I wrote to the Metropolitan Hotel for your letter (of Dec. 8,) & it overtook me two or three days ago at Charlotte, Mich.1explanatory note I will not deny that the first paragraph hurt me a little—hurt me a good deal—for when you speak of what I said of the drawing-room, I see that you mistook the harmless overflow of a happy frame of mind for criminal frivolity. This is a little unjust—for although what I said may have been unbecoming, it surely was no worse. The subject of the drawing-room cannot be more serious to you than it is to me. But I accept the rebuke, freely & without offer of defence, & am as sorry I offended as if I had intended offense.

All the rest of your letter is just as it should be. The language is as plain as ever language was in the world, but I like it all the better for that. I don’t like to mince matters myself or have them minced for me. I think I am safely past that tender age when one cannot take his food save that it be masticated for him beforehand.—& I would much pefer prefer Ⓐemendation to suffer from the clean incisionⒶemendation of an honest lancet than from a sweetened poison. Therefore it is even as you say: I have “too much good sense” to blame you for that part of your the letter. Plain speaking only increases one’s esteem & respect for the speaker does not hurt one.

I am not hurrying my love—it is my love that is hurrying me—& surely no one is better able to comprehend that than you. I fancy that Mrs. Langdon was the counter part of her daughter at the age of twenty-three—& so I refer you to the past for explanation & for pardon of my conduct. At your time of life, & being, like you, the object of an assured regard, I shall be able to talk urge moderation upon younger people, & shall do it relentlessly—but now I feel a larger charity for such. Your heart is big enough to feel all the force of that remark.—& so believing, you will not be surprised to find me thus boldly knocking at it. It does not seem to me that I am otherwise than moderate—it cannot seem so from my point of view—& so while I continue as moderate as I am now & have been, I think it is fair to hope that you will not turn away from me your countenance, or deny me your friendly toleration, even though it be under a mild protest.

It is my desire as truly as yours, that sufficient time shall elapse to show you, beyond all possible question, what I have been, what I am, & what I am likely to be. Otherwise you could not be satisfied with me, nor I with myself. I think that much of my conduct on the Pacific Coast was not of a character to recommend me to the respectful regard of a high eastern civilization, but it was not considered blameworthy there, perhaps. We go according to our lights. I was just what Charlie would have been, similarly circumstanced, & deprived of home influences. I think all my references can say I never did anything mean, false or criminal. They can say that the same doors that were open to me seven years ago are open to me yet; that all the friends I made in seven years, are still my friends; that wherever I have been I can go again—& enter in the light of day & hold my head up; that I never deceived or defrauded anybody, & don’t owe a cent. And they can say that I attended to my business with due diligence, & made my own living, & never asked anybody to help me do it, either. All the rest they can say about me will be bad. I can tell the whole story myself, without mincing it, & will if they refuse.2explanatory note

