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been retained.
_The_ Shirley Letters
_Other_ REPRINTS _Issued_
CALIFORNIA. _A_ HISTORY _of_ UPPER & LOWER CALIFORNIA _from their_
FIRST DISCOVERY _to the_ PRESENT TIME [1835]. Comprising an Account of
the Climate, Soil, Natural Productions, Agriculture, Commerce, &c. A
full view of the Missionary Establishments, and condition of the free
and domesticated Indians. With an Appendix relating to Steam-navigation
in the Pacific. ILLUSTRATED with a new Map, Plans of the Harbors, and
numerous Engravings. By ALEXANDER FORBES, Esq. Reprinted, page for
page, and approximately line for line, from the original edition
published by Smith, Elder, & Co., London, 1839, and to which is added a
NEW INDEX.
_Price_ $10, _net_.
VOYAGE _of the_ SONORA _in the_ SECOND BUCARELI EXPEDITION _to_ EXPLORE
_the_ NORTHWEST COAST, SURVEY _the_ PORT _of_ SAN FRANCISCO, _and_
FOUND FRANCISCAN MISSIONS _and a_ PRESIDIO _and_ PUEBLO _at that_ PORT.
The JOURNAL kept in 1775 on the SONORA by DON FRANCISCO MOURELLE, the
Second Pilot of the Fleet constituting the Sea Division of the
Expedition. Translated by the HON. DAINES BARRINGTON from the original
Spanish manuscript. Reprinted line for line and page for page from
BARRINGTON'S MISCELLANIES, published in London in 1781. With concise
NOTES showing the Voyages of the Earliest Explorers on the Coast, the
Sea and Land Expeditions of GALVEZ and of BUCARELI for the settlement
of California and for founding Missions, and MANY OTHER INTERESTING
NOTES, as well as AN ENTIRELY NEW INDEX TO BOTH THE JOURNAL AND THE
NOTES, by THOMAS C. RUSSELL. Together with a reproduction of the DE LA
BODEGA SPANISH CARTA GENERAL (MAP), showing the Spanish discoveries on
the Coast up to 1791, and also a PORTRAIT of BARRINGTON.
_Price_ $15, _net_.
NARRATIVE of EDWARD McGOWAN. _Including a full Account of the Author's_
ADVENTURES _and_ PERILS _while persecuted by the_ SAN FRANCISCO
VIGILANCE COMMITTEE _of_ 1856. Together with a Report of his Trial,
which resulted in his Acquittal. Reprinted, line for line and page for
page, from the original edition published by the author in 1857,
complete, with reproductions, in facsimile, of the original
illustrations, cover-page title, and title-page.
_Price_ $10, _net_.
_These works are printed in limited editions. Copies are numbered and
signed. The typesetting is all done by hand, and the type distributed
immediately upon completion of presswork. The printing, in all its
details, is the personal work of_ THOMAS C. RUSSELL, _at 1734
Nineteenth Avenue, San Francisco, California. Descriptive circulars
sent free, upon request_.
_This Book_
_is one of an edition of four hundred and fifty (450) numbered and
signed copies, the impressions being taken upon hand-set type, which
was distributed upon completion of the presswork. In two hundred (200)
copies Exeter book-paper is used, leaf-size being 9-1/4 x 6-1/4 inches;
in two hundred (200) copies, buff California bond-paper, 8-3/8 x 5-1/2;
in fifty (50) copies, thin buff California bond-paper, 6 x 9._
THIS COPY _is No._ 26 _California bond-paper_.
(_Signed_)
Thomas C. Russell
_The_ SHIRLEY LETTERS _from_
CALIFORNIA _Mines_
_In_ 1851-52
_Being a_ SERIES _of_ TWENTY-THREE LETTERS _from_
DAME SHIRLEY
(MRS. LOUISE AMELIA KNAPP SMITH CLAPPE)
_To her_ SISTER _in_ MASSACHUSETTS
_And now_ REPRINTED _from the_
PIONEER MAGAZINE
_of_ 1854-55
WITH
SYNOPSES _of the_ LETTERS, _a_ FOREWORD, _and_ MANY
TYPOGRAPHICAL _and other_ CORRECTIONS
_and_ EMENDATIONS, _by_
THOMAS C. RUSSELL
_Together with_ "_An_ APPRECIATION" _by_
MRS. M. V. T. LAWRENCE
ILLUSTRATED
SAN FRANCISCO
PRINTED _by_ THOMAS C. RUSSELL, _at his_ PRIVATE PRESS
1734 NINETEENTH AVENUE
1922
COPYRIGHT, 1922
BY THOMAS C. RUSSELL
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
_The_ Printer's Foreword _to this_ Edition
I SPEAK TO THE READER; LET THE WRITER LISTEN
Oriental Proverb (_adapted_)
CALIFORNIA, by Dr. Josiah Royce, in the handsome as well as handy
American Commonwealths series, is commonly regarded as the best short
history of California ever written, and particularly so as to the early
mining era. Dr. Royce knew his state, and a more competent writer could
hardly have been selected. Reviewing, in his history, almost everything
accessible, worthy of consideration, in connection with mining-camps,
it is noteworthy that the Doctor has much to say concerning the Shirley
Letters. Thus (p. 344),--
Fortune has preserved to us from the pen of a very intelligent
woman, who writes under an assumed name, a marvelously skillful and
undoubtedly truthful history of a mining community during a brief
period, first of cheerful prosperity, and then of decay and
disorder. The wife of a physician, and herself a well-educated New
England woman, "Dame Shirley," as she chooses to call herself, was
the right kind of witness to describe for us the social life of a
mining camp from actual experience. This she did in the form of
letters written on the spot to her own sister, and collected for
publication some two or three years later. Once for all, allowing
for the artistic defects inevitable in a disconnected series of
private letters, these "Shirley" letters form the best account of
an early mining camp that is known to me. For our real insight into
the mining life as it was, they are, of course, infinitely more
helpful to us than the perverse romanticism of a thousand such
tales as Mr. Bret Harte's, tales that, as the world knows, were not
the result of any personal experience of really primitive
conditions.
