Don't cut out any stanza if you can't perfect them let them go imperfect.
"Without beginning, without end"; I submit them to suggest a way to overcome that identical rhyme. All you have to do is get rid of the second "without." I should not like "impend."
Yes, I vote for Orion's sword of suns. "Cimetar" sounds better, but it is more specific less generic. It is modern or, rather, less ancient than "sword," and makes one think of Turkey and the Holy Land. But "sword" there were swords before Homer. And I don't think the man who named this constellation ever saw a curved blade. And yet, and yet "cimetar of suns" is "mighty catchin'."
No, indeed, I could not object to your considering the heavens in a state of war. I have sometimes fancied I could hear the rush and roar of it. Why, a few months ago I began a sonnet thus:
I've been a star-gazer all my life from my habit of being "out late," I guess; and the things have always seemed to me alive .
The change in the verses ad meum , from "thy clearer light" to "the clearer light" may have been made modestly or inadvertently I don't recollect. It is, of course, no improvement and you may do as you please. I'm uniformly inadvertent, but intermittently modest.
With best regards to Mrs. Sterling and Miss Marian I am
Sincerely yours, Ambrose Bierce.
The Olympia,Washington, D. C.,April 15,1902.
All right I only wanted you to be sure about those names of stars; it would never do to be less than sure.
After all our talk (made by me) I guess that stanza would better stand as first written. "Clime" climate connotes temperature, weather, and so forth, in ordinary speech, but a poet may make his own definitions, I suppose, and compel the reader to study them out and accept them.
Your misgiving regarding your inability to reach so high a plane again as in this poem is amusing, but has an element of the pathetic. It certainly is a misfortune for a writer to do his best work early; but I fancy you'd better trust your genius and do its bidding whenever the monkey chooses to bite. "The Lord will provide." Of course you have read Stockton's story "His Wife's Deceased Sister." But Stockton gets on very well, despite "The Lady or the Tiger." I've a notion that you'll find other tragedies among the stars if earth doesn't supply you with high enough themes.
Will I write a preface for the book? Why, yes, if you think me competent. Emerson commands us to "hitch our wagon to a star?" and, egad! here's a whole constellation a universe of stars to draw mine! It makes me blink to think of it.
O yes, I'd like well enough to "leave the Journal," but
Sincerely yours, Ambrose Bierce.
The Olympia,Washington, D. C.,July 10,1902.
If rejection wounded, all writers would bleed at every pore. Nevertheless, not my will but thine be done. Of course I shall be glad to go over your entire body of work again and make suggestions if any occur to me. It will be no trouble I could not be more profitably employed than in critically reading you, nor more agreeably.
The Château Yquem came all right, and is good. Thank you for it albeit I'm sorry you feel that you must do things like that. It is very conventional and, I fear, "proper." However, I remember that you used to do so when you could not by any stretch of imagination have felt that you were under an "obligation." So I guess it is all right just your way of reminding me of the old days. Anyhow, the wine is so much better than my own that I've never a scruple when drinking it.
Has "Maid Marian" a photograph of me? I don't remember. If not I'll send her one; I've just had some printed from a negative five or six years old. I've renounced the photograph habit, as one renounces other habits when age has made them ridiculous or impossible.
Send me the typewritten book when you have it complete.
Sincerely yours, Ambrose Bierce.
Washington,August 19,1902.
book; for critics and readers are not likely to look into the matter of dates. For your sake I should be sorry to have it thought that my commendation was only a log-rolling incident; for myself, I should care nothing about it. This eel is accustomed to skinning.
It is not the least pleasing of my reflections that my friends have always liked my work or me well enough to want to publish my books at their own expense. Everything that I have written could go to the public that way if I would consent. In the two instances in which I did consent they got their money back all right, and I do not doubt that it will be so in this; for if I did not think there was at least a little profit in a book of mine I should not offer it to a publisher. "Shapes of Clay" ought to be published in California, and it would have been long ago if I had not been so lazy and so indisposed to dicker with the publishers. Properly advertised which no book of mine ever has been it should sell there if nowhere else. Why, then, do I not put up the money? Well, for one reason, I've none to put up. Do you care for the other reasons?