 | The collected works of Ambrose Bierce |  |
S
Sabbath, n.
A weekly festival having its origin in the fact that God made the world in six days and was arrested on the seventh. Among the Jews observance of the day was enforced by a Commandment of which this is the Christian version: “Remember the seventh day to make thy neighbor keep it wholly.” To the Creator it seemed fit and expedient that the Sabbath should be the last day of the week, but the Early Fathers of the Church held other views. So great is the sanctity of the day that even where the Lord holds a doubtful and precarious jurisdiction over those who go down to (and down into) the sea it is reverently recognized, as is manifest in the following deep-water version of the Fourth Commandment:
[Six days shalt thou labor and do all thou art able]
Six days shalt thou labor and do all thou art able,And on the seventh holystone the deck and scrape the cable.
Decks are no longer holystoned, but the cable still supplies the captain with opportunity to attest a pious respect for the divine ordinance.
Sacred, adj.
Dedicated to some religious purpose; having a divine character; inspiring solemn thoughts or emotions; as, the Dalai Lama of Thibet; the Moogum of M'bwango; the temple of Apes in Ceylon; the Cow in India; the Crocodile, the Cat and the Onion of ancient Egypt; the Mufti of Moosh; the hair of the dog that bit Noah, etc.
[All things are either sacred or profane]
All things are either sacred or profane.The former to ecclesiasts bring gain;
The latter to the devil appertain.
Safety-Clutch, n.
A mechanical device acting automatically to prevent the fall of an elevator, or cage, in case of an accident to the hoisting apparatus.
[Once I seen a human ruin]
In a elevator-well,
And his members was bestrewin'
All the place where he had fell.
That uncommon woful wreck:
“Your position's so surprisin'
That I tremble for your neck!”
And impressive, up and spoke:
“Well, I wouldn't tremble badly,
For it's been a fortnight broke.”
Of his attitude, he begs
I will focus my attention
On his various arms and legs—
Where they each, respective, lie;
How one trotter proves ungracious,
T'other one an alibi.
For to show his dismal state,
Which I wasn't first intentioned
To specifical relate.
That I ever have heard tell
Than the gent's who there was spreaded
In that elevator-well.
It is figurative all,
For the well is metaphoric
And the feller didn't fall.
For a writer-man to cheat,
And despise to wear a laurel
As was gotten by deceit.
By the elevator, mind,
It will boost a person splendid
If his talent is the kind.
(For the busted man is him)
And it shot him up right gallant
Till his head begun to swim.
And he painful come to earth
Where there's nobody to love him
For his detrimented worth.
Or at leastwise not as such.
Moral of this woful poem:
Frequent oil your safety-clutch.
Satire, n.
An obsolete kind of literary composition in which the vices and follies of the author's enemies were expounded with imperfect tenderness. In this country satire never had more than a sickly and uncertain existence, for the soul of it is wit, wherein we are dolefully deficient, the humor that we mistake for it, like all humor, being tolerant and sympathetic. Moreover, although Americans are “endowed by their Creator” with abundant vice and folly, it is not generally known that these are reprehensible qualities, wherefore the satirist is popularly regarded as a sour-spirited knave, and his every victim's outcry for codefendants evokes a national assent.
[Hail Satire! be thy praises ever sung]
Hail Satire! be thy praises ever sungIn the dead language of a mummy's tongue,
For thou thyself art dead, and damned as well—
Thy spirit (usefully employed) in Hell.
Had it been such as consecrates the Bible
Thou hadst not perished by the law of libel.
Scarabee, n.
[He fell by his own hand]
He fell by his own handBeneath the great oak tree.
He'd traveled in a foreign land.
He tried to make her understand
The dance that's called the Saraband,
But he called it Scarabee.
He had called it so through an afternoon,
And she, the light of his harem if so might be,
Had smiled and said naught. O the body was fair to see,
All frosted there in the shine o' the moon—
Dead for a Scarabee
And a recollection that came too late.
O Fate!
They buried him where he lay,
He sleeps awaiting the Day,
In state,
And two Possible Puns, moon-eyed and wan,
Gloom over the grave and then move on.
Dead for a Scarabee!
Scrap-Book, n.
A book that is commonly edited by a fool. Many persons of some small distinction compile scrap-books containing whatever they happen to read about themselves or employ others to collect. One of these egotists was addressed in the lines following, by Agamemnon Melancthon Peters:
[Dear Frank, that scrap-book where you boast]
You keep a record true
Of every kind of peppered roast
That's made of you;
That revel round your name,
Thinking the laughter of the scribes
Attests your fame;
That comic pencils trace—
Your funny figure and your strange
Semitic face—
Nor art, but there I'll list
The daily drubbings you'd have got
Had God a fist.
Seine, n.
A kind of net for effecting an involuntary change of environment. For fish it is made strong and coarse, but women are more easily taken with a singularly delicate fabric weighted with small, cut stones.
[The devil casting a seine of lace]
(With precious stones 'twas weighted)
Drew it into the landing place
And its contents calculated.
A draft miraculous, precious!
But ere he could throw it across his back
They'd all escaped through the meshes.
Severalty, n.
Separateness, as, lands in severalty, i. e., lands held individually, not in joint ownership. Certain tribes of Indians are believed now to be sufficiently civilized to have in severalty the lands that they have hitherto held as tribal organizations, and could not sell to the Whites for waxen beads and potato whiskey.
