My Thanksgiving day would have suited Mark Tapley very well indeed as it stood. Your letter of the 19th October comes in to make its’ chilly, lonely dolefulness more perfect. I could never be more thoroughly disposed to think of an old friend with true cordiality and gratefulness, however, and whatever truth would compel me to answer to your letter, I should like to have it rest on that. I say this because your letter does provoke me to forget how much I really owe you, which I shall do, here or elsewhere, when the devil wholly takes me. Today you may be sure he won’t.

I find it hard to understand your letter altogether, but you make it plain enough that you think that I have done you wrong. If so, either I have been ignorant of it, or I have for a long time entertained a concerted purpose of wronging you. If you could hold to the latter I don’t see how you could have regarded me as a friend and treated me as a friend, without a degree of insincerity, such as I cannot credit you with. What then can you mean by saying that “considerations of expediency not of a private nature” have hitherto prevented you from addressing me on the subject? It seems to me that you have either regarded me heretofore as a rogue and a hypocrite while you have treated me as a friend and have made me regard you as a friend from considerations of expediency not of a private nature, or else you now demand of me to tell you something of which you must suppose me to be ignorant.

You lay down the proposition that we had an “equal partnership [145]in the executed design” of the park. You assume that I have had and have a different "idea" about this from yours. You say that you have refrained from demanding an explanation of this idea [(of the ground on which it rests)] from me heretofore, from considerations of expediency, and you now claim the right, [which you have consequently waived heretofore,] to be informed what it is and to act in view of it as you shall think best.

You never intimated to me before that you did not understand my idea. You never gave me reason to suspect that you thought it expedient for reasons not of a private nature to let it be assumed that "it must rest on some basis satisfactory to your [my] sense of propriety." I never asked you to do so. I never suspected that you did so. I never would have allowed a question of that sort to be suppressed between us on any such ground, and you knew that I would not. As I understand the question which you present then, there can be no such question between [us] [. . .] I could only reply to it, by repelling as unjust and unfriendly the assumption that I have given you reason, or that you have reason or right to ask an explanation of my views of it.

Can there be any question—any other possible question as to our mutual obligations, upon which you can be ignorant of my views? I suppose there must be for it is the only way I can account for your letter, to suppose so. I can but say that if there is, you cannot have been as frank with me as I have been with you, as I think you might have been without loss of personal dignity—as I have hitherto supposed that you have been. But there is a matter upon which I have thought that you did not understand me—from no fault of mine [. . .] or want of frankness on my part—with regard to which I have thought you did not sympathize with me—respect me truly, as [did] my views justice. I never even concealed this from you—that I thought that you did not understand me or do me justice, but having supposed that well understood between us, I have sometimes refrained from expressing my views as I might otherwise have done—have refrained from discussing them or bringing them into our discussion of other matters, because I supposed that we had agreed to differ about them. Perhaps this point of difference may have influenced other differences more than I knew, and thus my silence about it have given an appearance of a want of frankness to my discussion of those differences, from which you have allowed me to suffer unjustly. If so I am glad to have an inducement to set myself right with you.

I had a will—an ambition, or plan of life, in connection with the park, by which my conduct had been greatly moved before I knew you. Under its influence I had obtained the position of Superintendent of the Park—this before I knew you, before I entertained the idea of having anything to do with the design or with you. When I took the office I supposed Viele to be the designer, the designer to be the Engineer in [146]Chief. By the order constituting my office I was made in certain respects independent of the Engineer and, by presumption, of the designer. My office extended in its term beyond that of the execution of the design. By express terms I was made responsible for the use to be made of the completed park—independent of the designer. I never thought that this was not exactly right and best, or that it was not perfectly natural, usual and accordant with custom. It was natural and simple to me, and exactly fitted my special desire for myself in connection with the park. If a fairy had shaped it for me, it couldn’t have fitted me better. It was normal, ordinary and naturally outgrowing from my previous life and history—the purpose I had in this position—and it occupied my whole heart. The higher ambition, if you please, to which your comradship afterwards brought me, was much less so—less instinctive in character, less engrossing and permanent in character. You, however, looked upon the former [with] very little respect, with no sympathy, with no friendliness—rather with something of contemptuous antagonism. I always felt that you misunderstood it and often told you so. Touching this, then, there was naturally reserve between us—may yet be. Regarding it as you did—agreeing to differ about it as we did, much talk about it was not to be expected and you may have imagined that I have sacrificed something of your interests, without having asked on what ground I justified myself in doing so, when it was obvious to me simply that I was influenced by considerations of a nature that it was a waste of time to endeavor then to explain.

