(MS: NPV)
New York, June. 7
Dear Folks,
I suppose we shall be many a league at sea tomorrow night, & goodness knows I shall be unspeakably glad of it.
I haven’t got anything to write, else I would write it. I have just written myself clear out in letters to the Alta, and I think they are the stupidest letters that were ever written from New York. Corresponding has been a perfect drag ever since I got to the states. If it continues abroad, I don’t know what the Tribune and Alta folks will think.
I have withdrawn the Sandwich Island book – it would be useless to publish it in these dull publishing times. As for the Frog book, I don’t believe that will ever pay anything worth a cent. I published it simply to advertise myself & not with the hope of making anything out of it.
Well, I haven’t anything to write, except that I am so tired of staying in one place that I am in a fever to get away. Read my Alta letters – they contain everything I could possibly write to you. Tell Zeb and John Leavenworth to write me – they can get plenty of gossip from Essie & lou &the pilots.
An importing house sent two cases of exquisite champagne aboard the ship for me today – Veuve Clicquot & Lac d’Or. I and my room-mate have set apart every Saturday as a solemn fast-day, wherein we will entertain no light matters or frivolous conversation, but only get drunk. (That is a joke.) His mother and sisters are the best & most homelike people I have yet found in a brown-stone front. There is no style about them except in house & furniture.
I wish Orion were going on this voyage, for I believe he could not help but be cheerful & jolly. I often wonder if his law business is going satisfactorily to him, but knowing that the dull season is setting in now (it looked like it had already set in before,) I have felt as if I could almost answer the question myself – which is to say in plain words, I was afraid to ask. I wish I had gone to Washington in the winter instead of going West. I could have gouged an office out of Bill Stewart for him, & that would atone for the loss of my home visit. But I am so worthless that it seems to me I never do anything or accomplish anything that lingers in my mind as a pleasant memory. My mind is stored full of unworthy conduct toward Orion & towards you all, & an accusing conscience gives me peace only in excitement & restless moving from place to place. If I could say I had done one thing for any of you that entitled me to your good opinions, (I say nothing of your love, for I am sure of that, no matter how unworthy of it I may make myself, from – Orion down, you have always given me that, all the days of my life, when God Almighty knows I seldom deserve it,) I believe I could go home & stay there – & I know I would care little for the world’s praise or blame. There is no satisfaction in the world’s praise anyhow, & it has no worth to me save in the way of business. I tried to gather up its compliments to send to you, but the work was distasteful & I dropped it.