The Army and
Navy Club,
Washington, D. C.,
September 7,
1907.
My dear George,
I'm awfully glad that you don't mind Chamberlain's yellow nonsense in coupling Ella's name with yours. But when you read her natural opinion of your work you'll acquit her of complicity in the indignity. I'm sending a few things from Hearst's newspapers—written by the slangers, dialecters and platitudinarians of the staff, and by some of the swine among the readers.
Note the deliberate and repeated lying of Brisbane in quoting me as saying the "Wine" is "the greatest poem ever written in America." Note his dishonesty in confessing that he has commendatory letters, yet not publishing a single one of them. But the end is not yet—my inning is to come, in the magazine. Chamberlain (who professes an enthusiastic admiration of the poem) promises me a free hand in replying to these ignorant asses. If he does not give it to me I quit. I've writ a paragraph or two for the November number (too late now for the October) by way of warning them what they'll get when December comes. So you see you must patiently endure the befouling till then.
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Did you notice in the last line of the "Wine" that I restored the word "smile" from your earlier draft of the verses? In one of your later (I don't remember if in the last) you had it "sigh." That was wrong; "smile" seems to me infinitely better as a definition of the poet's attitude toward his dreams. So, considering that I had a choice, I chose it. Hope you approve.
I am serious in wishing a place in Carmel as a port of refuge from the storms of age. I don't know that I shall ever live there, but should like to feel that I can if I want to. Next summer I hope to go out there and spy out the land, and if I then "have the price" (without sacrificing any of my favorite stocks) I shall buy. I don't care for the grub question—should like to try the simple life, for I have already two gouty finger points as a result of the other kind of life. (Of course if they all get that way I shan't mind, for I love uniformity.) Probably if I attempted to live in Carmel I should have asthma again, from which I have long been free.
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Sincerely yours, Ambrose Bierce.