I held the Office of Superintendent of the Park and all that went with it, and had strengthened and established myself in it, spite of a resolute and unscrupulous enemy, before I received any advantage direct or indirect from you or from association with you. If I had failed with you, I should still have held it—should have held it in all probability, to this day. Here then, there was something in connection with the park of which I was possessed independently of the design—independently of that equal partnership to which you limit the question of your letter. The design brought nothing to this—to the satisfaction of the ambition, purpose, plan of life, toward the realization of which I seemed to myself to have built,—and have always since seemed to myself and supposed that I had built, very successfully. If afterwards the design (falsely) seemed to have greatly strengthened and fortified my [building] for this end—it also seemed that the fact of my having previously gained this position strengthened and fortified us in our struggle to get the design practically accepted and executed on the ground. So that it did not, perhaps, come to me as naturally as it did to you to regard success in the project of the design as superceding and putting out of the way this prior purpose.

There was your professional training, experience, esprit du corps and class interest, leading you to associate in fact, and as a duty of [147]propriety & fitness, the function of design and superintendence. Superintendent had a technical meaning with you which it had not with me. The title of Architect in C. was given to me upon the proposal of our enemy—Dillon. I objected to it strongly. I requested that it should be changed. I did not on your account—I never thought of what I have now no doubt was in your mind. I was as innocent as a child of perception of any wrong to you in the neglect of the Commissioners to associate you with me in the Office of Superintendence, any wrong or impropriety or deviation from custom. I have gradually come to a perception of the professional view of such a case, which is habitual and which seems intuitive with you. I respect it—as the public generally does not. If we were to discuss the question of how such a business should be managed de novo, I think it likely I should heartily adopt your view. But then—when the office was formed I objected to the name of Architect because I was technically not an architect & it was putting me under false colors, and I wanted you to be the Architect & to have that title. But to the office—essentially—I don’t think I did object or that I suspected that you did or that you thought it wrong that the General Superintendence was not given to the designer (the partnership). I supposed that it was a mere enlargement and dignification of my previous office, with which you had nothing to do. And I assure you that it is only very recently indeed that I have so fully got hold of your way of looking upon these matters, that this ought to have occurred to me. Indeed until after I began writing this letter I had never distinctly thought of it—so as to consider from what point of view you must then have been regarding the progress of events. I have no doubt that there was a good deal of talk at cross purposes between us at that time on this account which I never suspected before—that you thought I had certain ideas of which I was quite free, when we were talking apparently in perfect agreement about Architects & Superintendents.

I see the whole business a little differently from what I ever did before now—because I suppose since I have understood that an Architect was by profession a Superintendent—that Superintendence was Architecture as much as drawing. I never have until since I commenced writing this letter put myself back in the place you were in in the early days of the park and looked at matters from your eyes.

But now it seems to me there are two questions—what was the right way of arranging matters with reference to the designing & constructive superintendence of the park from the beginning? And secondly, what was my duty?

As to the first, we will not differ. The Commissioners’ arrangment was a bungling one.

