ry and medical science the average length o f human life has been increased . Chemistry how has taught us to fertilize the fields , for estry and engineering how to p revent both i n how undation and d rought , invention to mas ter the adverse forces o f Nature and make alli ance with the friendly ones by labor - saving so o f o ne machinery, that the work man will — now sustain many in idleness with no lack o f b persons who ybirth , b reeding, disposition and taste are eligible to sustentation . The milder sway of modern government , the elim ” i n a tio n of the gory tyrant as a factor in the p roblem of existence and the better protection o f property and life have had , even directly , / no mean influence on the death rate . These and many other causes have combined to make / the conditions o f life so comparatively easy ’ that an extraordinary impetus has been gi ven to the business of livi ng ; mankind may be said

- to have taken it up as a congenial pursuit . The cloud o f despair that shadowed the face 370 THE COLLECTED WOR KS o f all Europe during those centuries of mis rule and ignorance fi tly called the Dark Ages has lifted, and multitudes are thronging into the sunshine . It is not a perfect beam, but its warmth and lumination are incomparably superior to anything o f which the older gen e ra ion t s ever dreamed . But the result is o f over population , and the result over i s population war, pestilence , famine , rapine , immorality, ignorance , anarchy, despotism , — ! slavery, decivilization depopulation ’ This is man s eternal round ; this is the course o f progress in this circle moves the “ ” o n o f march of mind . The e goal civiliza tion is barbarism ; to the condition whence it i n emerged a nation must return , and every v ention b enefic ent , every discovery, every n a n age cy hastens the inevitable end . An cient civilization would last a thousand years ; b confined to the same oundaries , a modern civilization would exhaust itself in half that time ; but by emigration and interchange we uphold ourselves till all can go down together . One people cannot relapse till all similar peo ples are ready . Already we discern o minous instances o f o f C o n the working the universal law . sc iousl o r y unconsciously, all the modern

372 THE COLLE CTED WOR KS sisting the pressure from without . Armies are to fight with ; no nation dares long main tain o ne in idleness ; it is too costly for a toy ; the people burn to see it put to practical use . They do not love it ; they p romise themselves the advantage of seeing it killed ; but when the killing begins their blood is up and they want to go soldiering . — Our labor troubles our strikes , boycotts , i on d n amita t o ne . riots , y , can have but outcome

We are not exempt from the inexorable . We shall soon hear a general clamor fo r increase — o f the army to protect us against aggression from the east and the west . We shall have the army . That is as far as one cares to follow the cur rent of events into the dubious regions o f p re diction . What lies beyond is momentous enough to he waited for ; but any man who fails to discern the profound significance o f the events amongst which he is moving to - day may justly boast himself impregnable to the light . OF AMBR OSE B IER CE 373

TH E JEW

NOTED J ewish rabbi has been uttering his mind concerning “ manufacturers o f mixed mar ” ri a es — g clergymen , that is to say, who marry Christians to Jewesses and Jews to hri s i a n e es h e o f C t ss . In t opinion this gentle o f man God such marriages are accursed , and those o f his pious b rethren w ho assist the devil in b ringing them about are imperfectly moral . Doubtless it is desirable that the parties to a marriage Should cherish the same o f form religious error, lest in their zeal to save each other’ s immortal part they lay too free a hand upon the part th at is mortal . But domestic infelicity is nOt the evil that the learned doctor has in app rehension : what he . fears is nothing less momentous than the ex tinction o f Judaism ! On consideration it a p pears not unlikely that in a general blending o f races that result would ensue . But what — then will the hand o f some great anarch let the curtain fall and universal darkness cover all ? Will the passing of Judaism be attended 374 THE COLLECTED WO R KS with such discomfortable b efallings as the wreck o f matter and the crush o f worlds ?

