Chapter VIII: Part 8

By the way, your "hero," as you describe him, would not have been accessible to all those spiritual impressions--it is _you_ to whom they come. And that confirms my judgment of your imagination. Imagination is nine parts of the writing trade. With enough of _that_ all things are possible; but it is the other things that require the hard work, the incessant study, the tireless seeking, the indomitable will. It is no "pic-nic," this business of writing, believe me. Success comes by favor of the gods, yes; but O the days and nights that you must pass before their altars, prostrate and imploring! They are exacting--the gods; years and years of service you must give in the temple. If you are prepared to do this go on to your reward. If not, you can not too quickly throw away the pen and--well, marry, for example.

"Drink deep or taste not the Pierian spring."

_My_ vote is that you persevere.

With cordial regards to all good Robertsons--I think there are no others--I am most sincerely your friend,

AMBROSE BIERCE.

[Washington, D. C., April 20, 1911.]

DEAR LORA,

Thank you for the pictures of the Sloots fire-place and "Joe Gans." I can fancy myself cooking a steak in the one, and the other eating one better cooked.

I'm glad I've given you the Grand Canyon fever, for I hope to revisit the place next summer, and perhaps our Yosemite bunch can meet me there. My outing this season will be in Broadway in little old New York. That is not as good as Monte Sano, but the best that I can do.

You must have had a good time with the Sterlings, and doubtless you all suffered from overfeeding.

Carlt's action in denuding the shaggy pelt of his hands meets with my highest commendation, but you'd better look out. It may mean that he has a girl--a Jewess descended from Jacob, with an hereditary antipathy to anything like Esau. Carlt was an Esaurian.

You'll have to overlook some bad errors in Vol. V of the C. W. I did not have the page proofs. Some of the verses are unintelligible. That's the penalty for philandering in California instead of sticking to my work.

* * * * *

Affectionately,
AMBROSE.

[Washington, D. C., April 28, 1911.]

DEAR GEORGE,

I've been having noctes ambrosianae with "The House of Orchids," though truly it came untimely, for I've not yet done reading your other books. Don't crowd the dancers, please. I don't know (and you don't care) what poem in it I like best, but I get as much delight out of these lines as out of any:

"Such flowers pale as are
Worn by the goddess of a distant star--
Before whose holy eyes
Beauty and evening meet."

And--but what's the use? I can't quote the entire book.

I'm glad you did see your way to make "Memory" a female.

To Hades with Bonnet's chatter of gems and jewels--among the minor poetic properties they are better (to my taste) than flowers. By the way, I wonder what "lightness" Bonnet found in the "Apothecary" verses. They seem to me very serious.

Rereading and rerereading of the Job confirm my first opinion of it. I find only one "bad break" in it--and that not inconsistent with God's poetry in the real Job: "ropes of adamant." A rope of stone is imperfectly conceivable--is, in truth, mixed metaphor.

I think it was a mistake for you to expound to Ned Hamilton, or anybody, how you wrote the "Forty-third Chapter," or anything. When an author explains his methods of composition he cannot expect to be taken seriously. Nine writers in ten wish to have it thought that they "dash off" things. Nobody believes it, and the judicious would be sorry to believe it. Maybe you do, but I guess you work hard and honestly enough over the sketch "dashed off." If you don't--do.

* * * * *

With love to Carrie, I will leave you to your sea-gardens and abalones.

Sincerely yours,
AMBROSE BIERCE.

I'm off to Broadway next week for a season of old-gentlemanly revelry.

[Washington, D. C., May 2, 1911.]

DEAR GEORGE,

In packing (I'm going to New York) I find this "Tidal" typoscript, and fear that I was to have returned it. Pray God it was not my neglect to do so that kept it out of the book. But if not, what did keep it out? Maybe the fact that it requires in the reader an uncommon acquaintance with the Scriptures.

If Robertson publishes any more books for you don't let him use "silver" leaf on the cover. It is not silver, cannot be neatly put on, and will come off. The "Wine" book is incomparably better and more tasteful than either of the others. By the way, I stick to my liking for Scheff's little vignette on the "Wine."

In "Duandon" you--_you_, Poet of the Heavens!--come perilously near to qualifying yourself for "mention" in a certain essay of mine on the blunders of writers and artists in matters lunar. You must have observed that immediately after the full o' the moon the light of that orb takes on a redness, and when it rises after dark is hardly a "towering glory," nor a "frozen splendor." Its "web" is not "silver." In truth, the gibbous moon, rising, has something of menace in its suggestion. Even twenty-four (or rather twenty-five) hours "after the full" this change in the quality and quantity of its light is very marked. I don't know what causes the sudden alteration, but it has always impressed me.

I feel a little like signing this criticism "Gradgrind," but anyhow it may amuse you.

Do you mind squandering ten cents and a postage stamp on me? I want a copy of _Town Talk_--the one in which you are a "Varied Type."

I don't know much of some of your poets mentioned in that article, but could wish that you had said a word about Edith Thomas. Thank you for your too generous mention of me--who brought you so much vilification!

Sincerely yours,
AMBROSE BIERCE.

[Washington, D. C., May 29, 1911.]

