It is apparent from Bierce’s letters to S. O. Howes of this period that he was dissatisfied with his position. We find him writing (date of May 14, 1899), “I am not writing much just now. I ‘threw up my job’ of Prattle because Mr. Hearst let his fools, fakers and freaks do what they would with it in the N. Y. Journal — the which I could nowise abide. They yellowed it every way they knew how, and mangled it at will.” It was the recurrence of an old, old quarrel. As early as 1893 he was writing to Blanche Partington, “I peremptorily resigned from the Examiner, and permitted myself to be coaxed back by Hearst.” How many times he resigned from the Examiner it is impossible to estimate; his letters indicate dozens of such quarrels. But about 1899, a serious quarrel was brewing. The Eastern Hearst papers were beginning to reproduce his copy, but would do so in any manner they saw fit. There are in existence two letters, one dated October 31, 1898, and the other November 20, 1898, both addressed to the editor of the Journal and remonstrating vociferously about this mooted problem. In fact, for a prior infringement of an imperial ukase about his copy, he ceased to write for nearly a year. He was thoroughly disgusted with his manner of life, and yet there didn’t seem much that one could do about it.
Bierce was turning philosophical, becoming pontifical; there was a heaviness about his writing that indicated a change of tempo. Bierce began to realize that this cross-pull in his nature had its limiting elements. He was, however, unable to make a clear break with his past. He was already fifty-seven years of age. The only thing left for him to do now was to attempt a rationalization of his past. In other words, his philosophy was to justify his satire. He knew that the other avenue, pure art, if one may use such a phrase, was a closed field. He had ceased, with a few exceptions, to write stories. He planned no romances. In fact, when asked to write a love story at a very remunerative sum for a popular magazine, he said; “Do I look like one who writes for the entertainment of chambermaids?” No, he was too intelligent to attempt such a belated change. He was caught in a vicious circle of cynicism. But his idealistic-romantic spirit continued to make overtures towards that “strangeness” of experience which finally lured him after its phosphorescent gleamings along the Mexican ranges.
It was about this time that an incident occurred which, coupled with the influences previously outlined, was responsible for Bierce requesting a permanent transfer to Washington. During the first months of his acquaintance with the beautiful mistress of “Dotswood,” he had occupied a position in that household of the first importance. It was rather a flattering experience for Mrs. Hume to have as an admirer such a distinguished gentleman. This was particularly true at Los Gatos, where Bierce’s fame was almost unbelievable. A lady who had merely a speaking acquaintance with him, once entered the same coach on which he was traveling to San Francisco. She was so delighted with the opportunity of vaunting her acquaintance with Ambrose Bierce, that she proceeded to introduce him to every one in the car, beginning on one side the aisle and completing the circle. Naturally Una Hume was not unmindful of the fame of Bierce during the early days of their friendship. But in time even the celebrated becomes but the accustomed in the court of a beautiful woman. Bierce was first annoyed and then peeved at the manner in which he was relegated by slow degrees to the periphery of her charmed circle of admirers. He was getting old and the realization was unpleasant. He would not, of course, tolerate such a state of affairs and soon quarreled and parted forever with the lady of gray eyes and the melodious voice.
It should not be assumed, for in truth the facts will not warrant such an assumption, that Bierce was devoted to Mrs. Hume or that she was other than a very beautiful and charming woman whom he greatly admired and in whose society he spent many pleasant hours. Such relations were very dear to Bierce, who was always a fugitive from society, living in out of the way places, and always rather lonely. He had stayed on in Los Gatos because it was pleasant and because Dotswood was a retreat that mitigated the horrors of life in such a little village. But now there was no longer any reason to stay.
His determination to leave was a great blow to the group of people who had come to know and love him at Los Gatos and Wrights. He was always leaving and moving on in that restless search for an adequate experience, something, for example, that measured up to the best that war had offered. He was always leaving a circle of people behind him who invariably fell into awkward and strained attitudes once he was gone, losing the ambition which his instruction had inspired. It was because of this, and because of the fact that he was always aloof and never unrestrainedly attached to people, that he came to be called the “shadow-maker.” George Sterling, who knew the real story of that phrase as well as anyone, could not resist the temptation to use it in a different sense in his article about Bierce in The American Mercury, and to forget, incidentally, who had coined the expression.
One day Bierce had gone for a long walk through the woods with Eva Crawford, another of his pupils, and Leila Cotton. They noticed on this, as on previous occasions, the strange mesmeric power that he possessed over wild creatures. In fact, his cabin at Los Gatos was peopled with two pet doves, “Jamie” and “Jippie,” and a toad jumped around on his desk as a paper-weight. But when he would call birds to him in the woods, he seemed a different man. His nature was then entirely transparent, open, full of light and free from shadows. There was nothing artificial about his attitude. The girls noticed this and one of them said that she had always thought that Bierce misled women, that they mistook his chivalrous attitude and his elegant sentiments for a more genuine feeling, and that they never seemed to realize that his inner nature was elusive and they were playing with shadows. Bierce said, in answer to this, “But, my dears, the sun makes the shadow.” Eva Crawford replied, “No, it is what gets between you and the sun that makes the shadow, and that’s what you do, you are a shadow-maker.” During the long period of years that intervened between 1899 and his return to California in 1910, many of them came to think that he was truly a “shadow-maker.”