Good old Father Time has seen the genesis , d o f evelopment, decay and effacement thous ands o f religions far more ancient and quite a as well credentialed s that of Israel . The ’ most daring o f that faith s expounders will hardly claim for it an age exceeding a half d ozen millenniums ; whereas the least ven turesome a nthrO p ologi an will affi rm fo r the

' human race an antiquity o f hundreds . It is hardly likely that the world has ever been o f without great religions , which all but a ' few ( so new that they smell o f p aint and varn ish) are as dead as the dodo . No portents foreshadowed their extinction , no cataclysms followed . The world went spinning round the sun in its immemorial way ; men lived and loved , fought, laughed , cursed , lied , gathered

o f - a gold and dreamed an after life s before . No o f mourners follow the hearse a dead religion , no burial service is read at the grave . Does the good rabbi really believe that the faith which he professes , rooted in time, will flour ish in eternity ? Can he suppose that its fate f o f i ts will be dif erent from that predecessors , f whose temples , rearing their ronts in great cities the seats o f mighty civilizations in every

376 THE COLLE CTED WOR KS

Judaism was dead . No single life would o u t a have gone because of that, and all th t is good in the race would live , suffusing and perhaps ennobling the characters o f races hav ing still a name . All that is useful and true in Jewish law and Jewish letters and Jewish art would be p reserved to the world ; the rest ’ o ccu could well be spared . Even the rabbis p ation would not be gone : they would thrive o i as priests f another faith . M an s not likely

' “ to cease forming himself into congrega ” “ t see ions , for he likes to his teachers close ” to . Even if preaching were abolished many; kinds o f light and profitable employment would remain . now m —b e As matters are, mixed arriages — tween Jew and Gentile are not to be advised . no t as But matters are now they should be , nor does our holy friend’ s teaching tend to make i them so . Let the Jew learn why he s subject to hate and persecution by the Gentile . It is n o t , as he professes to think, and doubtless does think, because his ancestors , ages ago , denied the Godhood and demanded the life o f another J ew . Other races and sects deny Christ without offense ; and the Gentile who daily c ruc ifies him afresh is no less active in dislike of the Jew than the most devout Christ OF AMBR OSE B IER CE 3 77

o f ian them all . Christ and Christianity N o r have nothing to do with it. is the ex ’ planation found in the Jew s superior thrift, nor in any o f those commercial qual ities o r whereby, legitimately illegitimately, he gets the better o f his Genti le competitor ; though those advantages too pitilessly used against a stupid and improvident peasantry have sometimes compelled his expatriation by sovereigns who cared no more what he b e l i eved than what he ate . The Christians will cease to dislike and

‘ persecute the Jews when - the Jews abandon their affronting claim to special and a dv an t a eou g s relations with the Lord of All . The claim would be no less irritating if well founded , as many Christians believe that once it was . When has it not been observed that a favorite child i s hated by its b rothers and Sis ters ? D id not the brethren o f Joseph seek his undoing ? In missing - the lesson o f it the Jew ” no t ow n recks his rede . When was it not “ s a thought an insult to y, I am holier than “ thou , and when did not small minds strike b ack with b rutal hands ? The Christian mind is a small mind , the Christian hand a b rutal hand . “ The Jew may reply : I do not say so ; 378 THE COLLECTED WOR K S in the pulpit I forbear to denounce other peo ples and other creeds as outside the law a nd ” o f devoid the divine grace . In words he does s a so o not y , but he says s with emphasis in his care to p reserve his racial and religious isola tion ; in his p ractice of self - mutilation and the affronting reasons in which he disguises his consciousness o f the shame o f it ; in his maintenance of a Spiritual quarantine ; in the diligence with which he repairs time’ s rav i n ages his Great Wall , lest N ature take advantage o f the b reach and some caroling Gentile youth leap lightly through to claim a Jewish maid . In a thousand ways , all having for purpose the safeguarding o f his racial isolation in a ghetto o f his own i nven co n tion , the orthodox J ew shouts aloud his vi c ti on o f his superior holiness and peculiar no t worth . N aturally, the echo is unmixed ft c with Christian denial , formulated too quently into unrighteous decrees by the voice o f authority . None than I c anhave a greater regard for the Jewish character, as found at its best in the higher types of the Jewish people, and not found at all in those members of the race who o f alone are popularly thought as Jews . None than I can have a deeper detestation o f the

380 TH E COLL E CTE D WOR KS b or o t a . N worse calamity could hen befall feeble people th an the attention o f an Israelite o f king . Believing themselves the salt the his earth , warlike subjects had always in rod fo pickle a r every Gentile back . Every contiguous tribe which did not accept their n God i curred their savage hatred , expressed in incredible cruelties . They ruled their little world with an iron hand , dealing damnation round and forcing upon their neighbors a o f currency bloody noses and cracked crowns . Even now they have not renounced thei r i r rit in o f ating claim to primacy the scale being, though no longer able to assert it with fire and sword . I t is significant, however, that here in the new world , at a long remove from the inspiring scenes o f their petty power and gi — ganti c woes their p arochial glory and im perial abjection—they have somewhat abated the arrogance o f their p retensions ; and in oh vious consequence, the brutal Christian hand i s lifted more languidly against them in serv f ice o a softened resentment. n h Being neither Christia nor Jew, and wit only an intellectual interest in their immem feud I orial , find in it, despite its most tragic and pathetic incidents , something essentially comic—something to b ring a twinkle to the eye OF AMBR OSE B IER CE 381 o f an Apuleius and draw the merriment of a R “ hi abelais , laughing sardonically in s easy ” o f chair . That two races reasoning beings , inhabiting o ne small planet and having the same sentiments , passions , virtues , vices and interests , should pass loveless centuries , dis trusting, hating and damaging each other is so l udicrous a proposition that no degree o f famil 1a r1ty with it as a fact sufli c es to deprive é it altogether o f i ts op ra bouffe character . no Nevertheless it is t to be laughed away. It must be dealt with seriously, if at all ; and it is encouraging to observe that more and more it is taking attention in this country, where it can be considered with less heat, and there

t . fore more light, han elsewhere

If the Jew cares for justice he must learn , no t first, that it does exist in this world , and t o f i n second , hat the least intolerable form justice goes by favor with the hand o f fellow ship ; and the hand o f fellowship i s not offered to him who stands austerely apart saying : ” I am holier than thou . America has given

to the J ews political and civic equality . If i they want more more s attainable . But it is

their move . 1 8 98. 382 THE COLLECTED WOR KS

WHY THE HUMAN NOSE HAS A WESTER N E! POSU R E

HEN Bishop Berkeley had the

good luck to write,

Wes twa r d the course o f empi re t akes it

w ay.

he suggested a question which has not, to m y knowledge , been adequately answered : Why ? Why do all the world ’ s peoples that

‘ move at all move ever toward the west, a o f human tide , obedient to the suasion some “ ” mysterious power, setting up new empires to superior those enfeebled by time , as is the fate o f empires ? Many a thoughtful ob s erver has confessed himself unable to name zthC law at the back o r front o f the movement . Yet a law there must be : things of that kind o d o n t come about by accident . a n A natural law is one thing, a cause is o ther , and the cause of this universal tendency “ ” to go West may no t lie too deep for dis o er M a o f c v y . y it not be that the glory the

384 R ’ R S B IE CE S COLLECTED WO K . and occupy the delectable realm to which the sun daily points the way and sometimes dis closes ? That is the way he feels about it and his forefathers felt about it, as is shown in the myths and legends of many tribes . And because they s o felt we have from them the

- wanderlust that lures us ever a west . To this hypothesis it may be objected that o f the cloudscapes the sunrise ought, logic ff ally, to o set the others , giving the race a di i he v d ed urge . But t primitive ancestor was not an early riser ; he was a notorious Slug

o f - gard, as is the savage to day and seldom — , s aw the sunrise s o seldom that its fascina tion did not get into the blood of him and see from his into ours . Even when he did the cloudlands o f the dawn he was not in a en frame of mind to observe them , being grossed i n rounding up the early cave - bear o r preparing an astonishment for his sleeping o f enemy . But the chromatic glories the country reflected in the sunset sky took his a t M tention when it was most alert . oreover , those of the dawn are distinctly inferior, as we are assured by credible witnesses who have observed them , through the happy chance of having been up all night companioning the

- - katydids and whip poor wills.

This b ook i s D UE on the l a s t

H S O UTHER N B R A N C , UN IVERSITY (IF A R Y LIB R , A L IF L O S AN G E L ES . C .