Your letter relieves me greatly. I had begun to fear that you had
"gone before." Thank you very much for your news of our friends. I had
already heard from Eva Croffie. Also from Grizzly.
* * * * *
Thank you for Mr. Eddy's review of "Shapes." But he is misinformed
about poor Flora Shearer. Of course I helped her--who would not help a
good friend in adversity? But she went to Scotland to a brother long
ago, and at this time I do not know if she is living or dead.
But here am I forgetting (momentarily) that awful wiping out of San
Francisco. It "hit" me pretty hard in many ways--mostly indirectly,
through my friends. I had rather hoped to have to "put up" for you and
your gang, and am a trifle disappointed to know that you are all
right--except the chimneys. I'm glad that tidal wave did not come, but
don't you think you'd better have a canoe ready? You could keep it on
your veranda stacked with provisions and whiskey.
My letter from Ursus (written during the conflagration) expresses a
keen solicitude for the Farallones, as the fire was working westward.
If this letter is a little disconnected and incoherent know, O King,
that I have just returned from a dinner in Atlantic City, N. J. I saw
Markham there, also Bob Davis, Sam Moffett, Homer Davenport, Bob
Mackay and other San Franciscans. (Can there be a San Franciscan when
there is no San Francisco? I don't want to go back. Doubtless the new
San Francisco--while it lasts--will be a finer town than the old, but
it will not be _my_ San Francisco and I don't want to see it. It has
for many years been, to me, full of ghosts. Now it is itself a ghost.)
I return the sonnets. Destruction of "Town Talk" has doubtless saved
you from having the one on me turned down. Dear old fellow, don't take
the trouble to defend my memory when--or at least until--
"I am fled
From this vile world, with vilest worms to dwell."
I'm not letting my enemies' attitude trouble me at all. On the
contrary, I'm rather sorry for them and their insomnia--lying awake o'
nights to think out new and needful lies about me, while I sleep
sweetly. O, it is all right, truly.
No, I never had any row (nor much acquaintance) with Mark Twain--met
him but two or three times. Once with Stoddard in London. I think
pretty well of him, but doubt if he cared for me and can't, at the
moment, think of any reason why he _should_ have cared for me.
"The Cynic's Dictionary" is a-printing. I shall have to call it
something else, for the publishers tell me there is a "Cynic's
Dictionary" already out. I dare say the author took more than my
title--the stuff has been a rich mine for a plagiarist for many a
year. They (the publishers) won't have "The Devil's Dictionary." Here
in the East the Devil is a sacred personage (the Fourth Person of the
Trinity, as an Irishman might say) and his name must not be taken in
vain.
No, "The Testimony of the Suns" has not "palled" on me. I still read
it and still think it one of the world's greatest poems.
* * * * *
Well, God be wi' ye and spare the shack at Carmel,
Sincerely yours,
AMBROSE BIERCE.
[Washington, D. C.,
June 11, 1906.]