My plan is to leave here before April first, pass a few days in New
York and then sail for Colon. If I find the canal work on the Isthmus
interesting I may skip a steamer from Panama to see it. I've no notion
how long it will take to reach San Francisco, and know nothing of the
steamers and their schedules on the Pacific side.
I shall of course want to see Grizzly first--that is to say, he will
naturally expect me to. But if you can pull him down to Carmel about
the time of my arrival (I shall write you the date of my sailing from
New York) I would gladly come there. Carlt, whom I can see at once on
arriving, can tell me where he (Grizzly) is. * * *
I don't think you rightly value "The Goodly Fere." Of course no ballad
written to-day can be entirely good, for it must be an imitation; it
is now an unnatural form, whereas it was once a natural one. We are
no longer a primitive people, and a primitive people's forms and
methods are not ours. Nevertheless, this seems to me an admirable
ballad, as it is given a modern to write ballads. And I think you
overlook the best line:
"The hounds of the crimson sky gave tongue."
The poem is complete as I sent it, and I think it stops right where
and as it should--
"I ha' seen him eat o' the honey comb
Sin' they nailed him to the tree."
The current "Literary Digest" has some queer things about (and by)
Pound, and "Current Literature" reprints the "Fere" with all the
wrinkles ironed out of it--making a "capon priest" of it.
Fo' de Lawd's sake! don't apologise for not subscribing for my
"Works." If you did subscribe I should suspect that you were "no
friend o' mine"--it would remove you from that gang and put you in a
class by yourself. Surely you can not think I care who buys or does
not buy my books. The man who expects anything more than lip-service
from his friends is a very young man. There are, for example, a
half-dozen Californians (all loud admirers of Ambrose Bierce) editing
magazines and newspapers here in the East. Every man Jack of them has
turned me down. They will do everything for me but enable me to live.
Friends be damned!--strangers are the chaps for me.
* * * * *
I've given away my beautiful sailing canoe and shall never again live
a life on the ocean wave--unless you have boats at Carmel.
Sincerely yours,
AMBROSE BIERCE.
[Washington, D. C.,
Easter Sunday.]