The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce

The Collected Works of Ambrose
Bierce

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Ambrose Bierce This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no
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Title: The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce
Author: Ambrose Bierce
Release Date: September 27, 2004 [EBook #13541]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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THE COLLECTED WORKS OF

AMBROSE BIERCE

VOLUME 1
1909

CONTENTS

ASHES OF THE BEACON
THE LAND BEYOND THE BLOW THITHER SONS OF THE FAIR
STAR AN INTERVIEW WITH GNARMAG-ZOTE THE
TAMTONIANS MAROONED ON UG THE DOG IN GANGEWAG
A CONFLAGRATION IN GHARGAROO AN EXECUTION IN
BATRUGIA THE JUMJUM OF GOKEETLE-GUK THE KINGDOM
OF TORTIRRA HITHER
FOR THE AHKOOND
JOHN SMITH, LIBERATOR
BITS OF AUTOBIOGRAPHY ON A MOUNTAIN WHAT I SAW OF
SHILOH A LITTLE OF CHICKAMAUCA THE CRIME AT
PICKETT'S MILL FOUR DAYS IN DIXIE WHAT OCCURRED AT
FRANKLIN 'WAY DOWN IN ALABAM' WORKING FOR AN
EMPRESS ACROSS THE PLAINS THE MIRAGE A SOLE
SURVIVOR

ASHES OF THE BEACON

ASHES OF THE BEACON
AN HISTORICAL MONOGRAPH WRITTEN IN 4930
Of the many causes that conspired to bring about the lamentable failure
of "self-government" in ancient America the most general and
comprehensive was, of course, the impracticable nature of the system
itself. In the light of modern culture, and instructed by history, we
readily discern the folly of those crude ideas upon which the ancient
Americans based what they knew as "republican institutions," and
maintained, as long as maintenance was possible, with something of a
religious fervor, even when the results were visibly disastrous. To us of
to-day it is clear that the word "self-government" involves a
contradiction, for government means control by something other than
the thing to be controlled. When the thing governed is the same as the
thing governing there is no government, though for a time there may be,
as in the case under consideration there was, a considerable degree of
forbearance, giving a misleading appearance of public order. This,
however, soon must, as in fact it soon did, pass away with the delusion
that gave it birth. The habit of obedience to written law, inculcated by
generations of respect for actual government able to enforce its

authority, will persist for a long time, with an ever lessening power
upon the imagination of the people; but there comes a time when the
tradition is forgotten and the delusion exhausted. When men perceive
that nothing is restraining them but their consent to be restrained, then
at last there is nothing to obstruct the free play of that selfishness which
is the dominant characteristic and fundamental motive of human nature
and human action respectively. Politics, which may have had
something of the character of a contest of principles, becomes a
struggle of interests, and its methods are frankly serviceable to personal
and class advantage. Patriotism and respect for law pass like a tale that
is told. Anarchy, no longer disguised as "government by consent,"
reveals his hidden hand, and in the words of our greatest living poet,
lets the curtain fall, And universal darkness buries all!
The ancient Americans were a composite people; their blood was a
blend of all the strains known in their time. Their government, while
they had one, being merely a loose and mutable expression of the
desires and caprices of the majority--that is to say, of the ignorant,
restless and reckless--gave the freest rein and play to all the primal
instincts and elemental passions of the race. In so far and for so long as
it had any restraining force, it was only the restraint of the present over
the power of the past--that of a new habit over an old and insistent
tendency ever seeking expression in large liberties and indulgences
impatient of control. In the history of that unhappy people, therefore,
we see unveiled the workings of the human will in its most lawless
state, without fear of authority or care of consequence. Nothing could
be more instructive.
Of the American form of government, although itself the greatest of
evils afflicting the victims of those that it entailed, but little needs to be
said here; it has perished from the earth, a system discredited by an
unbroken record of failure in all parts of the world, from the earliest
historic times to its final extinction. Of living students of political
history not one professes to see in it anything but a mischievous
creation of theorists and visionaries--persons whom