Since the first and second editions of "In the Footprints of the Padres"
appeared, many things have transpired. San Francisco has been destroyed
and rebuilt, and in its holocaust most of the old landmarks mentioned in
the pages that follow as then existing, have been obliterated. Since
then, too, the gentle heart, much of whose story is told herein, has
been hushed in death. Charles Warren Stoddard has followed on in the
footprints of the Padres he loved so well. He abides with us no longer,
save in the sweetest of memories, memories which are kept ever new by
the unforgettable writings which he left behind him. He passed away
April 23, 1909, and lies sleeping now under the cypresses of his beloved
Monterey.
Charles Warren Stoddard was possessed of unique literary gifts that were
all his own. These gifts shine out in the pages of this book. Here we
find that mustang humor of his forever kicking its silver heels with the
most upsetting suddenness into the honeyed sweetness of his flowing
poetry. Here, too, we find that gift of word-painting which makes all
his writings a brilliant gallery of rich-hued and soft-lighted wonder.
Of the green thickets of the redwood forests he says, in "Primeval
California": "A dense undergrowth of light green foliage caught and held
the sunlight like so much spray." So do Stoddard's pages catch and hold
the lights and shadows of a world which is the more beautiful because he
beheld it and sang of it--for sing he did. His prose is the essence of
poetry.
In my autograph copy of "The Footprints of the Padres" Stoddard wrote:
"A new memory of Old Monterey is the richer for our meeting here for the
first time in the flesh. We have often met in spirit ere this." Whenever
we would go walking together, he and I, through the streets of that old
Monterey, old no longer save in memory, he would invariably take me to a
certain high board fence, and looking through an opening show me the
ruins of an adobe house--nothing but a broken fireplace left, moss-grown
and crumbling away. "That is my old California," he would say, while his
sweet voice was shaken with tears. That desolated hearth seemed to him
the symbol of the California which he had known and loved.... But no,
the old California that Stoddard loved lives on, and will, because he
caught and preserved its spirit and its coloring, its light and life and
music. As the redwood thicket holds the sunlight, so do Stoddard's words
keep bright and living, though viewed through a mist of tears, the
California of other days.
In this new edition of "The Footprints" some changes will be found,
changes which all will agree make an improvement over the original
volume. "Primeval California," first published in October, 1881, in the
old Scribner's (now The Century) Magazine, when James G. Holland was its
editor, is at times Stoddard at his best. "In Yosemite Shadows" shows us
the young Stoddard full of boyish enthusiasm--he could not have been
more than twenty when it was written and published, in the old Overland,
then edited by Bret Harte. It is more than a gloriously poetic
description of Yosemite, when Yosemite still dreamed in its virgin
beauty; it is the revelation of a poet's beginnings, for it gives us in
the rough, just finding their way to the light, all those gifts which
later won Stoddard his fame.
The third addition to this volume is "An Affair of the Misty City," a
valuable chapter, since it is wholly autobiographical, and at the same
time embodies pen portraits of all the celebrities of California's first
literary days, that famous group of which Stoddard was one. Of all the
group, Ina Coolbrith was closest and dearest to Stoddard's heart. The
beautiful abiding friendship which bound the souls of these two poets
together has not been surpassed in all the poetry and romance of the
world. These last added chapters are taken from "In the Pleasure of His
Company," which is out of print and may never be republished.
The "Mysterious History," included in the original editions of "The
Footprints" has wisely been left out. It had no proper place in the
book: Stoddard himself felt that. The additions which have been supplied
by Mr. Robertson, who was for years Stoddard's publisher, and in whom
the author reposed the utmost confidence, make a real improvement on the
original book.
"We have often met in spirit ere this," Stoddard wrote me. We had; and
we meet again and again. I feel him very near me as I write these words;
and I feel, too, that his gentle soul will visit everyone who reads the
chronicles he has here set down, so that even though no shaft rise in
marble glory to mark his last resting place, still in unnumbered hearts
his memory will be enshrined. With his poet friend, Thomas Walsh, well
may we say:
"Vain the laudation!--What are crowns and praise
To thee whom Youth anointed on the eyes?
We have but known the lesser heart of thee
Whose spirit bloomed in lilies down the ways
Of Padua; whose voice perpetual sighs
On Molokai in tides of melody."