{"links":{"self":"https://arvasarchive.org/catalog.json?f%5Bcollection%5D%5B%5D=Ambrose+Bierce+Collection%2C+%0A+1896-1903\u0026f%5Bdate_range%5D%5B%5D=1901\u0026view=list","last":"https://arvasarchive.org/catalog.json?f%5Bcollection%5D%5B%5D=Ambrose+Bierce+Collection%2C+%0A+1896-1903\u0026f%5Bdate_range%5D%5B%5D=1901\u0026page=1\u0026view=list"},"meta":{"pages":{"current_page":1,"next_page":null,"prev_page":null,"total_pages":1,"limit_value":10,"offset_value":0,"total_count":4,"first_page?":true,"last_page?":true}},"data":[{"id":"viu_viu00058_c33","type":"Item","attributes":{"title":"Ambrose Bierce, \n Washington, D.C., to \n Harriet Hershberg ), \n New York City","abstract_or_scope":{"id":"https://arvasarchive.org/catalog/viu_viu00058_c33#abstract_or_scope","type":"document_value","attributes":{"value":"\u003cp\u003eHe is glad that Hattie had a good time in Washington during her visit and that she is enjoying New York City as well but does not plan to see her in New York \u003c/p\u003e","label":"Abstract Or Scope"}},"breadcrumbs":{"id":"https://arvasarchive.org/catalog/viu_viu00058_c33#breadcrumbs","type":"document_value","attributes":{"value":{"ref_ssi":"viu_viu00058_c33","ref_ssm":["viu_viu00058_c33"],"id":"viu_viu00058_c33","ead_ssi":"viu_viu00058","_root_":"viu_viu00058","_nest_parent_":"viu_viu00058","parent_ssi":"viu_viu00058","parent_ssim":["viu_viu00058"],"parent_ids_ssim":["viu_viu00058"],"parent_unittitles_ssm":["Ambrose Bierce Collection, \n 1896-1903"],"parent_unittitles_tesim":["Ambrose Bierce Collection, \n 1896-1903"],"text":["Ambrose Bierce Collection, \n 1896-1903","Ambrose Bierce, \n Washington, D.C., to \n Harriet Hershberg ), \n New York City","ALS, \n 2 p., with envelope.","He is glad that Hattie had a good time in \n Washington during her visit and\n that she is enjoying \n New York City as well but does\n not plan to see her in \n New York "],"title_filing_ssi":"\n Ambrose Bierce, \n Washington, D.C., to \n Harriet Hershberg ), \n New York City \n ","title_ssm":["Ambrose Bierce, \n Washington, D.C., to \n Harriet Hershberg ), \n New York City"],"title_tesim":["Ambrose Bierce, \n Washington, D.C., to \n Harriet Hershberg ), \n New York City"],"unitdate_other_ssim":["[1901 February 20]"],"normalized_date_ssm":["1901"],"normalized_title_ssm":["Ambrose Bierce, \n Washington, D.C., to \n Harriet Hershberg ), \n New York City"],"component_level_isim":[1],"repository_ssim":["University of Virginia, Special Collections Dept."],"collection_ssim":["Ambrose Bierce Collection, \n 1896-1903"],"physdesc_tesim":["ALS, \n 2 p., with envelope."],"has_online_content_ssim":["false"],"child_component_count_isi":0,"level_ssm":["Item"],"level_ssim":["Item"],"sort_isi":33,"date_range_isim":[1901],"scopecontent_html_tesm":["\u003cp\u003eHe is glad that Hattie had a good time in \n Washington during her visit and\n that she is enjoying \n New York City as well but does\n not plan to see her in \n New York \u003c/p\u003e"],"scopecontent_tesim":["He is glad that Hattie had a good time in \n Washington during her visit and\n that she is enjoying \n New York City as well but does\n not plan to see her in \n New York "],"_nest_path_":"/components#32","timestamp":"2026-05-21T12:00:01.811Z","collection":{"numFound":1,"start":0,"numFoundExact":true,"docs":[{"id":"viu_viu00058","ead_ssi":"viu_viu00058","_root_":"viu_viu00058","_nest_parent_":"viu_viu00058","ead_source_url_ssi":"data/uva-sc/viu00058.xml","title_ssm":["Ambrose Bierce Collection, \n 1896-1903"],"title_tesim":["Ambrose Bierce Collection, \n 1896-1903"],"level_ssm":["collection"],"level_ssim":["Collection"],"unitid_ssm":["5992-j"],"text":["5992-j","Ambrose Bierce Collection, \n 1896-1903","There are no restrictions.","This collection consists of 36 letters from Ambrose Bierce to Harriet Hershberg.\n","Bierce promises to have his photograph taken so\n that he can fulfill her request for his autograph and\n a photograph and playfully says, \"When I get there \n [Oakland] I shall blindfold you,\n hypnotize you and command you to find my lost youth\n and freedom. Then I shall marry you alive and live\n happily ever after.\"","Bierce writes \"I am sending you by this mail the\n photograph of a bad old man with a scowl. The scowl,\n however, is not for you -you never saw it.\" He did\n not send a photograph to her big sister (Louise ?)\n because she already possessed one more pleasant\n looking","He accepts all of her gratitude and regard for\n himself although he does not believe that he merits\n it. He regrets that he cannot say when he will be\n able to meet Mr. King but agrees to see him\n informally some time when he is in \n Oakland ","In this letter, he sends Harriet some wild\n pansies growing by the wayside because they made him\n think of her, \"I feel sure that the thought of you\n was put into my head by some divine intervention in\n the affairs of mortals, and for some purpose. My\n interpretation -with my feeble light and dull\n intuition-is that I am to send you some of those poor\n little frail pansies.\" He then goes on to explain\n that pansies are for thoughts and their old English\n name \"hearts-ease\" is better suited than \"pansies =\n pensees\"","Thanks her for sending him the ginger cakes which\n he tried to share with the horned-toads but they\n preferred grasshoppers. He declines to visit \n Oakland because his last visit\n cost him a month's illness but urges her to visit him\n in \n Los Gatos and to bring with her\n \"that impossible paragon, the \n Pittsburgh sister -whom, however,\n I believe to be a myth.\"","Asks Harriet for the Paris address of her \"musical\n sweetheart,\" Will King, so that he can thank\n him for a book and asks her to write him concerning\n herself. Otherwise he will have to hire a detective\n to shadow her night and day and send him reports of\n everything he learns about her activities","He wishes to see her very badly but remembers all\n too well the last illness which he suffered in \n Oakland, promises to send\n tickets to Belle and her if they will visit him in \n Los Gatos for a Sunday afternoon,\n and mentions receiving a letter from her sister\n Louise","Expresses joy at the receipt of her letter for\n \"it clears you of the solemn suspicion of running\n away from me in cold-blooded infraction of our\n understanding\" but he also thinks \"it very rascally\n of you to take all the sunshine out of \n Oakland to bestow it upon \n Iona \"","Sends another photograph to replace the damaged\n one along with several books to \"the Colonel and the\n Major\" and mentions a letter from Mamie who proved to\n be a charming traveling companion","Responding to her impression of his goodness\n Bierce writes, \"It is pretty easy to be good to you,\n and I don't expect any credit for it in the books of\n the Recording Angel. He will say: 'Bah ! who wouldn't\n be good to Hattie Hershberg?' and then he\n will debit me with one selfish motive.\" He also\n mentions Kodak photographs of a group consisting of Hattie, Mamie, Dave, Selma, Louise, and\n himself, while assuring her of his devotion, \"you are still the only girl in the world; and if there is a\n man who does not love you he is a scoundrel.\" Referring the Preston School of Industry in Ione, California, a juvenile correction institute supervised by a relative of Hirshberg's Bierce writes, \"No, my pet scheme for making soldiers of the Major's little rascals is not practicable. The confounded Government is so particular about the moral character of its recruits that I couldn't enlist myself. This is a great disappointment to me. I had quite set my heart on getting Co. A into Cuba, to prove that bad boys make the best soldiers. But I'm assured that it cannot be done.\"","Writes that he has severed all connections with \n Los Gatos and that his health is\n now good as he day dreams under the redwoods. He\n complains that thoughts of her often break in upon\n his reminiscences of the past, \"Only the other day\n you want only interrupted the march of a column of\n troops from \n Readyville, Tennessee to \n Woodbury, Tennessee, which was\n not at all nice of you.\"","Agrees to take her to see the soldiers and to\n expound every military mystery they encounter and to\n plan a trip to the country when she visits","Promises to visit \n San Francisco next Sunday and\n Monday if she promises to give him Monday, when they\n can see the soldiers or go anywhere she wants","Bierce was unable to go to \n Oakland and wishes that he could\n run the world awhile, \"My first official act would be\n to order you and Mamie to \n Los Gatos ; my second, to go\n there myself.\"","Thanks Hattie for the present of a cushion\n because it signified her return from her trip to a\n lake in the mountains and asks if he can visit her on\n Saturday afternoon","Hopes that she is happier than in her last letter\n and asks individually about the health of her whole\n family","Agrees to examine the manuscript of one of her\n friends if it is in typescript and legible and\n describes his new quarters in a house with six rooms,\n one of which he has reserved for her and her chaperon\n if she will visit","Apologizes for his seeming inattention and\n answers her questions about the \n  Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam","Urges Hattie to come, rent a house, and visit\n several weeks in the area along with Belle and\n Florence, \"Please say if you will come and thereby\n sweeten the fragrance of the flowers, intensify the\n gold of the sunshine and add a new music to the\n voices of my pet quails -one of which sits on my knee\n as I write and looks knowing as if he said: I can\n tell by your face whom you are writing to?\"","Expresses his disappointment that she did not\n come up to visit during her summer outing and\n determines to accustom himself to disappointment even\n to the point of allowing Harriet, Belle, and Florence\n to marry if they choose","Asks her to again send the recipe for molasses\n candy for some of the ladies there want to make some\n and \"as the purpose of my existence is to please the\n members of the sex which your virtues preserve from\n damnation I comply with the request\"","Voices his concern over Louise's illness (malaria\n ?) and begs for news of her condition","Asks for news of Louise and relates his plans to\n make a farewell visit to \n San Francisco before he returns\n to \n Washington, D.C. to live","Thanks Hattie for her good news about Louise and\n the invitation to Thanksgiving dinner which he must\n decline in the chaos of preparing to leave for \n Washington, D.C. but promises to\n try to see them all before he leaves","Tells Hattie that he is to leave today and asks\n if she can keep herself and Louise and Belle at home\n long enough to see him before he leaves at 5\n p.m.","Tells her that \"it is not worthwhile to love you\n anymore, for I shall never see you again\" even if she\n should visit \n Pittsburgh because the coal smoke\n from the railway engines makes him very ill and there\n is little else in \n Pittsburgh . ","Asks about the family and when she will be able\n to visit her sister Nettie in \n Pittsburgh and him in \n Washington ","Declares that if he shall ever see those whom he\n loves again he will have to do the traveling \"to the\n imminent destruction of my lungs\" and wishes her \"as\n much happiness as I can make up my mind that you\n ought to have in my absence\"","Hopes to see her in \n Washington before she leaves on\n her trip to \n Europe with her sister Nettie and\n offers to show her the capital","Having just returned from an unpleasant fortnight\n in \n New York, Bierce hopes that\n Hattie will be able to visit him in \n Washington, although he would be\n willing to return to \n New York to see her","Bierce looks forward to seeing Harriet in a few\n days and describes his Christmas Day activities","Assures her that he is not angry that she won't\n be coming to \n Washington because \"I have lived\n long enough to learn that a woman's promise is merely\n the expression of a mood -and woman's moods do not\n last long.\"","He is glad that Hattie had a good time in \n Washington during her visit and\n that she is enjoying \n New York City as well but does\n not plan to see her in \n New York ","Thanks her for her expression of sympathy and\n mentions that his daughter is visiting with him","Bierce writes that he hopes her reasons for\n staying in the East so long is due to having such a\n good time and not the matchmaking attempts of Sally\n and Nettie, and he also touts his typewriting ability\n \"I have one great qualification: I can hold my\n tongue, though sometimes both hands are required to\n do the job\"","Having received her note about her impending\n marriage Bierce writes, \"It is pleasant to know that\n you still live, though about to die -I mean marry and\n live in \n Philadelphia . I approve the\n marriage, but \n Philadelphia ! -that is going too\n far\" and asks for news of everyone","See the \n             \n            University of Virginia Library’s use policy.","","English"],"unitid_tesim":["5992-j"],"normalized_title_ssm":["Ambrose Bierce Collection, \n 1896-1903"],"collection_title_tesim":["Ambrose Bierce Collection, \n 1896-1903"],"collection_ssim":["Ambrose Bierce Collection, \n 1896-1903"],"repository_ssm":["University of Virginia, Special Collections Dept."],"repository_ssim":["University of Virginia, Special Collections Dept."],"creator_ssm":[""],"creator_ssim":[""],"acqinfo_ssim":["This collection was purchased from Robert F. Batchelder, Ambler, Pa., September\n 4, 1991."],"has_online_content_ssim":["false"],"accessrestrict_html_tesm":["\u003cp\u003eThere are no restrictions.\u003c/p\u003e"],"accessrestrict_heading_ssm":["Access Restrictions"],"accessrestrict_tesim":["There are no restrictions."],"prefercite_html_tesm":["\u003cp\u003eAmbrose Bierce Collection, Accession #5992-j, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library, Charlottesville, Va.\u003c/p\u003e"],"prefercite_tesim":["Ambrose Bierce Collection, Accession #5992-j, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library, Charlottesville, Va."],"scopecontent_html_tesm":["\u003cp\u003eThis collection consists of 36 letters from Ambrose Bierce to Harriet Hershberg.\n\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eBierce promises to have his photograph taken so\n that he can fulfill her request for his autograph and\n a photograph and playfully says, \"When I get there \n [Oakland] I shall blindfold you,\n hypnotize you and command you to find my lost youth\n and freedom. Then I shall marry you alive and live\n happily ever after.\"\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eBierce writes \"I am sending you by this mail the\n photograph of a bad old man with a scowl. The scowl,\n however, is not for you -you never saw it.\" He did\n not send a photograph to her big sister (Louise ?)\n because she already possessed one more pleasant\n looking\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eHe accepts all of her gratitude and regard for\n himself although he does not believe that he merits\n it. He regrets that he cannot say when he will be\n able to meet Mr. King but agrees to see him\n informally some time when he is in \n Oakland \u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eIn this letter, he sends Harriet some wild\n pansies growing by the wayside because they made him\n think of her, \"I feel sure that the thought of you\n was put into my head by some divine intervention in\n the affairs of mortals, and for some purpose. My\n interpretation -with my feeble light and dull\n intuition-is that I am to send you some of those poor\n little frail pansies.\" He then goes on to explain\n that pansies are for thoughts and their old English\n name \"hearts-ease\" is better suited than \"pansies =\n pensees\"\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eThanks her for sending him the ginger cakes which\n he tried to share with the horned-toads but they\n preferred grasshoppers. He declines to visit \n Oakland because his last visit\n cost him a month's illness but urges her to visit him\n in \n Los Gatos and to bring with her\n \"that impossible paragon, the \n Pittsburgh sister -whom, however,\n I believe to be a myth.\"\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eAsks Harriet for the Paris address of her \"musical\n sweetheart,\" Will King, so that he can thank\n him for a book and asks her to write him concerning\n herself. Otherwise he will have to hire a detective\n to shadow her night and day and send him reports of\n everything he learns about her activities\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eHe wishes to see her very badly but remembers all\n too well the last illness which he suffered in \n Oakland, promises to send\n tickets to Belle and her if they will visit him in \n Los Gatos for a Sunday afternoon,\n and mentions receiving a letter from her sister\n Louise\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eExpresses joy at the receipt of her letter for\n \"it clears you of the solemn suspicion of running\n away from me in cold-blooded infraction of our\n understanding\" but he also thinks \"it very rascally\n of you to take all the sunshine out of \n Oakland to bestow it upon \n Iona \"\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eSends another photograph to replace the damaged\n one along with several books to \"the Colonel and the\n Major\" and mentions a letter from Mamie who proved to\n be a charming traveling companion\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eResponding to her impression of his goodness\n Bierce writes, \"It is pretty easy to be good to you,\n and I don't expect any credit for it in the books of\n the Recording Angel. He will say: 'Bah ! who wouldn't\n be good to Hattie Hershberg?' and then he\n will debit me with one selfish motive.