And the woodchuck chatters in meaningless glee —
Chatters and twists all his marvelous face —
Twists it and chatters and looks like me.
And I rose in the strongest strength of my strength,
With my breast of brass and my hair’s full length,
And I shook myself out of my clothes in the land
Of the Mormons, and stood there and kissed my hand.”
It required but a slight change in phrase and emphasis to show how dangerously near the absurd Miller’s verse sometimes bordered.
Bierce only lived at Sunol Glen for about two years, and then he moved to Angwin’s on Howell Mountain again. It meant another and longer trip for the Bierce tourists who still pursued “The Master.” One day a lady had made an appointment with Bierce. She drove up to the hotel in a carriage and came rushing up to Bierce, who awaited her, carrying a dog in her arms. He bowed and said: “Madame, I do not know you,” and walked away. Dogs were ever anathema to him. To collect all the pages of abusive language that he devoted to dogs would fill a considerable volume. He never lost an opportunity to slash at them with his pen, and it is somewhat illustrative of the futility of his satire, as these dogs were no more punished by his abuse than were those other “dogs” who might have read his column had they desired.
He began writing about dogs in Tom Hood’s Comic Annual, in 1873, with a story: “How! Came to Like Dogs.” This was merely facetious clowning. The real anti-dog propaganda owed its origin to an occurrence at North Beach, in San Francisco, when a fierce canine jumped on Bierce one night and bit his hand. Subsequent experiences but increased his hatred. It was not merely a whim, or prejudice, it was a deep-seated loathing. In Oakland, during the 90’s, an enormous bull dog bit a young girl and disfigured her face. Bierce learned of the incident, took his revolver and called at the home of the owner of the dog. He asked the owner where the dog was kept, and marched out to the kennel and shot him.
Another incident occurred some years later. Bierce was out walking in the woods with his daughter. A dog rushed at them and began to bark and snap. Bierce saw an indolent looking fellow leaning against a tree at some distance and shouted at him to call the dog away. But the fellow did not heed or notice the entreaty in any manner. Finally Bierce pulled out his revolver and shot the dog, adding another victim to his list of dog murders. He then walked over to the lazy spectator and asked him how much the dog was worth, as he wished to make reparations. The fellow shifted his position, leaned against the other shoulder, and then drawled: “Ah, shucks, the dog wasn’t mine — .”
In The Wasp and in The Examiner Bierce would sometimes devote entire columns to abuse of dogs and the people who kept them. He once wrote an article on “Dogs from the Klondike,” rejoicing in the thought that the gold rush might draw all the dogs to Alaska. He defined a Newfoundland as: “Not only is his bite more deadly than that of the ordinary snap-dog, but that of the fleas which he cherishes is peculiarly insupportable. The fleas of all other dogs only sadden: those of the Newfoundland incite to crime. His fragrance, moreover, is less modest than that of the Skye Terrier; it is distinctly declarative indeed.” He described dogs as “small animated pestilences.” He wrote that a puppy was “a clammy-nosed, swell-fronted, Dutch-built, double-charged, flea-peopled, immodest epitome of all nastiness, — a whelp of a thousand infragrant smells.” And to this brief collection might be added the opening lines of his once celebrated poem:
“Snap-dogs, lap-dogs, always-on-tap-dogs,
Smilers, defilers,
“Reekers and Leakers” —
The subject of dogs became, indeed, a matter for serious philosophical consideration in an essay in “The Shadow on the Dial.” He once wrote S. O. Howes: “Pretty nearly all the anti-dog literature gets to me, as I seem to be recognized as the captain of the cult. I sometimes fancy that even the dogs know me and assume the attitude towards me that is dictated by their feeling and interest.”
