Complete Works of Ambrose Bierce (Delphi Classics)

by Ambrose Bierce

  * * * * *

  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 projection16 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.

  1913.

  [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 + ¾ + 2 = 4¾.

  10 - 4¾ = 5¼. 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 lette
r. 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.