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

I have read some of Jack London's work and think it clever. Of Whitaker I never before heard, I fear. If London wants to criticise your "Star poem" what's the objection? I should not think, though, from his eulogism of * * *, that he is very critical. * * *

Where are you to place Browning? Among thinkers. In his younger days, when he wrote in English, he stood among the poets. I remember writing once – of the thinker: "There's nothing more obscure than Browning except blacking." I'll stand to that.

No, don't take the trouble to send me a copy of these verses: I expect to see them in a book pretty soon. * * *

Sincerely yours, Ambrose Bierce.
The Olympia,Washington, D. C.,March 31,1902.

Dear Sterling,

I am glad to know that you too have a good opinion of that poem.6 One should know about one's own work. Most writers think their work good, but good writers know it. Pardon me if I underrated your astronomical knowledge. My belief was based on your use of those names. I never met with the spelling "Betelgeux"; and even if it is correct and picturesque I'd not use it if I were you, for it does not quite speak itself, and you can't afford to jolt the reader's attention from your thought to a matter of pronunciation. In my student days we, I am sure, were taught to say Procy´on. I don't think I've heard it pronounced since, and I've no authority at hand. If you are satisfied with Pro´cyon I suppose it is that. But your pronunciation was Aldeb´aran or your meter very crazy indeed. I asked (with an interrogation point) if it were not Aldeba´ran – and I think it is. Fomalhaut I don't know about; I thought it French and masculine. In that case it would, I suppose, be "ho," not "hote."

Don't cut out that stanza, even if "clime" doesn't seem to me to have anything to do with duration. The stanza is good enough to stand a blemish.

"Ye stand rebuked by suns who claim" – I was wrong in substituting "that" for "who," not observing that it would make it ambiguous. I merely yielded to a favorite impulse: to say "that" instead of "who," and did not count the cost.

Don't cut out any stanza – if you can't perfect them let them go imperfect.

"Without or genesis or end.""Devoid of birth, devoid of end."

These are not so good as

"Without beginning, without end"; – I submit them to suggest a way to overcome that identical rhyme. All you have to do is get rid of the second "without." I should not like "impend."

Yes, I vote for Orion's sword of suns. "Cimetar" sounds better, but it is more specific – less generic. It is modern – or, rather, less ancient than "sword," and makes one think of Turkey and the Holy Land. But "sword" – there were swords before Homer. And I don't think the man who named this constellation ever saw a curved blade. And yet, and yet – "cimetar of suns" is "mighty catchin'."

No, indeed, I could not object to your considering the heavens in a state of war. I have sometimes fancied I could hear the rush and roar of it. Why, a few months ago I began a sonnet thus:

"Not as two erring spheres together grind,With monstrous ruin, in the vast of space,Destruction born of that malign embrace —Their hapless peoples all to death consigned – " etc.

I've been a star-gazer all my life – from my habit of being "out late," I guess; and the things have always seemed to me alive.

The change in the verses ad meum, from "thy clearer light" to "the clearer light" may have been made modestly or inadvertently – I don't recollect. It is, of course, no improvement and you may do as you please. I'm uniformly inadvertent, but intermittently modest.

* * *

A class of stuff that I can't (without "trouble in the office") write my own way I will not write at all. So I'm writing very little of anything but nonsense. * * *

With best regards to Mrs. Sterling and Miss Marian I am

Sincerely yours, Ambrose Bierce.

Leigh died a year ago this morning. I wish I could stop counting the days.

The Olympia,Washington, D. C.,April 15,1902.

Dear Sterling,

All right – I only wanted you to be sure about those names of stars; it would never do to be less than sure.

After all our talk (made by me) I guess that stanza would better stand as first written. "Clime" – climate – connotes temperature, weather, and so forth, in ordinary speech, but a poet may make his own definitions, I suppose, and compel the reader to study them out and accept them.