During these months at Angwin’s, Bierce met an ugly, frail girl who was attempting, after a fashion, to teach a country school nearby. Her name was Carrie Christiansen and she was the daughter of a poor emigrant family that lived in Napa. At this time she was about the most abject, scrawny, unlettered individual imaginable, and had never been outside the Napa Valley. Bierce was impressed with her pathetic helplessness. He spoke to her one day and she was so overawed that she could only stammer a response. A few days later he actually called at her “school,” and the experience nearly overwhelmed the child. She gradually overcame her shyness and told him about her home life, its squalor and poverty, and the fact that she had to contribute to the support of her parents and an enormous horde of brothers and sisters. Bierce was impressed with her sincerity and determination and he took her down to St. Helena with him. It was the beginning of a life-long friendship. Carrie, or “Norrie” as she was always called, became a member of the Bierce household. Mrs. Bierce was really a mother to her, taught her about clothes, manners and people, and gave her the advantages of civilized home life. Bierce arranged to send her to normal school at Berkeley, and, under his instruction, she became a remarkably well read and intelligent woman. In later years she came to Washington as his secretary. The arrangement was, unknown to Bierce, really at his wife’s instance. A more devoted secretary than Miss Christiansen could not be imagined, nor a nobler soul, and the imputations to the contrary have been unjust and malicious. After Bierce’s disappearance into Mexico, Miss Christiansen returned to Napa, where she lived for a few years previous to her death.
It was during these years, 1892-1896, that Bierce began to have the first of a long and unbroken series of quarrels with Hearst. The statement is somewhat inaccurate, for the quarrels were never with Mr. Hearst directly, but with his employees. These rifts were seldom over matters of policy, but were more often caused by the carelessness of type-setters. It was always Mr. Hearst who patched things up and mollified Bierce. Reading their correspondence over a period of years, one is impressed with Mr. Hearst’s kindness, his good disposition, and his clever flattery, which always drew Bierce back into the fold. A sample note, written with typical Hearstian rush and eagerness, contains this statement: “Write about anything you like if you will only write. I only hope you will write ‘Prattle’ until you can persuade me to relinquish it. Don’t for Heaven’s sake stop ‘Prattle.’ I shall think myself a terrible ‘hoodoo’ if immediately on my return The Examiner should lose what is to me its very best feature. I hope you will continue. I don’t want to have to stop my subscription to my own paper for lack of interest in the damned old sheet. Shall I appoint myself a committee of one to come up and persuade you?” There were many of these trips, and they invariably resulted in a reconciliation. Bierce could not resist Hearst’s flattery, coupled with the fact that he knew that Mr. Hearst gave him a free rein, asked no questions, let him do as he pleased, and, incidentally, paid him well.
“Prattle,” as usual, was quite lively. Several rather amusing incidents should be related. It seems that two men, Phillips and Hahn, had gone to a bawdy house in San Francisco, where Phillips had introduced Hahn to the “Madam” as “Ambrose Bierce.” They had gotten quite noisy and had been arrested later in the evening, and the ladies of joy announced to the police that one of the culprits was the great Ambrose Bierce. Of course San Francisco’s Fleet Street was roaring with mirth the next day. It took all of Sam Chamberlain’s ingenuity to pacify Bierce who was out for blood. But the matter was finally smoothed out, much to the satisfaction of all concerned, as both offenders were quite well known in San Francisco. Bierce, in accordance with his invariable practice, would flog a man on trial if he thought the fellow was guilty. A man was tried at Fresno in the Nineties for a particularly atrocious crime and Bierce abused him in frightful terms. His satire provoked the following ditty in a Fresno newspaper:
“What a brave man is Bierce
And how very fierce
This fellow who fights with his pen
,
But when there’s a foe
Of Ambrose you know
He gives them the slip to return, when?”
Attorney Foote protested to the court at Fresno that Bierce was stirring up too much public discussion but the judge ordered the case to proceed.
It was during this period that Bierce attempted to arrange for the publication of a volume of his short stories, many of which had appeared in The Examiner and The Wave during the years from 1887 to 1891. The date of the composition of all these stories cannot, of course, be verified. But it is quite apparent that they were practically all written after he began to write for The Examiner. If they were written previous to that date, they would have found a place in some of the journals, as Bierce was frequently requested to submit copy to various magazines. The stories that comprised his first volume were thus written during a rather sad period in his life, but one should not be misled by this fact. Many of the stories can be traced into The Examiner, and under dates that were prior to Day’s death and prior to Bierce’s separation from his wife. But the nature of these stories will be considered in the following chapter, as so much discussion has centered around them that it becomes a temptation, even in a biography, to attempt an explanation of their quality.
