The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 09: Tangential Views — John Shaqi
The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 09: Tangential ViewsBierce, Ambrose
General
The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 09: Tangential Views
Bierce, Ambrose
American essays; American literature
gorilla will beat his enemy’s breast and let that creature do the
roaring.
Certain advantages of urban life—an invention of civilization—ought to
be comparatively easy of exposition in an attractive way. The practice
of abolishing the hours of rest by means of lights and rattling
vehicles; of generating sewer-gas and conducting it into dwellings;
of loading the atmosphere with beautiful brown smoke and assorted
exhalations before taking it into the lungs; of drinking whisky, or
water from cow pastures; of eating animals that have been a long time
dead,—of all these and many other blessings of civilization the monkeys
can acquire knowledge, desire and, eventually, possession. Doubtless we
shall have some small difficulty in explaining the advantages of the
incaudate state (for civilization implies renunciation of the tail),
the comfortableness of the stiff hat and shirt collar (for civilization
entails clothing), the grace of the steel-pen coat, the beauty of the
skin-tight sleeve and the sanitary effect of the corset; but if the
monkey language, unlike that of the Houyhnhnms, supplies facilities
for “saying the thing that is not” we shall eventually convince our
arboreal pupils that black is not only white but a beautiful écru
green.
The next step will naturally be the investing them with citizenship and
the right to vote according to the dictates of the bosses. When by that
investiture they have been duly instated in “the seats of power,” the
monkeys will form one of the most precious of our political elements,
though hardly distinguishable from some of the political elements
with which we are now blest. Their enfranchising will be no radical
innovation; it will merely make the political pile complete—though the
possible defection of the philosopher element in the near future may
somewhat mar the symmetry of the edifice until the gap can be stopped
by enfranchisement of dogs and horses.
Even if all this is but the gorgeous dream of a too hopeful optimism,
it is nevertheless good to know that Professor Garner can understand
Monkey. If we fail to persuade the monkeys forward along the line of
progress to our advanced position it will be pleasant to have from them
an occasional word of cheer and welcome as we are led back to theirs.
THE SOCIALIST—WHAT HE IS, AND WHY
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