end of letter
Angwin,March 18,1893.
My dear Blanche,
It is good to have your letters again. If you will not let me teach you my trade of writing stories it is right that you practice your own of writing letters. You are mistress of that. Byron's letters to Moore are dull in comparison with yours to me. Some allowance, doubtless, must be made for my greater need of your letters than of Byron's. For, truth to tell, I've been a trifle dispirited and noncontent. In that mood I peremptorily resigned from theExaminer, for one thing—and permitted myself to be coaxed back by Hearst, for another. My other follies I shall not tell you. * * *
We had six inches of snow up here and it has rained steadily ever since—more than a week. And the fog is ofsuperior opacity—quite peerless that way. It is still raining and fogging. Do you wonder that your unworthy uncle has come perilously and alarmingly near to loneliness? Yet I have the companionship, at meals, of one of your excellent sex, from San Francisco. * * *
Truly, I should like to attend one of your at-homes, but I fear it must be a long time before I venture down there again. But when this brumous visitation is past I canlookdown, and that assists the imagination to picture you all in your happy (I hope) home. But if that woolly wolf, Joaquin Miller, doesn't keep outside the fold Ishallcome down and club him soundly. I quite agree with your mother that his flattery will spoil you. You said I would spoil Phyllis, and now, you bad girl, you wish to be spoiled yourself. Well, you can't eat four Millerine oranges.—My love to all your family.Ambrose Bierce.
end of letter
Angwin,March 26,1893.
My dear Partington,
I am very glad indeed to get the good account of Leigh that you give me. I've feared that he might be rather a bore to you, but you make me easy on that score. Also I am pleased that you think he has a sufficient "gift" to do something in the only direction in which he seems to care to go.
He is anxious to take the place at theExaminer, and his uncle thinks that would be best—if they will give it him. I'm a little reluctant for many reasons, but there are considerations—some of them going to the matter of character and disposition—which point to that as the best arrangement. The boy needs discipline, control, and work. He needs to learn by experience that life is not all beer and skittles. Of course you can't quite know him as I do. As tohis earning anything on theExamineror elsewhere, that cuts no figure—he'll spend everything he can get his fingers on anyhow; but I feel that he ought to have the advantage of a struggle for existence where the grass is short and the soil stony.
Well, I shall let him live down there somehow, and see what can be done with him. There's a lot of good in him, and a lot of the other thing, naturally.
I hope Hume has, or will, put you in authority in thePostand give you a decent salary. He seems quite enthusiastic about thePostand—about you.
With sincere regards to Mrs. Partington and all the Partingtonettes, I am very truly yours,Ambrose Bierce.
end of letter
Angwin,April 10,1893.
My dear Partington,
If you are undertaking to teach my kid (which, unless it is entirely agreeable to you, you must not do) I hope you will regard him as a pupil whose tuition is to be paid for like any other pupil. And you should, I think, name the price. Will you kindly do so?
Another thing. Leigh tells me you paid him for something he did for theWave. That is not right. While you let him work with you, and under you, his work belongs to you—is a part of yours. I mean the work that he does in your shop for theWave.
I don't wish to feel that you are bothering with him for nothing—will you not tell me your notion of what I should pay you?
I fancy you'll be on theExaminerpretty soon—if you wish.
With best regards to your family I am sincerely yours,Ambrose Bierce.
end of letter
Angwin,April 10,1893.
My dear Blanche,
As I was writing to your father I was, of course, strongly impressed with a sense ofyou; for you are an intrusive kind of creature, coming into one's consciousness in the most lawless way—Phyllis-like. (Phyllis is my "type and example" of lawlessness, albeit I'm devoted to her—a Phyllistine, as it were.)
Leigh sends me a notice (before the event) of your concert. I hope it was successful. Was it?
It rains or snows here all the time, and the mountain struggles in vain to put on its bravery of leaf and flower. When this kind of thing stops I'm going to put in an application for you to come up and get your bad impressions of the place effaced. It is insupportable that my earthly paradise exist in your memory as a "bad eminence," like Satan's primacy.
I'm sending you theNew England Magazine—perhaps I have sent it already—and aHarper's Weeklywith a story by Mrs. * * *, who is a sort of pupil of mine. She used to do bad work—does now sometimes; but she will do great work by-and-by.