MY DEAR RUTH,

You are a faithful correspondent; I have your postals from Athens and Syracuse, and now the letter from Rome. The Benares sketch was duly received, and I wrote you about it to the address that you gave--Cairo, I think. As you will doubtless receive my letter in due time I will not now repeat it--further than to say that I liked it. If it had been accompanied by a few photographs (indispensable now to such articles) I should have tried to get it into some magazine. True, Benares, like all other Asiatic and European cities, is pretty familiar to even the "general reader," but the sketch had something of the writer's personality in it--the main factor in all good writing, as in all forms of art.

May I tell you what you already know--that you are deficient in spelling and punctuation? It is worth while to know these things--and all things that you can acquire. Some persons can not acquire orthography, and I don't wonder, but every page of every good book is a lesson in punctuation. One's punctuation is a necessary part of one's style; you cannot attain to precision if you leave that matter to editors and printers.

You ask if "stories" must have action. The name "story" is preferably used of narrative, not reflection nor mental analysis. The "psychological novel" is in great vogue just now, for example--the adventures of the mind, it might be called--but it requires a profounder knowledge of life and character than is possible to a young girl of whatever talent; and the psychological "short story" is even more difficult. Keep to narrative and simple description for a few years, until your wings have grown. These descriptions of foreign places that you write me are good practice. You are not likely to tell me much that I do not know, nor is that necessary; but your way of telling what I do know is sometimes very interesting as a study of _you_. So write me all you will, and if you would like the letters as a record of your travels you shall have them back; I am preserving them.

I judge from your letter that your father went straight through without bothering about me. Maybe I should not have seen him anyhow, for I was away from Washington for nearly a month.

Please give my love to your mother and sister, whom, of course, you are to bring here. I shall not forgive you if you do not.

Yes, I wish that you lived nearer to me, so that we could go over your work together. I could help you more in a few weeks _that_ way than in years _this_ way. God never does anything just right.

Sincerely yours,
AMBROSE BIERCE.

[Washington, D. C., July 31, 1911.]

DEAR GEORGE,

Thank you for that Times "review." It is a trifle less malicious than usual--regarding _me_, that is all. My publisher, Neale, who was here last evening, is about "taking action" against that concern for infringement of his copyright in my little book, "Write It Right." The wretches have been serving it up to their readers for several weeks as the work of a woman named Learned. Repeatedly she uses my very words--whole passages of them. They refused even to confess the misdeeds of their contributrix, and persist in their sin. So they will have to fight.

* * * I have never been hard on women whose hearts go with their admiration, and whose bodies follow their hearts--I don't mean that the latter was the case in this instance. Nor am I very exacting as to the morality of my men friends. I would not myself take another man's woman, any more than I would take his purse. Nor, I trust, would I seduce the daughter or sister of a friend, nor any maid whom it would at all damage--and as to _that_ there is no hard and fast rule.

* * * * *

A fine fellow, I, to be casting the first stone, or the one-hundredth, at a lovelorn woman, weak or strong! By the way, I should not believe in the love of a strong one, wife, widow or maid.

It looks as if I may get to Sag Harbor for a week or so in the middle of the month. It is really not a question of expense, but Neale has blocked out a lot of work for me. He wants two more volumes--even five more if I'll make 'em. Guess I'll give him two. In a week or so I shall be able to say whether I can go Sagharboring. If so, I think we should have a night in New York first, no? You could motor-boat up and back.

Sincerely yours,
AMBROSE BIERCE.[14]

[14] Addressed to George Sterling at Sag Harbor, Long Island.

[Washington, D. C., Monday, August 7, 1911.]

DEAR GEORGE,

In one of your letters you were good enough to promise me a motorboat trip from New York to Sag Harbor. I can think of few things more delightful than navigating in a motorboat the sea that I used to navigate in an open canoe; it will seem like Progress. So if you are still in that mind please write me what day _after Saturday next_ you can meet me in New York and I'll be there. I should prefer that you come the day before the voyage and dine with me that evening.

I always stay at the Hotel Navarre, 7th avenue and 38th street. If unable to get in there I'll leave my address there. Or, tell me where _you_ will be.

Sincerely yours,
AMBROSE BIERCE.

If the motorboat plan is not practicable let me know and I'll go by train or steamer; it will not greatly matter. A. B.

[Washington, D. C., Tuesday, August 8, 1911.]

DEAR GEORGE,

* * * * *

Kindly convey to young Smith of Auburn my felicitations on his admirable "Ode to the Abyss"--a large theme, treated with dignity and power. It has many striking passages--such, for example, as "The Romes of ruined spheres." I'm conscious of my sin against the rhetoricians in liking that, for it jolts the reader out of the Abyss and back to earth. Moreover, it is a metaphor which belittles, instead of dignifying. But I like it.

He is evidently a student of George Sterling, and being in the formative stage, cannot--why should he?--conceal the fact.

My love to all good Californians of the Sag Harbor colony.

Sincerely yours,
AMBROSE BIERCE.

[Washington, D. C., November 16, 1911.]

