COLUMN: Bitter or Brainy or Both?

By Tobin Barnes
“PHILANTHROPIST, n. A rich (and usually bald) old gentleman who has trained himself to grin while his conscience is picking his pocket.”

That’s a definition from American writer Ambrose Bierce’s Devil’s Dictionary.

Bierce is better known for his Civil War short stories, such as “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” about a southern saboteur who, as he’s about to be hanged, imagines his escape back to his wife. But imagination ends up far from reality as the story concludes with the man dead at the end of a rope.

Bierce can be caustic, if not cynical. Some referred to him as “Bitter Bierce.”

I, on the other hand, find him fascinating, especially for someone who lived most of his life in the staid nineteenth century, serving gallantly as a Union officer in the Civil War.

He disappeared without a trace in the midst of the Mexican Revolution. He was by then an elderly journalist following a rebel band and, evidently, still looking for adventure. It’s speculated that he was probably put up against a wall by the Federales and shot to pieces.

So why do I find his writing fascinating, cynical though it can oftentimes be?

Well, cynicism can be a useful tool for both the social critic and the satirist. It can snap us back into a more realistic viewpoint whenever we’ve been too much seduced into lala-land by the slick spinmeisters and charlatans that besiege us.

Dreams have their uses but they must be fulfilled in reality. And that’s where a well-tempered cynicism, albeit one that does not admit defeat, can actually aid humanity.

Bierce’s Devil’s Dictionary is a satirical masterpiece. Its jaundiced eye spares nothing and no one.

“PALACE, n. A fine and costly residence, particularly that of a great official. The residence of a high dignity of the Christian Church is called a palace; that of the Founder of his religion was known as a field, or wayside. There is progress.”

The reconfiguration of accepted definitions is a brilliant ploy.

Perhaps Bierce got the idea from reading definitions from the very first dictionary of the English language that was compiled by another sometime cynic, Samuel Johnson. It took Johnson ten years to single-handedly put his dictionary together, and that, in itself, is quite an achievement. And being the first to do anything thing, of course, is always significant.

Therefore, maybe we can excuse Johnson for the obscurity of some of his definitions which sometimes need the use of another dictionary to comprehend: “NETWORK. Anything reticulated or decussated, at equal distances, with interstices between the intersections.” And “COUGH. A convulsion of the lungs vellicated by some sharp seriousity.”

The aspect of Johnson’s definitions that might have inspired Bierce was Johnson’s willingness to editorialize. For example, Johnson’s definition for “OATS. A grain which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people.” Johnson obviously did not care for Scotsmen and, it seems, haggis.

But back to Bierce.

Here’s one of Bierce’s longest definitions (I think it’s worth the read and the thought, however): “PAST, n. That part of Eternity with some small fraction of which we have a slight and regrettable acquaintance. A moving line called the Present parts it from an imaginary period known as the Future. These two grand divisions of Eternity, of which the one is continually effacing the other, are entirely unlike. The one is dark with sorrow and disappointment, the other bright with prosperity and joy. The Past is the region of sobs, the Future is the realm of song. In the one crouches Memory, clad in sackcloth and ashes, mumbling penitential prayer; in the sunshine of the other Hope flies with a free wing, beckoning to temples of success and bowers of ease. Yet the Past is the Future of yesterday, the Future is the Past of tomorrow. They are one—the knowledge and the dream.”

Cynical? No doubt.

Neglectful of the positives in life? Probably.

Profound and grimly instructive in its wit? Terribly.