by GEORGE STERLING
Though from boyhood a lover of tales of the terrible, it was not until
my twenty-second year that I heard of Ambrose Bierce, I having then
been for ten months a resident of Oakland, California. But in the fall
of the year 1891 my friend Roosevelt Johnson, newly arrived from our
town of birth, Sag Harbor, New York, asked me if I were acquainted
with his work, adding that he had been told that Bierce was the author
of stories not inferior in awesomeness to the most terrible of Poe's.
We made inquiry and found that Bierce had for several years been
writing columns of critical comment, satirically named _Prattle_, for
the editorial page of the Sunday _EXAMINER_, of San Francisco. As my
uncle, of whose household I had been for nearly a year a member, did
not subscribe to that journal, I had unfortunately overlooked these
weekly contributions to the wit and sanity of our western
literature--an omission for which we partially consoled ourselves by
subsequently reading with great eagerness each installment of
_Prattle_ as it appeared. But, so far as his short stories were
concerned, we had to content ourselves with the assurance of a
neighbor that "they'd scare an owl off a tombstone."
However, later in the autumn, while making a pilgrimage to the home of
our greatly worshipped Joaquin Miller, we became acquainted with
Albert, an elder brother of Bierce's, a man who was to be one of my
dearest of friends to the day of his death, in March, 1914. From him
we obtained much to gratify our not unnatural curiosity as to this
mysterious being, who, from his isolation on a lonely mountain above
the Napa Valley, scattered weekly thunderbolts on the fool, the
pretender, and the knave, and cast ridicule or censure on many that
sat in the seats of the mighty. For none, however socially or
financially powerful, was safe from the stab of that aculeate pen, the
venom of whose ink is to gleam vividly from the pages of literature
for centuries yet to come.
For Bierce is of the immortals. That fact, known, I think, to him, and
seeming then more and more evident to some of his admirers, has become
plainly apparent to anyone who can appraise the matter with eyes that
see beyond the flimsy artifices that bulk so large and so briefly in
the literary arena. Bierce was a sculptor who wrought in hardest
crystal.
I was not to be so fortunate as to become acquainted with him until
after the publication of his first volume of short stories, entitled
_Tales of Soldiers and Civilians_. That mild title gives scant
indication of the terrors that await the unwarned reader. I recall
that I hung fascinated over the book, unable to lay it down until the
last of its printed dooms had become an imperishable portion of the
memory. The tales are told with a calmness and reserve that make most
of Poe's seem somewhat boyish and melodramatic by comparison. The
greatest of them seems to me to be _An Occurrence at Owl Creek
Bridge_, though I am perennially charmed by the weird beauty of _An
Inhabitant of Carcosa_, a tale of unique and unforgettable quality.
Bierce, born in Ohio in 1842, came to San Francisco soon after the
close of the Civil War. It is amusing to learn that he was one of a
family of eleven children, male and female, the Christian name of each
of whom began with the letter "A!" Obtaining employment at first in
the United States Mint, whither Albert, always his favorite brother,
had preceded him, he soon gravitated to journalism, doing his first
work on the San Francisco _NEWS LETTER_. His brother once told me that
he (Ambrose) had from boyhood been eager to become a writer and was
expectant of success at that pursuit.
Isolated from most men by the exalted and austere habit of his
thought, Bierce finally suffered a corresponding exile of the body,
and was forced to live in high altitudes, which of necessity are
lonely. This latter banishment was on account of chronic and utterly
incurable asthma, an ailment contracted in what might almost be termed
a characteristic manner. Bierce had no fear of the dead folk and their
marble city. From occasional strollings by night in Laurel Hill
Cemetery, in San Francisco, his spirit "drank repose," and was able to
attain a serenity in which the cares of daytime existence faded to
nothingness. It was on one of those strolls that he elected to lie for
awhile in the moonlight on a flat tombstone, and awakening late in the
night, found himself thoroughly chilled, and a subsequent victim of
the disease that was to cast so dark a shadow over his following
years. For his sufferings from asthma were terrible, arising often to
a height that required that he be put under the influence of
chloroform.
So afflicted, he found visits to the lowlands a thing not to be
indulged in with impunity. For many years such trips terminated
invariably in a severe attack of his ailment, and he was driven back
to his heights shaken and harassed. But he found such visits both
necessary and pleasant on occasion, and it was during one that he made
in the summer of 1892 that I first made his acquaintance, while he was
temporarily a guest at his brother Albert's camp on a rocky,
laurel-covered knoll on the eastern shore of Lake Temescal, a spot now
crossed by the tracks of the Oakland, Antioch and Eastern Railway.
