Sincerely yours, Ambrose Bierce.
1321 Yale Street,
Washington, D. C.,
March 1,
1903.
My dear Sterling,
You are a brick. You shall do as you will. My chief reluctance is that if it become known, or when it becomes known, there may ensue a suspicion of my honesty in praising you and your book; for critics and readers are not likely to look into the matter of dates. For your sake I should be sorry to have it thought that my commendation was only a log-rolling incident; for myself, I should care nothing about it. This eel is accustomed to skinning.
It is not the least pleasing of my reflections that my friends have always liked my work—or me—well enough to want to publish my books at their own expense. Everything that I have written could go to the public that way if I would consent. In the two instances in which I did consent they got their money back all right, and I do not doubt that it will be so in this; for if I did not think there was at least a little profit in a book of mine I should not offer it to a publisher. "Shapes of Clay" ought to be published in California, and it would have been long ago if I had not been so lazy and so indisposed to dicker with the publishers. Properly advertised—which no book of mine ever has been—it should sell there if nowhere else. Why, then, do I not put up the money? Well, for one reason, I've none to put up. Do you care for the other reasons?
But I must make this a condition. If there is a loss, I am to bear it. To that end I shall expect an exact accounting from your Mr. Wood, and the percentage that Scheff. purposes having him pay to me is to go to you. The copyright is to be mine, but nothing else until you are entirely recouped. But all this I will arrange with Scheff., who, I take it, is to attend to the business end of the matter, with, of course, your assent to the arrangements that he makes.
I shall write Scheff. to-day to go ahead and make his contract with Mr. Wood on these lines. Scheff. appears not to know who the "angel" in the case is, and he need not, unless, or until, you want him to.
I've a pretty letter from Maid Marian in acknowledgment of the photograph. I shall send one to Mrs. Sterling at once, in the sure and certain hope of getting another. It is good of her to remember my existence, considering that your scoundrelly monopoly of her permitted us to meet so seldom. I go in for a heavy tax on married men who live with their wives.
"She holds no truce with Death or Peace" means that with one of them she holds no truce; "nor" makes it mean that she holds no truce with either. The misuse of "or" (its use to mean "nor") is nearly everybody's upsetting sin. So common is it that "nor" instead usually sounds harsh.