But with the petty townspeople, Bierce had no traffic whatever. They quickly made a legend about the “blond god” who lived on Howell Mountain. On the occasion when he was in the town he would stalk around with all the hauteur of an officer in the imperial guard. There were few people in the town who were on speaking terms with him. The editor of the St. Helena Star once crossed verbal swords with him, and Bierce answered the fellow in “Prattle” in his usual terse manner and referred to him as the editor of the “St. Helena Liver-Complaint.” But for the most part, the St. Helenans read his column of “Pratttle” and whispered awesomely among themselves. He seldom came to the town, and when he did it was at night, or to catch a train, so that they quickly concluded he was divorced from his wife and the legend became established. But of the lovely Mrs. Bierce, who was tall and dark and most kind, they had no illusions; they adored her without reservation. She would play the piano at their parties, help them with their “receptions,” and entertain them, at Mrs. Hunt’s home, with stories of London and the great world.
One day the minister came to call on Mrs. Bierce when Bierce chanced to be present. Leigh came running in from the garden shouting, “Oh, Daddy, Day just said ‘Damn God.’” The minister and Mrs. Bierce were quite horrified, but Bierce only remarked: “Go and tell Day that I have repeatedly told him not to say ‘Damn God’ when he means ‘God Damn.’”
When Bierce would go to Oakland, he would quite often stay several weeks, sometimes several months, particularly in the winter when he would take an apartment. But even after his family had been established at St. Helena, he would make trips to Auburn and other resorts, moving from one to another as his health required. It was while he was in Oakland, on one of his visits, that an incident occurred of the utmost moment and importance in his life. One afternoon there came a gentle tapping on the door of his apartment, and he went to find who it was that called. Let him tell the rest of the story:
“I found a young man, the youngest young man, it seemed to me, that I had ever confronted. His appearance, his attitude, his manner, his entire personality suggested extreme diffidence. I did not ask him in, install him in my better chair (I had two) and inquire how we could serve each other. If my memory is not at fault I merely said: ‘Well’ and awaited the result.
“‘I am from the San Francisco Examiner,’ he explained in a voice like the fragrance of violets made audible, and backed a little away.
“‘Oh,’ I said, ‘you come from Mr. Hearst.’ Then that unearthly child lifted its blue eyes and cooed: ‘I am Mr. Hearst.’”
He had come to interview Mr. Bierce. Just a few weeks previously, in March of 1887, his father, Senator George Hearst, had given the San Francisco Examiner as a plaything to the former editor of the Harvard Lampoon. The young editor showed amazing shrewdness in selecting his staff; the principle behind his choice was invariably the same: he wanted the best. He had determined to commit the unspeakable heresy of making his paper interesting and readable, and wanted the brightest men he could obtain for his staff. He had F. L. H. (“Cozy”) Noble; E. H. Hamilton; A. M. Lawrence — one of the best reporters he ever employed — and Sam Chamberlain, a great editor; Alfonso Murphy, Annie Laurie (Mrs. Bonfils), “Petey” Bigelow and Arthur McEwen. It was a formidable array of talent. McEwen was rated as one of the strongest journalists in the West; Mrs. Bonfils invented the “sob” story; and the best of “Jimmy” Swinnerton’s cartoons have seldom been equaled. What Mr. Hearst needed was a little elegance for the editorial page, as he wanted to make it a memorable feature of his newspaper. Accordingly he turned to Ambrose Bierce; the choice was inevitable, and the bargain was soon sealed. But before they came to terms, Mr. Hearst was given to understand that there were two inviolable conditions: 1st, “Prattle” was to appear on the editorial page, next to the regular editorials; 2nd, it was to appear exactly as written. Perhaps Mr. Bierce did not define “exactly” at the time, but Mr. Henderson, and the other Examiner men, soon came to have a vivid understanding of his peculiarly exact definition of exactness. Bierce was to write two columns, if possible, of “Prattle” once a week for the Sunday edition, and if he did any additional work he was to be paid at space rates. The relationship established was of the greatest importance for both men, and should be, at least, an important footnote in any history of American journalism.
