The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 / Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales

by Ambrose Bierce

  To the setting of these costumes, manners and practices, there was imported from Germany a dance called Waltz, which as I conceive, was the first of our "round" dances. It was welcomed by most persons who could dance, and by some superior souls who could not. Among the latter, the late Lord Byron—whose participation in the dance was barred by an unhappy physical disability—addressed the new-comer in characteristic verse. Some of the lines in this ingenious nobleman's apostrophe are not altogether intelligible, when applied to any dance that we know by the name of waltz. For example:

  Pleased round the chalky floor, how well they trip,

  One hand[C] reposing on the royal hip,

  The other to the shoulder no less royal

  Ascending with affection truly loyal.

  These lines imply an attitude unknown to contemporary waltzers, but the description involves no poetic license. Our dear grandmothers (giddy, giddy girls!) did their waltz that way. Let me quote:

  The lady takes the gentleman round the neck with one arm, resting against his shoulder. During the motion, the dancers are continually changing their relative situations: now the gentleman brings his arm about the lady's neck, and the lady takes him round the waist.

  At another point, the lady may "lean gently on his shoulder," their arms (as it appears) "entwining." This description is by an eyewitness, whose observation is taken, not at the rather debauched court of the Prince Regent, but at the simple republican assemblies of New York. The observer is the gentle Irving, writing in 1807. Occasional noteworthy experiences they must have had—those modest, blooming grandmothers—for, it is to be borne in mind, tipsiness was rather usual with dancing gentlemen in the fine old days of Port and Madeira; and the blithe, white-armed grandmothers themselves did sip their punch, to a man. However, we may forbear criticism. We, at least, owe nothing but reverent gratitude to a generation from which we derive life, waltzing and the memory of Madeira. Even when read, as it needs should be read, in the light of that prose description of the dance to which it was addressed, Lord Byron's welcome to the waltz will be recognized as one more illustration of a set of hoary and moss-grown truths.

  As parlor-soldiers, graced with fancy-scars,Rehearse their bravery in imagined wars;As paupers, gathered in congenial flocks,Babble of banks, insurances, and stocks;As each if oft'nest eloquent of whatHe hates or covets, but possesses not;As cowards talk of pluck; misers of waste;Scoundrels of honor; country clowns of taste;Ladies of logic; devotees of sin;Topers of water; temperance men of gin—

  my lord Byron sang of waltzing. Let us forgive and—remembering his poor foot—pity him. Yet the opinions of famous persons possess an interest that is akin, in the minds of many plain folk, to weight. Let us, then, incline an ear to another: "Laura was fond of waltzing, as every brisk and innocent young girl should be," wrote he than who none has written more nobly in our time—he who "could appreciate good women and describe them; and draw them more truly than any novelist in the language, except Miss Austen." The same sentiment with reference to dancing appears in many places in his immortal pages. In his younger days as attaché of legation in Germany, Mr. Thackeray became a practiced waltzer. As a censor he thus possesses over Lord Byron whatever advantage may accrue from knowledge of the subject whereof he wrote.

  We are happily not called upon to institute a comparison of character between the two distinguished moralists, though the same, drawn masterly, might not be devoid of entertainment and instruction. But two or three other points of distinction should be kept in mind as having sensible relation to the question of competency to bear witness. Byron wrote of the women of a corrupted court; Thackeray of the women of that society indicated by the phrase "Persons whom one meets"—and meets now. Byron wrote of an obsolete dance, described by Irving in terms of decided strength; Thackeray wrote of our own waltz. In turning off his brilliant and witty verses it is unlikely that any care as to their truthfulness disturbed the glassy copiousness of the Byronic utterance; this child of nature did never consider too curiously of justice, moderation and such inventions of the schools. The key-note of all the other wrote is given by his faithful pen when it avers that it never "signed the page that registered a lie." Byron was a "gentleman of wit and pleasure about town"; Thackeray the father of daughters. However, all this is perhaps little to the purpose. We owe no trifling debt to Lord Byron for his sparkling and spirited lines, and by no good dancer would they be "willingly let die." Poetry, music, dancing—they are one art. The muses are sisters, yet they do not quarrel. Of a truth, even as was Laura, so every brisk and innocent young girl should be. And it is safe to predict that she will be. If she would enjoy the advantage of belonging to Our Set she must be.