And in a foot-note on page 345 the Doctor says, in part,--
She is quite unconscious of the far-reaching moral and social
significance of much that she describes. Many of the incidents
introduced are such as imagination could of itself never suggest,
in such an order and connection. There is no mark of any conscious
seeking for dramatic effect. The moods that the writer expresses
indicate no remote purpose, but are the simple embodiment of the
thoughts of a sensitive mind, interested deeply in the wealth of
new experiences. The letters are charmingly unsentimental; the
style is sometimes a little stiff and provincial, but is on the
whole very readable.
No typographical or other changes are made in printing these extracts
from Dr. Royce's history, and as typographical style is involved in
noticing further the Doctor's review of the Shirley Letters, it is
proper to say here that his volume was printed at the Riverside Press,
Cambridge, Massachusetts,--a press that, in the words of a writer on
matters of typographical style, "maintained the reputation of being one
of the three or four most painstaking establishments in the world."
Such places are few and far between, unlike the "book and job printing
establishments" that, like the poor, are always with us, and where no
_book_ was ever printed.
After having so fittingly introduced Shirley to his readers, it is
unfortunate that the Doctor is not always accurate in his citation of
the facts as printed in the Letters. Thus on page 347 of his history,
he says that the wife of the landlord of the Empire Hotel at Rich Bar
was "yellow-complexioned and care-worn." She does not appear to have
been a care-worn person. Shirley says of her (post, p. 39),--
Mrs. B. is a gentle and amiable looking woman, about twenty-five
years of age. She is an example of the terrible wear and tear to
the complexion in crossing the plains, hers having become, through
exposure at that time, of a dark and permanent yellow, anything but
becoming. I will give you a key to her character, which will
exhibit it better than weeks of description. She took a nursing
babe, eight months old, from her bosom, and left it with two other
children, almost infants, to cross the plains in search of gold!
The Doctor says, "The woman cooked for all the boarders herself," and
in the preceding sentence states, "The baby, six months old, kicked and
cried in a champagne-basket cradle." Shirley does not use the word
"boarders." The baby was only two weeks old. With the details of the
birth of this baby omitted, Shirley's account of these matters is (p.
40, post),--
When I arrived she was cooking supper for some half a dozen people,
while her really pretty boy, who lay kicking furiously in his
champagne-basket cradle, and screaming with a six-months-old-baby
power, had, that day, completed just two weeks of his earthly
pilgrimage.... He is an astonishingly large and strong child, holds
his head up like a six-monther, and has but one failing,--a too
evident and officious desire to inform everybody, far and near, at
all hours of the night and day, that his lungs are in a perfectly
sound and healthy condition.
Dr. Royce (p. 347) tells of the funeral of one of the four women
residing at Rich Bar at the time of Shirley's arrival, which was only a
few days prior to the death, and they had not met. The funeral service
was held at the log-cabin residence, which had "one large opening in
the wall to admit light." The "large opening" was not, in the first
intention, to admit light. Shirley says (post, p. 70),--
It has no window, all the light admitted entering through an
aperture where there _will_ be a door when it becomes cold enough
for such a luxury.
Describing the service, the Doctor says, in part,--
After a long and wandering impromptu prayer by somebody, a prayer
which "Shirley" found disagreeable (since she herself was a
churchwoman, and missed the burial service), the procession,
containing twenty men and three women, set out.
Shirley was not, at that time, a churchwoman, and her account of the
prayer, etc., is,--
About twenty men, with the three women of the place, had assembled
at the funeral. An extempore prayer was made, filled with all the
peculiarities usual to that style of petition. Ah, how different
from the soothing verses of the glorious burial service of the
church!
It may not be inappropriate here to note that the baby referred to in
the two immediately preceding pages is none other than the original of
The Luck in Bret Harte's Luck of Roaring Camp. How the funeral scene as
described by Shirley was adapted by this master of short-story writing,
and how skillfully he combined it with the birth of The Luck, may be
perceived in the two paragraphs following.
[Shirley, post, p. 70.] On a board, supported by two butter-tubs,
was extended the body of the dead woman, covered with a sheet. By
its side stood the coffin, of unstained pine, lined with white
cambric.
[The Luck of Roaring Camp, Overland, vol. i, p. 184.] Beside the
low bunk or shelf, on which the figure of the mother was starkly
outlined below the blankets, stood a pine table. On this a
candle-box was placed, and within it, swathed in staring red
flannel, lay the last arrival at Roaring Camp.
Bancroft (History of California, vol. vii, p. 724), speaking of early
California literature, says,--
Mining life in California furnished inexhaustible material;... and
almost every book produced in the golden era gave specimens more or
less entertaining of the wit and humor developed by the struggle
with homelessness, physical suffering, and mental gloom. And when,
perchance, a writer had never heard original tales of the kind he
felt himself expected to relate, he took them at second-hand....