I wish to add to the references I gave Mrs. Langdon, the following: Hon. J. Neely Johnson, Carson City, Nevada. He was one Governor of California some ten years ago, & is now Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Nevada, if my memory serves me. He has known me about seven years—he & his wife—we were next door neighbors—& his househ Ⓐemendation is always my home, now-a-daysⒶemendation when I am in Carson, & has been for a year or two past.3explanatory note Then there is the present Governor of Nevada, H. G. Blaisdel—he has known me four or five years—don’t know whether he has known any good of me or not. He is a thoroughly pure & upright man, & a most excellent.4explanatory note And I give you, also, Joseph T. Goodman (reared in Elmira, I believe,) proprietor & chief editor of the “Daily Enterprise,” Virginia City, Nevada & C. A. V. Putnam, his N news-editor—the first of whom has known me six years (I was his c City editor 3 years without losing a day,) & the latter five years, & neither of whom would say a damaging word against me for love or money or hesitate to throttle anybody else who ventured to do it—& so you will perceive at once that they are not the best people most promising sources to refer you to for information. Those f two fellows are just the salt of the earth, in my estimation.5explanatory note Now, however, being appealed to seriously, in so grave a matter as this, it is very possible—even likely—that they would override their ancient friendship for me, & speak. Ⓐemendation the whole truth. I shall not write to them—or to any of these references, of course—& so their testimony will be unbiased. Then there is A. J. Marsh, who is a Phonographic Reporter, in San Francisco, my close friend for five or six years,—he & his wife & family are utterly without reproach, & would be in any community.6explanatory note And Frank Gross & wife (of the San Francisco “Bulletin”[)]—& Sam Williams & Rev. Mr. Bartlett of the same editorial staff. Ⓐemendation —the two latter don’t know me so intimately as the other. 7explanatory note There is Lewis Leland8explanatory note (I think he is proprietor of the Metropolitan Hotel in New York—& if he is not now he soon is to be, if I understand the matter rightly.) He has known me intimately for 3 or 4 years—I boarded at his Occidental Hotel 2 or 3 years—& he will surely know my general character & standing in San Francisco. AndⒶemendation R. B. Swain & family, San Francisco. Mr. Swain is Superintendent of the U.S. Mint, & is also one of the “merchant princes” there. He is a man the Schuyler Colfax of the Pacific Coast—being regarded by high & low, rich & poor, Tom, Dick & Harry, as a man against whose pure na reputation nothing can be said. He don’t know much about me, himself maybe, though I we were pretty intimate latterly, but he ought to know a good deal through his Secretary Frank B. Harte, (editor of the Overland Monthly & one of the finest writers out there) for we have been very intimate for several years. This morning I received from Mr. Swain a letter which has been following me some time. I think a great deal of him, else I wouldn’t write to him. You have no antipathy to thoroughly good men, & so I beg that you will give his picture a place on the mantelpieceⒶemendation.9explanatory note

As to what I am going to be, henceforth, it is a thing which must be proven & established. I am upon the right path—I shall succeed., I hope. Men as lost as I, have found a Savior, & why not I? I have hope—an earnest hope—a long-lived hope.

I wrote you & Mrs. Langdon a letter from Lansing, which will offend again, I fear—& yet no harm was meant, no undue levity, no disrespect, no lack of reverence. The intent was blameless—& it is the intent, & not the act that should be judged, after all. Even men who take life are judged by this rule only.

They say the desire is so general, here, to have this public distressed again by a repetition of my lecture, that Mr. Fairbanks offers me $150 to repeat it in the third week in January, & Mrs. Fairbanks offers to let me repeat it for the benefit of the Orphan’s Home at (of which at a dollar a head & pay me nothing for it. I have accepted the latter proposition.10explanatory note I have received a second invitation from the Association I lectured for in Pittsburgh to come there & talk again. They have gotten up some little feeling there because of an unjust & angry criticism upon the lecture which (it appeared in the “Dispatch,”) & I think maybe that is the cause of these calls. I shall try to go, though really I am not disposed to quarrel with the Dispatch’s opinion or make myself uncomfortable, sad about it, either. I always liked to express my opinions rather freely in print, & I suppose the Dispatch people have a taste that runs in a similar direction.11explanatory note

The folks here are all well, & we are having a very pleasant time of it. I shall lecture in Akron to-morrowⒶemendation night, & then return here & spend New Year’s.

I like the Herald better bet as an anchorage for me, better than any paper in the Union—its location, politics, present business & prospects, all are suitable. Fairbanks says the concern (with its lot & building,) inventories $212,000Ⓐemendation; its earnings were $22,000 $42,000 Ⓐemendation for the past year, which is a good percentageⒶemendation for such safe & lasting property as a newspaper. He owns half & the Benedicts the other half. He wants me in very much—wants me to buy an eighth from the Benedicts, so that the control would rests with him when I gave my vote so—& so its price about $25,000. He says if I can get it he will be my security until I can pay it all by the labor of my tongue & hands, & that I shall not be hurried. That suits me, just exactly. It couldn’t be better. I don’t like He says the salaries of himself & the elder Benedict are $3,000—& mine would be $3,000. Yet he would hire me & pay me more. I don’t understand these things. ItⒶemendation is a slim salary—& so I should have to make the paper make money, to save myself. However, I shall see Mr. Benedict & try to make the arrangement.12explanatory note

I believe I have nothing further to say, except to ask pardon for past offenses against yourself, they being having been heedless, & not deliberate; & that you will

〚Mrs. Fairbanks has just come in & she says: “For shame! cut that letter short—do you want to wear out what endurance the poor man has left after his siege of illness?” This is a woman, Sir, whose commands are not to be trifled with.—& so I desist.〛