PREFACE.
Some small part of this book being personally censorious,
and in that
part the names of real persons being used without
their assent, it seems
fit that a few words be said of the matter in sober
prose. What it seems
well to say I have already said with sufficient clarity
in the preface
of another book, somewhat allied to this by that feature
of its
character. I quote from “Black Beetles
in Amber:”
“Many of the verses in this book are republished,
with considerable
alterations, from various newspapers. Of my motives
in writing and in
now republishing I do not care to make either defence
or explanation,
except with reference to those who since my first
censure of them have
passed away. To one having only a reader’s
interest in the matter it may
easily seem that the verses relating to those might
properly have been
omitted from this collection. But if these pieces,
or indeed, if any
considerable part of my work in literature, have the
intrinsic worth
which by this attempt to preserve some of it I have
assumed, their
permanent suppression is impossible, and it is only
a question of when
and by whom they will be republished. Some one
will surely search them
out and put them in circulation.
“I conceive it the right of an author to have
his fugitive work
collected in his lifetime; and this seems to me especially
true of one
whose work, necessarily engendering animosities, is
peculiarly exposed
to challenge as unjust. That is a charge that
can best be examined
before time has effaced the evidence. For the
death of a man of whom
I have written what I may venture to think worthy
to live I am no way
responsible; and however sincerely I may regret it,
I can hardly consent
that it shall affect my literary fortunes. If
the satirist who does not
accept the remarkable doctrine that, while condemning
the sin he should
spare the sinner, were bound to let the life of his
work be coterminous
with that of his subject his were a lot of peculiar
hardship.
“Persuaded of the validity of all this I have
not hesitated to reprint
even certain ‘epitaphs’ which, once of
the living, are now of the dead,
as all the others must eventually be. The objection
inheres in all forms
of applied satire—my understanding of whose
laws and liberties is at
least derived from reverent study of the masters.
That in respect of
matters herein mentioned I have but followed their
practice can be shown
by abundant instance and example.”
In arranging these verses for publication I have thought
it needless
to classify them according to character, as “Serious,”
“Comic,”
“Sentimental,” “Satirical,”
and so forth. I do the reader the honor to
think that he will readily discern the nature of what
he is reading;
and I entertain the hope that his mood will accommodate
itself without
disappointment to that of his author.
AMBROSE BIERCE.
