The Letters of Ambrose Bierce, With a Memoir by George Sterling

The Ashton Stevens interview was charming. His finding you and Scheff together seems too idyllic to be true – I thought it a fake. He put in quite enough – too much – about me. As to Joaquin's hack at me – why, that was magnanimity itself in one who, like most of us, does not offset blame against praise, subtract the latter from the former and find matter for thanks in the remainder. You know "what fools we mortals be"; criticism that is not all honey is all vinegar. Nobody has more delighted than I in pointing out the greatness of Joaquin's great work; but nobody than I has more austerely condemned * * *, his vanity and the general humbugery that makes his prose so insupportable. Joaquin is a good fellow, all the same, and you should not demand of him impossible virtues and a reach of reasonableness that is alien to him.

* * *

I have the books you kindly sent and have planted two or three in what I think fertile soil which I hope will produce a small crop of appreciation.

* * *

And the poem!7 I hardly know how to speak of it. No poem in English of equal length has so bewildering a wealth of imagination. Not Spenser himself has flung such a profusion of jewels into so small a casket. Why, man, it takes away the breath! I've read and reread – read it for the expression and read it for the thought (always when I speak of the "thought" in your work I mean the meaning – which is another thing) and I shall read it many times more. And pretty soon I'll get at it with my red ink and see if I can suggest anything worth your attention. I fear not.

* * *Sincerely yours, Ambrose Bierce.
"New YorkAmerican"Office,Washington, D. C.,February 29,1904.

Dear George,

I wrote you yesterday. Since then I have been rereading your letter. I wish you would not say so much about what I have done for you, and how much it was worth to you, and all that. I should be sorry to think that I did not do a little for you – I tried to. But, my boy, you should know that I don't keep that kind of service on sale. Moreover, I'm amply repaid by what you have done for me– I mean with your pen. Do you suppose I do not value such things? Does it seem reasonable to think me unpleasured by those magnificent dedicatory verses in your book? Is it nothing to me to be called "Master" by such as you? Is my nature so cold that I have no pride in such a pupil? There is no obligation in the matter – certainly none that can be suffered to satisfy itself out of your pocket.

You greatly overestimate the sums I spend in "charity." I sometimes help some poor devil of an unfortunate over the rough places, but not to the extent that you seem to suppose. I couldn't – I've too many regular, constant, legitimate demands on me. Those, mostly, are what keep me poor.

* * *

Maybe you think it odd that I've not said a word in print about any of your work except the "Testimony." It is not that I don't appreciate the minor poems – I do. But I don't like to scatter; I prefer to hammer on a single nail – to push one button until someone hears the bell. When the "Wine" is published I'll have another poem that is not only great, but striking – notable – to work on. However good, or even great, a short poem with such a title as "Poesy," "Music," "To a Lily," "A White Rose," and so forth, cannot be got into public attention. Some longer and more notable work, of the grander manner, may carry it, but of itself it will not go. Even a bookful of its kind will not. Not till you're famous.

Your letter regarding your brother (who has not turned up) was needless – I could be of no assistance in procuring him employment. I've tried so often to procure it for others, and so vainly, that nobody could persuade me to try any more. I'm not fond of the character of suppliant, nor of being "turned down" by the little men who run this Government. Of course I'm not in favor with this Administration, not only because of my connection with Democratic newspapers, but because, also, I sometimes venture to dissent openly from the doctrine of the divinity of those in high station – particularly Teddy.

I'm sorry you find your place in the office intolerable. That is "the common lot of all" who work for others. I have chafed under the yoke for many years – a heavier yoke, I think, than yours. It does not fit my neck anywhere. Some day perhaps you and I will live on adjoining ranches in the mountains – or in adjoining caves – "the world forgetting, by the world forgot." I have really been on the point of hermitizing lately, but I guess I'll have to continue to live like a reasonable human being a little longer until I can release myself with a conscience void of offense to my creditors and dependents. But "the call of the wild" sounds, even in my dreams.

