THE note of prophecy! It sounds sharp and clear in many a vibrant line,
in many a sonorous sentence of the essays herein collected for the
first time. Written for various Californian journals and periodicals
and extending over a period of more than a quarter of a century, these
opinions and reflections express the refined judgment of one who has
seen, not as through a glass darkly, the trend of events. And having
seen the portentous effigy that we are making of the Liberty our fathers
created, he has written of it in English that is the despair of those
who, thinking less clearly, escape not the pitfalls of diffuseness and
obscurity. For Mr. Bierce, as did Flaubert, holds that the right word is
necessary for the conveyance of the right thought and his sense of word
values rarely betrays him into error. But with an odd--I might almost
say perverse--indifference to his own reputation, he has allowed
these writings to lie fallow in the old files of papers, while others,
possessing the knack of publicity, years later tilled the soil with
some degree of success. President Hadley, of Yale University, before
the Candlelight Club of Denver, January 8, 1900, advanced, as novel and
original, ostracism as an effective punishment of social highwaymen.
This address attracted widespread attention, and though Professor
Hadley's remedy has not been generally adopted it is regarded as his
own. Mr. Bierce wrote in "The Examiner," January 20, 1895, as follows:
"We are plundered because we have no particular aversion to plunderers."
The 'predatory rich' (to use Mr. Stead's felicitous term) put their
hands into our pockets because they know that, virtually, none of us
will refuse to take their hands in our own afterwards, in friendly
salutation. If notorious rascality entailed social outlawry the only
rascals would be those properly--and proudly--belonging to the 'criminal
class.'
Again, Edwin Markham has attracted to himself no little attention by
advocating the application of the Golden Rule in temporal affairs as a
cure for evils arising from industrial discontent In this he, too, has
been anticipated. Mr. Bierce, writing in "The Examiner," March 25, 1894,
said: "When a people would avert want and strife, or having them,
would restore plenty and peace, this noble commandment offers the only
means--all other plans for safety and relief are as vain as dreams, and
as empty as the crooning of fools. And, behold, here it is: 'All things
whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them.'"
Rev. Charles M. Sheldon created a nine days' wonder, or rather a seven,
by conducting for a week a newspaper as he conceived Christ would have
done. Some years previously, June 28, 1896, to be exact, the author
of these essays wrote: "That is my ultimate and determining test of
right--'What, under the circumstances, would Christ have done?'--the
Christ of the New Testament, not the Christ of the commentators,
theologians, priests and parsons."
I am sure that Mr. Bierce does not begrudge any of these gentlemen the
acclaim they have received by enunciating his ideas, and I mention the
instances here merely to forestall the filing of any other claim to
priority.
The essays cover a wide range of subjects, embracing among other
things government, dreams, writers of dialect, and dogs, and always the
author's point of view is fresh, original and non-Philistine. Whether
one cares to agree with him or not, one will find vast entertainment in
his wit that illuminates with lightning flashes all he touches. Other
qualities I forbear allusion to, having already encroached too much upon
the time of the reader.