MY DEAR GEORGE, I have just come upon a letter of yours that I got at Galveston and (I fear) did not acknowledge. But I've written you since, so I fancy all is well. You mention that sonnet that Chamberlain asked for. You should not have let him have it--it was, as you say, the kind of stuff that magazines like. Nay, it was even better. But I wish you'd sent it elsewhere. You owed it to me not to let the Cosmopolitan's readers see anything of yours (for awhile, at least) that was less than _great_. Something as great as the sonnet that you sent to McClure's was what the circumstances called for. "And strict concern of relativity"--O bother! that's not poetry. It's the slang of philosophy. I am still awaiting my copy of the new "Testimony." That's why I'm scolding. Sincerely yours, AMBROSE BIERCE. [The Army and Navy Club, Washington, D. C., April 18, 1908.] MY DEAR LORA, I'm an age acknowledging your letter; but then you'd have been an age writing it if you had not done it for "Sloots." And the other day I had one from him, written in his own improper person. I think it abominable that he and Carlt have to work so hard--at _their_ age--and I quite agree with George Sterling that Carlt ought to go to Carmel and grow potatoes. I'd like to do that myself, but for the fact that so many objectionable persons frequent the place: * * *, * * * and the like. I'm hoping, however, that the ocean will swallow * * * and be unable to throw him up. I trust you'll let Sloots "retire" at seventy, which is really quite well along in life toward the years of discretion and the age of consent. But when he is retired I know that he will bury himself in the redwoods and never look upon the face of man again. That, too, I should rather like to do myself--for a few months. I've laid out a lot of work for myself this season, and doubt if I shall get to California, as I had hoped. So I shall never, never see you. But you might send me a photograph. God be with you. AMBROSE BIERCE. [Washington, D. C., July 11, 1908.] N.B. If you follow the pages you'll be able to make _some_ sense of this screed. MY DEAR GEORGE, I am sorry to learn that you have not been able to break your commercial chains, since you wish to, though I don't at all know that they are bad for you. I've railed at mine all my life, but don't remember that I ever made any good use of leisure when I had it--unless the mere "having a good time" is such. I remember once writing that one's career, or usefulness, was about ended when one thought less about how best to do his work than about the hardship of having to do it. I might have said the hardship of having so little leisure to do it. As I grow older I see more and more clearly the advantages of disadvantage, the splendid urge of adverse conditions, the uplifting effect of repression. And I'm ashamed to note how little _I_ profited by them. I wasn't the right kind, that is all; but I indulge the hope that _you_ are.