Prior to his departure for New York, Messrs. McLaughlin and Steele, the attorneys for the company at Deadwood, brought suit in Bierce’s name against the First National Bank of Deadwood to recover the balance of three thousand dollars which the bank would not honor because of Captain West’s overdraft. The suit was brought in the District Court of the First Judicial District of Dakota Territory, Lawrence County, and was an interminable piece of litigation. Bierce won in the lower court; the action was appealed and reversed; and was retried again at nisi prius. Bierce was merely a nominal plaintiff in the action, inasmuch as the claim had been assigned by the defunct company to its attorneys. These lawyers kept writing Bierce when he was in Auburn during 1884-1885, soliciting his aid. He replied to one of their letters and in the course of his reply said: “My experience with the company’s officers has not been such that I am willing to take any steps in matters affecting them without some guaranty that my action will be acceptable to them.” It is indicative of the unpleasant relations that existed between Bierce and the mining company. During this litigation, Bierce was counseled by Judge Boalt. He finally agreed that his deposition might be taken in San Francisco. His answers to the written interrogatories which were propounded are models of clear thinking. Time and again, during the course of this lengthy deposition, Bierce would write down an answer which cut through the irrelevant questions and struck the main issues with very satisfactory directness. The action of “Ambrose G. Bierce vs. The First National Bank of Deadwood” was an apparition of an unfortunate experience that ever and anon reared its head to mock those early dreams of a fortune and independence, for it is quite obvious that Bierce had high hopes as to the success of his mining venture. He had written, before leaving San Francisco, to Henry Sampson, announcing that he was “free” from journalism forever. Sampson, who had probably witnessed several similar revolts in his day, wrote back: “How I envy you when you say that journalism is over with you! But I think I read somewhere once about a dog and his vomit which would doubtless apply in my case if it doesn’t in yours.”
The Dakota episode, and it was only an episode, may have fortified an attitude; surely it did not create one. It only extended over a period of a year and its ultimate effect must have been trivial. But it could scarcely have “sweetened” Bierce’s reaction to life. He was always very proud and the rather humiliating circumstances of his return to San Francisco marked the beginning of a new feeling towards the city. He became resentful, and, where he had formerly been satirical in a rather amused manner, he was now vituperative and broad-oathed.
The failure of his mining venture did, however, have one important effect: it was the cause of considerable domestic disharmony. Mrs. Day had always watched over her daughter with an eye that missed no discrepancies on the part of Mollie’s husband. There had been some friction between Bierce and Mrs. Day in England and their disagreements now broke out in an open feud. Mrs. Day had always resented the marriage of her only daughter, a daughter so popular and so beautiful, to a mere scribbler, a rowdy fellow who wrote paragraphs for The News-Letter, and who had once participated, so the ladies whispered, in a drunken Anti-Christ demonstration. The dear lady was given to social pretense and always annoyed Bierce with her “Great Catherine” attitude towards the world. Once, after she had been in the town of Eureka for some months, the townspeople rented a large hall and held a “social gathering” to bid her farewell, as she was returning to San Francisco. The walls were decorated with “evergreens, pictures and lights. On entering the hall, the first thing that struck the eye was the word ‘Welcome’ rustically arranged with evergreens directly over the music stand, below which was the stars and stripes extending across the entire width of the hall.” During the course of the entertainment, “Mrs. Day was presented with a handsome dressing case, accompanied by a neat little speech from one of the committee of ladies that had selected and purchased the article. Mrs. Day was so taken by surprise, that she said, ‘I can’t say a word.’” The quoted extracts are taken from a Eureka newspaper clipping. Such things disgusted Bierce, particularly as he suspected that the lady had arranged the social gathering herself. He resented her condescension, and the two of them were never known to agree upon anything. With Captain Day, a genial, fine-spirited old fellow, Bierce was always on the best of terms. Bierce had not consulted either the Captain or James Day, his brother-in-law, before accepting the position with the Dakota mining company. Hence when it failed, he had to return to San Francisco in a rather defiant attitude, and he was precluded from asking or accepting assistance from the Days.
