God be with you. Ambrose Bierce.
Washington, D. C.,
July 11,
1908.
N.B. If you follow the pages you'll be able to make some sense of this screed.
My dear George,
I am sorry to learn that you have not been able to break your commercial chains, since you wish to, though I don't at all know that they are bad for you. I've railed at mine all my life, but don't remember that I ever made any good use of leisure when I had it—unless the mere "having a good time" is such. I remember once writing that one's career, or usefulness, was about ended when one thought less about how best to do his work than about the hardship of having to do it. I might have said the hardship of having so little leisure to do it. As I grow older I see more and more clearly the advantages of disadvantage, the splendid urge of adverse conditions, the uplifting effect of repression. And I'm ashamed to note how little I profited by them. I wasn't the right kind, that is all; but I indulge the hope that you are.
No I don't think it of any use, your trying to keep * * * and me friends. But don't let that interfere with your regard for him if you have it. We are not required to share one another's feelings in such matters. I should not expect you to like my friends nor hate my enemies if they seemed to you different from what they seem to me; nor would I necessarily follow your lead. For example, I loathe your friend * * * and expect his safe return because the ocean will refuse to swallow him.
* * *
I congratulate you on the Gilder acceptance of your sonnet, and on publication of the "Tasso to Leonora." I don't think it your best work by much—don't think any of your blank verse as good as most of your rhyme—but it's not a thing to need apology.
Certainly, I shall be pleased to see Hopper. Give me his address, and when I go to New York—this month or the next—I'll look him up. I think well of Hopper and trust that he will not turn out to be an 'ist of some kind, as most writers and artists do. That is because they are good feelers and poor thinkers. It is the emotional element in them, not the logical, that makes them writers and artists. They have, as a rule, sensibility and no sense. Except the big fellows.