I'm sending you (by way of pretext for writing you) a magazine that I
asked Richard to take to you last evening, but which he forgot.
There's an illustrated article on gargoyles and the like, which will
interest you. Some of the creatures are delicious--more so than I had
the sense to perceive when I saw them alive on Notre Dame.
I want to thank you too for the beautiful muffler before I take to my
willow chair, happy in the prospect of death. For at this hour, 10:35
p. m., I "have on" a very promising case of asthma. If I come out of
it decently alive in a week or so I shall go over to your house and
see the finished portrait if it is "still there," like the flag in our
national anthem.
Sincerely yours,
AMBROSE BIERCE.
[Oakland,
July 31, 1894.]