NOTE. N the spring of 1871 I was a member IN of a party of twelve, including Mr. Ralph Waldo Emerson, who went by railroad from Boston to California, and travelled there for several weeks. This little book presents some notes of that journey. I kept no diary; but in writing to a member of my family who was a cousin of Mr. Emerson, I was led to speak of him often. What follows was prepared afterwards to be read to a club; and now, for one reason and another, I have come to think it well to print it. And yet it is almost too slight a performance; the pudding is small, and the plums are few. The reader will perhaps share my regret that I did not make some more careful and set attempt to preserve an account of what Mr. Emerson said and did, and that I have no record whatever of the homeward journey. But it would not have seemed quite friendly, in such a company, to play the part of a mere Boswell; nor should I have been willing to tamper with my own quiet enjoyment of the situation by doing that. It will be remembered, also, that some things which really were preserved must naturally be omitted here, as being of too personal a nature for publication. These savings from oblivion, then, are |