The Letters of Ambrose Bierce Part 21

I've been in New York again but am slowly recovering. I saw Neale. He a.s.sures me that the magazine will surely materialize about June, and he wants the poem, "A Wine of Wizardry," with an introduction by me. I think he means it; if so that will give it greater publicity than what you have in mind, even if the mag eventually fail. Magazines if well advertised usually sell several hundred thousand of the first issue; the trick is to keep them going. Munsey's "Sc.r.a.p Book" disposed of a half-million. * * *

* * * was to start for a few weeks in California about now. I hope you will see him. He is not a bad lot when convinced that one respects him. He has been treated pretty badly in this neck o' the woods, as is every Western man who breaks into this realm of smugwumps.

My benediction upon Carmelites all and singular--if any are all.

Sincerely yours, AMBROSE BIERCE.

Doubleday, Page & Co. are to publish my "Cynic's Dictionary."

[The Army and Navy Club, Washington, D. C., April 20, 1906.]

DEAR GEORGE,

I write in the hope that you are alive and the fear that you are wrecked.[8]

[8] The San Francisco earthquake and fire had occurred April 18, 1906.

Please let me know if I can help--I need not say how glad I shall be to do so. "Help" would go with this were I sure about you and the post-office. It's a mighty bad business and one does not need to own property out there to be "hit hard" by it. One needs only to have friends there.

We are helpless here, so far as the telegraph is concerned--shall not be able to get anything on the wires for many days, all private dispatches being refused.

Pray G.o.d you and yours may be all right. Of course anything that you may be able to tell me of my friends will be gratefully received.

Sincerely yours, AMBROSE BIERCE.

[Washington, D. C., May 6, 1906.]

DEAR GEORGE,

Your letter relieves me greatly. I had begun to fear that you had "gone before." Thank you very much for your news of our friends. I had already heard from Eva Croffie. Also from Grizzly.

Thank you for Mr. Eddy's review of "Shapes." But he is misinformed about poor Flora Shearer. Of course I helped her--who would not help a good friend in adversity? But she went to Scotland to a brother long ago, and at this time I do not know if she is living or dead.

But here am I forgetting (momentarily) that awful wiping out of San Francisco. It "hit" me pretty hard in many ways--mostly indirectly, through my friends. I had rather hoped to have to "put up" for you and your gang, and am a trifle disappointed to know that you are all right--except the chimneys. I'm glad that tidal wave did not come, but don't you think you'd better have a canoe ready? You could keep it on your veranda stacked with provisions and whiskey.

My letter from Ursus (written during the conflagration) expresses a keen solicitude for the Farallones, as the fire was working westward.

If this letter is a little disconnected and incoherent know, O King, that I have just returned from a dinner in Atlantic City, N. J. I saw Markham there, also Bob Davis, Sam Moffett, Homer Davenport, Bob Mackay and other San Franciscans. (Can there be a San Franciscan when there is no San Francisco? I don't want to go back. Doubtless the new San Francisco--while it lasts--will be a finer town than the old, but it will not be _my_ San Francisco and I don't want to see it. It has for many years been, to me, full of ghosts. Now it is itself a ghost.)

I return the sonnets. Destruction of "Town Talk" has doubtless saved you from having the one on me turned down. Dear old fellow, don't take the trouble to defend my memory when--or at least until--

"I am fled From this vile world, with vilest worms to dwell."

I'm not letting my enemies' att.i.tude trouble me at all. On the contrary, I'm rather sorry for them and their insomnia--lying awake o'

nights to think out new and needful lies about me, while I sleep sweetly. O, it is all right, truly.

No, I never had any row (nor much acquaintance) with Mark Twain--met him but two or three times. Once with Stoddard in London. I think pretty well of him, but doubt if he cared for me and can't, at the moment, think of any reason why he _should_ have cared for me.

