I can only ask pardon for my apparent neglect. I have wanted greatly to write something suitable to your purpose, and at last, though exceedingly pressed with engagements, I did steal an entire day for an attempt. I have not been at all satisfied with the result, and have thrown it up.

The truth is I do not like to find fault without better knowledge of the [741]facts; without hearing more of the Commissioners’ side of the case; without being more sure where the fault—the organic fault—lies, or without being able to advise how it is to be avoided.

The act of Congress prescribes the Commission and the manner it shall be appointed.

Somewhere among its members there is a responsibility for certain operations that, judging from this distance, have been very unfortunate. One of the Commissioners is represented, also, to have expressed an intention which if it were carried out, would eventually result in an irreparable calamity—a calamity to the civilized world.

But there is nothing to show that the Commission as a whole has not proceeded conscientiously and with as good judgment as could be expected of a body similarly elected, similarly organized, and endowed with similar means and powers.

Those who have attentively read the volumes of Whately, Price, Repton and the Gilpins know that a large part of the business of my profession has always been that of contriving expedients for lessening the misfortune into which gentlemen of education and culture, supposing themselves to have a special aptitude to the work, have carried themselves, in undertaking what they have regarded as very simple improvements of their own country places.

To contrive means and methods by which that which is most distinctly valuable to the world in the Yo Semite can be perpetuated, and to provide means by which the world can conveniently and effectively make use of it, which means shall be in the least degree possible conspicuous, incongruous and disturbing to the spirit and character of the scenery, is a problem that no one ought to dabble with. Suppose a tolerably satisfactory plan could be studied out for solving it. How much reason is there to suppose that such a plan would be persistently followed? And how is any man competent for the duty to enter upon it with the fervor and confidence necessary to success with the prospect of such results as are reasonably to be expected?

I am very sorry indeed that I do not {find myself prepared} to write anything on the subject at present that I think worthy to be laid before the public. All I could say is that, having at an early day spent several months in the valley under peculiarly favorable circumstances for contemplating it, I know that the question is {one of far greater} importance and of far greater difficulty than can be generally realized; that it is most foolish to take it up in an occasional and desultory way as a question of details, or as a question the answer to which will be chiefly important to the people of the present century. It is preeminently a question of our duty to the future.

Very Truly Yours