I have had often in mind the vision of his capture by such a squad, their discovery of the considerable amount of gold coin that he was known to carry on his person, and his immediate condemnation and execution as a spy in order that they might retain possession of the booty. Naturally, such proceedings would not have been reported, from fear of the necessity of sharing with those “higher up.” And so the veil would have remained drawn, and impenetrable to vision. Through the efforts of the War Department, all United States Consuls were questioned as to Bierce’s possible departure from the country; all Americans visiting or residing in Mexico were begged for information — even prospectors. But the story of the reporter is the sole one that seems partially credible. To such darkness did so shining and fearless a soul go forth.
It is now over eight years since that disappearance, and though the likelihood of his existence in the flesh seems faint indeed, the storm of detraction and obloquy that he always insisted would follow his demise has never broken, is not even on the horizon. Instead, he seems to be remembered with tolerance by even those whom he visited with a chastening pen. Each year of darkness but makes the star of his fame increase and brighten, but we have, I think, no full conception as yet of his greatness, no adequate realization of how wide and permanent a fame he has won. It is significant that some of the discerning admire him for one phase of his work, some for another. For instance, the clear-headed H. L. Mencken acclaims him as the first wit of America, but will have none of his tales; while others, somewhat disconcerted by the cynicism pervading much of his wit, place him among the foremost exponents of the art of the short story. Others again prefer his humor (for he was humorist as well as wit), and yet others like most the force, clarity and keen insight of his innumerable essays and briefer comments on mundane affairs. Personally, I have always regarded Poe’s Fall of the House of Usher as our greatest tale; close to that come, in my opinion, at least a dozen of Bierce’s stories, whether of the soldier or civilian. He has himself stated in Prattle: “I am not a poet.” And yet he wrote poetry, on occasion, of a high order, his Invocation being one of the noblest poems in the tongue. Some of his satirical verse seems to me as terrible in its withering invective as any that has been written by classic satirists, not excepting Juvenal and Swift. Like the victims of their merciless pens, his, too, will be forgiven and forgotten. Today no one knows, nor cares, whether or not those long-dead offenders gave just offense. The grave has closed over accuser and accused, and the only thing that matters is that a great mind was permitted to function. One may smile or sigh over the satire, but one must also realize that even the satirist had his own weaknesses, and could have been as savagely attacked by a mentality as keen as his own. Men as a whole will never greatly care for satire, each recognizing, true enough, glimpses of himself in the invective, but sensing as well its fundamental bias and cruelty. However, Bierce thought best of himself as a satirist.
Naturally, Bierce carried his wit and humor into his immediate human relationships. I best recall an occasion, when, in my first year of acquaintance with him, we were both guests at the home of the painter, J. H. E. Partington. It happened that a bowl of nasturtiums adorned the center table, and having been taught by Father Tabb, the poet, to relish that flower, I managed to consume most of them before the close of the evening, knowing there were plenty more to be had in the garden outside. Someone at last remarked: “Why, George has eaten all the nasturtiums! Go out and bring some more.” At which Bierce dryly and justly remarked: “No — bring some thistles!” It is an indication, however, of his real kindness of heart that, observing my confusion, he afterwards apologized to me for what he termed a thoughtless jest. It was, nevertheless, well deserved.
I recall even more distinctly a scene of another setting. This concerns itself with Bierce’s son, Leigh, then a youth in the early twenties. At the time (circa 1894) I was a brother lodger with them in an Oakland apartment house. Young Bierce had contracted a liaison with a girl of his own age, and his father, determined to end the affair, had appointed an hour for discussion of the matter. The youth entered his father’s rooms defiant and resolute: within an hour he appeared weeping, and cried out to me, waiting for him in his own room: “My father is a greater man than Christ! He has suffered more than Christ!” And the affair of the heart was promptly terminated.
One conversant with Bierce only as a controversionalist and censor morum was, almost of necessity, constrained to imagine him a misanthrope, a soured and cynical recluse. Only when one was privileged to see him among his intimates could one obtain glimpses of his true nature, which was considerate, generous, even affectionate. Only the waving of the red flag of Socialism could rouse in him what seemed to us others a certain savageness of intolerance. Needless to say, we did not often invoke it, for he was an ill man with whom to bandy words. It was my hope, at one time, to involve him and Jack London in a controversy on the subject, but London declined the oral encounter, preferring one with the written word. Nothing came of the plan, which is a pity, as each was a supreme exponent of his point of view. Bierce subsequently attended one of the midsummer encampments of the Bohemian Club, of which he was once the secretary, in their redwood grove near the Russian river. Hearing that London was present, he asked why they had not been mutually introduced, and I was forced to tell him that I feared that they’d be, verbally, at each other’s throats, within an hour. “Nonsense!” exclaimed Bierce. “Bring him around! I’ll treat him like a Dutch Uncle.” He kept his word, and seemed as much attracted to London as London was to him. But I was always ill at ease when they were conversing. I do not think the two men ever met again.
