The Letters of Ambrose Bierce, With a Memoir by George Sterling

You ask if "stories" must have action. The name "story" is preferably used of narrative, not reflection nor mental analysis. The "psychological novel" is in great vogue just now, for example – the adventures of the mind, it might be called – but it requires a profounder knowledge of life and character than is possible to a young girl of whatever talent; and the psychological "short story" is even more difficult. Keep to narrative and simple description for a few years, until your wings have grown. These descriptions of foreign places that you write me are good practice. You are not likely to tell me much that I do not know, nor is that necessary; but your way of telling what I do know is sometimes very interesting as a study of you. So write me all you will, and if you would like the letters as a record of your travels you shall have them back; I am preserving them.

I judge from your letter that your father went straight through without bothering about me. Maybe I should not have seen him anyhow, for I was away from Washington for nearly a month.

Please give my love to your mother and sister, whom, of course, you are to bring here. I shall not forgive you if you do not.

Yes, I wish that you lived nearer to me, so that we could go over your work together. I could help you more in a few weeks that way than in years this way. God never does anything just right.

Sincerely yours, Ambrose Bierce.
Washington, D. C.,July 31,1911.

Dear George,

Thank you for that Times "review." It is a trifle less malicious than usual – regarding me, that is all. My publisher, Neale, who was here last evening, is about "taking action" against that concern for infringement of his copyright in my little book, "Write It Right." The wretches have been serving it up to their readers for several weeks as the work of a woman named Learned. Repeatedly she uses my very words – whole passages of them. They refused even to confess the misdeeds of their contributrix, and persist in their sin. So they will have to fight.

* * * I have never been hard on women whose hearts go with their admiration, and whose bodies follow their hearts – I don't mean that the latter was the case in this instance. Nor am I very exacting as to the morality of my men friends. I would not myself take another man's woman, any more than I would take his purse. Nor, I trust, would I seduce the daughter or sister of a friend, nor any maid whom it would at all damage – and as to that there is no hard and fast rule.

* * *

A fine fellow, I, to be casting the first stone, or the one-hundredth, at a lovelorn woman, weak or strong! By the way, I should not believe in the love of a strong one, wife, widow or maid.

It looks as if I may get to Sag Harbor for a week or so in the middle of the month. It is really not a question of expense, but Neale has blocked out a lot of work for me. He wants two more volumes – even five more if I'll make 'em. Guess I'll give him two. In a week or so I shall be able to say whether I can go Sagharboring. If so, I think we should have a night in New York first, no? You could motor-boat up and back.

Sincerely yours, Ambrose Bierce.14
Washington, D. C.,Monday,August 7,1911.

Dear George,

In one of your letters you were good enough to promise me a motorboat trip from New York to Sag Harbor. I can think of few things more delightful than navigating in a motorboat the sea that I used to navigate in an open canoe; it will seem like Progress. So if you are still in that mind please write me what day after Saturday next you can meet me in New York and I'll be there. I should prefer that you come the day before the voyage and dine with me that evening.

I always stay at the Hotel Navarre, 7th avenue and 38th street. If unable to get in there I'll leave my address there. Or, tell me where you will be.

Sincerely yours, Ambrose Bierce.

If the motorboat plan is not practicable let me know and I'll go by train or steamer; it will not greatly matter. A. B.

Washington, D. C.,Tuesday,August 8,1911.

Dear George,

* * *

Kindly convey to young Smith of Auburn my felicitations on his admirable "Ode to the Abyss" – a large theme, treated with dignity and power. It has many striking passages – such, for example, as "The Romes of ruined spheres." I'm conscious of my sin against the rhetoricians in liking that, for it jolts the reader out of the Abyss and back to earth. Moreover, it is a metaphor which belittles, instead of dignifying. But I like it.

He is evidently a student of George Sterling, and being in the formative stage, cannot – why should he? – conceal the fact.

My love to all good Californians of the Sag Harbor colony.

Sincerely yours, Ambrose Bierce.
Washington, D. C.,November 16,1911.