Even the most powerful of Bret Harte's stories borrowed their
incidents from the letters of Mrs. Laura A. K. Clapp, who under the
nom de plume of 'Shirley,' wrote a series of letters published in
the _Pioneer Magazine_, 1851-2. The 'Luck of Roaring Camp' was
suggested by incidents related in Letter II., p. 174-6 of vol. i.
of the _Pioneer_. In Letter XIX., p. 103-10 of vol. iv., is the
suggestion of the 'Outcasts of Poker Flat.' Mrs. Clapp's simple
epistolary style narrates the facts, and Harte's exquisite style
imparts to them the glamour of imagination.
The temptation cannot be resisted, at this point, to pursue the history
of The Luck of Roaring Camp a little further. The reader will kindly
remember that no changes are made in printing extracts. Mr. T. Edgar
Pemberton, in his Bret Harte: A Treatise and a Tribute (London, 1900),
says, in referring to criticism of the story when it was first in
type,--
Mr. Noah Brooks has recorded this strange incident as follows:--
'Perhaps I may be pardoned,' he says, 'for a brief reference to an
odd complication that arose while _The Luck of Roaring Camp_ was
being put into type in the printing office where _The Overland
Monthly_ was prepared for publication. A young lady who served as
proof-reader in the establishment had been somewhat shocked by the
scant morals of the mother of Luck, and when she came to the scene
where Kentuck, after reverently fondling the infant, said, "he
wrastled with my finger, the d----d little cuss," the indignant
proof-reader was ready to throw up her engagement rather than go
any further with a story so wicked and immoral. There was
consternation throughout the establishment, and the head of the
concern went to the office of the publisher with the virginal
proof-reader's protest. Unluckily, Mr. Roman was absent from the
city. Harte, when notified of the obstacle raised in the way of
_The Luck of Roaring Camp_, manfully insisted that the story must
be printed as he wrote it, or not at all. Mr. Roman's _locum
tenens_ in despair brought the objectionable manuscript around to
my office and asked my advice. When I had read the sentence that
had caused all this turmoil, having first listened to the tale of
the much-bothered temporary publisher, I surprised him by a burst
of laughter. It seemed to me incredible that such a tempest in a
tea-cup could have been raised by Harte's bit of character
sketching. But, recovering my gravity, I advised that the whole
question should await Mr. Roman's return. I was sure that he would
never consent to any "editing" of Harte's story. This was agreed
to, and when the publisher came back, a few days later, the embargo
was removed. _The Luck of Roaring Camp_ was printed as it was
written, and printing office and vestal proof-reader survived the
shock.'
It is amazing to think that, but for the determination and
self-confidence of quite a young author, a story that has gladdened
and softened the hearts of thousands,--a story that has drawn
welcome smiles and purifying tears from all who can appreciate its
deftly-mingled humour and pathos,--a story that has been a boon to
humanity--might have been sacrificed to the shallow ruling of a
prudish 'young-lady' proof-reader, and a narrow-minded, pharisaical
deacon-printer!
It is appalling to think what might have happened if through
nervousness or modesty the writer had been frightened by the
premature criticisms of this precious pair.
The "deacon-printer" mentioned by Pemberton was Jacob Bacon, a fine
specimen of the printer of the latter half of the last century. He was
the junior partner of the firm of Towne and Bacon, the printers of
Harte's _first_ volume, The Lost Galleon. Mr. Towne (not _Tane_, as
spelled in Merwin's Life of Bret Harte) obtained judgment in Boston for
the printing of that volume. (See further, Mrs. T. B. Aldrich's
Crowding Memories, as to satisfaction of judgment.)
A half-tone portrait of the "prudish 'young-lady' proof-reader" (what a
lacerating taunt!) is printed in the Bret Harte Memorial Number of the
Overland (September, 1902).
The proof-readers have not dealt kindly with The Luck of Roaring Camp;
but the first of that ilk to mutilate the story was also the worst, to
wit, the aforesaid "prudish 'young-lady' proof-reader."
Good usage in typography was utterly unknown to this young
lady,--punctuation, capitalization, the use of the hyphen in dividing
and compounding words. In practice she did not--perhaps could
not--recognize any distinction between a cipher and a lower-case _o_.
As to spelling, one may find "etherial," "azalias," "tessallated."
Noah Brooks, in the Overland Memorial Number, says (p. 203),--
He [Bret Harte] collected some half-dozen stories and poems and
they were printed in a volume entitled "The Luck of Roaring Camp
and Other Sketches," (1870.)
There were no poems printed in that volume. It was published in Boston
by Fields, Osgood, & Co. Printed at the University Press at Cambridge,
then unquestionably the best book-printing house in the United States,
of course many of the typographical errors were weeded out. This volume
was reprinted in London by John Camden Hotten.
It is to be regretted that the University Press was not more
painstaking in the proof-reading, for the Overland typographical
perversions persist in some instances to the present day. The reader is
not misled by the lubbering punctuation of the sentence, "She was a
coarse, and, it is to be feared, a very sinful woman." The usage in
such a construction is, "She was a coarse, and it is to be feared a
very sinful, woman." But note where the sense is affected:--
Cherokee Sal was sinking fast. Within an hour she had climbed, as
it were, that rugged road that led to the stars, and so passed out
of Roaring Camp, its sin and shame forever.
Cherokee Sal could not possibly be the sin and shame of Roaring Camp
forever; hence the sense calls for a comma after "shame," in the
extract. It is gratifying to note that the comma is used in the Hotten
reprint.
