Friday, October the 29th, 2010
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“It has been observed that in their treatment of the Western frontier Bret Harte made the prevalent contempt for the law picturesque and Mark Twain found it humorous, but Ambrose Bierce labeled it for what it was—murder, armed robbery, assault with intent to kill. His occasional essays into Western crime were as bluntly stated as a police blotter: no chivalrous gamblers, just cardsharks; no courtly gunfighters, just homicidal psychopaths; no golden-hearted dancehall girls, just pathetic whores; no gallant soldiers nor stouthearted pioneers, just men on the government payroll bored by routine and farmers looking for a better piece of land. The Western legend was, to use his favourite word, bosh.”
Richard O'Connor, Ambrose Bierce : A Biography (1967)