The Letters of Ambrose Bierce Part 9

If I ventured to advise you I should recommend to you the simple, ordinary meters and forms native to our language.

I await the photograph of the pretty sister--don't fancy I've forgotten.

It is 1 a. m. and I'm about to drink your health in a gla.s.s of Riesling and eat it in a pate.

My love to Grizzly if you ever see him. Yours ever,

A. B.

[Washington, D. C., January 23, 1901.]

MY DEAR DOYLE,

Your letter of the 16th has just come and as I am waiting at my office (where I seldom go) I shall amuse myself by replying "to onct." See here, I don't purpose that your attack on poor Morrow's book shall become a "continuous performance," nor even an "annual ceremony." It is not "rot." It is not "filthy." It does not "suggest bed-pans,"--at least it did not to me, and I'll wager something that Morrow never thought of them. Observe and consider: If his hero and heroine had been man and wife, the bed-pan would have been there, just the same; yet you would not have thought of it. Every reader would have been touched by the husband's devotion. A physician has to do with many unpleasant things; whom do his ministrations disgust? A trained nurse lives in an atmosphere of bed-pans--to whom is her presence or work suggestive of them? I'm thinking of the heroic Father Damien and his lepers; do you dwell upon the rotting limbs and foul distortions of his unhappy charges? Is not his voluntary martyrdom one of the sanest, cleanest, most elevating memories in all history? Then it is _not_ the bed-pan necessity that disgusts you; it is something else. It is the fact that the hero of the story, being neither physician, articled nurse, nor certificated husband, nevertheless performed _their_ work.

He ministered to the helpless in a natural way without authority from church or college, quite irregular and improper and all that. My n.o.ble critic, there speaks in your blood the Untamed Philistine. You were not caught young enough. You came into letters and art with all your beastly conventionalities in full mastery of you. Take a purge. Forget that there are Philistines. Forget that they have put their abominable pantalettes upon the legs of Nature. Forget that their code of morality and manners (it stinks worse than a bed-pan) does _not_ exist in the serene alt.i.tude of great art, toward which you have set your toes and into which I want you to climb. I know about this thing. I, too, tried to rise with all that dead weight dragging at my feet.

Well, I could not--now I could if I cared to. In my mind I do. It is not freedom of act--not freedom of living, for which I contend, but freedom of thought, of mind, of spirit; the freedom to see in the horrible laws, prejudices, custom, conventionalities of the mult.i.tude, something good for them, but of no value to you _in your art._ In your life and conduct defer to as much of it as you will (you'll find it convenient to defer to a whole lot), but in your mind and art let not the Philistine enter, nor even speak a word through the keyhole. My own chief objection to Morrow's story is (as I apprised him) its unnaturalness. He did not dare to follow the logical course of his narrative. He was too cowardly (or had too keen an eye upon his market of prudes) to make hero and heroine join in the holy bonds of _bed_lock, as they naturally, inevitably and rightly would have done long before she was able to be about. I daresay that, too, would have seemed to you "filthy," without the parson and his fee. When you a.n.a.lyze your objection to the story (as I have tried to do for you) you will find that it all crystallizes into that--the absence of the parson. I don't envy you your view of the matter, and I really don't think you greatly enjoy it yourself. I forgot to say: Suppose they had been two men, two partners in hunting, mining, or exploring, as frequently occurs. Would the bed-pan suggestion have come to you? Did it come to you when you read of the slow, but not uniform, starvation of Greeley's party in the arctic? Of course not. Then it is a matter, not of bed-pans, but of s.e.x-exposure (unauthorized by the church), of prudery--of that artificial thing, the "sense of shame," of which the great Greeks knew nothing; of which the great j.a.panese know nothing; of which Art knows nothing. Dear Doctor, do you really put trousers on your piano-legs? Does your indecent intimacy with your mirror make you blush?

There, there's the person whom I've been waiting for (I'm to take her to dinner, and I'm not married to even so much of her as her little toe) has come; and until you offend again, you are immune from the switch. May all your brother Philistines have to "Kiss the place to make it well."

Pan is dead! Long live Bed-Pan!

Yours ever, AMBROSE BIERCE.

[Washington, February 17, 1901.]

