Page:Bierce - Collected Works - Volume 09.djvu/22

18 arduous than any of which he has present experience. And herein we get an intimation of a hitherto unsuspected cause of the rapid decadence of savage peoples when brought into contact with civilization. Various causes doubtless are concerned, but the slaughter- house, the glue factory, the gas main, the sewer and the other sources of exhalations that "rise like the steam of rich-distilled perfumes" (which in no other quality they resemble) are the actual culprits. Unprepared with a means of defense at the point where he is most accessible to assault, the reclaimed savage falls into a decline and accepting the Christian religion for what he conceives it to be worth, turns his nose to the wall and dies in the secret hope of an inodorous eternity.

With effacement of the sense of smell we shall doubtless lose the feature which serves as intake to what it feeds upon ; and that will in many ways be an advantage. It will, for example, put a new difficulty in the way of that disagreeable person, the caricaturist — rather, it will shear him of much of his pres- ent power. The fellow never tires of furnishing forth the rest of us incredibly snouted in an infinite variety of wicked ways. When noses are no more, caricature will have stilled