I am sending to the "Journal" your splendid poem on Memorial Day. Of course I can't say what will be its fate. I am not even personally acquainted with the editor of the department to which it goes. But if he has not the brains to like it he is to send it back and I'll try to place it elsewhere. It is great—great!—the loftiest note that you have struck and held.
Maybe I owe you a lot of letters. I don't know—my correspondence all in arrears and I've not the heart to take it up.
Thank you for your kind words of sympathy.[2] I'm hit harder than any one can guess from the known facts—am a bit broken and gone gray of it all.
But I remember you asked the title of a book of synonyms. It is "Roget's Thesaurus," a good and useful book.
The other poems I will look up soon and consider. I've made no alterations in the "Memorial Day" except to insert the omitted stanza.
Sincerely yours, Ambrose Bierce.
[2] Concerning the death of his son Leigh.
Washington,
May 9,
1901.
My dear Sterling,