But this is an intolerable deal of letter.
With best regards to all good Partingtons and I think there are no others I remain your affectionate uncle by adoption, Ambrose Bierce.
Leigh has brought in some manzanita blooms which I shall try to enclose. But they'll be badly smashed.
Angwin,February 14,1893.
I thank you many times for the picture, which is a monstrous good picture, whatever its shortcomings as a portrait may be. On the authority of the great art critic, Leigh Bierce, I am emboldened to pronounce some of the work in it equal to Gribayedoff at his best; and that, according to the g. a. c. aforesaid, is to exhaust eulogium. But it isn't altogether the Blanche that I know, as I know her. Maybe it is the hat I should prefer you hatless, and so less at the mercy of capricious fortune. Suppose hats were to "go out" I tremble to think of what would happen to that gorgeous superstructure which now looks so beautiful. O, well, when I come down I shall drag you to the hateful photographer and get something that looks quite like you and has no other value.
And I mean to "see Oakland and die" pretty soon. I have not dared go when the weather was bad. It promises well now, but I am to have visitors next Sunday, so must stay at home. God and the weather bureau willing, you may be bothered with me the Saturday or Sunday after. We shall see.
I hope your father concurs in my remarks on picture "borders" I did not think of him until the remarks had been written, or I should have assured myself of his practice before venturing to utter my mind o' the matter. If it were not for him and Gertrude and the Wave I should snarl again, anent "half-tones," which I abhor. Hume tried to get me to admire his illustrations, but I would not, so far as the process is concerned, and bluntly told him he would not get your father's best work that way.
If you were to visit the Mountain now I should be able to show you a redwood forest (newly discovered) and a picturesque gulch to match.
The wild flowers are beginning to put up their heads to look for you, and my collection of Indian antiquities is yearning to have you see it.
Please convey my thanks to Richard for the picture the girlscape and my best regards to your father and all the others.
Sincerely your friend, Ambrose Bierce.
Angwin,February 21,1893.
I'm very sorry indeed that I cannot be in Oakland Thursday evening to see you "in your glory," arrayed, doubtless, like a lily of the field. However glorious you may be in public, though, I fancy I should like you better as you used to be out at camp.
Well, I mean to see you on Saturday afternoon if you are at home, and think I shall ask you to be my guide to Grizzlyville; for surely I shall never be able to find the wonderful new house alone. So if your mamma will let you go out there with me I promise to return you to her instead of running away with you. And, possibly, weather permitting, we can arrange for a Sunday in the redwoods or on the hills. Or don't your folks go out any more o' Sundays?
Please give my thanks to your mother for the kind invitation to put up at your house; but I fear that would be impossible. I shall have to be where people can call on me and such a disreputable crowd as my friends are would ruin the Partingtonian reputation for respectability. In your new neighborhood you will all be very proper which you could hardly be with a procession of pirates and vagrants pulling at your door-bell.
So if God is good I shall call on you Saturday afternoon. In the meantime and always be thou happy thou and thine. Your unworthy uncle, Ambrose Bierce.
Angwin,March 18,1893.
It is good to have your letters again. If you will not let me teach you my trade of writing stories it is right that you practice your own of writing letters. You are mistress of that. Byron's letters to Moore are dull in comparison with yours to me. Some allowance, doubtless, must be made for my greater need of your letters than of Byron's. For, truth to tell, I've been a trifle dispirited and noncontent. In that mood I peremptorily resigned from the Examiner , for one thing and permitted myself to be coaxed
back by Hearst, for another. My other follies I shall not tell you. * * *
We had six inches of snow up here and it has rained steadily ever since more than a week. And the fog is of superior opacity quite peerless that way. It is still raining and fogging. Do you wonder that your unworthy uncle has come perilously and alarmingly near to loneliness? Yet I have the companionship, at meals, of one of your excellent sex, from San Francisco. * * *
Truly, I should like to attend one of your at-homes, but I fear it must be a long time before I venture down there again. But when this brumous visitation is past I can look down, and that assists the imagination to picture you all in your happy (I hope) home. But if that woolly wolf, Joaquin Miller, doesn't keep outside the fold I shall come down and club him soundly. I quite agree with your mother that his flattery will spoil you. You said I would spoil Phyllis, and now, you bad girl, you wish to be spoiled yourself. Well, you can't eat four Millerine oranges. My love to all your family. Ambrose Bierce.