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

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 God 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.

      God 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 nobody else does in just the same unobjectionable and, in fact, agreeable way. I wish you were my "real, sure-enough" niece. But in that case I should expect you to pass 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.

      My dear Blanche,

      Not hearing from [you] after writing you last week, I fear you are ill – may I not know? I am myself ill, as I feared. On Thursday last I was taken violently ill indeed, and have but just got about. In truth, I'm hardly able to write you, but as I have to go to work on Friday, sure, I may as well practice a little on you. And the weather up here is Paradisaical. Leigh and I took a walk this morning in the woods. We scared up a wild deer, but I did not feel able to run it down and present you with its antlers.

      I hope you are well, that you are all well. And I hope Heaven will put it into your good brother's heart to send me that picture of the sister who is so much too good for him – or anybody.

      In the meantime, and always, God bless you. Ambrose Bierce.

      My boy (who has been an angel of goodness to me in my illness) sends his love to you and all your people.

Angwin, Cal.,January 14,1893.

      My dear Partington,

      You see the matter is this way. You can't come up here and go back the same day – at least that would give you but about an hour here. You must remain over night. Now I put it to you – how do you think I'd feel if you came and remained over night and I, having work to do, should have to leave you to your own devices, mooning about a place that has nobody to talk to? When a fellow comes a long way to see me I want to see a good deal of him, however he may feel about it. It is not the same as if he lived in the same bailiwick and "dropped in." That is why, in the present state of my health and work, I ask all my friends to give me as long notice of their coming as possible. I'm sure you'll say I am right, inasmuch as certain work if undertaken must be done by the time agreed upon.