During the time that Bierce was in the Dakotas, Mrs. Bierce and the children lived with Captain and Mrs. Day in San Francisco. The boys, Day and Leigh, attended the old Spring Valley Grammar School, and were great favorites in the neighborhood. After Bierce returned to San Francisco, he rented a home in what was known as the “Fort Mason” settlement. It was high on the hillsides overlooking the bay and was, for the most part, an unsettled neighborhood. The boys organized “gangs,” built forts in the hillside and resisted the attacks of the youngsters from the city with great vigor. Day and Leigh immediately joined this “Hill Gang” and became its leaders. Just as their father had flayed Denis Kearney, so would they pummel the dirty youngsters from the city with mud bullets and an occasional rock. Mr. J. G. Hawks remembers the wild battles that used to rage in the afternoons when school was over, and retains a vivid recollection of Day Bierce. Day was a brilliant youngster; he never “seemed to study and was super-normally quick and alert mentally.” He was impetuous, valiant, and disdainful in a manner that suggested his father. But in the son the true quality appeared in an uninhibited, undisguised manner, for Day Bierce was something of a Shelley. His genius, and it amounted to that, was vivid and unforgettable and he was impossibly idealistic as shown by later experiences. The other son, Leigh, was talented and clever but lacked the authentic mark of genius that was about everything that Day Bierce said or wrote.
Bierce’s manner with his children was most characteristic of the man generally. He was very severe, a Spartan parent, in the matters which he thought were important. He stressed manners rather than morals. He was vehement in his demands that they be individualistic, self-reliant and skeptical of buncombe. Once Day reported to his father that he had slapped an instructor’s face who had attempted to chastise him. Bierce not only approved of the rebellious attitude but called on the instructor himself and told him never to attempt a punishment of his son again. Any indication of irreverence in the boys was met with encouragement on the part of their father. Bierce was, as is well known, fanatically neat, one of the most immaculate gentlemen imaginable. His children might be slightly rebellious and harum-scarum, but if they were ever ill-mannered or dirty, they must expect his swift and emphatic denunciation. They could play as they liked; hold such opinions as were agreeable to them; but if they were dirty they must expect the inevitable punishment. He thoroughly approved of his sons’ conduct in refusing to attend Sunday school, although he yielded a point to his wife in permitting the daughter to go to church. He thought the experience would do Helen no harm, since, being a woman, it was immaterial what views she held! These seeming peccadilloes of personal prejudice are important, since they show what a remarkably consistent man Bierce was — personally. His ideas might be full of apparent contradictions and paradoxical utterances, but personally he was ever the same. He loathed streets that were named “Twelfth” or “Eleventh,” as they were common and unmemorable. He disliked to carry on a conversation over the telephone, particularly with a chance acquaintance, as he could not look his interlocutor in the eye. He would seldom attend a lecture since, according to conventional rules of etiquette, he could not rise and correct some misstatement of the speaker. He abominated vulgarity and the active hatred he entertained for a “common” woman was almost unbelievable. He was always neat, and plain, about his dress, and his tastes were excellent. A typical Bierce letter is alone most significant: it was inv
ariably written on a rather heavy-weight, cream-colored, four-page stationery and folded once, and was written with a stub-pen in a precise and beautiful hand, with never a blotch, a misspelled word, or any hesitancy. The thought was always firm and clear and touched with his personality. The ink tended to become bronzed with time and the old letters when unfolded are a joy to read. On the reverse of the envelope would be the seal, affixed with a scarab presented by his friend Jeremiah Lynch. Bierce was just as fastidious about the matter of cuisine as he was, say, about the structure of the sentence. He had devised some rather tasty dishes, and the Army and Navy Club in Washington was indebted to him for many choice recipes and suggestions, and he is said to have known something about mixing a cocktail.
