St. Helena,
October 7,
1892.
Dear Mr. Partington,
I've been too ill all the week to write you of your manuscripts, or even read them understandingly.
I think "Honest Andrew's Prayer" far and away the best. It is witty—the others hardly more than earnest, and not, in my judgment, altogether fair. But then you know you and I would hardly be likely to agree on a point of that kind,—I refuse my sympathies in some directions where I extend my sympathy—if that is intelligible. You, I think, have broader sympathies than mine—are not only sorry for the Homestead strikers (for example) but approve them. I do not. But we are one in detesting their oppressor, the smug-wump, Carnegie.
If you had not sent "Honest Andrew's Prayer" elsewhere I should try to place it here. It is so good that I hope to see it in print. If it is rejected please let me have it again if the incident is not then ancient history.
I'm glad you like some things in my book. But you should not condemn me for debasing my poetry with abuse; you should commend me for elevating my abuse with a little poetry, here and there. I am not a poet, but an abuser—that makes all the difference. It is "how you look at it."
But I'm still too ill to write. With best regards to all your family, I am sincerely yours, Ambrose Bierce.
I've been reading your pamphlet on Art Education. You write best when you write most seriously—and your best is very good.