* * * * *
I'm still working at my book. Seven volumes are completed and I've
read the proofs of Vol. I.
Your account of the "movement" to free the oppressed and downtrodden
river from the tyranny of the sand-bar tickled me in my lonesome rib.
Surely no colony of reformers ever engaged in a more characteristic
crusade against the Established Order and Intolerable Conditions. I
can almost hear you patting yourselves on your aching backs as you
contemplated your encouraging success in beating Nature and promoting
the Cause. I believe that if I'd been there my cold heart and
indurated mind would have caught the contagion of the Great
Reform. Anyhow, I should have appreciated the sunset which
(characteristically) intervened in the interest of Things as They Are.
I feel sure that whenever you Socialers shall have found a way to make
the earth stop "turning over and over like a man in bed" (as Joaquin
might say) you will accomplish all the reforms that you have at heart.
All that you need is plenty of time--a few kalpas, more or less, of
uninterrupted daylight. Meantime I await your new book with impatience
and expectation.
I have photographs of my brother's shack in the redwoods and feel
strongly drawn in that direction--since, as you fully infer, Carmel is
barred. Probably, though, I shall continue in the complicated life of
cities while I last.
Sincerely yours,
AMBROSE BIERCE.
[Washington, D. C.,
January 9, 1909.]