The first volume of stories, “Tales of Soldiers and Civilians” was published in 1891 by E. L. G. Steele, a San Francisco merchant and friend of Bierce. In a foreword to this volume Bierce wrote that: “Denied existence by the chief publishing houses of the country, this book owes itself to Mr. E. L. G.
Steele, merchant, of this city. In attesting Mr. Steele’s faith in his judgment and his friend, it will serve its author’s main and best ambition.” Now this statement is slightly extravagant. There is nothing to show that the book was “denied existence by the chief publishing houses,” nor, for that matter, that it was ever submitted to a publishing house. The circumstances prove that Bierce had made little or no effort to get his stories published. Andrew Chatto wrote from London, immediately upon the publication of the volume, arranging for the English rights, and asked: “Why have I not heard from you all these years?” Stone and Kimball were writing for copy at an early date. Bierce once admitted in a letter to Sterling that he had been “lazy and indisposed to dicker with publishers.” Practically all the stories that appeared in his first volume had been published in newspapers or magazines and had been paid for at good rates. If Bierce had shown the slightest disposition to “dicker,” as he said, even with Pacific coast publishers, the publication of the volume could easily have been arranged long prior to 1891.
Another myth that has grown up during the years since 1891 is that “Tales of Soldiers and Civilians” was a failure and that Ambrose Bierce was a “neglected” author. Nothing could be more absurd. His first three volumes had received wide comment in England, for books of their type. “Tales of Soldiers and Civilians,” if one may take into consideration the edition of 1895, as well as that of 1891, was reviewed in over four hundred newspapers and periodicals. Surely this would not indicate neglect. Moreover, with scarcely a single exception, the reviews were enthusiastic. The fact is that Bierce was never the “struggling” artist; in truth, he was never the artist, save incidentally. The stories were written late in life and simply as a divertissement. Bierce always realized that his “trade was abuse,” as he wrote Mr. J. H. E. Partington. That the stories struck such a high level of excellence is only another indication of his remarkably forceful, brilliant, and provocative personality.
It was with the publication of “Tales of Soldiers and Civilians” in 1891 that Bierce attained his national fame as a writer of the short story. “Success,” said Remy de Gourmont, “is a fact.” Opinions may differ, comments may vary, but if a book is ever once a success, that success is a fact which cannot be forgotten. The truth of this psychological observation was never better illustrated than in the history of this remarkable volume of stories by Bierce. It has been extravagantly praised, violently denounced, and hopelessly mauled, since 1891, but the fact is that in 1891 it was a success. Comment invariably centers around a book that has been a success, particularly if that book be as remarkable a book as “Tales of Soldiers and Civilians.” One cannot judge this volume, with justice, by applying the aesthetics of to-day. But when the stories are read in comparison with contemporary collections, their excellence cannot be denied. Bierce’s stories were hard, brilliant, cold, and, whatever their limitations, they were never commonplace. But more of this anon.
There was surely nothing about the reception that the book received of which Bierce could complain. It was praised in almost every journal in which it was reviewed. But this comment, particularly in the American newspapers, was stupid and trite; one review was as like another as two peas. “Suggestive of Edgar Allan Poe,”
“dark stories of death,” it was always and eternally the same. Occasionally some reviewer would write intelligently, as did E. H. Clough in the Oakland Times. He said, inter alia, that “The best modern fiction is not in realism; neither is it based wholly upon the romantic incidents of life and its possibilities. The absolute horror of ‘The Mystery of Udolpho’ is no longer permissible.” This was sharp comment, particularly in light of the analysis made in the next chapter.
