ry folk; therefore I will drop lightly
into history myself. Standing here on the shore of the Atlantic and
contemplating certain of its largest literary billows, I am reminded
of a thing which happened to me thirteen years ago, when I had just
succeeded in stirring up a little Nevadian literary puddle myself, whose
spume-flakes were beginning to blow thinly Californiaward. I started an
inspection tramp through the southern mines of California. I was callow
and conceited, and I resolved to try the virtue of my 'nom de guerre'.

I very soon had an opportunity. I knocked at a miner's lonely log cabin
in the foot-hills of the Sierras just at nightfall. It was snowing at
the time. A jaded, melancholy man of fifty, barefooted, opened the door
to me. When he heard my 'nom de guerre' he looked more dejected than
before. He let me in--pretty reluctantly, I thought--and after the
customary bacon and beans, black coffee and hot whiskey, I took a pipe.
This sorrowful man had not said three words up to this time. Now he
spoke up and said, in the voice of one who is secretly suffering,
"You're the fourth--I'm going to move." "The fourth what?" said I. "The
fourth littery man that has been here in twenty-four hours--I'm going
to move." "You don't tell me!" said I; "who were the others?" "Mr.
Longfellow, Mr. Emerson, and Mr. Oliver Wendell Holmes--consound the
lot!"

You can, easily believe I was interested. I supplicated--three hot
whiskeys did the rest--and finally the melancholy miner began. Said he:

"They came here just at dark yesterday evening, and I let them in of
course. Said they were going to the Yosemite. They were a rough lot, but
that's nothing; everybody looks rough that travels afoot. Mr. Emerson
was a seedy little bit of a chap, red-headed. Mr. Holmes was as fat as
a balloon; he weighed as much as three hundred, and had double chins
all the way down to his stomach. Mr. Longfellow was built like a
prizefighter. His head was cropped and bristly, like as if he had a
wig made of hair-brushes. His nose lay straight down, his face, like a
finger with the end joint tilted up. They had been drinking, I could see
that. And what queer talk they used! Mr. Holmes inspected this cabin,
then he took me by the buttonhole, and says he:

"'Through the deep caves of thought
I hear a voice that sings,
Build thee more stately mansions,
O my soul!'

"Says I, 'I can't afford it, Mr. Holmes, and