I wish you had not got that notion that you cannot learn to write. You see I'd like you to dosomeart work that I can understand and enjoy. I wonder why it is that no note or combination of notes can be struck out of a piano that will touch me—give me an emotion of any kind. It is not wholly due to my ignorance and bad ear, for other instruments—the violin, organ, zither, guitar, etc., sometimes affect me profoundly. Come, read me the riddle if you know. What have I done that I should be inaccessible to your music? I know it is good; I can hear that it is, but not feel that it is. Therefore to me it is not.
Now that, you will confess, is a woeful state—"mosttolerable and not to be endured." Will you not cultivate some art within the scope of my capacity? Do you think you could learn to walk on a wire (if it lay on the ground)? Can you not ride three horses at once if they are suitably dead? Or swallow swords? Really, you should have some way to entertain your uncle.
True, you can talk, but you never get the chance; I always "have the floor." Clearly you must learn to write, and I mean to get Miller to teach you how to be a poet.
I hope you will write occasionally to me,—letter-writing is an art that you do excel in—as I in "appreciation" of your excellence in it.
Do you see my boy? I hope he is good, and diligent in his work.
* * *
You must write to me or I shall withdraw my avuncular relation to you.
With good will to all your people—particularly Phyllis—I am sincerely your friend,Ambrose Bierce.
end of letter
Angwin, Calif.,April 16,1893.
My dear Partington,
I think you wrong. On your own principle, laid down in your letter, that "every man has a right to the full value of his labor"—pardon me, good Englishman, I meant "laboUr"—you have a right to your wage for the laboṷr of teaching Leigh. And what work wouldheget to do but for you?
I can't hold you and inject shekels into your pocket, but if the voice of remonstrance has authority to enter at your ear without a ticket I pray you to show it hospitality.
Leigh doubtless likes to see his work in print, but I hope you will not let him put anything out until it is as good as he can make it—nor then if it is not goodenough. Andthat whether he signs it or not. I have talked to him about the relation of conscience to lab-work, but I don't know if my talk all came out at the other ear.
O—that bad joke o' mine. Where do you and Richard expect to go when death do you part? You were neither of you present that night on the dam, nor did I know either of you. Blanche, thank God, retains the old-time reverence for truth: it was to her that I said it. Richard evidently dreamed it, and you—you've been believing that confoundedWave! Sincerely yours,Ambrose Bierce.
end of letter
Angwin,April 18,1893.
My dear Blanche,
I take a few moments from work to write you in order (mainly) to say that your letter of March 31st did not go astray, as you seem to fear—though whyyoushould care if it did I can't conjecture. The loss to me—that is probably what would touch your compassionate heart.
So youwilltry to write. That is a good girl. I'm almost sure you can—not, of course, all at once, but by-and-by. And if not, what matter? You are not of the sort, I am sure, who would go on despite everything, determined to succeed by dint of determining to succeed.
* * *
We are blessed with the most amiable of all conceivable weathers up here, and the wild flowers are putting up their heads everywhere to look for you. Lying in their graves last autumn, they overheard (underheard) your promise to come in the spring, and it has stimulated and cheered them to a vigorous growth.
I'm sending you some more papers. Don't think yourself obliged to read all the stuff I send you—Idon't read it.
Condole with me—I have just lost another publisher—byfailure. Schulte, of Chicago, publisher of "The Monk" etc., has "gone under," I hear. Danziger and I have not had a cent from him. I put out three books in a year, and lo! each one brings down a publisher's gray hair in sorrow to the grave! for Langton, of "Black Beetles," came to grief—that is how Danziger got involved. "O that mine enemy wouldpublishone of my books!"
I am glad to hear of your success at your concert. If I could have reached you you should have had the biggest basket of pretty vegetables that was ever handed over the footlights. I'm sure you merited it all—what do younotmerit?
Your father gives me good accounts of my boy. Hemustbe doing well, I think, by the way he neglects all my commissions.
Enclosed you will find my contribution to the Partington art gallery, with an autograph letter from the artist. You can hang them in any light you please and show them to Richard. He will doubtless be pleased to note how the latent genius of his boss has burst into bloom.
I have been wading in the creek this afternoon for pure love of it; the gravel looked so clean under the water. I was for the moment at least ten years younger than your father. To whom, and to all the rest of your people, my sincere regards, Your uncle,Ambrose Bierce.
end of letter
Angwin, Cala.,April 26,1893.
