The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays, by
Ambrose Bierce

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Title: The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays
1909

Author: Ambrose Bierce

Editor: S.O. Howes

Release Date: May 2, 2008 [EBook #25304]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SHADOW ON THE DIAL ***

Produced by David Widger

THE SHADOW ON THE DIAL AND OTHER ESSAYS

By Ambrose Bierce

Edited by S. O. HOWES

Copyright 1909

A NOTE BY THE AUTHOR

IT WAS expected that this book would be included in my "Collected
Works" now in course of publication, but unforeseen delay in the date of
publication has made this impossible. The selection of its contents was
not made by me, but the choice has my approval and the publication my
authority.

AMBROSE BIERCE.

Washington, D. C. March 14. 1909.

PREFACE

THE note of prophecy! It sounds sharp and clear in many a vibrant line,
in many a sonorous sentence of the essays herein collected for the
first time. Written for various Californian journals and periodicals
and extending over a period of more than a quarter of a century, these
opinions and reflections express the refined judgment of one who has
seen, not as through a glass darkly, the trend of events. And having
seen the portentous effigy that we are making of the Liberty our fathers
created, he has written of it in English that is the despair of those
who, thinking less clearly, escape not the pitfalls of diffuseness and
obscurity. For Mr. Bierce, as did Flaubert, holds that the right word is
necessary for the conveyance of the right thought and his sense of word
values rarely betrays him into error. But with an odd--I might almost
say perverse--indifference to his own reputation, he has allowed
these writings to lie fallow in the old files of papers, while others,
possessing the knack of publicity, years later tilled the soil with
some degree of success. President Hadley, of Yale University, before
the Candlelight Club of Denver, January 8, 1900, advanced, as novel and
original, ostracism as an effective punishment of social highwaymen.
This address attracted widespread attenti