As soon as the volume was published, Andrew Chatto arranged for its publication in England under the title: “In the Midst of Life.” Chatto suggested this new title, for the reason, as he wrote, that English readers did not like collections of stories unless they had some unifying theme. The English reviews were equally enthusiastic although more intelligent. The Spectator, Daily Chronicle, Scotsman, Glasgow Herald, and Scottish Leader, were all enthusiastic. One reviewer, however, held out against the general praise. He was an anonymous reviewer writing in Literature, and he wrote of Bierce that he was “another writer, the unfortunate victim of extravagant and uncritical laudation,” who, “has written a number of clever, violent, vigorous battle-notes, which were heaped together between book covers; but crude, unshapen impressions are no more a book than a collection of New England sermons are the ‘Scarlet Letter.’” This was much better than the American drivel about a second Edgar Allan Poe, etc.
Not only was the book remarkably well received in the press, but private opinion was equally enthusiastic. Opie Read wrote to Bierce on its publication: “Had you lived two hundred years ago you would be alive to-day, and living to-day, you will be alive when two hundred years have come.” Walter Blackburn Harte wrote letters of high praise and devoted an article to Bierce in the New England Magazine. Percival Pollard reviewed the volume with a fine frenzy of eulogistic adjectives. Sam Davis called it ‘‘a stride in literature.” Soldiers in New York State read the book at a reunion meeting and wrote to tell Bierce what fine war stories he had written. And that shrewdest of all Bierce enthusiasts, James Watkins, wrote from New York, where he was working on the Sun, with calm and fine assurance: “Probably you will derive only a meager spiritual consolation from the reflection that you are to become a classic, and that in time a test of a critic’s acumen and fitness will be his attitude toward Ambrose Bierce. Yet this thing shall be, and there will be limited editions, and artists straining to disfigure you with cuts.” And all these things have happened. The pity is that Bierce, who had taken Watkins’ advice in nearly everything, did not take the advice with which Watkins closed this letter: “Go on living, old man; you have only to live thirty years to be allowed the foremost workman of your period, if you continue with your work.”
Even Bierce’s old enemies reviewed the book well, as did Arthur McEwen, in the Oakland Tribune. He told a story about being at breakfast with Bierce shortly after the publication of the book. Bierce asked him how he thought the book would sell. McEwen replied: “I won’t be surprised if it makes a world hit or falls as dead as a landed salmon. You haven’t, in all you write, a trace of what we call sympathy. The pretty girl never appears.” To which Bierce replied: “Darn the pretty girl,” and McEwen added: “That�
�s what is the matter with you.” And this was correct, from the standpoint of sales in 1891.
There was one review that rather nettled Bierce. It appeared in the New York Sun, and was written by Mayo Hazeltine. In the course of this review, Hazeltine intimated that Bierce had once been a failure as a journalist in New York, and that “he is a scoffer and scorner and he writes his tales of horror with a sort of fiendish delight.” To both of these statements, Bierce replied (The Examiner, Jan. 22, 1893): “In all my life I have submitted but one little piece of my work to an editor of a New York newspaper; and that was accepted and printed in the World. No other eastern publication, daily, weekly, or monthly, has, to my knowledge, ever had a line of my manuscript.” This, mind you, from the “neglected” Mr. Bierce! Replying to Hazeltine’s other remark, Bierce said: “I wrote my tales of horror without reference to the nerves, or even the existence, of the innocent, and in the belief that they are good and true art — a belief in which I have the obstinacy to remain.”
T. H. Rearden, an old personal friend, wrote Bierce that his stories of “human beings in a mass, groveling in the horrors of impossible wounds, and yet sentient and acting, though beyond the reach of help, while wishing and hoping for it, stir one with terror,” and suggested a French translation. In this suggestion there was a sound psychological observation, as is borne out by the subsequent history of Bierce’s stories in France. M. Victor Llona published “Un Incident au pont d’Owl Creek” in La Nouvelle Revue Française, and it immediately attracted a great deal of attention. Jacques Rivière and his successor, Jean Paulhan, kept asking M. Llona for more stories by Bierce. He later brought out a collection of stories published in France as “Aux Lisières de la Mort,” which enjoyed a considerable sale. Such stories as “Un cas de conscience” have even reached the popular press and have appeared in such papers as Adventure and Excelsior.
Complete Works of Ambrose Bierce (Delphi Classics) Page 360