  As a rule, the ideas of the folk who cherish a prejudice against dancing are crude rather than unclean—the outcome much more of ignorance than salacity. Of course there are exceptions. In my great work on The Prude all will be attended to with due discrimination in apportionment of censure. At present the spirit of the dance makes merry with my pen, for from yonder "stately pleasure-dome" (decreed by one Kubla Khan, formerly of The Big Bonanza Mining Company) the strains of the Blue Danube float out upon the night. Avaunt, miscreants! lest we chase ye with flying feet and do our little dance upon your unwholesome carcasses. Already the toes of our partners begin to twiddle beneath their petticoats. Come, then, Stoopid—can't you move? No!—they change it to a galop—and eke the good old Sturm. Firm and steady, now, fair partner mine, whiles we run that gobemouche down and trample him miserably. There: light and softly again—the servants will remove the remains.

  And hark! that witching strain once more:

  EPIGRAMS

  If every hypocrite in the United States were to break his leg to-day the country could be successfully invaded to-morrow by the warlike hypocrites of Canada.

  To Dogmatism the Spirit of Inquiry is the same as the Spirit of Evil, and to pictures of the latter it appends a tail to represent the note of interrogation.

  "Immoral" is the judgment of the stalled ox on the gamboling lamb.

  In forgiving an injury be somewhat ceremonious, lest your magnanimity be construed as indifference.

  True, man does not know woman. But neither does woman.

  Age is provident because the less future we have the more we fear it.

  Reason is fallible and virtue vincible; the winds vary and the needle forsakes the pole, but stupidity never errs and never intermits. Since it has been found that the axis of the earth wabbles, stupidity is indispensable as a standard of constancy.

  In order that the list of able women may be memorized for use at meetings of the oppressed sex, Heaven has considerately made it brief.

  Firmness is my persistency; obstinacy is yours.

  A little heap of dust,

  A little streak of rust,

  A stone without a name—

  Lo! hero, sword and fame.

  Our vocabulary is defective; we give the same name to woman's lack of temptation and man's lack of opportunity.

  "You scoundrel, you have wronged me," hissed the philosopher. "May you live forever!"

  The man who thinks that a garnet can be made a ruby by setting it in brass is writing "dialect" for publication.

  "Who art thou, stranger, and what dost thou seek?"

  "I am Generosity, and I seek a person named Gratitude."

  "Then thou dost not deserve to find her."

  "True. I will go about my business and think of her no more. But who art thou, to be so wise?"

  "I am Gratitude—farewell forever."

  There was never a genius who was not thought a fool until he disclosed himself; whereas he is a fool then only.

  The boundaries that Napoleon drew have been effaced; the kingdoms that he set up have disappeared. But all the armies and statecraft of Europe cannot unsay what you have said.

  Strive not for singularity in dress;

  Fools have the more and men of sense the less.

  To look original is not w
orth while,

  But be in mind a little out of style.

  A conqueror arose from the dead. "Yesterday," he said, "I ruled half the world." "Please show me the half that you ruled," said an angel, pointing out a wisp of glowing vapor floating in space. "That is the world."

  "Who art thou, shivering in thy furs?"

  "My name is Avarice. What is thine?"

  "Unselfishness."

  "Where is thy clothing, placid one?"

  "Thou art wearing it."

  To be comic is merely to be playful, but wit is a serious matter. To laugh at it is to confess that you do not understand.

  If you would be accounted great by your contemporaries, be not too much greater than they.

  To have something that he will not desire, nor know that he has—such is the hope of him who seeks the admiration of posterity. The character of his work does not matter; he is a humorist.

  Women and foxes, being weak, are distinguished by superior tact.

  To fatten pigs, confine and feed them; to fatten rogues, cultivate a generous disposition.

  Every heart is the lair of a ferocious animal. The greatest wrong that you can put upon a man is to provoke him to let out his beast.

  When two irreconcilable propositions are presented for assent the safest way is to thank Heaven that we are not as the unreasoning brutes, and believe both.

  Truth is more deceptive than falsehood, for it is more frequently presented by those from whom we do not expect it, and so has against it a numerical presumption.

  A bad marriage is like an electrical thrilling machine: it makes you dance, but you can't let go.

  Meeting Merit on a street-crossing, Success stood still. Merit stepped off into the mud and went round him, bowing his apologies, which Success had the grace to accept.