You ask me if you should write in "A Wine of Wizardry" vein, or in that of "The Testimony of the Suns." Both. I don't know in which you have succeeded the better. And I don't know anyone who has succeeded better in either. To succeed in both is a marvelous performance. You may say that the one is fancy, the other imagination, which is true, but not the whole truth. The "Wine" has as true imagination as the other, and fancy into the bargain. I like your grandiose manner, and I like the other as well. In terms of another art I may say – rear great towers and domes. Carve, also, friezes. But I'd not bother to cut single finials and small decorations. However exquisite the workmanship, they are not worth your present attention. If you were a painter (as, considering your wonderful sense of color, you doubtless could have been) your large canvases would be your best.

* * *

I don't care if that satire of Josephare refers to me or not; it was good. He may jump on me if he wants to – I don't mind. All I ask is that he do it well.

* * *

I passed yesterday with Percival Pollard, viewing the burnt district of Baltimore. He's a queer duck whom I like, and he likes your work. I'm sending you a copy of "The Papyrus," with his "rehabilitation" of the odious Oscar Wilde. Wilde's work is all right, but what can one do with the work of one whose name one cannot speak before women?

* * *Sincerely yours, Ambrose Bierce.
Washington, D. C.,April 19,1904.

Dear George,

The "belatedness" of your letter only made me fear that I had offended you. Odd that we should have such views of each other's sensitiveness.

About Wood. No doubt that he is doing all that he can, but – well, he is not a publisher. For example: He sent forty or fifty "Shapes" here. They lie behind a counter at the bookseller's – not even on the counter. There are probably not a dozen persons of my acquaintance in Washington who know that I ever wrote a book. Now how are even these to know about that book? The bookseller does not advertise the books he has on sale and the public does not go rummaging behind his counters. A publisher's methods are a bit different, naturally.

Only for your interest I should not care if my books sold or not; they exist and will not be destroyed; every book will eventually get to somebody.

* * *

It seems to be a matter for you to determine – whether Wood continues to try to sell the book or it is put in other hands if he is ever tired of it. Remember, I don't care a rap what happens to the book except as a means of reimbursing you; I want no money and I want no glory. If you and Wood can agree, do in all things as you please.

I return Wood's letters; they show what I knew before: that the public and the librarians would not buy that book. Let us discuss this matter no more, but at some time in the future you tell me how much you are out of pocket.

Your book shows that a fellow can get a good deal of glory with very little profit. You are now famous – at least on the Pacific Coast; but I fancy you are not any "for'arder" in the matter of wealth than you were before. I too have some reputation – a little wider, as yet, than yours. Well, my work sells tremendously – in Mr. Hearst's newspapers, at the price of a small fraction of one cent! Offered by itself, in one-dollar and two-dollar lots, it tempts nobody to fall over his own feet in the rush to buy. A great trade, this of ours!

I note with interest the "notices" you send. The one by Monahan is amusing with its gabble about your "science." To most men, as to him, a mention of the stars suggests astronomy, with its telescopes, spectroscopes and so forth. Therefore it is "scientific." To tell such men that there is nothing of science in your poem would puzzle them greatly.

I don't think poor Lang meant to do anything but his best and honestest. He is a rather clever and rather small fellow and not to be blamed for the limitations of his insight. I have repeatedly pointed out in print that it requires genius to discern genius at first hand. Lang has written almost the best, if not quite the best, sonnet in the language – yet he is no genius.

* * *

Why, of course – why should you not help the poor devil, * * *; I used to help him myself – introduced him to the public and labored to instruct him. Then – but it is unspeakable and so is he. He will bite your hand if you feed him, but I think I'd throw a crust to him myself.

* * *

No, I don't agree with you about Homer, nor "stand for" your implied view that narrative poetry is not "pure poetry." Poetry seems to me to speak with a thousand voices – "a various language." The miners have a saying: "Gold is where you find it." So is poetry; I'm expecting to find it some fine day in the price list of a grocery store. I fancy you could put it there.

* * *

As to Goethe, the more you read him, the better you will love Heine.

