I'm awfully glad that you don't mind Chamberlain's yellow nonsense in
coupling Ella's name with yours. But when you read her natural opinion
of your work you'll acquit her of complicity in the indignity. I'm
sending a few things from Hearst's newspapers--written by the
slangers, dialecters and platitudinarians of the staff, and by some of
the swine among the readers.
Note the deliberate and repeated lying of Brisbane in quoting me as
saying the "Wine" is "the greatest poem ever written in America." Note
his dishonesty in confessing that he has commendatory letters, yet not
publishing a single one of them. But the end is not yet--my inning is
to come, in the magazine. Chamberlain (who professes an enthusiastic
admiration of the poem) promises me a free hand in replying to these
ignorant asses. If he does not give it to me I quit. I've writ a
paragraph or two for the November number (too late now for the
October) by way of warning them what they'll get when December comes.
So you see you must patiently endure the befouling till then.
* * * * *
Did you notice in the last line of the "Wine" that I restored the word
"smile" from your earlier draft of the verses? In one of your later (I
don't remember if in the last) you had it "sigh." That was wrong;
"smile" seems to me infinitely better as a definition of the poet's
attitude toward his dreams. So, considering that I had a choice, I
chose it. Hope you approve.
I am serious in wishing a place in Carmel as a port of refuge from the
storms of age. I don't know that I shall ever live there, but should
like to feel that I can if I want to. Next summer I hope to go out
there and spy out the land, and if I then "have the price" (without
sacrificing any of my favorite stocks) I shall buy. I don't care for
the grub question--should like to try the simple life, for I have
already two gouty finger points as a result of the other kind of life.
(Of course if they all get that way I shan't mind, for I love
uniformity.) Probably if I attempted to live in Carmel I should have
asthma again, from which I have long been free.
Sincerely yours,
AMBROSE BIERCE.
[Army and Navy Club, Washington, D. C.,
October 9, 1907.]