As to the second, if I had comprehended the true proper established professional view of professional duties and rights, I might have [148]had a citizen’s duty to try to get the Commissioners to adopt that view after the design was adopted & I was given the title of A. in C.—might have forced them to it. I think that I should do so now. But, I don’t see & don’t acknowledge in answer to your demand, that in neglecting to do so—even if I had been rightly educated in the proprieties of arrangment—I wronged you. Whatever the arrangment of the Commissioners ought to have been, it certainly was not to make the designer Superintendent ex officio. The contrary had been provided for. And I had my office of Superintendent independent of the design—prior to the design—prior to my arrangment or partnership contract with you, and that contract had nothing to do with it. Our original partnership had reference to the reward for the best design. I never thought of its contemplating anything beyond that. I never suspected till this moment that you did. Such at least is my present recollection and belief. What I should have thought of it, how I should have acted, had you made me acquainted with your habitual understanding of professional rights, moralities & proprieties under such circumstances, it is unnecessary to say. But I know very well that so thoroughly did I feel the position of Superintendent of the park to be adapted to me, and so difficult should I have regarded it to adapt myself to anything else in comparison with it, I could not have been induced to take part in the competition if by doing so I increased the danger of losing that position. I question if I would have surrendered it for the certainty of gaining ten times all the honor and emolument I have since received from the Park.

It is impossible for you to estimate the strength of my devotedness in the matter. There was no hope on earth that I would not have sacrificed to my desire to hold that position. I would have died rather than fail through any action of my own to hold it. I say again it is impossible for you to estimate it. I am capable of stronger passions than many men and I never had a more desperate passion than that. Such things cannot be explained. It was a part of a motive-power in me which had its birth, and which I [can see] had acted upon me long before it took the form in which you are concerned in it. A great deal of disappointed love and unsatisified romance and down-trodden pride fastened itself to that passion but there was in it at bottom a special distinctive individual passion of my nature also.

All which to you is not only absurd, as one man’s passion always is to another, but it is childish and contemptible. If I made it an excuse or pretence of justification for denying you your rights, you would be right in despising it, right in holding such justification dishonest and despicable. I don’t do so—I never did so, but I do hold that the property which I possessed in my position of Superintendent (that is to say the influence and opportunity for the gratification of my own purposes which that position was the evidence of my having gained and of which it was [149]the security) was one which I had a right to put my own value upon, to sacrifice what of my own I might choose for. And however contemptible you might hold its value to be [and] however your professional and old world habits and superior education in certain directions, may have led you to suppose that I should act, I was not bound to sacrifice the smallest amount of my interest in this property to our partnership property. I was not bound to suppose that you required or expected me to do so. And strange as it will appear to you with your habits of thought I never did suppose so, or suspect it. I do not think it was selfishness that prevented me, but if it was, it was not injustice to you—disregard of your rights. In this property you had no rights and you acquired none by any arrangment with me or any contract or obligation of the Commission. I was under no obligation of law, equity, morality, custom, friendship, courtesy, etiquette to enter into any sort of engagement with you by which I perilled my property as Superintendent unless I chose. You did not to my knowledge propose it to me. I did not suspect that you did. I did not propose it to you, and I never before or after the plan was formed and accepted voluntarily or consciously consented in the slightest degree to your presuming upon my surrendering to the common fund any advantages I had for holding that property.

But, with the title of Archt in Chief I acquired something that was not a part of that reserved property. I don’t think it will be necessary to weigh out and define just what this was—or what my reserved property was. Call the former X and the latter X’.

It is with regard to X that the claim of your letter here, is made. You say that from considerations of expediency not of a private nature you have hitherto refrained from asking by what right I claimed more than an equal share with you of this X. I never have claimed it. But you will say that I have accepted it silently—without protest or effort to gain you your rights in it. From your reference to my “sense of propriety” it is evident what you consider the nature of your right to be. I acknowledge that although the Commission was under no technical obligation to give it [to] you, there would have been a propriety in their giving it to you, there was an impropriety in their not doing so. Were you satisfied quite fully that it was best that I should protest more and otherwise than I did—until recently—against it? Did you think it best—looking to your interests alone—that I should resign, or refuse to accept or hold the office of A in C—refuse to take X unless you could share it with me?

