Now that I'm about such matters, I shall enclose a note to my friend Dr. Robertson, who runs an insanery at Livermore and is an interesting fellow with a ditto family and a library that will make you pea-green with envy. Go out and see him some day and take Scheff, or any friend, along--he wants to know you. You won't mind the facts that he thinks all poetry the secretion of a diseased brain, and that the only reason he doesn't think all brains (except his own) diseased is the circumstance that not all secrete poetry. * * * * * Seriously, he is a good fellow and full of various knowledges that most of us wot not of. Sincerely yours, AMBROSE BIERCE. [Washington, D. C., June 14, 1904.] MY DEAR GEORGE, I have a letter from * * *, who is in St. Louis, to which his progress has been more leisurely than I liked, considering that I am remaining away from my mountains only to meet him. However, he intimates an intention to come in a week. I wish you were with him. I am sending the W. of W. to Scribner's, as you suggest, and if it is not taken shall try the other mags in the order of your preference. But it's funny that you--_you_--should prefer the "popular" magazines and wish the work "illustrated." Be assured the illustrations will shock you if you get them. * * * * * I understand what you say about being bored by the persons whom your work in letters brings about your feet. The most _contented_ years of my life lately were the two or three that I passed here before Washington folk found out that I was an author. The fact has leaked out, and although not a soul of them buys and reads my books some of them bore me insupportably with their ignorant compliments and unwelcome attentions. I fancy I'll have to "move on." Tell Maid Marian to use gloves when modeling, or the clay will enter into her soul through her fingers and she become herself a Shape of Clay. My notion is that she should work in a paste made of ashes-of-roses moistened with nectar. * * * * * Sincerely yours, AMBROSE BIERCE. P.S. Does it bore you that I like you to know my friends? Professor * * *'s widow (and daughter) are very dear to me. She knows about you, and I've written her that I'd ask you to call on her. You'll like them all right, but I have another purpose. I want to know how they prosper; and they are a little reticent about that. Maybe you could ascertain indirectly by seeing how they live. I asked Grizzly to do this but of course he didn't, the shaggy brute that he is. A. B. [Haines' Falls, Greene Co., N. Y., August 4, 1904.] DEAR GEORGE, I haven't written a letter, except on business, since leaving Washington, June 30--no, not since Scheff's arrival there. I now return to earth, and my first call is on you.