Chapter I: Front Matter

BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER

BY

AMBROSE BIERCE

1892

THE ORDER IN WHICH THE BEETLES ARE SHOWN

IN EXPLANATION
THE KEY NOTE
CAIN
AN OBITUARIAN
A COMMUTED SENTENCE
A LIFTED FINGER
TWO STATESMEN
MATTER FOR GRATITUDE
THREE KINDS OF A ROGUE
A MAN
YE FOE TO CATHAYE
SAMUEL SHORTRIDGE
SURPRISED
POSTERITY'S AWARD
AN ART CRITIC
THE SPIRIT OF A SPONGE
ORNITHANTHROPOS
TO E.S. SALOMON
DENNIS KEARNEY
FINIS ÆTERNITATIS
THE VETERAN
AN "EXHIBIT"
THE TRANSMIGRATIONS OF A SOUL
AN ACTOR
FAMINE'S REALM
THE MACKAIAD
A SONG IN PRAISE
A POET'S FATHER
A COWARD
TO MY LIARS
PHIL CRIMMINS
CODEX HONORIS
TO W.H.L.B.
EMANCIPATION
JOHNDONKEY
HELL
BY FALSE PRETENSES
LUCIFER OF THE TORCH
THE "WHIRLIGIG OF TIME"
A RAILROAD LACKEY
THE LEGATEE
"DIED OF A ROSE"
A LITERARY HANGMAN
AT THE ELEVENTH HOUR
A CONTROVERSIALIST
MENDAX
THE RETROSPECTIVE BIRD
THE OAKLAND DOG
THE UNFALLEN BRAVE
A CELEBRATED CASE
COUPLETS
A RETORT
A VISION OF RESURRECTION
MASTER OF THREE ARTS
THERSITES
A SOCIETY LEADER
EXPOSITOR VERITATIS
TO "COLONEL" DAN BURNS
GEORGE A. KNIGHT
UNARMED
A POLITICAL VIOLET
THE SUBDUED EDITOR
"BLACK BART, Po8"
A "SCION OF NOBILITY"
THE NIGHT OF ELECTION
THE CONVICTS' BALL
A PRAYER
TO ONE DETESTED
THE BOSS'S CHOICE
A MERCIFUL GOVERNOR
AN INTERPRETATION
A SOARING TOAD
AN UNDRESS UNIFORM
THE PERVERTED VILLAGE
MR. SHEETS
A JACK-AT-ALL-VIEWS
MY LORD POET
TO THE FOOL KILLER
ONE AND ONE ARE TWO
MONTAGUE LEVERSON
THE WOFUL TALE OF MR. PETERS
TWIN UNWORTHIES
ANOTHER PLAN
A POLITICAL APOSTATE
TINKER DICK
BATS IN SUNSHINE
A WORD TO THE UNWISE
ON THE PLATFORM
A DAMPENED ARDOR
ADAIR WELCKER, POET
TO A WORD-WARRIOR
A CULINARY CANDIDATE
THE OLEOMARGARINE MAN
GENESIS
LLEWELLEN POWELL
THE SUNSET GUN
THE "VIDUATE DAME"
FOUR OF A KIND
RECONCILIATION
A VISION OF CLIMATE
A "MASS" MEETING
FOR PRESIDENT, LELAND STANFORD
FOR MAYOR
A CHEATING PREACHER
A CROCODILE
THE AMERICAN PARTY
UNCOLONELED
THE GATES AJAR
TIDINGS OF GOOD
ARBORICULTURE
A SILURIAN HOLIDAY
REJECTED
JUDEX JUDICATUS
ON THE WEDDING OF AN AËRONAUT
A HASTY INFERENCE
A VOLUPTUARY
AD CATTONUM
THE NATIONAL GUARDSMAN
THE BARKING WEASEL
A REAR ELEVATION
IN UPPER SAN FRANCISCO
NIMROD
CENSOR LITERARUM
BORROWED BRAINS
THE FYGHTYNGE SEVENTH
INDICTED
OVER THE BORDER
ONE JUDGE
TO AN INSOLENT ATTORNEY
ACCEPTED
A PROMISED FAST TRAIN
ONE OFF THE SAINTS
A MILITARY INCIDENT
SUBSTANCE VERSUS SHADOW
THE COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC MORALS
CALIFORNIA
DE YOUNG--A PROPHECY
TO EITHER
DISAPPOINTMENT
THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF THEFT
DOWN AMONG THE DEAD MEN
THE LAST MAN
ARBOR DAY
THE PIUTE
FAME
ONE OF THE REDEEMED
A CRITIC
A QUESTION OF ELIGIBILITY
FLEET STROTHER
CALIFORNIAN SUMMER PICTURES
SLANDER
JAMES L. FLOOD
FOUR CANDIDATES FOR SENATOR
A GROWLER
AD MOODIUM
AN EPITAPH
A SPADE
THE VAN NESSIAD
A FISH COMMISSIONER
TO A STRAY DOG
IN HIS HAND
A DEMAGOGUE
IGNIS FATUUS
FROM TOP TO BOTTOM
AN IDLER
THE DEAD KING
A PATTER SONG
A CALLER
THE SHAFTER SHAFTED