DEAR GEORGE,

It is good to know that you are again happy--that is to say, you are in Carmel. For your _future_ happiness (if success and a certain rounding off of your corners would bring it, as I think) I could wish you in New York or thereabout. As the Scripture hath it: "It is not good for a man to be in Carmel"--_Revised Inversion_. I note that at the late election California damned herself to a still lower degradation and is now unfit for a white man to live in. Initiative, referendum, recall, employers' liability, woman suffrage--yah!

* * * * *

But you are not to take too seriously my dislike of * * *[15] I like him personally very well; he talks like a normal human being. It is only that damned book of his. He was here and came out to my tenement a few evenings ago, finding me in bed and helpless from lumbago, as I was for weeks. I am now able to sit up and take notice, and there are even fears for my recovery. My enemies would say, as Byron said of Lady B., I am becoming "dangerously well again."

[15] Excised by G. S.

* * * * *

As to harlots, there are not ten in a hundred that are such for any other reason than that they wanted to be. Their exculpatory stories are mostly lies of magnitude.

Sloots writes me that he will perhaps "walk over" from the mine to Yosemite next summer. I can't get there much before July first, but if there is plenty of snow in the mountains next winter the valley should be visitable then. Later, I hope to beguest myself for a few days at the Pine Inn, Carmel. Tell it not to the Point Lobos mussel!

My love to Carrie.

Sincerely yours,
AMBROSE BIERCE.

[Washington, D. C., December 27, 1911.]

DEAR GEORGE,

As you do not give me that lady's address I infer that you no longer care to have me meet her--which is a relief to me.

* * * * *

Yes, I'm a bit broken up by the death of Pollard, whose body I assisted to burn. He lost his mind, was paralyzed, had his head cut open by the surgeons, and his sufferings were unspeakable. Had he lived he would have been an idiot; so it is all right--

"But O, the difference to me!"

If you don't think him pretty bright read any of his last three books, "Their Day in Court," "Masks and Minstrels," and "Vagabond Journeys." He did not see the last one--Neale brought down copies of it when he came to Baltimore to attend the funeral.

I'm hoping that if Carlt and Lora go to Wagner's mine and we go to Yosemite, Lora, at least, will come to us out there. We shall need her, though Carrie will find that Misses C. and S. will be "no deadheads in the enterprise"--to quote a political phrase of long ago. As to me, I shall leave my ten-pounds-each books at home and, like St. Jerome, who never traveled with other baggage than a skull, be "flying light." My love to Carrie.

Sincerely,
AMBROSE BIERCE.

[Washington, D. C., January 5, 1912.]

DEAR LORA,

It is good to hear from you again, even if I did have to give you a hint that I badly needed a letter.

I am glad that you are going to the mine (if you go)--though Berkeley and Oakland will not be the same without you. And where can I have my mail forwarded?--and be permitted to climb in at the window to get it. As to pot-steaks, toddies, and the like, I shall simply swear off eating and drinking.

If Carlt is a "game sport," and does not require "a dead-sure thing," the mining gamble is the best bet for him. Anything to get out of that deadening, hopeless grind, the "Government service." It kills a man's self-respect, atrophies his powers, unfits him for anything, tempts him to improvidence and then turns him out to starve.

It is pleasant to know that there is a hope of meeting you in Yosemite--the valley would not be the same without you. My girls cannot leave here till the schools close, about June 20, so we shall not get into the valley much before July first; but if you have a good winter, with plenty of snow, that will do. We shall stay as long as we like. George says he and Carrie can go, and I hope Sloots can. It is likely that Neale, my publisher, will be of my party. I shall hope to visit your mine afterward.

* * * * *

My health, which was pretty bad for weeks after returning from Sag Harbor, is restored, and I was never so young in all my life.

Here's wishing you and Carlt plenty of meat on the bone that the new year may fling to you.

Affectionately,
AMBROSE.

[Washington, D. C., February 14, 1912.]

DEAR GEORGE,

I'm a long time noticing your letter of January fifth, chiefly because, like Teddy, "I have nothing to say." There's this difference atwixt him and me--I could say something if I tried.

* * * I'm hoping that you are at work and doing something worth while, though I see nothing of yours. Battle against the encroaching abalone should not engage all your powers. That spearing salmon at night interests me, though doubtless the "season" will be over before I visit Carmel.

Bear Yosemite in mind for latter part of June, and use influence with Lora and Grizzly, even if Carlt should be inhumed in his mine.

We've had about seven weeks of snow and ice, the mercury around the zero mark most of the time. Once it was 13 below. You'd not care for that sort of thing, I fancy. Indeed, I'm a bit fatigued of it myself, and on Saturday next, God willing, shall put out my prow to sea and bring up, I hope, in Bermuda, not, of course, to remain long.

You did not send me the Weininger article on "Sex and Character"--I mean the extract that you thought like some of my stuff.

* * * * *

Sincerely yours,
AMBROSE BIERCE.

[Washington, D. C., April 25, 1912.]

DEAR GEORGE,

I did not go to Bermuda; so I'm not "back." But I did go to Richmond, a city whose tragic and pathetic history, of which one is reminded by everything that one sees there, always gets on to my nerves with a particular dejection. True, the history is some fifty years old, but it is always with me when I'm there, making solemn eyes at me.