Your misgiving regarding your inability to reach so high a plane again as in this poem is amusing, but has an element of the pathetic. It certainly is a misfortune for a writer to do his best work early; but I fancy you'd better trust your genius and do its bidding whenever the monkey chooses to bite. "The Lord will provide." Of course you have read Stockton's story "His Wife's Deceased Sister." But Stockton gets on very well, despite "The Lady or the Tiger." I've a notion that you'll find other tragedies among the stars if earth doesn't supply you with high enough themes.

Will I write a preface for the book? Why, yes, if you think me competent. Emerson commands us to "hitch our wagon to a star?" and, egad! here's a whole constellation – a universe – of stars to draw mine! It makes me blink to think of it.

O yes, I'd like well enough to "leave the Journal," but —

Sincerely yours, Ambrose Bierce.
The Olympia,Washington, D. C.,July 10,1902.

My dear Sterling,

If rejection wounded, all writers would bleed at every pore. Nevertheless, not my will but thine be done. Of course I shall be glad to go over your entire body of work again and make suggestions if any occur to me. It will be no trouble – I could not be more profitably employed than in critically reading you, nor more agreeably.

* * *

Of course your star poem has one defect – if it is a defect – that limits the circle of understanding and admiring readers – its lack of "human interest." We human insects, as a rule, care for nothing but ourselves, and think that is best which most closely touches such emotions and sentiments as grow out of our relations, the one with another. I don't share the preference, and a few others do not, believing that there are things more interesting than men and women. The Heavens, for example. But who knows, or cares anything about them – even knows the name of a single constellation? Hardly any one but the professional astronomers – and there are not enough of them to buy your books and give you fame. I should be sorry not to have that poem published – sorry if you did not write more of the kind. But while it may impress and dazzle "the many" it will not win them. They want you to finger their heart-strings and pull the cord that works their arms and legs. So you must finger and pull – too.

The Château Yquem came all right, and is good. Thank you for it – albeit I'm sorry you feel that you must do things like that. It is very conventional and, I fear, "proper." However, I remember that you used to do so when you could not by any stretch of imagination have felt that you were under an "obligation." So I guess it is all right – just your way of reminding me of the old days. Anyhow, the wine is so much better than my own that I've never a scruple when drinking it.

Has "Maid Marian" a photograph of me? – I don't remember. If not I'll send her one; I've just had some printed from a negative five or six years old. I've renounced the photograph habit, as one renounces other habits when age has made them ridiculous – or impossible.

Send me the typewritten book when you have it complete.

Sincerely yours, Ambrose Bierce.
Washington,August 19,1902.

My dear Sterling,

I suppose you are in Seattle, but this letter will keep till your return.

I am delighted to know that I am to have "the book" so soon, and will give it my best attention and (if you still desire) some prefatory lines. Think out a good title and I shall myself be hospitable to any suggestion of my dæmon in the matter. He has given me nothing for the star poem yet.

* * *

You'll "learn in suffering what you teach in song," all right; but let us hope the song will be the richer for it. It will be. For that reason I never altogether "pity the sorrows" of a writer – knowing they are good for him. He needs them in his business. I suspect you must have shed a tear or two since I knew you.

I'm sending you a photograph, but you did not tell me if Maid Marian the Superb already has one – that's what I asked you, and if you don't answer I shall ask her.

* * *

Yes, I am fairly well, and, though not "happy," content. But I'm dreadfully sorry about Peterson.

Sincerely yours, Ambrose Bierce.

I am about to break up my present establishment and don't know where my next will be. Better address me "Care N. Y. American and Journal Bureau, Washington, D. C."

You see I'm still chained to the oar of yellow journalism, but it is a rather light servitude.

Address me at1321 Yale Street,Washington, D. C.,December 20,1902.

Dear Sterling,

I fancy you must fear by this time that I did not get the poems, but I did. I'll get at them, doubtless, after awhile, though a good deal of manuscript – including a couple of novels! – is ahead of them; and one published book of bad poems awaits a particular condemnation.

I'm a little embarrassed about the preface which I'm to write. I fear you must forego the preface or I the dedication. That kind of "coöperation" doesn't seem in very good taste: it smacks of "mutual admiration" in the bad sense, and the reviewers would probably call it "log-rolling." Of course it doesn't matter too much what the reviewers say, but it matters a lot what the intelligent readers think; and your book will have no others. I really shouldn't like to write the preface of a book dedicated to me, though I did not think of that at first.