THE MUMMERY

THE TWO CAVEES
METEMPSYCHOSIS
SLICKENS
"PEACEABLE EXPULSION"
ASPIRANTS THREE
THE BIRTH OF THE RAIL
A BAD NIGHT

ON STONE

A WREATH OF IMMORTELLES

IN EXPLANATION

Many of the verses in this book are republished, with considerable alterations, from various newspapers. The collection includes few not relating to persons and events more or less familiar to the people of the Pacific Coast--to whom the volume may be considered as especially addressed, though, not without a hope that some part of the contents may be found to have sufficient intrinsic interest to commend it to others. In that case, doubtless, commentators will be "raised up" to make exposition of its full meaning, with possibly an added meaning read into it by themselves.

Of my motives in writing, and in now republishing, I do not care to make either defense or explanation, except with reference to those persons who since my first censure of them have passed away. To one having only a reader's interest in the matter it may easily seem that the verses relating to those might more properly have been omitted from this collection. But if these pieces, or, indeed, if any considerable part of my work in literature, have the intrinsic worth which by this attempt to preserve some of it I have assumed, their permanent suppression is impossible, and it is only a question of when and by whom they shall be republished. Some one will surely search them out and put them in circulation.

I conceive it the right of an author to have his fugitive work collected in his lifetime; and this seems to me especially true of one whose work, necessarily engendering animosities, is peculiarly exposed to challenge as unjust. That is a charge that can be best examined before time has effaced the evidence. For the death of a man of whom I may have written what I venture to think worthy to live I am no way responsible; and, however sincerely I may regret it, I can hardly be expected to consent that it shall affect my fortunes. If the satirist who does not accept the remarkable doctrine that while condemning the sin he should spare the sinner were bound to let the life of his work be coterminous with that of his subject his were a lot of peculiar hardship.

Persuaded of the validity of all this, I have not hesitated to reprint even certain "epitaphs" which, once of the living, are now of the dead, as all the others must eventually be. The objection inheres in all forms of applied satire--my understanding of whose laws and liberties is at least derived from reverent study of the masters. That in respect of matters herein mentioned I have but followed their practice can be shown by abundant instance and example.

AMBROSE BIERCE.

THE KEY NOTE

I dreamed I was dreaming one morn as I lay
In a garden with flowers teeming.
On an island I lay in a mystical bay,
In the dream that I dreamed I was dreaming.

The ghost of a scent--had it followed me there
From the place where I truly was resting?
It filled like an anthem the aisles of the air,
The presence of roses attesting.

Yet I thought in the dream that I dreamed I dreamed
That the place was all barren of roses--
That it only seemed; and the place, I deemed,
Was the Isle of Bewildered Noses.

Full many a seaman had testified
How all who sailed near were enchanted,
And landed to search (and in searching died)
For the roses the Sirens had planted.