\" He also\n mentions Kodak photographs of a group consisting of Hattie, Mamie, Dave, Selma, Louise, and\n himself, while assuring her of his devotion, \"you are still the only girl in the world; and if there is a\n man who does not love you he is a scoundrel.\" Referring the Preston School of Industry in Ione, California, a juvenile correction institute supervised by a relative of Hirshberg's Bierce writes, \"No, my pet scheme for making soldiers of the Major's little rascals is not practicable. The confounded Government is so particular about the moral character of its recruits that I couldn't enlist myself. This is a great disappointment to me. I had quite set my heart on getting Co. A into Cuba, to prove that bad boys make the best soldiers. But I'm assured that it cannot be done.\"\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eWrites that he has severed all connections with \n Los Gatos and that his health is\n now good as he day dreams under the redwoods. He\n complains that thoughts of her often break in upon\n his reminiscences of the past, \"Only the other day\n you want only interrupted the march of a column of\n troops from \n Readyville, Tennessee to \n Woodbury, Tennessee, which was\n not at all nice of you.\"\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eAgrees to take her to see the soldiers and to\n expound every military mystery they encounter and to\n plan a trip to the country when she visits\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003ePromises to visit \n San Francisco next Sunday and\n Monday if she promises to give him Monday, when they\n can see the soldiers or go anywhere she wants\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eBierce was unable to go to \n Oakland and wishes that he could\n run the world awhile, \"My first official act would be\n to order you and Mamie to \n Los Gatos ; my second, to go\n there myself.\"\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eThanks Hattie for the present of a cushion\n because it signified her return from her trip to a\n lake in the mountains and asks if he can visit her on\n Saturday afternoon\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eHopes that she is happier than in her last letter\n and asks individually about the health of her whole\n family\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eAgrees to examine the manuscript of one of her\n friends if it is in typescript and legible and\n describes his new quarters in a house with six rooms,\n one of which he has reserved for her and her chaperon\n if she will visit\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eApologizes for his seeming inattention and\n answers her questions about the \n \u003cbibref type=\"simple\" href=\"\"\u003e\u003ctitle type=\"simple\" href=\"\"\u003eRubaiyat of Omar Khayyam\u003c/title\u003e\u003c/bibref\u003e\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eUrges Hattie to come, rent a house, and visit\n several weeks in the area along with Belle and\n Florence, \"Please say if you will come and thereby\n sweeten the fragrance of the flowers, intensify the\n gold of the sunshine and add a new music to the\n voices of my pet quails -one of which sits on my knee\n as I write and looks knowing as if he said: I can\n tell by your face whom you are writing to?\"\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eExpresses his disappointment that she did not\n come up to visit during her summer outing and\n determines to accustom himself to disappointment even\n to the point of allowing Harriet, Belle, and Florence\n to marry if they choose\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eAsks her to again send the recipe for molasses\n candy for some of the ladies there want to make some\n and \"as the purpose of my existence is to please the\n members of the sex which your virtues preserve from\n damnation I comply with the request\"\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eVoices his concern over Louise's illness (malaria\n ?) and begs for news of her condition\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eAsks for news of Louise and relates his plans to\n make a farewell visit to \n San Francisco before he returns\n to \n Washington, D.C. to live\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eThanks Hattie for her good news about Louise and\n the invitation to Thanksgiving dinner which he must\n decline in the chaos of preparing to leave for \n Washington, D.C. but promises to\n try to see them all before he leaves\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eTells Hattie that he is to leave today and asks\n if she can keep herself and Louise and Belle at home\n long enough to see him before he leaves at 5\n p.m.\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eTells her that \"it is not worthwhile to love you\n anymore, for I shall never see you again\" even if she\n should visit \n Pittsburgh because the coal smoke\n from the railway engines makes him very ill and there\n is little else in \n Pittsburgh . \u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eAsks about the family and when she will be able\n to visit her sister Nettie in \n Pittsburgh and him in \n Washington \u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eDeclares that if he shall ever see those whom he\n loves again he will have to do the traveling \"to the\n imminent destruction of my lungs\" and wishes her \"as\n much happiness as I can make up my mind that you\n ought to have in my absence\"\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eHopes to see her in \n Washington before she leaves on\n her trip to \n Europe with her sister Nettie and\n offers to show her the capital\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eHaving just returned from an unpleasant fortnight\n in \n New York, Bierce hopes that\n Hattie will be able to visit him in \n Washington, although he would be\n willing to return to \n New York to see her\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eBierce looks forward to seeing Harriet in a few\n days and describes his Christmas Day activities\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eAssures her that he is not angry that she won't\n be coming to \n Washington because \"I have lived\n long enough to learn that a woman's promise is merely\n the expression of a mood -and woman's moods do not\n last long.\"\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eHe is glad that Hattie had a good time in \n Washington during her visit and\n that she is enjoying \n New York City as well but does\n not plan to see her in \n New York \u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eThanks her for her expression of sympathy and\n mentions that his daughter is visiting with him\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eBierce writes that he hopes her reasons for\n staying in the East so long is due to having such a\n good time and not the matchmaking attempts of Sally\n and Nettie, and he also touts his typewriting ability\n \"I have one great qualification: I can hold my\n tongue, though sometimes both hands are required to\n do the job\"\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eHaving received her note about her impending\n marriage Bierce writes, \"It is pleasant to know that\n you still live, though about to die -I mean marry and\n live in \n Philadelphia . I approve the\n marriage, but \n Philadelphia ! -that is going too\n far\" and asks for news of everyone\u003c/p\u003e"],"scopecontent_heading_ssm":["Scope and Content\n"],"scopecontent_tesim":["This collection consists of 36 letters from Ambrose Bierce to Harriet Hershberg.\n","Bierce promises to have his photograph taken so\n that he can fulfill her request for his autograph and\n a photograph and playfully says, \"When I get there \n [Oakland] I shall blindfold you,\n hypnotize you and command you to find my lost youth\n and freedom. Then I shall marry you alive and live\n happily ever after.\"","Bierce writes \"I am sending you by this mail the\n photograph of a bad old man with a scowl. The scowl,\n however, is not for you -you never saw it.\" He did\n not send a photograph to her big sister (Louise ?)\n because she already possessed one more pleasant\n looking","He accepts all of her gratitude and regard for\n himself although he does not believe that he merits\n it. He regrets that he cannot say when he will be\n able to meet Mr. King but agrees to see him\n informally some time when he is in \n Oakland ","In this letter, he sends Harriet some wild\n pansies growing by the wayside because they made him\n think of her, \"I feel sure that the thought of you\n was put into my head by some divine intervention in\n the affairs of mortals, and for some purpose. My\n interpretation -with my feeble light and dull\n intuition-is that I am to send you some of those poor\n little frail pansies.\" He then goes on to explain\n that pansies are for thoughts and their old English\n name \"hearts-ease\" is better suited than \"pansies =\n pensees\"","Thanks her for sending him the ginger cakes which\n he tried to share with the horned-toads but they\n preferred grasshoppers. He declines to visit \n Oakland because his last visit\n cost him a month's illness but urges her to visit him\n in \n Los Gatos and to bring with her\n \"that impossible paragon, the \n Pittsburgh sister -whom, however,\n I believe to be a myth.\"","Asks Harriet for the Paris address of her \"musical\n sweetheart,\" Will King, so that he can thank\n him for a book and asks her to write him concerning\n herself. Otherwise he will have to hire a detective\n to shadow her night and day and send him reports of\n everything he learns about her activities","He wishes to see her very badly but remembers all\n too well the last illness which he suffered in \n Oakland, promises to send\n tickets to Belle and her if they will visit him in \n Los Gatos for a Sunday afternoon,\n and mentions receiving a letter from her sister\n Louise","Expresses joy at the receipt of her letter for\n \"it clears you of the solemn suspicion of running\n away from me in cold-blooded infraction of our\n understanding\" but he also thinks \"it very rascally\n of you to take all the sunshine out of \n Oakland to bestow it upon \n Iona \"","Sends another photograph to replace the damaged\n one along with several books to \"the Colonel and the\n Major\" and mentions a letter from Mamie who proved to\n be a charming traveling companion","Responding to her impression of his goodness\n Bierce writes, \"It is pretty easy to be good to you,\n and I don't expect any credit for it in the books of\n the Recording Angel. He will say: 'Bah ! who wouldn't\n be good to Hattie Hershberg?' and then he\n will debit me with one selfish motive.\" He also\n mentions Kodak photographs of a group consisting of Hattie, Mamie, Dave, Selma, Louise, and\n himself, while assuring her of his devotion, \"you are still the only girl in the world; and if there is a\n man who does not love you he is a scoundrel.\" Referring the Preston School of Industry in Ione, California, a juvenile correction institute supervised by a relative of Hirshberg's Bierce writes, \"No, my pet scheme for making soldiers of the Major's little rascals is not practicable. The confounded Government is so particular about the moral character of its recruits that I couldn't enlist myself. This is a great disappointment to me. I had quite set my heart on getting Co. A into Cuba, to prove that bad boys make the best soldiers. But I'm assured that it cannot be done.\"","Writes that he has severed all connections with \n Los Gatos and that his health is\n now good as he day dreams under the redwoods. He\n complains that thoughts of her often break in upon\n his reminiscences of the past, \"Only the other day\n you want only interrupted the march of a column of\n troops from \n Readyville, Tennessee to \n Woodbury, Tennessee, which was\n not at all nice of you.\"","Agrees to take her to see the soldiers and to\n expound every military mystery they encounter and to\n plan a trip to the country when she visits","Promises to visit \n San Francisco next Sunday and\n Monday if she promises to give him Monday, when they\n can see the soldiers or go anywhere she wants","Bierce was unable to go to \n Oakland and wishes that he could\n run the world awhile, \"My first official act would be\n to order you and Mamie to \n Los Gatos ; my second, to go\n there myself.\"","Thanks Hattie for the present of a cushion\n because it signified her return from her trip to a\n lake in the mountains and asks if he can visit her on\n Saturday afternoon","Hopes that she is happier than in her last letter\n and asks individually about the health of her whole\n family","Agrees to examine the manuscript of one of her\n friends if it is in typescript and legible and\n describes his new quarters in a house with six rooms,\n one of which he has reserved for her and her chaperon\n if she will visit","Apologizes for his seeming inattention and\n answers her questions about the \n  Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam","Urges Hattie to come, rent a house, and visit\n several weeks in the area along with Belle and\n Florence, \"Please say if you will come and thereby\n sweeten the fragrance of the flowers, intensify the\n gold of the sunshine and add a new music to the\n voices of my pet quails -one of which sits on my knee\n as I write and looks knowing as if he said: I can\n tell by your face whom you are writing to?\"","Expresses his disappointment that she did not\n come up to visit during her summer outing and\n determines to accustom himself to disappointment even\n to the point of allowing Harriet, Belle, and Florence\n to marry if they choose","Asks her to again send the recipe for molasses\n candy for some of the ladies there want to make some\n and \"as the purpose of my existence is to please the\n members of the sex which your virtues preserve from\n damnation I comply with the request\"","Voices his concern over Louise's illness (malaria\n ?) and begs for news of her condition","Asks for news of Louise and relates his plans to\n make a farewell visit to \n San Francisco before he returns\n to \n Washington, D.C. to live","Thanks Hattie for her good news about Louise and\n the invitation to Thanksgiving dinner which he must\n decline in the chaos of preparing to leave for \n Washington, D.C. but promises to\n try to see them all before he leaves","Tells Hattie that he is to leave today and asks\n if she can keep herself and Louise and Belle at home\n long enough to see him before he leaves at 5\n p.m.","Tells her that \"it is not worthwhile to love you\n anymore, for I shall never see you again\" even if she\n should visit \n Pittsburgh because the coal smoke\n from the railway engines makes him very ill and there\n is little else in \n Pittsburgh . ","Asks about the family and when she will be able\n to visit her sister Nettie in \n Pittsburgh and him in \n Washington ","Declares that if he shall ever see those whom he\n loves again he will have to do the traveling \"to the\n imminent destruction of my lungs\" and wishes her \"as\n much happiness as I can make up my mind that you\n ought to have in my absence\"","Hopes to see her in \n Washington before she leaves on\n her trip to \n Europe with her sister Nettie and\n offers to show her the capital","Having just returned from an unpleasant fortnight\n in \n New York, Bierce hopes that\n Hattie will be able to visit him in \n Washington, although he would be\n willing to return to \n New York to see her","Bierce looks forward to seeing Harriet in a few\n days and describes his Christmas Day activities","Assures her that he is not angry that she won't\n be coming to \n Washington because \"I have lived\n long enough to learn that a woman's promise is merely\n the expression of a mood -and woman's moods do not\n last long.\"","He is glad that Hattie had a good time in \n Washington during her visit and\n that she is enjoying \n New York City as well but does\n not plan to see her in \n New York ","Thanks her for her expression of sympathy and\n mentions that his daughter is visiting with him","Bierce writes that he hopes her reasons for\n staying in the East so long is due to having such a\n good time and not the matchmaking attempts of Sally\n and Nettie, and he also touts his typewriting ability\n \"I have one great qualification: I can hold my\n tongue, though sometimes both hands are required to\n do the job\"","Having received her note about her impending\n marriage Bierce writes, \"It is pleasant to know that\n you still live, though about to die -I mean marry and\n live in \n Philadelphia . I approve the\n marriage, but \n Philadelphia ! -that is going too\n far\" and asks for news of everyone"],"userestrict_html_tesm":["\u003cp\u003eSee the \n            \u003cextref type=\"simple\" href=\"https://www.library.virginia.edu/policies/use-of-materials\"\u003e\n            University of Virginia Library’s use policy.