I hope you are well,
that you are all well. And I hope Heaven will put it into your good brother's heart to send me that picture of the sister who is so much too good for him or anybody.
In the meantime, and always, God bless you. Ambrose Bierce.
My boy (who has been an angel of goodness to me in my illness) sends his love to you and all your people.
Angwin, Cal.,January 14,1893.
You see the matter is this way. You can't come up here and go back the same day at least that would give you but about an hour here. You must remain over night. Now I put it to you how do you think I'd feel if you came and remained over night and I, having work to do, should have to leave you to your own devices, mooning about a place that has nobody to talk to? When a fellow comes a long way to see me I want to see a good deal of him, however he may feel about it. It is not the same as if he lived in the same bailiwick and "dropped in." That is why, in the present state of my health and work, I ask all my friends to give me as long notice of their coming as possible. I'm sure you'll say I am right, inasmuch as certain work if undertaken must be done by the time agreed upon.
My relations with Danziger are peculiar as any one's relations with him must be. In the matter of which you wished to speak I could say nothing. For this I must ask you to believe there are reasons. It would not have been fair not to let you know, before coming, that I would not talk of him.
I thought, though, that you would probably come up to-day if I wrote you. Well, I should like you to come and pass a week with me. But if you come for a day I naturally want it to be an "off" day with me. Sincerely yours, Ambrose Bierce.
Angwin,January 23,1893.
I should have written you sooner; it has been ten whole days since the date of your last letter. But I have not been in the mood of letter writing, and am prepared for maledictions from all my neglected friends but you. My health is better. Yesterday I returned from Napa, where I passed twenty-six hours, buried, most of the time, in fog; but apparently it has not harmed me. The weather here remains heavenly. * * *
If I grow better in health I shall in time feel able to extend my next foray into the Lowlands as far as Oakland and Berkeley.
Here are some fronds of maiden-hair fern that I have just brought in. The first wild flowers of the season are beginning to venture out and the manzanitas are a sight to see.
With warmest regards to all your people, I am, as ever, your most unworthy uncle, Ambrose Bierce.
Angwin,February 5,1893.
What an admirable reporter you would be! Your account of the meeting with Miller in the restaurant and of the "entertainment" are amusing no end. * * * By the way, I observe a trooly offle "attack" on me in the Oakland Times of the 3rd (I think) * * * (I know of course it means me I always know that when they pull out of their glowing minds that old roasted chestnut about "tearing down" but not "building up" that is to say, effacing one imposture without giving them another in place of it.) The amusing part of the business is that he points a contrast between me and Realf (God knows there's unlikeness enough) quite unconscious of the fact that it is I and no other who have "built up" Realf's reputation as a poet published his work, and paid him for it, when nobody else would have it; repeatedly pointed out its greatness, and when he left that magnificent crown of sonnets behind him protested that posterity would know California better by the incident of his death than otherwise not a soul, until now, concurring in my view of the verses. Believe me, my trade is not without its humorous side.
Leigh and I went down to the waterfall yesterday. It was almost grand greater than I had ever seen it and I took the liberty to wish that you might see it in that state. My wish must have communicated itself, somehow, though imperfectly, to Leigh, for as I was indulging it he expressed the same wish with regard to Richard.
I wish too that you might be here to-day to see the swirls of snow. It is falling rapidly, and I'm thinking that this letter will make its way down the mountain to-morrow morning through a foot or two of it. Unluckily, it has a nasty way of turning to rain.
My health is very good now, and Leigh and I take long walks. And after the rains we look for Indian arrow-heads in the plowed fields and on the gravel bars of the creek. My collection is now great; but I fear I shall tire of the fad before completing it. One in the country must have a fad or die of dejection and oxidation of the faculties. How happy is he who can make a fad of his work!
By
the way, my New York publishers (The United States Book Company) have failed, owing me a pot of money, of which I shall probably get nothing. I'm beginning to cherish an impertinent curiosity to know what Heaven means to do to me next. If your function as one of the angels gives you a knowledge of such matters please betray your trust and tell me where I'm to be hit, and how hard.