A Son of the Gods and A Horseman in the Sky

A Son of the Gods and A
Horseman in the Sky
by
Ambrose Bierce

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Title: A Son of the Gods and A Horseman in the Sky
Author: Ambrose Bierce
Release Date: May, 2004 [EBook #5661] [Yes, we are more than one
year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on August 5, 2002]
Edition: 10
Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, A SON OF
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Western Classics No. Four

A Son of the Gods and A Horseman in the Sky

By Ambrose Bierce

Including an Introduction by W. C. Morrow

The Photogravure Frontispiece After A Painting by Will Jenkins

The Introduction

Brilliant and magnetic as are these two studies by Ambrose Bierce, and
especially significant as coming from one who was a boy soldier in the
Civil War, they merely reflect one side of his original and
many-faceted genius. Poet, critic, satirist, fun-maker, incomparable
writer of fables and masterly prose sketches, a seer of startling insight,
a reasoner mercilessly logical, with the delicate wit and keenness of an
Irving or an Addison, the dramatic quality of a Hugo, - all of these, and
still in the prime of his powers; yet so restricted has been his output and
so little exploited that only the judicious few have been impressed.
Although an American, he formed his bent years ago in London, where
he was associated with the younger Hood on Fun. There he laid the
foundation for that reputation which he today enjoys: the distinction of
being the last of the scholarly satirists. With that training he came to
San Francisco, where, in an environment equally as genial, his talent
grew and mellowed through the years. Then he was summoned to New
York to assist a newspaper fight against a great railroad, since the
conclusion of which brilliant campaign eastern journalism and
magazine work have claimed his attention.
Two volumes, "The Fiend's Delight" and "Cobwebs from an Empty
Skull" titles that would damn modern books - were collections
published years ago from his work on London Fun. Their appearance
made him at once the chief wit and humorist of England, and,
combined with his satirical work on Fun, led to his engagement by
friends of the exiled Eugénie to conduct a periodical against her
enemies, who purposed to make her refuge in England untenable by
means of newspaper attacks. It is easy to imagine the zest with which
the chivalrous Bierce plunged into preparations for the fight. But the
struggle never came; it was sufficient to learn that Bierce would be the
Richmond; the attack upon the stricken ex-empress was abandoned.
When he was urged in San Francisco, years afterward, to write more of
the inimitable things that filled those two volumes, he said that it was

only fun, a boy's work. Only fun! There has never been such delicious
fun since the beginning of literature, and there is nothing better than
fun. Yet it held his own peculiar quality, which is not that of American
fun, - quality of a brilliant intellectuality: the keenness of a rapier, a
teasing subtlety, a contempt for pharisaism and squeamishness, and
above all a fine philosophy. While he has never lost his sense of the
whimsical, the grotesque, the unusual, he - unfortunately, perhaps -
came oftener to give it the form of pure wit rather than of cajoling
humor. Few Americans know him as a humorist, because his humor is
not built on the broad, rough lines that are typically American. It
belongs to an older civilization, yet it is jollier than the English and
bolder than the French.
At all times his incomparable wit and