\u003c/extref\u003e\u003c/p\u003e"],"userestrict_heading_ssm":["Use Restrictions"],"userestrict_tesim":["See the \n             \n            University of Virginia Library’s use policy."],"physloc_html_tesm":["\u003cphysloc/\u003e"],"physloc_tesim":[""],"language_ssim":["English"],"total_component_count_is":36,"online_item_count_is":0,"component_level_isim":[0],"sort_isi":0,"timestamp":"2026-05-21T12:00:01.811Z"}]}},"label":"Breadcrumbs"}}},"links":{"self":"https://arvasarchive.org/catalog/viu_viu00058_c33"}},{"id":"viu_viu00058_c32","type":"Item","attributes":{"title":"Ambrose Bierce, \n Washington, D.C., to \n Harriet Hershberg, \n Pittsburgh,\n Pennsylvania","abstract_or_scope":{"id":"https://arvasarchive.org/catalog/viu_viu00058_c32#abstract_or_scope","type":"document_value","attributes":{"value":"\u003cp\u003eAssures her that he is not angry that she won't be coming to Washington because \"I have lived long enough to learn that a woman's promise is merely the expression of a mood -and woman's moods do not last long.\"\u003c/p\u003e","label":"Abstract Or Scope"}},"breadcrumbs":{"id":"https://arvasarchive.org/catalog/viu_viu00058_c32#breadcrumbs","type":"document_value","attributes":{"value":{"ref_ssi":"viu_viu00058_c32","ref_ssm":["viu_viu00058_c32"],"id":"viu_viu00058_c32","ead_ssi":"viu_viu00058","_root_":"viu_viu00058","_nest_parent_":"viu_viu00058","parent_ssi":"viu_viu00058","parent_ssim":["viu_viu00058"],"parent_ids_ssim":["viu_viu00058"],"parent_unittitles_ssm":["Ambrose Bierce Collection, \n 1896-1903"],"parent_unittitles_tesim":["Ambrose Bierce Collection, \n 1896-1903"],"text":["Ambrose Bierce Collection, \n 1896-1903","Ambrose Bierce, \n Washington, D.C., to \n Harriet Hershberg, \n Pittsburgh,\n Pennsylvania","ALS, \n 3 p., with envelope.","Assures her that he is not angry that she won't\n be coming to \n Washington because \"I have lived\n long enough to learn that a woman's promise is merely\n the expression of a mood -and woman's moods do not\n last long.\""],"title_filing_ssi":"\n Ambrose Bierce, \n Washington, D.C., to \n Harriet Hershberg, \n Pittsburgh,\n Pennsylvania \n ","title_ssm":["Ambrose Bierce, \n Washington, D.C., to \n Harriet Hershberg, \n Pittsburgh,\n Pennsylvania"],"title_tesim":["Ambrose Bierce, \n Washington, D.C., to \n Harriet Hershberg, \n Pittsburgh,\n Pennsylvania"],"unitdate_other_ssim":["1901 February 8"],"normalized_date_ssm":["1901"],"normalized_title_ssm":["Ambrose Bierce, \n Washington, D.C., to \n Harriet Hershberg, \n Pittsburgh,\n Pennsylvania"],"component_level_isim":[1],"repository_ssim":["University of Virginia, Special Collections Dept."],"collection_ssim":["Ambrose Bierce Collection, \n 1896-1903"],"physdesc_tesim":["ALS, \n 3 p., with envelope."],"has_online_content_ssim":["false"],"child_component_count_isi":0,"level_ssm":["Item"],"level_ssim":["Item"],"sort_isi":32,"date_range_isim":[1901],"scopecontent_html_tesm":["\u003cp\u003eAssures her that he is not angry that she won't\n be coming to \n Washington because \"I have lived\n long enough to learn that a woman's promise is merely\n the expression of a mood -and woman's moods do not\n last long.\"\u003c/p\u003e"],"scopecontent_tesim":["Assures her that he is not angry that she won't\n be coming to \n Washington because \"I have lived\n long enough to learn that a woman's promise is merely\n the expression of a mood -and woman's moods do not\n last long.\""],"_nest_path_":"/components#31","timestamp":"2026-05-21T12:00:01.811Z","collection":{"numFound":1,"start":0,"numFoundExact":true,"docs":[{"id":"viu_viu00058","ead_ssi":"viu_viu00058","_root_":"viu_viu00058","_nest_parent_":"viu_viu00058","ead_source_url_ssi":"data/uva-sc/viu00058.xml","title_ssm":["Ambrose Bierce Collection, \n 1896-1903"],"title_tesim":["Ambrose Bierce Collection, \n 1896-1903"],"level_ssm":["collection"],"level_ssim":["Collection"],"unitid_ssm":["5992-j"],"text":["5992-j","Ambrose Bierce Collection, \n 1896-1903","There are no restrictions.","This collection consists of 36 letters from Ambrose Bierce to Harriet Hershberg.\n","Bierce promises to have his photograph taken so\n that he can fulfill her request for his autograph and\n a photograph and playfully says, \"When I get there \n [Oakland] I shall blindfold you,\n hypnotize you and command you to find my lost youth\n and freedom. Then I shall marry you alive and live\n happily ever after.\"","Bierce writes \"I am sending you by this mail the\n photograph of a bad old man with a scowl. The scowl,\n however, is not for you -you never saw it.\" He did\n not send a photograph to her big sister (Louise ?)\n because she already possessed one more pleasant\n looking","He accepts all of her gratitude and regard for\n himself although he does not believe that he merits\n it. He regrets that he cannot say when he will be\n able to meet Mr. King but agrees to see him\n informally some time when he is in \n Oakland ","In this letter, he sends Harriet some wild\n pansies growing by the wayside because they made him\n think of her, \"I feel sure that the thought of you\n was put into my head by some divine intervention in\n the affairs of mortals, and for some purpose. My\n interpretation -with my feeble light and dull\n intuition-is that I am to send you some of those poor\n little frail pansies.\" He then goes on to explain\n that pansies are for thoughts and their old English\n name \"hearts-ease\" is better suited than \"pansies =\n pensees\"","Thanks her for sending him the ginger cakes which\n he tried to share with the horned-toads but they\n preferred grasshoppers. He declines to visit \n Oakland because his last visit\n cost him a month's illness but urges her to visit him\n in \n Los Gatos and to bring with her\n \"that impossible paragon, the \n Pittsburgh sister -whom, however,\n I believe to be a myth.\"","Asks Harriet for the Paris address of her \"musical\n sweetheart,\" Will King, so that he can thank\n him for a book and asks her to write him concerning\n herself. Otherwise he will have to hire a detective\n to shadow her night and day and send him reports of\n everything he learns about her activities","He wishes to see her very badly but remembers all\n too well the last illness which he suffered in \n Oakland, promises to send\n tickets to Belle and her if they will visit him in \n Los Gatos for a Sunday afternoon,\n and mentions receiving a letter from her sister\n Louise","Expresses joy at the receipt of her letter for\n \"it clears you of the solemn suspicion of running\n away from me in cold-blooded infraction of our\n understanding\" but he also thinks \"it very rascally\n of you to take all the sunshine out of \n Oakland to bestow it upon \n Iona \"","Sends another photograph to replace the damaged\n one along with several books to \"the Colonel and the\n Major\" and mentions a letter from Mamie who proved to\n be a charming traveling companion","Responding to her impression of his goodness\n Bierce writes, \"It is pretty easy to be good to you,\n and I don't expect any credit for it in the books of\n the Recording Angel. He will say: 'Bah ! who wouldn't\n be good to Hattie Hershberg?' and then he\n will debit me with one selfish motive.\" He also\n mentions Kodak photographs of a group consisting of Hattie, Mamie, Dave, Selma, Louise, and\n himself, while assuring her of his devotion, \"you are still the only girl in the world; and if there is a\n man who does not love you he is a scoundrel.\" Referring the Preston School of Industry in Ione, California, a juvenile correction institute supervised by a relative of Hirshberg's Bierce writes, \"No, my pet scheme for making soldiers of the Major's little rascals is not practicable. The confounded Government is so particular about the moral character of its recruits that I couldn't enlist myself. This is a great disappointment to me. I had quite set my heart on getting Co. A into Cuba, to prove that bad boys make the best soldiers. But I'm assured that it cannot be done.\"","Writes that he has severed all connections with \n Los Gatos and that his health is\n now good as he day dreams under the redwoods. He\n complains that thoughts of her often break in upon\n his reminiscences of the past, \"Only the other day\n you want only interrupted the march of a column of\n troops from \n Readyville, Tennessee to \n Woodbury, Tennessee, which was\n not at all nice of you.\"","Agrees to take her to see the soldiers and to\n expound every military mystery they encounter and to\n plan a trip to the country when she visits","Promises to visit \n San Francisco next Sunday and\n Monday if she promises to give him Monday, when they\n can see the soldiers or go anywhere she wants","Bierce was unable to go to \n Oakland and wishes that he could\n run the world awhile, \"My first official act would be\n to order you and Mamie to \n Los Gatos ; my second, to go\n there myself.\"","Thanks Hattie for the present of a cushion\n because it signified her return from her trip to a\n lake in the mountains and asks if he can visit her on\n Saturday afternoon","Hopes that she is happier than in her last letter\n and asks individually about the health of her whole\n family","Agrees to examine the manuscript of one of her\n friends if it is in typescript and legible and\n describes his new quarters in a house with six rooms,\n one of which he has reserved for her and her chaperon\n if she will visit","Apologizes for his seeming inattention and\n answers her questions about the \n  Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam","Urges Hattie to come, rent a house, and visit\n several weeks in the area along with Belle and\n Florence, \"Please say if you will come and thereby\n sweeten the fragrance of the flowers, intensify the\n gold of the sunshine and add a new music to the\n voices of my pet quails -one of which sits on my knee\n as I write and looks knowing as if he said: I can\n tell by your face whom you are writing to?\"","Expresses his disappointment that she did not\n come up to visit during her summer outing and\n determines to accustom himself to disappointment even\n to the point of allowing Harriet, Belle, and Florence\n to marry if they choose","Asks her to again send the recipe for molasses\n candy for some of the ladies there want to make some\n and \"as the purpose of my existence is to please the\n members of the sex which your virtues preserve from\n damnation I comply with the request\"","Voices his concern over Louise's illness (malaria\n ?) and begs for news of her condition","Asks for news of Louise and relates his plans to\n make a farewell visit to \n San Francisco before he returns\n to \n Washington, D.C. to live","Thanks Hattie for her good news about Louise and\n the invitation to Thanksgiving dinner which he must\n decline in the chaos of preparing to leave for \n Washington, D.C. but promises to\n try to see them all before he leaves","Tells Hattie that he is to leave today and asks\n if she can keep herself and Louise and Belle at home\n long enough to see him before he leaves at 5\n p.m.","Tells her that \"it is not worthwhile to love you\n anymore, for I shall never see you again\" even if she\n should visit \n Pittsburgh because the coal smoke\n from the railway engines makes him very ill and there\n is little else in \n Pittsburgh . ","Asks about the family and when she will be able\n to visit her sister Nettie in \n Pittsburgh and him in \n Washington ","Declares that if he shall ever see those whom he\n loves again he will have to do the traveling \"to the\n imminent destruction of my lungs\" and wishes her \"as\n much happiness as I can make up my mind that you\n ought to have in my absence\"","Hopes to see her in \n Washington before she leaves on\n her trip to \n Europe with her sister Nettie and\n offers to show her the capital","Having just returned from an unpleasant fortnight\n in \n New York, Bierce hopes that\n Hattie will be able to visit him in \n Washington, although he would be\n willing to return to \n New York to see her","Bierce looks forward to seeing Harriet in a few\n days and describes his Christmas Day activities","Assures her that he is not angry that she won't\n be coming to \n Washington because \"I have lived\n long enough to learn that a woman's promise is merely\n the expression of a mood -and woman's moods do not\n last long.\"","He is glad that Hattie had a good time in \n Washington during her visit and\n that she is enjoying \n New York City as well but does\n not plan to see her in \n New York ","Thanks her for her expression of sympathy and\n mentions that his daughter is visiting with him","Bierce writes that he hopes her reasons for\n staying in the East so long is due to having such a\n good time and not the matchmaking attempts of Sally\n and Nettie, and he also touts his typewriting ability\n \"I have one great qualification: I can hold my\n tongue, though sometimes both hands are required to\n do the job\"","Having received her note about her impending\n marriage Bierce writes, \"It is pleasant to know that\n you still live, though about to die -I mean marry and\n live in \n Philadelphia . I approve the\n marriage, but \n Philadelphia ! -that is going too\n far\" and asks for news of everyone","See the \n             \n            University of Virginia Library’s use policy.","","English"],"unitid_tesim":["5992-j"],"normalized_title_ssm":["Ambrose Bierce Collection, \n 1896-1903"],"collection_title_tesim":["Ambrose Bierce Collection, \n 1896-1903"],"collection_ssim":["Ambrose Bierce Collection, \n 1896-1903"],"repository_ssm":["University of Virginia, Special Collections Dept."],"repository_ssim":["University of Virginia, Special Collections Dept."],"creator_ssm":[""],"creator_ssim":[""],"acqinfo_ssim":["This collection was purchased from Robert F. Batchelder, Ambler, Pa., September\n 4, 1991."],"has_online_content_ssim":["false"],"accessrestrict_html_tesm":["\u003cp\u003eThere are no restrictions.\u003c/p\u003e"],"accessrestrict_heading_ssm":["Access Restrictions"],"accessrestrict_tesim":["There are no restrictions."],"prefercite_html_tesm":["\u003cp\u003eAmbrose Bierce Collection, Accession #5992-j, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library, Charlottesville, Va.\u003c/p\u003e"],"prefercite_tesim":["Ambrose Bierce Collection, Accession #5992-j, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library, Charlottesville, Va."],"scopecontent_html_tesm":["\u003cp\u003eThis collection consists of 36 letters from Ambrose Bierce to Harriet Hershberg.\n\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eBierce promises to have his photograph taken so\n that he can fulfill her request for his autograph and\n a photograph and playfully says, \"When I get there \n [Oakland] I shall blindfold you,\n hypnotize you and command you to find my lost youth\n and freedom. Then I shall marry you alive and live\n happily ever after.\"\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eBierce writes \"I am sending you by this mail the\n photograph of a bad old man with a scowl. The scowl,\n however, is not for you -you never saw it.\" He did\n not send a photograph to her big sister (Louise ?)\n because she already possessed one more pleasant\n looking\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eHe accepts all of her gratitude and regard for\n himself although he does not believe that he merits\n it. He regrets that he cannot say when he will be\n able to meet Mr. King but agrees to see him\n informally some time when he is in \n Oakland \u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eIn this letter, he sends Harriet some wild\n pansies growing by the wayside because they made him\n think of her, \"I feel sure that the thought of you\n was put into my head by some divine intervention in\n the affairs of mortals, and for some purpose. My\n interpretation -with my feeble light and dull\n intuition-is that I am to send you some of those poor\n little frail pansies.\" He then goes on to explain\n that pansies are for thoughts and their old English\n name \"hearts-ease\" is better suited than \"pansies =\n pensees\"\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eThanks her for sending him the ginger cakes which\n he tried to share with the horned-toads but they\n preferred grasshoppers. He declines to visit \n Oakland because his last visit\n cost him a month's illness but urges her to visit him\n in \n Los Gatos and to bring with her\n \"that impossible paragon, the \n Pittsburgh sister -whom, however,\n I believe to be a myth.\"\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eAsks Harriet for the Paris address of her \"musical\n sweetheart,\" Will King, so that he can thank\n him for a book and asks her to write him concerning\n herself. Otherwise he will have to hire a detective\n to shadow her night and day and send him reports of\n everything he learns about her activities\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eHe wishes to see her very badly but remembers all\n too well the last illness which he suffered in \n Oakland, promises to send\n tickets to Belle and her if they will visit him in \n Los Gatos for a Sunday afternoon,\n and mentions receiving a letter from her sister\n Louise\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eExpresses joy at the receipt of her letter for\n \"it clears you of the solemn suspicion of running\n away from me in cold-blooded infraction of our\n understanding\" but he also thinks \"it very rascally\n of you to take all the sunshine out of \n Oakland to bestow it upon \n Iona \"\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eSends another photograph to replace the damaged\n one along with several books to \"the Colonel and the\n Major\" and mentions a letter from Mamie who proved to\n be a charming traveling companion\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eResponding to her impression of his goodness\n Bierce writes, \"It is pretty easy to be good to you,\n and I don't expect any credit for it in the books of\n the Recording Angel. He will say: 'Bah ! who wouldn't\n be good to Hattie Hershberg?' and then he\n will debit me with one selfish motive.