 | The collected works of Ambrose Bierce |  |
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Machination, n.
The method employed by one's opponents in baffling one's open and honorable efforts to do the right thing.
[So plain the advantages of machination]
So plain the advantages of machinationIt constitutes a moral obligation,
And honest wolves who think upon't with loathing
Feel bound to don the sheep's deceptive clothing.
So prospers still the diplomatic art,
And Satan bows, with hand upon his heart.
Macrobian, n.
One forgotten of the gods and living to a great age. History is abundantly supplied with examples, from Methuselah to Old Parr, but some notable instances of longevity are less well known. A Calabrian peasant named Coloni, born in 1753, lived so long that he had what he considered a glimpse of the dawn of universal peace. Scanavius relates that he knew an archbishop who was so old that he could remember a time when he did not deserve hanging. In 1566 a linen draper of Bristol, England, declared that he had lived five hundred years, and that in all that time he had never told a lie. There are instances of longevity (macrobiosis) in our own country. Senator Chauncey Depew is old enough to know better. The editor of The American, a newspaper in New York City, has a memory that goes back to the time when he was a rascal, but not to the fact. The President of the United States was born so long ago that many of the friends of his youth have risen to high political and military preferment without the assistance of personal merit. The verses following were written by a macrobian:
[When I was young the world was fair]
And amiable and sunny.
A brightness was in all the air,
In all the waters, honey.
The jokes were fine and funny,
The statesmen honest in their views,
And in their lives, as well,
And when you heard a bit of news
'Twas true enough to tell.
Men were not ranting, shouting, reeking,
Nor women “generally speaking.”
It lasted one whole season!
The sparkling Winter gave no heed
When ordered by Unreason
Now, where the dickens is the sense
In calling that a year
Which does no more than just commence
Before the end is near?
When I was young the year extended
From month to month until it ended.
To something dark and dreary,
And everything is now arranged
To make a fellow weary.
The Weather Man—I fear he
Has much to do with it, for, sure,
The air is not the same:
It chokes you when it is impure,
When pure it makes you lame.
With windows closed you are asthmatic;
Open, neuralgic or sciatic.
Of dun degeneration
Seems eviler than it would seem
To a better observation,
And has for compensation
Some blessings in a deep disguise
Which mortal sight has failed
To pierce, although to angels' eyes
They're visibly unveiled.
If Age is such a boon, good land!
He's costumed by a master hand!
Maiden, n.
A young person of the unfair sex addicted to clewless conduct and views that madden to crime. The genus has a wide geographical distribution, being found wherever sought and deplored wherever found. The maiden is not altogether unpleasing to the eye, nor (without her piano and her views) insupportable to the ear, though in respect to comeliness distinctly inferior to the rainbow, and, with regard to the part of her that is audible, beaten out of the field by the canary—which, also, is more portable.
[A lovelorn maiden she sat and sang]
A lovelorn maiden she sat and sang—This quaint, sweet song sang she:
“It's O for a youth with a football bang
And a muscle fair to see!
The Captain he
Of a team to be!
On the gridiron he shall shine,
A monarch by right divine,
And never to roast on it—me!”
Mammon, n.
[He swore that all other religions were gammon]
He swore that all other religions were gammon,And wore out his knees in the worship of Mammon.
Man, n.
An animal so lost in rapturous contemplation of what he thinks he is as to overlook what he indubitably ought to be. His chief occupation is extermination of other animals and his own species, which, however, multiplies with such insistent rapidity as to infest the whole habitable earth and Canada.
[When the world was young and Man was new]
And everything was pleasant,
Distinctions Nature never drew
'Mongst king and priest and peasant.
We're not that way at present,
Save here in this Republic, where
We have that old régime,
For all are kings, however bare
Their backs, howe'er extreme
Their hunger. And, indeed, each has a voice
To accept the tyrant of his party's choice.
And, therefore, was detested,
Was one day with a tarry coat
(With feathers backed and breasted)
By patriots invested.
“It is your duty,” cried the crowd,
“Your ballot true to cast
For the man o' your choice.” He humbly bowed,
And explained his wicked past:
Dear patriots, but he has never run.”
Material, adj.
[Material things I know, or feel, or see]
Material things I know, or feel, or see;All else is immaterial to me.
Meekness, n.
[M is for Moses]
M is for Moses,Who slew the Egyptian.
As sweet as a rose is
The meekness of Moses.
No monument shows his
Post-mortem inscription,
But M is for Moses,
Who slew the Egyptian.
Meerschaum, n.
(Literally, seafoam, and by many erroneously supposed to be made of it.) A fine white clay, which for convenience in coloring it brown is made into tobacco pipes and smoked by the workmen engaged in that industry. The purpose of coloring it has not been disclosed by the manufacturers.
[There was a youth you've heard before]
This woful tale, may be),
Who bought a meerschaum pipe and swore
That color it would he!
Nor any soul he saw.
He smoked by night, he smoked by day,
As hard as he could draw.
Of winds that blew aloof;
The weeds were in the gravel path,
The owl was on the roof.
The neighbors sadly say.
And so they batter in the door
To take his goods away.
Nut-brown in face and limb.
“That pipe's a lovely white,” they say,
“But it has colored him!”
'Tis plain as day to you:
Don't play your game on any thing
That is a gamester too.
Misdemeanor, n.
An infraction of the law having less dignity than a felony and constituting no claim to admittance into the best criminal society.
[By misdemeanors he essayed to climb]
By misdemeanors he essayed to climbInto the aristocracy of crime.
O, woe was him!—with manner chill and grand
“Captains of industry” refused his hand,
“Kings of finance” denied him recognition
And “railway magnates” jeered his low condition.
He robbed a bank to make himself respected.
They still rebuffed him, for he was detected.
Monosyllabic, adj.
Composed of words of one syllable, for literary babes who never tire of testifying their delight in the vapid compound by appropriate googoogling. The words are commonly Saxon—that is to say, words of a barbarous people destitute of ideas and incapable of any but the most elementary sentiments and emotions.
[The man who writes in Saxon]
The man who writes in SaxonIs the man to use an ax on.
Monument, n.
A structure intended to commemorate something which either needs no commemoration or cannot be commemorated.
[The bones of Agamemnon are a show]
The bones of Agamemnon are a show,And ruined is his royal monument,
but Agamemnon's fame suffers no diminution in consequence. The monument custom has its reductiones ad absurdum in monuments “to the unknown dead”—that is to say, monuments to perpetuate the memory of those who have left no memory.
Mummy, n.
An ancient Egyptian, formerly in universal use among modern civilized nations as medicine, and now engaged in supplying art with an excellent pigment. He is handy, too, in museums in gratifying the vulgar curiosity that serves to distinguish man from the lower animals.
[By means of the Mummy, mankind, it is said]
By means of the Mummy, mankind, it is said,Attests to the gods its respect for the dead.
We plunder his tomb, be he sinner or saint,
Distil him for physic and grind him for paint,
Exhibit for money his poor, shrunken frame,
And with levity flock to the scene of the shame.
O, tell me, ye gods, for the use of my rhyme:
For respecting the dead what's the limit of time?
| The collected works of Ambrose Bierce | |