The Bierces were a memorable couple. An old Frenchman, from whom they once rented a flat in San Francisco, remembers their leaving one evening to attend a performance at the Baldwin Theater. He was standing in the hallway as they descended the stairs with the light shining above them. He says it is one of his most vivid and prized recollections. Bierce dressed in black: tall, erect, his red-golden hair touched with light and energy, and Mollie Day Bierce dressed as though she had stepped from a fashion plate out of Harper’s Bazar. As they passed out into the night, she turned her head, adorned with a little crimson bonnet and a drop-veil of half length, and smiled Bon Soir! with a gesture of delight. He turned indoors sadly, for the picture of this elegant couple had stirred old memories of life on the continent. His recollection is, perhaps, the last record of their happiness.
* * *
BIERCE returned to San Francisco in December of 1880. According to Mr. Hart he “applied with confidence for his old job on The Argonaut.” The owners, Pixley and Somers, after consultation, decided that his prolonged absence proved that he was not indispensable, and therefore they declined to reengage him. Bierce was much chagrined and deeply angered; as Pixley was the “majority owner he held Pixley responsible and never forgave him.” This is an accurate statement, I believe, of what occurred, as it coincides with the facts. In accepting Mr. Hart’s version of Bierce’s relations with Pixley and The Argonaut, I am not unmindful of the fact that Bierce on occasion wrote very sharp notes about Mr. Hart in “Prattle.” I make this notation to forestall criticism, but I feel that Mr. Hart’s statement is the clearest that has been made and it has the added advantage of being capable of verification in many particulars.
Bierce was, as Mr. Hart says, deeply angered and chagrined at his inability to secure a place on the staff of the magazine that he had literally “made.” But his subsequent hatred of Pixley, while it may have been colored by this experience, was also inevitable. Bierce did not dislike Fred Somers and he did not dislike the other members of the staff. But for Pixley, there was no phrase too sharp, no comparison too odious. I have tabulated Mr. Bierce’s antipathies and the tallies scored after Frank Pixley’s name outnumber all the others by a great margin. He excoriated the fellow for twenty years, punctured every editorial bubble that he blew, and traced the ulterior motive in his every change of policy. He would write such incisive sentences as this: “Pixley is as good as it is possible for him to be, has all the dignity he needs in making a back for all the rich to play at leap frog, and as much amiability as is not incompatible with an assassination of character.” War was declared between these two militarists in 1881, and continued until Pixley’s death. His hatred would have survived even Pixley’s demise but, as he noted in “Prattle,” Pixley had the forethought to be cremated so that there was no grave to be made the subject of caustic and corrosive comment.
During these black days after his return, the journalistic career of Ambrose Bierce hung in the balance. There was not a paper that would employ him on its staff. He was bitterly hated by “Mike” DeYoung, who owned The Chronicle, and the editors of the other papers were equally antagonistic. He could have secured immediate employment by agreeing to be a hired libelist, for his talent as a satirist was well known. But he would make no agreement or bargain. About the only thing he could do was to work as a “free lance,” which he did for several months, sending in occasional contributions to various newspapers and magazines.
Dr. Danziger relates, as an uncontroverted fact, that Bierce once worked for “Mike” DeYoung. Upon examination, the doctor’s story, however, appears to be based entirely on the hearsay of “Petey” Bigelow, an early-day journalist and friend of Bierce. According to Dr. Danziger’s story, DeYoung underpaid Bierce for a contribution and Bierce threw the money back in his face. Here, says the doctor, with naive disregard for the principles of historical research, is the origin of Bierce’s hatred of DeYoung. Bierce did hate DeYoung, but that he ever worked for The Chronicle is a statement which finds no corroboration in the facts. “Journalism in California” by John P. Young, of The Chronicle, makes no mention of such an employment, and surely it would not have been neglected if it were a fact. Moreover, the origin of the story, which Dr. Danziger has either deliberately warped to fit his theory or has repeated without investigation a version which is inaccurate, may be traced to an actual occurrence.