\" He also\n mentions Kodak photographs of a group consisting of Hattie, Mamie, Dave, Selma, Louise, and\n himself, while assuring her of his devotion, \"you are still the only girl in the world; and if there is a\n man who does not love you he is a scoundrel.\" Referring the Preston School of Industry in Ione, California, a juvenile correction institute supervised by a relative of Hirshberg's Bierce writes, \"No, my pet scheme for making soldiers of the Major's little rascals is not practicable. The confounded Government is so particular about the moral character of its recruits that I couldn't enlist myself. This is a great disappointment to me. I had quite set my heart on getting Co. A into Cuba, to prove that bad boys make the best soldiers. But I'm assured that it cannot be done.\"\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eWrites that he has severed all connections with \n Los Gatos and that his health is\n now good as he day dreams under the redwoods. He\n complains that thoughts of her often break in upon\n his reminiscences of the past, \"Only the other day\n you want only interrupted the march of a column of\n troops from \n Readyville, Tennessee to \n Woodbury, Tennessee, which was\n not at all nice of you.\"\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eAgrees to take her to see the soldiers and to\n expound every military mystery they encounter and to\n plan a trip to the country when she visits\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003ePromises to visit \n San Francisco next Sunday and\n Monday if she promises to give him Monday, when they\n can see the soldiers or go anywhere she wants\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eBierce was unable to go to \n Oakland and wishes that he could\n run the world awhile, \"My first official act would be\n to order you and Mamie to \n Los Gatos ; my second, to go\n there myself.\"\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eThanks Hattie for the present of a cushion\n because it signified her return from her trip to a\n lake in the mountains and asks if he can visit her on\n Saturday afternoon\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eHopes that she is happier than in her last letter\n and asks individually about the health of her whole\n family\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eAgrees to examine the manuscript of one of her\n friends if it is in typescript and legible and\n describes his new quarters in a house with six rooms,\n one of which he has reserved for her and her chaperon\n if she will visit\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eApologizes for his seeming inattention and\n answers her questions about the \n \u003cbibref type=\"simple\" href=\"\"\u003e\u003ctitle type=\"simple\" href=\"\"\u003eRubaiyat of Omar Khayyam\u003c/title\u003e\u003c/bibref\u003e\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eUrges Hattie to come, rent a house, and visit\n several weeks in the area along with Belle and\n Florence, \"Please say if you will come and thereby\n sweeten the fragrance of the flowers, intensify the\n gold of the sunshine and add a new music to the\n voices of my pet quails -one of which sits on my knee\n as I write and looks knowing as if he said: I can\n tell by your face whom you are writing to?\"\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eExpresses his disappointment that she did not\n come up to visit during her summer outing and\n determines to accustom himself to disappointment even\n to the point of allowing Harriet, Belle, and Florence\n to marry if they choose\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eAsks her to again send the recipe for molasses\n candy for some of the ladies there want to make some\n and \"as the purpose of my existence is to please the\n members of the sex which your virtues preserve from\n damnation I comply with the request\"\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eVoices his concern over Louise's illness (malaria\n ?) and begs for news of her condition\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eAsks for news of Louise and relates his plans to\n make a farewell visit to \n San Francisco before he returns\n to \n Washington, D.C. to live\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eThanks Hattie for her good news about Louise and\n the invitation to Thanksgiving dinner which he must\n decline in the chaos of preparing to leave for \n Washington, D.C. but promises to\n try to see them all before he leaves\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eTells Hattie that he is to leave today and asks\n if she can keep herself and Louise and Belle at home\n long enough to see him before he leaves at 5\n p.m.\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eTells her that \"it is not worthwhile to love you\n anymore, for I shall never see you again\" even if she\n should visit \n Pittsburgh because the coal smoke\n from the railway engines makes him very ill and there\n is little else in \n Pittsburgh . \u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eAsks about the family and when she will be able\n to visit her sister Nettie in \n Pittsburgh and him in \n Washington \u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eDeclares that if he shall ever see those whom he\n loves again he will have to do the traveling \"to the\n imminent destruction of my lungs\" and wishes her \"as\n much happiness as I can make up my mind that you\n ought to have in my absence\"\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eHopes to see her in \n Washington before she leaves on\n her trip to \n Europe with her sister Nettie and\n offers to show her the capital\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eHaving just returned from an unpleasant fortnight\n in \n New York, Bierce hopes that\n Hattie will be able to visit him in \n Washington, although he would be\n willing to return to \n New York to see her\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eBierce looks forward to seeing Harriet in a few\n days and describes his Christmas Day activities\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eAssures her that he is not angry that she won't\n be coming to \n Washington because \"I have lived\n long enough to learn that a woman's promise is merely\n the expression of a mood -and woman's moods do not\n last long.\"\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eHe is glad that Hattie had a good time in \n Washington during her visit and\n that she is enjoying \n New York City as well but does\n not plan to see her in \n New York \u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eThanks her for her expression of sympathy and\n mentions that his daughter is visiting with him\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eBierce writes that he hopes her reasons for\n staying in the East so long is due to having such a\n good time and not the matchmaking attempts of Sally\n and Nettie, and he also touts his typewriting ability\n \"I have one great qualification: I can hold my\n tongue, though sometimes both hands are required to\n do the job\"\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eHaving received her note about her impending\n marriage Bierce writes, \"It is pleasant to know that\n you still live, though about to die -I mean marry and\n live in \n Philadelphia . I approve the\n marriage, but \n Philadelphia ! -that is going too\n far\" and asks for news of everyone\u003c/p\u003e"],"scopecontent_heading_ssm":["Scope and Content\n"],"scopecontent_tesim":["This collection consists of 36 letters from Ambrose Bierce to Harriet Hershberg.\n","Bierce promises to have his photograph taken so\n that he can fulfill her request for his autograph and\n a photograph and playfully says, \"When I get there \n [Oakland] I shall blindfold you,\n hypnotize you and command you to find my lost youth\n and freedom. Then I shall marry you alive and live\n happily ever after.\"","Bierce writes \"I am sending you by this mail the\n photograph of a bad old man with a scowl. The scowl,\n however, is not for you -you never saw it.\" He did\n not send a photograph to her big sister (Louise ?)\n because she already possessed one more pleasant\n looking","He accepts all of her gratitude and regard for\n himself although he does not believe that he merits\n it. He regrets that he cannot say when he will be\n able to meet Mr. King but agrees to see him\n informally some time when he is in \n Oakland ","In this letter, he sends Harriet some wild\n pansies growing by the wayside because they made him\n think of her, \"I feel sure that the thought of you\n was put into my head by some divine intervention in\n the affairs of mortals, and for some purpose. My\n interpretation -with my feeble light and dull\n intuition-is that I am to send you some of those poor\n little frail pansies.\" He then goes on to explain\n that pansies are for thoughts and their old English\n name \"hearts-ease\" is better suited than \"pansies =\n pensees\"","Thanks her for sending him the ginger cakes which\n he tried to share with the horned-toads but they\n preferred grasshoppers. He declines to visit \n Oakland because his last visit\n cost him a month's illness but urges her to visit him\n in \n Los Gatos and to bring with her\n \"that impossible paragon, the \n Pittsburgh sister -whom, however,\n I believe to be a myth.\"","Asks Harriet for the Paris address of her \"musical\n sweetheart,\" Will King, so that he can thank\n him for a book and asks her to write him concerning\n herself. Otherwise he will have to hire a detective\n to shadow her night and day and send him reports of\n everything he learns about her activities","He wishes to see her very badly but remembers all\n too well the last illness which he suffered in \n Oakland, promises to send\n tickets to Belle and her if they will visit him in \n Los Gatos for a Sunday afternoon,\n and mentions receiving a letter from her sister\n Louise","Expresses joy at the receipt of her letter for\n \"it clears you of the solemn suspicion of running\n away from me in cold-blooded infraction of our\n understanding\" but he also thinks \"it very rascally\n of you to take all the sunshine out of \n Oakland to bestow it upon \n Iona \"","Sends another photograph to replace the damaged\n one along with several books to \"the Colonel and the\n Major\" and mentions a letter from Mamie who proved to\n be a charming traveling companion","Responding to her impression of his goodness\n Bierce writes, \"It is pretty easy to be good to you,\n and I don't expect any credit for it in the books of\n the Recording Angel. He will say: 'Bah ! who wouldn't\n be good to Hattie Hershberg?' and then he\n will debit me with one selfish motive.\" He also\n mentions Kodak photographs of a group consisting of Hattie, Mamie, Dave, Selma, Louise, and\n himself, while assuring her of his devotion, \"you are still the only girl in the world; and if there is a\n man who does not love you he is a scoundrel.\" Referring the Preston School of Industry in Ione, California, a juvenile correction institute supervised by a relative of Hirshberg's Bierce writes, \"No, my pet scheme for making soldiers of the Major's little rascals is not practicable. The confounded Government is so particular about the moral character of its recruits that I couldn't enlist myself. This is a great disappointment to me. I had quite set my heart on getting Co. A into Cuba, to prove that bad boys make the best soldiers. But I'm assured that it cannot be done.\"","Writes that he has severed all connections with \n Los Gatos and that his health is\n now good as he day dreams under the redwoods. He\n complains that thoughts of her often break in upon\n his reminiscences of the past, \"Only the other day\n you want only interrupted the march of a column of\n troops from \n Readyville, Tennessee to \n Woodbury, Tennessee, which was\n not at all nice of you.\"","Agrees to take her to see the soldiers and to\n expound every military mystery they encounter and to\n plan a trip to the country when she visits","Promises to visit \n San Francisco next Sunday and\n Monday if she promises to give him Monday, when they\n can see the soldiers or go anywhere she wants","Bierce was unable to go to \n Oakland and wishes that he could\n run the world awhile, \"My first official act would be\n to order you and Mamie to \n Los Gatos ; my second, to go\n there myself.\"","Thanks Hattie for the present of a cushion\n because it signified her return from her trip to a\n lake in the mountains and asks if he can visit her on\n Saturday afternoon","Hopes that she is happier than in her last letter\n and asks individually about the health of her whole\n family","Agrees to examine the manuscript of one of her\n friends if it is in typescript and legible and\n describes his new quarters in a house with six rooms,\n one of which he has reserved for her and her chaperon\n if she will visit","Apologizes for his seeming inattention and\n answers her questions about the \n  Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam","Urges Hattie to come, rent a house, and visit\n several weeks in the area along with Belle and\n Florence, \"Please say if you will come and thereby\n sweeten the fragrance of the flowers, intensify the\n gold of the sunshine and add a new music to the\n voices of my pet quails -one of which sits on my knee\n as I write and looks knowing as if he said: I can\n tell by your face whom you are writing to?\"","Expresses his disappointment that she did not\n come up to visit during her summer outing and\n determines to accustom himself to disappointment even\n to the point of allowing Harriet, Belle, and Florence\n to marry if they choose","Asks her to again send the recipe for molasses\n candy for some of the ladies there want to make some\n and \"as the purpose of my existence is to please the\n members of the sex which your virtues preserve from\n damnation I comply with the request\"","Voices his concern over Louise's illness (malaria\n ?) and begs for news of her condition","Asks for news of Louise and relates his plans to\n make a farewell visit to \n San Francisco before he returns\n to \n Washington, D.C. to live","Thanks Hattie for her good news about Louise and\n the invitation to Thanksgiving dinner which he must\n decline in the chaos of preparing to leave for \n Washington, D.C. but promises to\n try to see them all before he leaves","Tells Hattie that he is to leave today and asks\n if she can keep herself and Louise and Belle at home\n long enough to see him before he leaves at 5\n p.m.","Tells her that \"it is not worthwhile to love you\n anymore, for I shall never see you again\" even if she\n should visit \n Pittsburgh because the coal smoke\n from the railway engines makes him very ill and there\n is little else in \n Pittsburgh . ","Asks about the family and when she will be able\n to visit her sister Nettie in \n Pittsburgh and him in \n Washington ","Declares that if he shall ever see those whom he\n loves again he will have to do the traveling \"to the\n imminent destruction of my lungs\" and wishes her \"as\n much happiness as I can make up my mind that you\n ought to have in my absence\"","Hopes to see her in \n Washington before she leaves on\n her trip to \n Europe with her sister Nettie and\n offers to show her the capital","Having just returned from an unpleasant fortnight\n in \n New York, Bierce hopes that\n Hattie will be able to visit him in \n Washington, although he would be\n willing to return to \n New York to see her","Bierce looks forward to seeing Harriet in a few\n days and describes his Christmas Day activities","Assures her that he is not angry that she won't\n be coming to \n Washington because \"I have lived\n long enough to learn that a woman's promise is merely\n the expression of a mood -and woman's moods do not\n last long.\"","He is glad that Hattie had a good time in \n Washington during her visit and\n that she is enjoying \n New York City as well but does\n not plan to see her in \n New York ","Thanks her for her expression of sympathy and\n mentions that his daughter is visiting with him","Bierce writes that he hopes her reasons for\n staying in the East so long is due to having such a\n good time and not the matchmaking attempts of Sally\n and Nettie, and he also touts his typewriting ability\n \"I have one great qualification: I can hold my\n tongue, though sometimes both hands are required to\n do the job\"","Having received her note about her impending\n marriage Bierce writes, \"It is pleasant to know that\n you still live, though about to die -I mean marry and\n live in \n Philadelphia . I approve the\n marriage, but \n Philadelphia ! -that is going too\n far\" and asks for news of everyone"],"userestrict_html_tesm":["\u003cp\u003eSee the \n            \u003cextref type=\"simple\" href=\"https://www.library.virginia.edu/policies/use-of-materials\"\u003e\n            University of Virginia Library’s use policy.