“Quotation, n: The act of repeating erroneously the words of another.” Ambrose Bierce
I told Aggie I almost named him Ambrose, so many years ago, when I thought he was only going to be a fourteen-day foster. Ambrose Bierce was on my desk at the time. I love him, his The Unabridged Devil’s Dictionary makes me feel kinder about America at the moment; the world couldn’t have done without it. Anyway, I was suffering a crisis of faith at the time, and so the foster cat became Agnost, and that is my darling Aggie! Ambrose was the 10th of 13 children, all of whom were given names beginning with the letter “A”. In order of birth, the Bierce siblings were Abigail, Amelia, Ann, Addison, Aurelius, Augustus, Almeda, Andrew, Albert, Ambrose, Arthur, Adelia, and Aurelia. (In case we ever get more fosters.)
As I trawl the history books for gobbets every day, I often chastise myself and remember how critical Bierce was of “Puritan values” and people who “made a fuss” about genealogy. My dad identified with him because he was also a ‘Townie’ among the ‘Gownies’, tradesmen among academics. Ambrose’s parents were poor, but they read like the blazes, and instilled in him a deep love for books and writing. Like my dad, he was just 15 when he left school and went off to become a printer’s devil, an apprentice printer, at a newspaper.
He had everything going for him. At just twenty-one, he was commissioned as a first lieutenant and assigned to draw maps of possible battlefields, the perfect job for someone so sharp, curious, and brave. It suited his Wondernaut spirit down to the ground. The top brass thought he was destined for greatness and backed him for West Point, saying he’d graduate with distinction. But like so many brilliant boys who start strong, he never made it. A traumatic head injury during the war knocked him off course, and though he returned to duty for a while, the effects lingered. He resigned his commission the following year, the damage done. Later, Ambrose married a woman named Mollie Day on Christmas Day, That sounds like the start of a fairy tale, but it wasn’t. They had three children: two sons and a daughter. The boys died before their time, one by suicide after a violent heartbreak, the other from pneumonia made worse by drink. Ambrose and Mollie separated after he found love letters from another man; they divorced years later, and she died not long after that. None of it was tidy. None of it fair. But he carried on, as Wondernauts do, with wit sharpened by pain and a refusal to play the sentimentalist.
Like me at the time I got my Agnost, Ambrose Bierce was an avowed agnostic. He suffered asthma throughout his life, and the complications from his head injury in the war caused physical and mental agony. When he was 71, old Ambrose had enough, and he stepped out of his house in Washington. He said he was going to walk to Mexico to watch the war going on there. He never came back, making his one of the most famous disappearances in American literary history. His last letters were unapologetic:
“As to me, I leave here tomorrow for an unknown destination, good-bye. If you hear of my being stood up against a Mexican stone wall and shot to rags, please know that I think it is a pretty good way to depart this life. It beats old age, disease, or falling down the cellar stairs. To be a Gringo in Mexico–ah, that is euthanasia!”
Ambrose was a true Wondernaut, more than an astronaut, always curious; always moving on. Movin’ On is the perfect birthday song for Ambrose. The song was written by Mick Ralphs (Michael Geoffrey Ralphs) who died this week. He was an English guitarist, vocalist and songwriter, and founding member of memorable rock bands Mott the Hoople and Bad Company. He was 81. Happy wondering, Mick, Rest in Peace, and thanks for the music.
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