Dear George,

It is good to know that you are again happy – that is to say, you are in Carmel. For your future happiness (if success and a certain rounding off of your corners would bring it, as I think) I could wish you in New York or thereabout. As the Scripture hath it: "It is not good for a man to be in Carmel" —Revised Inversion. I note that at the late election California damned herself to a still lower degradation and is now unfit for a white man to live in. Initiative, referendum, recall, employers' liability, woman suffrage – yah!

* * *

But you are not to take too seriously my dislike of * * *15 I like him personally very well; he talks like a normal human being. It is only that damned book of his. He was here and came out to my tenement a few evenings ago, finding me in bed and helpless from lumbago, as I was for weeks. I am now able to sit up and take notice, and there are even fears for my recovery. My enemies would say, as Byron said of Lady B., I am becoming "dangerously well again."

* * *

As to harlots, there are not ten in a hundred that are such for any other reason than that they wanted to be. Their exculpatory stories are mostly lies of magnitude.

Sloots writes me that he will perhaps "walk over" from the mine to Yosemite next summer. I can't get there much before July first, but if there is plenty of snow in the mountains next winter the valley should be visitable then. Later, I hope to beguest myself for a few days at the Pine Inn, Carmel. Tell it not to the Point Lobos mussel!

My love to Carrie.

Sincerely yours, Ambrose Bierce.
Washington, D. C.,December 27,1911.

Dear George,

As you do not give me that lady's address I infer that you no longer care to have me meet her – which is a relief to me.

* * *

Yes, I'm a bit broken up by the death of Pollard, whose body I assisted to burn. He lost his mind, was paralyzed, had his head cut open by the surgeons, and his sufferings were unspeakable. Had he lived he would have been an idiot; so it is all right —

"But O, the difference to me!"

If you don't think him pretty bright read any of his last three books, "Their Day in Court," "Masks and Minstrels," and "Vagabond Journeys." He did not see the last one – Neale brought down copies of it when he came to Baltimore to attend the funeral.

I'm hoping that if Carlt and Lora go to Wagner's mine and we go to Yosemite, Lora, at least, will come to us out there. We shall need her, though Carrie will find that Misses C. and S. will be "no deadheads in the enterprise" – to quote a political phrase of long ago. As to me, I shall leave my ten-pounds-each books at home and, like St. Jerome, who never traveled with other baggage than a skull, be "flying light." My love to Carrie.

Sincerely, Ambrose Bierce.
Washington, D. C.,January 5,1912.

Dear Lora,

It is good to hear from you again, even if I did have to give you a hint that I badly needed a letter.

I am glad that you are going to the mine (if you go) – though Berkeley and Oakland will not be the same without you. And where can I have my mail forwarded? – and be permitted to climb in at the window to get it. As to pot-steaks, toddies, and the like, I shall simply swear off eating and drinking.

If Carlt is a "game sport," and does not require "a dead-sure thing," the mining gamble is the best bet for him. Anything to get out of that deadening, hopeless grind, the "Government service." It kills a man's self-respect, atrophies his powers, unfits him for anything, tempts him to improvidence and then turns him out to starve.

It is pleasant to know that there is a hope of meeting you in Yosemite – the valley would not be the same without you. My girls cannot leave here till the schools close, about June 20, so we shall not get into the valley much before July first; but if you have a good winter, with plenty of snow, that will do. We shall stay as long as we like. George says he and Carrie can go, and I hope Sloots can. It is likely that Neale, my publisher, will be of my party. I shall hope to visit your mine afterward.

* * *

My health, which was pretty bad for weeks after returning from Sag Harbor, is restored, and I was never so young in all my life.

Here's wishing you and Carlt plenty of meat on the bone that the new year may fling to you.

Affectionately, Ambrose.
Washington, D. C.,February 14,1912.

Dear George,

I'm a long time noticing your letter of January fifth, chiefly because, like Teddy, "I have nothing to say." There's this difference atwixt him and me – I could say something if I tried.

* * * I'm hoping that you are at work and doing something worth while, though I see nothing of yours. Battle against the encroaching abalone should not engage all your powers. That spearing salmon at night interests me, though doubtless the "season" will be over before I visit Carmel.

Bear Yosemite in mind for latter part of June, and use influence with Lora and Grizzly, even if Carlt should be inhumed in his mine.

