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

If you want to learn to write that kind of thing, so as to do good with it, you've an easy task. Only it is not worth learning and the good that you can do with it is not worth doing. But literature – the desire to do good with that will not help you to your means. It is not a sufficient incentive. The Muse will not meet you if you have any work for her to do. Of course I sometimes like to do good – who does not? And sometimes I am glad that access to a great number of minds every week gives me an opportunity. But, thank Heaven, I don't make a business of it, nor use in it a tool so delicate as to be ruined by the service.

Please do not hesitate to send me anything that you may be willing to write. If you try to make it perfect before you let me see it, it will never come. My remarks about the kind of mind which holds its thoughts and feelings by so precarious a tenure that they are detachable for use by others were not made with a forethought of your failure.

Mr. Harte of the New England Magazine seems to want me to know his work (I asked to) and sends me a lot of it cut from the magazine. I pass it on to you, and most of it is just and true.

But I'm making another long letter.

I wish I were not an infidel – so that I could say: "God bless you," and mean it literally. I wish there were a God to bless you, and that He had nothing else to do.

Please let me hear from you. Sincerely, A. B.

St. Helena,September 28,1892.

My dear Blanche,

I have been waiting for a full hour of leisure to write you a letter, but I shall never get it, and so I'll write you anyhow. Come to think of it, there is nothing to say – nothing that needs be said, rather, for there is always so much that one would like to say to you, best and most patient of sayees.

I'm sending you and your father copies of my book. Not that I think you (either of you) will care for that sort of thing, but merely because your father is my co-sinner in making the book, and you in sitting by and diverting my mind from the proof-sheets of a part of it. Your part, therefore, in the work is the typographical errors. So you are in literature in spite of yourself.

I appreciate what you write of my girl. She is the best of girls to me, but God knoweth I'm not a proper person to direct her way of life. However, it will not be for long. A dear friend of mine – the widow of another dear friend – in London wants her, and means to come out here next spring and try to persuade me to let her have her – for a time at least. It is likely that I shall. My friend is wealthy, childless and devoted to both my children. I wish that in the meantime she (the girl) could have the advantage of association with you.

Please say to your father that I have his verses, which I promise myself pleasure in reading.

You appear to have given up your ambition to "write things." I'm sorry, for "lots" of reasons – not the least being the selfish one that I fear I shall be deprived of a reason for writing you long dull letters. Won't you play at writing things?

My (and Danziger's) book, "The Monk and the Hangman's Daughter," is to be out next month. The Publisher – I like to write it with a reverent capital letter – is unprofessional enough to tell me that he regards it as the very best piece of English composition that he ever saw, and he means to make the world know it. Now let the great English classics hide their diminished heads and pale their ineffectual fires!

So you begin to suspect that books do not give you the truth of life and character. Well, that suspicion is the beginning of wisdom, and, so far as it goes, a preliminary qualification for writing – books. Men and women are certainly not what books represent them to be, nor what they represent – and sometimes believe – themselves to be. They are better, they are worse, and far more interesting.

With best regards to all your people, and in the hope that we may frequently hear from you, I am very sincerely your friend, Ambrose Bierce.

Both the children send their love to you. And they mean just that.

St. Helena,October 6,1892.

My dear Blanche,

I send you by this mail the current New England Magazine– merely because I have it by me and have read all of it that I shall have leisure to read. Maybe it will entertain you for an idle hour.

I have so far recovered my health that I hope to do a little pot-boiling to-morrow. (Is that properly written with a hyphen? – for the life o' me I can't say, just at this moment. There is a story of an old actor who having played one part half his life had to cut out the name of the person he represented wherever it occurred in his lines: he could never remember which syllable to accent.) My illness was only asthma, which, unluckily, does not kill me and so should not alarm my friends.

Dr. Danziger writes that he has ordered your father's sketch sent me. And I've ordered a large number of extra impressions of it – if it is still on the stone. So you see I like it.

Let me hear from you and about you.

Sincerely your friend,

I enclose Bib. Ambrose Bierce.

St. Helena,October 7,1892.

Dear Mr. Partington,

I've been too ill all the week to write you of your manuscripts, or even read them understandingly.

I think "Honest Andrew's Prayer" far and away the 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.

St. Helena,October 15,1892.

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.

St. Helena,November 6,1892.

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.

Angwin,November 29,1892.

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.

Angwin,December 25,1892.

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." Dear, dear, how sensitive people are becoming!