I am not likely to forget his first night among us. A tent being, for
his ailment, insufficiently ventilated, he decided to sleep by the
campfire, and I, carried away by my youthful hero-worship, must
partially gratify it by occupying the side of the fire opposite to
him. I had a comfortable cot in my tent, and was unaccustomed at the
time to sleeping on the ground, the consequence being that I awoke at
least every half-hour. But awake as often as I might, always I found
Bierce lying on his back in the dim light of the embers, his gaze
fixed on the stars of the zenith. I shall not forget the gaze of those
eyes, the most piercingly blue, under yellow shaggy brows, that I have
ever seen.
After that, I saw him at his brother's home in Berkeley, at irregular
intervals, and once paid him a visit at his own temporary home at
Skylands, above Wrights, in Santa Clara County, whither he had moved
from Howell Mountain, in Napa County. It was on this visit that I was
emboldened to ask his opinion on certain verses of mine, the ambition
to become a poet having infected me at the scandalously mature age of
twenty-six. He was hospitable to my wish, and I was fortunate enough
to be his pupil almost to the year of his going forth from among us.
During the greater part of that time he was a resident of Washington,
D. C., whither he had gone in behalf of the San Francisco _EXAMINER_,
to aid in defeating (as was successfully accomplished) the Funding
Bill proposed by the Southern Pacific Company. It was on this occasion
that he electrified the Senate's committee by repeatedly refusing to
shake the hand of the proponent of that measure, no less formidable an
individual than Collis P. Huntington.
For Bierce carried into actual practice his convictions on ethical
matters. Secure in his own self-respect, and valuing his friendship or
approval to a high degree, he refused to make, as he put it, "a harlot
of his friendship." Indeed, he once told me that it was his rule, on
subsequently discovering the unworth of a person to whom a less
fastidious friend had without previous warning introduced him, to
write a letter to that person and assure him that he regarded the
introduction as a mistake, and that the twain were thenceforth to
"meet as strangers!" He also once informed me that he did not care
to be introduced to persons whom he had criticized, or was about to
criticize, in print. "I might get to like the beggar," was his
comment, "and then I'd have one less pelt in my collection."
In his criticism of my own work, he seldom used more than suggestion,
realizing, no doubt, the sensitiveness of the tyro in poetry. It has
been hinted to me that he laid, as it were, a hand of ice on my
youthful enthusiasms, but that, to such extent as it may be true, was,
I think, a good thing for a pupil of the art, youth being apt to gush
and become over-sentimental. Most poets would give much to be able to
obliterate some of their earlier work, and he must have saved me a
major portion of such putative embarrassment. Reviewing the
manuscripts that bear his marginal counsels, I can now see that such
suggestions were all "indicated," though at the time I dissented from
some of them. It was one of his tenets that a critic should "keep his
heart out of his head" (to use his own words), when sitting in
judgment on the work of writers whom he knew and liked. But I cannot
but think that he was guilty of sad violations of that rule,
especially in my own case.
Bierce lived many years in Washington before making a visit to his old
home. That happened in 1910, in which year he visited me at Carmel,
and we afterwards camped for several weeks together with his brother
and nephew, in Yosemite. I grew to know him better in those days, and
he found us hospitable, in the main degree, to his view of things,
socialism being the only issue on which we were not in accord. It
led to many warm arguments, which, as usual, conduced nowhere but to
the suspicion that truth in such matters was mainly a question of
taste.
I saw him again in the summer of 1911, which he spent at Sag Harbor.
We were much on the water, guests of my uncle in his power-yacht "La
Mascotte II." He was a devotee of canoeing, and made many trips on the
warm and shallow bays of eastern Long Island, which he seemed to
prefer to the less spacious reaches of the Potomac. He revisited
California in the fall of the next year, a trip on which we saw him
for the last time. An excursion to the Grand Canyon was occasionally
proposed, but nothing came of it, nor did he consent to be again my
guest at Carmel, on the rather surprising excuse that the village
contained too many anarchists! And in November, 1913, I received my
last letter from him, he being then in Laredo, Texas, about to cross
the border into warring Mexico.
Why he should have gone forth on so hazardous an enterprise is for the
most part a matter of conjecture. It may have been in the spirit of
adventure, or out of boredom, or he may not, even, have been jesting
when he wrote to an intimate friend that, ashamed of having lived so
long, and not caring to end his life by his own hand, he was going
across the border and let the Mexicans perform for him that service.