\u003c/extref\u003e\u003c/p\u003e"],"userestrict_heading_ssm":["Use Restrictions"],"userestrict_tesim":["See the \n             \n            University of Virginia Library’s use policy."],"physloc_html_tesm":["\u003cphysloc/\u003e"],"physloc_tesim":[""],"language_ssim":["English"],"total_component_count_is":36,"online_item_count_is":0,"component_level_isim":[0],"sort_isi":0,"timestamp":"2026-05-21T12:00:01.811Z"}]}},"label":"Breadcrumbs"}}},"links":{"self":"https://arvasarchive.org/catalog/viu_viu00058_c32"}},{"id":"viu_viu00058_c34","type":"Item","attributes":{"title":"Ambrose Bierce, \n Washington, D.C., to \n Harriet Hershberg, \n Pittsburgh,\n Pennsylvania","abstract_or_scope":{"id":"https://arvasarchive.org/catalog/viu_viu00058_c34#abstract_or_scope","type":"document_value","attributes":{"value":"\u003cp\u003eThanks her for her expression of sympathy and mentions that his daughter is visiting with him\u003c/p\u003e","label":"Abstract Or Scope"}},"breadcrumbs":{"id":"https://arvasarchive.org/catalog/viu_viu00058_c34#breadcrumbs","type":"document_value","attributes":{"value":{"ref_ssi":"viu_viu00058_c34","ref_ssm":["viu_viu00058_c34"],"id":"viu_viu00058_c34","ead_ssi":"viu_viu00058","_root_":"viu_viu00058","_nest_parent_":"viu_viu00058","parent_ssi":"viu_viu00058","parent_ssim":["viu_viu00058"],"parent_ids_ssim":["viu_viu00058"],"parent_unittitles_ssm":["Ambrose Bierce Collection, \n 1896-1903"],"parent_unittitles_tesim":["Ambrose Bierce Collection, \n 1896-1903"],"text":["Ambrose Bierce Collection, \n 1896-1903","Ambrose Bierce, \n Washington, D.C., to \n Harriet Hershberg, \n Pittsburgh,\n Pennsylvania","ALS, \n 2 p., with envelope.","Thanks her for her expression of sympathy and\n mentions that his daughter is visiting with him"],"title_filing_ssi":"\n Ambrose Bierce, \n Washington, D.C., to \n Harriet Hershberg, \n Pittsburgh,\n Pennsylvania \n ","title_ssm":["Ambrose Bierce, \n Washington, D.C., to \n Harriet Hershberg, \n Pittsburgh,\n Pennsylvania"],"title_tesim":["Ambrose Bierce, \n Washington, D.C., to \n Harriet Hershberg, \n Pittsburgh,\n Pennsylvania"],"unitdate_other_ssim":["1901 June 10"],"normalized_date_ssm":["1901"],"normalized_title_ssm":["Ambrose Bierce, \n Washington, D.C., to \n Harriet Hershberg, \n Pittsburgh,\n Pennsylvania"],"component_level_isim":[1],"repository_ssim":["University of Virginia, Special Collections Dept."],"collection_ssim":["Ambrose Bierce Collection, \n 1896-1903"],"physdesc_tesim":["ALS, \n 2 p., with envelope."],"has_online_content_ssim":["false"],"child_component_count_isi":0,"level_ssm":["Item"],"level_ssim":["Item"],"sort_isi":34,"date_range_isim":[1901],"scopecontent_html_tesm":["\u003cp\u003eThanks her for her expression of sympathy and\n mentions that his daughter is visiting with him\u003c/p\u003e"],"scopecontent_tesim":["Thanks her for her expression of sympathy and\n mentions that his daughter is visiting with him"],"_nest_path_":"/components#33","timestamp":"2026-05-21T12:00:01.811Z","collection":{"numFound":1,"start":0,"numFoundExact":true,"docs":[{"id":"viu_viu00058","ead_ssi":"viu_viu00058","_root_":"viu_viu00058","_nest_parent_":"viu_viu00058","ead_source_url_ssi":"data/uva-sc/viu00058.xml","title_ssm":["Ambrose Bierce Collection, \n 1896-1903"],"title_tesim":["Ambrose Bierce Collection, \n 1896-1903"],"level_ssm":["collection"],"level_ssim":["Collection"],"unitid_ssm":["5992-j"],"text":["5992-j","Ambrose Bierce Collection, \n 1896-1903","There are no restrictions.","This collection consists of 36 letters from Ambrose Bierce to Harriet Hershberg.\n","Bierce promises to have his photograph taken so\n that he can fulfill her request for his autograph and\n a photograph and playfully says, \"When I get there \n [Oakland] I shall blindfold you,\n hypnotize you and command you to find my lost youth\n and freedom. Then I shall marry you alive and live\n happily ever after.\"","Bierce writes \"I am sending you by this mail the\n photograph of a bad old man with a scowl. The scowl,\n however, is not for you -you never saw it.\" He did\n not send a photograph to her big sister (Louise ?)\n because she already possessed one more pleasant\n looking","He accepts all of her gratitude and regard for\n himself although he does not believe that he merits\n it. He regrets that he cannot say when he will be\n able to meet Mr. King but agrees to see him\n informally some time when he is in \n Oakland ","In this letter, he sends Harriet some wild\n pansies growing by the wayside because they made him\n think of her, \"I feel sure that the thought of you\n was put into my head by some divine intervention in\n the affairs of mortals, and for some purpose. My\n interpretation -with my feeble light and dull\n intuition-is that I am to send you some of those poor\n little frail pansies.\" He then goes on to explain\n that pansies are for thoughts and their old English\n name \"hearts-ease\" is better suited than \"pansies =\n pensees\"","Thanks her for sending him the ginger cakes which\n he tried to share with the horned-toads but they\n preferred grasshoppers. He declines to visit \n Oakland because his last visit\n cost him a month's illness but urges her to visit him\n in \n Los Gatos and to bring with her\n \"that impossible paragon, the \n Pittsburgh sister -whom, however,\n I believe to be a myth.\"","Asks Harriet for the Paris address of her \"musical\n sweetheart,\" Will King, so that he can thank\n him for a book and asks her to write him concerning\n herself. Otherwise he will have to hire a detective\n to shadow her night and day and send him reports of\n everything he learns about her activities","He wishes to see her very badly but remembers all\n too well the last illness which he suffered in \n Oakland, promises to send\n tickets to Belle and her if they will visit him in \n Los Gatos for a Sunday afternoon,\n and mentions receiving a letter from her sister\n Louise","Expresses joy at the receipt of her letter for\n \"it clears you of the solemn suspicion of running\n away from me in cold-blooded infraction of our\n understanding\" but he also thinks \"it very rascally\n of you to take all the sunshine out of \n Oakland to bestow it upon \n Iona \"","Sends another photograph to replace the damaged\n one along with several books to \"the Colonel and the\n Major\" and mentions a letter from Mamie who proved to\n be a charming traveling companion","Responding to her impression of his goodness\n Bierce writes, \"It is pretty easy to be good to you,\n and I don't expect any credit for it in the books of\n the Recording Angel. He will say: 'Bah ! who wouldn't\n be good to Hattie Hershberg?' and then he\n will debit me with one selfish motive.\" He also\n mentions Kodak photographs of a group consisting of Hattie, Mamie, Dave, Selma, Louise, and\n himself, while assuring her of his devotion, \"you are still the only girl in the world; and if there is a\n man who does not love you he is a scoundrel.\" Referring the Preston School of Industry in Ione, California, a juvenile correction institute supervised by a relative of Hirshberg's Bierce writes, \"No, my pet scheme for making soldiers of the Major's little rascals is not practicable. The confounded Government is so particular about the moral character of its recruits that I couldn't enlist myself. This is a great disappointment to me. I had quite set my heart on getting Co. A into Cuba, to prove that bad boys make the best soldiers. But I'm assured that it cannot be done.\"","Writes that he has severed all connections with \n Los Gatos and that his health is\n now good as he day dreams under the redwoods. He\n complains that thoughts of her often break in upon\n his reminiscences of the past, \"Only the other day\n you want only interrupted the march of a column of\n troops from \n Readyville, Tennessee to \n Woodbury, Tennessee, which was\n not at all nice of you.\"","Agrees to take her to see the soldiers and to\n expound every military mystery they encounter and to\n plan a trip to the country when she visits","Promises to visit \n San Francisco next Sunday and\n Monday if she promises to give him Monday, when they\n can see the soldiers or go anywhere she wants","Bierce was unable to go to \n Oakland and wishes that he could\n run the world awhile, \"My first official act would be\n to order you and Mamie to \n Los Gatos ; my second, to go\n there myself.\"","Thanks Hattie for the present of a cushion\n because it signified her return from her trip to a\n lake in the mountains and asks if he can visit her on\n Saturday afternoon","Hopes that she is happier than in her last letter\n and asks individually about the health of her whole\n family","Agrees to examine the manuscript of one of her\n friends if it is in typescript and legible and\n describes his new quarters in a house with six rooms,\n one of which he has reserved for her and her chaperon\n if she will visit","Apologizes for his seeming inattention and\n answers her questions about the \n  Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam","Urges Hattie to come, rent a house, and visit\n several weeks in the area along with Belle and\n Florence, \"Please say if you will come and thereby\n sweeten the fragrance of the flowers, intensify the\n gold of the sunshine and add a new music to the\n voices of my pet quails -one of which sits on my knee\n as I write and looks knowing as if he said: I can\n tell by your face whom you are writing to?\"","Expresses his disappointment that she did not\n come up to visit during her summer outing and\n determines to accustom himself to disappointment even\n to the point of allowing Harriet, Belle, and Florence\n to marry if they choose","Asks her to again send the recipe for molasses\n candy for some of the ladies there want to make some\n and \"as the purpose of my existence is to please the\n members of the sex which your virtues preserve from\n damnation I comply with the request\"","Voices his concern over Louise's illness (malaria\n ?) and begs for news of her condition","Asks for news of Louise and relates his plans to\n make a farewell visit to \n San Francisco before he returns\n to \n Washington, D.C. to live","Thanks Hattie for her good news about Louise and\n the invitation to Thanksgiving dinner which he must\n decline in the chaos of preparing to leave for \n Washington, D.C. but promises to\n try to see them all before he leaves","Tells Hattie that he is to leave today and asks\n if she can keep herself and Louise and Belle at home\n long enough to see him before he leaves at 5\n p.m.","Tells her that \"it is not worthwhile to love you\n anymore, for I shall never see you again\" even if she\n should visit \n Pittsburgh because the coal smoke\n from the railway engines makes him very ill and there\n is little else in \n Pittsburgh . ","Asks about the family and when she will be able\n to visit her sister Nettie in \n Pittsburgh and him in \n Washington ","Declares that if he shall ever see those whom he\n loves again he will have to do the traveling \"to the\n imminent destruction of my lungs\" and wishes her \"as\n much happiness as I can make up my mind that you\n ought to have in my absence\"","Hopes to see her in \n Washington before she leaves on\n her trip to \n Europe with her sister Nettie and\n offers to show her the capital","Having just returned from an unpleasant fortnight\n in \n New York, Bierce hopes that\n Hattie will be able to visit him in \n Washington, although he would be\n willing to return to \n New York to see her","Bierce looks forward to seeing Harriet in a few\n days and describes his Christmas Day activities","Assures her that he is not angry that she won't\n be coming to \n Washington because \"I have lived\n long enough to learn that a woman's promise is merely\n the expression of a mood -and woman's moods do not\n last long.\"","He is glad that Hattie had a good time in \n Washington during her visit and\n that she is enjoying \n New York City as well but does\n not plan to see her in \n New York ","Thanks her for her expression of sympathy and\n mentions that his daughter is visiting with him","Bierce writes that he hopes her reasons for\n staying in the East so long is due to having such a\n good time and not the matchmaking attempts of Sally\n and Nettie, and he also touts his typewriting ability\n \"I have one great qualification: I can hold my\n tongue, though sometimes both hands are required to\n do the job\"","Having received her note about her impending\n marriage Bierce writes, \"It is pleasant to know that\n you still live, though about to die -I mean marry and\n live in \n Philadelphia . I approve the\n marriage, but \n Philadelphia ! -that is going too\n far\" and asks for news of everyone","See the \n             \n            University of Virginia Library’s use policy.","","English"],"unitid_tesim":["5992-j"],"normalized_title_ssm":["Ambrose Bierce Collection, \n 1896-1903"],"collection_title_tesim":["Ambrose Bierce Collection, \n 1896-1903"],"collection_ssim":["Ambrose Bierce Collection, \n 1896-1903"],"repository_ssm":["University of Virginia, Special Collections Dept."],"repository_ssim":["University of Virginia, Special Collections Dept."],"creator_ssm":[""],"creator_ssim":[""],"acqinfo_ssim":["This collection was purchased from Robert F. Batchelder, Ambler, Pa., September\n 4, 1991."],"has_online_content_ssim":["false"],"accessrestrict_html_tesm":["\u003cp\u003eThere are no restrictions.\u003c/p\u003e"],"accessrestrict_heading_ssm":["Access Restrictions"],"accessrestrict_tesim":["There are no restrictions."],"prefercite_html_tesm":["\u003cp\u003eAmbrose Bierce Collection, Accession #5992-j, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library, Charlottesville, Va.\u003c/p\u003e"],"prefercite_tesim":["Ambrose Bierce Collection, Accession #5992-j, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library, Charlottesville, Va."],"scopecontent_html_tesm":["\u003cp\u003eThis collection consists of 36 letters from Ambrose Bierce to Harriet Hershberg.\n\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eBierce promises to have his photograph taken so\n that he can fulfill her request for his autograph and\n a photograph and playfully says, \"When I get there \n [Oakland] I shall blindfold you,\n hypnotize you and command you to find my lost youth\n and freedom. Then I shall marry you alive and live\n happily ever after.\"\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eBierce writes \"I am sending you by this mail the\n photograph of a bad old man with a scowl. The scowl,\n however, is not for you -you never saw it.\" He did\n not send a photograph to her big sister (Louise ?)\n because she already possessed one more pleasant\n looking\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eHe accepts all of her gratitude and regard for\n himself although he does not believe that he merits\n it. He regrets that he cannot say when he will be\n able to meet Mr. King but agrees to see him\n informally some time when he is in \n Oakland \u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eIn this letter, he sends Harriet some wild\n pansies growing by the wayside because they made him\n think of her, \"I feel sure that the thought of you\n was put into my head by some divine intervention in\n the affairs of mortals, and for some purpose. My\n interpretation -with my feeble light and dull\n intuition-is that I am to send you some of those poor\n little frail pansies.\" He then goes on to explain\n that pansies are for thoughts and their old English\n name \"hearts-ease\" is better suited than \"pansies =\n pensees\"\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eThanks her for sending him the ginger cakes which\n he tried to share with the horned-toads but they\n preferred grasshoppers. He declines to visit \n Oakland because his last visit\n cost him a month's illness but urges her to visit him\n in \n Los Gatos and to bring with her\n \"that impossible paragon, the \n Pittsburgh sister -whom, however,\n I believe to be a myth.\"\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eAsks Harriet for the Paris address of her \"musical\n sweetheart,\" Will King, so that he can thank\n him for a book and asks her to write him concerning\n herself. Otherwise he will have to hire a detective\n to shadow her night and day and send him reports of\n everything he learns about her activities\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eHe wishes to see her very badly but remembers all\n too well the last illness which he suffered in \n Oakland, promises to send\n tickets to Belle and her if they will visit him in \n Los Gatos for a Sunday afternoon,\n and mentions receiving a letter from her sister\n Louise\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eExpresses joy at the receipt of her letter for\n \"it clears you of the solemn suspicion of running\n away from me in cold-blooded infraction of our\n understanding\" but he also thinks \"it very rascally\n of you to take all the sunshine out of \n Oakland to bestow it upon \n Iona \"\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eSends another photograph to replace the damaged\n one along with several books to \"the Colonel and the\n Major\" and mentions a letter from Mamie who proved to\n be a charming traveling companion\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eResponding to her impression of his goodness\n Bierce writes, \"It is pretty easy to be good to you,\n and I don't expect any credit for it in the books of\n the Recording Angel. He will say: 'Bah ! who wouldn't\n be good to Hattie Hershberg?' and then he\n will debit me with one selfish motive.\" He also\n mentions Kodak photographs of a group consisting of Hattie, Mamie, Dave, Selma, Louise, and\n himself, while assuring her of his devotion, \"you are still the only girl in the world; and if there is a\n man who does not love you he is a scoundrel.