ng that she was a poet; but when she
became interested in the Indians, and especially in the harsh fate of the
Mission Indians in California, all her nature was fused for the time in a
lofty enthusiasm of pity and indignation, and all her powers seemed to be
consecrated to one purpose. Enthusiasm and sympathy will not make a
novel, but all the same they are necessary to the production of a work
that has in it real vital quality, and in this case all previous
experience and artistic training became the unconscious servants of Mrs.
Jackson's heart. I know she had very little conceit about her
performance, but she had a simple consciousness that she was doing her
best work, and that if the world should care much for anything she had
done, after she was gone, it would be for "Ramona." She had put herself
into it.

And yet I am certain that she could have had no idea what the novel would
be to the people of Southern California, or how it would identify her
name with all that region, and make so many scenes in it places of
pilgrimage and romantic interest for her sake. I do not mean to say that
the people in California knew personally Ramona and Alessandro, or
altogether believe in them, but that in their idealizations they
recognize a verity and the ultimate truth of human nature, while in the
scenery, in the fading sentiment of the old Spanish life, and the romance
and faith of the Missions, the author has done for the region very much
what Scott did for the Highlands. I hope she knows now, I presume she
does, that more than one Indian school in the Territories is called the
Ramona School; that at least two villages in California are contending
for the priority of using the name Ramona; that all the travelers and
tourists (at least in the time they can spare from real-estate
speculations) go about under her guidance, are pilgrims to the shrines
she has described, and eager searchers for the scenes she has made famous
in her novel; that more than one city and more than one town claims the
honor of connection with the story; that the tourist has pointed out to
him in more than one village the very house where Ramona lived, where she
was married--indeed, that a little crop of legends has already grown up
about the story itself. I was myself shown the house in Los Angeles where
the story was written, and so strong is the local impression that I
confess to looking at the rose-embowered cottage with a good deal of
interest, thoug