My dear Blanche,
* * *
I accept your sympathy for my misfortunes in publishing. It serves me right (I don't mean the sympathy does) for publishing. I should have known that if a publisher cannot beat an author otherwise, or is too honest to do so, he willdo it by failing. Once in London a publisher gave me a check dated two days ahead, and then (the only thing he could do to make the check worthless)—ate a pork pie and died. That was the late John Camden Hotten, to whose business and virtues my present London publishers, Chatto and Windus, have succeeded. They have not failed, and they refuse pork pie, but they deliberately altered the title of my book.
All this for your encouragement in "learning to write." Writing books is a noble profession; it has not a shade of selfishness in it—nothing worse than conceit.
O yes, you shall have your big basket of flowers if ever I catch you playing in public. I wish I could give you the carnations, lilies-of-the-valley, violets, and first-of-the-season sweet peas now on my table. They came from down near you—which fact they are trying triumphantly and as hard as they can to relate in fragrance.
I trust your mother is well of her cold—that you are all well and happy, and that Phyllis will not forget me. And may the good Lord bless you regularly every hour of every day for your merit, and every minute of every hour as a special and particular favor to Your uncle,Ambrose Bierce.
end of letter
Berkeley,October 2,1893.
My dear Blanche,
I accept with pleasure your evidence that the Piano is not as black as I have painted, albeit the logical inference is that I'm pretty black myself. Indubitably I'm "in outer darkness," and can only say to you: "Lead, kindly light." Thank you for the funny article on the luxury question—from the funny source. But you really must not expect me to answer it, nor show you wherein it is "wrong." I cannotdiscern the expediency of you having any "views" at all in those matters—even correct ones. If I could have my way you should think of more profitable things than the (conceded) "wrongness" of a world which is the habitat of a wrongheaded and wronghearted race of irreclaimable savages. * * * When woman "broadens her sympathies" they become annular. Don't.
Cosgrave came over yesterday for a "stroll," but as he had a dinner engagement to keep before going home, he was in gorgeous gear. So I kindly hoisted him atop of Grizzly Peak and sent him back across the Bay in a condition impossible to describe, save by the aid of a wet dishclout for illustration.
Please ask your father when and where he wants me to sit for the portrait. If that picture is not sold, and ever comes into my possession, I shall propose to swap it for yours. I have always wanted to lay thievish hands on that, and would even like to come by it honestly. But what under the sun would I do with either that or mine? Fancy me packing large paintings about to country hotels and places of last resort!
Leigh is living with me now. Poor chap, the death of his aunt has made him an orphan. I feel a profound compassion for any one whom an untoward fate compels to live withme. However, such a one is sure to be a good deal alone, which is a mitigation.
With good wishes for all your people, I am sincerely yours,Ambrose Bierce.
end of letter
Berkeley,December 27,1893.
My dear Blanche,
I'm sending you (by way of pretext for writing you) a magazine that I asked Richard to take to you last evening,but which he forgot. There's an illustrated article on gargoyles and the like, which will interest you. Some of the creatures are delicious—more so than I had the sense to perceive when I saw them alive on Notre Dame.
I want to thank you too for the beautiful muffler before I take to my willow chair, happy in the prospect of death. For at this hour, 10:35 p. m., I "have on" a very promising case of asthma. If I come out of it decently alive in a week or so I shall go over to your house and see the finished portrait if it is "still there," like the flag in our national anthem.
Sincerely yours,Ambrose Bierce.
end of letter
Oakland,July 31,1894.
My dear Blanche,
If you are not utterly devoured by mosquitoes perhaps you'll go to the postoffice and get this. In that hope I write, not without a strong sense of the existence of the clerks in the Dead Letter Office at Washington.
I hope you are (despite the mosquitoes) having "heaps" of rest and happiness. As to me, I have only just recovered sufficiently to be out, and "improved the occasion" by going to San Francisco yesterday and returning on the 11:15 boat. I saw Richard, and he seemed quite solemn at the thought of the dispersal of his family to the four winds.
I have a joyous letter from Leigh dated "on the road," nearing Yosemite. He has been passing through the storied land of Bret Harte, and is permeated with a sense of its beauty and romance. When shall you return? May I hope, then, to see you?
Sincerely yours,Ambrose Bierce.
