If this letter is a little disconnected and incoherent know, O King, that I have just returned from a dinner in Atlantic City, N. J. I saw Markham there, also Bob Davis, Sam Moffett, Homer Davenport, Bob Mackay and other San Franciscans. (Can there be a San Franciscan when there is no San Francisco? I don't want to go back. Doubtless the new San Francisco--while it lasts--will be a finer town than the old, but it will not be _my_ San Francisco and I don't want to see it. It has for many years been, to me, full of ghosts. Now it is itself a ghost.) I return the sonnets. Destruction of "Town Talk" has doubtless saved you from having the one on me turned down. Dear old fellow, don't take the trouble to defend my memory when--or at least until-- "I am fled From this vile world, with vilest worms to dwell." I'm not letting my enemies' attitude trouble me at all. On the contrary, I'm rather sorry for them and their insomnia--lying awake o' nights to think out new and needful lies about me, while I sleep sweetly. O, it is all right, truly. No, I never had any row (nor much acquaintance) with Mark Twain--met him but two or three times. Once with Stoddard in London. I think pretty well of him, but doubt if he cared for me and can't, at the moment, think of any reason why he _should_ have cared for me. "The Cynic's Dictionary" is a-printing. I shall have to call it something else, for the publishers tell me there is a "Cynic's Dictionary" already out. I dare say the author took more than my title--the stuff has been a rich mine for a plagiarist for many a year. They (the publishers) won't have "The Devil's Dictionary." Here in the East the Devil is a sacred personage (the Fourth Person of the Trinity, as an Irishman might say) and his name must not be taken in vain. No, "The Testimony of the Suns" has not "palled" on me. I still read it and still think it one of the world's greatest poems. * * * * * Well, God be wi' ye and spare the shack at Carmel, Sincerely yours, AMBROSE BIERCE. [Washington, D. C., June 11, 1906.] DEAR GEORGE, Your poem, "A Dream of Fear" was so good before that it needed no improvement, though I'm glad to observe that you have "the passion for perfection." Sure--you shall have your word "colossal" applied to a thing of two dimensions, an you will. I have no objection to the publication of that sonnet on me. It may give my enemies a transient feeling that is disagreeable, and if I can do that without taking any trouble in the matter myself it is worth doing. I think they must have renewed their activity, to have provoked you so--got up a new and fascinating lie, probably. Thank you for putting your good right leg into action themward.