"The Cynic's Dictionary" is a-printing. I shall have to call it something else, for the publishers tell me there is a "Cynic's Dictionary" already out. I dare say the author took more than my t.i.tle--the stuff has been a rich mine for a plagiarist for many a year. They (the publishers) won't have "The Devil's Dictionary." Here in the East the Devil is a sacred personage (the Fourth Person of the Trinity, as an Irishman might say) and his name must not be taken in vain.

No, "The Testimony of the Suns" has not "palled" on me. I still read it and still think it one of the world's greatest poems.

Well, G.o.d be wi' ye and spare the shack at Carmel,

Sincerely yours, AMBROSE BIERCE.

[Washington, D. C., June 11, 1906.]

DEAR GEORGE,

Your poem, "A Dream of Fear" was so good before that it needed no improvement, though I'm glad to observe that you have "the pa.s.sion for perfection." Sure--you shall have your word "colossal" applied to a thing of two dimensions, an you will.

I have no objection to the publication of that sonnet on me. It may give my enemies a transient feeling that is disagreeable, and if I can do that without taking any trouble in the matter myself it is worth doing. I think they must have renewed their activity, to have provoked you so--got up a new and fascinating lie, probably. Thank you for putting your good right leg into action themward.

What a "settlement" you have collected about you at Carmel! All manner of cranks and curios, to whom I feel myself drawn by affinity. Still I suppose I shall not go. I should have to see the new San Francisco--when it has foolishly been built--and I'd rather not. One does not care to look upon either the mutilated face of one's mashed friend or an upstart imposter bearing his name. No, _my_ San Francisco is gone and I'll have no other.

You are wrong about Gorky--he has none of the "artist" in him. He is not only a peasant, but an anarchist and an advocate of a.s.sa.s.sination--by others; like most of his tribe, he doesn't care to take the risk himself. His "career" in this country has been that of a yellow dog. Hearst's newspapers and * * * are the only friends that remain to him of all those that acclaimed him when he landed. And all the st.u.r.dy lying of the former cannot rehabilitate him. It isn't merely the woman matter. You'd understand if you were on this side of the country. I was myself a dupe in the matter. He had expressed high admiration of my books (in an interview in Russia) and when his Government released him from prison I cabled him congratulations. O, my!

Yes, I've observed the obviously lying estimates of the San Franciscan dead; also that there was no earthquake--just a fire; also the determination to "beat" the insurance companies. Insurance is a hog game, and if they (the companies) can be beaten out of their dishonest gains by superior dishonesty I have no objection; but in my judgment they are neither legally nor morally liable for the half that is claimed of them. Those of them that took no earthquake risks don't owe a cent.

Please don't send * * *'s verses to me if you can decently decline. I should be sorry to find them bad, and my loathing of the Whitmaniacal "form" is as deep as yours. Perhaps I should find them good otherwise, but the probability is so small that I don't want to take the chance.

I've just finished reading the first proofs of "The Cynic's Word Book," which Doubleday, Page & Co. are to bring out in October. My dealings with them have been most pleasant and one of them whom I met the other day at Atlantic City seems a fine fellow.

I think I told you that S. O. Howes, of Galveston, Texas, is compiling a book of essays and sich from some of my stuff that I sent him. I've left the selection entirely to him and presented him with the profits if there be any. He'll probably not even find a publisher. He has the work about half done. By the way, he is an enthusiastic admirer of you. For that I like him, and for much else.

I mean to stay here all summer if I die for it, as I probably shall.

Luck and love to you.

Sincerely yours, AMBROSE BIERCE.

[The Army and Navy Club, Washington, D. C., June 20, 1906.]

DEAR MR. CAHILL,

I am more sorry than I can say to be unable to send you the copy of the Builder's Review that you kindly sent _me_. But before receiving your note I had, in my own interest, searched high and low for it, in vain. Somebody stole it from my table. I especially valued it after the catastrophe, but should have been doubly pleased to have it for you.

It was indeed a rough deal you San Franciscans got. I had always expected to go back to the good old town some day, but I have no desire to see the new town, if there is to be one. I fear the fire consumed even the ghosts that used to meet me at every street corner--ghosts of dear dead friends, oh, so many of them!