You're right about "this season in the East." It has indeed been penetential. For the first time I am thoroughly disgusted and half-minded to stay in California when I go--a land where every prospect pleases, and only labor unions, progressives, suffragettes (and socialists) are vile. No, I don't think I could stand California, though I'm still in the mind to visit it in June. I shall be sorry to miss Carrie at Carmel, but hope to have the two of you on some excursion or camping trip. We _want_ to go to Yosemite, which the girls have not seen, but if there's no water there it may not be advisable. Guess we'll have to let you natives decide. How would the Big Trees do as a substitute?

* * * * *

Girls is pizen, but not necessarily fatal. I've taken 'em in large doses all my life, and suffered pangs enough to equip a number of small Hells, but never has one of them paralyzed the inner working man. * * * But I'm not a poet. Moreover, as I've not yet put off my armor I oughtn't to boast.

So--you've subscribed for the Collected Works. Good! that is what you ought to have done a long time ago. It is what every personal friend of mine ought to have done, for all profess admiration of my work in literature. It is what I was fool enough to permit my publisher to think that many of them would do. How many do you guess have done so? I'll leave you guessing. God help the man with many friends, for _they_ will not. My royalties on the sets sold to my friends are less than one-fourth of my outlay in free sets for other friends. Tell me not in cheerful numbers of the value and sincerity of friendships.

* * * * *

There! I've discharged my bosom of that perilous stuff and shall take a drink. Here's to you.

Sincerely yours,
AMBROSE BIERCE.

[Washington, D. C., June 5, 1912.]

DEAR GEORGE,

* * * * *

Thank you for the poems, which I've not had the time to consider--being disgracefully busy in order to get away. I don't altogether share your reverence for Browning, but the primacy of your verses on him over the others printed on the same page is almost startling. * * *

Of course it's all nonsense about the waning of your power--though thinking it so might make it so. My notion is that you've only _begun_ to do things. But I wish you'd go back to your chain in your uncle's office. I'm no believer in adversity and privation as a spur to Pegasus. They are oftener a "hopple." The "meagre, muse-rid mope, adust and thin" will commonly do better work when tucked out with three square meals a day, and having the sure and certain hope of their continuance.

* * * * *

I'm expecting to arrive in Oakland (Key Route Inn, probably) late in the evening of the 22d of this month and dine at Carlt's on the 24th--my birthday. Anyhow, I've invited myself, though it is possible they may be away on their vacation. Carlt has promised to try to get his "leave" changed to a later date than the one he's booked for.

* * * * *

Sincerely yours,
AMBROSE BIERCE.

P.S.--Just learned that we can not leave here until the 19th--which will bring me into San Francisco on the 26th. Birthday dinner served in diner--last call!

I've _read_ the Browning poem and I now know why there was a Browning. Providence foresaw you and prepared him for you--blessed be Providence! * * *

Mrs. Havens asks me to come to them at Sag Harbor--and shouldn't I like to! * * * Sure the song of the Sag Harbor frog would be music to me--as would that of the indigenous duckling.

[The Army and Navy Club, Washington, D. C., December 19, 1912.]

MY DEAR MR. CAHILL,

I thank you for the article from _The Argonaut_, and am glad to get it for a special reason, as it gives me your address and thereby enables me to explain something.

When, several years ago, you sent me a similar article I took it to the editor of The National Geographical Magazine (I am a member of the Society that issues it) and suggested its publication. I left it with him and hearing nothing about it for several months called at his office _twice_ for an answer, and for the copy if publication was refused. The copy had been "mislaid"--lost, apparently--and I never obtained it. Meantime, either I had "mislaid" your address, or it was only on the copy. So I was unable to write you. Indirectly, afterward, I heard that you had left California for parts to me unknown.

Twice since then I have been in San Francisco, but confess that I did not think of the matter.

Cahill's projection[16] is indubitably the right one, but you are "up against" the ages and will be a long time dead before it finds favor, or I'm no true pessimist.

[16] The Butterfly Map of the World.

Sincerely yours,
AMBROSE BIERCE.

[The Olympia Apartments, Washington, D. C., January 17, 1913.]

MY DEAR RUTH,

It's "too bad" that I couldn't remain in Oakland and Berkeley another month to welcome you, but I fear it will "have to go at that," for I've no expectation of ever seeing California again. I like the country as well as ever, but I _don't_ like the rule of labor unions, the grafters and the suffragettes. So far as I am concerned they may stew in their own juice; I shall not offer myself as an ingredient.

It is pleasant to know that you are all well, including Johnny, poor little chap.

You are right to study philology and rhetoric. Surely there must be _some_ provision for your need--a university where one cannot learn one's own language would be a funny university.

I think your "Mr. Wells" who gave a course of lectures on essay writing may be my friend Wells Drury, of Berkeley. If so, mention me to him and he will advise you what to do.

Another good friend of mine, whom, however I did not succeed in seeing during either of my visits to California, is W. C. Morrow, who is a professional teacher of writing and himself a splendid writer. He could help you. He lives in San Francisco, but I think has a class in Oakland. I don't know his address; you'll find it in the directory. He used to write stories splendidly tragic, but I'm told he now teaches the "happy ending," in which he is right--commercially--but disgusting. I can cordially recommend him.

