The San Francisco call., 1895-11-24
SCATH|NG CR|T|QUE ON AMBROSE B|ERCE.
BY WILLIAM GREER HARRISON.

pieces. There is not an original line in
the volume, but there is vast waste OF
power. He dons his camisade to war
upon butterfly and trains his columbiad
upon midget. Withdraw from his lines
the names of the persons abused and what
is left? Mr.. Bierce has furnished the an
swer, ga metrical hodge podge." The
tone of his verse is hard, having general
resem blance to that fraud among min
erals-mica.
His dramatic effusion at the close
OF the book cannot be regarded seriously;
there is nothing to criticize, because there
is nothing in it. 1 presume it was intended
to be sort of literary puzzle.
The epitaphs are mere headstones.
Mr.. Bierce opens his book with the
"Key Note" in dactylic measure and in
forms his readers: II dreamed I was
dreaming" etc. The ALTERATION seems to
have enchanted the author, for he repeats
the thought in five of his verses. I hope
it will not offend Mr.. Bierce if say that
dreaming a dream is a very ordinary
affair and in the present instance is sug-
gestive of night with Edgar Allan Poe
aud a mornings dalliance with the insidi-
Gus cocktail. Mr.. Bierce, however, "drops
into prose" in his tenth verse and gives US
this line: "And all shapes were fringed
with ghostly blue" This Is plain, ordi.
nary prose. Let Mr.. Bierce apply his own
rules to this line and I think he will be
honest enough to confess that it is not
poetry.
The Convicts' Ball-also in dactylic
measure-gives US as the ninth line: 1.-THE
ball is free cried Black Bart, and they ALL"
which is not dactylic and is pentameter.
In the same poem he offers as poetry the
line, "Twas very aristocratlc affair."
bald, bilious prose. Again on page 145:
"He said, Since the mountain won't come
to me-" Surely Mr.. Bierce did not expect
any one to regard this line as poetry.
In lone of the Saints, page 179, line IA,
Mr.. Bierce says:
"When told that Madam Ferrier had
taught"-this is in pentameter. Yet he
sticks pyrrhic in the second foot; and
! in the twenty-third line, which is in
disyllabic feet, he throws in light com.
pany of spondees.
Lgh tness and v1vacity characterize tri-
syllable measure. Read Heber's line,
brightest and best of the sons of the
morning, and compare it with the leaden
movement of Mr.. Bierce's dactylic verse.
In his lines on IAN undress uniform"
on page 107, Mr.. Bierce undertook to
form a new or Biercine measure in the first
two lines, then gave it up and resumed
the dactyl. 1.-The apparel does not pro-
claim the man.; this is underdone prose,
having no known meter. "Polonius lied
like partisan" has the air of an iambic
tetrameter. whilst the third and fourth
%,,o IoEs
''The Perverted Village" line %.
And rather than come back prefers to de-
Only the very largest caps would even
suggest that this line is poetry. 1t con-
tains the necessary ten syllables-that
is all.
On page 81, dedicated to Dan Burns,
there is a line:
Though really 'twere easy to conceive
Mr.. Bierce must have had the "O'Reillyn
in his mind when he used the word really
as trisyllable. By common usage really
has only two syllables. Mr.. Bierce gave it
three to help out his feet.
On page 143 Mr.. Bierce refers to s'The
mammoth squash strawberry all the year."
Here he gets between the devil and the
deep sea. To get even the semblance of
rhythm he throws the accent on the Sec
ond syllable, and thus is guilty of mis-
pronunciation.
On page Ill Mr.. Bierce makes chair on''
rhyme with "baron" and ''once" with
"wince," and later, on page 152, 'air" is
made to mate with Mayor"
In his "Transmigration of Soul" Mr..
Bierce sings:
"But spare the young that proselytng sin,
Arx;y,
Where did Mr.. Bierce get the word
proselyting? Was not proselytize good
enough? No scholar would take such
liberties with Madam the Verb. Again,
''resurrected" any scholar use such
vile trash? Could not Mr.. Bierce remem-
Der that the word "resurge" Ito rise again,
not to raise up to new life) was at his dis
posal? Again on page 40 Mr.. Bierce uses
the word "porrect" in the line:
The long spear brandsh and porrect the shield.
AS an adjective formed from the past
participle of the Latin verb ''porrigo"
MIR. Bierce might have used it, but its
use as transitive verb is simply an outrage.
On page 135 Mr.. Bierce affirms:
'The twoll afine
And in chemical embrace combine"
Mr.. Bierce uses the word affine as sub
stitute for combine. Affine comes from
the French affiner, and is a verb transitive,
meaning to refine metal, and has no such
meaning as affinity. That fact should
have been known to Mr.. Bierce.
In the "Mackaiad'' Mr.. Bierce tells us
'and science said that the seismic ac-
tion." Is this poetry? No, it is pow
erty stricken prose. He follows with the
line:
Was owing to an asteroids impaction.
mpaction'-impact with what2 I'm.
FACTION literally means constipation. Con-
stipation in an asteroid-what stuff
presume he meant impact-a sharp blow,
but that would have broken his mctrical
legs, and therefore he did not use it. It
may be asserted with some show of reason
that Mr.. Bierce suffers from mental i'm
pacticn-as expressed in the quotation:
"Should the cause of morbid action be
impaction of feces n they must
be, exercised or urged along the
bowel by prudent force"
"Back Beetles" reflects no credit upon