The significance of the incident to Bierce is quite apparent. It was the beginning of his great fame on the coast. It is true that he had a considerable local reputation with his work on The News-Letter, The Argonaut, and The Wasp, but the circulation of these weeklies was rather limited, and in them “Prattle” did not carry the same weight as did the two signed columns in The Examiner. And then, again, it gave Bierce leisure to do other writing, and it was high time, for he was past middle-age and had, as yet, done little writing of any moment. From now on he was to be well paid for the rest of his life, and was liberated from the burden of editorial detail. It is a shame that the opportunity did not come earlier in his life. To appreciate the fame that Bierce soon attained with his work on The Examiner, one must constantly remember that the Hearst papers in the West (it was then the Hearst paper) occupied a far different standing than they did in the East. In the West The Examiner was read by every one, including the people of influence and power and social position. The Examiner was not the rowdy sheet for the hoi polloi that some of the Hearst papers quickly became in the East. It has been variously estimated what the number of “Bierce readers” was during The Examiner days, but it must have been very large indeed. And no one knew this better than did Mr. Hearst.
The association of the two struck many people as being slightly incongruous. But they had several common interests; or, at least, they had certain mutual antipathies which they both desired to eliminate, although from different motives. Moreover, both of them loved a good fight. Mr. Hearst thoroughly enjoyed “Prattle” and never complained of his columnist, no matter how abusive he might be on occasion. It is altogether probable that Mr. Hearst was acting on the defensive when he employed Bierce, on the theory that such a dangerous satirist would be a powerful ally but an implacable foe. But then no one knew what Mr. Hearst’s motives were and few do to this day. To build circulation? Perhaps; but there were quicker ways. At times, particularly in the early days of his career, one can easily detect different motives at work in Mr. Hearst’s journalism. But he did love The Examiner, and he took a great interest in all the members of its staff, including Bierce, whom he pampered, mollified, and befriended at all times.
The sense of power that Bierce now experienced from his work on The Examiner added measurably to the quality of his satire. Theretofore it suffered from the impotency of futility, or hysteria. There was something rather harsh and blunt and ungraceful about his work on The Wasp. In fact, the years 1881- 1886 represent a low-ebb in his satire, probably for the reason that he was overworked during this period. He could concentrate on his “Prattle” alone. Now that he was with The Examiner, he took up a rapier instead of the bludgeon which he had used on The Wasp. And, now, too, he began to write his stories.
There is much current discussion as to Bierce’s actual merits as a satirist. Mr. Vincent O’Sullivan wrote in The Dublin Magazine (April-June, 1929), of some of Bierce’s satire, that
“such writing is sheer abuse and too ponderous to get home. The reader’s attention is kept on the way it is written, and he feels the man who wrote it is showing off; so the victim, the man who is knocked out, is lost sight of.... Bierce’s piece has the pomposity, the slow movement and the rotund phrase of rhetorical orators or oratorical rhetoricians.”
There is much force to this criticism. Bierce’s style was acquired in an age that specialized in the wide gesture and the oratorical flourish. The great styles of the eighteen-fifties were those of Webster and John C. Calhoun; it was the period, as Mr. O’Sullivan writes, of the “beaver-hat.” Much of this rhetoric, influenced by ideas of “elegance” acquired in London, crept into Bierce’s
manner of writing. Even in the best of his writing, that is, the simplest, he could not resist the temptation to intersperse “purple patches.”
But with these reservations in mind, it is yet undeniable that “Prattle” was most amusing, and certainly the best written journalism in the west. And the amazing bulk of it! From 1887 until 1899 in the San Francisco Examiner alone, it would comprise volumes. Of Senator Vrooman, who was always making a “dying” speech, in “the shadows of the other world,” Bierce once wrote:
“Step lightly, stranger, o’er this holy place,
Nor push this sacred monument aside,
Left by his fellow-citizens to grace
The only spot where Vrooman never died.”
Bierce’s definition of “retribution” was: “The Vigilance Committee prosecuting the crime of a prominent citizen.” His idea of a painting to be entitled “A Bold Bluff” was “Colonel” J. P. Jackson bringing a suit in a court of law to quit his title. Of the famous epitaphs so many have been quoted that it is difficult to make a selection. They were all similar in structure and this one, written for Dick Hammond, is typical:
“Pause, stranger, and let fall a tear;
Dick Hammond has been dead a year;
This is the sacredest of spots:
At its antipodes he rots.”
But, for the most part, his satire was too “ponderous.” He was dealing with hoodlums and had to hit hard. The times admitted of no other satire. He once summed up the matter in a fable: “A Rattlesnake came home to its brood about to die — I have been bitten by the editor of a partisan journal, it said.” And such was the case in the early days of California journalism. Much of Bierce’s work was the outgrowth of this heavy-witted, hard-hitting Western journalism; it was the sort of writing that delighted the blood-thirsty old scoundrels who loafed around saloons waiting for a fight.
Too much of his writing was abusive, but his power of invective was tremendous and gorgeous. He once wrote of the secretary to the chief of police in San Francisco:
“This hardy and impenitent malefactor — this moneychanger in the temple of justice — this infinite rogue and unthinkable villain, of whose service Satan is ashamed and, blushing blackly, deepens the gloom of hell — this brilliant malversationalist — this boundless and incalculable scamp, enamored of his own versatility of unworth, invests the moral atmosphere with an audible odor that screams along all the visible ramifications of his influence among the noses of souls.”
“Mike” DeYoung was a “chimpanzee,”
“Sir Simian,” a “credulous liar.” Senator Frye was “that incarnate lachrymosity and slavering sentimentaler”; of another he said that “the very fat on his entrails belongs to the widows and orphans he has robbed and of yet another he wrote that he was “a whimpering simpleton — a hebetudinous hypocrite.” Such a column of abuse was never penned in the West. It was upper Billingsgate; poetic abuse, vituperation raised to the standard of a high art.
One Robert Morrow, a San Franciscan, was tried for the crime of embracery, or jury bribing. Of this man Bierce left nothing unsaid. For weeks on end in “Prattle” he excoriated the wretch. “Morrow,” he would write, “is a rich man and can afford every comfort and luxury. Yet he chews the cheapest toothpicks and is not above robbing the poorest widow in the land.” The matter reached such a degree of civic comment that Hall McAllister, attorney for Morrow, made a motion in Judge Sullivan’s court for a change of venue, and his motion was based on an affidavit which set forth all of Bierce’s comment and abuse. McAllister said that the satire in “Prattle” had incensed the entire community to such an extent that it was impossible for his client to have a fair trial. He called the court’s attention particularly to these verses, which had appeared in that day’s issue of “Prattle”:
“The devil felt a sudden thrill
Of course to defy God’s will.
Then Morrow spoke: ‘As sure as fate
Their witnesses I’ll indicate
Or if that prove expensive sport,
I’ll — whispering — I’ll fix the court.’
Sing, Muse, the subsequent events,
Arraignment, trial and defense.
Alas! their footing simply fell
And all were tumbled into hell.”
“Of course, that really did not include this court,” McAllister is reported to have explained to the judge. Morrow, who was present in court, paid Bierce the compliment of grinning in appreciation of the laughter that greeted the reading of the verses. After no lengthy consideration, Judge Sullivan granted the motion for change of venue and Bierce’s only comment was to correct a slight mistake that appeared in the verses as reprinted in the newspaper. He continued to abuse Morrow with unabated ardor.