We've had about seven weeks of snow and ice, the mercury around the zero mark most of the time. Once it was 13 below. You'd not care for that sort of thing, I fancy. Indeed, I'm a bit fatigued of it myself, and on Saturday next, God willing, shall put out my prow to sea and bring up, I hope, in Bermuda, not, of course, to remain long.

You did not send me the Weininger article on "Sex and Character" – I mean the extract that you thought like some of my stuff.

* * *Sincerely yours, Ambrose Bierce.
Washington, D. C.,April 25,1912.

Dear George,

I did not go to Bermuda; so I'm not "back." But I did go to Richmond, a city whose tragic and pathetic history, of which one is reminded by everything that one sees there, always gets on to my nerves with a particular dejection. True, the history is some fifty years old, but it is always with me when I'm there, making solemn eyes at me.

You're right about "this season in the East." It has indeed been penetential. For the first time I am thoroughly disgusted and half-minded to stay in California when I go – a land where every prospect pleases, and only labor unions, progressives, suffragettes (and socialists) are vile. No, I don't think I could stand California, though I'm still in the mind to visit it in June. I shall be sorry to miss Carrie at Carmel, but hope to have the two of you on some excursion or camping trip. We want to go to Yosemite, which the girls have not seen, but if there's no water there it may not be advisable. Guess we'll have to let you natives decide. How would the Big Trees do as a substitute?

* * *

Girls is pizen, but not necessarily fatal. I've taken 'em in large doses all my life, and suffered pangs enough to equip a number of small Hells, but never has one of them paralyzed the inner working man. * * * But I'm not a poet. Moreover, as I've not yet put off my armor I oughtn't to boast.

So – you've subscribed for the Collected Works. Good! that is what you ought to have done a long time ago. It is what every personal friend of mine ought to have done, for all profess admiration of my work in literature. It is what I was fool enough to permit my publisher to think that many of them would do. How many do you guess have done so? I'll leave you guessing. God help the man with many friends, for they will not. My royalties on the sets sold to my friends are less than one-fourth of my outlay in free sets for other friends. Tell me not in cheerful numbers of the value and sincerity of friendships.

* * *

There! I've discharged my bosom of that perilous stuff and shall take a drink. Here's to you.

Sincerely yours, Ambrose Bierce.
Washington, D. C.,June 5,1912.

Dear George,

* * *

Thank you for the poems, which I've not had the time to consider – being disgracefully busy in order to get away. I don't altogether share your reverence for Browning, but the primacy of your verses on him over the others printed on the same page is almost startling. * * *

Of course it's all nonsense about the waning of your power – though thinking it so might make it so. My notion is that you've only begun to do things. But I wish you'd go back to your chain in your uncle's office. I'm no believer in adversity and privation as a spur to Pegasus. They are oftener a "hopple." The "meagre, muse-rid mope, adust and thin" will commonly do better work when tucked out with three square meals a day, and having the sure and certain hope of their continuance.

* * *

I'm expecting to arrive in Oakland (Key Route Inn, probably) late in the evening of the 22d of this month and dine at Carlt's on the 24th – my birthday. Anyhow, I've invited myself, though it is possible they may be away on their vacation. Carlt has promised to try to get his "leave" changed to a later date than the one he's booked for.

* * *Sincerely yours, Ambrose Bierce.

P.S. – Just learned that we can not leave here until the 19th – which will bring me into San Francisco on the 26th. Birthday dinner served in diner – last call!

I've read the Browning poem and I now know why there was a Browning. Providence foresaw you and prepared him for you – blessed be Providence! * * *

Mrs. Havens asks me to come to them at Sag Harbor – and shouldn't I like to! * * * Sure the song of the Sag Harbor frog would be music to me – as would that of the indigenous duckling.

The Army andNavy Club,Washington, D. C.,December 19,1912.

My dear Mr. Cahill,

I thank you for the article from The Argonaut, and am glad to get it for a special reason, as it gives me your address and thereby enables me to explain something.