For the Sirens were dead, and the billows boomed
In the stead of their singing forever;
But the roses bloomed on the graves of the doomed,
Though man had discovered them never.

I thought in my dream 'twas an idle tale,
A delusion that mariners cherished--
That the fragrance loading the conscious gale
Was the ghost of a rose long perished.

I said, "I will fly from this island of woes."
And acting on that decision,
By that odor of rose I was led by the nose,
For 'twas truly, ah! truly, Elysian.

I ran, in my madness, to seek out the source
Of the redolent river--directed
By some supernatural, sinister force
To a forest, dark, haunted, infected.

And still as I threaded ('twas all in the dream
That I dreamed I was dreaming) each turning
There were many a scream and a sudden gleam
Of eyes all uncannily burning!

The leaves were all wet with a horrible dew
That mirrored the red moon's crescent,
And all shapes were fringed with a ghostly blue,
Dim, wavering, phosphorescent.

But the fragrance divine, coming strong and free,
Led me on, though my blood was clotting,
Till--ah, joy!--I could see, on the limbs of a tree,
Mine enemies hanging and rotting!

CAIN

Lord, shed thy light upon his desert path,
And gild his branded brow, that no man spill
His forfeit life to balk thy holy will
That spares him for the ripening of wrath.

Already, lo! the red sign is descried,
To trembling jurors visibly revealed:
The prison doors obediently yield,
The baffled hangman flings the cord aside.

Powell, the brother's blood that marks your trail--
Hark, how it cries against you from the ground,
Like the far baying of the tireless hound.
Faith! to your ear it is no nightingale.

What signifies the date upon a stone?
To-morrow you shall die if not to-day.
What matter when the Avenger choose to slay
Or soon or late the Devil gets his own.

Thenceforth through all eternity you'll hold
No one advantage of the later death.
Though you had granted Ralph another breath
Would _he_ to-day less silent lie and cold?

Earth cares not, curst assassin, when you die;
You never will be readier than now.
Wear, in God's name, that mark upon your brow,
And keep the life you purchased with a lie!

AN OBITUARIAN

Death-poet Pickering sat at his desk,
Wrapped in appropriate gloom;
His posture was pensive and picturesque,
Like a raven charming a tomb.

Enter a party a-drinking the cup
Of sorrow--and likewise of woe:
"Some harrowing poetry, Mister, whack up,
All wrote in the key of O.

"For the angels has called my old woman hence
From the strife (where she fit mighty free).
It's a nickel a line? Cond--n the expense!
For wealth is now little to me."

The Bard of Mortality looked him through
In the piercingest sort of a way:
"It is much to me though it's little to you--
I've _taken_ a wife to-day."

So he twisted the tail of his mental cow
And made her give down her flow.
The grief of that bard was long-winded, somehow--
There was reams and reamses of woe.

The widower man which had buried his wife
Grew lily-like round each gill,
For she turned in her grave and came back to life--
Then he cruel ignored the bill!

Then Sorrow she opened her gates a-wide,
As likewise did also Woe,
And the death-poet's song, as is heard inside,
Is sang in the key of O.

A COMMUTED SENTENCE

Boruck and Waterman upon their grills In Hades lay, with many a sigh and groan, Hotly disputing, for each swore his own Were clearly keener than the other's ills. And, truly, each had much to boast of--bone And sinew, muscle, tallow, nerve and skin, Blood in the vein and marrow in the shin, Teeth, eyes and other organs (for the soul Has all of these and even a wagging chin) Blazing and coruscating like a coal! For Lower Sacramento, you remember, Has trying weather, even in mid-December.

Now this occurred in the far future. All Mankind had been a million ages dead, And each to her reward above had sped, Each to his punishment below,--I call That quite a just arrangement. As I said, Boruck and Waterman in warmest pain Crackled and sizzed with all their might and main. For, when on earth, they'd freed a scurvy host Of crooks from the State prison, who again Had robbed and ravaged the Pacific Coast And (such the felon's predatory nature) Even got themselves into the Legislature.