P.S. Here are things that I cut out for memoranda. On second thoughtIknow all that; so send them to you for thebetterment of your mind and heart.B.
end of letter
San Jose,October 17,1894.
My dear Blanche,
Your kindly note was among a number which I put into my pocket at the postoffice and forgot until last evening when I returned from Oakland. (I dared remain up there only a few hours, and the visit did me no good.)
Of course I should have known that your good heart would prompt the wish to hear from your patient, but I fear I was a trifle misanthropic all last week, and indisposed to communicate with my species.
I came here on Monday of last week, and the change has done me good. I have no asthma and am slowly getting back my strength.
Leigh and Ina Peterson passed Sunday with me, and Leigh recounted his adventures in the mountains. I had been greatly worried about him; it seems there was abundant reason. The next time he comes I wish he would bring you. It is lovely down here. Perhaps you and Katie can come some time, and I'll drive you all over the valley—if you care to drive.
If I continue well I shall remain here or hereabout; if not I don't know where I shall go. Probably into the Santa Cruz mountains or to Gilroy. If I could have my way I'd live at Piedmont.
Do you know I lost Pin the Reptile? I brought him along in my bicycle bag (I came the latter half of the way bike-back) and the ungrateful scoundrel wormed himself out and took to the weeds just before we got to San Jose. So I've nothing to lavish my second-childhoodish affection upon—nothing but just myself.
My permanent address is Oakland, as usual, butyoumayaddress me here at San Jose if you will be so good as to address me anywhere. Please do, and tell me of your triumphs and trials at the Conservatory of Music. I do fervently hope it may prove a means of prosperity to you, for, behold, you are The Only Girl in the World Who Merits Prosperity!
Please give my friendly regards to your people; and so—Heaven be good to you.Ambrose Bierce.
end of letter
San Jose,October 28,1894.
O, Best of Poets,
How have you the heart to point out what you deem an imperfection in those lines. Upon my soul, I swear they are faultless, and "moonlight" is henceforth and forever a rhyme to "delight." Also, likewise, moreover and furthermore, a — is henceforth —; and — are forever —; and to — shall be —; and so forth. You have established new canons of literary criticism—more liberal ones—and death to the wretch who does not accept them! Ah, I always knew you were a revolutionist.
Yes, I am in better health, worse luck! For I miss the beef-teaing expeditions more than you can by trying.
By the way, if you again encounter your fellow practitioner, Mrs. Hirshberg, please tell her what has become of her patient, and that I remember her gratefully.
It is not uninteresting to me to hear of your progress in your art, albeit I am debarred from entrance into the temple where it is worshiped. After all, art finds its best usefulness in its reaction upon the character; and in that work I can trace your proficiency in the art that you love. As you become a better artist you grow a nicer girl, and if your music does not cause my tympana to move themselves aright, yet the niceness is not without its effect upon the soul o' me.So I'm not soveryinert a clod, after all.
No, Leigh has not infected me with the exploring fad. I exhausted my capacity in that way years before I had the advantage of his acquaintance and the contagion of his example. But I don't like to think of that miserable mountain sitting there and grinning in the consciousness of having beaten the Bierce family.
So—apropos of my brother—Iam "odd" after a certain fashion! My child, that is blasphemy. You grow hardier every day of your life, and you'll end as a full colonel yet, and challenge Man to mortal combat in true Stetsonian style. Know thy place, thou atom!
Speaking of colonels reminds me that one of the most eminent of the group had the assurance to write me, asking for an "audience" to consult about a benefit that she—she!—is getting up for my friend Miss * * *, a glorious writer and eccentric old maid whom you do not know. * * * evidently wants more notoriety and proposes to shine by Miss * * * light. I was compelled to lower the temperature of the situation with a letter curtly courteous. Not even to assist Miss * * * shall my name be mixed up with those of that gang. But of course all that does not amuse you.
I wish I could have a chat with you. I speak to nobody but my chambermaid and the waiter at my restaurant. By the time I see you I shall have lost the art of speech altogether and shall communicate with you by the sign language.
God be good to you and move you to write to me sometimes.
Sincerely your friend,Ambrose Bierce.
end of letter
[First part of this letter missing.]
