With sincere regards to all your family, I am most truly your friend,
AMBROSE BIERCE.
Your letters are very pleasing to me. I think it nice of you to write them.
[St. Helena, August 17, 1892.]
DEAR BLANCHE,
It was not that I forgot to mail you the magazine that I mentioned; I could not find it; but now I send it.
My health is bad again, and I fear that I shall have to abandon my experiment of living here, and go back to the mountain — or some mountain. But not directly.
You asked me what books would be useful to you — I’m assuming that you’ve repented your sacrilegious attitude toward literature, and will endeavor to thrust your pretty head into the crown of martyrdom otherwise. I may mention a few from time to time as they occur to me. There is a little book entitled (I think) simply “English Composition.” It is by Prof. John Nichol — elementary, in a few places erroneous, but on the whole rather better than the ruck of books on the same subject.
Read those of Landor’s “Imaginary Conversations” which relate to literature.
Read Longinus, Herbert Spencer on Style, Pope’s “Essay on Criticism” (don’t groan — the detractors of Pope are not always to have things their own way), Lucian on the writing of history — though you need not write history. Read poor old obsolete Kames’ notions; some of them are not half bad. Read Burke “On the Sublime and Beautiful.”
Read — but that will do at present. And as you read don’t forget that the rules of the literary art are deduced from the work of the masters who wrote in ignorance of them or in unconsciousness of them. That fixes their value; it is secondary to that of natural qualifications. None the less, it is considerable. Doubtless you have read many — perhaps most — of these things, but to read them with a view to profit as a writer may be different. If I could get to San Francisco I could dig out of those artificial memories, the catalogues of the libraries, a lot of titles additional — and get you the books, too. But I’ve a bad memory, and am out of the Book Belt.
I wish you would write some little thing and send it me for examination. I shall not judge it harshly, for this I know: the good writer (supposing him to be born to the trade) is not made by reading, but by observing and experiencing. You have lived so little, seen so little, that your range will necessarily be narrow, but within its lines I know no reason why you should not do good work. But it is all conjectural — you may fail. Would it hurt if I should tell you that I thought you had failed? Your absolute and complete failure would not affect in the slightest my admiration of your intellect. I have always half suspected that it is only second rate minds, and minds below the second rate, that hold their cleverness by so precarious a tenure that they can detach it for display in words.
God bless you,
A. B.
[St. Helena, August 28, 1892.]
MY DEAR BLANCHE,
I positively shall not bore you with an interminated screed this time. But I thought you might like to know that I have recovered my health, and hope to be able to remain here for a few months at least. And if I remain well long enough to make me reckless I shall visit your town some day, and maybe ask your mother to command you to let me drive you to Berkeley. It makes me almost sad to think of the camp at the lake being abandoned.
So you liked my remarks on the “labor question.” That is nice of you, but aren’t you afraid your praise will get me into the disastrous literary habit of writing for some one pair of eyes? — your eyes? Or in resisting the temptation I may go too far in the opposite error. But you do not see that it is “Art for Art’s sake” — hateful phrase! Certainly not, it is not Art at all. Do you forget the distinction I pointed out between journalism and literature? Do you not remember that I told you that the former was of so little value that it might be used for anything? My newspaper work is in no sense literature. It is nothing, and only becomes something when I give it the very use to which I would put nothing literary. (Of course I refer to my editorial and topical work.)
If you want to learn to write that kind of thing, so as to do good with it, you’ve an easy task. Only it is not worth learning and the good that you can do with it is not worth doing. But literature — the desire to do good with that will not help you to your means. It is not a sufficient incentive. The Muse will not meet you if you have any work for her to do. Of course I sometimes like to do good — who does not? And sometimes I am glad that access to a great number of minds every week gives me an opportunity. But, thank Heaven, I don’t make a business of it, nor use in it a tool so delicate as to be ruined by the service.
Please do not hesitate to send me anything that you may be willing to write. If you try to make it perfect before you let me see it, it will never come. My remarks about the kind of mind which holds its thoughts and feelings by so precarious a tenure that they are detachable for use by others were not made with a forethought of your failure.
Mr. Harte of the New England Magazine seems to want me to know his work (I asked to) and sends me a lot of it cut from the magazine. I pass it on to you, and most of it is just and true.
But I’m making another long letter.
I wish I were not an infidel — so that I could say: “God bless you,” and mean it literally. I wish there were a God to bless you, and that He had nothing else to do.
Please let me hear from you. Sincerely,
A. B.
[St. Helena, September 28, 1892.]
MY DEAR BLANCHE,
I have been waiting for a full hour of leisure to write you a letter, but I shall never get it, and so I’ll write you anyhow. Come to think of it, there is nothing to say — nothing that needs be said, rather, for there is always so much that one would like to say to you, best and most patient of sayees.
I’m sending you and your father copies of my book. Not that I think you (either of you) will care for that sort of thing, but merely because your father is my co-sinner in making the book, and you in sitting by and diverting my mind from the proof-sheets of a part of it. Your part, therefore, in the work is the typographical errors. So you are in literature in spite of yourself.