Another egregious blunder which has persisted is the printing of the
word "past" for "passed," in the extract below.
Then he [Kentuck] walked up the gulch, past the cabin, still
whistling with demonstrative unconcern. At a large redwood tree he
paused and retraced his steps, and again passed the cabin.
It remained for a proof-reader at the Riverside Press to reconstruct
the sentence by deleting the comma after the word "gulch"; thus, "the
gulch past the cabin." That Kentuck "again passed the cabin" seems not
to have been considered. Hence, in the Houghton Mifflin Company's
printings of The Luck of Roaring Camp, the last error is worse than the
first.
These errors are not venial. Those that are such have not been
mentioned, as they occur in almost every book, and appear to be
unavoidable. Other errors, evincing a lack of knowledge of good usage
in book-typography, must also pass unnoticed.
The Luck of Roaring Camp having been disposed of, consideration of Dr.
Royce's review of the Shirley Letters will be resumed.
The Doctor, on page 350 of his work, says, "In her little library she
had a Bible, a prayer-book, Shakespeare, and Lowell's 'Fable for the
Critics,' with two or three other books." Shirley (p. 100, post) says
she had a--
Bible and prayer-book, Shakespeare, Spenser, Coleridge, Shelley,
Keats, Lowell's Fable for Critics, Walton's Complete Angler, and
some Spanish books.
The poet Spenser's name was spelled with a _c_ in the Pioneer, but the
article "the" was not used before "Critics," as in the extract from
Royce,--an unpardonable error in a book printed in Cambridge, and at
the Riverside Press too.
The Spanish books mentioned by Shirley were evidently not neglected by
her, and her acquaintance with and friendship for the Spanish-speaking
population scattered along the banks of the Rio de las Plumas must have
made her very familiar with their tongue. In reading these Letters one
cannot fail to perceive how fittingly Spanish words and phrases are
interwoven with her own English. At the time these Letters were
written, many Spanish words were a part of the California vernacular,
but to Shirley belongs the honor of introducing them into the
literature of California; hence, in printing the Letters, such words
are not italicized, as they usually are, by printers who should know
better.
Dr. Royce also says on page 350, "Prominent in the society of the Bar
was a trapper, of the old Fremont party, who told blood-curdling tales
of Indian fights." (See post, p. 111.) It is singular that the Doctor
has failed to identify this trapper with the well-known James P.
Beckwourth, whose Life and Adventures (Harpers, New York, 1856) was
written from his own dictation by Thomas D. Bonner, a justice of the
peace in Butte County in 1852. His name is preserved in "Beckwourth
Pass." He first entered this pass probably in the spring of the year
1851, although 1850 is the year given in his Life. The Western Pacific
Railroad utilizes the pass for its tracks entering California, and
through it came the pioneers of whom Shirley has much to say in Letter
the Twenty-second.
Among punishments for thefts, the Doctor, on page 351, speaks of a
"decidedly barbarous case of hanging" for that offense. It is referred
to here for the reason that in the sequel of the hanging Bret Harte
found more than a suggestion for his finale of The Outcasts of Poker
Flat. Both are reprinted here for the purpose of comparison. Shirley
says (post, p. 157),--
The body of the criminal was allowed to hang for some hours after
the execution. It had commenced storming in the earlier part of the
evening, and when those whose business it was to inter the remains
arrived at the spot, they found them enwrapped in a soft white
shroud of feathery snowflakes, as if pitying nature had tried to
hide from the offended face of Heaven the cruel deed which her
mountain-children had committed.
The finale of The Outcasts of Poker Flat follows, in part, with no
other changes than those of punctuation and capitalization.
They slept all that day and the next, nor did they waken when
voices and footsteps broke the silence of the camp. And when
pitying fingers brushed the snow from their wan faces, you could
scarcely have told, from the equal peace that dwelt upon them,
which was she that had sinned. Even the law of Poker Flat
recognized this, and turned away, leaving them still locked in each
other's arms. But at the head of the gulch, on one of the largest
pine-trees, they found the deuce of clubs pinned to the bark with a
bowie-knife.... And pulseless and cold, with a derringer by his
side and a bullet in his heart, though still calm as in life,
beneath the snow lay he who was at once the strongest and yet the
weakest of the outcasts of Poker Flat.
The phrase, "though still calm as in life," in the last sentence of the
extract immediately preceding, is one that would seem to invite the
challenge of a proof-reader. It is passed without further notice.
Dr. Royce is not at his best in reviewing Letter the Nineteenth. The
suggestion for The Outcasts of Poker Flat was found therein by Bret
Harte, as previously noted. On page 354 the Doctor says,--
A "majestic-looking Spaniard" had quarreled with an Irishman about
a Mexican girl ("Shirley" for the first time, I think, thus showing
a knowledge of the presence at Indian Bar of those women who seem,
in the bright and orderly days of her first arrival, to have been
actually unknown in the camp). The Mexican, having at last stabbed
and killed the other, fled to the hills.
It does not appear from the letter that a girl of any kind was involved
in this stabbing and death. Shirley distinguishes between the Spaniard
and the Mexican; the Doctor does not. As to the presence of "those
women," Shirley, without commenting, sheds much light upon that
subject, as will be perceived from the following extracts. Dr. Royce's
review does not coincide with the facts.