Keep up your German and French of course. If your English (your mother speech) is so defective, think what _they_ must be.

I'll think of some books that will be helpful to you in your English. Meantime send me anything that you care to that you write. It will at least show me what progress you make.

I'm returning some (all, I think) of your sketches. Don't destroy them--yet. Maybe some day you'll find them worth rewriting.

My love to you all.
AMBROSE BIERCE.

[The Olympia, Euclid and 14th Sts., Washington, D. C., January 20, 1913.]

DEAR MR. CAHILL,

It is pleasant to know that you are not easily discouraged by the croaking of such ravens as I, and I confess that the matter of the "civic centre" supplies some reason to hope for prosperity to the Cahill projection--which (another croak) will doubtless bear some other man's name, probably Hayford's or Woodward's.

I sent the "Argonaut" article to my friend Dr. Franklin, of Schenectady, a "scientific gent" of some note, but have heard nothing from him.

I'm returning the "Chronicle" article, which I found interesting. If I were not a writer without an "organ" I'd have a say about that projection. For near four years I've been out of the newspaper game--a mere compiler of my collected works in twelve volumes--and shall probably never "sit into the game" again, being seventy years old. My work is finished, and so am I.

Luck to you in the new year, and in many to follow.

Sincerely yours,
AMBROSE BIERCE.

[The Olympia Apartments, Washington, D. C., I prefer to get my letters at this address. Make a memorandum of it. January 28, 1913.]

DEAR LORA,

I have been searching for your letter of long ago, fearing it contained something that I should have replied to. But I don't find it; so I make the convenient assumption that it did not.

I'd like to hear from you, however unworthy I am to do so, for I want to know if you and Carlt have still a hope of going mining. Pray God you do, if there's a half-chance of success; for success in the service of the Government is failure.

Winter here is two-thirds gone and we have not had a cold day, and only one little dash of snow--on Christmas eve. Can California beat that? I'm told it's as cold there as in Greenland.

Tell me about yourself--your health since the operation--how it has affected you--all about you. My own health is excellent; I'm equal to any number of Carlt's toddies. By the way, Blanche has made me a co-defendant with you in the crime (once upon a time) of taking a drop too much. I plead not guilty--how do _you_ plead? Sloots, at least, would acquit us on the ground of inability--that one _can't_ take too much. * * *

Affectionately, your avuncular,
AMBROSE.

[Washington, D. C., March 20, 1913.]

DEAR RUTH,

I'm returning your little sketches with a few markings which are to be regarded (or disregarded) as mere suggestions. I made them in pencil, so that you can erase them if you don't approve. Of course I should make many more if I could have you before me so that I could explain _why_; in this way I can help you but little. You'll observe that I have made quite a slaughter of some of the adjectives in some of your sentences--you will doubtless slaughter some in others. Nearly all young writers use too many adjectives. Indeed, moderation and skill in the use of adjectives are about the last things a good writer learns. Don't use those that are connoted by the nouns; and rather than have all the nouns, or nearly all, in a sentence outfitted with them it is better to make separate sentences for some of those desired.

In your sketch "Triumph" I would not name the "hero" of the piece. To do so not only makes the sketch commonplace, but it logically requires you to name his victim too, and her offense; in brief, it commits you to a _story_.

A famous writer (perhaps Holmes or Thackeray--I don't remember) once advised a young writer to cut all the passages that he thought particularly good. Your taste I think is past the need of so heroic treatment as that, but the advice may be profitably borne in memory whenever you are in doubt, if ever you are. And sometimes you will be.

I think I know what Mr. Morrow meant by saying that your characters are not "humanly significant." He means that they are not such persons as one meets in everyday life--not "types." I confess that I never could see why one's characters _should_ be. The exceptional--even "abnormal"--person seems to me the more interesting, but I must warn you that he will not seem so to an editor. Nor to an editor will the tragic element seem so good as the cheerful--the sombre denouement as the "happy ending." One must have a pretty firm reputation as a writer to "send in" a tragic or supernatural tale with any hope of its acceptance. The average mind (for which editors purvey, and mostly possess) dislikes, or thinks it dislikes, any literature that is not "sunny." True, tragedy holds the highest and most permanent place in the world's literature and art, but it has the divvel's own time getting to it. For immediate popularity (if one cares for it) one must write pleasant things; though one may put in here and there a bit of pathos.

I think well of these two manuscripts, but doubt if you can get them into any of our magazines--if you want to. As to that, nobody can help you. About the only good quality that a magazine editor commonly has is his firm reliance on the infallibility of his own judgment. It is an honest error, and it enables him to mull through somehow with a certain kind of consistency. The only way to get a footing with him is to send him what you think he wants, not what you think he ought to want--and keep sending. But perhaps you do not care for the magazines.

I note a great improvement in your style--probably no more than was to be expected of your better age, but a distinct improvement. It is a matter of regret with me that I have not the training of you; we should see what would come of it. You certainly have no reason for discouragement. But if you are to be a writer you must "cut out" the dances and the teas (a little of the theater may be allowed) and _work_ right heartily. The way of the good writer is no primrose path.

No, I have not read the poems of Service. What do I think of Edith Wharton? Just what Pollard thought--see _Their Day in Court_, which I think you have.