But he wrote to others that he purposed to extend his pilgrimage as
far as South America, to cross the Andes, and return to New York by
way of a steamer from Buenos Ayres. At any rate, we know, from letters
written during the winter months, that he had unofficially attached
himself to a section of Villa's army, even taking an active part in
the fighting. He was heard from until the close of 1913; after that
date the mist closes in upon his trail, and we are left to surmise
what we may. Many rumors as to his fate have come out of Mexico, one
of them even placing him in the trenches of Flanders. These rumors
have been, so far as possible, investigated: all end in nothing. The
only one that seems in the least degree illuminative is the tale
brought by a veteran reporter from the City of Mexico, and published
in the San Francisco _BULLETIN_. It is the story of a soldier in
Villa's army, one of a detachment that captured, near the village of
Icamole, an ammunition train of the Carranzistas. One of the prisoners
was a sturdy, white-haired, ruddy-faced Gringo, who, according to the
tale, went before the firing squad with an Indian muleteer, as sole
companion in misfortune. The description of the manner--indifferent,
even contemptuous--with which the white-haired man met his death seems
so characteristic of Bierce that one would almost be inclined to give
credence to the tale, impossible though it may be of verification. But
the date of the tragedy being given as late in 1915, it seems
incredible that Bierce could have escaped observation for so long a
period, with so many persons in Mexico eager to know of his fate. It
is far more likely that he met his death at the hands of a roving band
of outlaws or guerrilla soldiery.
I have had often in mind the vision of his capture by such a squad,
their discovery of the considerable amount of gold coin that he was
known to carry on his person, and his immediate condemnation and
execution as a spy in order that they might retain possession of the
booty. Naturally, such proceedings would not have been reported, from
fear of the necessity of sharing with those "higher up." And so the
veil would have remained drawn, and impenetrable to vision. Through
the efforts of the War Department, all United States Consuls were
questioned as to Bierce's possible departure from the country; all
Americans visiting or residing in Mexico were begged for
information--even prospectors. But the story of the reporter is the
sole one that seems partially credible. To such darkness did so
shining and fearless a soul go forth.
It is now over eight years since that disappearance, and though the
likelihood of his existence in the flesh seems faint indeed, the storm
of detraction and obloquy that he always insisted would follow his
demise has never broken, is not even on the horizon. Instead, he seems
to be remembered with tolerance by even those whom he visited with a
chastening pen. Each year of darkness but makes the star of his fame
increase and brighten, but we have, I think, no full conception as yet
of his greatness, no adequate realization of how wide and permanent a
fame he has won. It is significant that some of the discerning admire
him for one phase of his work, some for another. For instance, the
clear-headed H. L. Mencken acclaims him as the first wit of America,
but will have none of his tales; while others, somewhat disconcerted
by the cynicism pervading much of his wit, place him among the
foremost exponents of the art of the short story. Others again prefer
his humor (for he was humorist as well as wit), and yet others like
most the force, clarity and keen insight of his innumerable essays and
briefer comments on mundane affairs. Personally, I have always
regarded Poe's _Fall of the House of Usher_ as our greatest tale;
close to that come, in my opinion, at least a dozen of Bierce's
stories, whether of the soldier or civilian. He has himself stated in
_Prattle_: "I am not a poet." And yet he wrote poetry, on occasion, of
a high order, his _Invocation_ being one of the noblest poems in the
tongue. Some of his satirical verse seems to me as terrible in its
withering invective as any that has been written by classic satirists,
not excepting Juvenal and Swift. Like the victims of their merciless
pens, his, too, will be forgiven and forgotten. Today no one knows,
nor cares, whether or not those long-dead offenders gave just offense.
The grave has closed over accuser and accused, and the only thing that
matters is that a great mind was permitted to function. One may smile
or sigh over the satire, but one must also realize that even the
satirist had his own weaknesses, and could have been as savagely
attacked by a mentality as keen as his own. Men as a whole will never
greatly care for satire, each recognizing, true enough, glimpses of
himself in the invective, but sensing as well its fundamental bias and
cruelty. However, Bierce thought best of himself as a satirist.
Naturally, Bierce carried his wit and humor into his immediate human
relationships. I best recall an occasion, when, in my first year of
acquaintance with him, we were both guests at the home of the painter,
J. H. E. Partington. It happened that a bowl of nasturtiums adorned
the center table, and having been taught by Father Tabb, the poet, to
relish that flower, I managed to consume most of them before the close
of the evening, knowing there were plenty more to be had in the garden
outside. Someone at last remarked: "Why, George has eaten all the
nasturtiums! Go out and bring some more." At which Bierce dryly and
justly remarked: "No--bring some thistles!" It is an indication,
however, of his real kindness of heart that, observing my confusion,
he afterwards apologized to me for what he termed a thoughtless jest.
It was, nevertheless, well deserved.
I recall even more distinctly a scene of another setting. This
concerns itself with Bierce's son, Leigh, then a youth in the early
twenties. At the time (_circa_ 1894) I was a brother lodger with them
in an Oakland apartment house. Young Bierce had contracted a liaison
with a girl of his own age, and his father, determined to end the
affair, had appointed an hour for discussion of the matter. The youth
entered his father's rooms defiant and resolute: within an hour he
appeared weeping, and cried out to me, waiting for him in his own
room: "My father is a greater man than Christ! He has suffered more
than Christ!" And the affair of the heart was promptly terminated.