The difficulty could be easily removed by not dedicating the book to me were it not that that would sacrifice the noble poem with my name atop of it. That poem is itself sufficiently dedicatory if printed by itself in the forepages of the book and labeled "Dedication – To Ambrose Bierce." I'm sure that vanity has nothing to do, or little to do, with my good opinion of the verses. And, after all, they show that I have said to you all that I could say to the reader in your praise and encouragement. What do you think?

As to dedicating individual poems to other fellows, I have not the slightest hesitancy in advising you against it. The practice smacks of the amateur and is never, I think, pleasing to anybody but the person so honored. The custom has fallen into "innocuous desuetude" and there appears to be no call for its revival. Pay off your obligations (if such there be) otherwise. You may put it this way if you like: The whole book being dedicated to me, no part of it can be dedicated to another. Or this way: Secure in my exalted position I don't purpose sharing the throne with rival (and inferior) claimants. They be gam doodled!

Seriously – but I guess it is serious enough as it stands. It occurs to me that in saying: "no part of it can be dedicated to another" I might be understood as meaning: "no part of it must be," etc. No; I mean only that the dedication to another would contradict the dedication to me. The two things are (as a matter of fact) incompatible.

Well, if you think a short preface by me preferable to the verses with my name, all right; I will cheerfully write it, and that will leave you free to honor your other friends if you care to. But those are great lines, and implying, as they do, all that a set preface could say, it seems to me that they ought to stand.

* * *

Maid Marian shall have the photograph.

Sincerely yours, Ambrose Bierce.
1321 Yale Street,Washington, D. C.,March 1,1903.

My dear Sterling,

You are a brick. You shall do as you will. My chief reluctance is that if it become known, or when it becomes known, there may ensue a suspicion of my honesty in praising you and your book; for critics and readers are not likely to look into the matter of dates. For your sake I should be sorry to have it thought that my commendation was only a log-rolling incident; for myself, I should care nothing about it. This eel is accustomed to skinning.

It is not the least pleasing of my reflections that my friends have always liked my work – or me – well enough to want to publish my books at their own expense. Everything that I have written could go to the public that way if I would consent. In the two instances in which I did consent they got their money back all right, and I do not doubt that it will be so in this; for if I did not think there was at least a little profit in a book of mine I should not offer it to a publisher. "Shapes of Clay" ought to be published in California, and it would have been long ago if I had not been so lazy and so indisposed to dicker with the publishers. Properly advertised – which no book of mine ever has been – it should sell there if nowhere else. Why, then, do I not put up the money? Well, for one reason, I've none to put up. Do you care for the other reasons?

But I must make this a condition. If there is a loss, I am to bear it. To that end I shall expect an exact accounting from your Mr. Wood, and the percentage that Scheff. purposes having him pay to me is to go to you. The copyright is to be mine, but nothing else until you are entirely recouped. But all this I will arrange with Scheff., who, I take it, is to attend to the business end of the matter, with, of course, your assent to the arrangements that he makes.

I shall write Scheff. to-day to go ahead and make his contract with Mr. Wood on these lines. Scheff. appears not to know who the "angel" in the case is, and he need not, unless, or until, you want him to.

I've a pretty letter from Maid Marian in acknowledgment of the photograph. I shall send one to Mrs. Sterling at once, in the sure and certain hope of getting another. It is good of her to remember my existence, considering that your scoundrelly monopoly of her permitted us to meet so seldom. I go in for a heavy tax on married men who live with their wives.

"She holds no truce with Death or Peace" means that with one of them she holds no truce; "nor" makes it mean that she holds no truce with either. The misuse of "or" (its use to mean "nor") is nearly everybody's upsetting sin. So common is it that "nor" instead usually sounds harsh.

I omitted the verses on "Puck," not because Bunner is dead, but because his work is dead too, and the verses appear to lack intrinsic merit to stand alone. I shall perhaps omit a few more when I get the proofs (I wish you could see the bushels I've left out already) and add a few serious ones.