Richard has promised me the Blanchescape that I have so patiently waited for while you were practicing the art of looking pretty in preparation for the sitting, so now I am happy. I shall put you opposite Joaquin Miller, who is now framed and glazed in good shape. I have also your father's sketch of me – that is, I got it and left it in San Francisco to be cleaned if possible; it was in a most unregenerate state of dirt and grease.

Seeing Harry Bigelow's article in the Wave on women who write (and it's unpleasantly near to the truth of the matter) I feel almost reconciled to the failure of my gorgeous dream of making a writer of you. I wonder if you would have eschewed the harmless, necessary tub and danced upon the broken bones of the innocuous toothbrush. Fancy you with sable nails and a soiled cheek, uttering to the day what God taught in the night! Let us be thankful that the peril is past.

The next time I go to "the Bay" I shall go to 1019 first.

God bless you for a good girl. Ambrose Bierce.

[First part of this letter missing.]

* * *

Yes, I know Blackburn Harte has a weakness for the proletariat of letters * * * and doubtless thinks Riley good because he is "of the people," peoply. But he will have to endure me as well as he can. You ask my opinion of Burns. He has not, I think, been translated into English, and I do not (that is, I can but will not) read that gibberish. I read Burns once – that was once too many times; but happily it was before I knew any better, and so my time, being worthless, was not wasted.

I wish you could be up here this beautiful weather. But I dare say it would rain if you came. In truth, it is "thickening" a trifle just because of my wish. And I wish I had given you, for your father, all the facts of my biography from the cradle – downward. When you come again I shall, if you still want them. For I'm worried half to death with requests for them, and when I refuse am no doubt considered surly or worse. And my refusal no longer serves, for the biography men are beginning to write my history from imagination. So the next time I see you I shall give you (orally) that "history of a crime," my life. Then, if your father is still in the notion, he can write it from your notes, and I can answer all future inquiries by enclosing his article.

Do you know? – you will, I think, be glad to know – that I have many more offers for stories at good prices, than I have the health to accept. (For I am less nearly well than I have told you.) Even the Examiner has "waked up" (I woke it up) to the situation, and now pays me $20 a thousand words; and my latest offer from New York is $50.

I hardly know why I tell you this unless it is because you tell me of any good fortune that comes to your people, and because you seem to take an interest in my affairs such as nobody else does in just the same unobjectionable and, in fact, agreeable way. I wish you were my "real, sure-enough" niece. But in that case I should expect you to pass all your time at Howell Mountain, with your uncle and cousin. Then I should teach you to write, and you could expound to me the principles underlying the art of being the best girl in the world. Sincerely yours, Ambrose Bierce.

Angwin,January 4,1893.

My dear Blanche,

Not hearing from [you] after writing you last week, I fear you are ill – may I not know? I am myself ill, as I feared. On Thursday last I was taken violently ill indeed, and have but just got about. In truth, I'm hardly able to write you, but as I have to go to work on Friday, sure, I may as well practice a little on you. And the weather up here is Paradisaical. Leigh and I took a walk this morning in the woods. We scared up a wild deer, but I did not feel able to run it down and present you with its antlers.

I hope you are well, that you are all well. And I hope Heaven will put it into your good brother's heart to send me that picture of the sister who is so much too good for him – or anybody.

In the meantime, and always, God bless you. Ambrose Bierce.

My boy (who has been an angel of goodness to me in my illness) sends his love to you and all your people.

Angwin, Cal.,January 14,1893.

My dear Partington,

You see the matter is this way. You can't come up here and go back the same day – at least that would give you but about an hour here. You must remain over night. Now I put it to you – how do you think I'd feel if you came and remained over night and I, having work to do, should have to leave you to your own devices, mooning about a place that has nobody to talk to? When a fellow comes a long way to see me I want to see a good deal of him, however he may feel about it. It is not the same as if he lived in the same bailiwick and "dropped in." That is why, in the present state of my health and work, I ask all my friends to give me as long notice of their coming as possible. I'm sure you'll say I am right, inasmuch as certain work if undertaken must be done by the time agreed upon.

My relations with Danziger are peculiar – as any one's relations with him must be. In the matter of which you wished to speak I could say nothing. For this I must ask you to believe there are reasons. It would not have been fair not to let you know, before coming, that I would not talk of him.

I thought, though, that you would probably come up to-day if I wrote you. Well, I should like you to come and pass a week with me. But if you come for a day I naturally want it to be an "off" day with me. Sincerely yours, Ambrose Bierce.