One conversant with Bierce only as a controversionalist and _censor
morum_ was, almost of necessity, constrained to imagine him a
misanthrope, a soured and cynical recluse. Only when one was
privileged to see him among his intimates could one obtain glimpses of
his true nature, which was considerate, generous, even affectionate.
Only the waving of the red flag of Socialism could rouse in him what
seemed to us others a certain savageness of intolerance. Needless to
say, we did not often invoke it, for he was an ill man with whom to
bandy words. It was my hope, at one time, to involve him and Jack
London in a controversy on the subject, but London declined the oral
encounter, preferring one with the written word. Nothing came of the
plan, which is a pity, as each was a supreme exponent of his point of
view. Bierce subsequently attended one of the midsummer encampments of
the Bohemian Club, of which he was once the secretary, in their
redwood grove near the Russian river. Hearing that London was present,
he asked why they had not been mutually introduced, and I was forced
to tell him that I feared that they'd be, verbally, at each other's
throats, within an hour. "Nonsense!" exclaimed Bierce. "Bring him
around! I'll treat him like a Dutch Uncle." He kept his word, and
seemed as much attracted to London as London was to him. But I was
always ill at ease when they were conversing. I do not think the two
men ever met again.
Bierce was the cleanest man, personally, of whom I have
knowledge--almost fanatically so, if such a thing be possible. Even
during our weeks of camping in the Yosemite, he would spend two hours
on his morning toilet in the privacy of his tent. His nephew always
insisted that the time was devoted to shaving himself from face to
foot! He was also a most modest man, and I still recall his decided
objections to my bathing attire when at the swimming-pool of the
Bohemian Club, in the Russian River. Compared to many of those
visible, it seemed more than adequate; but he had another opinion of
it. He was a good, even an eminent, tankard-man, and retained a clear
judgment under any amount of potations. He preferred wine (especially
a dry _vin du pays_, usually a sauterne) to "hard likker," in this
respect differing in taste from his elder brother. In the days when I
first made his acquaintance, I was accustomed to roam the hills beyond
Oakland and Berkeley from Cordonices Creek to Leona Heights, in
company with Albert Bierce, his son Carlton, R. L. ("Dick")
Partington, Leigh Bierce (Ambrose's surviving son) and other youths.
On such occasions I sometimes hid a superfluous bottle of port or
sherry in a convenient spot, and Bierce, afterwards accompanying us on
several such outings, pretended to believe that I had such flagons
concealed under each bush or rock in the reach and breadth of the
hills, and would, to carry out the jest, hunt zealously in such
recesses. I could wish that he were less often unsuccessful in the
search, now that he has had "the coal-black wine" to drink.
Though an appreciable portion of his satire hints at misanthropy,
Bierce, while profoundly a pessimist, was, by his own confession to
me, "a lover of his country and his fellowmen," and was ever ready to
proffer assistance in the time of need and sympathy in the hour of
sorrow. His was a great and tender heart, and giving of it greatly, he
expected, or rather hoped for, a return as great. It may have been
by reason of the frustration of such hopes that he so often broke with
old and, despite his doubts, appreciative friends. His brother Albert
once told me that he (Ambrose) had never been "quite the same," after
the wound in the head that he received in the battle of Kenesaw
Mountain, but had a tendency to become easily offended and to show
that resentment. Such estrangements as he and his friends suffered are
not, therefore, matters on which one should sit in judgment. It is sad
to know that he went so gladly from life, grieved and disappointed.
But the white flame of Art that he tended for nearly half a century
was never permitted to grow faint nor smoky, and it burned to the last
with a pure brilliance. Perhaps, he bore witness to what he had found
most admirable and enduring in life in the following words, the
conclusion of the finest of his essays:
"Literature and art are about all that the world really cares for in
the end; those who make them are not without justification in
regarding themselves as masters in the House of Life and all others as
their servitors. In the babble and clamor, the pranks and antics of
its countless incapables, the tremendous dignity of the profession of
letters is overlooked; but when, casting a retrospective eye into 'the
dark backward and abysm of time' to where beyond these voices is the
peace of desolation, we note the majesty of the few immortals and
compare them with the pygmy figures of their contemporary kings,
warriors and men of action generally--when across the silent
battle-fields and hushed _fora_ where the dull destinies of nations
were determined, nobody cares how, we hear
like ocean on a western beach
The surge and thunder of the Odyssey,
then we appraise literature at its true value, and how little worth
while seems all else with which Man is pleased to occupy his fussy
soul and futile hands!"