Seven miners from Old Spain, enraged at the cruel treatment which
their countrymen had received on the Fourth,... had united for the
purpose of taking revenge on seven Americans. All well armed,...
intending to challenge each one his man,... on arriving at Indian
Bar ... they drank a most enormous quantity of champagne and
claret. Afterwards they proceeded to [a vile resort kept by an
Englishman], when one of them commenced a playful conversation with
one of his countrywomen. This enraged the Englishman, who instantly
struck the Spaniard a violent blow.... Thereupon ensued a spirited
fight, which ... ended without bloodshed.... Soon after,... Tom
Somers, who is said always to have been a dangerous person when in
liquor, without any apparent provocation struck Domingo (one of the
original seven) a violent blow.... The latter,... mad with wine,
rage, and revenge, without an instant's pause drew his knife and
inflicted a fatal wound upon his insulter. [Post, p. 271.]
In the bakeshop, which stands next door to our cabin, young Tom
Somers lay straightened for the grave (he lived but fifteen minutes
after he was wounded), while over his dead body a Spanish woman was
weeping and moaning in the most piteous and heartrending manner.
[Post, p. 264.]
Domingo, with a Mexicana hanging upon his arm, and brandishing
threateningly the long, bloody knife,... was parading up and down
the street unmolested.... The [Americans] rallied and made a rush
at the murderer, who immediately plunged into the river and swam
across,... and without doubt is now safe in Mexico. [Post, p. 263.]
A disregard of exactness is not peculiar to Dr. Royce. Secondary
authorities are generally open to criticism. Of the authenticity of
Shirley's facts there can be no question. Dr. Royce recognized this,
while subjecting the work of other writers to severe scrutiny. But
Shirley's printer did her much evil. It is not necessary here to say
much concerning trade usages in making an author's manuscript
presentable in type,--the essentially different ways of and differences
between the job, the newspaper, and the book printer. Shirley's
letters, not having been written for publication, required exceptional
care while being put in type, and especially so since the manuscript
was not prepared for the press. It is amusing to read what the printers
of the Pioneer have to say of themselves.
Our facilities for doing FINE BOOK WORK, are very great, possessing
as we do, large founts of new type, and an ADAMS POWER PRESS. We
refer to the Pioneer Magazine, as a specimen. We have in use a
MAMMOTH PRESS, which gives us a great advantage in the execution of
the LARGEST SIZE MAMMOTH POSTERS, in colors or plain.
In the estimation of the printers, the materiel was the principal
thing; the personnel, not worthy of mention,--and it so happened that
it wasn't, for, judging from the typographical inaccuracies of the
Pioneer, the compositors were of a very low order of intelligence, and
if a proof-reader was employed, he assuredly stood high in their
estimation, as he evidently caused them but little trouble.
Much has been said by writers on matters typographical as to what is
meet and necessary in the reprinting of a book, and much more on
literary blunders and mistakes. Some printers are rash, and perpetrate
a worse blunder than that attempted to be corrected in reprinting.
Worse than such people are the amateur proof-readers, who generally run
to extremes, that is, they either cannot see a blunder, and hence pass
it unchallenged, or else they manifest a disposition to challenge and
"improve" everything they do not comprehend, and, knowing nothing of
typographical usages or style, they are a decidedly malignant quantity.
Every old printer knows, what is often said, that English is a
grammarless tongue, and that no grammarian ever wrote a sentence worth
reading. No proof-reader, with the experience of a printer behind him,
will change a logically expressed idea so as to make it conform to
grammatical rules, nor will he harass the author thereof with
suggestions looking to that end.
Critical readers of these Letters must ever bear in mind the fact that
Shirley was not writing for publication, and that the printer of this
edition had no desire to and did not alter Shirley's text to suit his
ideas of what was fitting and proper, further than to smooth or round
out in many instances rugged or careless construction. Punctuation,
hyphenization, capitalization, italicizing, spelling, required much,
and of course received much, attention.
In some instances where Shirley does not express her meaning clearly,
and reconstruction seemed necessary, no change was made. Singularly,
this was the case in the first sentence of the first letter.
I can easily imagine, dear M., the look of large wonder which
gleams from your astonished eyes when they fall upon the date of
this letter.
M. could be astonished but once, but the language used conveys the idea
of wonder arising each time the letter is read; then, again, it is the
place-name, and not the date, that is to cause wonder to gleam from
astonished eyes, as the context shows.
Where reconstruction was not needed to make the meaning clear, and this
could be done by the insertion of a word or phrase, or by some other
simple emendation, changes were generally made. The extract (post, p.
11) following is printed just as it appeared in the Pioneer.
As a frame to the graceful picture, on one side rose the Buttes,
that group of hills so piquant and saucy; and on the other tossing
to Heaven the everlasting whiteness of their snow wreathed
foreheads, stood, sublime in their very monotony, the glorious
Sierra Nevada.
Besides changes in capitalization and punctuation, the words, "the
summits of," are inserted before "the glorious Sierra." Compare Bret
Harte's lines,--
Above the pines the moon was slowly drifting,
The river sang below;
The dim Sierras, far beyond, uplifting
Their minarets of snow.
By the word "Sierras" the mountain-range called the Sierra Nevada is
not meant, but merely teeth-like summits thereof, which uplift their
snow-clad peaks, or "minarets." The Spanish word "sierra" means, in
English, a saw, and also a ridge of mountains and craggy rocks.
"Nevada" means here, in connection with "Sierra," snowy. Thus, "the
snowy ridge of mountains and craggy rocks," or, to express the meaning
more clearly in English, the snowy serrated mountain-range. Bret
Harte's capitalization of "Sierras" may be safely challenged. The lines
are from his poem, Dickens in Camp.