\" Referring the Preston School of Industry in Ione, California, a juvenile correction institute supervised by a relative of Hirshberg's Bierce writes, \"No, my pet scheme for making soldiers of the Major's little rascals is not practicable. The confounded Government is so particular about the moral character of its recruits that I couldn't enlist myself. This is a great disappointment to me. I had quite set my heart on getting Co. A into Cuba, to prove that bad boys make the best soldiers. But I'm assured that it cannot be done.\"\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eWrites that he has severed all connections with \n Los Gatos and that his health is\n now good as he day dreams under the redwoods. He\n complains that thoughts of her often break in upon\n his reminiscences of the past, \"Only the other day\n you want only interrupted the march of a column of\n troops from \n Readyville, Tennessee to \n Woodbury, Tennessee, which was\n not at all nice of you.\"\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eAgrees to take her to see the soldiers and to\n expound every military mystery they encounter and to\n plan a trip to the country when she visits\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003ePromises to visit \n San Francisco next Sunday and\n Monday if she promises to give him Monday, when they\n can see the soldiers or go anywhere she wants\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eBierce was unable to go to \n Oakland and wishes that he could\n run the world awhile, \"My first official act would be\n to order you and Mamie to \n Los Gatos ; my second, to go\n there myself.\"\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eThanks Hattie for the present of a cushion\n because it signified her return from her trip to a\n lake in the mountains and asks if he can visit her on\n Saturday afternoon\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eHopes that she is happier than in her last letter\n and asks individually about the health of her whole\n family\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eAgrees to examine the manuscript of one of her\n friends if it is in typescript and legible and\n describes his new quarters in a house with six rooms,\n one of which he has reserved for her and her chaperon\n if she will visit\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eApologizes for his seeming inattention and\n answers her questions about the \n \u003cbibref type=\"simple\" href=\"\"\u003e\u003ctitle type=\"simple\" href=\"\"\u003eRubaiyat of Omar Khayyam\u003c/title\u003e\u003c/bibref\u003e\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eUrges Hattie to come, rent a house, and visit\n several weeks in the area along with Belle and\n Florence, \"Please say if you will come and thereby\n sweeten the fragrance of the flowers, intensify the\n gold of the sunshine and add a new music to the\n voices of my pet quails -one of which sits on my knee\n as I write and looks knowing as if he said: I can\n tell by your face whom you are writing to?\"\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eExpresses his disappointment that she did not\n come up to visit during her summer outing and\n determines to accustom himself to disappointment even\n to the point of allowing Harriet, Belle, and Florence\n to marry if they choose\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eAsks her to again send the recipe for molasses\n candy for some of the ladies there want to make some\n and \"as the purpose of my existence is to please the\n members of the sex which your virtues preserve from\n damnation I comply with the request\"\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eVoices his concern over Louise's illness (malaria\n ?) and begs for news of her condition\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eAsks for news of Louise and relates his plans to\n make a farewell visit to \n San Francisco before he returns\n to \n Washington, D.C. to live\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eThanks Hattie for her good news about Louise and\n the invitation to Thanksgiving dinner which he must\n decline in the chaos of preparing to leave for \n Washington, D.C. but promises to\n try to see them all before he leaves\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eTells Hattie that he is to leave today and asks\n if she can keep herself and Louise and Belle at home\n long enough to see him before he leaves at 5\n p.m.\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eTells her that \"it is not worthwhile to love you\n anymore, for I shall never see you again\" even if she\n should visit \n Pittsburgh because the coal smoke\n from the railway engines makes him very ill and there\n is little else in \n Pittsburgh . \u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eAsks about the family and when she will be able\n to visit her sister Nettie in \n Pittsburgh and him in \n Washington \u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eDeclares that if he shall ever see those whom he\n loves again he will have to do the traveling \"to the\n imminent destruction of my lungs\" and wishes her \"as\n much happiness as I can make up my mind that you\n ought to have in my absence\"\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eHopes to see her in \n Washington before she leaves on\n her trip to \n Europe with her sister Nettie and\n offers to show her the capital\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eHaving just returned from an unpleasant fortnight\n in \n New York, Bierce hopes that\n Hattie will be able to visit him in \n Washington, although he would be\n willing to return to \n New York to see her\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eBierce looks forward to seeing Harriet in a few\n days and describes his Christmas Day activities\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eAssures her that he is not angry that she won't\n be coming to \n Washington because \"I have lived\n long enough to learn that a woman's promise is merely\n the expression of a mood -and woman's moods do not\n last long.\"\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eHe is glad that Hattie had a good time in \n Washington during her visit and\n that she is enjoying \n New York City as well but does\n not plan to see her in \n New York \u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eThanks her for her expression of sympathy and\n mentions that his daughter is visiting with him\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eBierce writes that he hopes her reasons for\n staying in the East so long is due to having such a\n good time and not the matchmaking attempts of Sally\n and Nettie, and he also touts his typewriting ability\n \"I have one great qualification: I can hold my\n tongue, though sometimes both hands are required to\n do the job\"\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eHaving received her note about her impending\n marriage Bierce writes, \"It is pleasant to know that\n you still live, though about to die -I mean marry and\n live in \n Philadelphia . I approve the\n marriage, but \n Philadelphia ! -that is going too\n far\" and asks for news of everyone\u003c/p\u003e"],"scopecontent_heading_ssm":["Scope and Content\n"],"scopecontent_tesim":["This collection consists of 36 letters from Ambrose Bierce to Harriet Hershberg.\n","Bierce promises to have his photograph taken so\n that he can fulfill her request for his autograph and\n a photograph and playfully says, \"When I get there \n [Oakland] I shall blindfold you,\n hypnotize you and command you to find my lost youth\n and freedom. Then I shall marry you alive and live\n happily ever after.\"","Bierce writes \"I am sending you by this mail the\n photograph of a bad old man with a scowl. The scowl,\n however, is not for you -you never saw it.\" He did\n not send a photograph to her big sister (Louise ?)\n because she already possessed one more pleasant\n looking","He accepts all of her gratitude and regard for\n himself although he does not believe that he merits\n it. He regrets that he cannot say when he will be\n able to meet Mr. King but agrees to see him\n informally some time when he is in \n Oakland ","In this letter, he sends Harriet some wild\n pansies growing by the wayside because they made him\n think of her, \"I feel sure that the thought of you\n was put into my head by some divine intervention in\n the affairs of mortals, and for some purpose. My\n interpretation -with my feeble light and dull\n intuition-is that I am to send you some of those poor\n little frail pansies.\" He then goes on to explain\n that pansies are for thoughts and their old English\n name \"hearts-ease\" is better suited than \"pansies =\n pensees\"","Thanks her for sending him the ginger cakes which\n he tried to share with the horned-toads but they\n preferred grasshoppers. He declines to visit \n Oakland because his last visit\n cost him a month's illness but urges her to visit him\n in \n Los Gatos and to bring with her\n \"that impossible paragon, the \n Pittsburgh sister -whom, however,\n I believe to be a myth.\"","Asks Harriet for the Paris address of her \"musical\n sweetheart,\" Will King, so that he can thank\n him for a book and asks her to write him concerning\n herself. Otherwise he will have to hire a detective\n to shadow her night and day and send him reports of\n everything he learns about her activities","He wishes to see her very badly but remembers all\n too well the last illness which he suffered in \n Oakland, promises to send\n tickets to Belle and her if they will visit him in \n Los Gatos for a Sunday afternoon,\n and mentions receiving a letter from her sister\n Louise","Expresses joy at the receipt of her letter for\n \"it clears you of the solemn suspicion of running\n away from me in cold-blooded infraction of our\n understanding\" but he also thinks \"it very rascally\n of you to take all the sunshine out of \n Oakland to bestow it upon \n Iona \"","Sends another photograph to replace the damaged\n one along with several books to \"the Colonel and the\n Major\" and mentions a letter from Mamie who proved to\n be a charming traveling companion","Responding to her impression of his goodness\n Bierce writes, \"It is pretty easy to be good to you,\n and I don't expect any credit for it in the books of\n the Recording Angel. He will say: 'Bah ! who wouldn't\n be good to Hattie Hershberg?' and then he\n will debit me with one selfish motive.\" He also\n mentions Kodak photographs of a group consisting of Hattie, Mamie, Dave, Selma, Louise, and\n himself, while assuring her of his devotion, \"you are still the only girl in the world; and if there is a\n man who does not love you he is a scoundrel.\" Referring the Preston School of Industry in Ione, California, a juvenile correction institute supervised by a relative of Hirshberg's Bierce writes, \"No, my pet scheme for making soldiers of the Major's little rascals is not practicable. The confounded Government is so particular about the moral character of its recruits that I couldn't enlist myself. This is a great disappointment to me. I had quite set my heart on getting Co. A into Cuba, to prove that bad boys make the best soldiers. But I'm assured that it cannot be done.\"","Writes that he has severed all connections with \n Los Gatos and that his health is\n now good as he day dreams under the redwoods. He\n complains that thoughts of her often break in upon\n his reminiscences of the past, \"Only the other day\n you want only interrupted the march of a column of\n troops from \n Readyville, Tennessee to \n Woodbury, Tennessee, which was\n not at all nice of you.\"","Agrees to take her to see the soldiers and to\n expound every military mystery they encounter and to\n plan a trip to the country when she visits","Promises to visit \n San Francisco next Sunday and\n Monday if she promises to give him Monday, when they\n can see the soldiers or go anywhere she wants","Bierce was unable to go to \n Oakland and wishes that he could\n run the world awhile, \"My first official act would be\n to order you and Mamie to \n Los Gatos ; my second, to go\n there myself.\"","Thanks Hattie for the present of a cushion\n because it signified her return from her trip to a\n lake in the mountains and asks if he can visit her on\n Saturday afternoon","Hopes that she is happier than in her last letter\n and asks individually about the health of her whole\n family","Agrees to examine the manuscript of one of her\n friends if it is in typescript and legible and\n describes his new quarters in a house with six rooms,\n one of which he has reserved for her and her chaperon\n if she will visit","Apologizes for his seeming inattention and\n answers her questions about the \n  Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam","Urges Hattie to come, rent a house, and visit\n several weeks in the area along with Belle and\n Florence, \"Please say if you will come and thereby\n sweeten the fragrance of the flowers, intensify the\n gold of the sunshine and add a new music to the\n voices of my pet quails -one of which sits on my knee\n as I write and looks knowing as if he said: I can\n tell by your face whom you are writing to?\"","Expresses his disappointment that she did not\n come up to visit during her summer outing and\n determines to accustom himself to disappointment even\n to the point of allowing Harriet, Belle, and Florence\n to marry if they choose","Asks her to again send the recipe for molasses\n candy for some of the ladies there want to make some\n and \"as the purpose of my existence is to please the\n members of the sex which your virtues preserve from\n damnation I comply with the request\"","Voices his concern over Louise's illness (malaria\n ?) and begs for news of her condition","Asks for news of Louise and relates his plans to\n make a farewell visit to \n San Francisco before he returns\n to \n Washington, D.C. to live","Thanks Hattie for her good news about Louise and\n the invitation to Thanksgiving dinner which he must\n decline in the chaos of preparing to leave for \n Washington, D.C. but promises to\n try to see them all before he leaves","Tells Hattie that he is to leave today and asks\n if she can keep herself and Louise and Belle at home\n long enough to see him before he leaves at 5\n p.m.","Tells her that \"it is not worthwhile to love you\n anymore, for I shall never see you again\" even if she\n should visit \n Pittsburgh because the coal smoke\n from the railway engines makes him very ill and there\n is little else in \n Pittsburgh . ","Asks about the family and when she will be able\n to visit her sister Nettie in \n Pittsburgh and him in \n Washington ","Declares that if he shall ever see those whom he\n loves again he will have to do the traveling \"to the\n imminent destruction of my lungs\" and wishes her \"as\n much happiness as I can make up my mind that you\n ought to have in my absence\"","Hopes to see her in \n Washington before she leaves on\n her trip to \n Europe with her sister Nettie and\n offers to show her the capital","Having just returned from an unpleasant fortnight\n in \n New York, Bierce hopes that\n Hattie will be able to visit him in \n Washington, although he would be\n willing to return to \n New York to see her","Bierce looks forward to seeing Harriet in a few\n days and describes his Christmas Day activities","Assures her that he is not angry that she won't\n be coming to \n Washington because \"I have lived\n long enough to learn that a woman's promise is merely\n the expression of a mood -and woman's moods do not\n last long.\"","He is glad that Hattie had a good time in \n Washington during her visit and\n that she is enjoying \n New York City as well but does\n not plan to see her in \n New York ","Thanks her for her expression of sympathy and\n mentions that his daughter is visiting with him","Bierce writes that he hopes her reasons for\n staying in the East so long is due to having such a\n good time and not the matchmaking attempts of Sally\n and Nettie, and he also touts his typewriting ability\n \"I have one great qualification: I can hold my\n tongue, though sometimes both hands are required to\n do the job\"","Having received her note about her impending\n marriage Bierce writes, \"It is pleasant to know that\n you still live, though about to die -I mean marry and\n live in \n Philadelphia . I approve the\n marriage, but \n Philadelphia ! -that is going too\n far\" and asks for news of everyone"],"userestrict_html_tesm":["\u003cp\u003eSee the \n            \u003cextref type=\"simple\" href=\"https://www.library.virginia.edu/policies/use-of-materials\"\u003e\n            University of Virginia Library’s use policy.