Bierce was the cleanest man, personally, of whom I have knowledge — almost fanatically so, if such a thing be possible. Even during our weeks of camping in the Yosemite, he would spend two hours on his morning toilet in the privacy of his tent. His nephew always insisted that the time was devoted to shaving himself from face to foot! He was also a most modest man, and I still recall his decided objections to my bathing attire when at the swimming-pool of the Bohemian Club, in the Russian River. Compared to many of those visible, it seemed more than adequate; but he had another opinion of it. He was a good, even an eminent, tankard-man, and retained a clear judgment under any amount of potations. He preferred wine (especially a dry vin du pays, usually a sauterne) to “hard likker,” in this respect differing in taste from his elder brother. In the days when I first made his acquaintance, I was accustomed to roam the hills beyond Oakland and Berkeley from Cordonices Creek to Leona Heights, in company with Albert Bierce, his son Carlton, R. L. (“Dick”) Partington, Leigh Bierce (Ambrose’s surviving son) and other youths. On such occasions I sometimes hid a superfluous bottle of port or sherry in a convenient spot, and Bierce, afterwards accompanying us on several such outings, pretended to believe that I had such flagons concealed under each bush or rock in the reach and breadth of the hills, and would, to carry out the jest, hunt zealously in such recesses. I could wish that he were less often unsuccessful in the search, now that he has had “the coal-black wine” to drink.
Though an appreciable portion of his satire hints at misanthropy, Bierce, while profoundly a pessimist, was, by his own confession to me, “a lover of his country and his fellowmen,” and was ever ready to proffer assistance in the time of need and sympathy in the hour of sorrow. His was a great and tender heart, and giving of it greatly, he expected, or rather hoped for, a return as great. It may have been by reason of the frustration of such hopes that he so often broke with old and, despite his doubts, appreciative friends. His brother Albert once told me that he (Ambrose) had never been “quite the same,” after the wound in the head that he received in the battle of Kenesaw Mountain, but had a tendency to become easily offended and to show that resentment. Such estrangements as he and his friends suffered are not, therefore, matters on which one should sit in judgment. It is sad to know that he went so gladly from life, grieved and disappointed. But the white flame of Art that he
tended for nearly half a century was never permitted to grow faint nor smoky, and it burned to the last with a pure brilliance. Perhaps, he bore witness to what he had found most admirable and enduring in life in the following words, the conclusion of the finest of his essays:
“Literature and art are about all that the world really cares for in the end; those who make them are not without justification in regarding themselves as masters in the House of Life and all others as their servitors. In the babble and clamor, the pranks and antics of its countless incapables, the tremendous dignity of the profession of letters is overlooked; but when, casting a retrospective eye into ‘the dark backward and abysm of time’ to where beyond these voices is the peace of desolation, we note the majesty of the few immortals and compare them with the pygmy figures of their contemporary kings, warriors and men of action generally — when across the silent battle-fields and hushed fora where the dull destinies of nations were determined, nobody cares how, we hear
like ocean on a western beach
The surge and thunder of the Odyssey,
then we appraise literature at its true value, and how little worth while seems all else with which Man is pleased to occupy his fussy soul and futile hands!”
THE LETTERS OF AMBROSE BIERCE
1892.
[Angwin, July 31, 1892.]
MY DEAR BLANCHE,
You will not, I hope, mind my saying that the first part of your letter was so pleasing that it almost solved the disappointment created by the other part. For that is a bit discouraging. Let me explain.
You receive my suggestion about trying your hand * * * at writing, with assent and apparently pleasure. But, alas, not for love of the art, but for the purpose of helping God repair his botchwork world. You want to “reform things,” poor girl — to rise and lay about you, slaying monsters and liberating captive maids. You would “help to alter for the better the position of working-women.” You would be a missionary — and the rest of it. Perhaps I shall not make myself understood when I say that this discourages me; that in such aims (worthy as they are) I would do nothing to assist you; that such ambitions are not only impracticable but incompatible with the spirit that gives success in art; that such ends are a prostitution of art; that “helpful” writing is dull reading. If you had had more experience of life I should regard what you say as entirely conclusive against your possession of any talent of a literary kind. But you are so young and untaught in that way — and I have the testimony of little felicities and purely literary touches (apparently unconscious) in your letters — perhaps your unschooled heart and hope should not be held as having spoken the conclusive word. But surely, my child — as surely as anything in mathematics — Art will laurel no brow having a divided allegiance. Love the world as much as you will, but serve it otherwise. The best service you can perform by writing is to write well with no care for anything but that. Plant and water and let God give the increase if he will, and to whom it shall please him.
Suppose your father were to “help working-women” by painting no pictures but such (of their ugly surroundings, say) as would incite them to help themselves, or others to help them. Suppose you should play no music but such as — but I need go no further. Literature (I don’t mean journalism) is an art; — it is not a form of benevolence. It has nothing to do with “reform,” and when used as a means of reform suffers accordingly and justly. Unless you can feel that way I cannot advise you to meddle with it.
