te a brief note to Mr. Dana. Without
delay I received from him a long and almost affectionate letter, in
which he urged me to let him know when I was in New York, that he might
call upon me, and talk over some things old, and some things new.

I called upon him in New York at his office, where we had a pleasant
chat of an hour. His office was plain, without carpets, the floor
was worn rough, rather than smooth, and the appearance of the rooms
was a striking contrast to the editorial rooms of prosperous
journalists generally.

My experience at Cairo gave me a poor opinion of Fremont's qualities as
a business man, but in the early part of his career he had exhibited
capacity of a high order as a bold and successful explorer of the then
unknown regions of the Rocky Mountains. He had also exhibited genius
as a soldier, which led to high expectations which were not realized
when he came to important commands in the Civil War. My studied
opinion of General Fremont is contained in an article that I prepared
for the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, of which society he was
an honorary member:

ARTICLE ON GENERAL FREMONT

It is a singular circumstance in the career of John C. Fremont that
his important services as an explorer and his contributions to science
were brought to a close when he was scarcely more than thirty-four
years of age. He was born in the State of Georgia in the year 1813,
and from the year 1842 to the year 1846 inclusive, he undertook and
carried to a successful result three expeditions from the Mississippi
River across the plains, and finally over both chains of the Rocky
Mountains to the Pacific Ocean. Mr. Jefferson, during his
administration had realized the importance of securing "open over-land
commercial relations with Asia," as stated in one of his messages to
Congress, and, as a preparation for establishing such relations with
Asia, he originated and organized the expedition of Lewis and Clark,
whose duty it was to trace the affluents of the Columbia River now
known as Snake River and Clarke's Fork.

Fremont's early education was obtained under the charge largely of Dr.
John Roberton, a Scotchman, who had been educated at Edinburgh, and who
had established himself at Charleston, S. C., as a teacher of the
ancient languages. Dr. Roberton says that in the space of a year
Fremont read four books of Caesar, six books of Vergil, nearly all of
Horace, and two books of Livy; and in Greek, al