It is not altogether an easy thing for me to write bravely to you, in view of the fact that I am going to bring upon you such a calamity as the taking away from you your daughter, the nearest & dearest of all your household gods.1explanatory note You Ⓐemendation might well ask, “Who are you that presumes to do this?” And it would be an Ⓐemendation hard question to answer. I could refer you to fifty friends, but they could only tell you (& very vaguely, too,) what I have been—just as a forester might talk learnedly of a bush he had once known well, unwitting that it had stretched its branches upward & become a tree, since he saw it. It is a bold figure, but not altogether an unapt one. For those friends of mine, who certainly knew little enough of me in the years that are gone, know nothing of me now. For instance, they knew me as a profane swearer; as a man of p convivial ways & not averse to social drinking; as a man without a religion; in a word, as a “wild” young man—though never as a dishonorable one, in the trite acceptation of that term. But now I never swear; I never taste wine or spirits upon any occasion whatsoever; I am orderly, & my conduct is above reproach in a worldly sense; & finally, I now claim that I am a Christian. I claim it, & it only remains to be seen if my bearing shall show that I am justly entitled to it. so name myself.

I beg, with justice, that you will make due allowance for the fact that I am in some sense a public man, in considering my character. You are aware that public men get ample credit for all the sins they commit, & for a multitude of other sins they never were guilty of. A private citizen escapes public scrutiny, & stands fares all the better for it—but my private character is hacked, & scorched & dissected, & mixed up with my public one, & both suffer the more in consequence. Every man in California could tell you something about me, but not five men in the whole community have really any right to speak authoritatively of my private character, for I have not close friendships with more than that number there, perhaps. I can state as an absolute truth, that only one person in all the world really knows me, & that is Miss Langdon. To her I must refer you. My own mother & sister do not know me half so well as she does. I never have been in entire sympathy Ⓐemendation with any one but her (except with a brother, now dead,)2explanatory note—I never have given thorough & perfect trust & confidence to any one in these latter years but her, & so Ⓐemendation there has always been a secret chamber or so in my being which no friend has entered before. But I have no secrets from her—no locked closets, no hidden places, a Ⓐemendation no disguised phases of character or disposition. And so, only she, really knows me.

I do not wish to marry m Miss Langdon for her wealth, & she knows that perfectly well. As far as I am concerned, Mr. Langdon can cut her off with a shilling—or the half of it. To use a homely phrase, I have paddled my own canoe, 3explanatory note since I was thirteen, wholly without encouragement or fr assistance from any any one, & am fully competent to pad so paddle it the rest of the voyage, & take a passenger along, beside. While I have health & strength, & the high hope & confidence that God gave me in my nature, I will look to it that we always have a comfortable living, & that is all (of a purely worldly nature,) that either of us will care a great deal about. Neither of us are much afflicted with a mania for money-getting Ⓐemendation, I fancy. She thinks we might live on two thousand a year (& you know she is an able & experienced housekeeper & has a sound judgment in such matters,) but if I thought I could n’t earn more than that, I would not be depraved enough to ask her to marry me yet awhile. No, we can make the canoe go, & we shall not care a straw for the world’s opinion about it if the world chooses to think otherwise. This is our funeral, & we are proud enough & independent enough to think we can take care of it ourselves. right. If we get in trouble we will sell our point lace & eat our shucks in a foreign land,4explanatory note b & fight it out, but we won’t come back & billet ourselves on the old home, & have Charley charging us for board “on the u Ⓐemendation European plan” as he is always threatening to do with me when I linger there a few days. There’s a shot for Charley! I propose to earn money enough some way or other, to buy a remunerative share o in a newspaper Ⓐemendation of high standing, & then instruct & elevate & civilize the public through its columns, & my wife (to be,) will superintend the domestic economy, furnish ideas & sense, erase improprieties from the manuscript, & read proof. That is all she will have to do. Mere pastime for a person of her calibre.

Now if anybody wants to ask questions, you can read them any or all of the above & say with perfect confidence, that it is the truth. I don’t know whether it is what you wanted or not, but I judged that the best way, after all, to write the letter, was to do exactly as I do when I wish to write a newspaper Ⓐemendation article—that is, sit down & let it write itself. This Ⓐemendation letter has written itself—& you have the result. There is no restraint in it, no expediency, no policy, no diplomacy. It simply means what it says—nothing more, & nothing less.

I tender my loving duty to you & to Mr. Langdon, & wish you all all possible happiness & content, most cordially—& likewise the cheerfulness & peace of mind which were yours before your proud & happy prospective son came to disturb it.5explanatory note