1825 Nineteenth St.,
N. W.,
Washington, D. C.,
July 15,
1901.
My dear Sterling,
Here is the bit of blank. When are we to see the book? Needless question—when you can spare the money to pay for publication, I suppose, if by that time you are ambitious to achieve public inattention. That's my notion of encouragement—I like to cheer up the young author as he sets his face toward "the peaks of song."
Say, that photograph of the pretty sister—the one with a downward slope of the eyes—is all faded out. That is a real misfortune: it reduces the sum of human happiness hereabout. Can't you have one done in fast colors and let me have it? The other is all right, but that is not the one that I like the better for my wall. Sincerely yours, Ambrose Bierce.
The Olympia,
Washington, D. C.,
December 16,
1901.
My dear Sterling,
I enclose the poems with a few suggestions. They require little criticism of the sort that would be "helpful." As to their merit I think them good, but not great. I suppose you do not expect to write great things every time. Yet in the body of your letter (of Oct. 22) you do write greatly—and say that the work is "egoistic" and "unprintable." If it[4] were addressed to another person than myself I should say that it is "printable" exceedingly. Call it what you will, but let me tell you it will probably be long before you write anything better than some—many—of these stanzas.
You ask if you have correctly answered your own questions. Yes; in four lines of your running comment: