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

What you say of the mine and how you are to be housed there pleases me mightily. That's how I should like to live, and mining is what I should like again to do. Pray God you be not disappointed.

Alas, I cannot even join you during Carlt's vacation, for the mountain ramble. Please "go slow" in your goating this year. I think you are better fitted for it than ever before, but you'd better ask your surgeon about that. By the way, do you know that since women took to athletics their peculiar disorders have increased about fifty per cent? You can't make men of women. The truth is, they've taken to walking on their hind legs a few centuries too soon. Their in'ards have not learned how to suspend the law of gravity. Add the jolts of athletics and – there you are.

I wish I could be with you at Monte Sano – or anywhere.

Love to Carlt and Sloots.

    Affectionately, Ambrose.

    Washington, D. C.,
    September 10,
    1913.

Dear Lora,

Your letter was forwarded to me in New York, whence I have just returned. I fancy you had a more satisfactory outing than I. I never heard of the Big Sur river nor of "Arbolado." But I'm glad you went there, for I'm hearing so much about Hetch Hetchy that I'm tired of it. I'm helping the San Francisco crowd (a little) to "ruin" it.

* * *

I'm glad to know that you still expect to go to the mine. Success or failure, it is better than the Mint, and you ought to live in the mountains where you can climb things whenever you want to.

Of course I know nothing of Neale's business – you'd better write to him if he has not filled your order. I suppose you know that volumes eleven and twelve are not included in the "set."

If you care to write to me again please do so at once as I am going away, probably to South America, but if we have a row with Mexico before I start I shall go there first. I want to see something going on. I've no notion of how long I shall remain away.

With love to Carlt and Sloots,

    Affectionately, Ambrose.

    Washington, D. C.,
    September 10,
    1913.

Dear Joe,[18 - To Mrs. Josephine Clifford McCrackin, San Jose, California.]

The reason that I did not answer your letter sooner is – I have been away (in New York) and did not have it with me. I suppose I shall not see your book for a long time, for I am going away and have no notion when I shall return. I expect to go to, perhaps across, South America – possibly via Mexico, if I can get through without being stood up against a wall and shot as a Gringo. But that is better than dying in bed, is it not? If Duc did not need you so badly I'd ask you to get your hat and come along. God bless and keep you.

* * *

    Washington, D. C.,
    September 13,
    1913.

Dear Joe,

Thank you for the book. I thank you for your friendship – and much besides. This is to say good-by at the end of a pleasant correspondence in which your woman's prerogative of having the last word is denied to you. Before I could receive it I shall be gone. But some time, somewhere, I hope to hear from you again. Yes, I shall go into Mexico with a pretty definite purpose, which, however, is not at present disclosable. You must try to forgive my obstinacy in not "perishing" where I am. I want to be where something worth while is going on, or where nothing whatever is going on. Most of what is going on in your own country is exceedingly distasteful to me.

Pray for me? Why, yes, dear – that will not harm either of us. I loathe religions, a Christian gives me qualms and a Catholic sets my teeth on edge, but pray for me just the same, for with all those faults upon your head (it's a nice head, too), I am pretty fond of you, I guess. May you live as long as you want to, and then pass smilingly into the darkness – the good, good darkness.

    Devotedly your friend, Ambrose Bierce.

    The Olympia,
    Euclid Street,
    Washington, D. C.,
    October 1,
    1913.

Dear Lora,

I go away tomorrow for a long time, so this is only to say good-bye. I think there is nothing else worth saying; therefore you will naturally expect a long letter. What an intolerable world this would be if we said nothing but what is worth saying! And did nothing foolish – like going into Mexico and South America.

I'm hoping that you will go to the mine soon. You must hunger and thirst for the mountains – Carlt likewise. So do I. Civilization be dinged! – it is the mountains and the desert for me.

Good-bye – if you hear of my being stood up against a Mexican stone wall and shot to rags please know that I think that a pretty good way to depart this life. It beats old age, disease, or falling down the cellar stairs. To be a Gringo in Mexico – ah, that is euthanasia!

With love to Carlt, affectionately yours, Ambrose.

    Laredo, Texas,
    November 6,
    1913.

My dear Lora,

I think I owe you a letter, and probably this is my only chance to pay up for a long time. For more than a month I have been rambling about the country, visiting my old battlefields, passing a few days in New Orleans, a week in San Antonio, and so forth. I turned up here this morning. There is a good deal of fighting going on over on the Mexican side of the Rio Grande, but I hold to my intention to go into Mexico if I can. In the character of "innocent bystander" I ought to be fairly safe if I don't have too much money on me, don't you think? My eventual destination is South America, but probably I shall not get there this year.

Sloots writes me that you and Carlt still expect to go to the mine, as I hope you will.

The Cowdens expect to live somewhere in California soon, I believe. They seem to be well, prosperous and cheerful.

With love to Carlt and Sloots, I am affectionately yours,Ambrose.

P.S. You need not believe all that these newspapers say of me and my purposes. I had to tell them something.

    Laredo, Texas,
    November 6,
    1913.

Dear Lora,

I wrote you yesterday at San Antonio, but dated the letter here and today, expecting to bring the letter and mail it here. That's because I did not know if I would have time to write it here. Unfortunately, I forgot and posted it, with other letters, where it was written. Thus does man's guile come to naught!

Well, I'm here, anyhow, and have time to explain.

Laredo was a Mexican city before it was an American. It is Mexican now, five to one. Nuevo Laredo, opposite, is held by the Huertistas and Americans don't go over there. In fact a guard on the bridge will not let them. So those that sneak across have to wade (which can be done almost anywhere) and go at night.

I shall not be here long enough to hear from you, and don't know where I shall be next. Guess it doesn't matter much.

    Adios, Ambrose.