\u003c/extref\u003e\u003c/p\u003e"],"userestrict_heading_ssm":["Use Restrictions"],"userestrict_tesim":["See the \n             \n            University of Virginia Library’s use policy."],"physloc_html_tesm":["\u003cphysloc/\u003e"],"physloc_tesim":[""],"language_ssim":["English"],"total_component_count_is":36,"online_item_count_is":0,"component_level_isim":[0],"sort_isi":0,"timestamp":"2026-05-21T12:00:01.811Z"}]}},"label":"Breadcrumbs"}}},"links":{"self":"https://arvasarchive.org/catalog/viu_viu00058_c34"}},{"id":"viu_viu00058_c35","type":"Item","attributes":{"title":"Ambrose Bierce, \n Washington, D.C., to \n Harriet Hershberg, \n Pittsburgh,\n Pennsylvania","abstract_or_scope":{"id":"https://arvasarchive.org/catalog/viu_viu00058_c35#abstract_or_scope","type":"document_value","attributes":{"value":"\u003cp\u003eBierce writes that he hopes her reasons for staying in the East so long is due to having such a good time and not the matchmaking attempts of Sally and Nettie, and he also touts his typewriting ability \"I have one great qualification: I can hold my tongue, though sometimes both hands are required to do the job\"\u003c/p\u003e","label":"Abstract Or Scope"}},"breadcrumbs":{"id":"https://arvasarchive.org/catalog/viu_viu00058_c35#breadcrumbs","type":"document_value","attributes":{"value":{"ref_ssi":"viu_viu00058_c35","ref_ssm":["viu_viu00058_c35"],"id":"viu_viu00058_c35","ead_ssi":"viu_viu00058","_root_":"viu_viu00058","_nest_parent_":"viu_viu00058","parent_ssi":"viu_viu00058","parent_ssim":["viu_viu00058"],"parent_ids_ssim":["viu_viu00058"],"parent_unittitles_ssm":["Ambrose Bierce Collection, \n 1896-1903"],"parent_unittitles_tesim":["Ambrose Bierce Collection, \n 1896-1903"],"text":["Ambrose Bierce Collection, \n 1896-1903","Ambrose Bierce, \n Washington, D.C., to \n Harriet Hershberg, \n Pittsburgh,\n Pennsylvania","TLS, \n 2 p., with envelope.","Bierce writes that he hopes her reasons for\n staying in the East so long is due to having such a\n good time and not the matchmaking attempts of Sally\n and Nettie, and he also touts his typewriting ability\n \"I have one great qualification: I can hold my\n tongue, though sometimes both hands are required to\n do the job\""],"title_filing_ssi":"\n Ambrose Bierce, \n Washington, D.C., to \n Harriet Hershberg, \n Pittsburgh,\n Pennsylvania \n ","title_ssm":["Ambrose Bierce, \n Washington, D.C., to \n Harriet Hershberg, \n Pittsburgh,\n Pennsylvania"],"title_tesim":["Ambrose Bierce, \n Washington, D.C., to \n Harriet Hershberg, \n Pittsburgh,\n Pennsylvania"],"unitdate_other_ssim":["1901 July 10"],"normalized_date_ssm":["1901"],"normalized_title_ssm":["Ambrose Bierce, \n Washington, D.C., to \n Harriet Hershberg, \n Pittsburgh,\n Pennsylvania"],"component_level_isim":[1],"repository_ssim":["University of Virginia, Special Collections Dept."],"collection_ssim":["Ambrose Bierce Collection, \n 1896-1903"],"physdesc_tesim":["TLS, \n 2 p., with envelope."],"has_online_content_ssim":["false"],"child_component_count_isi":0,"level_ssm":["Item"],"level_ssim":["Item"],"sort_isi":35,"date_range_isim":[1901],"scopecontent_html_tesm":["\u003cp\u003eBierce writes that he hopes her reasons for\n staying in the East so long is due to having such a\n good time and not the matchmaking attempts of Sally\n and Nettie, and he also touts his typewriting ability\n \"I have one great qualification: I can hold my\n tongue, though sometimes both hands are required to\n do the job\"\u003c/p\u003e"],"scopecontent_tesim":["Bierce writes that he hopes her reasons for\n staying in the East so long is due to having such a\n good time and not the matchmaking attempts of Sally\n and Nettie, and he also touts his typewriting ability\n \"I have one great qualification: I can hold my\n tongue, though sometimes both hands are required to\n do the job\""],"_nest_path_":"/components#34","timestamp":"2026-05-21T12:00:01.811Z","collection":{"numFound":1,"start":0,"numFoundExact":true,"docs":[{"id":"viu_viu00058","ead_ssi":"viu_viu00058","_root_":"viu_viu00058","_nest_parent_":"viu_viu00058","ead_source_url_ssi":"data/uva-sc/viu00058.xml","title_ssm":["Ambrose Bierce Collection, \n 1896-1903"],"title_tesim":["Ambrose Bierce Collection, \n 1896-1903"],"level_ssm":["collection"],"level_ssim":["Collection"],"unitid_ssm":["5992-j"],"text":["5992-j","Ambrose Bierce Collection, \n 1896-1903","There are no restrictions.","This collection consists of 36 letters from Ambrose Bierce to Harriet Hershberg.\n","Bierce promises to have his photograph taken so\n that he can fulfill her request for his autograph and\n a photograph and playfully says, \"When I get there \n [Oakland] I shall blindfold you,\n hypnotize you and command you to find my lost youth\n and freedom. Then I shall marry you alive and live\n happily ever after.\"","Bierce writes \"I am sending you by this mail the\n photograph of a bad old man with a scowl. The scowl,\n however, is not for you -you never saw it.\" He did\n not send a photograph to her big sister (Louise ?)\n because she already possessed one more pleasant\n looking","He accepts all of her gratitude and regard for\n himself although he does not believe that he merits\n it. He regrets that he cannot say when he will be\n able to meet Mr. King but agrees to see him\n informally some time when he is in \n Oakland ","In this letter, he sends Harriet some wild\n pansies growing by the wayside because they made him\n think of her, \"I feel sure that the thought of you\n was put into my head by some divine intervention in\n the affairs of mortals, and for some purpose. My\n interpretation -with my feeble light and dull\n intuition-is that I am to send you some of those poor\n little frail pansies.\" He then goes on to explain\n that pansies are for thoughts and their old English\n name \"hearts-ease\" is better suited than \"pansies =\n pensees\"","Thanks her for sending him the ginger cakes which\n he tried to share with the horned-toads but they\n preferred grasshoppers. He declines to visit \n Oakland because his last visit\n cost him a month's illness but urges her to visit him\n in \n Los Gatos and to bring with her\n \"that impossible paragon, the \n Pittsburgh sister -whom, however,\n I believe to be a myth.\"","Asks Harriet for the Paris address of her \"musical\n sweetheart,\" Will King, so that he can thank\n him for a book and asks her to write him concerning\n herself. Otherwise he will have to hire a detective\n to shadow her night and day and send him reports of\n everything he learns about her activities","He wishes to see her very badly but remembers all\n too well the last illness which he suffered in \n Oakland, promises to send\n tickets to Belle and her if they will visit him in \n Los Gatos for a Sunday afternoon,\n and mentions receiving a letter from her sister\n Louise","Expresses joy at the receipt of her letter for\n \"it clears you of the solemn suspicion of running\n away from me in cold-blooded infraction of our\n understanding\" but he also thinks \"it very rascally\n of you to take all the sunshine out of \n Oakland to bestow it upon \n Iona \"","Sends another photograph to replace the damaged\n one along with several books to \"the Colonel and the\n Major\" and mentions a letter from Mamie who proved to\n be a charming traveling companion","Responding to her impression of his goodness\n Bierce writes, \"It is pretty easy to be good to you,\n and I don't expect any credit for it in the books of\n the Recording Angel. He will say: 'Bah ! who wouldn't\n be good to Hattie Hershberg?' and then he\n will debit me with one selfish motive.\" He also\n mentions Kodak photographs of a group consisting of Hattie, Mamie, Dave, Selma, Louise, and\n himself, while assuring her of his devotion, \"you are still the only girl in the world; and if there is a\n man who does not love you he is a scoundrel.\" Referring the Preston School of Industry in Ione, California, a juvenile correction institute supervised by a relative of Hirshberg's Bierce writes, \"No, my pet scheme for making soldiers of the Major's little rascals is not practicable. The confounded Government is so particular about the moral character of its recruits that I couldn't enlist myself. This is a great disappointment to me. I had quite set my heart on getting Co. A into Cuba, to prove that bad boys make the best soldiers. But I'm assured that it cannot be done.\"","Writes that he has severed all connections with \n Los Gatos and that his health is\n now good as he day dreams under the redwoods. He\n complains that thoughts of her often break in upon\n his reminiscences of the past, \"Only the other day\n you want only interrupted the march of a column of\n troops from \n Readyville, Tennessee to \n Woodbury, Tennessee, which was\n not at all nice of you.\"","Agrees to take her to see the soldiers and to\n expound every military mystery they encounter and to\n plan a trip to the country when she visits","Promises to visit \n San Francisco next Sunday and\n Monday if she promises to give him Monday, when they\n can see the soldiers or go anywhere she wants","Bierce was unable to go to \n Oakland and wishes that he could\n run the world awhile, \"My first official act would be\n to order you and Mamie to \n Los Gatos ; my second, to go\n there myself.\"","Thanks Hattie for the present of a cushion\n because it signified her return from her trip to a\n lake in the mountains and asks if he can visit her on\n Saturday afternoon","Hopes that she is happier than in her last letter\n and asks individually about the health of her whole\n family","Agrees to examine the manuscript of one of her\n friends if it is in typescript and legible and\n describes his new quarters in a house with six rooms,\n one of which he has reserved for her and her chaperon\n if she will visit","Apologizes for his seeming inattention and\n answers her questions about the \n  Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam","Urges Hattie to come, rent a house, and visit\n several weeks in the area along with Belle and\n Florence, \"Please say if you will come and thereby\n sweeten the fragrance of the flowers, intensify the\n gold of the sunshine and add a new music to the\n voices of my pet quails -one of which sits on my knee\n as I write and looks knowing as if he said: I can\n tell by your face whom you are writing to?\"","Expresses his disappointment that she did not\n come up to visit during her summer outing and\n determines to accustom himself to disappointment even\n to the point of allowing Harriet, Belle, and Florence\n to marry if they choose","Asks her to again send the recipe for molasses\n candy for some of the ladies there want to make some\n and \"as the purpose of my existence is to please the\n members of the sex which your virtues preserve from\n damnation I comply with the request\"","Voices his concern over Louise's illness (malaria\n ?) and begs for news of her condition","Asks for news of Louise and relates his plans to\n make a farewell visit to \n San Francisco before he returns\n to \n Washington, D.C. to live","Thanks Hattie for her good news about Louise and\n the invitation to Thanksgiving dinner which he must\n decline in the chaos of preparing to leave for \n Washington, D.C. but promises to\n try to see them all before he leaves","Tells Hattie that he is to leave today and asks\n if she can keep herself and Louise and Belle at home\n long enough to see him before he leaves at 5\n p.m.","Tells her that \"it is not worthwhile to love you\n anymore, for I shall never see you again\" even if she\n should visit \n Pittsburgh because the coal smoke\n from the railway engines makes him very ill and there\n is little else in \n Pittsburgh . ","Asks about the family and when she will be able\n to visit her sister Nettie in \n Pittsburgh and him in \n Washington ","Declares that if he shall ever see those whom he\n loves again he will have to do the traveling \"to the\n imminent destruction of my lungs\" and wishes her \"as\n much happiness as I can make up my mind that you\n ought to have in my absence\"","Hopes to see her in \n Washington before she leaves on\n her trip to \n Europe with her sister Nettie and\n offers to show her the capital","Having just returned from an unpleasant fortnight\n in \n New York, Bierce hopes that\n Hattie will be able to visit him in \n Washington, although he would be\n willing to return to \n New York to see her","Bierce looks forward to seeing Harriet in a few\n days and describes his Christmas Day activities","Assures her that he is not angry that she won't\n be coming to \n Washington because \"I have lived\n long enough to learn that a woman's promise is merely\n the expression of a mood -and woman's moods do not\n last long.\"","He is glad that Hattie had a good time in \n Washington during her visit and\n that she is enjoying \n New York City as well but does\n not plan to see her in \n New York ","Thanks her for her expression of sympathy and\n mentions that his daughter is visiting with him","Bierce writes that he hopes her reasons for\n staying in the East so long is due to having such a\n good time and not the matchmaking attempts of Sally\n and Nettie, and he also touts his typewriting ability\n \"I have one great qualification: I can hold my\n tongue, though sometimes both hands are required to\n do the job\"","Having received her note about her impending\n marriage Bierce writes, \"It is pleasant to know that\n you still live, though about to die -I mean marry and\n live in \n Philadelphia . I approve the\n marriage, but \n Philadelphia ! -that is going too\n far\" and asks for news of everyone","See the \n             \n            University of Virginia Library’s use policy.","","English"],"unitid_tesim":["5992-j"],"normalized_title_ssm":["Ambrose Bierce Collection, \n 1896-1903"],"collection_title_tesim":["Ambrose Bierce Collection, \n 1896-1903"],"collection_ssim":["Ambrose Bierce Collection, \n 1896-1903"],"repository_ssm":["University of Virginia, Special Collections Dept."],"repository_ssim":["University of Virginia, Special Collections Dept."],"creator_ssm":[""],"creator_ssim":[""],"acqinfo_ssim":["This collection was purchased from Robert F. Batchelder, Ambler, Pa., September\n 4, 1991."],"has_online_content_ssim":["false"],"accessrestrict_html_tesm":["\u003cp\u003eThere are no restrictions.\u003c/p\u003e"],"accessrestrict_heading_ssm":["Access Restrictions"],"accessrestrict_tesim":["There are no restrictions."],"prefercite_html_tesm":["\u003cp\u003eAmbrose Bierce Collection, Accession #5992-j, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library, Charlottesville, Va.\u003c/p\u003e"],"prefercite_tesim":["Ambrose Bierce Collection, Accession #5992-j, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library, Charlottesville, Va."],"scopecontent_html_tesm":["\u003cp\u003eThis collection consists of 36 letters from Ambrose Bierce to Harriet Hershberg.\n\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eBierce promises to have his photograph taken so\n that he can fulfill her request for his autograph and\n a photograph and playfully says, \"When I get there \n [Oakland] I shall blindfold you,\n hypnotize you and command you to find my lost youth\n and freedom. Then I shall marry you alive and live\n happily ever after.\"\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eBierce writes \"I am sending you by this mail the\n photograph of a bad old man with a scowl. The scowl,\n however, is not for you -you never saw it.\" He did\n not send a photograph to her big sister (Louise ?)\n because she already possessed one more pleasant\n looking\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eHe accepts all of her gratitude and regard for\n himself although he does not believe that he merits\n it. He regrets that he cannot say when he will be\n able to meet Mr. King but agrees to see him\n informally some time when he is in \n Oakland \u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eIn this letter, he sends Harriet some wild\n pansies growing by the wayside because they made him\n think of her, \"I feel sure that the thought of you\n was put into my head by some divine intervention in\n the affairs of mortals, and for some purpose. My\n interpretation -with my feeble light and dull\n intuition-is that I am to send you some of those poor\n little frail pansies.\" He then goes on to explain\n that pansies are for thoughts and their old English\n name \"hearts-ease\" is better suited than \"pansies =\n pensees\"\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eThanks her for sending him the ginger cakes which\n he tried to share with the horned-toads but they\n preferred grasshoppers. He declines to visit \n Oakland because his last visit\n cost him a month's illness but urges her to visit him\n in \n Los Gatos and to bring with her\n \"that impossible paragon, the \n Pittsburgh sister -whom, however,\n I believe to be a myth.\"\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eAsks Harriet for the Paris address of her \"musical\n sweetheart,\" Will King, so that he can thank\n him for a book and asks her to write him concerning\n herself. Otherwise he will have to hire a detective\n to shadow her night and day and send him reports of\n everything he learns about her activities\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eHe wishes to see her very badly but remembers all\n too well the last illness which he suffered in \n Oakland, promises to send\n tickets to Belle and her if they will visit him in \n Los Gatos for a Sunday afternoon,\n and mentions receiving a letter from her sister\n Louise\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eExpresses joy at the receipt of her letter for\n \"it clears you of the solemn suspicion of running\n away from me in cold-blooded infraction of our\n understanding\" but he also thinks \"it very rascally\n of you to take all the sunshine out of \n Oakland to bestow it upon \n Iona \"\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eSends another photograph to replace the damaged\n one along with several books to \"the Colonel and the\n Major\" and mentions a letter from Mamie who proved to\n be a charming traveling companion\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eResponding to her impression of his goodness\n Bierce writes, \"It is pretty easy to be good to you,\n and I don't expect any credit for it in the books of\n the Recording Angel. He will say: 'Bah ! who wouldn't\n be good to Hattie Hershberg?' and then he\n will debit me with one selfish motive.