* * * * *
Please send me a copy of the new edition of "The Testimony." I
borrowed one of the first edition to give away, and want to replace
it. Did you add the "Wine" to it? I'd not leave off the indefinite
article from the title of that; it seems to dignify the tipple
by hinting that it was no ordinary tope. It may have been
witch-fermented.
I don't "dislike" the line: "So terribly that brilliance shall
enhance"; it seems merely less admirable than the others. Why didn't I
tell you so? I could not tell you _all_ I thought of the poem--for
another example, how I loved the lines:
"Where Dawn upon a pansy's breast hath laid
A single tear, and _whence the wind hath flown
And left a silence_."
* * * * *
I'm returning you, under another cover (as the ceremonial slangers
say) some letters that have come to me and that I have answered. I
have a lot more, most of them abusive, I guess, that I'll dig out
later. But the most pleasing ones I can't send, for I sent them to
Brisbane on his promise to publish them, which the liar did not, nor
has he had the decency to return them. I'm hardly sorry, for it gave
me good reason to call him a peasant and a beast of the field. I'm
always grateful for the chance to prod somebody.
* * * * *
I detest the "limited edition" and "autograph copies" plan of
publication, but for the sake of Howes, who has done a tremendous lot
of good work on my book, have assented to Blake's proposal in all
things and hope to be able to laugh at this brilliant example of the
"irony of fate." I've refused to profit in any way by the book. I want
Howes to "break even" for his labor.
By the way, Pollard and I had a good time in Galveston, and on the
way I took in some of my old battlefields. At Galveston they nearly
killed me with hospitality--so nearly that Pollard fled. I returned
via Key West and Florida.
You'll probably see Howes next Summer--I've persuaded him to go West
and renounce the bookworm habit for some other folly. Be good to him;
he is a capital fellow in his odd, amusing way.
I didn't know there was an American edition of "The Fiends' Delight."
Who published it and when?
Congratulations on acceptance of "Tasso and Leonora." But I wouldn't
do much in blank verse if I were you. It betrays you (somehow) into
mere straightaway expression, and seems to repress in you the glorious
abundance of imagery and metaphor that enriches your rhyme-work. This
is not a criticism, particularly, of "Tasso," which is good enough for
anybody, but--well, it's just _so_.
I'm not doing much. My stuff in the Cosmo. comes last, and when
advertisements crowd some of it is left off. Most of it gets in later
(for of course I don't replace it with more work) but it is sadly
antiquated. My checks, though, are always up to date.
Sincerely[10] yours,
AMBROSE BIERCE.
[10] I can almost say "sinecurely."
[The Army and Navy Club, Washington, D. C.,
January 19, 1908.]