I appreciate what you write of my girl. She is the best of girls to me, but God knoweth I’m not a proper person to direct her way of life. However, it will not be for long. A dear friend of mine — the widow of another dear friend — in London wants her, and means to come out here next spring and try to persuade me to let her have her — for a time at least. It is likely that I shall. My friend is wealthy, childless and devoted to both my children. I wish that in the meantime she (the girl) could have the advantage of association with you.
Please say to your father that I have his verses, which I promise myself pleasure in reading.
You appear to have given up your ambition to “write things.” I’m sorry, for “lots” of reasons — not the least being the selfish one that I fear I shall be deprived of a reason for writing you long dull letters. Won’t you play at writing things?
My (and Danziger’s) book, “The Monk and the Hangman’s Daughter,” is to be out next month. The Publisher — I like to write it with a reverent capital letter — is unprofessional enough to tell me that he regards it as the very best piece of English composition that he ever saw, and he means to make the world know it. Now let the great English classics hide their diminished heads and pale their ineffectual fires!
So you begin to suspect that books do not give you the truth of life and character. Well, that suspicion is the beginning of wisdom, and, so far as it goes, a preliminary qualification for writing — books. Men and women are certainly not what books represent them to be, nor what they represent — and sometimes believe — themselves to be. They are better, they are worse, and far more interesting.
With best regards to all your people, and in the hope that we may frequently hear from you, I am very sincerely your friend,
AMBROSE BIERCE.
Both the children send their love to you. And they mean just t
hat.
[St. Helena, October 6, 1892.]
MY DEAR BLANCHE,
I send you by this mail the current New England Magazine — merely because I have it by me and have read all of it that I shall have leisure to read. Maybe it will entertain you for an idle hour.
I have so far recovered my health that I hope to do a little pot-boiling to-morrow. (Is that properly written with a hyphen? — for the life o’ me I can’t say, just at this moment. There is a story of an old actor who having played one part half his life had to cut out the name of the person he represented wherever it occurred in his lines: he could never remember which syllable to accent.) My illness was only asthma, which, unluckily, does not kill me and so should not alarm my friends.
Dr. Danziger writes that he has ordered your father’s sketch sent me. And I’ve ordered a large number of extra impressions of it — if it is still on the stone. So you see I like it.
Let me hear from you and about you.
Sincerely your friend,
AMBROSE BIERCE.
I enclose Bib.
[St. Helena, October 7, 1892.]
DEAR MR. PARTINGTON,
I’ve been too ill all the week to write you of your manuscripts, or even read them understandingly.
I think “Honest Andrew’s Prayer” far and away the best. It is witty — the others hardly more than earnest, and not, in my judgment, altogether fair. But then you know you and I would hardly be likely to agree on a point of that kind, — I refuse my sympathies in some directions where I extend my sympathy — if that is intelligible. You, I think, have broader sympathies than mine — are not only sorry for the Homestead strikers (for example) but approve them. I do not. But we are one in detesting their oppressor, the smug-wump, Carnegie.
If you had not sent “Honest Andrew’s Prayer” elsewhere I should try to place it here. It is so good that I hope to see it in print. If it is rejected please let me have it again if the incident is not then ancient history.
I’m glad you like some things in my book. But you should not condemn me for debasing my poetry with abuse; you should commend me for elevating my abuse with a little poetry, here and there. I am not a poet, but an abuser — that makes all the difference. It is “how you look at it.”
But I’m still too ill to write. With best regards to all your family, I am sincerely yours,
AMBROSE BIERCE.
I’ve been reading your pamphlet on Art Education. You write best when you write most seriously — and your best is very good.
[St. Helena, October 15, 1892.]
DEAR BLANCHE,
I send you this picture in exchange for the one that you have — I’m “redeeming” all those with these. But I asked you to return that a long time ago. Please say if you like this; to me it looks like a dude. But I hate the other — the style of it.
It is very good of your father to take so much trouble as to go over and work on that stone. I want the pictures — lithographs — only for economy: so that when persons for whom I do not particularly care want pictures of me I need not bankrupt myself in orders to the photographer. And I do not like photographs anyhow. How long, O Lord, how long am I to wait for that sketch of you?
My dear girl, I do not see that folk like your father and me have any just cause of complaint against an unappreciative world; nobody compels us to make things that the world does not want. We merely choose to because the pay, plus the satisfaction, exceeds the pay alone that we get from work that the world does want. Then where is our grievance? We get what we prefer when we do good work; for the lesser wage we do easier work. It has never seemed to me that the “unappreciated genius” had a good case to go into court with, and I think he should be promptly non-suited. Inspiration from Heaven is all very fine — the mandate of an attitude or an instinct is good; but when A works for B, yet insists on taking his orders from C, what can he expect? So don’t distress your good little heart with compassion — not for me, at least; whenever I tire of pot-boiling, wood-chopping is open to me, and a thousand other honest and profitable employments.
I have noted Gertrude’s picture in the Examiner with a peculiar interest. That girl has a bushel of brains, and her father and brother have to look out for her or she will leave them out of sight. I would suggest as a measure of precaution against so monstrous a perversion of natural order that she have her eyes put out. The subjection of women must be maintained.