He now arranged to go east permanently. On Nov. 29, 1899, — he wrote Howes: “In a few weeks I expect to go to Washington, D. C., where I shall probably remain. It is simply a change of duties, excepting that I shall probably do more work for The Journal and less for The Examiner.” He soon left, this time to stay, and on January 2nd, 1900, was with his son Leigh, in New York. Leigh had remained on in the East after accompanying his father there in 1896.
This trip east must have been disheartening. He left California at Christmas time, always a sad season for him. He was to arrive sick in New York, unable to continue on to Washington for weeks. His position was not assured, and he was in advanced years — a journalistic hack for the now “Honorable” Hearst. There would be no more mountain boozing parties with Dr. Doyle; the admiring circles of ladies was gone for some time. These trips across the continent were like the balls on a billiard table being shoved across to one end and then back again to the other. Life was a dreary dust-heap of bad things that left a taste of ashes in the mouth, a constant grip on the teeth. Analyzed carefully, existence appeared to be an extremely offensive procedure. Human relationships were so softly veiled and intangible that they crashed on the sharp rocks of circumstances; this phantom “Art” was a sickening vice that meant the abnegation of every full-fledged impulse. The clear, high-toned idealism of youth was a beautiful pageant in the mind, but not practically significant. If you wished to appear eccentric, why idealism was all right. About the only attitude left was cynicism. It turned off many an arrow, and as long as one said resolutely that “Nothing matters,” why—”nothing mattered.” A good stiff cup of spirits and he was prepared to journey on to Washington in the dead of winter to assume his position as the first of the Hearst Philosophers, those gentlemen whose writings are always accompanied with their picture, adorning the Sunday paper, explaining to the lowly the great mysteries of existence. Bierce was never fully successful in this role. It remained for Mr. Brisbane to coin the art of the startling plat
itude.
The years had slipped past without meaning or any definable significance. What, in truth, had it mattered? There were moments of great intensity when fear or excitement or elation carried the soul high, when the valiant audacity of man gestured in the face of an encompassing futility. But afterwards, during the long intervals of mediocre experience, time giggled awfully. For sixteen years he had been baiting louts, fakirs, charlatans, skinflints, petty politicians and poets in the pages of one newspaper. He had to justify these years, but it was a difficult task. As long as the duel lasted, he worried not as to its importance. But in the quiet of old age, the record of his accomplishments seemed inadequate. Just before leaving the coast he visited a cemetery in Oakland. He strolled about examining the genuine epitaphs of many that he had once crucified in a couplet or composed a mocking “epitaph” about. And now they were dead and had “real” epitaphs. And all in such a short space of time! It seemed incredible. These arrogant gesturers had only confused the core of experience, and here they were, their names in stone: libeled and libeler, blackguard and victim, lover and mistress, father and son. But still he was “cynical” and blasé: the only record of his thoughts is a brief note in The Examiner, August 13, 1899, that he had visited the cemetery and was disappointed to find that Pixley had been cremated so that he could not spit on his grave!
Across the plains again.... And did he expect that even yet he might win to that feeling of winged splendor that youth had given? But this continent’s end was a land of shadows for him and it palled upon him unbearably. Thoughts of those halcyon days when the Lotus Club gave picnics in the Marin hills and the bay had gleamed with a brightness that had seemed eternal in its brilliant energy and power; thoughts of the dark hours on Howell Mountain and of the long walks through the streets of San Francisco trying to forget the stabbing pains that the news of Day’s death had brought; of lonely pain-racked hours in barren hotel rooms; of friendly faces in whose eyes he had seen shadows; of fights and quarrels.... But it had not mattered, and since the close of the war he had been proving over and over again to himself that it did not matter, and trying to show innumerable fools that the world was not worthy of their worship. But he would go east and forget about these things, for it seemed even too trivial to become indignant about.
There were a few visits to old friends and a few notes of farewell, but there was no word for Mollie Day, who was nursing an aged mother in a lonely old house on Figueroa Street in Los Angeles, while former friends circulated rumors that she was immensely rich and would soon divorce her husband! She must have smiled at these reports as she stole away from the bedside of her mother, who was demented, and went down to Mr. Parker’s book store to buy a copy of “Fantastic Fables.” The Times that morning had announced that Ambrose Bierce, the famous Hearst journalist who had defeated the Funding Bill, had left for Washington where he would live in the future.
CHAPTER XVI. “ALAS, MY DREADFUL INERTIA!”
