The Letters of Ambrose Bierce, With a Memoir by George Sterling. Ambrose Bierce
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to what he had found most admirable and enduring in life in the following words, the conclusion of the finest of his essays:
"Literature and art are about all that the world really cares for in the end; those who make them are not without justification in regarding themselves as masters in the House of Life and all others as their servitors. In the babble and clamor, the pranks and antics of its countless incapables, the tremendous dignity of the profession of letters is overlooked; but when, casting a retrospective eye into 'the dark backward and abysm of time' to where beyond these voices is the peace of desolation, we note the majesty of the few immortals and compare them with the pygmy figures of their contemporary kings, warriors and men of action generally—when across the silent battle-fields and hushed fora where the dull destinies of nations were determined, nobody cares how, we hear
like ocean on a western beach
The surge and thunder of the Odyssey,
then we appraise literature at its true value, and how little worth while seems all else with which Man is pleased to occupy his fussy soul and futile hands!"
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