Thank you for "A Wine of Wizardry" – amended. It seems to me that the fake dictum of "Merlin-sage" (I don't quite perceive the necessity of the hyphen) is better than the hackneyed Scriptural quotation. It is odd, but my recollection is that it was the "sick enchantress" who cried "unto Betelgeuse a mystic word." Was it not so in the copy that I first had, or do I think so merely because the cry of one is more lone and awful than the cry of a number?

I am still of the belief that the poem should have at least a few breaks in it, for I find myself as well as the public more or less – I, doubtless, less than the public – indisposed to tackle solid columns of either verse or prose. I told you this poem "took away one's breath," – give a fellow, can't you, a chance to recover it now and again.

"Space to breathe, how short soever."

Nevertheless, not my will but thine be done, on earth as it is in San Francisco. Sincerely yours, Ambrose Bierce.

Washington, D. C.,May 11,1904.

Dear George,

To begin at the beginning, I shall of course be pleased to meet Josephare if he come this way; if only to try to solve the problem of what is in a fellow who started so badly and in so short a time was running well, with a prospect of winning "a place." Byron, you know, was the same way and Tennyson not so different. Still their start was not so bad as Josephare's. I freely confess that I thought him a fool. It is "one on me."

* * *

I wonder if a London house would publish "Shapes of Clay." Occasionally a little discussion about me breaks out in the London press, blazes up for a little while and "goes up in smoke." I enclose some evidences of the latest one – which you may return if you remember to do so. The letter of "a deeply disappointed man" was one of rollicking humor suggested by some articles of Barr about me and a private intimation from him that I should publish some more books in London.

Yes, I've dropped "The Passing Show" again, for the same old reason – wouldn't stand the censorship of my editor. I'm writing for the daily issues of The American, mainly, and, as a rule, anonymously. It's "dead easy" work.

* * *

It is all right – that "cry unto Betelgeuse"; the "sick enchantress" passage is good enough without it. I like the added lines of the poem. Here's another criticism: The "Without" and "Within," beginning the first and third lines, respectively, seem to be antithetic, when they are not, the latter having the sense of "into," which I think might, for clearness, be substituted for it without a displeasing break of the metre – a trochee for an iambus.

Why should I not try "The Atlantic" with this poem? – if you have not already done so. I could write a brief note about it, saying what you could not say, and possibly winning attention to the work. If you say so I will. It is impossible to imagine a magazine editor rejecting that amazing poem. I have read it at least twenty times with ever increasing admiration.

Your book, by the way, is still my constant companion – I carry it in my pocket and read it over and over, in the street cars and everywhere. All the poems are good, though the "Testimony" and "Memorial Day" are supreme – the one in grandeur, the other in feeling.

I send you a criticism in a manuscript letter from a friend who complains of your "obscurity," as many have the candor to do. It requires candor to do that, for the fault is in the critic's understanding. Still, one who understands Shakspeare and Milton is not without standing as a complaining witness in the court of literature.

* * *

My favorite translation of Homer is that of Pope, of whom it is the present fashion to speak disparagingly, as it is of Byron. I know all that can be said against them, and say some of it myself, but I wish their detractors had a little of their brains. I know too that Pope's translations of The Iliad and The Odyssey are rather paraphrases than translations. But I love them just the same, while wondering (with you, doubtless) what so profoundly affected Keats when he "heard Chapman speak out loud and bold." Whatever it was, it gave us what Coleridge pronounced the best sonnet in our language; and Lang's admiration of Homer has given us at least the next best. Of course there must be something in poems that produce poems – in a poet whom most poets confess their king. I hold (with Poe) that there is no such thing as a long poem – a poem of the length of an Epic. It must consist of poetic passages connected by recitativo, to use an opera word; but it is perhaps better for that. If the writer cannot write "sustained" poetry the reader probably could not read it. Anyhow, I vote for Homer.

I am passing well, but shall soon seek the mountains, though I hope to be here when Scheff points his prow this way. Would that you were sailing with him!

I've been hearing all about all of you, for Eva Crawford has been among you "takin' notes," and Eva's piquant comments on what and whom she sees are delicious reading. I should suppose that you would appreciate Eva – most persons don't. She is the best letter writer of her sex – who are all good letter writers – and she is much beside. I may venture to whisper that you'd find her estimate of your work and personality "not altogether displeasing."

