period. Joaquin Miller was of this band of literary pioneers; also
Prentice Mulford, Charles Warren Stoddard, Fitzhugh Ludlow, and
Orpheus C. Kerr.


To Mrs. Jane Clemens and Mrs. Moffett, in St. Louis:

Sept. 25, 1864.
MY DEAR MOTHER AND SISTER,--You can see by my picture that this superb
climate agrees with me. And it ought, after living where I was never out
of sight of snow peaks twenty-four hours during three years. Here we
have neither snow nor cold weather; fires are never lighted, and yet
summer clothes are never worn--you wear spring clothing the year round.

Steve Gillis, who has been my comrade for two years, and who came down
here with me, is to be married, in a week or two, to a very pretty girl
worth $130,000 in her own right--and then I shall be alone again, until
they build a house, which they will do shortly.

We have been here only four months, yet we have changed our lodgings five
times, and our hotel twice. We are very comfortably fixed where we are,
now, and have no fault to find with the rooms or with the people--we are
the only lodgers in a well-to-do private family, with one grown daughter
and a piano in the parlor adjoining our room. But I need a change, and
must move again. I have taken rooms further down the street. I shall
stay in this little quiet street, because it is full of gardens and
shrubbery, and there are none but dwelling houses in it.

I am taking life easy, now, and I mean to keep it up for awhile. I don't
work at night any more. I told the "Call" folks to pay me $25 a week and