I've wondered for some years whether the barb-nibbed Ambrose Bierce intended Frank Harris as the target of the following entry in his [i]Devil's Dictionary[/i]. The verse seems to agree with the opinions of other Harris-haters; and didn't Harris gleefully collect the insults tendered him? This is the entry:
Scrap-book
n.
A book that is commonly edited by a fool. Many persons of some small distinction compile scrap-books containing whatever they happen to read about themselves or employ others to collect. One of these egotists was addressed in the lines following, by Agamemnon Melancthon Peters:
Dear Frank, that scrap-book where you boast
You keep a record true
Of every kind of peppered roast
That's made of you;
Wherein you paste the printed gibes
That revel round your name,
Thinking the laughter of the scribes
Attests your fame;
Where all the pictures you arrange
That comic pencils trace --
Your funny figure and your strange
Semitic face --
Pray lend it me. Wit I have not,
Nor art, but there I'll list
The daily drubbings you'd have got
Had God a fist.
This is the only Bierce satire I know of that seems to have been born of sheer viciousness, rather than from the spur of political indignation.
Those familiar with Bierce know that "Agamemnon Melancthon Peters" is one of the temporary[i] nom[/i]s he pinned to his verses, the most active of these alter-egos being the distinguished Fr. Gassalasca Jape, S. J.
Whether Bierce and Harris ever met, and what their relations may have been, I have no idea. I haven't been able to find their names mentioned together in the 'net.
Forums
Comments
Did Ambrose cut Frank?