So Waterman and Boruck lay and roared In Hades. It is true all other males Felt the like flames and uttered equal wails, But did not suffer _them_; whereas _they_ bored Each one the other. But indeed my tale's Not getting on at all. They lay and browned Till Boruck (who long since his teeth had ground Away and spoke Gum Arabic and made Stump speeches even in praying) looked around And said to Bob's incinerated shade: "Your Excellency, this is mighty hard on The inventors of the unpardonable pardon."

The other soul--his right hand all aflame, For 'twas with that he'd chiefly sinned, although His tongue, too, like a wick was working woe To the reserve of tallow in his frame-- Said, with a sputtering, uncertain flow, And with a gesture like a shaken torch: "Yes, but I'm sure we'll not much longer scorch. Although this climate is not good for Hope, Whose joyous wing 'twould singe, I think the porch Of Hell we'll quit with a pacific slope. Last century I signified repentance And asked for commutation of our sentence."

Even as he spoke, the form of Satan loomed In sight, all crimson with reflections's fire, Like some tall tower or cathedral spire Touched by the dawn while all the earth is gloomed In mists and shadows of the night time. "Sire," Said Waterman, his agitable wick Still sputtering, "what calls you back so quick? It scarcely was a century ago You left us." "I have come to bring," said Nick, "St. Peter's answer (he is never slow In correspondence) to your application For pardon--pardon me!--for commutation.

"He says that he's instructed to reply (And he has so instructed me) that sin Like yours--and this poor gentleman's who's in For bad advice to you--comes rather high; But since, apparently, you both begin To feel some pious promptings to the right, And fain would turn your faces to the light, Eternity seems all too long a term. So 'tis commuted to one-half. I'm quite Prepared, when that expires, to free the worm And quench the fire." And, civilly retreating, He left them holding their protracted meeting.

A LIFTED FINGER

[The _Chronicle_ did a great public service in whipping
---- and his fellow-rascals out of office.--_M.H. de Young's
Newspaper_.]

What! _you_ whip rascals?--_you_, whose gutter blood Bears, in its dark, dishonorable flood, Enough of prison-birds' prolific germs To serve a whole eternity of terms? _You_, for whose back the rods and cudgels strove Ere yet the ax had hewn them from the grove? _You_, the De Young whose splendor bright and brave Is phosphorescence from another's grave-- Till now unknown, by any chance or luck, Even to the hearts at which you, feebly struck? _You_ whip a rascal out of office?--_you_ Whose leadless weapon once ignobly blew Its smoke in six directions to assert Your lack of appetite for others' dirt?

Practice makes perfect: when for fame you thirst, Then whip a rascal. Whip a cripple first. Or, if for action you're less free than bold-- Your palms both brimming with dishonest gold-- Entrust the castigation that you've planned, As once before, to woman's idle hand. So in your spirit shall two pleasures join To slake the sacred thirst for blood and coin. Blood? Souls have blood, even as the body hath, And, spilled, 'twill fertilize the field of wrath. Lo! in a purple gorge of yonder hills, Where o'er a grave a bird its day-song stills, A woman's blood, through roses ever red, Mutely appeals for vengeance on your head. Slandered to death to serve a sordid end, She called you murderer and called me friend.

Now, mark you, libeler, this course if you Dare to maintain, or rather to renew; If one short year's immunity has made You blink again the perils of your trade-- The ghastly sequence of the maddened "knave," The hot encounter and the colder grave; If the grim, dismal lesson you ignore While yet the stains are fresh upon your floor, And calmly march upon the fatal brink With eyes averted to your trail of ink, Counting unkind the services of those Who pull, to hold you back, your stupid nose, The day for you to die is not so far, Or, at the least, to live the thing you are!

