Your letter of Nov. 28 has just come to my breakfast table. It is the better part of the repast. * * * * * No, my dictionary will not sell. I so assured the publishers. I lunched with Neale the other day--he comes down here once a month. His magazine (I think he is to call it "The Southerner," or something like that) will not get out this month, as he expected it to. And for an ominous reason: He had relied largely on Southern writers, and finds that they can't write! He assures me that it _will_ appear this winter and asked me not to withdraw your poem and my remarks on it unless you asked it. So I did not. * * * * * In your character of bookseller carrying a stock of my books you have a new interest. May Heaven promote you to publisher! Thank you for the Moody books--which I'll return soon. "The Masque of Judgment" has some great work in its final pages--quite as great as anything in Faust. The passages that you marked are good too, but some of them barely miss being entirely satisfying. It would trouble you to find many such passages in the other book, which is, moreover, not distinguished for clarity. I found myself frequently prompted to ask the author: "What the devil are you driving at?" I'm going to finish this letter at home where there is less talk of the relative military strength of Japan and San Francisco and the latter power's newest and most grievous affliction, Teddy Roosevelt. AMBROSE BIERCE. P.S. Guess the letter is finished. [The Army and Navy Club, Washington, D. C., January 27, 1907.] DEAR GEORGE, I suppose I owe you letters and letters--but you don't particularly like to write letters yourself, so you'll understand. * * * * * Hanging before me is a water-color of a bit of Carmel Beach, by Chris Jorgensen, for which I blew in fifty dollars the other day. He had a fine exhibition of his Californian work here. I wanted to buy it all, but compromised with my desire by buying what I could. The picture has a sentimental value to me, apart from its artistic. * * * * * I am to see Neale in a few days and shall try to learn definitely when his magazine is to come out--if he knows. If he does not I'll withdraw your poem. Next month he is to republish "The Monk and the Hangman's Daughter," with a new preface which somebody will not relish. I'll send you a copy. The Howes book is on its travels among the publishers, and so, doubtless, will long continue. Sincerely yours, AMBROSE BIERCE. [The Army and Navy Club, Washington, D. C., February 5, 1907.] DEAR GEORGE,