\" He also\n mentions Kodak photographs of a group consisting of Hattie, Mamie, Dave, Selma, Louise, and\n himself, while assuring her of his devotion, \"you are still the only girl in the world; and if there is a\n man who does not love you he is a scoundrel.\" Referring the Preston School of Industry in Ione, California, a juvenile correction institute supervised by a relative of Hirshberg's Bierce writes, \"No, my pet scheme for making soldiers of the Major's little rascals is not practicable. The confounded Government is so particular about the moral character of its recruits that I couldn't enlist myself. This is a great disappointment to me. I had quite set my heart on getting Co. A into Cuba, to prove that bad boys make the best soldiers. But I'm assured that it cannot be done.\"\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eWrites that he has severed all connections with \n Los Gatos and that his health is\n now good as he day dreams under the redwoods. He\n complains that thoughts of her often break in upon\n his reminiscences of the past, \"Only the other day\n you want only interrupted the march of a column of\n troops from \n Readyville, Tennessee to \n Woodbury, Tennessee, which was\n not at all nice of you.\"\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eAgrees to take her to see the soldiers and to\n expound every military mystery they encounter and to\n plan a trip to the country when she visits\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003ePromises to visit \n San Francisco next Sunday and\n Monday if she promises to give him Monday, when they\n can see the soldiers or go anywhere she wants\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eBierce was unable to go to \n Oakland and wishes that he could\n run the world awhile, \"My first official act would be\n to order you and Mamie to \n Los Gatos ; my second, to go\n there myself.\"\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eThanks Hattie for the present of a cushion\n because it signified her return from her trip to a\n lake in the mountains and asks if he can visit her on\n Saturday afternoon\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eHopes that she is happier than in her last letter\n and asks individually about the health of her whole\n family\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eAgrees to examine the manuscript of one of her\n friends if it is in typescript and legible and\n describes his new quarters in a house with six rooms,\n one of which he has reserved for her and her chaperon\n if she will visit\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eApologizes for his seeming inattention and\n answers her questions about the \n \u003cbibref type=\"simple\" href=\"\"\u003e\u003ctitle type=\"simple\" href=\"\"\u003eRubaiyat of Omar Khayyam\u003c/title\u003e\u003c/bibref\u003e\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eUrges Hattie to come, rent a house, and visit\n several weeks in the area along with Belle and\n Florence, \"Please say if you will come and thereby\n sweeten the fragrance of the flowers, intensify the\n gold of the sunshine and add a new music to the\n voices of my pet quails -one of which sits on my knee\n as I write and looks knowing as if he said: I can\n tell by your face whom you are writing to?\"\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eExpresses his disappointment that she did not\n come up to visit during her summer outing and\n determines to accustom himself to disappointment even\n to the point of allowing Harriet, Belle, and Florence\n to marry if they choose\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eAsks her to again send the recipe for molasses\n candy for some of the ladies there want to make some\n and \"as the purpose of my existence is to please the\n members of the sex which your virtues preserve from\n damnation I comply with the request\"\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eVoices his concern over Louise's illness (malaria\n ?) and begs for news of her condition\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eAsks for news of Louise and relates his plans to\n make a farewell visit to \n San Francisco before he returns\n to \n Washington, D.C. to live\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eThanks Hattie for her good news about Louise and\n the invitation to Thanksgiving dinner which he must\n decline in the chaos of preparing to leave for \n Washington, D.C. but promises to\n try to see them all before he leaves\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eTells Hattie that he is to leave today and asks\n if she can keep herself and Louise and Belle at home\n long enough to see him before he leaves at 5\n p.m.\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eTells her that \"it is not worthwhile to love you\n anymore, for I shall never see you again\" even if she\n should visit \n Pittsburgh because the coal smoke\n from the railway engines makes him very ill and there\n is little else in \n Pittsburgh . \u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eAsks about the family and when she will be able\n to visit her sister Nettie in \n Pittsburgh and him in \n Washington \u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eDeclares that if he shall ever see those whom he\n loves again he will have to do the traveling \"to the\n imminent destruction of my lungs\" and wishes her \"as\n much happiness as I can make up my mind that you\n ought to have in my absence\"\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eHopes to see her in \n Washington before she leaves on\n her trip to \n Europe with her sister Nettie and\n offers to show her the capital\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eHaving just returned from an unpleasant fortnight\n in \n New York, Bierce hopes that\n Hattie will be able to visit him in \n Washington, although he would be\n willing to return to \n New York to see her\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eBierce looks forward to seeing Harriet in a few\n days and describes his Christmas Day activities\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eAssures her that he is not angry that she won't\n be coming to \n Washington because \"I have lived\n long enough to learn that a woman's promise is merely\n the expression of a mood -and woman's moods do not\n last long.\"\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eHe is glad that Hattie had a good time in \n Washington during her visit and\n that she is enjoying \n New York City as well but does\n not plan to see her in \n New York \u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eThanks her for her expression of sympathy and\n mentions that his daughter is visiting with him\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eBierce writes that he hopes her reasons for\n staying in the East so long is due to having such a\n good time and not the matchmaking attempts of Sally\n and Nettie, and he also touts his typewriting ability\n \"I have one great qualification: I can hold my\n tongue, though sometimes both hands are required to\n do the job\"\u003c/p\u003e","\u003cp\u003eHaving received her note about her impending\n marriage Bierce writes, \"It is pleasant to know that\n you still live, though about to die -I mean marry and\n live in \n Philadelphia . I approve the\n marriage, but \n Philadelphia ! -that is going too\n far\" and asks for news of everyone\u003c/p\u003e"],"scopecontent_heading_ssm":["Scope and Content\n"],"scopecontent_tesim":["This collection consists of 36 letters from Ambrose Bierce to Harriet Hershberg.\n","Bierce promises to have his photograph taken so\n that he can fulfill her request for his autograph and\n a photograph and playfully says, \"When I get there \n [Oakland] I shall blindfold you,\n hypnotize you and command you to find my lost youth\n and freedom. Then I shall marry you alive and live\n happily ever after.\"","Bierce writes \"I am sending you by this mail the\n photograph of a bad old man with a scowl. The scowl,\n however, is not for you -you never saw it.\" He did\n not send a photograph to her big sister (Louise ?)\n because she already possessed one more pleasant\n looking","He accepts all of her gratitude and regard for\n himself although he does not believe that he merits\n it. He regrets that he cannot say when he will be\n able to meet Mr. King but agrees to see him\n informally some time when he is in \n Oakland ","In this letter, he sends Harriet some wild\n pansies growing by the wayside because they made him\n think of her, \"I feel sure that the thought of you\n was put into my head by some divine intervention in\n the affairs of mortals, and for some purpose. My\n interpretation -with my feeble light and dull\n intuition-is that I am to send you some of those poor\n little frail pansies.\" He then goes on to explain\n that pansies are for thoughts and their old English\n name \"hearts-ease\" is better suited than \"pansies =\n pensees\"","Thanks her for sending him the ginger cakes which\n he tried to share with the horned-toads but they\n preferred grasshoppers. He declines to visit \n Oakland because his last visit\n cost him a month's illness but urges her to visit him\n in \n Los Gatos and to bring with her\n \"that impossible paragon, the \n Pittsburgh sister -whom, however,\n I believe to be a myth.\"","Asks Harriet for the Paris address of her \"musical\n sweetheart,\" Will King, so that he can thank\n him for a book and asks her to write him concerning\n herself. Otherwise he will have to hire a detective\n to shadow her night and day and send him reports of\n everything he learns about her activities","He wishes to see her very badly but remembers all\n too well the last illness which he suffered in \n Oakland, promises to send\n tickets to Belle and her if they will visit him in \n Los Gatos for a Sunday afternoon,\n and mentions receiving a letter from her sister\n Louise","Expresses joy at the receipt of her letter for\n \"it clears you of the solemn suspicion of running\n away from me in cold-blooded infraction of our\n understanding\" but he also thinks \"it very rascally\n of you to take all the sunshine out of \n Oakland to bestow it upon \n Iona \"","Sends another photograph to replace the damaged\n one along with several books to \"the Colonel and the\n Major\" and mentions a letter from Mamie who proved to\n be a charming traveling companion","Responding to her impression of his goodness\n Bierce writes, \"It is pretty easy to be good to you,\n and I don't expect any credit for it in the books of\n the Recording Angel. He will say: 'Bah ! who wouldn't\n be good to Hattie Hershberg?' and then he\n will debit me with one selfish motive.\" He also\n mentions Kodak photographs of a group consisting of Hattie, Mamie, Dave, Selma, Louise, and\n himself, while assuring her of his devotion, \"you are still the only girl in the world; and if there is a\n man who does not love you he is a scoundrel.\" Referring the Preston School of Industry in Ione, California, a juvenile correction institute supervised by a relative of Hirshberg's Bierce writes, \"No, my pet scheme for making soldiers of the Major's little rascals is not practicable. The confounded Government is so particular about the moral character of its recruits that I couldn't enlist myself. This is a great disappointment to me. I had quite set my heart on getting Co. A into Cuba, to prove that bad boys make the best soldiers. But I'm assured that it cannot be done.\"","Writes that he has severed all connections with \n Los Gatos and that his health is\n now good as he day dreams under the redwoods. He\n complains that thoughts of her often break in upon\n his reminiscences of the past, \"Only the other day\n you want only interrupted the march of a column of\n troops from \n Readyville, Tennessee to \n Woodbury, Tennessee, which was\n not at all nice of you.\"","Agrees to take her to see the soldiers and to\n expound every military mystery they encounter and to\n plan a trip to the country when she visits","Promises to visit \n San Francisco next Sunday and\n Monday if she promises to give him Monday, when they\n can see the soldiers or go anywhere she wants","Bierce was unable to go to \n Oakland and wishes that he could\n run the world awhile, \"My first official act would be\n to order you and Mamie to \n Los Gatos ; my second, to go\n there myself.\"","Thanks Hattie for the present of a cushion\n because it signified her return from her trip to a\n lake in the mountains and asks if he can visit her on\n Saturday afternoon","Hopes that she is happier than in her last letter\n and asks individually about the health of her whole\n family","Agrees to examine the manuscript of one of her\n friends if it is in typescript and legible and\n describes his new quarters in a house with six rooms,\n one of which he has reserved for her and her chaperon\n if she will visit","Apologizes for his seeming inattention and\n answers her questions about the \n  Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam","Urges Hattie to come, rent a house, and visit\n several weeks in the area along with Belle and\n Florence, \"Please say if you will come and thereby\n sweeten the fragrance of the flowers, intensify the\n gold of the sunshine and add a new music to the\n voices of my pet quails -one of which sits on my knee\n as I write and looks knowing as if he said: I can\n tell by your face whom you are writing to?\"","Expresses his disappointment that she did not\n come up to visit during her summer outing and\n determines to accustom himself to disappointment even\n to the point of allowing Harriet, Belle, and Florence\n to marry if they choose","Asks her to again send the recipe for molasses\n candy for some of the ladies there want to make some\n and \"as the purpose of my existence is to please the\n members of the sex which your virtues preserve from\n damnation I comply with the request\"","Voices his concern over Louise's illness (malaria\n ?) and begs for news of her condition","Asks for news of Louise and relates his plans to\n make a farewell visit to \n San Francisco before he returns\n to \n Washington, D.C. to live","Thanks Hattie for her good news about Louise and\n the invitation to Thanksgiving dinner which he must\n decline in the chaos of preparing to leave for \n Washington, D.C. but promises to\n try to see them all before he leaves","Tells Hattie that he is to leave today and asks\n if she can keep herself and Louise and Belle at home\n long enough to see him before he leaves at 5\n p.m.","Tells her that \"it is not worthwhile to love you\n anymore, for I shall never see you again\" even if she\n should visit \n Pittsburgh because the coal smoke\n from the railway engines makes him very ill and there\n is little else in \n Pittsburgh . ","Asks about the family and when she will be able\n to visit her sister Nettie in \n Pittsburgh and him in \n Washington ","Declares that if he shall ever see those whom he\n loves again he will have to do the traveling \"to the\n imminent destruction of my lungs\" and wishes her \"as\n much happiness as I can make up my mind that you\n ought to have in my absence\"","Hopes to see her in \n Washington before she leaves on\n her trip to \n Europe with her sister Nettie and\n offers to show her the capital","Having just returned from an unpleasant fortnight\n in \n New York, Bierce hopes that\n Hattie will be able to visit him in \n Washington, although he would be\n willing to return to \n New York to see her","Bierce looks forward to seeing Harriet in a few\n days and describes his Christmas Day activities","Assures her that he is not angry that she won't\n be coming to \n Washington because \"I have lived\n long enough to learn that a woman's promise is merely\n the expression of a mood -and woman's moods do not\n last long.\"","He is glad that Hattie had a good time in \n Washington during her visit and\n that she is enjoying \n New York City as well but does\n not plan to see her in \n New York ","Thanks her for her expression of sympathy and\n mentions that his daughter is visiting with him","Bierce writes that he hopes her reasons for\n staying in the East so long is due to having such a\n good time and not the matchmaking attempts of Sally\n and Nettie, and he also touts his typewriting ability\n \"I have one great qualification: I can hold my\n tongue, though sometimes both hands are required to\n do the job\"","Having received her note about her impending\n marriage Bierce writes, \"It is pleasant to know that\n you still live, though about to die -I mean marry and\n live in \n Philadelphia . I approve the\n marriage, but \n Philadelphia ! -that is going too\n far\" and asks for news of everyone"],"userestrict_html_tesm":["\u003cp\u003eSee the \n            \u003cextref type=\"simple\" href=\"https://www.library.virginia.edu/policies/use-of-materials\"\u003e\n            University of Virginia Library’s use policy.\u003c/extref\u003e\u003c/p\u003e"],"userestrict_heading_ssm":["Use Restrictions"],"userestrict_tesim":["See the \n             \n            University of Virginia Library’s use policy."],"physloc_html_tesm":["\u003cphysloc/\u003e"],"physloc_tesim":[""],"language_ssim":["English"],"total_component_count_is":36,"online_item_count_is":0,"component_level_isim":[0],"sort_isi":0,"timestamp":"2026-05-21T12:00:01.811Z"}]}},"label":"Breadcrumbs"}}},"links":{"self":"https://arvasarchive.org/catalog/viu_viu00058_c35"}}],"included":[{"type":"facet","id":"repository_ssim","attributes":{"label":"Repository","items":[{"attributes":{"label":"University of Virginia, Special 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