Explore "The Letters of Ambrose Bierce" by Ambrose Bierce on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
DEAR BLANCHE,
Only just a word to say that I have repented of my assent to your well-meant proposal for your father to write of "me". If there is anything in my work in letters that engages his interest, or in my "literary" history -- that is well enough, and I shall not mind. But "biography" in the other sense is distasteful to me. I never read biographical "stuff" of other writers -- of course you know "stuff" is literary slang for "matter" -- and think it "beside the question." Moreover, it is distinctly mischievous to letters. It throws no light on one's work, but on the contrary "darkens counsel." The only reason that posterity judges work with some slight approach to accuracy is that posterity knows less, and cares less, about the author's personality. It considers his work as impartially as if it had found it lying on the ground with no footprints about it and no initials on its linen.