The Buttes mentioned by Shirley are the Marysville Buttes. "Butte" is
French, and descriptive, and French trappers bestowed the name.
Shirley sometimes uses an adverb instead of an adjective. Thus on page
332, speaking of a tame frog on the bar at a rancho, she says,--
You cannot think how comically [comic] it looked hopping about the
bar, quite as much at home as a tame squirrel would have been.
An old San Francisco printer once heard a newspaperman say that this
little incident furnished the suggestion to Mark Twain for his Jumping
Frog of Calaveras, but, unfortunately, regarded the remark as of no
more importance than much other gossip current among printers and
newspapermen.
Shirley, like many another writer, used marks of quotation improperly,
when the language of the author cited was altered or adapted. Worse
than this are many instances of gross misquotation. In the former case,
the quotation-marks were deleted; in the latter, accuracy was the aim.
On page 79 quotation-marks are deleted, the language used being
adapted, thus, "clothe themselves with curses as with a garment."
Compare Psalms cix, 18, "He clothed himself with cursing like as with
his garment."
On page 101 a correction is made; thus, "As thy day is, so shall thy
strength be" (Deut. xxxiii, 25). In the Letters this read, "As thy
days, so," etc.
On page 268 quotation-marks are deleted, as the language used is
adapted, and in a strict sense is also inaccurate; thus, "The _woman_
tempted me, and I did eat." Compare Genesis iii, 12, 13.
12. And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she
gave me of the tree, and _I_ did eat.
13. And the Lord God said unto the woman, What is this that thou
hast done? And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did
eat.
Blunders and mistakes of all sorts might be set out, but it is not
deemed advisable to pursue this matter any further. It is, however,
necessary to say something further of THE PIONEER itself, and the
paper-cover title of the May, 1855, number is reprinted here, with an
outline drawing of the crude woodcut vignette printed in the original.
It was impossible to secure a satisfactory facsimile of the title. The
names of some of the agents of the magazine are of historical interest.
_The_ PIONEER
_or_
California Monthly Magazine
[Illustration]
_May, 1855_
SAN FRANCISCO
PUBLISHED _by_ LE COUNT & STRONG
Nos. 111 & 113 MONTGOMERY STREET
_For_ SALE _at all the_ BOOKSTORES _in the_ CITY
AGENTS
J. W. JONES, Benicia; CHAS. BINNEY, Sacramento; R. A. EDDY & CO.,
Marysville; GEO. VINCENT & CO., Coloma; LANGTON & BRO., Downieville; A.
ROMAN, Shasta; ROMAN & PARKER, Yreka; NASH & DAVIS, Placerville; ADAMS
& CO., Jackson; ADAMS & CO., Georgetown; ADAMS & CO., Mud Springs; C. O.
BURTON, Stockton; CANNADAY & COOK, Sonora; A. A. HUNNEWELL, Columbia;
J. COFFIN, Mokelumne Hill; MILLER & CO., Chinese Camp; ELLIOTT REED,
San Jose; ALEXANDER S. TAYLOR, Monterey; R. K. SWEETLAND, Volcano;
LANGTON & BRO., Sierra County; DR. STEINBERGER, agent Adams & Co.,
Oregon; HENRY M. WHITNEY, Honolulu, S.I.
MONSON & VALENTINE, Printers, 124 Sacramento Street
But few copies of the Pioneer are known to be in existence. Odd numbers
are sometimes found, but these are generally in a mutilated condition,
while the bound volumes lack the advertisements.
The first number was issued in January, 1854, and the last in December,
1855. The first letter of the Shirley series appeared in the initial
number, and the last one in the final issue. The magazine seems to have
been well received in the East, and the Eastern magazines reviewed it
very favorably.
Of Shirley herself it is not necessary to say much in this Foreword.
She was a typical Massachusetts girl, although born in New Jersey, the
residence of the family in the latter state being merely temporary, as
is clearly shown by her correspondence. A letter from Miss Katherine
Powell, librarian of the Amherst Town Library, sheds some light on the
early associations of Shirley. In part, she says,--
In spite of widespread inquiries, I have been able to get ... [but
little] concerning Louise Amelia Knapp Smith. There are no people
now living here who knew her even by hearsay. The records of
Amherst Academy show that she attended that institution in 1839 and
1840.... Miss Smith's name adds another to the long list of writers
who have lived here at one time or another, and Amherst Academy has
added many names to that list. Two of them--Emily Dickinson the
poet, and Emily Fowler Ford--were schoolmates of Miss Smith. Mrs.
Ford was the granddaughter of Noah Webster (an Amherst man [one of
the founders of Amherst College]) and daughter of Professor Fowler
[the phrenologist], who wrote several books. Eugene Field was, some
years later, a student of the old Academy, and in his poem, My
Playmates, he mentioned by their real names a number of his old
schoolmates. Helen Hunt Jackson was a contemporary of Miss Smith
here, and, although she did not attend the Academy, must have been
well known to her.
Amherst, it should be said, was the home-town of Shirley's family, and
to it she often fondly refers in the Letters. It is not cause for
wonder that she is not now remembered in Amherst. Her correspondence
shows that the members of the family, although devotedly attached to
one another, were inclined to disperse.
Mrs. Mary Viola Tingley Lawrence has kindly permitted the printing in
this volume of a paper prepared by her to be read before a literary
society, containing much that is interesting of Shirley's life. Mrs.