[Lo! the poor Indian whose unsuited mind]
Lo! the poor Indian whose unsuited mindSaw death before, hell and the grave behind;
Whom thrifty settlers ne'er besought to stay—
His small belongings their appointed prey;
Whom Dispossession, with alluring wile,
Persuaded elsewhere every little while!
His fire unquenched and his undying worm
By “land in severalty” (charming term!)
Are cooled and killed, respectively, at last,
And he to his new holding anchored fast!
Sheriff, n.
In America the chief executive officer of a county, whose most characteristic duties, in some of the Western and Southern States, are the catching and hanging of rogues.
[John Elmer Pettibone Cajee]
(I write of him with little glee)
Was just as bad as he could be.
The sun has never looked upon
So bad a man as Neighbor John.”
This added fault: it made him mad
To know another man was bad.
To rise at any hour of night
And quench that wicked person's light.
Would hale him to the nearest tree
And leave him swinging wide and free.
A luckless wight's reluctant frame
Was given to the cheerful flame.
All unconcerned John met the frown
Of that austere and righteous town.
So scornful of the law should be—
An anar c, h, i, s, t.”
To utter the abhorrent word,
So strong the aversion that it stirred.)
“That Badman John must cease this thing
Of having his unlawful fling.
Each man had out a souvenir
Got at a lynching yesteryear—
His ways, nor cause our hearts to ache
By sins of rope and torch and stake.
He'll have small freedom to fulfil
The mandates of his lawless will.”
They named him Sheriff. The affair
Was opened, it is said, with prayer.
Smithareen, n.
A fragment, a decomponent part, a remain. The word is used variously, but in the following verses on a noted female reformer who opposed bicycle-riding by women because it “led them to the devil” it is seen at its best:
[The wheels go round without a sound]
The wheels go round without a sound—The maidens hold high revel;
In sinful mood, insanely gay,
True spinsters spin adown the way
From duty to the devil!
They laugh, they sing, and—ting-a-ling!
Their bells go all the morning;
Their lanterns bright bestar the night
Pedestrians a-warning.
With lifted hands Miss Charlotte stands,
Good-Lording and O-mying,
Her rheumatism forgotten quite,
Her fat with anger frying.
She blocks the path that leads to wrath,
Jack Satan's power defying.
The lights burn red and blue and green.
What's this that's found upon the ground?
Poor Charlotte Smith's a smithareen!
Sophistry, n.
The controversial method of an opponent, distinguished from one's own by superior insincerity and fooling. This method is that of the later Sophists, a Grecian sect of philosophers who began by teaching wisdom, prudence, science, art and, in brief, whatever men ought to know, but lost themselves in a maze of quibbles and a fog of words.
[His bad opponent's “facts” he sweeps away]
His bad opponent's “facts” he sweeps away,And drags his sophistry to light of day;
Then swears they're pushed to madness who resort
To falsehood of so desperate a sort.
Not so; like sods upon a dead man's breast,
He lies most lightly who the least is pressed.
Success, n.
The one unpardonable sin against one's fellows. In literature, and particularly in poetry, the elements of success are exceedingly simple, and are admirably set forth in the following lines by the reverend Father Gassilasca Jape, entitled, for some mysterious reason, “John A. Joyce.”
[The bard who would prosper must carry a book]
The bard who would prosper must carry a book,Do his thinking in prose and wear
A crimson cravat, a far-away look
And a head of hexameter hair.
Be thin in your thought and your body'll be fat;
If you wear your hair long you needn't your hat.
Sycophant, n.
One who approaches Greatness on his belly so that he may not be commanded to turn and be kicked. He is sometimes an editor.
[As the lean leech, its victim found, is pleased]
As the lean leech, its victim found, is pleasedTo fix itself upon a part diseased
Till, its black hide distended with bad blood,
It drops to die of surfeit in the mud,
So the base sycophant with joy descries
His neighbor's weak spot and his mouth applies,
Unlike that reptile, he will not let go.
Gelasma, if it paid you to devote
Your talent to the service of a goat,
Showing by forceful logic that its beard
Is more than Aaron's fit to be revered;
If to the task of honoring its smell
Profit had prompted you, and love as well,
The world would benefit at last by you
And wealthy malefactors weep anew—
Your favor for a moment's space denied
And to the nobler object turned aside.
Is't not enough that thrifty millionaires
Who loot in freight and spoliate in fares,
Or, cursed with consciences that bid them fly
To safer villainies of darker dye,
Forswearing robbery and fain, instead,
To steal (they call it “cornering”) our bread
May see you groveling their boots to lick
And begging for the favor of a kick?
Still must you follow to the bitter end
Your sycophantic disposition's trend,
And in your eagerness to please the rich
Hunt hungry sinners to their final ditch?
In Morgan's praise you smite the sounding wire,
And sing hosannas to great Havemeyer!
What's Satan done that him you should eschew?
He too is reeking rich—deducting you.
Symbolic, adj.
[They say 'tis conscience feels compunction]
They say 'tis conscience feels compunction;For of the sinner I have noted
That when he's sinned he's somewhat bloated,
Or ill some other ghastly fashion
Within that bowel of compassion.
True, I believe the only sinner
Is he that eats a shabby dinner.
You know how Adam with good reason,
For eating apples out of season,
Was “cursed.” But that is all symbolic:
The truth is, Adam had the colic.
| The collected works of Ambrose Bierce | |