You know very well that we had a perfectly good understanding about this—we agreed about it. Considerations of expediency not of a private nature never prevented your knowing what I thought about it, but did lead you to agree with me and to approve and encourage me to take just the course I did. It is with regard to this that I protest against the insinuation of your letter. But you say that I recently showed a reluctance [150]to give up the title of Archt in C.—in Chief. Thus not merely accepting from considerations of expediency a public appearance of superiority as designer but holding on to it, when, as far as you were concerned, or our common property, there was, as you think, no longer any ground of expediency for so doing. I am surprised that you were so sensitive to whatever momentary expression of reluctance you found in me to propose the change you suggested—that it made such an impression upon you—for I have no distinct recollection of it; I am much more surprised that you could find no other explanation of it than the one you have assumed. The only ground for doing so that you had seems to be that I failed on that occasion to give you any explanation of the ground of my reluctance. The explanation of this neglect is that which I have already given of the only field of our common office in which there has ever been any reserve with you on my part. That is, upon occasions which involved a reference to the valuation which I placed upon X’ which I knew that you did not accept, respect or approve—with regard to which we had agreed that discussion between us was useless—had agreed to differ—to a friendly difference. I can hardly conceive that a reference to this on my part, if not expressed, was not perfectly well understood on the occasion to which you refer. I am mistaken if a reference to it was not the form in which my reluctance was expressed if expressed at all.

But, you may say, then, if from regard to X’ I was unwilling to give up the title of A. in C., I sacrificed X to X’ which I had no right to do. If you were satisfied of this in your own mind, had you a right to assume that it was clearly so to me, that I was conscious of it and deliberately wronged you so that you were justified in the demand of your letter thereby?

An answer to this will turn in a great measure upon the obviousness of the advantage to you in the one case and of the obviousness or weight of the sacrifice in the other.

The latter is hard to be weighed by one who don’t respect it and don’t sympathetically at all understand it. But you know that the advantages offered in the office of the Superintendent for spending a good deal of my life in the park, being with the people in it, watching over it and cherishing it in every way—living in it, being a part of it, (whatever else there was) were valued by me at a valuation which you thought nonsensical childish and unworthy of me—but it was my valuation of them and not yours which was concerned—and that this was something deeper than a whim you know, for you know that it existed essentially years before it attached itself to this Central Park as was shown by the fact that while others gravitated to pictures, architecture, Alps, libraries, high life and low-life when travelling I had gravitated to parks—spent all my spare time in them, when living in London for instance, and this with no [151]purpose whatever except a gratification which came from sources which the Superintendence of the Park would have made easy and cheap to me, to say the least, every day of my life. What I wanted in London and in Paris and in Brussels and everywhere I went in Europe—what I wanted in New York in 1857, I want now and this from no regard for Art or fame or money. If you don’t know this at least of me and believe in it, you have a much less sympathetic and discerning judgment of human nature than I suppose. I wanted it at the time to which our question refers as much as ever I did—more than I do now, probably.

You know what the most obvious and constant obstacle to the realization of this desire—habit—passion—folly or whatever you choose to call it—was. I mean Green and what he embodied. You know that whatever was the original intention—and whether by my fault or not-certainly not by my intention, will or consent—matters had got so arranged at that moment, that relinquishment of the title of Architect in Chief would have been equivalent to a relinquishment—if not of that hope & purpose wholly—at least of a great and obvious vantage-ground for contending with that chief obstacle. In short I could not have relinquished it without relinquishing all I had that was not held in common with you—in other words again—for the sake of whatever could be gained for you of X, I was to relinquish all of X’. If this gain for you of X was very clear and certain—& however high my valuation of X’ may have been I was bound in duty to you to give it up. Was it so clear & certain that no reluctance or hesitation to do so on my part was excusable.

As far as the question of moral wrong is concerned, that could only be decided by an appeal to my consciousness—and I deny that it was at all clear to me—but as to the error or fault of judgment, that is perhaps a question to be decided by experience.

Whether reluctantly or not, I did assent to the change—I did relinquish the title. Have the consequences been satisfactory to you? I judge from your letter that they have not. I suppose that as I supposed at the time would be the case—you gained nothing by it. If so, I was intellectually as well as morally right in being reluctant to sacrifice X’.