I fear you have the wanderlust incurably. I never had it bad, and have less of it now than ever before. I shall not see California again.

My love to all your family goes with this, and to you all that you will have.

AMBROSE BIERCE.

[The Army and Navy Club, Washington, D. C., May 22, 1913.]

EDITOR "LANTERN",[17]

[17] The editor was Curtis J. Kirch ("Guido Bruno") and the weekly had a brief career in Chicago. It was the forerunner of the many Bruno weeklies and monthlies, later published from other cities.

Will I tell you what I think of your magazine? Sure I will.

It has thirty-six pages of reading matter.

Seventeen are given to the biography of a musician,--German, dead.

Four to the mother of a theologian,--German, peasant-wench, dead.

(The mag. is published in America, to-day.)

Five pages about Eugene Field's ancestors. All dead.

17 + 4 + 5 = 26.

36 - 26 = 10.

Two pages about Ella Wheeler Wilcox.

Three-fourths page about a bad poet and his indifference to--German.

Two pages of his poetry.

2 + 3/4 + 2 = 4-3/4.

10 - 4-3/4 = 5-1/4. Not enough to criticise.

What your magazine needs is an editor--presumably older, preferably American, and indubitably alive. At least awake. It is your inning.

Sincerely yours,
AMBROSE BIERCE.

[Washington, D. C., May 31, 1913.]

MY DEAR LORA,

You were so long in replying to my letter of the century before last, and as your letter is not really a reply to anything in mine, that I fancy you did not get it. I don't recollect, for example, that you ever acknowledged receipt of little pictures of myself, though maybe you did--I only hope you got them. The photographs that you send are very interesting. One of them makes me thirsty--the one of that fountainhead of good booze, your kitchen sink.

What you say of the mine and how you are to be housed there pleases me mightily. That's how I should like to live, and mining is what I should like again to do. Pray God you be not disappointed.

Alas, I cannot even join you during Carlt's vacation, for the mountain ramble. Please "go slow" in your goating this year. I _think_ you are better fitted for it than ever before, but you'd better ask your surgeon about that. By the way, do you know that since women took to athletics their peculiar disorders have increased about fifty per cent? You can't make men of women. The truth is, they've taken to walking on their hind legs a few centuries too soon. Their in'ards have not learned how to suspend the law of gravity. Add the jolts of athletics and--there you are.

I wish I could be with you at Monte Sano--or anywhere.

Love to Carlt and Sloots.

Affectionately,
AMBROSE.

[Washington, D. C., September 10, 1913.]

DEAR LORA,

Your letter was forwarded to me in New York, whence I have just returned. I fancy you had a more satisfactory outing than I. I never heard of the Big Sur river nor of "Arbolado." But I'm glad you went there, for I'm hearing so much about Hetch Hetchy that I'm tired of it. I'm helping the San Francisco crowd (a little) to "ruin" it.

* * * * *

I'm glad to know that you still expect to go to the mine. Success or failure, it is better than the Mint, and you ought to live in the mountains where you can climb things whenever you want to.

Of course I know nothing of Neale's business--you'd better write to him if he has not filled your order. I suppose you know that volumes eleven and twelve are not included in the "set."

If you care to write to me again please do so at once as I am going away, probably to South America, but if we have a row with Mexico before I start I shall go there first. I want to see something going on. I've no notion of how long I shall remain away.

With love to Carlt and Sloots,

Affectionately,
AMBROSE.

[Washington, D. C., September 10, 1913.]

DEAR JOE,[18]

[18] To Mrs. Josephine Clifford McCrackin, San Jose, California.

The reason that I did not answer your letter sooner is--I have been away (in New York) and did not have it with me. I suppose I shall not see your book for a long time, for I am going away and have no notion when I shall return. I expect to go to, perhaps across, South America--possibly via Mexico, if I can get through without being stood up against a wall and shot as a Gringo. But that is better than dying in bed, is it not? If Duc did not need you so badly I'd ask you to get your hat and come along. God bless and keep you.

[Washington, D. C., September 13, 1913.]

DEAR JOE,

Thank you for the book. I thank you for your friendship--and much besides. This is to say good-by at the end of a pleasant correspondence in which your woman's prerogative of having the last word is denied to you. Before I could receive it I shall be gone. But some time, somewhere, I hope to hear from you again. Yes, I shall go into Mexico with a pretty definite purpose, which, however, is not at present disclosable. You must try to forgive my obstinacy in not "perishing" where I am. I want to be where something worth while is going on, or where nothing whatever is going on. Most of what is going on in your own country is exceedingly distasteful to me.

Pray for me? Why, yes, dear--that will not harm either of us. I loathe religions, a Christian gives me qualms and a Catholic sets my teeth on edge, but pray for me just the same, for with all those faults upon your head (it's a nice head, too), I am pretty fond of you, I guess. May you live as long as you want to, and then pass smilingly into the darkness--the good, good darkness.

Devotedly your friend,
AMBROSE BIERCE.

[The Olympia, Euclid Street, Washington, D. C., October 1, 1913.]

