The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1895-10-20
THE DEGENERACY OF
AMBROSE BIERCE.
By WILLIAM GREER HARRISON.


our small world at his feet. Then his sat
ire lad the keenness of the stiletto. Then
San Francisco laughed with him. Occa-
sionally since then our people have Uttered
over periodic suggestions of brilliant
past. To-day the world laughs at Ambrose
Bierce as they would laugh at any other
man who uses bludgeon believing he is
playing with the foil.
Once he was epigrammatic and his terse,
sharp pointed humor told it's own story
without elaboration. Now he employs
column of matter to enable him to say of a
man that he is an ass.
Has age dulled his intellect? No, he is
relatively young man, and his work
should be stronger and richer for the long
practice of a once cunning hand.
Once Mr.. Bierce was original, now he is
content to plagiarize from himself and
quotes Ambrose bierce as his sole authority.
1t does not require any very large amount
of brains to enable one man to call another
fool or donkey or an ass. That is
form of Billingsgate easily acquired. In
his later days Mr.. Bierce stands upon a
monument whose base is his undying
self.conceit, wildly waving a ponderous
beam, killing unfortunate insects foolishly
Yenturing within his reach.
Mr.. Bierce's case offers study to the
analyst. What has produced this strange
degeneracy? Is 1t degeneracy, or is it that
the glamour has gone and that the
monotony of his wit has dispelled belief
IN Its potency, or is it that men no longer
tear sting, the too constant use of which
has destroyed its point2 Or is it that Am
brose Blerce, weary of his mask, has IN
covered the real Bierce, and, glorying in
his own shame, reveals himself as he
really is? What is Ambrose BierceP A
critic who cannot criticize, an author who
cannot write. Why? Because he aban-
doned the field of criticism, in its
true sense, to take up the work of a mere
compiler OF his own fugitive sketches.
His published efforts were failures. A
kindly merchant subject to his entreaty
had unwisely become an amateur pub
| Usher, and Mr.. Bierce's works were given
to the public. The public pitilessly re-
fused them. Mr.. Bierce had spent the
worst part of his life in abusing almost
every man and woman who dared to enter
the literary lists, and when his own works
were presented this fact was not forgot
ten. He was not abused-he was simply
damned by the negative method-no one
cared to read him. And yet his works
have great merit and deserved a better
fate. 1t may be mere conceit or it may
be the truth that while all other human
qualities have disappeared from Mr..
Bierce's nature, memory may have re-
belled and refused TO be silent, and that
Mr.. Bierce was made to see the long line
OF unfortunaues whom he had mercilessly
destroyed, and that the sight instead of
humanizing him had the reverse effect.
For years he poisoned his darts. At last
he poisoned himself with his own venom =.
Once he could dissect, now he can merely
scoId.
1t would be easy to say OF Mr.. Bierce
that he is suffering ape, a shambling
idiot, an ill-visaged 'maphrodite, q literary
monstrosity; but to say so would not be
to afford evidence that be is all of these,
though he may be said to be each of them
in part. But that would be merely follow
ing Mr.. Bierces later and most objection
able methods.
Mr.. Bierce once had the skill and dispo-
sition to attack mans work; he still has
the disposition, but he lacks the skill. Now
he is content to resort to mere personalities,
slightest knowledge of his work. He can
not fire, SO he burns saltpeter to remind
himself that he still lives. 1t would be
easy to assert that Ambrose Bierce is man
without manliness, a being without feel
ing, an existence without purpose; but
that method is too Biercine to be legiti-
mately used. 1t may be briefly said that
he is without any moral sense, ard that he
has not the slightest conception of what
constitutes gentleman. This is illus
trated by his sacrilegious attack upon the
Lords Prayer and his brutal assault upon
one of the most charming and brilliant
women of our country.
But his personal qualities are not worth
consid ering. What is subject to inquiry is
his egotistical assumption of the office of
censor. Is his authority to be found in the
only evidence before us-the work of his
penn We cannot look into his life-it is a
blank. We must find the man in his Pratt
tie. AS there is absolutely not one particle
of the man in his weekly scold, no indica-
ton of genius, not even suggestion of the
past beyond the tiresome repetition of
things uttered long ago, there is but one
conclusion left-Bierce is undoubtedly in
sane. Would even novice tell his readers
that the object of his attack was utterly
Insignificant, and then proceed to waste a
column of matter in mere personal abuse :?
No. The old Bierce would not have been
compelled to resort to a postscript to ad-
wise his readers as to what his elaborate
foolishness was intended to convey.
A too vast admiration of himself has I'M
done poor Berce. He has knelt to him
self, taken off his hat to himself so long
that the refusal of the world-of any body
to initiate him is gall and bitterness to his
morbid nature and his self-love and self
homage, like unwholesome secretions, are
telling upon his blood and softening b is
brain. Regarded from a literary stand
point he is a poor, shapeless, toothless
wreck who deserves no pity, yet is pite-
Gus sight.
Mr.. Bierce might have won any prize he
desired in the literary world had he been
human. He has failed because, in at
tempting to destroy others, he has de-
stroyed his own powers. He is now a
wasp without its sting-an ill-natured, I'M
charitable, heartless being, who finds his
sole delight in the effort to pain others.
He has the quality of mind which justifies
q holi &c ,y,4 Il H.