* * *
You may, I think, expect my assistance in choosing between (or among) your suitors next month, early. I propose to try living in Oakland again for a short time beginning about then. But I shall have much to do the first few days—possibly in settling my earthly affairs for it is my determination to be hanged for killing all those suitors. That seems to me the simplest way of disembarrassing you. As to me—it is the "line of least resistance"—unless they fight.
* * *
So you have been ill. You must not be ill, my child—it disturbs my Marcus Aurelian tranquillity, and is most selfishly inconsiderate of you.
Mourn with me: the golden leaves of my poplars are now underwheel. I sigh for the perennial eucalyptus leaf of Piedmont.
I hope you are all well. Sincerely your friend,Ambrose Bierce.
end of letter
San Jose,November 20,1894.
Since writing you yesterday, dear Blanche, I have observed that the benefit to * * * is not abandoned—it is to occur in the evening of the 26th, at Golden Gate Hall, San Francisco. I recall your kind offer to act for me in any way that I might wish to assist Miss * * *. Now, I will not have my name connected with anything that the * * * woman and her sister-in-evidence may do for their own glorification, but I enclose a Wells, Fargo & Co. money order for all the money I can presently afford—wherewith you may do as you will; buy tickets, or hand it to the treasurer in your own name. I know Miss * * * must be awfully needy to accept a benefit—you have no idea how sensitive and suspiciousand difficult she is. She is almost impossible. But there are countless exactions on my lean purse, and I must do the rest with my pen. So—I thank you.
Sincerely your friend,Ambrose Bierce.
end of letter
18 Iowa Circle,Washington, D. C.,January 1,1901.
Dear Sterling,
This is just a hasty note to acknowledge receipt of your letter and the poems. I hope to reach those pretty soon and give them the attention which I am sure they will prove to merit—which I cannot do now. By the way, I wonder why most of you youngsters so persistently tackle the sonnet. For the same reason, I suppose, that a fellow always wants to make his first appearance on the stage in the rôle of "Hamlet." It is just the holy cheek of you.
Yes, Leigh prospers fairly well, and I—well, I don't know if it is prosperity; it is a pretty good time.
I suppose I shall have to write to that old scoundrel Grizzly,[1]to give him my new address, though I supposed he had it; and the old one would do, anyhow. Now that his cub has returned he probably doesn't care for the other plantigrades of his kind.
Thank you for telling me so much about some of our companions and companionesses of the long ago. I fear that not all my heart was in my baggage when I came over here. There's a bit of it, for example, out there by that little lake in the hills.
So I may have a photograph of one of your pretty sisters. Why, of course I want it—I want the entire five of them; their pictures, I mean. If you had been a nice fellow you would have let me know them long ago. And how aboutthat other pretty girl, your infinitely better half? You might sneak into the envelope a little portrait ofher, lest I forget, lest I forget. But I've not yet forgotten.
The new century's best blessings to the both o' you.Ambrose Bierce.
P.S.—In your studies of poetry have you dipped into Stedman's new "American Anthology"? It is the most notable collection of American verse that has been made—on the whole, a book worth having. In saying so I rather pride myself on my magnanimity; for of course I don't think he has done as well by me as he might have done. That, I suppose, is what every one thinks who happens to be alive to think it. So I try to be in the fashion.A. B.
[1]Albert Bierce.
end of letter
18 Iowa Circle,Washington, D. C.,January 19,1901.
My dear Sterling,
I've been a long while getting to your verses, but there were many reasons—including a broken rib. They are pretty good verses, with here and thereverygood lines. I'd a strong temptation to steal one or two for my "Passing Show," but I knew what an avalanche of verses it would bring down upon me from other poets—as every mention of a new book loads my mail with new books for a month.
If I ventured to advise you I should recommend to you the simple, ordinary meters and forms native to our language.
I await the photograph of the pretty sister—don't fancy I've forgotten.
It is 1 a. m. and I'm about to drink your health in a glass of Riesling and eat it in a pâte.
My love to Grizzly if you ever see him. Yours ever,A. B.
end of letter
Washington, D. C.,January 23,1901.
