Ambrose Gwinett Bierce Quotes on Custom & Convention (3 Quotes)

HIBERNATE, v. i. To pass the winter season in domestic seclusion. There have been many singular popular notions about the hibernation of various animals. Many believe that the bear hibernates during the whole winter and subsists by mechanically sucking its paws. It is admitted that it comes out of its retirement in the spring so lean that it had to try twice before it can cast a shadow. Three or four centuries ago, in England, no fact was better attested than that swallows passed the winter months in the mud at the bottom of their brooks, clinging together in globular masses. They have apparently been compelled to give up the custom and account of the foulness of the brooks. Sotus Ecobius discovered in Central Asia a whole nation of people who hibernate. By some investigators, the fasting of Lent is supposed to have been originally a modified form of hibernation, to which the Church gave a religious significance but this view was strenuously opposed by that eminent authority, Bishop Kip, who did not wish any honors denied to the memory of the Founder of his family.

SEAL, n. A mark impressed upon certain kinds of documents to attest their authenticity and authority. Sometimes it is stamped upon wax, and attached to the paper, sometimes into the paper itself. Sealing, in this sense, is a survival of an ancient custom of inscribing important papers with cabalistic words or signs to give them a magical efficacy independent of the authority that they represent. In the British museum are preserved many ancient papers, mostly of a sacerdotal character, validated by necromantic pentagrams and other devices, frequently initial letters of words to conjure with and in many instances these are attached in the same way that seals are appended now. As nearly every reasonless and apparently meaningless custom, rite or observance of modern times had origin in some remote utility, it is pleasing to note an example of ancient nonsense evolving in the process of ages into something really useful. Our word sincere is derived from sine cero, without wax, but the learned are not in agreement as to whether this refers to the absence of the cabalistic signs, or to that of the wax with which letters were formerly closed from public scrutiny. Either view of the matter will serve one in immediate need of an hypothesis. The initials L. S., commonly appended to signatures of legal documents, mean locum sigillis, the place of the seal, although the seal is no longer used --an admirable example of conservatism distinguishing Man from the beasts that perish. The words locum sigillis are humbly suggested as a suitable motto for the Pribyloff Islands whenever they shall take their place as a sovereign State of the American Union.

SHERIFF, n. In America the chief executive office of a country, whose most characteristic duties, in some of the Western and Southern States, are the catching and hanging of rogues.John Elmer Pettibone Cajee(I write of him with little glee) Was just as bad as he could be.'Twas frequently remarked I swon The sun has never looked upon So bad a man as Neighbor John.A sinner through and through, he had This added fault it made him mad To know another man was bad.In such a case he thought it right To rise at any hour of night And quench that wicked person's light.Despite the town's entreaties, he Would hale him to the nearest tree And leave him swinging wide and free.Or sometimes, if the humor came, A luckless wight's reluctant frame Was given to the cheerful flame.While it was turning nice and brown, All unconcerned John met the frown Of that austere and righteous town.How sad, his neighbors said, that he So scornful of the law should be -- An anar c, h, i, s, t.(That is the way that they preferred To utter the abhorrent word, So strong the aversion that it stirred.)Resolved, they said, continuing,That Badman John must cease this thing Of having his unlawful fling.Now, by these sacred relics --here Each man had out a souvenir Got at a lynching yesteryear --By these we swear he shall forsake His ways, nor cause our hearts to ache By sins of rope and torch and stake.We'll tie his red right hand until He'll have small freedom to fulfil The mandates of his lawless will.So, in convention then and there, They named him Sheriff. The affair Was opened, it is said, with prayer. --J. Milton Sloluck