I fancy you must fear by this time that I did not get the poems, but I
did. I'll get at them, doubtless, after awhile, though a good deal of
manuscript--including a couple of novels!--is ahead of them; and one
published book of bad poems awaits a particular condemnation.
I'm a little embarrassed about the preface which I'm to write. I fear
you must forego the preface or I the dedication. That kind of
"cooperation" doesn't seem in very good taste: it smacks of "mutual
admiration" in the bad sense, and the reviewers would probably call it
"log-rolling." Of course it doesn't matter too much what the reviewers
say, but it matters a lot what the intelligent readers think; and your
book will have no others. I really shouldn't like to write the preface
of a book dedicated to me, though I did not think of that at first.
The difficulty could be easily removed by _not_ dedicating the book to
me were it not that that would sacrifice the noble poem with my name
atop of it. That poem is itself sufficiently dedicatory if printed by
itself in the forepages of the book and labeled "Dedication--To
Ambrose Bierce." I'm sure that vanity has nothing to do, or little to
do, with my good opinion of the verses. And, after all, they _show_
that I have said _to you_ all that I could say to the reader in your
praise and encouragement. What do you think?
As to dedicating individual poems to other fellows, I have not the
slightest hesitancy in advising you against it. The practice smacks of
the amateur and is never, I think, pleasing to anybody but the person
so honored. The custom has fallen into "innocuous desuetude" and there
appears to be no call for its revival. Pay off your obligations (if
such there be) otherwise. You may put it this way if you like: The
whole book being dedicated to me, no part of it _can_ be dedicated to
another. Or this way: Secure in my exalted position I don't purpose
sharing the throne with rival (and inferior) claimants. They be gam
doodled!
Seriously--but I guess it is serious enough as it stands. It occurs to
me that in saying: "no part of it _can_ be dedicated to another" I
might be understood as meaning: "no part of it _must_ be," etc. No; I
mean only that the dedication to another would contradict the
dedication to me. The two things are (as a matter of fact)
incompatible.
Well, if you think a short preface by me preferable to the verses with
my name, all right; I will cheerfully write it, and that will leave
you free to honor your other friends if you care to. But those are
great lines, and implying, as they do, all that a set preface could
say, it seems to me that they ought to stand.
* * * * *
Maid Marian shall have the photograph.
Sincerely yours,
AMBROSE BIERCE.
[1321 Yale Street, Washington, D. C.,
March 1, 1903.]