My Dear Doyle,
Your letter of the 16th has just come and as I am waiting at my office (where I seldom go) I shall amuse myself by replying "to onct." See here, I don't purpose that your attack on poor Morrow's book shall become a "continuous performance," nor even an "annual ceremony." It is not "rot." It is not "filthy." It does not "suggest bed-pans,"—at least it did not to me, and I'll wager something that Morrow never thought of them. Observe and consider: If his hero and heroine had been man and wife, the bed-pan would have been there, just the same; yet you would not have thought of it. Every reader would have been touched by the husband's devotion. A physician has to do with many unpleasant things; whom do his ministrations disgust? A trained nurse lives in an atmosphere of bed-pans—to whom is her presence or work suggestive of them? I'm thinking of the heroic Father Damien and his lepers; do you dwell upon the rotting limbs and foul distortions of his unhappy charges? Is not his voluntary martyrdom one of the sanest, cleanest, most elevating memories in all history? Then it isnotthe bed-pan necessity that disgusts you; it is something else. It is the fact that the hero of the story, being neither physician, articled nurse, nor certificated husband, nevertheless performedtheirwork. He ministered to the helpless in a natural way without authority from church or college, quite irregular and improper and all that. My noble critic, there speaks in your blood the Untamed Philistine. You were not caught young enough. You came into letters and art with all your beastly conventionalities in full mastery of you. Take a purge. Forget that there are Philistines. Forget that they have put their abominable pantalettes upon the legs of Nature. Forget that their code of morality and manners (it stinks worsethan a bed-pan) doesnotexist in the serene altitude of great art, toward which you have set your toes and into which I want you to climb. I know about this thing. I, too, tried to rise with all that dead weight dragging at my feet. Well, I could not—now I could if I cared to. In my mind I do. It is not freedom of act—not freedom of living, for which I contend, but freedom of thought, of mind, of spirit; the freedom to see in the horrible laws, prejudices, custom, conventionalities of the multitude, something good for them, but of no value to youin your art.In your life and conduct defer to as much of it as you will (you'll find it convenient to defer to a whole lot), but in your mind and art let not the Philistine enter, nor even speak a word through the keyhole. My own chief objection to Morrow's story is (as I apprised him) its unnaturalness. He did not dare to follow the logical course of his narrative. He was too cowardly (or had too keen an eye upon his market of prudes) to make hero and heroine join in the holy bonds ofbedlock, as they naturally, inevitably and rightly would have done long before she was able to be about. I daresay that, too, would have seemed to you "filthy," without the parson and his fee. When you analyze your objection to the story (as I have tried to do for you) you will find that it all crystallizes into that—the absence of the parson. I don't envy you your view of the matter, and I really don't think you greatly enjoy it yourself. I forgot to say: Suppose they had been two men, two partners in hunting, mining, or exploring, as frequently occurs. Would the bed-pan suggestion have come to you? Did it come to you when you read of the slow, but not uniform, starvation of Greeley's party in the arctic? Of course not. Then it is a matter, not of bed-pans, but of sex-exposure (unauthorized by the church), of prudery—ofthat artificial thing, the "sense of shame," of which the great Greeks knew nothing; of which the great Japanese know nothing; of which Art knows nothing. Dear Doctor, do you really put trousers on your piano-legs? Does your indecent intimacy with your mirror make you blush?
There, there's the person whom I've been waiting for (I'm to take her to dinner, and I'm not married to even so much of her as her little toe) has come; and until you offend again, you are immune from the switch. May all your brother Philistines have to "Kiss the place to make it well."
Pan is dead! Long live Bed-Pan!
Yours ever,Ambrose Bierce.
end of letter
Washington,February 17,1901.
My dear Sterling,
I send back the poems, with a few suggestions. You grow great so rapidly that I shall not much longer dare to touch your work. I mean that.
Your criticisms of Stedman's Anthology are just. But equally just ones can be made of any anthology. None of them can suit any one. I fancy Stedman did not try to "live up" to his standard, but to makerepresentative, though not always thebest, selections. It would hardly do to leave out Whitman, for example.Wemay not like him; thank God, we don't; but many others—the big fellows too—do; and in England he is thought great. And then Stedman has the bad luck to know a lot of poets personally—many bad poets. Put yourself in his place. Would you leave out me if you honestly thought my work bad?
In any compilation we will all miss some of our favorites—andfind some of the public's favorites. You miss from Whittier "Joseph Sturge"—I the sonnet "Forgiveness," and so forth. Alas, there is no universal standard!
Thank you for the photographs. Miss * * * is a pretty girl, truly, and has the posing instinct as well. She has the place of honor on my mantel. * * * But what scurvy knave has put the stage-crime into her mind? If you know that life as I do you will prefer that she die, poor girl.
