LITMIR.BIZ

      [First part of this letter missing.]

      Yes, I know Blackburn Harte has a weakness for the proletariat of letters * * * and doubtless thinks Riley good because he is "of the people," peoply. But he will have to endure me as well as he can. You ask my opinion of Burns. He has not, I think, been translated into English, and I do not (that is, I can but will not) read that gibberish. I read Burns once – that was once too many times; but happily it was before I knew any better, and so my time, being worthless, was not wasted.

      I wish you could be up here this beautiful weather. But I dare say it would rain if you came. In truth, it is "thickening" a trifle just because of my wish. And I wish I had given you, for your father, all the facts of my biography from the cradle – downward. When you come again I shall, if you still want them. For I'm worried half to death with requests for them, and when I refuse am no doubt considered surly or worse. And my refusal no longer serves, for the biography men are beginning to write my history from imagination. So the next time I see you I shall give you (orally) that "history of a crime," my life. Then, if your father is still in the notion, he can write it from your notes, and I can answer all future inquiries by enclosing his article.

      Do you know? – you will, I think, be glad to know – that I have many more offers for stories at good prices, than I have the health to accept. (For I am less nearly well than I have told you.) Even the Examiner has "waked up" (I woke it up) to the situation, and now pays me $20 a thousand words; and my latest offer from New York is $50.

      I hardly know why I tell you this unless it is because you tell me of any good fortune that comes to your people, and because you seem to take an interest in my affairs such as nobody else does in just the same unobjectionable and, in fact, agreeable way. I wish you were my "real, sure-enough" niece. But in that case I should expect you to pass all your time at Howell Mountain, with your uncle and cousin. Then I should teach you to write, and you could expound to me the principles underlying the art of being the best girl in the world. Sincerely yours, Ambrose Bierce.