HEART, n. An automatic, muscular blood-pump. Figuratively, this useful organ is said to be the esat of emotions and sentiments --a very pretty fancy which, however, is nothing but a survival of a once universal belief. It is now known that the sentiments and emotions reside in the stomach, being evolved from food by chemical action of the gastric fluid. The exact process by which a beefsteak becomes a feeling --tender or not, according to the age of the animal from which it was cut the successive stages of elaboration through which a caviar sandwich is transmuted to a quaint fancy and reappears as a pungent epigram the marvelous functional methods of converting a hard-boiled egg into religious contrition, or a cream-puff into a sigh of sensibility --these things have been patiently ascertained by M. Pasteur, and by him expounded with convincing lucidity. (See, also, my monograph, The Essential Identity of the Spiritual Affections and Certain Intestinal Gases Freed in Digestion --4to, 687 pp.) In a scientific work entitled, I believe, Delectatio Demonorum (John Camden Hotton, London, 1873) this view of the sentiments receives a striking illustration and for further light consult Professor Dam's famous treatise on Love as a Product of Alimentary Maceration.
More Quotes from Ambrose Gwinett Bierce:
CANONICALS, n. The motley worm by Jesters of the Court of Heaven.Ambrose Gwinett Bierce
SENATE, n. A body of elderly gentlemen charged with high duties and misdemeanors.
Ambrose Gwinett Bierce
CROSS, n. An ancient religious symbol erroneously supposed to owe its significance to the most solemn event in the history of Christianity, but really antedating it by thousands of years. By many it has been believed to be identical with the crux ansata of the ancient phallic worship, but it has been traced even beyond all that we know of that, to the rites of primitive peoples. We have to-day the White Cross as a symbol of chastity, and the Red Cross as a badge of benevolent neutrality in war. Having in mind the former, the reverend Father Gassalasca Jape smites the lyre to the effect followingBe good, be good the sisterhood Cry out in holy chorus, And, to dissuade from sin, parade Their various charms before us.But why, O why, has ne'er an eye Seen her of winsome manner And youthful grace and pretty face Flaunting the White Cross bannerNow where's the need of speech and screed To better our behaving A simpler plan for saving man(But, first, is he worth saving)Is, dears, when he declines to flee From bad thoughts that beset him, Ignores the Law as 't were a straw, And wants to sin --don't let him.
Ambrose Gwinett Bierce
DANGER, n.A savage beast which, when it sleeps, Man girds at and despises, But takes himself away by leaps And bounds when it arises. --Ambat Delaso
Ambrose Gwinett Bierce
This ONLY is denied God The power to undo the past.
Ambrose Gwinett Bierce
Truth -- An ingenious compound of desirability and appearance.
Ambrose Gwinett Bierce
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