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

It rains or snows here all the time, and the mountain struggles in vain to put on its bravery of leaf and flower. When this kind of thing stops I'm going to put in an application for you to come up and get your bad impressions of the place effaced. It is insupportable that my earthly paradise exist in your memory as a "bad eminence," like Satan's primacy.

I'm sending you the New England Magazine– perhaps I have sent it already – and a Harper's Weekly with a story by Mrs. * * *, who is a sort of pupil of mine. She used to do bad work – does now sometimes; but she will do great work by-and-by.

I wish you had not got that notion that you cannot learn to write. You see I'd like you to do some art work that I can understand and enjoy. I wonder why it is that no note or combination of notes can be struck out of a piano that will touch me – give me an emotion of any kind. It is not wholly due to my ignorance and bad ear, for other instruments – the violin, organ, zither, guitar, etc., sometimes affect me profoundly. Come, read me the riddle if you know. What have I done that I should be inaccessible to your music? I know it is good; I can hear that it is, but not feel that it is. Therefore to me it is not.

Now that, you will confess, is a woeful state – "most tolerable and not to be endured." Will you not cultivate some art within the scope of my capacity? Do you think you could learn to walk on a wire (if it lay on the ground)? Can you not ride three horses at once if they are suitably dead? Or swallow swords? Really, you should have some way to entertain your uncle.

True, you can talk, but you never get the chance; I always "have the floor." Clearly you must learn to write, and I mean to get Miller to teach you how to be a poet.

I hope you will write occasionally to me, – letter-writing is an art that you do excel in – as I in "appreciation" of your excellence in it.

Do you see my boy? I hope he is good, and diligent in his work.

* * *

You must write to me or I shall withdraw my avuncular relation to you.

With good will to all your people – particularly Phyllis – I am sincerely your friend, Ambrose Bierce.

    Angwin, Calif.,
    April 16,
    1893.

My dear Partington,

I think you wrong. On your own principle, laid down in your letter, that "every man has a right to the full value of his labor" – pardon me, good Englishman, I meant "laboUr" – you have a right to your wage for the labo

r of teaching Leigh. And what work would he get to do but for you?

I can't hold you and inject shekels into your pocket, but if the voice of remonstrance has authority to enter at your ear without a ticket I pray you to show it hospitality.

Leigh doubtless likes to see his work in print, but I hope you will not let him put anything out until it is as good as he can make it – nor then if it is not good enough. And that whether he signs it or not. I have talked to him about the relation of conscience to lab-work, but I don't know if my talk all came out at the other ear.

O – that bad joke o' mine. Where do you and Richard expect to go when death do you part? You were neither of you present that night on the dam, nor did I know either of you. Blanche, thank God, retains the old-time reverence for truth: it was to her that I said it. Richard evidently dreamed it, and you – you've been believing that confounded Wave! Sincerely yours, Ambrose Bierce.

    Angwin,
    April 18,
    1893.

My dear Blanche,

I take a few moments from work to write you in order (mainly) to say that your letter of March 31st did not go astray, as you seem to fear – though why you should care if it did I can't conjecture. The loss to me – that is probably what would touch your compassionate heart.

So you will try to write. That is a good girl. I'm almost sure you can – not, of course, all at once, but by-and-by. And if not, what matter? You are not of the sort, I am sure, who would go on despite everything, determined to succeed by dint of determining to succeed.

* * *

We are blessed with the most amiable of all conceivable weathers up here, and the wild flowers are putting up their heads everywhere to look for you. Lying in their graves last autumn, they overheard (underheard) your promise to come in the spring, and it has stimulated and cheered them to a vigorous growth.

I'm sending you some more papers. Don't think yourself obliged to read all the stuff I send you —I don't read it.

Condole with me – I have just lost another publisher – by failure. Schulte, of Chicago, publisher of "The Monk" etc., has "gone under," I hear. Danziger and I have not had a cent from him. I put out three books in a year, and lo! each one brings down a publisher's gray hair in sorrow to the grave! for Langton, of "Black Beetles," came to grief – that is how Danziger got involved. "O that mine enemy would publish one of my books!"

I am glad to hear of your success at your concert. If I could have reached you you should have had the biggest basket of pretty vegetables that was ever handed over the footlights. I'm sure you merited it all – what do you not merit?

Your father gives me good accounts of my boy. He must be doing well, I think, by the way he neglects all my commissions.

Enclosed you will find my contribution to the Partington art gallery, with an autograph letter from the artist. You can hang them in any light you please and show them to Richard. He will doubtless be pleased to note how the latent genius of his boss has burst into bloom.

I have been wading in the creek this afternoon for pure love of it; the gravel looked so clean under the water. I was for the moment at least ten years younger than your father. To whom, and to all the rest of your people, my sincere regards, Your uncle, Ambrose Bierce.

    Angwin, Cala.,
    April 26,
    1893.

My dear Blanche,

* * *

I accept your sympathy for my misfortunes in publishing. It serves me right (I don't mean the sympathy does) for publishing. I should have known that if a publisher cannot beat an author otherwise, or is too honest to do so, he will do it by failing. Once in London a publisher gave me a check dated two days ahead, and then (the only thing he could do to make the check worthless) – ate a pork pie and died. That was the late John Camden Hotten, to whose business and virtues my present London publishers, Chatto and Windus, have succeeded. They have not failed, and they refuse pork pie, but they deliberately altered the title of my book.

All this for your encouragement in "learning to write." Writing books is a noble profession; it has not a shade of selfishness in it – nothing worse than conceit.

O yes, you shall have your big basket of flowers if ever I catch you playing in public. I wish I could give you the carnations, lilies-of-the-valley, violets, and first-of-the-season sweet peas now on my table. They came from down near you – which fact they are trying triumphantly and as hard as they can to relate in fragrance.

I trust your mother is well of her cold – that you are all well and happy, and that Phyllis will not forget me. And may the good Lord bless you regularly every hour of every day for your merit, and every minute of every hour as a special and particular favor to Your uncle, Ambrose Bierce.

    Berkeley,
    October 2,
    1893.

My dear Blanche,

I accept with pleasure your evidence that the Piano is not as black as I have painted, albeit the logical inference is that I'm pretty black myself. Indubitably I'm "in outer darkness," and can only say to you: "Lead, kindly light." Thank you for the funny article on the luxury question – from the funny source. But you really must not expect me to answer it, nor show you wherein it is "wrong." I cannot discern the expediency of you having any "views" at all in those matters – even correct ones. If I could have my way you should think of more profitable things than the (conceded) "wrongness" of a world which is the habitat of a wrongheaded and wronghearted race of irreclaimable savages. * * * When woman "broadens her sympathies" they become annular. Don't.

Cosgrave came over yesterday for a "stroll," but as he had a dinner engagement to keep before going home, he was in gorgeous gear. So I kindly hoisted him atop of Grizzly Peak and sent him back across the Bay in a condition impossible to describe, save by the aid of a wet dishclout for illustration.

Please ask your father when and where he wants me to sit for the portrait. If that picture is not sold, and ever comes into my possession, I shall propose to swap it for yours. I have always wanted to lay thievish hands on that, and would even like to come by it honestly. But what under the sun would I do with either that or mine? Fancy me packing large paintings about to country hotels and places of last resort!

Leigh is living with me now. Poor chap, the death of his aunt has made him an orphan. I feel a profound compassion for any one whom an untoward fate compels to live with me. However, such a one is sure to be a good deal alone, which is a mitigation.

With good wishes for all your people, I am sincerely yours, Ambrose Bierce.

    Berkeley,
    December 27,
    1893.

My dear Blanche,