I don't know why I've not written to you--that is, I don't know why
God made me what I have the misfortune to be: a sufferer from
procrastination.
* * * * *
I have read Mary Austin's book with unexpected interest. It is
pleasing exceedingly. You may not know that I'm familiar with the
_kind_ of country she writes of, and reading the book was like
traversing it again. But the best of her is her style. That is
delicious. It has a slight "tang" of archaism--just enough to suggest
"lucent sirups tinct with cinnamon," or the "spice and balm" of
Miller's sea-winds. And what a knack at observation she has! Nothing
escapes her eye. Tell me about her. What else has she written? What is
she going to write? If she is still young she will do great work; if
not--well, she _has_ done it in that book. But she'll have to hammer
and hammer again and again before the world will hear and heed.
As to me I'm pot-boiling. My stuff in the N. Y. American (I presume
that the part of it that you see is in the Examiner) is mere piffle,
written without effort, purpose or care. My department in the
Cosmopolitan is a failure, as I told Millard it would be. It is
impossible to write topical stuff for a magazine. How can one discuss
with heart or inspiration a thing that happens two months or so before
one's comments on it will be read? The venture and the title were
Hearst's notion, but the title so handicaps me that I can do nothing
right. I shall drop it.
I've done three little stories for the March number (they may be
postponed) that are ghastly enough to make a pig squeal.
* * * * *
Sincerely yours,
AMBROSE BIERCE.
[Washington, D. C.,
March 12, 1906.]