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

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.

If you were to visit the Mountain now I should be able to show you a redwood forest (newly discovered) and a picturesque gulch to match.

The wild flowers are beginning to put up their heads to look for you, and my collection of Indian antiquities is yearning to have you see it.

Please convey my thanks to Richard for the picture – the girlscape – and my best regards to your father and all the others.

    Sincerely your friend, Ambrose Bierce.

    Angwin,
    February 21,
    1893.

My dear Blanche,

I'm very sorry indeed that I cannot be in Oakland Thursday evening to see you "in your glory," arrayed, doubtless, like a lily of the field. However glorious you may be in public, though, I fancy I should like you better as you used to be out at camp.

Well, I mean to see you on Saturday afternoon if you are at home, and think I shall ask you to be my guide to Grizzlyville; for surely I shall never be able to find the wonderful new house alone. So if your mamma will let you go out there with me I promise to return you to her instead of running away with you. And, possibly, weather permitting, we can arrange for a Sunday in the redwoods or on the hills. Or don't your folks go out any more o' Sundays?

Please give my thanks to your mother for the kind invitation to put up at your house; but I fear that would be impossible. I shall have to be where people can call on me – and such a disreputable crowd as my friends are would ruin the Partingtonian reputation for respectability. In your new neighborhood you will all be very proper – which you could hardly be with a procession of pirates and vagrants pulling at your door-bell.

So – if God is good – I shall call on you Saturday afternoon. In the meantime and always be thou happy – thou and thine. Your unworthy uncle, Ambrose Bierce.

    Angwin,
    March 18,
    1893.

My dear Blanche,

It is good to have your letters again. If you will not let me teach you my trade of writing stories it is right that you practice your own of writing letters. You are mistress of that. Byron's letters to Moore are dull in comparison with yours to me. Some allowance, doubtless, must be made for my greater need of your letters than of Byron's. For, truth to tell, I've been a trifle dispirited and noncontent. In that mood I peremptorily resigned from the Examiner, for one thing – and permitted myself to be coaxed back by Hearst, for another. My other follies I shall not tell you. * * *

We had six inches of snow up here and it has rained steadily ever since – more than a week. And the fog is of superior opacity – quite peerless that way. It is still raining and fogging. Do you wonder that your unworthy uncle has come perilously and alarmingly near to loneliness? Yet I have the companionship, at meals, of one of your excellent sex, from San Francisco. * * *

Truly, I should like to attend one of your at-homes, but I fear it must be a long time before I venture down there again. But when this brumous visitation is past I can look down, and that assists the imagination to picture you all in your happy (I hope) home. But if that woolly wolf, Joaquin Miller, doesn't keep outside the fold I shall come down and club him soundly. I quite agree with your mother that his flattery will spoil you. You said I would spoil Phyllis, and now, you bad girl, you wish to be spoiled yourself. Well, you can't eat four Millerine oranges. – My love to all your family. Ambrose Bierce.

    Angwin,
    March 26,
    1893.

My dear Partington,

I am very glad indeed to get the good account of Leigh that you give me. I've feared that he might be rather a bore to you, but you make me easy on that score. Also I am pleased that you think he has a sufficient "gift" to do something in the only direction in which he seems to care to go.

He is anxious to take the place at the Examiner, and his uncle thinks that would be best – if they will give it him. I'm a little reluctant for many reasons, but there are considerations – some of them going to the matter of character and disposition – which point to that as the best arrangement. The boy needs discipline, control, and work. He needs to learn by experience that life is not all beer and skittles. Of course you can't quite know him as I do. As to his earning anything on the Examiner or elsewhere, that cuts no figure – he'll spend everything he can get his fingers on anyhow; but I feel that he ought to have the advantage of a struggle for existence where the grass is short and the soil stony.

Well, I shall let him live down there somehow, and see what can be done with him. There's a lot of good in him, and a lot of the other thing, naturally.

I hope Hume has, or will, put you in authority in the Post and give you a decent salary. He seems quite enthusiastic about the Post and – about you.

With sincere regards to Mrs. Partington and all the Partingtonettes, I am very truly yours, Ambrose Bierce.

    Angwin,
    April 10,
    1893.

My dear Partington,

If you are undertaking to teach my kid (which, unless it is entirely agreeable to you, you must not do) I hope you will regard him as a pupil whose tuition is to be paid for like any other pupil. And you should, I think, name the price. Will you kindly do so?

Another thing. Leigh tells me you paid him for something he did for the Wave. That is not right. While you let him work with you, and under you, his work belongs to you – is a part of yours. I mean the work that he does in your shop for the Wave.

I don't wish to feel that you are bothering with him for nothing – will you not tell me your notion of what I should pay you?

I fancy you'll be on the Examiner pretty soon – if you wish.

With best regards to your family I am sincerely yours, Ambrose Bierce.

    Angwin,
    April 10,
    1893.

My dear Blanche,

As I was writing to your father I was, of course, strongly impressed with a sense of you; for you are an intrusive kind of creature, coming into one's consciousness in the most lawless way – Phyllis-like. (Phyllis is my "type and example" of lawlessness, albeit I'm devoted to her – a Phyllistine, as it were.)

Leigh sends me a notice (before the event) of your concert. I hope it was successful. Was it?