At the time that Bierce left for Washington in 1899, The Examiner printed his picture, accompanying an article which explained the reasons for his transfer to the East. The man shown in the picture is an individual remarkably changed from the handsome fellow that Miss Campbell had sketched three years previously. When age begins to assert its dolorous claim, it acts with alacrity. He was an old man when he returned to Washington the second time. The reasons for his transfer were thus stated by The Examiner:
“The 56th Congress seems to be of extraordinary interest. The subjects before it include such matters as the War in the Philippines, the adjustment of our new Colonial policy, the disposition of Cuban affairs, and, the action that Congress may or may not take with reference to the trusts. These are all questions of great national importance. For this reason, The Examiner has sent Ambrose Bierce to Washington, where he will remain during the present session.” (Dec. 14, 1898.)
Apparently this was simply a public explanation, as Mr. A. M. Lawrence is positive that Bierce came to him and requested the second transfer. He recalls that Bierce expressed a desire to go East and be away from San Francisco; to address a larger audience and to study conditions at Washington, thinking, no doubt, that he might make a national name for himself as a satirist. But his mood had changed, as indicated previously, and he was becoming more and more the “curmudgeon philosopher,” rather than the sharp satirist. He might have been equally successful in the East had he been equally caustic and witty, but instead he became sonorous, portentous and grave.
He proceeded to Washington and took up a residence at 603 15th Street. The public questions were, as pointed out in The Examiner’s notice, interesting if not as important as they were thought to be. These early years of the twentieth century witnessed a turning point in national affairs, and the significance of the change even then was vaguely sensed and appreciated. It was during these years that America began to look abroad with an insatiable passion for land. A fever of imperialism possessed the nation; we had received our first experience with the exhilaration of foreign conquest. The Mexican War had been a nice and profitable enterprise, but this Cuban fiasco offered far greater possibilities and stirred the imagination with dreams of empire.
Strive as one might to cope sharply with the times, it was impossible to provoke attention by criticism. The more intelligent critics, such as Mr. Bierce, were ruffled by the vacuum of public opinion to such an extent that they forgot the art of satire and became merely sarcastic in a stiff and heavy manner. How attack the bombast of such a man as W. J. Bryan? The most astute reasoning and the sharpest satire could not hold a fraction of the public’s attention against the roaring syllables of honeyed nonsense that the Commoner bellowed forth. It remained for Mr. Mencken, in later years, to annihilate the reputation of Mr. Bryan in terms harsh, broad-edged and offensive. But in 1899 America actually yearned to be mentally seduced. The times reeked with tepid thought boomed forth in demagogic terms. Perhaps the technique of the orators owed something to the journalism of Mr. Hearst. Bryan had been a protégé and had been so carefully instructed in the art of boob-baiting that he achieved an unequaled mastery. America had taken in Mr. Hearst’s wild talk about Evangelina Cisneros without reservation, and had followed him into the war to free the Cubans and increase the circulation of the Hearst newspapers, without regard to the rather timid protests of McKinley. Naturally, in the midst of such a cave of the winds — it is seriously to be questioned if America ever experienced a time when ideas were regarded with such hostility — men of sense were driven to desperation. Mr. Bierce’s attack on this gaudy bombast was too contemporary; he might just as well have shouted at the ocean to cease its pounding on the shore. Mr. Mencken’s attack was strategic, properly timed, and immensely more effective. Bierce tried his hand at the role of critic for several years, and then turned away from the scene with magnificent disgust.
His first dispatch from Washington under date of January 9, 1900, is an interesting bit of journalism. Bierce had been present during the first session of Congress when Senator A. J. Beveridge delivered his famous speech on our policy in the Philippines, during the course of which the “manifest destiny” apology was advanced as an ex post facto cure for a smarting conscience. Beveridge captured the imagination of the nation with his bold, dramatic acceptance of the idea abortive in the public mind, to wit: that while there may have been considerable talk about our idealistic motives in interceding with Spain on behalf of the Cubans, that yet, nevertheless, since certain rich and valuable possessions had been acquired, it was nothing less than our “duty” and “destiny” to retain them. The argument was not without historical precedents, it was a perfect expression of a general but taciturn desire, and it synchronized with the pulse of conquest.
Once more in Bierce’s experience had a national fact supplanted a national ideal. It was ever the same: our lust was as inevitable and as predestined to fulfillment as that of all young and strong creatures endowed by an inscrutable fate with the energy that must itself ultimately yield
to a superior energy. Bierce listened with mock attention while the galleries were carried away by the practiced and professional oratory of the handsome young senator from Indiana. He listened with equal amusement to Senator Hoar’s reply which, like most talk of the kind, got lost in the nebulous ether of idealism. Into the public discussion of this debate, Bierce interjected this note:
“I dare say that is the right view to take of it. I am sure it must be wrong for nations to be wicked. But in the larger politics of this worst of all possible worlds it does seem as if ethical considerations had not more weight and influence than that to which their beauty entitles them. According to the principles so dear to the hearts of the worthy gentlemen who lift protesting hands when the rights of weak nations are invaded by strong ones, not a people on earth to-day has a right to be there. All have dispossessed some other people.”
Complete Works of Ambrose Bierce (Delphi Classics) Page 366