DEAR LORA,

I go away tomorrow for a long time, so this is only to say good-bye. I think there is nothing else worth saying; _therefore_ you will naturally expect a long letter. What an intolerable world this would be if we said nothing but what is worth saying! And did nothing foolish--like going into Mexico and South America.

I'm hoping that you will go to the mine soon. You must hunger and thirst for the mountains--Carlt likewise. So do I. Civilization be dinged!--it is the mountains and the desert for me.

Good-bye--if you hear of my being stood up against a Mexican stone wall and shot to rags please know that I think that 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!

With love to Carlt, affectionately yours,
AMBROSE.

[Laredo, Texas, November 6, 1913.]

MY DEAR LORA,

I think I owe you a letter, and probably this is my only chance to pay up for a long time. For more than a month I have been rambling about the country, visiting my old battlefields, passing a few days in New Orleans, a week in San Antonio, and so forth. I turned up here this morning. There is a good deal of fighting going on over on the Mexican side of the Rio Grande, but I hold to my intention to go into Mexico if I can. In the character of "innocent bystander" I ought to be fairly safe if I don't have too much money on me, don't you think? My eventual destination is South America, but probably I shall not get there this year.

Sloots writes me that you and Carlt still expect to go to the mine, as I hope you will.

The Cowdens expect to live somewhere in California soon, I believe. They seem to be well, prosperous and cheerful.

With love to Carlt and Sloots, I am affectionately yours,
AMBROSE.

P.S. You need not believe _all_ that these newspapers say of me and my purposes. I had to tell them _something_.

[Laredo, Texas, November 6, 1913.]

DEAR LORA,

I wrote you yesterday at San Antonio, but dated the letter here and today, expecting to bring the letter and mail it here. That's because I did not know if I would have time to write it here. Unfortunately, I forgot and posted it, with other letters, where it was written. Thus does man's guile come to naught!

Well, I'm here, anyhow, and have time to explain.

Laredo was a Mexican city before it was an American. It is Mexican now, five to one. Nuevo Laredo, opposite, is held by the Huertistas and Americans don't go over there. In fact a guard on the bridge will not let them. So those that sneak across have to wade (which can be done almost anywhere) and go at night.

I shall not be here long enough to hear from you, and don't know where I shall be next. Guess it doesn't matter much.

Adios,
AMBROSE.

_Extracts from Letters_

You are right too--dead right about the poetry of Socialism; and you might have added the poetry of wailing about the woes of the poor generally. Only the second- and the third-raters write it--except "incidentally." You don't find the big fellows sniveling over that particular shadow-side of Nature. Yet not only are the poor always with us, they always _were_ with us, and their state was worse in the times of Homer, Virgil, Shakspeare, Milton and the others than in the days of Morris and Markham.

But what's the use? I have long despaired of convincing poets and artists of anything, even that white is not black. I'm convinced that all you chaps ought to have a world to yourselves, where two and two make whatever you prefer that it _should_ make, and cause and effect are remoulded "more nearly to the heart's desire." And then I suppose I'd want to go and live there too.

Did you ever know so poor satire to make so great a row as that of Watson? Compared with certain other verses against particular women--Byron's "Born in a garret, in a kitchen bred"; even my own skit entitled "Mad" (pardon my modesty) it is infantile. What an interesting book might be made of such "attacks" on women! But Watson is the only one of us, so far as I remember, who has had the caddishness to _name_ the victim.

Have you seen Percival Pollard's "Their Day in Court"? It is amusing, clever--and more. He has a whole chapter on me, "a lot" about Gertrude Atherton, and much else that is interesting. And he skins alive certain popular gods and goddesses of the day, and is "monstrous naughty."

As to * * *'s own character I do not see what that has to do with his criticism of London. If only the impeccable delivered judgment no judgment would ever be delivered. All men could do as they please, without reproof or dissent. I wish you would take your heart out of your head, old man. The best heart makes a bad head if housed there.

The friends that warned you against the precarious nature of my friendship were right. To hold my regard one must fulfil hard conditions--hard if one is not what one should be; easy if one is. I have, indeed, a habit of calmly considering the character of a man with whom I have fallen into any intimacy and, whether I have any grievance against him or not, informing him by letter that I no longer desire his acquaintance. This, I do after deciding that he is not truthful, candid, without conceit, and so forth--in brief, honorable. If any one is conscious that he is not in all respects worthy of my friendship he would better not cultivate it, for assuredly no one can long conceal his true character from an observant student of it. Yes, my friendship is a precarious possession. It grows more so the longer I live, and the less I feel the need of a multitude of friends. So, if in your heart you are conscious of being any of the things which you accuse _me_ of being, or anything else equally objectionable (to _me_) I can only advise you to drop me before I drop you.