It is no trouble, but a pleasure, to go over your verses—I am as proud of your talent as if I'd made it.
Sincerely yours,Ambrose Bierce.
[over]
About the rhymes in a sonnet:
"Regular", or"English"ModernItalian formformEnglish(Petrarch):(Shakspear's):111222221112113224223114Two or three35rhymes; any46arrangement55364757
There are good reasons for preferring the regular Italian form created by Petrarch—who knew a thing or two; and sometimes good reasons for another arrangement—of the sestet rhymes. If one should sacrifice a great thought to be like Petrarch one would not resemble him.A. B.
end of letter
Washington, D. C.,May 2,1901.
My dear Sterling,
I am sending to the "Journal" your splendid poem on Memorial Day. Of course I can't say what will be its fate. I am not even personally acquainted with the editor of the department to which it goes. But if he has not the brains to like it he is to send it back and I'll try to place it elsewhere. It is great—great!—the loftiest note that you have struck andheld.
Maybe I owe you a lot of letters. I don't know—my correspondence all in arrears and I've not the heart to take it up.
Thank you for your kind words of sympathy.[2]I'm hit harder than any one can guess from the known facts—am a bit broken and gone gray of it all.
But I remember you asked the title of a book of synonyms. It is "Roget's Thesaurus," a good and useful book.
The other poems I will look up soon and consider. I've made no alterations in the "Memorial Day" except to insert the omitted stanza.
Sincerely yours,Ambrose Bierce.
[2]Concerning the death of his son Leigh.
end of letter
Washington,May 9,1901.
My dear Sterling,
I send the poems with suggestions. There's naught to say about 'em that I've not said of your other work. Your "growth in grace" (and other poetic qualities) is something wonderful. You are leaving my other "pupils" so far behind that they are no longer "in it." Seriously, you "promise" better than any of the new men in our literature—and perform better than all but Markham in his lucid intervals, alas, too rare.
Sincerely yours,Ambrose Bierce.
end of letter
Washington,May 22,1901.
My dear Sterling,
I enclose a proof of the poem[3]—all marked up. The poem was offered to the Journal, but to the wrong editor. I would not offer it to him in whose department it could be used, for he once turned down some admirable verses of my friend Scheffauer which I sent him. I'm glad the Journal isnotto have it, for it now goes into the Washington Post—and the Post into the best houses here and elsewhere—a good, clean, unyellow paper. I'll send you some copies with the poem.
I think my marks are intelligible—I mean myremarks. Perhaps you'll not approve all, or anything, that I did to the poem; I'll only ask you to endure. When you publish in covers you can restore to the original draft if you like. I had not time (after my return from New York) to get your approval and did the best and the least I could.
* * *
My love to your pretty wife and sister. Let me know how hard you hate me for monkeying with your sacred lines.
Sincerely yours,Ambrose Bierce.
Yes, your poem recalled my "Invocation" as I read it; but it is better, and not too much like—hardly like at all except in the "political" part. Both, in that, are characterized, I think, by decent restraint. How * * * would, at those places, have ranted and chewed soap!—a superior quality of soap, I confess.A. B.
[3]"Memorial Day"
end of letter
1825 Nineteenth St.,N. W.,Washington, D. C.,June 30, 1901.
My dear Sterling,
I am glad my few words of commendation were not unpleasing to you. I meant them all and more. You ought to have praise, seeing that it is all you got. The "Post," likemost other newspapers, "don't pay for poetry." What a damning confession! It means that the public is as insensible to poetry as a pig to—well, to poetry. To any sane mind such a poem as yours is worth more than all the other contents of a newspaper for a year.
I've not found time to consider your "bit of blank" yet—at least not as carefully as it probably merits.
My relations with the present editor of the Examiner are not unfriendly, I hope, but they are too slight to justify me in suggesting anything to him, or even drawing his attention to anything. I hoped you would be sufficiently "enterprising" to get your poem into the paper if you cared to have it there. I wrote Dr. Doyle about you. He is a dear fellow and you should know each other. As to Scheffauer, he is another. If you want him to see your poem why not send it to him? But the last I heard he was very ill. I'm rather anxious to hear more about him.
It was natural to enclose the stamps, but I won't have it so—so there! as the women say.
Sincerely yours,Ambrose Bierce.