I have just recevd yours of the 9th and am exceedingly sorry to hear of yr disappointment.

I take it the most important fact in your condition is this: that you have a diseased nervous impulse to activity of the brain. This grew out of a prolonged excessive demand upon your brain & nervous power. It amounts to a habit of mental intemperance. You have a pleasure in this excessive action and are constantly under temptation to indulge yourself in it. Your cure is to come by reversing the conditions in which it originated as much as possible, and leaving your “constitution” fair play to work it off. That is, besides reversing mental conditions; avoiding temptation &c, you want to give your digestive apparatus &c every advantage. All this you can see plainly enough. But the disease affects your will, also, and you are under constant temptation to reason falsely—fallaciously—upon the detail of the conditions; to pretend to yourself that you are resting, when you are indulging your intemperate proclivity: that you are trying to rest, when you are really trying to beat the devil round the stump. You are under temptation also to underrate the strength of the disease, and the radicalness of the remedies required for it.

All the above is my preface and intended to prepare you to admit that if you don’t see your recent experience as I do, it may be oweing to your disease.

My wife and I have talked about you a good deal & had, before your letter came, agreed that you were hugging a snare & delusion if you [441]supposed that such a journey as you made across the continent; in such company; in such haste, with such diet; with such regular irregularity; with constant recall to the very subjects (and their sequelae) upon which your brain has been hardest set for years, having no leisure & even writing editorial letters; scarcely ever able to yield even to such feeble inclination to rest and leisure & tranquility as your diseased will is yet capable of—& all that you know when you think of it better than we do—I say it was a snare and delusion if you made yourself think you were pursuing a remedy for your disease. And if you did cheat yourself with this notion, of course you must suffer for it. And if you are not a good deal worse for so disappointing yourself you may thank your stars that you have at least proved yourself to have a good strong constitution, which, given fair play, under really favorable circumstances, will be likely to bring you back to a good average working condition in a few years.

About the will & the self—deception—do you remember how Leech died? His physician insisted that he shouldn’t work. He wanted to make a cartoon for Punch and persuaded himself & his physician that it would be an amusement to him—merely a little recreation—no work & an hour of this amusement (really indulging the weakest & most overworked part of his brain) carried him past the point where recovery was possible & so he died.

I know this is just my case, and I suspect it is yours. If I was in your place, I know that I could get over it. But mine? Oh! you don’t know. Perhaps you could get right in my place easy enough though I don’t believe it. But I do know that I ought to be sent to an inebriate Asylum—and I do try to treat myself a little as a drunkard ought to treat himself. But the moment I find myself getting on pretty well—gaining or where I think myself gaining or likely to gain—I prove my weakness, by discounting my prospects. Don’t you?

What I mean is, it seems to me you’ve no ground to be disheartened except you find you are not disheartened. You must repent before you can be converted. And unless you are worse for this little deceptive self indulgent travelling cure, you may as well make up your mind that your disease is a very mild one, & so take heart.—See it?

Thanks for your suggestions about Califra domestic architecture—I will think of the project. But don’t you know the architects never have done anything in the line you refer to. The architect’s education seems to unfit him for anything of that sort just as a theological training unfits a man to be a pastor. What you say Cala wants seems to me quite as much wanted everywhere else. The prettiest houses I have ever seen are old fashioned low-roofed, verandahd, cottages, repaired and extended with some elegance of detail and neatness and fitness of supporting circumstances, the new work carefully toned down, & half covered with mystifying foliage.—An effect which can’t be put on paper or clearly and [442] exactly planned out—& which an architect, therefore, whose business it is to be exact & complete—to see exactly what is before him,—is incapable of enjoying in imagination. Thus architects can’t lead but must follow the requirements of the people—like Statesmen, lawyers and editors. If two men could actually be incorporated & work as one—Vaux & I might do it.

I have heard nothing of consequence from New York since you left. We [are] nearly through with our packing & expect to move to San F.°, in course of a week, & to take steamer on the 13th or 18th Octr.

Please give my kind & grateful regards to Mr Allen.

I have not heard from you since I last wrote. We have an epidemic of fevers here, typhoid in the highlands, congestive remittent below. One of our clerks has died, and several of us have been threatened, but by timely care & quinine & brandy have escaped any severe attack. I was the last & kept my bed yesterday, am living on port wine today.

We are nearly thro’ with the turmoil & labor of packing, which is very great where so great a change is to be made. We have to determine what it is worth while to take home at all; then to divide the whole to go into three lots & pack accordingly for the voyage round the Horn, “slow” isthmus & “immediate” isthmus.

We have made no change in our plans, except that Mrs Olmsted (for the present) refuses to go by Nicaragua on acct of the danger of the embarkation on the East side, & the difficulty of taking care of the [444]children & baggage in the half dozen breaks of transit, & I may have to wait till Steamer of 18th for Panama.

I recvd on the 26th H. Potter’s telegram of 22d which if not satisfactory, justifies me I think, in leaving & which perhaps will make a difference of two or three thousand dollars to me.

We shall want to get a house and go to housekeeping as soon as possible after our arrival, and I shall be glad if you can nominate some houses for Mary to look at. I shall prefer to be near you, if you find yourself conveniently situated for the business; otherwise, nearer the park, and I think Cook’s house on 78th St would suit us. I suppose I shall need a riding horse at once, wherever we are, & you can judge what we can afford on the salary.

I shall bring work enough to keep Miller busy for fully a month after arrival I think. I only work out the park plan crudely here, so as to have your help on it. The profit of it I intend to share with you—also to put O.&V. to the engraved Cemetery plan if you approve. This latter also to be finished in N. York.

Do you remember Cleavland Architect? a simple young man? He has been in S.F. some years & is going to return this winter to N.Y. He seems to have a regard for you. He has offered me several small jobs which I have not time to take up, but have given him some advice.