My Dear Carlyle,--'T is more than time that you should hear from
me whose debts to you always accumulate. But my long journey to
California ended in many distractions on my return home. I found
Varioloid in my house... and I was not permitted to enter it for
many days, and could only talk with wife, son, and daughter from
the yard.... I had crowded and closed my Cambridge lectures in
haste, and went to the land of Flowers invited by John M. Forbes,
one of my most valued friends, father of my daughter Edith's
husband. With him and his family and one or two chosen guests,
the trip was made under the best conditions of safety, comfort,
and company, I measuring for the first time one entire line of
the Country.
California surprises with a geography, climate, vegetation,
beasts, birds, fishes even, unlike ours; the land immense; the
Pacific sea; Steam brings the near neighborhood of Asia; and
South America at your feet; the mountains reaching the altitude
of Mont Blanc; the State in its six hundred miles of latitude
producing all our Northern fruits, and also the fig, orange, and
banana. But the climate chiefly surprised me. The Almanac said
April; but the day said June;--and day after day for six weeks
uninterrupted sunshine. November and December are the rainy
months. The whole Country, was covered with flowers, and all of
them unknown to us except in greenhouses. Every bird that I know
at home is represented here, but in gayer plumes.
On the plains we saw multitudes of antelopes, hares, gophers,--
even elks, and one pair of wolves on the plains; the grizzly
bear only in a cage. We crossed one region of the buffalo, but
only saw one captive. We found Indians at every railroad
station,--the squaws and papooses begging, and the "bucks," as
they wickedly call them, lounging. On our way out, we left the
Pacific Railroad for twenty-four hours to visit Salt Lake;
called on Brigham Young--just seventy years old--who received us
with quiet uncommitting courtesy, at first,--a strong-built,
self-possessed, sufficient man with plain manners. He took early
occasion to remark that "the one-man-power really meant all-
men's-power." Our interview was peaceable enough, and rather
mended my impression of the man; and, after our visit, I read in
the Descret newspaper his Speech to his people on the previous
Sunday. It avoided religion, but was full of Franklinian good
sense. In one point, he says: "Your fear of the Indians is
nonsense. The Indians like the white men's food. Feed them
well, and they will surely die." He is clearly a sufficient
ruler, and perhaps civilizer of his kingdom of blockheads ad
interim; but I found that the San Franciscans believe that this
exceptional power cannot survive Brigham.
I have been surprised--but it is months ago--by a letter from
Lacy Garbett, the Architect, whom I do not know, but one of whose
books, about "Design in Architecture," I have always valued.
This letter, asking of me that Americans shall join Englishmen in
a Petition to Parliament against pulling down Ancient Saxon
buildings, is written in a way so wild as to suggest insanity,
and I have not known how to answer it. At my "Saturday Club" in
Boston I sat at dinner by an English lord,--whose name I have
forgotten,--from whom I tried to learn what laws Parliament had
passed for the repairs of old religious Foundations, that could
make them the victims of covetous Architects. But he assured me
there were none such, and that he himself was President of a
Society in his own County for the protection of such buildings.
So that I am left entirely in the dark in regard to the fact
and Garbett's letter. He claims to speak both for Ruskin
and himself.
I grieve to hear no better account of your health than your last
letter gives. The only contradiction of it, namely, the power of
your pen in this reproduction of thirty books,--and such books,--
is very important and very consoling to me. A great work to be
done is the best insurance, and I sleep quietly, notwithstanding
these sad bulletins,--believing that you cannot be spared.
Fare well, dear friend,
R.W. Emerson