We woke yesterday morning and peeped out about five to see the
most perfect desolation one could imagine,--much more grim than the
Egyptian desert: vast unending plains of uneven ground, with a rough
dried drab grass in splodges, and high scrub. Not a bird or animal in
all these hundreds of miles, only desolation; generally perfectly flat,
but here and there rising ground and rough hills. The Senator says it
is the end of the ranch country, but we have seen no sign of cattle or
any beast, and what could they eat? At long intervals we have passed a
few board shanties like card houses grouped together near the track;
just fancy living there, Mamma! Even with the nicest young man in the
world it would be a trial, wouldn't it? And those Mormons crossed it
all in waggons! And we are finding it quite long in a train! It is
still going on, and now the surface is a little different; low hills
are sticking up just like elephants' backs, and the same colour; no
ranches are here or any living thing. We get into our drawing-room, all
of us, and the Senator tells us stories of his young days, too
exciting, they must have been, when he came through here before all the
railway was built. No wonder he is so splendid a character now, having
had to be so strong and fearless all his life. Every word he says is
interesting, and perfectly vivid and true; and his views on every
subject that is discussed are common-sense and exact. He has no
prejudices, and is not touchy. He can see his own nation's faults as
well as ours, and his first thought is to appreciate the good
qualities.

He says there is a very grave danger to the country in the liberty of
the press, which has a most debasing influence by printing all the
sensational news, and encouraging the interest in these things in the
youthful mind. It must bring a paltry taint into the glorious freedom
of the true American spirit, but that will right itself. He says: "They
are too darned sane to suffer a scourge when once they begin to see
its fruits." And while the rest were in the observation car after tea
he talked to me of happiness. Happiness, he said, was the main and
chief object in life, and yet nine-tenths of the people of the world
throw it away for such imitation pleasure; and you can't often catch it
again once you have lost it.

I asked him what the greatest was, and he said perfect happiness was to
be close to the woman you loved. If that was impossible there were
several su