Certainly you have an undoubted right to your opinion of my ability, my attainments and my standing. If you choose to publish a censorious judgment of these matters, do so by all means: I don't think I ever cared a cent for what was printed about me, except as it supplied me with welcome material for my pen. One may presumably have a "sense of duty to the public," and the like. But convincing one person (one at a time) of one's friend's deficiencies is hardly worth while, and is to be judged differently. It comes under another rule. * * *

Maybe, as you say, my work lacks "soul," but my life does not, as a man's life is the man. Personally, I hold that sentiment has a place in this world, and that loyalty to a friend is not inferior as a characteristic to correctness of literary judgment. If there is a heaven I think it is more valued there. If Mr. * * * (your publisher as well as mine) had considered you a Homer, a Goethe or a Shakspeare a team of horses could not have drawn from _me_ the expression of a lower estimate. And let me tell you that if you are going through life as a mere thinking machine, ignoring the generous promptings of the heart, sacrificing it to the brain, you will have a hard row to hoe, and the outcome, when you survey it from the vantage ground of age, will not please you. You seem to me to be beginning rather badly, as regards both your fortune and your peace of mind.

* * * * *

I saw * * * every day while in New York, and he does not know that I feel the slightest resentment toward you, nor do I know it myself. So far as he knows, or is likely to know (unless you will have it otherwise) you and I are the best of friends, or rather, I am the best of friends to you. And I guess that is so. I could no more hate you for your disposition and character than I could for your hump if you had one. You are as Nature has made you, and your defects, whether they are great or small, are your misfortunes. I would remove them if I could, but I know that I cannot, for one of them is inability to discern the others, even when they are pointed out.

I must commend your candor in one thing. You confirm * * * words in saying that you commented on "my seeming lack of sympathy with certain modern masters," which you attribute to my not having read them. That is a conclusion to which a low order of mind in sympathy with the "modern masters" naturally jumps, but it is hardly worthy of a man of your brains. It is like your former lofty assumption that I had not read some ten or twelve philosophers, naming them, nearly all of whom I had read, and laughed at, before you were born. In fact, one of your most conspicuous characteristics is the assumption that what a man who does not care to "talk shop" does not speak of, and vaunt his knowledge of, he does not know. I once thought this a boyish fault, but you are no longer a boy. Your "modern masters" are Ibsen and Shaw, with both of whose works and ways I am thoroughly familiar, and both of whom I think very small men--pets of the drawing-room and gods of the hour. No, I am not an "up to date" critic, thank God. I am not a literary critic at all, and never, or very seldom, have gone into that field except in pursuance of a personal object--to help a good writer (who is commonly a friend)--maybe you can recall such instances--or laugh at a fool. Surely you do not consider my work in the Cosmopolitan (mere badinage and chaff, the only kind of stuff that the magazine wants from me, or will print) essays in literary criticism. It has never occurred to me to look upon myself as a literary critic; if you _must_ prick my bubble please to observe that it contains more of your breath than of mine. Yet you have sometimes seemed to value, I thought, some of my notions about even poetry. * * *

Perhaps I am unfortunate in the matter of keeping friends; I know, and have abundant reason to know, that you are at least equally luckless in the matter of making them. I could put my finger on the very qualities in you that make you so, and the best service that I could do you would be to point them out and take the consequences. That is to say, it would serve you many years hence; at present you are like Carlyle's "Mankind"; you "refuse to be served." You only consent to be enraged.

I bear you no ill will, shall watch your career in letters with friendly solicitude--have, in fact, just sent to the * * * a most appreciative paragraph about your book, which may or may not commend itself to the editor; most of what I write does not. I hope to do a little, now and then, to further your success in letters. I wish you were different (and that is the harshest criticism that I ever uttered of you except to yourself) and wish it for your sake more than for mine. I am older than you and probably more "acquainted with grief"--the grief of disappointment and disillusion. If in the future you are convinced that you have become different, and I am still living, my welcoming hand awaits you. And when I forgive I forgive all over, even the new offence.

Miller undoubtedly is sincere in his praise of you, for with all his faults and follies he is always generous and usually over generous to other poets. There's nothing little and mean in him. Sing ho for Joaquin!

If I "made you famous" please remember that you were guilty of contributory negligence by meriting the fame. "Eternal vigilance" is the price of its permanence. Don't loaf on your job.

I have told her of a certain "enchanted forest" hereabout to which I feel myself sometimes strongly drawn as a fitting place to lay down "my weary body and my head." (Perhaps you remember your Swinburne:

"Ah yet, would God this flesh of mine might be
Where air might wash and long leaves cover me!
Ah yet, would God that roots and stems were bred
Out of my weary body and my head.")

The element of enchantment in that forest is supplied by my wandering and dreaming in it forty-one years ago when I was a-soldiering and there were new things under a new sun. It is miles away, but from a near-by summit I can overlook the entire region--ridge beyond ridge, parted by purple valleys full of sleep. Unlike me, it has not visibly altered in all these years, except that I miss, here and there, a thin blue ghost of smoke from an enemy's camp. Can you guess my feelings when I view this Dream-land--my Realm of Adventure, inhabited by memories that beckon me from every valley? I shall go; I shall retrace my old routes and lines of march; stand in my old camps; inspect my battlefields to see that all is right and undisturbed. I shall go to the Enchanted Forest.

PRINTED BY
JOHN HENRY NASH AT SAN FRANCISCO
IN DECEMBER MDCCCCXXII
THE EDITION CONSISTS OF FOUR HUNDRED
AND FIFTEEN COPIES
FOUR HUNDRED ARE NUMBERED
AND FOR SALE
No. 208

End of Project Gutenberg's The Letters of Ambrose Bierce, by Ambrose Bierce

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