Thank you for the pictures of the Sloots fire-place and "Joe Gans." I can fancy myself cooking a steak in the one, and the other eating one better cooked. I'm glad I've given you the Grand Canyon fever, for I hope to revisit the place next summer, and perhaps our Yosemite bunch can meet me there. My outing this season will be in Broadway in little old New York. That is not as good as Monte Sano, but the best that I can do. You must have had a good time with the Sterlings, and doubtless you all suffered from overfeeding. Carlt's action in denuding the shaggy pelt of his hands meets with my highest commendation, but you'd better look out. It may mean that he has a girl--a Jewess descended from Jacob, with an hereditary antipathy to anything like Esau. Carlt was an Esaurian. You'll have to overlook some bad errors in Vol. V of the C. W. I did not have the page proofs. Some of the verses are unintelligible. That's the penalty for philandering in California instead of sticking to my work. * * * * * Affectionately, AMBROSE. [Washington, D. C., April 28, 1911.] DEAR GEORGE, I've been having noctes ambrosianae with "The House of Orchids," though truly it came untimely, for I've not yet done reading your other books. Don't crowd the dancers, please. I don't know (and you don't care) what poem in it I like best, but I get as much delight out of these lines as out of any: "Such flowers pale as are Worn by the goddess of a distant star-- Before whose holy eyes Beauty and evening meet." And--but what's the use? I can't quote the entire book. I'm glad you did see your way to make "Memory" a female. To Hades with Bonnet's chatter of gems and jewels--among the minor poetic properties they are better (to my taste) than flowers. By the way, I wonder what "lightness" Bonnet found in the "Apothecary" verses. They seem to me very serious. Rereading and rerereading of the Job confirm my first opinion of it. I find only one "bad break" in it--and that not inconsistent with God's poetry in the real Job: "ropes of adamant." A rope of stone is imperfectly conceivable--is, in truth, mixed metaphor. I think it was a mistake for you to expound to Ned Hamilton, or anybody, how you wrote the "Forty-third Chapter," or anything. When an author explains his methods of composition he cannot expect to be taken seriously. Nine writers in ten wish to have it thought that they "dash off" things. Nobody believes it, and the judicious would be sorry to believe it. Maybe you do, but I guess you work hard and honestly enough over the sketch "dashed off." If you don't--do. * * * * * With love to Carrie, I will leave you to your sea-gardens and abalones. Sincerely yours, AMBROSE BIERCE. I'm off to Broadway next week for a season of old-gentlemanly revelry. [Washington, D. C., May 2, 1911.] DEAR GEORGE,