* * * * *
Bib and Leigh send love to you. Leigh, I think, is expecting Carlt. I’ve permitted Leigh to join the band again, and he is very peacocky in his uniform. God bless you.
AMBROSE BIERCE.
[St. Helena, November 6, 1892.]
MY DEAR BLANCHE,
I am glad you will consent to tolerate the new photograph — all my other friends are desperately delighted with it. I prefer your tolerance.
But I don’t like to hear that you have been “ill and blue”; that is a condition which seems more naturally to appertain to me. For, after all, whatever cause you may have for “blueness,” you can always recollect that you are you, and find a wholesome satisfaction in your identity; whereas I, alas, am I!
I’m sure you performed your part of that concert creditably despite the ailing wrist, and wish that I might have added myself to your triumph.
I have been very ill again but hope to get away from here (back to my mountain) before it is time for another attack from my friend the enemy. I shall expect to see you there sometime when my brother and his wife come up. They would hardly dare to come without you.
No, I did not read the criticism you mention — in the Saturday Review. Shall send you all the Saturdays that I get if you will have them. Anyhow, they will amuse (and sometimes disgust) your father.
I have awful arrears of correspondence, as usual.
The children send love. They had a pleasant visit with Carlt, and we hope he will come again.
May God be very good to you and put it into your heart to write to your uncle often.
Please give my best respects to all Partingtons, jointly and severally.
AMBROSE BIERCE.
[Angwin, November 29, 1892.]
DEAR BLANCHE,
Only just a word to say that I have repented of my assent to your well-meant proposal for your father to write of me. If there is anything in my work in letters that engages his interest, or in my literary history — that is well enough, and I shall not mind. But “biography” in the other sense is distasteful to me. I never read biographical “stuff” of other writers — of course you know “stuff” is literary slang for “matter” — and think it “beside the question.” Moreover, it is distinctly mischievous to letters. It throws no light on one’s work, but on the contrary “darkens counsel.” The only reason that posterity judges work with some slight approach to accuracy is that posterity knows less, and cares less, about the author’s personality. It considers his work as impartially as if it had found it lying on the ground with no footprints about it and no initials on its linen.
My brother is not “fully cognizant” of my history, anyhow — not of the part that is interesting.
So, on the whole, I’ll ask that it be not done. It was only my wish to please that made me consent. That wish is no weaker now, but I would rather please otherwise.
I trust that you arrived safe and well, and that your memory of those few stormy days is not altogether disagreeable. Sincerely your friend,
AMBROSE BIERCE.
[Angwin, December 25, 1892.]
MY DEAR BLANCHE,
Returning here from the city this morning, I find your letter. And I had not replied to your last one before that! But that was because I hoped to see you at your home. I was unable to do so — I saw no one (but Richard) whom I really wanted to see, and had not an hour unoccupied by work or “business” until this morning. And then — it was Christmas, and my right to act as skeleton at anybody’s feast by even so much as a brief call was not clear. I hope my brother will be as
forgiving as I know you will be.
When I went down I was just recovering from as severe an attack of illness as I ever had in my life. Please consider unsaid all that I have said in praise of this mountain, its air, water, and everything that is its.
* * * * *
It was uncommonly nice of Hume to entertain so good an opinion of me; if you had seen him a few days later you would have found a different state of affairs, probably; for I had been exhausting relays of vials of wrath upon him for delinquent diligence in securing copyright for my little story — whereby it is uncopyrighted. I ought to add that he has tried to make reparation, and is apparently contrite to the limit of his penitential capacity.
No, there was no other foundation for the little story than its obvious naturalness and consistency with the sentiments “appropriate to the season.” When Christendom is guzzling and gorging and clowning it has not time to cease being cruel; all it can do is to augment its hypocrisy a trifle.
Please don’t lash yourself and do various penances any more for your part in the plaguing of poor Russell; he is quite forgotten in the superior affliction sent upon James Whitcomb Riley. That seems a matter of genuine public concern, if I may judge by what I heard in town (and I heard little else) and by my letters and “esteemed” (though testy) “contemporaries.” Dear, dear, how sensitive people are becoming!
Richard has promised me the Blanchescape that I have so patiently waited for while you were practicing the art of looking pretty in preparation for the sitting, so now I am happy. I shall put you opposite Joaquin Miller, who is now framed and glazed in good shape. I have also your father’s sketch of me — that is, I got it and left it in San Francisco to be cleaned if possible; it was in a most unregenerate state of dirt and grease.
Seeing Harry Bigelow’s article in the Wave on women who write (and it’s unpleasantly near to the truth of the matter) I feel almost reconciled to the failure of my gorgeous dream of making a writer of you. I wonder if you would have eschewed the harmless, necessary tub and danced upon the broken bones of the innocuous toothbrush. Fancy you with sable nails and a soiled cheek, uttering to the day what God taught in the night! Let us be thankful that the peril is past.
Complete Works of Ambrose Bierce (Delphi Classics) Page 309