Pregnant with possibilities of crime, And full of felons for all coming time, Your blood's too precious to be lightly spilt In testimony to a venial guilt. Live to get whelpage and preserve a name No praise can sweeten and no lie unshame. Live to fulfill the vision that I see Down the dim vistas of the time to be: A dream of clattering beaks and burning eyes Of hungry ravens glooming all the skies; A dream of gleaming teeth and foetid breath Of jackals wrangling at the feast of death; A dream of broken necks and swollen tongues-- The whole world's gibbets loaded with De Youngs!

_1881._

TWO STATESMEN

In that fair city by the inland sea, Where Blaine unhived his Presidential bee, Frank Pixley's meeting with George Gorham sing, Celestial muse, and what events did spring From the encounter of those mighty sons Of thunder, and of slaughter, and of guns. Great Gorham first, his yearning tooth to sate And give him stomach for the day's debate, Entering a restaurant, with eager mien, Demands an ounce of bacon and a bean. The trembling waiter, by the statesman's eye Smitten with terror, hastens to comply; Nor chairs nor tables can his speed retard, For famine's fixed and horrible regard He takes for menace. As he shaking flew, Lo! the portentous Pixley heaved in view! Before him yawned invisible the cell, Unheard, behind, the warden's footsteps fell. Thrice in convention rising to his feet, He thrice had been thrust back into his seat; Thrice had protested, been reminded thrice The nation had no need of his advice. Balked of his will to set the people right, His soul was gloomy though his hat was white, So fierce his mien, with provident accord The waiters swarmed him, thinking him a lord. He spurned them, roaring grandly to their chief: "Give me (Fred. Crocker pays) a leg of beef!" His wandering eye's deluminating flame Fell upon Gorham and the crisis came! For Pixley scowled and darkness filled the room Till Gorham's flashing orbs dispelled the gloom. The patrons of the place, by fear dismayed, Sprang to the street and left their scores unpaid. So, when Jove thunders and his lightnings gleam To sour the milk and curdle, too, the cream, And storm-clouds gather on the shadowed hill, The ass forsakes his hay, the pig his swill. Hotly the heroes now engaged--their breath Came short and hard, as in the throes of death. They clenched their hands, their weapons brandished high, Cut, stabbed, and hewed, nor uttered any cry, But gnashed their teeth and struggled on! In brief, One ate his bacon, t'other one his beef.

MATTER FOR GRATITUDE

[Especially should we be thankful for having escaped the
ravages of the yellow scourge by which our neighbors have
been so sorely afflicted.--_Governor Stoneman's Thanksgiving
Proclamation._]

Be pleased, O Lord, to take a people's thanks That Thine avenging sword has spared our ranks-- That Thou hast parted from our lips the cup And forced our neighbors' lips to drink it up. Father of Mercies, with a heart contrite We thank Thee that Thou goest south to smite, And sparest San Francisco's loins, to crack Thy lash on Hermosillo's bleeding back-- That o'er our homes Thine awful angel spread His wings in vain, and Guaymas weeps instead.

We praise Thee, God, that Yellow Fever here His horrid banner has not dared to rear, Consumption's jurisdiction to contest, Her dagger deep in every second breast! Catarrh and Asthma and Congestive Chill Attest Thy bounty and perform Thy will. These native messengers obey Thy call-- They summon singly, but they summon all. Not, as in Mexico's impested clime, Can Yellow Jack commit recurring crime. We thank Thee that Thou killest all the time.

Thy tender mercies, Father, never end: Upon all heads Thy blessings still descend, Though their forms vary. Here the sown seeds yield Abundant grain that whitens all the field-- There the smit corn stands barren on the plain, Thrift reaps the straw and Famine gleans in vain. Here the fat priest to the contented king Points out the contrast and the people sing-- There mothers eat their offspring. Well, at least Thou hast provided offspring for the feast. An earthquake here rolls harmless through the land, And Thou art good because the chimneys stand-- There templed cities sink into the sea, And damp survivors, howling as they flee, Skip to the hills and hold a celebration In honor of Thy wise discrimination.

O God, forgive them all, from Stoneman down, Thy smile who construe and expound Thy frown, And fall with saintly grace upon their knees To render thanks when Thou dost only sneeze.

THREE KINDS OF A ROGUE