CLXXXVIII. Emerson to Carlyle

Concord, 30 June, 1871

My Dear Carlyle,--'T is more than time that you should hear from
me whose debts to you always accumulate. But my long journey to
California ended in many distractions on my return home. I found
Varioloid in my house... and I was not permitted to enter it for
many days, and could only talk with wife, son, and daughter from
the yard.... I had crowded and closed my Cambridge lectures in
haste, and went to the land of Flowers invited by John M. Forbes,
one of my most valued friends, father of my daughter Edith's
husband. With him and his family and one or two chosen guests,
the trip was made under the best conditions of safety, comfort,
and company, I measuring for the first time one entire line of
the Country.

California surprises with a geography, climate, vegetation,
beasts, birds, fishes even, unlike ours; the land immense; the
Pacific sea; Steam brings the near neighborhood of Asia; and
South America at your feet; the mountains reaching the altitude
of Mont Blanc; the State in its six hundred miles of latitude
producing all our Northern fruits, and also the fig, orange, and
banana. But the climate chiefly surprised me. The Almanac said
April; but the day said June;--and day after day for six weeks
uninterrupted sunshine. November and December are the rainy