Black Beetles in Amber by Ambrose Bierce (the red fox clan TXT) 📕

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 AETERNITATIS
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 AERONAUT
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