Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches
The bearded men in rude attire, With nerves of steel and hearts of fire, The women few but fair and sweet, Like shadowy visions dim and fleet, Again I see, again I hear, As down the past I dimly peer, And muse o'er buried joy and pain, And tread the hills of youth again.
"Mr. ----, the--preacher, has just left me. He told me that my soul cannot be saved unless I perform two miracles: I must, he said, think of nothing but religion, and be baptize...
3. Chapter 3At San Quentin nature is at her best, and man at his worst. Against the rocky shore the waters of the bay break in gentle splashings when the winds are quiet. When the gales fro...
13. Chapter 13The Sabbath morning dawned without a cloud. I awoke with the earliest song of the birds, and was out before the first rays of the sun had touched the mountaintops. The coolness...
9. Chapter 9At this point I began to be troubled. It seemed, from reasonable ciphering, that I should soon be a millionaire. It made me feel solemn and anxious. I lay awake at night, prayin...
8. Chapter 8"'I am a Californian, have practiced law for years in that State, and, at the time I allude to, was district judge. I was holding court at [I cannot now recall the name of the t...
10. Chapter 10"You preachers of these days have no gospel in you. You remind me of a man going into his barnyard early in the morning to feed his stock. He has a basket on his arm, and here c...
5. Chapter 5The sea-wind sweeps over the spot at times in gusts like the frenzy of hopeless grief, and at times in sighs as gentle as those heaved by aged sorrow in sight of eternal rest. T...
12. Chapter 12A really strong preacher preaches a great many sermons, each of which the hearers claim to be the greatest sermon of his life. I have heard of at least a half dozen "greatest" s...
4. Chapter 4It is now more than twenty years since the morning a slender youth of handsome face and modest mien came into my office on the corner of Montgomery and Clay streets, San Francis...
6. Chapter 6"I am glad to know that you are going to start a Southern Methodist newspaper. No Church can do without its organ. Put me down on your list, and come with me, and I will make al...
1. Chapter 1The bearded men in rude attire, With nerves of steel and hearts of fire, The women few but fair and sweet, Like shadowy visions dim and fleet, Again I see, again I hear, As down...
11. Chapter 11Had Shakespeare lived in California, he would not have written of the "winter of our discontent," but would most probably have found in the summer of that then undiscovered coun...
2. Chapter 2When Bishop Soule was in California, in 1853, he paid a visit to a Digger campoody (or village) in the Calaveras hills. He was profoundly interested, and expressed an ardent des...
7. Chapter 7Among the lawyers in one of the largest mining towns of California was H. B--. He was a native of Virginia, and an alumnus of its noble University. He was a scholar, a fine lawy...
15. Chapter 15He was taken sick soon after. The disease had taken too strong a grasp upon him to be broken. He fought bravely a losing battle for several days. Sunday morning came, a bright,...