long before she was able to be about. I daresay that, too, would have seemed to you "filthy," without the parson and his fee. When you analyze your objection to the story (as I have tried to do for you) you will find that it all crystallizes into that--the absence of the parson. I don't envy you your view of the matter, and I really don't think you greatly enjoy it yourself. I forgot to say: Suppose they had been two men, two partners in hunting, mining, or exploring, as frequently occurs. Would the bed-pan suggestion have come to you? Did it come to you when you read of the slow, but not uniform, starvation of Greeley's party in the arctic? Of course not. Then it is a matter, not of bed-pans, but of sex-exposure (unauthorized by the church), of prudery--of that artificial thing, the "sense of shame," of which the great Greeks knew nothing; of which the great Japanese know nothing; of which Art knows nothing. Dear Doctor, do you really put trousers on your piano-legs? Does your indecent intimacy with your mirror make you blush? There, there's the person whom I've been waiting for (I'm to take her to dinner, and I'm not married to even so much of her as her little toe) has come; and until you offend again, you are immune from the switch. May all your brother Philistines have to "Kiss the place to make it well." Pan is dead! Long live Bed-Pan! Yours ever, AMBROSE BIERCE. [Washington, February 17, 1901.] MY DEAR STERLING, I send back the poems, with a few suggestions. You grow great so rapidly that I shall not much longer dare to touch your work. I mean that. Your criticisms of Stedman's Anthology are just. But equally just ones can be made of any anthology. None of them can suit any one. I fancy Stedman did not try to "live up" to his standard, but to make _representative_, though not always the _best_, selections. It would hardly do to leave out Whitman, for example. _We_ may not like him; thank God, we don't; but many others--the big fellows too--do; and in England he is thought great. And then Stedman has the bad luck to know a lot of poets personally--many bad poets. Put yourself in his place. Would you leave out me if you honestly thought my work bad? In any compilation we will all miss some of our favorites--and find some of the public's favorites. You miss from Whittier "Joseph Sturge"--I the sonnet "Forgiveness," and so forth. Alas, there is no universal standard! Thank you for the photographs. Miss * * * is a pretty girl, truly, and has the posing instinct as well. She has the place of honor on my mantel. * * * But what scurvy knave has put the stage-crime into her mind? If you know that life as I do you will prefer that she die, poor girl. It is no trouble, but a pleasure, to go over your verses--I am as proud of your talent as if I'd made it. Sincerely yours, AMBROSE BIERCE. [over] About the rhymes in a sonnet: