The San Francisco call., 1895-12-22
I have at no time forgotten Polonius'
advice to Laertes:

/ have at no time forgotten Polonius'
advice to Laertes:
Beware Of entrance to quarrel: but being In
Bear't that the opposed may beware Of thee.
did not enter into the controversy with
Mr. Bierce without careful consideration
of the good old mans advice to his son. /
have at no time underrated Mr.. Bierce's
f1ashlight genius, but have never feared
him, nor have ever accepted him as an
authority in literary matters. I have given
him full credit for an ability to write good
English and l have condemned him for
his wanton prostitution of his natural
gifts. l have taken exception to his
methods because l believe them to be de-
structive to literature, and because the
very brilliancy of his glowworm express
sions blinds his readers to the evil which
he is working. An occasional lapse into
vulgar slang or even an occasional liberty
with standard English would not have
called for any comment from me, but
since Mr.. Bierce has chosen to become the
''phylloXera" of literature [ have chosen to
| assist in stamping him out. No man in
| the journalistic profession has done more
to destroy the value and importance of
| journalism than Ambrose Bierce. l have
|
has written and published, expecting to
| find in his published works something
that warranted his usurpation of the Office
of public censor. | have been bitterly
disappointed. l have found a touch of
| genius here, and a touch of genius
| there, in a whole hidden of filth.
In his introduction to his "Black Beetles
in Amber" he says, referring to applied
satire, my understanding Of whose laws
and liberties is at least derived from
reverent study of the masters" If he
ever studied any master Of satire, he gives
no evidence of the fact in anything he has
written. Which of the masters would
have begun prayer with the following
line written by Bierce,
| Sweet spirit of cesspool, hear mothers prayer
| And here is another of his delicate em-
| broderies:
Jehovah, concealing his terrible face
Protruded his rear from behind great rock.
| And this is what Bierce writes as poetry.
To reproduce the filth which he has intro
duced into his literary work would only
serve to advertise his vulgarity, and this
decline to do. Before proceeding to
answer Berce's panada of Sunday last,
offer short explanation to the readers of
| THE CALL. | have no personal quarrel
with Bierce. l have simply permanent
| quarrel with his obscene methods of
writing. / do not know him. l would
| not know him if | met him. l have never
crossed him in love or in any other way,
| I do not know his best from his worst
girl, / have never had any difficulty with
him. Ny opinion of his work has
| been published, / have no opinion
of himself at all. For me, he
does not live. l don't care what
he does. don't care whether he is moral
| or immoral. He may be squire of danes
or he may be bully. He may be very
generous partisan or he may be very
vindictive enemy. These matters do not
| concern me. What does concern me is
that for two years he continued to attack
Inc in language clearly descriptive of his
natural home, the gutter. paid no atten-
ton to him until he attacked my profess
sion, and when he did that | entered upon
| this controversy with a fixed and firm de-
termination to expose him and his meth
| DDS, and to convince the readers of The
CALL that, with all his ability, Ambrose
Bierce is a complete and utter failure in
literature. l am making progress.
| Finding himself cornered in the matter
of the Shakesperean couplet Bierce resorts
to the puerile trick of fibbing. He states
falsely that he prepared trap for me. He
| did prepare q trap-for himself. In that
| trap there is now very small rat named
Am brose Bierce, and as Christmas times
are approaching l propose to feed him OH
his favorite linn burger cheese.
Bierce knows thoroughly that he was COM
pletely whipped His ingenious but cow
ardly and disngenuous attempt to shield
himself behind an untruth indicates the
vulpine character of the man. He discov
ers difference between blank verse and
dramatic blank. 1t is very cunning
| "fake" but fails to deceive ANYBODY. There
is no such thing as dramatic blank 1t is
quite true that some dramatists, in the
| colloquial passages, take liberties with
blank verse, but in the passages quoted by
| me Shakespeare took no such liberties, for
the passages were epic, or descriptive,
passages and / was very careful in my
| selections to avoid the colloquial and pre-
sent only the lengthy and epic portions OF
the great masters work. Bierce was an
| elephant on stills; removed the stills,
and he walows in the gutter.
| When cornered, Bierce has the trick of
| the sniveling lad who, having had his
ears boxed, runs off. shouting back all the
bad words his poor little memory can pre-
sent to him. In the article which / am
now criticising, Mr.. Bierce revels in
wealth of foul names. In another of these
articles, he calls me some twenty several
and distinct opprobrious terms; that, of
course, is criticism.
The only character in Shakespeare with
which Ambrose Bierce is familiar is his
prototype Caliban, whom Shakespeare
describes as "a freckled whelp, hag. BORN
not honored with human shape" Cali
ban protested that he must live, ana Bierce
also thinks it necessary that he should
live object to his conclusion. Mr.. Bierce
claims that he is educating me. Well, |
am willing to be educated by ANYBODY.
Shakespeare's opinion of Caliban Bierce
would read well in the prospectus of this
new pedagogue. Here it is:
"Thou most lying slave,
Whom stripes may move, not kindness; have
| used thee,
| Filth as thou art with human care"
And, now, to answer Bierce's grand
bombastic flourish of trumpets over his
familiarity with prose and his ability to
commit adultery with words, his absolute
independence Of orthography. his con-
tempt for lexicons and his impudent as
sertion that from his filthy doggerel lex
icographers are to take new and accept
able words To all of this epileptic goose
gaggle I answer, rats Poor man, he
thought himself grizzly bear, and he is
only very common little sewer-rat,