When, several years ago, you sent me a similar article I took it to the editor of The National Geographical Magazine (I am a member of the Society that issues it) and suggested its publication. I left it with him and hearing nothing about it for several months called at his office twice for an answer, and for the copy if publication was refused. The copy had been "mislaid" – lost, apparently – and I never obtained it. Meantime, either I had "mislaid" your address, or it was only on the copy. So I was unable to write you. Indirectly, afterward, I heard that you had left California for parts to me unknown.

Twice since then I have been in San Francisco, but confess that I did not think of the matter.

Cahill's projection16 is indubitably the right one, but you are "up against" the ages and will be a long time dead before it finds favor, or I'm no true pessimist.

Sincerely yours, Ambrose Bierce.
The OlympiaApartments,Washington, D. C.,January 17,1913.

My dear Ruth,

It's "too bad" that I couldn't remain in Oakland and Berkeley another month to welcome you, but I fear it will "have to go at that," for I've no expectation of ever seeing California again. I like the country as well as ever, but I don't like the rule of labor unions, the grafters and the suffragettes. So far as I am concerned they may stew in their own juice; I shall not offer myself as an ingredient.

It is pleasant to know that you are all well, including Johnny, poor little chap.

You are right to study philology and rhetoric. Surely there must be some provision for your need – a university where one cannot learn one's own language would be a funny university.

I think your "Mr. Wells" who gave a course of lectures on essay writing may be my friend Wells Drury, of Berkeley. If so, mention me to him and he will advise you what to do.

Another good friend of mine, whom, however I did not succeed in seeing during either of my visits to California, is W. C. Morrow, who is a professional teacher of writing and himself a splendid writer. He could help you. He lives in San Francisco, but I think has a class in Oakland. I don't know his address; you'll find it in the directory. He used to write stories splendidly tragic, but I'm told he now teaches the "happy ending," in which he is right – commercially – but disgusting. I can cordially recommend him.

Keep up your German and French of course. If your English (your mother speech) is so defective, think what they must be.

I'll think of some books that will be helpful to you in your English. Meantime send me anything that you care to that you write. It will at least show me what progress you make.

I'm returning some (all, I think) of your sketches. Don't destroy them – yet. Maybe some day you'll find them worth rewriting.

My love to you all. Ambrose Bierce.
The Olympia,Euclid and 14th Sts.,Washington, D. C.,January 20,1913.

Dear Mr. Cahill,

It is pleasant to know that you are not easily discouraged by the croaking of such ravens as I, and I confess that the matter of the "civic centre" supplies some reason to hope for prosperity to the Cahill projection – which (another croak) will doubtless bear some other man's name, probably Hayford's or Woodward's.

I sent the "Argonaut" article to my friend Dr. Franklin, of Schenectady, a "scientific gent" of some note, but have heard nothing from him.

I'm returning the "Chronicle" article, which I found interesting. If I were not a writer without an "organ" I'd have a say about that projection. For near four years I've been out of the newspaper game – a mere compiler of my collected works in twelve volumes – and shall probably never "sit into the game" again, being seventy years old. My work is finished, and so am I.

Luck to you in the new year, and in many to follow.

Sincerely yours, Ambrose Bierce.
The OlympiaApartments,Washington, D. C.,I prefer to get myletters at this address.Make a memorandumof it.January 28,1913.

Dear Lora,

I have been searching for your letter of long ago, fearing it contained something that I should have replied to. But I don't find it; so I make the convenient assumption that it did not.

I'd like to hear from you, however unworthy I am to do so, for I want to know if you and Carlt have still a hope of going mining. Pray God you do, if there's a half-chance of success; for success in the service of the Government is failure.

Winter here is two-thirds gone and we have not had a cold day, and only one little dash of snow – on Christmas eve. Can California beat that? I'm told it's as cold there as in Greenland.

Tell me about yourself – your health since the operation – how it has affected you – all about you. My own health is excellent; I'm equal to any number of Carlt's toddies. By the way, Blanche has made me a co-defendant with you in the crime (once upon a time) of taking a drop too much. I plead not guilty – how do you plead? Sloots, at least, would acquit us on the ground of inability – that one can't take too much. * * *

Affectionately, your avuncular, Ambrose.
Washington, D. C.,March 20,1913.

