Your note inquiring about "Ashes of the Beacon" interests me. You mention it as a "pamphlet." I have no knowledge of its having appeared otherwise than as an article in the Sunday edition of the "N. Y. American"—I do not recall the date. If it has been published as a pamphlet, or in any other form, separately—that is by itself—I should like "awfully" to know by whom, if you know.
I should be pleased to send it to you—in the "American"—if I had a copy of the issue containing it, but I have not. It will be included in Vol. I of my "Collected Works," to be published by the Neale Publishing Company, N. Y. That volume will be published probably early next year.
But the work is to be in ten or twelve costly volumes, and sold by subscription only. That buries it fathoms deep so far as the public is concerned.
Regretting my inability to assist you, I am sincerely yours, Ambrose Bierce.
Washington, D. C.,
August 14,
1908.
Dear George,
I am amused by your attitude toward the spaced sonnet, and by the docility of Gilder. If I had been your editor I guess you'd have got back your sonnets. I never liked the space. If the work naturally divides itself into two parts, as it should, the space is needless; if not, it is worse than that. The space was the invention of printers of a comparatively recent period, neither Petrarch nor Dante (as Gilder points out) knew of it. Every magazine has its own system of printing, and Gilder's good-natured compliance with your wish, or rather demand, shows him to be a better fellow, though not a better poet, than I have thought him to be. As a victory of author over editor, the incident pleases.
I've not yet been in New York, but expect to go soon. I shall be glad to meet Hopper if he is there.
Thank you for the article from "Town Talk." It suggests this question: How many times, and covering a period of how many years, must one's unexplainable obscurity be pointed out to constitute fame? Not knowing, I am almost disposed to consider myself the most famous of authors. I have pretty nearly ceased to be "discovered," but my notoriety as an obscurian may be said to be worldwide and apparently everlasting.