The Letters of Ambrose Bierce Part 4

I have noted Gertrude's picture in the Examiner with a peculiar interest. That girl has a bushel of brains, and her father and brother have to look out for her or she will leave them out of sight. I would suggest as a measure of precaution against so monstrous a perversion of natural order that she have her eyes put out. The subjection of women must be maintained.

Bib and Leigh send love to you. Leigh, I think, is expecting Carlt.

I've permitted Leigh to join the band again, and he is very peac.o.c.ky in his uniform. G.o.d bless you.

AMBROSE BIERCE.

[St. Helena, November 6, 1892.]

MY DEAR BLANCHE,

I am glad you will consent to tolerate the new photograph--all my other friends are desperately delighted with it. I prefer your tolerance.

But I don't like to hear that you have been "ill and blue"; that is a condition which seems more naturally to appertain to me. For, after all, whatever cause you may have for "blueness," you can always recollect that you are _you_, and find a wholesome satisfaction in your ident.i.ty; whereas I, alas, am _I_!

I'm sure you performed your part of that concert creditably despite the ailing wrist, and wish that I might have added myself to your triumph.

I have been very ill again but hope to get away from here (back to my mountain) before it is time for another attack from my friend the enemy. I shall expect to see you there sometime when my brother and his wife come up. They would hardly dare to come without you.

No, I did not read the criticism you mention--in the _Sat.u.r.day Review_. Shall send you all the _Sat.u.r.days_ that I get if you will have them. Anyhow, they will amuse (and sometimes disgust) your father.

I have awful arrears of correspondence, as usual.

The children send love. They had a pleasant visit with Carlt, and we hope he will come again.

May G.o.d be very good to you and put it into your heart to write to your uncle often.

Please give my best respects to all Partingtons, jointly and severally.

AMBROSE BIERCE.

[Angwin, November 29, 1892.]

DEAR BLANCHE,

Only just a word to say that I have repented of my a.s.sent to your well-meant proposal for your father to write of _me_. If there is anything in my work in letters that engages his interest, or in my _literary_ history--that is well enough, and I shall not mind. But "biography" in the other sense is distasteful to me. I never read biographical "stuff" of other writers--of course you know "stuff" is literary slang for "matter"--and think it "beside the question."

Moreover, it is distinctly mischievous to letters. It throws no light on one's work, but on the contrary "darkens counsel." The only reason that posterity judges work with some slight approach to accuracy is that posterity knows less, and cares less, about the author's personality. It considers his work as impartially as if it had found it lying on the ground with no footprints about it and no initials on its linen.

My brother is not "fully cognizant" of my history, anyhow--not of the part that is interesting.

So, on the whole, I'll ask that it be not done. It was only my wish to please that made me consent. That wish is no weaker now, but I would rather please otherwise.

I trust that you arrived safe and well, and that your memory of those few stormy days is not altogether disagreeable. Sincerely your friend,

AMBROSE BIERCE.

[Angwin, December 25, 1892.]

MY DEAR BLANCHE,

Returning here from the city this morning, I find your letter. And I had not replied to your last one before that! But _that_ was because I hoped to see you at your home. I was unable to do so--I saw no one (but Richard) whom I really wanted to see, and had not an hour unoccupied by work or "business" until this morning. And then--it was Christmas, and my right to act as skeleton at anybody's feast by even so much as a brief call was not clear. I hope my brother will be as forgiving as I know you will be.

When I went down I was just recovering from as severe an attack of illness as I ever had in my life. Please consider unsaid all that I have said in praise of this mountain, its air, water, and everything that is its.

It was uncommonly nice of Hume to entertain so good an opinion of me; if you had seen him a few days later you would have found a different state of affairs, probably; for I had been exhausting relays of vials of wrath upon him for delinquent diligence in securing copyright for my little story--whereby it is uncopyrighted. I ought to add that he has tried to make reparation, and is apparently contrite to the limit of his penitential capacity.

No, there was no other foundation for the little story than its obvious naturalness and consistency with the sentiments "appropriate to the season." When Christendom is guzzling and gorging and clowning it has not time to cease being cruel; all it can do is to augment its hypocrisy a trifle.

Please don't lash yourself and do various penances any more for your part in the plaguing of poor Russell; he is quite forgotten in the superior affliction sent upon James Whitcomb Riley. _That_ seems a matter of genuine public concern, if I may judge by what I heard in town (and I heard little else) and by my letters and "esteemed"

(though testy) "contemporaries." Dear, dear, how sensitive people are becoming!

Richard has promised me the Blanchescape that I have so patiently waited for while you were practicing the art of looking pretty in preparation for the sitting, so now I am happy. I shall put you opposite Joaquin Miller, who is now framed and glazed in good shape. I have also your father's sketch of me--that is, I got it and left it in San Francisco to be cleaned if possible; it was in a most unregenerate state of dirt and grease.

Seeing Harry Bigelow's article in the _Wave_ on women who write (and it's unpleasantly near to the truth of the matter) I feel almost reconciled to the failure of my gorgeous dream of making a writer of _you_. I wonder if you would have eschewed the harmless, necessary tub and danced upon the broken bones of the innocuous toothbrush. Fancy you with sable nails and a soiled cheek, uttering to the day what G.o.d taught in the night! Let us be thankful that the peril is past.

The next time I go to "the Bay" I shall go to 1019 _first_.

G.o.d bless you for a good girl.

AMBROSE BIERCE.

[First part of this letter missing.]

Yes, I know Blackburn Harte has a weakness for the proletariat of letters * * * and doubtless thinks Riley good _because_ he is "of the people," peoply. But he will have to endure me as well as he can. You ask my opinion of Burns. He has not, I think, been translated into English, and I do not (that is, I can but _will_ not) read that gibberish. I read Burns once--that was once too many times; but happily it was before I knew any better, and so my time, being worthless, was not wasted.

I wish you could be up here this beautiful weather. But I dare say it would rain if you came. In truth, it is "thickening" a trifle just because of my wish. And I wish I _had_ given you, for your father, all the facts of my biography from the cradle--downward. When you come again I shall, if you still want them. For I'm worried half to death with requests for them, and when I refuse am no doubt considered surly or worse. And my refusal no longer serves, for the biography men are beginning to write my history from imagination. So the next time I see you I shall give you (orally) that "history of a crime," my life.

Then, if your father is still in the notion, he can write it from your notes, and I can answer all future inquiries by enclosing his article.

Do you know?--you will, I think, be glad to know--that I have many more offers for stories at good prices, than I have the health to accept. (For I am less nearly well than I have told you.) Even the _Examiner_ has "waked up" (I woke it up) to the situation, and now pays me $20 a thousand words; and my latest offer from New York is $50.

I hardly know why I tell you this unless it is because you tell me of any good fortune that comes to your people, and because you seem to take an interest in my affairs such as n.o.body else does in just the same un.o.bjectionable and, in fact, agreeable way. I wish you were my "real, sure-enough" niece. But in that case I should expect you to pa.s.s all your time at Howell Mountain, with your uncle and cousin.

Then I should teach you to write, and you could expound to me the principles underlying the art of being the best girl in the world.

Sincerely yours,

AMBROSE BIERCE.

[Angwin, January 4, 1893.]