Summary: Xmas:<br> The most glorious misanthrope, Bierce, gives the best holiday greetings.<br> -The Voice before the Void<br> “A Social Call”<br> Ambrose Bierce<br> Well, well, old Father Christmas, is it you,<br> With your thick neck and thin pretense of virtue?<br> Less redness in the nose—nay, even some blue<br> Would not, I think, particularly hurt you.<br> When seen close to, not mounted in your car,<br> You look the drunkard and the pig you are.<br> No matter, sit you down, for I am not<br> In a gray study, as you sometimes find me.<br> Merry? O, no, nor wish to be, God wot,<br> But there’s another year of pain behind me.<br> That’s something to be thankful for: the more<br> There are behind, the fewer are before.<br> I know you, Father Christmas, for a scamp,<br> But Heaven endowed me at my soul’s creation<br> With an affinity to every tramp<br> That walks the world and steals its admiration.<br> For admiration is like linen left<br> Upon the line—got easiest by theft.<br> Good God! old man, just think of it! I’ve stood,<br> With brains and honesty, some five-and-twenty<br> Long years as champion of all that’s good,<br> And taken on the mazzard thwacks a-plenty.<br> Yet now whose praises do the people bawl?<br> Those of the fellows whom I live to maul!<br> Why, this is odd!—the more I try to talk<br> Of you the more my tongue grows egotistic<br> To prattle of myself! I’ll try to balk<br> Its waywardness and be more altruistic.<br> So let us speak of others—how they sin,<br> And what a devil of a state they ‘re in!<br> That’s all I have to say. Good-bye, old man.<br> Next year you possibly may find me scolding—<br> Or miss me altogether: Nature’s plan<br> Includes, as I suppose, a final folding<br> Of these poor empty hands. Then drop a tear<br> To think they’ll never box another ear.<br>