Lawrence is well known among the _literati_ of San Francisco. She was a
contributor to the old Overland. What is of more interest here is the
fact that she was a favorite pupil of Shirley, and later her most
intimate friend in California. It was from a selection of poetry
gathered by Mrs. Lawrence that Bret Harte obtained the larger portion
of his selection entitled "Outcroppings" (San Francisco, 1866), a
title, by the way, claimed by Mrs. Lawrence as her own.
Rich Bar and Indian Bar, in Butte County at the time the Shirley
Letters were written, are now in Plumas County, consequent upon a
change of the county boundary lines. There are two Rich Bars on the
Feather River, the minor one being on the Middle Fork, and oftentimes
mistaken for the one made famous by Shirley. James Graham Fair, one of
the earliest multimillionaires of California, and United States Senator
from Nevada, panned out his first sackful of gold at Rich Bar, and
probably at the time Shirley was writing her Letters. Many other men,
whose names are familiar to Californians, also delved into the earth at
this historic spot, which is now, in railroad "literature," called
"Rich." Like many another California clipped place-name, the new name
has not the glamour of the old, which, in the words of Shirley, was "a
most taking name."
In closing this Foreword, the printer desires to emphasize the fact
that the typesetting and presswork of this book are entirely his own
work. No one acquainted with the methods employed in a legitimate
book-printing house will fail to recognize the fact that it is well
nigh impossible to print a _book_ without possession of the minute
technical knowledge essential in each department. Hence the most
skillful book-printer is distrustful of himself, unless supported by
experienced craftsmen, and more especially by time-tried proof-readers.
For many favors extended while the Letters were in press, thanks are
due, and are now acknowledged, to Milton J. Ferguson, the librarian of
the State Library at Sacramento, California, who was never-failing in
either service or patience.
Dame Shirley, _the_ Writer _of these_ Letters
An Appreciation
BEING _a_ PAPER _prepared by_ MRS. MARY VIOLA TINGLEY LAWRENCE _to be
read before a_ SAN FRANCISCO _literary society on_ MRS. LOUISE AMELIA
KNAPP SMITH CLAPPE (DAME SHIRLEY)
The Shirley Letters, written in the pioneer days of 1851 and 1852, were
hailed throughout the country as the first-born of California
literature. Mrs. Clappe, their author, was the one woman who depicted
that era of romantic life, dipping her pen into a rich personal
experience, and writing with a clarity and beauty born of an alert
comprehensive mind and a rare sense of refinement and character.
The Letters had been written to a loved sister in the East, but
Ferdinand C. Ewer, a _litterateur_ of San Francisco, a close friend,
fell upon them by chance, and, realizing their historic value, urged
that they be published in the Pioneer, of which he was editor. These
Shirley Letters, thus published, brought the new West to the wondering
East, and showed to those who had not made the venture, the courage,
the fervor, the beauty, the great-heartedness, that made up life in the
new El Dorado. Shirley's sympathetic Interpretation of their tumultuous
experience cheered the Argonauts by throwing before their eyes the
drama in which they were unconsciously the swash-buckling, the tragic,
or the romantic actors, and helped to crystallize the growing love for
the new land, which love turned fortune and adventure seekers into
home-makers and empire-builders.
This quickly recognized author became the leader of the first _salon_
the Golden West ever knew, and one of the foremost influences in
California's social and intellectual life, by force of a high
intelligence and a heart and soul that were a noble woman's.
Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe came to light in Elizabeth, New
Jersey, in 1819. Her father, Moses Smith, was a man of high scholarly
attainment, and by her mother, Lois Lee, she could claim an equally
gifted ancestry, and a close kinship with Julia Ward Howe. As a young
girl, together with several brothers and sisters, she was left
parentless, but there was a comfortable estate, and a faithful
guardian, the Hon. Osman Baker, a Member of Congress I believe, who saw
to it that they received the very best mental and physical training.
Shirley was educated at Amherst and Charlestown, Massachusetts, and at
Amherst was the family home.
At that day the epistolary art was a finished accomplishment, and in
childhood she evidenced a ready use of the quill pen. Later on, she
maintained correspondence with brilliant minds, who challenged her to
her best. At the same time she was pursuing her English studies, to
which were added French, German, and Italian. She had but little time
for the trivial social amenities, but her frequent missives from her
relatives, the Lees and Wards of New York City and Boston, and her
enjoyable visits to their gay homes, broke the strain of mental grind,
and kept her in touch with the fashionable world. Her communications in
the forties disclose a relation to men and women of culture, whose
letters are colorful of people, places, and events, and through them we
reach an intimate inside of her own self. Those faded, musty-smelling
epistles, with pressed flowers, from an old attic, reveal a rich kind
of distinct and charming personalities.
Shirley, small, fair, and golden-haired, was not physically strong, and
her careful guardian often ordered a change of climate. Sometimes she
sojourned in the South. In her migrations she might employ a carriage,
or venture on a canal-boat, but usually the stage-coach carried her. It
was on one of those bits of travel that she met Mr. A. H. Everett of
Massachusetts, a brother of Edward Everett, a noted author, and popular
throughout the country as a lecturer. He had been charge d'affaires in
the Netherlands, and minister to Spain. An intimate relationship,
chiefly by correspondence, was established between this gifted girl and
this brilliant gentleman. His long letters from Louisiana sometimes
were written wholly in French. From Washington, D.C., he writes that
the mission of United States minister to a foreign court has been
offered him, but it fails to tempt him away from his life of letters.