Now that I'm about such matters, I shall enclose a note to my friend Dr. Robertson, who runs an insanery at Livermore and is an interesting fellow with a ditto family and a library that will make you pea-green with envy. Go out and see him some day and take Scheff, or any friend, along – he wants to know you. You won't mind the facts that he thinks all poetry the secretion of a diseased brain, and that the only reason he doesn't think all brains (except his own) diseased is the circumstance that not all secrete poetry.

* * *

Seriously, he is a good fellow and full of various knowledges that most of us wot not of.

Sincerely yours, Ambrose Bierce.
Washington, D. C.,June 14,1904.

My dear George,

I have a letter from * * *, who is in St. Louis, to which his progress has been more leisurely than I liked, considering that I am remaining away from my mountains only to meet him. However, he intimates an intention to come in a week. I wish you were with him.

I am sending the W. of W. to Scribner's, as you suggest, and if it is not taken shall try the other mags in the order of your preference. But it's funny that you —you– should prefer the "popular" magazines and wish the work "illustrated." Be assured the illustrations will shock you if you get them.

* * *

I understand what you say about being bored by the persons whom your work in letters brings about your feet. The most contented years of my life lately were the two or three that I passed here before Washington folk found out that I was an author. The fact has leaked out, and although not a soul of them buys and reads my books some of them bore me insupportably with their ignorant compliments and unwelcome attentions. I fancy I'll have to "move on."

Tell Maid Marian to use gloves when modeling, or the clay will enter into her soul through her fingers and she become herself a Shape of Clay. My notion is that she should work in a paste made of ashes-of-roses moistened with nectar.

* * *Sincerely yours, Ambrose Bierce.

P.S. Does it bore you that I like you to know my friends? Professor * * *'s widow (and daughter) are very dear to me. She knows about you, and I've written her that I'd ask you to call on her. You'll like them all right, but I have another purpose. I want to know how they prosper; and they are a little reticent about that. Maybe you could ascertain indirectly by seeing how they live. I asked Grizzly to do this but of course he didn't, the shaggy brute that he is. A. B.

Haines' Falls,Greene Co., N. Y.,August 4,1904.

Dear George,

I haven't written a letter, except on business, since leaving Washington, June 30 – no, not since Scheff's arrival there. I now return to earth, and my first call is on you.

You'll be glad to know that I'm having a good time here in the Catskills. I shall not go back so long as I can find an open hotel.

* * *

I should like to hear from you about our – or rather your – set in California, and especially about you. Do you still dally with the Muse? Enclosed you will find two damning evidences of additional incapacity. Harper's now have "A Wine of Wizardry," and they too will indubitably turn it down. I shall then try The Atlantic, where it should have gone in the first place; and I almost expect its acceptance.

I'm not working much – just loafing on my cottage porch; mixing an occasional cocktail; infesting the forests, knife in hand, in pursuit of the yellow-birch sapling that furnishes forth the walking stick like yours; and so forth. I knocked off work altogether for a month when Scheff came, and should like to do so for you. Are you never going to visit the scenes of your youth?

* * *

It is awfully sad – that latest visit of Death to the heart and home of poor Katie Peterson. Will you kindly assure her of my sympathy?

Love to all the Piedmontese. Sincerely yours, Ambrose Bierce.

Haines' Falls,Greene Co., N. Y.,August 27,1904.

My dear George,

First, thank you for the knife and the distinction of membership in the Ancient and Honorable Order of Knifers. I have made little use of the blades and other appliances, but the corkscrew is in constant use.

I'm enclosing a little missive from the editor of Harper's. Please reserve these things awhile and sometime I may ask them of you to "point a moral or adorn a tale" about that poem. If we can't get it published I'd like to write for some friendly periodical a review of an unpublished poem, with copious extracts and a brief history of it. I think that would be unique.

I find the pictures of Marian interesting, but have the self-denial to keep only one of them – the prettiest one of course. Your own is rather solemn, but it will do for the title page of the Testimony, which is still my favorite reading.

