You are a faithful correspondent; I have your postals from Athens and
Syracuse, and now the letter from Rome. The Benares sketch was duly
received, and I wrote you about it to the address that you
gave--Cairo, I think. As you will doubtless receive my letter in due
time I will not now repeat it--further than to say that I liked it. If
it had been accompanied by a few photographs (indispensable now to
such articles) I should have tried to get it into some magazine. True,
Benares, like all other Asiatic and European cities, is pretty
familiar to even the "general reader," but the sketch had something of
the writer's personality in it--the main factor in all good writing,
as in all forms of art.
May I tell you what you already know--that you are deficient in
spelling and punctuation? It is worth while to know these things--and
all things that you can acquire. Some persons can not acquire
orthography, and I don't wonder, but every page of every good book is
a lesson in punctuation. One's punctuation is a necessary part of
one's style; you cannot attain to precision if you leave that matter
to editors and printers.
You ask if "stories" must have action. The name "story" is preferably
used of narrative, not reflection nor mental analysis. The
"psychological novel" is in great vogue just now, for example--the
adventures of the mind, it might be called--but it requires a
profounder knowledge of life and character than is possible to a young
girl of whatever talent; and the psychological "short story" is even
more difficult. Keep to narrative and simple description for a few
years, until your wings have grown. These descriptions of foreign
places that you write me are good practice. You are not likely to tell
me much that I do not know, nor is that necessary; but your way of
telling what I do know is sometimes very interesting as a study of
_you_. So write me all you will, and if you would like the letters as
a record of your travels you shall have them back; I am preserving
them.
I judge from your letter that your father went straight through
without bothering about me. Maybe I should not have seen him anyhow,
for I was away from Washington for nearly a month.
Please give my love to your mother and sister, whom, of course, you
are to bring here. I shall not forgive you if you do not.
Yes, I wish that you lived nearer to me, so that we could go over your
work together. I could help you more in a few weeks _that_ way than
in years _this_ way. God never does anything just right.
Sincerely yours,
AMBROSE BIERCE.
[Washington, D. C.,
July 31, 1911.]