I'm glad no end that you and Scheff. have met. I'm fond of the boy and he likes me, I think. He too has a book of verses on the ways, and I hope for it a successful launching. I've been through it all; some of it is great in the matter of thews and brawn; some fine.

Pardon the typewriter; I wanted a copy of this letter.

Sincerely yours, Ambrose Bierce.
The New York"American" Bureau,Washington, D. C.,June 13,1903.

Dear Sterling,

It is good to hear from you again and to know that the book is so nearly complete as to be in the hands of the publishers. I dare say they will not have it, and you'll have to get it out at your own expense. When it comes to that I shall hope to be of service to you, as you have been to me.

So you like Scheff. Yes, he is a good boy and a good friend. I wish you had met our friend Dr. Doyle, who has now gone the long, lone journey. It has made a difference to me, but that matters little, for the time is short in which to grieve. I shall soon be going his way.

No, I shall not put anything about the * * * person into "Shapes of Clay." His offence demands another kind of punishment, and until I meet him he goes unpunished. I once went to San Francisco to punish him (but that was in hot blood) but * * * of "The Wave" told me the man was a hopeless invalid, suffering from locomotor ataxia. I have always believed that until I got your letter and one from Scheff. Is it not so? – or was it not? If not he has good reason to think me a coward, for his offence was what men are killed for; but of course one does not kill a helpless person, no matter what the offence is. If * * * lied to me I am most anxious to know it; he has always professed himself a devoted friend.

The passage that you quote from Jack London strikes me as good. I don't dislike the word "penetrate" – rather like it. It is in frequent use regarding exploration and discovery. But I think you right about "rippling"; it is too lively a word to be outfitted with such an adjective as "melancholy." I see London has an excellent article in "The Critic" on "The Terrible and Tragic in Fiction." He knows how to think a bit.

What do I think of Cowley-Brown and his "Goosequill"? I did not know that he had revived it; it died several years ago. I never met him, but in both Chicago and London (where he had "The Philistine," or "The Anti-Philistine," I do not at the moment remember which) he was most kind to me and my work. In one number of his magazine – the London one – he had four of my stories and a long article about me which called the blushes to my maiden cheek like the reflection of a red rose in the petal of a violet. Naturally I think well of Cowley-Brown.

You make me sad to think of the long leagues and the monstrous convexity of the earth separating me from your camp in the redwoods. There are few things that I would rather do than join that party; and I'd be the last to strike my tent and sling my swag. Alas, it cannot be – not this year. My outings are limited to short runs along this coast. I was about to set out on one this morning; and wrote a hasty note to Scheff in consequence of my preparations. In five hours I was suffering from asthma, and am now confined to my room. But for eight months of the year here I am immune – as I never was out there.

* * *

You will have to prepare yourself to endure a good deal of praise when that book is out. One does not mind when one gets accustomed to it. It neither pleases nor bores; you will have just no feeling about it at all. But if you really care for my praise I hope you have quoted a bit of it at the head of those dedicatory verses, as I suggested. That will give them a raison d'être.

With best regards to Mrs. Sterling and Katie I am sincerely yours, Ambrose Bierce.

P.S. – If not too much trouble you may remind Dick Partington and wife that I continue to exist and to remember them pleasantly.

N. Y. "American"Bureau,Washington, D. C.,[July, 1903].

Dear Scheff:

I got the proofs yesterday, and am returning them by this mail. The "report of progress" is every way satisfactory, and I don't doubt that a neat job is being done.

The correction that you made is approved. I should have wanted and expected you to make many corrections and suggestions, but that I have had a purpose in making this book – namely, that it should represent my work at its average. In pursuance of this notion I was not hospitable even to suggestions, and have retained much work that I did not myself particularly approve; some of it trivial. You know I have always been addicted to trifling, and no book from which trivialities were excluded would fairly represent me.

