The Right to Take Oneself Off, Ambrose Bierce

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
The Right to take Oneself Off from The Shadow on
the Dial and other essays by Ambrose Bierce. This is
a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org.
Recording by Dale Growthman The Right to Take Oneself Off

(00:24):
by Ambrose Bierce. A person who loses heart and hope
through a personal bereavement is like a grain of sand
on the seashore complaining that the tide has washed a
neighboring grain of sand out of reach. He is worse
for the bereaved grain cannot help itself. It has to

(00:45):
be a grain of sand and play the game of tide,
win or lose, whereas he can quit by watching his opportunity,
can quit a winner, for sometimes we do beat the
man who keeps the table, never in the long run,
but infrequently and out of small stakes. But this is

(01:06):
no time to cash in and go, for you cannot
take your little winnings with you. The time to quit
is when you have lost a big stake, your full
hope of eventual success, your fortitude, and your love of
the game. If you stay in the game, which you
are not compelled to do. Take your losses in good temper,

(01:27):
and do not whine about them. They are hard to bear,
But that is no reason why you should be. But
we are told, with tiresome iteration, that we are put
here for some purpose not disclosed, and have no right
to retire until summoned. It may be by smallpox, it
may be by the bludgeon of a black guard, it

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may be by the kick of a cow. The summoning power,
said to be the same as the pudding power, has
not a nice taste in the choice of That argument
is not worth attention, for it is unsupported by either
evidence or anything remotely resembling evidence put here indeed, and

(02:13):
by the keeper of the table who runs the skin game.
We were put here by our parents, That is all
anybody knows about it, and they had no more authority
than we, and probably no more intention. The notion that
we have no right to take our own lives comes
from our consciousness that we have not the courage. It

(02:35):
is the plea of the coward, his excuse for continuing
to live when he has nothing to live for, or
his provision against such a time in the future, if
he were not egotists as well as coward He would
need no excuse to one who does not regard himself
as the center of creation and his sorrow as the

(02:55):
throes of the universe. Life, if not worth living, is
all so not worth leaving. The ancient philosopher, who was
asked why he did not the if, as he taught,
life was no better than death, replied, because death is
no better than life. We do not know that either

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proposition is true, but the matter is not worth bothering about,
for both states are supportable, life despite its pleasures, and
death despite its repose. It was Robert g. Ingersoll's opinion
that there is rather too little than too much suicide
in the world, that people are so cowardly as to

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live on long after endurance has ceased to be a virtue.
This view is but a return to the wisdom of
the ancients, in whose splendid civilization, suicide was an honorable
place as any other courageous, reasonable, and unselfish act. Anthony
Brutus Cato Seneca, These were not the kind of men

(04:00):
to do deeds of cowardice and folly. The smug, self
righteous modern way of looking upon the act as that
of a craven or a lunatic is the creation of priests, philistines,
and women. If courage is manifest in endurance of profitless discomfort,
it is cowardice to warm oneself when cold, to cure

(04:23):
oneself when ill, to drive away mosquitoes, to go in
when it rains. The pursuit of happiness, then, is not
an inalienable right, for that implies avoidance of pain. No
principle is involved in this matter. Suicide is justifiable or
not according to the circumstances. Each case is to be

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considered on his merits, and he, having the act under advisement,
is the sole judge to his decision made with whatever
light he may have chance to have. All honest minds
will bow. The appellate has no court in which to
take his appeal. Nowhere is a justification so comprehensive as

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to embrace the right of condemning the wretched to life.
Suicide is always courageous. We call it courage in a
soldier merely to face death, say, to lead a forlorn hope,
although he has a chance of life and a certainty
of glory. But the suicide does more than face death.
He incurs it and with a certainty not of glory,

(05:30):
but of reproach. If that is not courage, we must
reform our vocabulary. True, there may be a higher courage
in living than in dying, a moral courage greater than physical.
The courage of the suicide, like that of the pirate,
is not incompatible with a selfish disregard of the rights

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and interests of others, a cruel requency to duty and decency.
I have been asked, do you not think it cowardly
than a man leaves his family unprovided for to end
his life because he is dissatisfied with life in general? No?
I do not. I think it selfish and cruel. Is

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that not enough to say of it? Must we distort
words from their true meaning in order more efficiently to
damn the act and cover its author with the greater infamy.
A word means something, despite the meanderings of the lexicographers.
It does not mean whatever you want it to mean.

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Cowardice means the fear of danger, not the shirking of duty.
The writer who allows himself as much liberty in the
use of words as he is allowed by the dictionary
maker and by popular consent is a bad writer. He
can make no impression on his readers, and would do
better service at a ribbon counter. The ethics of suicide

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is not a simple matter. One cannot lay down laws
of universe application. But each case is to be judged,
if judged at all, with the full knowledge of all
the circumstances, including the mental and moral makeup of the
person taking his own life. An impossible qualification for judgment.

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One's time, race, and religion will have much to do
with it. Some people, like the ancient Romans and the
modern Japanese, have considered suicide in certain circumstances honorable and obligatory.
Among ourselves it is held in disfavor. A man of
sense will not give much attention to considerations of that kind,

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accepting as in so far they affect others, but in
judging weak offenders they are to be taken into account.
Speaking generally, then I should say that in our time
and country, the following persons and some others are justified
in removing themselves, and that to some of them it

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is a duty. One affected with a painful or a
loathesome and incurable disease, one who is in a heavy
burden to his friends with no prospect of their relief.
One threatened with permanent insanity, one irreclaimably addicted to drunkenness

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or some similar destructive or offensive habit. One without friends, property, employment,
or hope. One who has disgraced himself. Why do we
honor the valiant soldier, sailor, or fireman for obedience to duty?

(08:40):
Not at all? That alone without the peril seldom elicits remark,
never evokes enthusiasm. It is because he faces, without flinching,
the risk of that supreme disaster, or what we feel
to be such death. But look you. The soldier braves
the danger of deay. The suicide braves death itself. The

(09:04):
leader of the forlorn hope may not be struck. The
sailor who voluntarily goes down with his ship may be
picked up or cast ashore. It is not certain that
the wall will topple until the fireman shall have descended
with his precious burden. But the suicide he is the
foeman that never missed a mark. He is the sea

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that gives nothing back. The wall that he mounts bears
no man's weight, and his at the end of it
all is the dishonored grave where the wild ass of
public opinion stamps over his head, but cannot break his sleep.
The end of the right to take oneself off by

(09:48):
Ambrose Beers