The incident illustrates something of the enormous power and fame that Bierce acquired in the Bay District. He was a Titan and Cyclops in San Francisco for a quarter of a century. As Joseph Lewis French said in Pearson’s Magazine, 1918, “he was Sir Oracle, indeed! Seriously I doubt if ever there has been in all the history of letters a more complete dominion.” This fame had an important effect on the man. It solidified his early prejudices; stiffened him into an attitude of mental immobility; and made of him a colossal egoist. The people who knew him during these grand days simply worshiped him, and he came to have a sense of unerring vision and sublime divination. The constant applause of his friends and disciples made him always conscious of an audience; the intensity of this local fame lifted the entire scene in his mind to the level of universal experience. He lacked perspective; this was not simply a Western city, in a few years of its development, but it was the drama of the world, and he was the Zeus who stirred the elements. He might not be the artist he wanted to be; he might be enraged at times when he realized the inadequate use he was making of his talent; but he could always burst forth in “Prattle” with splenetic energy, unseating the despot and sending the political alley rat scurrying for cover. It was predestined that he should play this role, that he should be warped into this figure of legendary grandeur and power, for, unknowingly, he was establishing a tradition. He could not have escaped had he tried. But the fame was not displeasing. It brought him young disciples, a horde of female admirers, and a comfortable livelihood.
“Prattle” became a gospel for the younger generation in the West. Its influence was more far reaching than is generally realized. A tramp wrote Bierce from Butte, Montana, that “your work on The Examiner became a religion to me, fir (sic) I believed it.” In 1883, Charles H. Phelps, publisher of The Californian, while in New York, had shown Godkin of The Nation, Bierce’s sharp exposé of the historical method of Hubert Howe Bancroft, who farmed out all the research work is his establishment for the manufacture of histories on a “big business” basis. Godkin was most enthusiastic and added a few words of comment himself on the Bancroft technique. Bierce received letters from Australia, Mexico, England and from all corners of the world. A. D. Temple wrote from Mexico: “Every week the Indian mail carrier packed the copies of The Examiner across the Sierra Madre and down to the deep canyon at Vantanas, where we, working in the silver mines, had no other communication with the outside world, and we read the latest news from Frisco, sometimes not over three weeks old, and it was your articles in your enchilada manner that we liked best.” Herbert Thomas, editor of The Cornishman, Penzance, wrote Bierce in later years that he had received his first literary impetus from reading “Prattle” while he was in California during 1889-99. Fannie Charles wrote from San Francisco: “What one has loved as a child and idealized as a girl and respected as a woman gets to be part of one’s nature after awhile,” having reference to “Prattle.” This was literally true: people grew up on “Prattle” for, with the interruptions here noted, it appeared in print from 1868 to 1900 in San Francisco.
Bierce was, of course, a romantic and fascinating figure. San Francisco was rife with stories of his amazing brilliancy, his tremendous versatility, and his sharp wit. He was handsome and coura
geous and, personally, quite charming when he wanted to be. He had a very gallant manner with the ladies, and the men admired his frosty wit and superb poise. People never forgot this man: he remained a most vivid experience in the lives of innumerable Westerners. It was like coming in contact with a dynamo. Twain amused and flattered them at the same time; Charles Warren Stoddard wrote “pretty” verses for emasculated magazines; and Bret Harte’s sentimentality brought tears to the eyes. But this fellow Bierce jolted them out of their lethargy and made them aware of the world. He was a gadfly, a torment and a delight. The secret of his success, the explanation of his fame, is that his influence was always a personal influence. It was not so much what he said in “Prattle,” as the fact that the column carried the great moral potency of having been written by Ambrose Bierce. Compared with his contemporaries, he was flawless and impeccable; there were no loopholes in his armor. He blazed indignation and there was a great force to his work that was hard and brilliant and cold. George Santayana has written that “Men of intense feeling are not mirrors but lights.” Such a man was Bierce. And it is really unfair to judge him by his work, although his work was never commonplace or trivial. For him simply to have stood out against his times, when the difficulties of independence were unbelievably greater than to-day, was no little distinction. You can pinch his work from the beginning until the end and not find a soft spot. It was brittle at times, sharp and metallic in some places, but it never lost its headiness, it never drooped or drooled or driveled. What is quite apparent from an examination of his journalism with reference to its milieu, and the circumstances under which it was written, is that Ambrose Bierce was the most original, forceful and important literary figure of his generation in the west.
Complete Works of Ambrose Bierce (Delphi Classics) Page 356