I could not commend this notion in another. In your work and Sterling's I have striven hard to help you to come as near to perfection as we could, because perfection is what you and he want, and as young writers ought to want, the character of your work being higher than mine. I reached my literary level long ago, and seeing that it is not a high one there would seem to be a certain affectation, even a certain dishonesty, in making it seem higher than it is by republication of my best only. Of course I have not carried out this plan so consistently as to make the book dull: I had to "draw the line" at that.

I say all this because I don't want you and Sterling to think that I disdain assistance: I simply decided beforehand not to avail myself of its obvious advantages. You would have done as much for the book in one way as you have done in another.

I'll have to ask you to suggest that Mr. Wood have a man go over all the matter in the book, and see that none of the pieces are duplicated, as I fear they are. Reading the titles will not be enough: I might have given the same piece two titles. It will be necessary to compare first lines, I think. That will be drudgery which I'll not ask you to undertake: some of Wood's men, or some of the printer's men, will do it as well; it is in the line of their work.

The "Dies Irae" is the most earnest and sincere of religious poems; my travesty of it is mere solemn fooling, which fact is "given away" in the prose introduction, where I speak of my version being of possible service in the church! The travesty is not altogether unfair – it was inevitably suggested by the author's obvious inaccessibility to humor and logic – a peculiarity that is, however, observable in all religious literature, for it is a fundamental necessity to the religious mind. Without logic and a sense of the ludicrous a man is religious as certainly as without webbed feet a bird has the land habit.

It is funny, but I am a "whole lot" more interested in seeing your cover of the book than my contents of it. I don't at all doubt – since you dared undertake it – that your great conception will find a fit interpreter in your hand; so my feeling is not anxiety. It is just interest – pure interest in what is above my powers, but in which you can work. By the way, Keller, of the old "Wasp" was not the best of its cartoonists. The best – the best of all cartoonists if he had not died at eighteen – was another German, named Barkhaus. I have all his work and have long cherished a wish to republish it with the needed explanatory text – much of it being "local" and "transient." Some day, perhaps – most likely not. But Barkhaus was a giant.

How I envy you! There are few things that would please me so well as to "drop in" on you folks in Sterling's camp. Honestly, I think all that prevents is the (to me) killing journey by rail. And two months would be required, going and returning by sea. But the rail trip across the continent always gives me a horrible case of asthma, which lasts for weeks. I shall never take that journey again if I can avoid it. What times you and they will have about the campfire and the table! I feel like an exile, though I fear I don't look and act the part.

I did not make the little excursion I was about to take when I wrote you recently. Almost as I posted the letter I was taken ill and have not been well since.

Poor Doyle! how thoughtful of him to provide for the destruction of my letters! But I fear Mrs. Doyle found some of them queer reading – if she read them.

* * *

Great Scott! if ever they begin to publish mine there will be a circus! For of course the women will be the chief sinners, and – well, they have material a-plenty; they can make many volumes, and your poor dead friend will have so bad a reputation that you'll swear you never knew him. I dare say, though, you have sometimes been indiscreet, too. My besetting sin has been in writing to my girl friends as if they were sweethearts – the which they'll doubtless not be slow to affirm. The fact that they write to me in the same way will be no defense; for when I'm worm's meat I can't present the proof – and wouldn't if I could. Maybe it won't matter – if I don't turn in my grave and so bother the worms.

As Doyle's "literary executor" I fear your duties will be light: he probably did not leave much manuscript. I judge from his letters that he was despondent about his work and the narrow acceptance that it had. So I assume that he did not leave much more than the book of poems, which no publisher would (or will) take.

You are about to encounter the same stupid indifference of the public – so is Sterling. I'm sure of Sterling, but don't quite know how it will affect you. You're a pretty sturdy fellow, physically and mentally, but this may hurt horribly. I pray that it do not, and could give you – perhaps have given you – a thousand reasons why it should not. You are still young and your fame may come while you live; but you must not expect it now, and doubtless do not. To me, and I hope to you, the approval of one person who knows is sweeter than the acclaim of ten thousand who do not – whose acclaim, indeed, I would rather not have. If you do not feel this in every fibre of your brain and heart, try to learn to feel it – practice feeling it, as one practices some athletic feat necessary to health and strength.