The Letters of Ambrose Bierce, With a Memoir by George Sterling. Bierce Ambrose
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best. It is witty – the others hardly more than earnest, and not, in my judgment, altogether fair. But then you know you and I would hardly be likely to agree on a point of that kind, – I refuse my sympathies in some directions where I extend my sympathy – if that is intelligible. You, I think, have broader sympathies than mine – are not only sorry for the Homestead strikers (for example) but approve them. I do not. But we are one in detesting their oppressor, the smug-wump, Carnegie.
If you had not sent "Honest Andrew's Prayer" elsewhere I should try to place it here. It is so good that I hope to see it in print. If it is rejected please let me have it again if the incident is not then ancient history.
I'm glad you like some things in my book. But you should not condemn me for debasing my poetry with abuse; you should commend me for elevating my abuse with a little poetry, here and there. I am not a poet, but an abuser – that makes all the difference. It is "how you look at it."
But I'm still too ill to write. With best regards to all your family, I am sincerely yours, Ambrose Bierce.
I've been reading your pamphlet on Art Education. You write best when you write most seriously – and your best is very good.
Dear Blanche,
I send you this picture in exchange for the one that you have – I'm "redeeming" all those with these. But I asked you to return that a long time ago. Please say if you like this; to me it looks like a dude. But I hate the other – the style of it.
It is very good of your father to take so much trouble as to go over and work on that stone. I want the pictures – lithographs – only for economy: so that when persons for whom I do not particularly care want pictures of me I need not bankrupt myself in orders to the photographer. And I do not like photographs anyhow. How long, O Lord, how long am I to wait for that sketch of you?
My dear girl, I do not see that folk like your father and me have any just cause of complaint against an unappreciative world; nobody compels us to make things that the world does not want. We merely choose to because the pay, plus the satisfaction, exceeds the pay alone that we get from work that the world does want. Then where is our grievance? We get what we prefer when we do good work; for the lesser wage we do easier work. It has never seemed to me that the "unappreciated genius" had a good case to go into court with, and I think he should be promptly non-suited. Inspiration from Heaven is all very fine – the mandate of an attitude or an instinct is good; but when A works for B, yet insists on taking his orders from C, what can he expect? So don't distress your good little heart with compassion – not for me, at least; whenever I tire of pot-boiling, wood-chopping is open to me, and a thousand other honest and profitable employments.
I have noted Gertrude's picture in the Examiner with a peculiar interest. That girl has a bushel of brains, and her father and brother have to look out for her or she will leave them out of sight. I would suggest as a measure of precaution against so monstrous a perversion of natural order that she have her eyes put out. The subjection of women must be maintained.
Bib and Leigh send love to you. Leigh, I think, is expecting Carlt. I've permitted Leigh to join the band again, and he is very peacocky in his uniform. God bless you. Ambrose Bierce.
My dear Blanche,
I am glad you will consent to tolerate the new photograph – all my other friends are desperately delighted with it. I prefer your tolerance.
But I don't like to hear that you have been "ill and blue"; that is a condition which seems more naturally to appertain to me. For, after all, whatever cause you may have for "blueness," you can always recollect that you are you, and find a wholesome satisfaction in your identity; whereas I, alas, am I!
I'm sure you performed your part of that concert creditably despite the ailing wrist, and wish that I might have added myself to your triumph.
I have been very ill again but hope to get away from here (back to my mountain) before it is time for another attack from my friend the enemy. I shall expect to see you there sometime when my brother and his wife come up. They would hardly dare to come without you.
No, I did not read the criticism you mention – in the Saturday Review. Shall send you all the Saturdays that I get if you will have them. Anyhow, they will amuse (and sometimes disgust) your father.
I have awful arrears of correspondence, as usual.
The children send love. They had a pleasant visit with Carlt, and we hope he will come again.
May God be very good to you and put it into your heart to write to your uncle often.
Please give my best respects to all Partingtons, jointly and severally. Ambrose Bierce.
Dear Blanche,
Only just a word to say that I have repented of my assent to your well-meant proposal for your father to write of me. If there is anything in my work in letters that engages his interest, or in my literary history – that is well enough, and I shall not mind. But "biography" in the other sense is distasteful to me. I never read biographical "stuff" of other writers – of course you know "stuff" is literary slang for "matter" – and think it "beside the question." Moreover, it is distinctly mischievous to letters. It throws no light on one's work, but on the contrary "darkens counsel." The only reason that posterity judges work with some slight approach to accuracy is that posterity knows less, and cares less, about the author's personality. It considers his work as impartially as if it had found it lying on the ground with no footprints about it and no initials on its linen.
My brother is not "fully cognizant" of my history, anyhow – not of the part that is interesting.
So, on the whole, I'll ask that it be not done. It was only my wish to please that made me consent. That wish is no weaker now, but I would rather please otherwise.
I trust that you arrived safe and well, and that your memory of those few stormy days is not altogether disagreeable. Sincerely your friend, Ambrose Bierce.
My dear Blanche,
Returning here from the city this morning, I find your letter. And I had not replied to your last one before that! But that was because I hoped to see you at your home. I was unable to do so – I saw no one (but Richard) whom I really wanted to see, and had not an hour unoccupied by work or "business" until this morning. And then – it was Christmas, and my right to act as skeleton at anybody's feast by even so much as a brief call was not clear. I hope my brother will be as forgiving as I know you will be.
When I went down I was just recovering from as severe an attack of illness as I ever had in my life. Please consider unsaid all that I have said in praise of this mountain, its air, water, and everything that is its.
It was uncommonly nice of Hume to entertain so good an opinion of me; if you had seen him a few days later you would have found a different state of affairs, probably; for I had been exhausting relays of vials of wrath upon him for delinquent diligence in securing copyright for my little story – whereby it is uncopyrighted. I ought to add that he has tried to make reparation, and is apparently contrite to the limit of his penitential capacity.
No, there was no other foundation for the little story than its obvious naturalness and consistency with the sentiments "appropriate to the season." When Christendom is guzzling and gorging and clowning it has not time to cease being cruel; all it can do is to augment its hypocrisy a trifle.
Please don't lash yourself and do various penances any more for your part in the plaguing of poor Russell; he is quite forgotten in the superior affliction sent upon James Whitcomb Riley. That seems a matter of genuine public concern, if I may judge by what I heard in town (and I heard little else) and by my letters and "esteemed" (though testy) "contemporaries."