It would be dishonest in me to accept your praise for what I wrote of the Homestead Works quarrel — unless you should praise it for being well written and true. I have no sympathies with that savage fight between the two kinds of rascals, and no desire to assist either — except to better hearts and manners. The love of truth is good enough motive for me when I write of my fellowmen. I like many things in this world and a few persons — I like you, for example; but after they are served I have no love to waste upon the irreclaimable mass of brutality that we know as “mankind.” Compassion, yes — I am sincerely sorry that they are brutes.
Yes, I wrote the article “The Human Liver.” Your criticism is erroneous. My opportunities of knowing women’s feelings toward Mrs. Grundy are better than yours. They hate her with a horrible antipathy; but they cower all the same. The fact that they are a part of her mitigates neither their hatred nor their fear.
* * * * *
After next Monday I shall probably be in St. Helena, but if you will be so good as still to write to me please address me here until I apprise you of my removal; for I shall intercept my letters at St. Helena, wherever addressed. And maybe you will write before Monday. I need not say how pleasant it is for me to hear from you. And I shall want to know what you think of what I say about your “spirit of reform.”
How I should have liked to pass that Sunday in camp with you all. And to-day — I wonder if you are there to-day. I feel a peculiar affection for that place.
Please give my love to all your people, and forgive my intolerably long letters — or retaliate in kind.
Sincerely your friend,
AMBROSE BIERCE.
[St. Helena, August 15, 1892.]
I KNOW, DEAR BLANCHE, of the disagreement among men as to the nature and aims of literature; and the subject is too “long” to discuss. I will only say that it seems to me that men holding Tolstoi’s view are not properly literary men (that is to say, artists) at all. They are “missionaries,” who, in their zeal to lay about them, do not scruple to seize any weapon that they can lay their hands on; they would grab a crucifix to beat a dog. The dog is well beaten, no doubt (which makes him a worse dog than he was before) but note the condition of the crucifix! The work of these men is better, of course, than the work of men of truer art and inferior brains; but always you see the possibilities — possibilities to them — which they have missed or consciously sacrificed to their fad. And after all they do no good. The world does not wish to be helped. The poor wish only to be rich, which is impossible, not to be better. They would like to be rich in order to be worse, generally speaking. And your working woman (also generally speaking) does not wish to be virtuous; despite her insincere deprecation she would not let the existing system be altered if she could help it. Individual men and women can be assisted; and happily some are worthy of assistance. No class of mankind, no tribe, no nation is worth the sacrifice of one good man or woman; for not only is their average worth low, but they like it that way; and in trying to help them you fail to help the good individuals. Your family, your immediate friends, will give you scope enough for all your benevolence. I must include your self.
In timely illustration of some of this is an article by Ingersoll in the current North American Review — I shall send it you. It will be nothing new to you; the fate of the philanthropist who gives out of his brain and heart instead of his pocket — having nothing in that — is already known to you. It serves him richly right, too, for his low taste in loving. He who dilutes, spreads, subdivides, the love which naturally all belongs to his family and friends (if they are good) should not complain of non-appreciation. Love those, help those, whom from personal knowledge you know to be worthy. To love and help others is treason to them. But, bless my soul! I did not mean to say all this.
But while you seem clear as to your own art, you seem undecided as to the one you wish to take up. I know the strength and sweetness of the illusions (that is, delusions) that you are required to forego. I know the abysmal ignorance of the world and human character which, as a girl, you necessarily have. I know the charm that inheres in the beckoning of the Britomarts, as they lean out of their dream to persuade you to be as like them as is compatible with the fact that you exist. But I believe, too, that if you are set thinking — not reading — you will find the light.
You ask me of journalism. It is so low a thing that it may be legitimately used as a means of reform or a means of anything deemed worth accomplishing. It is not an art; art, except in the greatest moderation, is damaging to it. T
he man who can write well must not write as well as he can; the others may, of course. Journalism has many purposes, and the people’s welfare may be one of them; though that is not the purpose-in-chief, by much.
I don’t mind your irony about my looking upon the unfortunate as merely “literary material.” It is true in so far as I consider them with reference to literature. Possibly I might be willing to help them otherwise — as your father might be willing to help a beggar with money, who is not picturesque enough to go into a picture. As you might be willing to give a tramp a dinner, yet unwilling to play “The Sweet Bye-and-Bye,” or “Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay,” to tickle his ear.
You call me “master.” Well, it is pleasant to think of you as a pupil, but — you know the young squire had to watch his arms all night before the day of his accolade and investiture with knighthood. I think I’ll ask you to contemplate yours a little longer before donning them — not by way of penance but instruction and consecration. When you are quite sure of the nature of your call to write — quite sure that it is not the voice of “duty” — then let me do you such slight, poor service as my limitations and the injunctions of circumstance permit. In a few ways I can help you.
* * * * *
Since coming here I have been ill all the time, but it seems my duty to remain as long as there is a hope that I can remain. If I get free from my disorder and the fear of it I shall go down to San Francisco some day and then try to see your people and mine. Perhaps you would help me to find my brother’s new house — if he is living in it.
Complete Works of Ambrose Bierce (Delphi Classics) Page 308