However, later on, it comes about that he accepts the mission of United
States commissioner to the more alluring China, and his long letters to
her from there, as they had been from other foreign lands, were most
entertaining. This rare man grows to be very fond of his young and
brilliant correspondent, and signs himself, "Yours faithfully and
affectionately." But he was well on in years, and she looks upon him
more as a father than as a suitor, and he so understands it. He commits
himself enough to say how much it would be to him to have her near him
as an attachee, and when she hints of her engagement to a young
physician, he jealously begs to know every detail concerning the happy
man.
Shirley married Dr. Fayette Clappe, and in 1849, with the spirit of
romance and the fire of enthusiasm, the joyful young Argonauts set sail
for California in the good ship Manilla.
They found the primitive San Francisco enthralling, but a fire swept
away the new city, and tent-life was accepted as one of many
picturesque experiences. Soon, however, the Doctor's shingle was again
hung out.
Quickly buildings went up, and the little lady with golden curls to her
waist went about, jostling the motley crowd of people, and finding
concern in the active city front, in the gaudy shops, and in the open
faro-banks with their exposed piles of nuggets and bags of gold-dust
freshly dug from the earth.
There was the ever-beckoning to the hills of treasure, with their
extravagant stories of adventure, but the professional man was anchored
in the more prosy city, and buckled down to a commonplace existence.
The exhilarating ozone from the ocean, the wind blowing over the vast
area of sand, the red-flannel-shirted miner recklessly dumping out
sacks of gold-dust with which to pay his board-bill or to buy a pair of
boots, with maybe a nugget for Dr. Clappe when he eased a trivial
pain,--all these thrills were calls to the gold-filled Mother Earth.
Finally, Dr. Clappe's ill-health drove him to the Feather River,--a
high altitude, fifty miles from the summit of the Sierra Nevada, and
the highest point of gold-diggings. There he soon recovered, and to her
joy he wrote his wife to join him. And she had varying experiences in
transit to the prospective home, which was at Rich Bar,--rich indeed,
where a miner unearthed thirty-three pounds of gold in eight days, and
others panned out fifteen hundred dollars in one wash of dirt.
The sojourn at the gold-camp in the summers and winters of 1851 and
1852, with its tremendous and varied incidents and experiences, was a
compelling call to Shirley's facile pen. Here was her mine. Out of her
brain, out of her soul, out of her heart of gold, out of her wealth of
understanding of and love for her fellow-men, gratefully sprang those
SHIRLEY LETTERS that have enriched the field of letters, and, reaching
beyond the grasp of worldly gain, have set her enduringly in the hearts
of mankind.
Who can tell how far-reaching and inspiring were those illuminating
pages, those vividly depicted scenes enacted on the crowded stages of
the golden-lined bars of the famous Feather River! Bret Harte reads her
graphic and pathetic account of the fallen woman and the desperate men
being driven out of camp, and lo! we have the gripping tale of The
Outcasts of Poker Flat; and from another of her recitals came the
inspiration that set him to work on that entertaining story, The Luck
of Roaring Camp. And her incidental mention of the pet frog hopping on
the bar of the hotel, in the midst of a group of onlooking miners,--was
it the setting for Mark Twain's Jumping Frog of Calaveras?
During their sojourn at Rich and Indian bars, Shirley and her husband
became rich in experience. They folded their tent and left with
depleted purse, but they had righteously invested their God-bestowed
talents. There they had freely given the best of themselves; they were
leaving the imperishable impress of high ideals.
Upon their return to San Francisco the couple rejoined delightful
friends, and established a home. But reverses of fortune came, and
Shirley found it necessary to put her accomplishments to the practical
purpose of gaining a livelihood. By the advice of her friend Ferdinand
C. Ewer she entered the San Francisco public school department, where
for long years she taught, notably in the high schools.
Shirley was small in build, with a thin face and a finely shaped head.
Her limbs were perfect in symmetry. As a girl, doubtless she had claim
to a delicate beauty. She now showed the wear and tear of her mountain
experience, coupled with an accumulation of heart-breaking trouble. She
gave prodigally of all her gifts. She interpreted life and its arts to
all discerning pupils, and by the magic of her friendly intercourse won
their confidence. Quick to discover any unusual promise in a pupil, she
indefatigably and masterfully stirred up such a one to his or her best,
sometimes with remarks of approval, or by censuring recreancy with
stinging sarcasm, or with expressions of despair over infirmity of
purpose. Some of such scholars, notably among them Charles Warren
Stoddard, panned out gold in the field of letters. Many of her pupils,
including myself, absorbed much of her wonderful help, and it grew into
our subconsciousness and became a part of us. She was the long-time
friend of Bret Harte, and from her he gathered a wealth of knowledge
that served him well.
When Mr. Ewer was ordained in Grace Episcopal Church, San Francisco,
Shirley became a member of his parish, and together with his wife she
assisted him in the ministrations of good. Then this dependable friend,
Dr. Ewer, was discovered, with the result that he was called to a
church in New York at a salary of ten thousand dollars a year.
In addition to her daily teaching, Shirley, by request, established
evening classes in art and literature, for men and women, and once a
week she held her _salon_, drawing the best minds about her. She
appreciated the privilege of having a home in Mr. John Swett's family,
because of its intellectual atmosphere. Here scholarly notabilities
from near and far were entertained, among them Emerson, Agassiz, and
Julia Ward Howe.