Scheff showed me your verses on Katie's baby, and Katie has since sent them. They are very tender and beautiful. I would not willingly spare any of your "personal" poems – least of all, naturally, the one personal to me. Your success with them is exceptional. Yet the habit of writing them is perilous, as the many failures of great poets attest – Milton, for example, in his lines to Syriack Skinner, his lines to a baby that died a-bornin' and so forth. The reason is obvious, and you have yourself, with sure finger, pointed it out:

"Remiss the ministry they bearWho serve her with divided heart;She stands reluctant to impartHer strength to purpose, end, or care."

When one is intent upon pleasing some mortal, one is less intent upon pleasing the immortal Muse. All this is said only by way of admonition for the future, not in criticism of the past. I'm a sinner myself in that way, but then I'm not a saint in any way, so my example doesn't count.

I don't mind * * * calling me a "dignified old gentleman" – indeed, that is what I have long aspired to be, but have succeeded only in the presence of strangers, and not always then. * * *

(I forgot to say that your poem is now in the hands of the editor of the Atlantic.)

Your determination to "boom" me almost frightens me. Great Scott! you've no notion of the magnitude of the task you undertake; the labors of Hercules were as nothing to it. Seriously, don't make any enemies that way; it is not worth while. And you don't know how comfortable I am in my obscurity. It is like being in "the shadow of a great rock in a weary land."

How goes the no sale of Shapes of Clay? I am slowly saving up a bit of money to recoup your friendly outlay. That's a new thing for me to do – the saving, I mean – and I rather enjoy the sensation. If it results in making a miser of me you will have to answer for it to many a worthy complainant.

Get thee behind me, Satan! – it is not possible for me to go to California yet. For one thing, my health is better here in the East; I have utterly escaped asthma this summer, and summer is my only "sickly season" here. In California I had the thing at any time o' year – even at Wright's. But it is my hope to end my days out there.

I don't think Millard was too hard on Kipling; it was no "unconscious" plagiarism; just a "straight steal."

About Prentice Mulford. I knew him but slightly and used to make mild fun of him as "Dismal Jimmy." That expressed my notion of his character and work, which was mostly prose platitudes. I saw him last in London, a member of the Joaquin Miller-Charles Warren Stoddard-Olive Harper outfit at 11 Museum Street, Bloomsbury Square. He married there a fool girl named Josie – forget her other name – with whom I think he lived awhile in hell, then freed himself, and some years afterward returned to this country and was found dead one morning in a boat at Sag Harbor. Peace to the soul of him. No, he was not a faker, but a conscientious fellow who mistook his vocation.

My friends have returned to Washington, but I expect to remain here a few weeks yet, infesting the woods, devastating the mountain larders, supervising the sunsets and guiding the stars in their courses. Then to New York, and finally to Washington. Please get busy with that fame o' yours so as to have the wealth to come and help me loaf.

I hope you don't mind the typewriter —I don't.

Convey my love to all the sweet ladies of your entourage and make my compliments also to the Gang. Sincerely yours, Ambrose Bierce.

Washington,October 5,1904.

Dear George,

Your latest was dated Sept. 10. I got it while alone in the mountains, but since then I have been in New York City and at West Point and – here. New York is too strenuous for me; it gets on my nerves.

* * *

Please don't persuade me to come to California – I mean don't try to, for I can't, and it hurts a little to say nay. There's a big bit of my heart there, but – O never mind the reasons; some of them would not look well on paper. One of them I don't mind telling; I would not live in a state under union labor rule. There is still one place where the honest American laboring man is not permitted to cut throats and strip bodies of women at his own sweet will. That is the District of Columbia.

I am anxious to read Lilith; please complete it.

I have another note of rejection for you. It is from * * *. Knowing that you will not bank on what he says about the Metropolitan, I enclose it. I've acted on his advising and sent the poem. It is about time for it to come back. Then I shall try the other magazines until the list is exhausted.

Did I return your Jinks verses? I know I read them and meant to send them back, but my correspondence and my papers are in such hopeless disorder that I'm all at sea on these matters. For aught I know I may have elaborately "answered" the letter that I think myself to be answering now. I liked the verses very temperately, not madly.