It seems that during these days when Bierce was hard-pressed for employment, he contributed occasionally to The Call under the editorship of Loring Pickering. The company’s records showed the fact of this employment, because a reporter for The Wave investigated the matter and wrote a news story about the occurrence here related. Subsequent to the appearance of the story in The Wave, however, the original records were destroyed in the great fire and earthquake, so that the only evidence to-day is a record of a record, but it is significant that Bierce knew the editors of The Wave, read their story, and made no correction. He would most certainly never have allowed the story to go unchallenged if it were not true. It seems that it was customary in those days for all San Francisco companies to pay their employees in silver. Pickering wrote an editorial in The Call in which he denounced this practice, pointed out the inconveniences which it entailed, and suggested that all employees demand payment in currency in order to correct the custom. The next time Bierce called at the cashier’s window to receive payment for a contribution to The Call, he pushed back the silver tendered him, showed the cashier a clipping of Mr. Pickering’s editorial and demanded currency in payment of the debt. The cashier was furious, but walked across the street, got the currency, and paid Bierce. It was the end of his connection with The Call. Now it is obvious at once that Dr. Danziger’s yarn is a variant of this story, but how melodramatic it became in the Doctor’s handling! Not to mention the fact that the scene is shifted from The Call to The Chronicle in a cleverly disguised effort to show that Bierce was mean and personal about all his hatreds, and that he did not act in accordance with principles and ideals, as though one had to dig up or invent a motive for Bierce’s hatred of “Mike” DeYoung! There is a significant contrast between the Doctor’s fulsome, nauseating praise of his “great blond God” and the mean, contemptible way in which he attempts to show that Bierce’s three great antipathies: Pixley, DeYoung and C. P. Huntington, were the results of purely personal situations. Dr. Danziger tries to make out this case against Bierce so that his readers may assume or infer that Bierce hated the Doctor for some such petty and personal a motive. But just as it may be shown that Bierce’s antipathy to Pixley, DeYoung and Huntington, was but an expression of his instinctive aversion to all men who acted as animals, just so may it be shown that Dr. Danziger was on the “black list” for certain definite and very understandable reasons.
With the doors of The Call closed as irretrievably as those of The Argonaut and The Chronicle, Bierce was driven to the wall. His position was as isolated as it is possible to imagine, and there seemed to be no escape. He could not go east because his wife refused to leave the coast where she was at least assured of the support and care of her family. Moreover, Bierce disliked the East, and was under the mistaken belief, for many years, that his health was better in the West. Then, too, he was without funds to finance such a move. It was un
der these circumstances that he finally secured a position with The Wasp and once more came into control of a journal in which he could flay San Francisco with a wrath that had about it now something of the vindictive and revengeful spirit. The mining days were over and “The Prattler” was once more at work.
CHAPTER IX. THE WASP
BIERCE’S new home for “Prattle” was one of the most interesting journals that printed his copy. The Wasp (a singularly appropriate name), was said to be the first colored cartoon magazine published in this country. It resembled in many details The Lantern, having the same large, full-page colored cartoons; much the same format; and it printed the same sharp comment on men and affairs. Two cartoonists who did excellent work for The Wasp were Keller and Backhaus. Backhaus was a boy, only seventeen, and with little education. He was a great favorite of Bierce’s. Later he went to Germany, which, as Bierce said, “was right, but he died there, as was wrong.” Bierce was, en passant, a talented newspaperman. His knowledge of the craft was more accurate and better informed than the second-hand acquaintance of the average columnist. The Wasp under his editorship was a most unusual magazine, and its files remain interesting to-day. In 1881 it must have been a minor sensation, and it was in January of that year that it began to publish the first of his work, part of “The Devil’s Dictionary.” He soon became its editor and published “Prattle” in his pages from 1881 to 1886. But it is apparent to even a casual reader that The Wasp was never self-supporting. It must have been a costly publication, there was scarcely any advertising in its pages, and its general tone was surely not such as to have attracted a wide audience. How, then, was this interesting journal financed?
Complete Works of Ambrose Bierce (Delphi Classics) Page 353