: The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce Volume 11 Antepenultimata by Bierce Ambrose - American literature; American essays

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THE SHADOW ON THE DIAL CIVILIZATION THE GAME OF POLITICS A POSSIBLE BENEFACTOR WARLIKE AMERICA SOME FEATURES OF THE LAW ARBITRATION THE GIFT O' GAB NATURA BENIGNA INDUSTRIAL DISCONTENT WRITERS OF DIALECT CRIME AND ITS CORRECTIVES ON KNOWING ONE'S BUSINESS A TRADE OF REFUGE THE DEATH PENALTY RELIGION IMMORTALITY A ROLLING CONTINENT CHARITY EMANCIPATED WOMAN THE OPPOSING SEX A MAD WORLD THE AMERICAN SYCOPHANT DOG THE ANCESTRAL BOND THE RIGHT TO WORK TAKING ONESELF OFF A MONUMENT TO ADAM HYPNOTISM AT THE DRAIN OF THE WASH-BASIN GODS IN CHICAGO FOR LAST WORDS THE CHAIR OF LITTLE EASE A GHOST IN THE UNMAKING THE TURN OF THE TIDE FAT BABIES AND FATE CERTAIN AREAS OF OUR SEAMY SIDE FOR BREVITY AND CLARITY GENIUS AS A PROVOCATION A BIVOUAC OF THE DEAD

ANTEPENULTIMATA

THE SHADOW ON THE DIAL

I

There is a deal of confusion and uncertainty in the use of the words "socialist," "anarchist," and "nihilist." Even the 'ist himself commonly knows with as little accuracy what he is as the rest of us know why he is. The socialist believes that most human affairs should be regulated and managed by the state--the government--that is to say, the majority. Our own system has many socialist features and the trend of republican government is all that way. The anarchist favors abolition of all law and frequently belongs to an organization that secures his allegiance by solemn oaths and dreadful penalties. "Nihilism" is a name given by Turgenieff to the general body of Russian discontent which finds expression in antagonizing authority and killing authorities. Constructive politics would seem, as yet, to be a cut above the nihilist's intelligence; he is essentially a destructionary. He is so diligently engaged in unweeding the soil that he has not given a thought to what he will grow there. Nihilism may be defined as a policy of assassination tempered by reflections on Siberia. American sympathy with it is the offspring of an unholy union between the tongue of a liar and the ear of a dupe.

Socialism and Anarchism are parts of the same thing, in the sense that the terminal points of a road are parts of the same road. Between them, about midway, lies the system that we have the happiness to endure. It is a "blend" of Socialism and Anarchism in about equal parts: all that is not one is the other. Co?peration is Socialism; competition is Anarchism. Competition carried to its logical conclusion would leave no law in force, no property possible, no life secure.

Of course the words "co?peration" and "competition" are not here used in a merely industrial and commercial sense; they are intended to cover the whole field of human activity. Two voices singing a duet--that is co?peration--Socialism. Two voices singing each a different tune and trying to drown each other--that is competition--Anarchism: each is a law unto itself--that is to say, it is lawless. Everything that ought to be done the socialist hopes to do by associated endeavor, as an army wins battles; Anarchism is socialist in its means only: by co?peration it tries to render co?peration impossible--combines to kill combination. Its method says to its purpose: "Thou fool!"

II

Everything foretells the doom of authority. The killing of kings is no new industry; it is as ancient as the race. Always and everywhere persons in high place have been the assassin's prey. We have ourselves lost three presidents by murder, and shall doubtless lose many another before the book of American history is closed. If anything is new in this activity of the regicide it is found in the choice of victims. The contemporary "avenger" slays, not the merely "exalted," but the good and the inoffensive--an American president who had struck the chains from millions of slaves; a Russian czar who against the will and work of his own powerful nobles had freed their serfs; a French president from whom the French people had received nothing but good; a powerless Austrian empress, whose weight of sorrows had touched the world to tears; a blameless Italian king beloved of his people; such is a part of the recent record of the regicide, whose every entry is a tale of infamy unrelieved by one circumstance of justice, decency or good intention.

This recent uniformity of malevolence in the choice of victims is not without significance. It points unmistakably to two facts: first, that the selections are made, not by the assassins themselves, but by some central control inaccessible to individual preference and unaffected by the fortunes of its instruments; second, that there is a constant purpose to manifest an antagonism, not to any individual ruler, but to rulers; not to any system of government, but to government. The issue is defined, the alignment made, the battle set: Chaos against Order, Anarchy against Law.

M. Vaillant, the French gentleman who lacked a "good opinion of the law," but was singularly rich in the faith that by means of gunpowder and flying nails humanity could be brought into a nearer relation with reason, righteousness and the will of God, is said to have been nearly devoid of nose. Of this privation M. Vaillant made but slight account, as was natural, seeing that for but a brief season did he need even so much of nose as remained to him. Yet before its effacement by premature disruption of his own petard it must have had a certain value to him--he would not wantonly have renounced it; and had he foreseen its extinction by the bomb the iron views of that controversial device would probably have been denied expression. Albeit doomed to eventual elimination from the scheme of being, and to the anarchist even now something of an accusing conscience, the nose is indubitably an excellent thing on man.

We have grown so accustomed to the presence of this feature that we take it as a matter of course; its absence is one of the most notable phenomena of our observation--"an occasion long to be remembered," as the society reporter hath it. Yet "abundant testimony sheweth" that but a few centuries ago noseless men and women were so common all over Europe as to provoke but little comment when seen and heard. They abounded in all the various walks of life: there were honored burgomasters without noses; wealthy merchants, great scholars, artists, teachers. Amongst the humbler classes nasal destitution was almost as frequent as pecuniary--in the humblest of all, the most common of all. Writing in the thirteenth century, a chronicler mentions the retainers and servants of certain Suabian noblemen as having hardly a whole ear among them--for until a comparatively recent period man's tenure of his ears was even more precarious than that of his nose. In 1436, when a Bavarian woman, Agnes Bernaurian, wife of Duke Albert the Pious, was dropped off the bridge at Prague, she persisted in rising to the surface and trying to escape; so the executioner gave himself the trouble to put a long pole into her hair and hold her under. A contemporary account of the matter hints that her disorderly behavior at so solemn a moment was due to the pain caused by removal of her nose; but as her execution was by order of her own father it seems more probable that this "extreme penalty of the law" was not imposed. Without a doubt, though, possession of a nose was an uncommon distinction in those days among "persons designated to assist the executioner," as the condemned were civilly called. Nor, as already said, was it any too common among persons not as yet consecrated to that service: "Few," says the chronicler, "have two noses, and many have none."

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