The Letters of Ambrose Bierce Part 35

It is pleasant to know that you are not easily discouraged by the croaking of such ravens as I, and I confess that the matter of the "civic centre" supplies some reason to hope for prosperity to the Cahill projection--which (another croak) will doubtless bear some other man's name, probably Hayford's or Woodward's.

I sent the "Argonaut" article to my friend Dr. Franklin, of Schenectady, a "scientific gent" of some note, but have heard nothing from him.

I'm returning the "Chronicle" article, which I found interesting. If I were not a writer without an "organ" I'd have a say about that projection. For near four years I've been out of the newspaper game--a mere compiler of my collected works in twelve volumes--and shall probably never "sit into the game" again, being seventy years old. My work is finished, and so am I.

Luck to you in the new year, and in many to follow.

Sincerely yours, AMBROSE BIERCE.

[The Olympia Apartments, Washington, D. C., I prefer to get my letters at this address. Make a memorandum of it.

January 28, 1913.]

DEAR LORA,

I have been searching for your letter of long ago, fearing it contained something that I should have replied to. But I don't find it; so I make the convenient a.s.sumption that it did not.

I'd like to hear from you, however unworthy I am to do so, for I want to know if you and Carlt have still a hope of going mining. Pray G.o.d you do, if there's a half-chance of success; for success in the service of the Government is failure.

Winter here is two-thirds gone and we have not had a cold day, and only one little dash of snow--on Christmas eve. Can California beat that? I'm told it's as cold there as in Greenland.

Tell me about yourself--your health since the operation--how it has affected you--all about you. My own health is excellent; I'm equal to any number of Carlt's toddies. By the way, Blanche has made me a co-defendant with you in the crime (once upon a time) of taking a drop too much. I plead not guilty--how do _you_ plead? Sloots, at least, would acquit us on the ground of inability--that one _can't_ take too much. * * *

Affectionately, your avuncular, AMBROSE.

[Washington, D. C., March 20, 1913.]

DEAR RUTH,

I'm returning your little sketches with a few markings which are to be regarded (or disregarded) as mere suggestions. I made them in pencil, so that you can erase them if you don't approve. Of course I should make many more if I could have you before me so that I could explain _why_; in this way I can help you but little. You'll observe that I have made quite a slaughter of some of the adjectives in some of your sentences--you will doubtless slaughter some in others. Nearly all young writers use too many adjectives. Indeed, moderation and skill in the use of adjectives are about the last things a good writer learns.

Don't use those that are connoted by the nouns; and rather than have all the nouns, or nearly all, in a sentence outfitted with them it is better to make separate sentences for some of those desired.

In your sketch "Triumph" I would not name the "hero" of the piece. To do so not only makes the sketch commonplace, but it logically requires you to name his victim too, and her offense; in brief, it commits you to a _story_.

A famous writer (perhaps Holmes or Thackeray--I don't remember) once advised a young writer to cut all the pa.s.sages that he thought particularly good. Your taste I think is past the need of so heroic treatment as that, but the advice may be profitably borne in memory whenever you are in doubt, if ever you are. And sometimes you will be.

I think I know what Mr. Morrow meant by saying that your characters are not "humanly significant." He means that they are not such persons as one meets in everyday life--not "types." I confess that I never could see why one's characters _should_ be. The exceptional--even "abnormal"--person seems to me the more interesting, but I must warn you that he will not seem so to an editor. Nor to an editor will the tragic element seem so good as the cheerful--the sombre denouement as the "happy ending." One must have a pretty firm reputation as a writer to "send in" a tragic or supernatural tale with any hope of its acceptance. The average mind (for which editors purvey, and mostly possess) dislikes, or thinks it dislikes, any literature that is not "sunny." True, tragedy holds the highest and most permanent place in the world's literature and art, but it has the divvel's own time getting to it. For immediate popularity (if one cares for it) one must write pleasant things; though one may put in here and there a bit of pathos.

I think well of these two ma.n.u.scripts, but doubt if you can get them into any of our magazines--if you want to. As to that, n.o.body can help you. About the only good quality that a magazine editor commonly has is his firm reliance on the infallibility of his own judgment. It is an honest error, and it enables him to mull through somehow with a certain kind of consistency. The only way to get a footing with him is to send him what you think he wants, not what you think he ought to want--and keep sending. But perhaps you do not care for the magazines.

I note a great improvement in your style--probably no more than was to be expected of your better age, but a distinct improvement. It is a matter of regret with me that I have not the training of you; we should see what would come of it. You certainly have no reason for discouragement. But if you are to be a writer you must "cut out" the dances and the teas (a little of the theater may be allowed) and _work_ right heartily. The way of the good writer is no primrose path.

No, I have not read the poems of Service. What do I think of Edith Wharton? Just what Pollard thought--see _Their Day in Court_, which I think you have.

I fear you have the wanderl.u.s.t incurably. I never had it bad, and have less of it now than ever before. I shall not see California again.

My love to all your family goes with this, and to you all that you will have.

AMBROSE BIERCE.

[The Army and Navy Club, Washington, D. C., May 22, 1913.]

EDITOR "LANTERN",[17]

[17] The editor was Curtis J. Kirch ("Guido Bruno") and the weekly had a brief career in Chicago. It was the forerunner of the many Bruno weeklies and monthlies, later published from other cities.

Will I tell you what I think of your magazine? Sure I will.

It has thirty-six pages of reading matter.

Seventeen are given to the biography of a musician,--German, dead.

Four to the mother of a theologian,--German, peasant-wench, dead.

(The mag. is published in America, to-day.)

Five pages about Eugene Field's ancestors. All dead.

17 + 4 + 5 = 26.

36 - 26 = 10.

Two pages about Ella Wheeler Wilc.o.x.

Three-fourths page about a bad poet and his indifference to--German.

Two pages of his poetry.

2 + + 2 = 4.

10 - 4 = 5. Not enough to criticise.

What your magazine needs is an editor--presumably older, preferably American, and indubitably alive. At least awake. It is your inning.

Sincerely yours, AMBROSE BIERCE.

[Washington, D. C., May 31, 1913.]

MY DEAR LORA,

You were so long in replying to my letter of the century before last, and as your letter is not really a reply to anything in mine, that I fancy you did not get it. I don't recollect, for example, that you ever acknowledged receipt of little pictures of myself, though maybe you did--I only hope you got them. The photographs that you send are very interesting. One of them makes me thirsty--the one of that fountainhead of good booze, your kitchen sink.

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 G.o.d 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.