Angwin,January 23,1893.

My dear Blanche,

I should have written you sooner; it has been ten whole days since the date of your last letter. But I have not been in the mood of letter writing, and am prepared for maledictions from all my neglected friends but you. My health is better. Yesterday I returned from Napa, where I passed twenty-six hours, buried, most of the time, in fog; but apparently it has not harmed me. The weather here remains heavenly. * * *

If I grow better in health I shall in time feel able to extend my next foray into the Lowlands as far as Oakland and Berkeley.

Here are some fronds of maiden-hair fern that I have just brought in. The first wild flowers of the season are beginning to venture out and the manzanitas are a sight to see.

With warmest regards to all your people, I am, as ever, your most unworthy uncle, Ambrose Bierce.

Angwin,February 5,1893.

My dear Blanche,

What an admirable reporter you would be! Your account of the meeting with Miller in the restaurant and of the "entertainment" are amusing no end. * * * By the way, I observe a trooly offle "attack" on me in the Oakland Times of the 3rd (I think) * * * (I know of course it means me – I always know that when they pull out of their glowing minds that old roasted chestnut about "tearing down" but not "building up" – that is to say, effacing one imposture without giving them another in place of it.) The amusing part of the business is that he points a contrast between me and Realf (God knows there's unlikeness enough) quite unconscious of the fact that it is I and no other who have "built up" Realf's reputation as a poet – published his work, and paid him for it, when nobody else would have it; repeatedly pointed out its greatness, and when he left that magnificent crown of sonnets behind him protested that posterity would know California better by the incident of his death than otherwise – not a soul, until now, concurring in my view of the verses. Believe me, my trade is not without its humorous side.

Leigh and I went down to the waterfall yesterday. It was almost grand – greater than I had ever seen it – and I took the liberty to wish that you might see it in that state. My wish must have communicated itself, somehow, though imperfectly, to Leigh, for as I was indulging it he expressed the same wish with regard to Richard.

I wish too that you might be here to-day to see the swirls of snow. It is falling rapidly, and I'm thinking that this letter will make its way down the mountain to-morrow morning through a foot or two of it. Unluckily, it has a nasty way of turning to rain.

My health is very good now, and Leigh and I take long walks. And after the rains we look for Indian arrow-heads in the plowed fields and on the gravel bars of the creek. My collection is now great; but I fear I shall tire of the fad before completing it. One in the country must have a fad or die of dejection and oxidation of the faculties. How happy is he who can make a fad of his work!

By the way, my New York publishers (The United States Book Company) have failed, owing me a pot of money, of which I shall probably get nothing. I'm beginning to cherish an impertinent curiosity to know what Heaven means to do to me next. If your function as one of the angels gives you a knowledge of such matters please betray your trust and tell me where I'm to be hit, and how hard.

But this is an intolerable deal of letter.

With best regards to all good Partingtons – and I think there are no others – I remain your affectionate uncle by adoption, Ambrose Bierce.

Leigh has brought in some manzanita blooms which I shall try to enclose. But they'll be badly smashed.

Angwin,February 14,1893.

My Dear Blanche,

I thank you many times for the picture, which is a monstrous good picture, whatever its shortcomings as a portrait may be. On the authority of the great art critic, Leigh Bierce, I am emboldened to pronounce some of the work in it equal to Gribayedoff at his best; and that, according to the g. a. c. aforesaid, is to exhaust eulogium. But – it isn't altogether the Blanche that I know, as I know her. Maybe it is the hat – I should prefer you hatless, and so less at the mercy of capricious fortune. Suppose hats were to "go out" – I tremble to think of what would happen to that gorgeous superstructure which now looks so beautiful. O, well, when I come down I shall drag you to the hateful photographer and get something that looks quite like you – and has no other value.

And I mean to "see Oakland and die" pretty soon. I have not dared go when the weather was bad. It promises well now, but I am to have visitors next Sunday, so must stay at home. God and the weather bureau willing, you may be bothered with me the Saturday or Sunday after. We shall see.

I hope your father concurs in my remarks on picture "borders" – I did not think of him until the remarks had been written, or I should have assured myself of his practice before venturing to utter my mind o' the matter. If it were not for him and Gertrude and the Wave I should snarl again, anent "half-tones," which I abhor. Hume tried to get me to admire his illustrations, but I would not, so far as the process is concerned, and bluntly told him he would not get your father's best work that way.