  "I think," says the philosopher divine,

  "Therefore I am." Sir, here's a surer sign:

  We know we live, for with our every breath

  We feel the fear and imminence of death.

  The first man you meet is a fool. If you do not think so ask him and he will prove it.

  He who would rather inflict injustice than suffer it will always have his choice, for no injustice can be done to him.

  There are as many conceptions of a perfect happiness hereafter as there are minds that have marred their happiness here.

  We yearn to be, not what we are, but what we are not. If we were immortal we should not crave immortality.

  A rabbit's foot may bring good luck to you, but it brought none to the rabbit.

  Before praising the wisdom of the man who knows how to hold his tongue, ascertain if he knows how to hold his pen.

  The most charming view in the world is obtained by introspection.

  Love is unlike chess, in that the pieces are moved secretly and the player sees most of the game. But the looker-on has one incomparable advantage: he is not the stake.

  It is not for nothing that tigers choose to hide in the jungle, for commerce and trade are carried on, mostly, in the open.

  We say that we love, not whom we will, but whom we must. Our judgment need not, therefore, go to confession.

  Of two kinds of temporary insanity, one ends in suicide, the other in marriage.

  If you give alms from compassion, why require the beneficiary to be "a deserving object"? No other adversity is so sharp as destitution of merit.

  Bereavement is the name that selfishness gives to a particular privation.

  O proud philanthropist, your hope is vain

  To get by giving what you lost by gain.

  With every gift you do but swell the cloud

  Of witnesses against you, swift and loud—

  Accomplices who turn and swear you split

  Your life: half robber and half hypocrite.

  You're least unsafe when most intact you hold

  Your curst allotment of dishonest gold.

  The highest and rarest form of contentment is approval of the success of another.

  If Inclination challenge, stand and fight—

  From Opportunity the wise take flight.

  What a woman most admires in a man is distinction among men. What a man most admires in a woman is devotion to himself.

  Those who most loudly invite God's attention to themselves when in peril of death are those who should most fervently wish to escape his observation.

  When you have made a catalogue of your friend's faults it is only fair to supply him with a duplicate, so that he may know yours.

  How fascinating is Antiquity!—in what a golden haze the ancients lived their lives! We, too, are ancients. Of our enchanting time Posterity's great poets will sing immortal songs, and its archæologists will reverently uncover the foundations of our palaces and temples. Meantime we swap jack-knives.

  Observe, my son, with how austere a virtue the man without a cent puts aside the temptation to manipulate the market or acquire a monopoly.

  For study of the good and the bad in woman two women are a needless expense.

  "There's no free will," says the philosopher; "To hang is most unjust."

  "There is no free will," assents the officer; "We hang because we must."

  Hope is an explorer who surveys the country ahead. That is why we know so much about the Hereafter and so little about the Heretofore.

  Remembering that it was a woman who lost the world, we should accept the act of cackling geese in saving Rome as partial reparation.

  There are two classes of women who may do as they please; those who are rich and those who are poor. The former can count on assent, the latter on inattention.

  When into the house of the heart Curiosity is admitted as the guest of Love she turns her host out of doors.

  Happiness has not to all the same name: to Youth she is known as the Future; Age knows her as the Dream.

  "Who art thou, there in the mire?"

  "Intuition. I leaped all the way from where thou standest in fear on the brink of the bog."

  "A great feat, madam; accept the admiration of Reason, sometimes known as Dry-foot."

  In eradicating an evil, it makes a difference whether it is uprooted or rooted up. The difference is in the reformer.

  The Audible Sisterhood rightly affirms the equality of the sexes: no man is so base but some woman is base enough to love him.

  Having no eyes in the back of the head, we see ourselves on the verge of the outlook. Only he who has accomplished the notable feat of turning about knows himself the central figure in the universe.

  Truth is so good a thing that falsehood can not afford to be without it.

  If women did the writing of the world, instead of the talking, men would be regarded as the superior sex in beauty, grace and goodness.

  Love is a delightful day's journey. At the farther end kiss your companion and say farewell.

  Let him who would wish to duplicate his every experience prate of the value of life.

  The game of discontent has its rules, and he who disregards them cheats. It is not permitted to you to wish to add another's advantages or possessions to your own; you are permitted only to wish to be another.

  The creator and arbiter of beauty is the heart; to the male rattlesnake the female rattlesnake is the loveliest thing in nature.