MY DEAR STERLING,

I send back the poems, with a few suggestions. You grow great so rapidly that I shall not much longer dare to touch your work. I mean that.

Your criticisms of Stedman's Anthology are just. But equally just ones can be made of any anthology. None of them can suit any one. I fancy Stedman did not try to "live up" to his standard, but to make _representative_, though not always the _best_, selections. It would hardly do to leave out Whitman, for example. _We_ may not like him; thank G.o.d, we don't; but many others--the big fellows too--do; and in England he is thought great. And then Stedman has the bad luck to know a lot of poets personally--many bad poets. Put yourself in his place.

Would you leave out me if you honestly thought my work bad?

In any compilation we will all miss some of our favorites--and find some of the public's favorites. You miss from Whittier "Joseph Sturge"--I the sonnet "Forgiveness," and so forth. Alas, there is no universal standard!

Thank you for the photographs. Miss * * * is a pretty girl, truly, and has the posing instinct as well. She has the place of honor on my mantel. * * * But what scurvy knave has put the stage-crime into her mind? If you know that life as I do you will prefer that she die, poor girl.

It is no trouble, but a pleasure, to go over your verses--I am as proud of your talent as if I'd made it.

Sincerely yours, AMBROSE BIERCE.

[over]

About the rhymes in a sonnet:

"Regular", or "English" Modern Italian form form English (Petrarch): (Shakspear's): 1 1 1 2 2 2 2 2 1 1 1 2 1 1 3 2 2 4 2 2 3 1 1 4 Two or three 3 5 rhymes; any 4 6 arrangement 5 5 3 6 4 7 5 7

There are good reasons for preferring the regular Italian form created by Petrarch--who knew a thing or two; and sometimes good reasons for another arrangement--of the sestet rhymes. If one should sacrifice a great thought to be like Petrarch one would not resemble him.

A. B.

[Washington, D. C., May 2, 1901.]

MY DEAR STERLING,

I am sending to the "Journal" your splendid poem on Memorial Day. Of course I can't say what will be its fate. I am not even personally acquainted with the editor of the department to which it goes. But if he has not the brains to like it he is to send it back and I'll try to place it elsewhere. It is great--great!--the loftiest note that you have struck and _held_.

Maybe I owe you a lot of letters. I don't know--my correspondence all in arrears and I've not the heart to take it up.

Thank you for your kind words of sympathy.[2] I'm hit harder than any one can guess from the known facts--am a bit broken and gone gray of it all.

[2] Concerning the death of his son Leigh.

But I remember you asked the t.i.tle of a book of synonyms. It is "Roget's Thesaurus," a good and useful book.

The other poems I will look up soon and consider. I've made no alterations in the "Memorial Day" except to insert the omitted stanza.

Sincerely yours,

AMBROSE BIERCE.

[Washington, May 9, 1901.]

MY DEAR STERLING,

I send the poems with suggestions. There's naught to say about 'em that I've not said of your other work. Your "growth in grace" (and other poetic qualities) is something wonderful. You are leaving my other "pupils" so far behind that they are no longer "in it."

Seriously, you "promise" better than any of the new men in our literature--and perform better than all but Markham in his lucid intervals, alas, too rare.

Sincerely yours, AMBROSE BIERCE.

[Washington, May 22, 1901.]

MY DEAR STERLING,

I enclose a proof of the poem[3]--all marked up. The poem was offered to the Journal, but to the wrong editor. I would not offer it to him in whose department it could be used, for he once turned down some admirable verses of my friend Scheffauer which I sent him. I'm glad the Journal is _not_ to have it, for it now goes into the Washington Post--and the Post into the best houses here and elsewhere--a good, clean, unyellow paper. I'll send you some copies with the poem.

[3] "Memorial Day."

I think my marks are intelligible--I mean my _re_marks. Perhaps you'll not approve all, or anything, that I did to the poem; I'll only ask you to endure. When you publish in covers you can restore to the original draft if you like. I had not time (after my return from New York) to get your approval and did the best and the least I could.

My love to your pretty wife and sister. Let me know how hard you hate me for monkeying with your sacred lines.

Sincerely yours, AMBROSE BIERCE.