Dear Ruth,

I'm returning your little sketches with a few markings which are to be regarded (or disregarded) as mere suggestions. I made them in pencil, so that you can erase them if you don't approve. Of course I should make many more if I could have you before me so that I could explain why; in this way I can help you but little. You'll observe that I have made quite a slaughter of some of the adjectives in some of your sentences – you will doubtless slaughter some in others. Nearly all young writers use too many adjectives. Indeed, moderation and skill in the use of adjectives are about the last things a good writer learns. Don't use those that are connoted by the nouns; and rather than have all the nouns, or nearly all, in a sentence outfitted with them it is better to make separate sentences for some of those desired.

In your sketch "Triumph" I would not name the "hero" of the piece. To do so not only makes the sketch commonplace, but it logically requires you to name his victim too, and her offense; in brief, it commits you to a story.

A famous writer (perhaps Holmes or Thackeray – I don't remember) once advised a young writer to cut all the passages that he thought particularly good. Your taste I think is past the need of so heroic treatment as that, but the advice may be profitably borne in memory whenever you are in doubt, if ever you are. And sometimes you will be.

I think I know what Mr. Morrow meant by saying that your characters are not "humanly significant." He means that they are not such persons as one meets in everyday life – not "types." I confess that I never could see why one's characters should be. The exceptional – even "abnormal" – person seems to me the more interesting, but I must warn you that he will not seem so to an editor. Nor to an editor will the tragic element seem so good as the cheerful – the sombre denouement as the "happy ending." One must have a pretty firm reputation as a writer to "send in" a tragic or supernatural tale with any hope of its acceptance. The average mind (for which editors purvey, and mostly possess) dislikes, or thinks it dislikes, any literature that is not "sunny." True, tragedy holds the highest and most permanent place in the world's literature and art, but it has the divvel's own time getting to it. For immediate popularity (if one cares for it) one must write pleasant things; though one may put in here and there a bit of pathos.

I think well of these two manuscripts, but doubt if you can get them into any of our magazines – if you want to. As to that, nobody can help you. About the only good quality that a magazine editor commonly has is his firm reliance on the infallibility of his own judgment. It is an honest error, and it enables him to mull through somehow with a certain kind of consistency. The only way to get a footing with him is to send him what you think he wants, not what you think he ought to want – and keep sending. But perhaps you do not care for the magazines.

I note a great improvement in your style – probably no more than was to be expected of your better age, but a distinct improvement. It is a matter of regret with me that I have not the training of you; we should see what would come of it. You certainly have no reason for discouragement. But if you are to be a writer you must "cut out" the dances and the teas (a little of the theater may be allowed) and work right heartily. The way of the good writer is no primrose path.

No, I have not read the poems of Service. What do I think of Edith Wharton? Just what Pollard thought – see Their Day in Court, which I think you have.

I fear you have the wanderlust incurably. I never had it bad, and have less of it now than ever before. I shall not see California again.

My love to all your family goes with this, and to you all that you will have. Ambrose Bierce.

The Army andNavy Club,Washington, D. C.,May 22,1913.

Editor "Lantern",17

Will I tell you what I think of your magazine? Sure I will.

It has thirty-six pages of reading matter.

Seventeen are given to the biography of a musician, – German, dead.

Four to the mother of a theologian, – German, peasant-wench, dead.

(The mag. is published in America, to-day.)

Five pages about Eugene Field's ancestors. All dead.

17 + 4 + 5 = 26.

36 – 26 = 10.

Two pages about Ella Wheeler Wilcox.

Three-fourths page about a bad poet and his indifference to – German.

Two pages of his poetry.

2 + ¾ + 2 = 4¾.

10 – 4¾ = 5¼. Not enough to criticise.

What your magazine needs is an editor – presumably older, preferably American, and indubitably alive. At least awake. It is your inning.

Sincerely yours, Ambrose Bierce.
Washington, D. C.,May 31,1913.

My dear Lora,

You were so long in replying to my letter of the century before last, and as your letter is not really a reply to anything in mine, that I fancy you did not get it. I don't recollect, for example, that you ever acknowledged receipt of little pictures of myself, though maybe you did – I only hope you got them. The photographs that you send are very interesting. One of them makes me thirsty – the one of that fountainhead of good booze, your kitchen sink.