But again, you may say that all this does not remove the obvious fact that the public does not give you due share of credit in the design—simply in the design, that I am styled the designer of the park and you are forgotten as the designer, and that while I was willing to hold the title of Archt in C, I sustained or formally consented to this [view.] I don’t think that this was the case at the period of which we are speaking. I don’t think it was the case in any appreciable degree because the title no longer conveyed or stood for that idea, because, at least changing it would not affect the past. The wrong had been done long before, when you consented to it quite as much as I did—at least I supposed so, and it was [152]your fault if I was mistaken. I certainly would not have done you wrong if I could have helped it—nor did I—though I may have been the instrument of wrong to you.

But—to say the truth—I am inclined to think—after reading your letter again—that you have been in the habit of attributing more of this injustice to the title than is actually due to it. Suppose you and I had both had nothing to do with the park except supplying the study of the plan, and Vielé or Smith had been appointed to superintend its execution and Jones or Brown to superintend the public use of it—maintenance & police. Vielé or Smith and Jones or Brown would now be known to the public more than you and I. And I think if Viele’s or Nincumpoop’s design had been accepted and I had been ordered to execute it, and to superintend (ala X’,) work of the park, though my honors would not have been as respectable (especially in your eyes) I should have been very nearly as well known to the public, as I am now. I don’t think that the mistake or careless injustice of the public in crediting me over much with the design has grown merely out of my having carried the title of A. in C. or having had a larger position than you in overlooking the execution of the design. I think it has grown in part out of my having exercised before and beyond any duty of the designers a superintending charge of the park and to circumstances of my character and history to which the fact of this (X’) superintendence was a natural sort of sequence and part.

But whether so or not—whether by reason of an absurd and false title or of an essential fact of false and vicious organization, or by other causes it was brought about, it became a habit with much of the public, as it was with the Commission, to regard me as the senior in our firm, and as more especially the representative man of the park. This fact is not a new one—it is an old one and if you think it was not recognized by us, and talked of by us, and our acts with reference to it determined with a perfectly frank mutual understanding long ago—if you think that you postponed obtaining a knowledge of the way in which I regarded it from considerations of expediency not of a private nature, I think that your memory is greatly at fault. Whatever I did about it—consenting or contributing to it was determined no more upon considerations which were satisfactory to my “sense of propriety” than to yours, unless you deceived me. I believe that you were as much responsible for it as I was; that my actions were yours as much as in anything of our partnership business. To take every opportunity of protesting against it would have been [impertinent,] useless and in bad taste. It was so associated with more important facts with reference to our essential purpose—with influence which we both valued and [needed] to make the most of, that it would have been ungrateful and impolitic [. . .]

Thus it is likely that a habit may have come upon me through which I may at some time have seemed to adopt, consent and help to [153]confirm the ordinary careless neglect to credit you with equal share in the design. It would be singular if it were not so. Yet I can recollect no instance of it, while I know that my established habit—instinct, primary & immediate impulse, has been the reverse—first, last and all the time.

On what ground do you base your assumption that this is not the case? It is a suspicion resting, so far as your letter shows, on another suspicion—a suspicion which you could hardly have expected me to meet either by confession or denial.

I have seen two newspaper paragraphs since I have been in California which I presume are those to which you refer as having given occasion for your demand upon me. One of these is signed with the initials of Godkin—the other I presume to have been written by Godwin. I wish you could have told these men what you were thinking about their words. So far from telling you that I was in the most remote manner privy to or consenting to their writing of me in the manner they did, I am sure that they would both be able to tell you that they had repeatedly heard me say that injustice was popularly done you, had frequently been cautioned to remember that you were as much the designer of the park as myself and that they had in fact never known me [to] fail when this was not recognized in my presence—publicly or privately—to insist upon it; that both had known me to do so, repeatedly publicly and privately. Indeed, both these men having been, as it happens, in peculiar relations of personal intimacy and mutual obligation with me long before I knew you, I had taken pains, as I could not with most men or on frequent occasions, to make them understand this and to know that it was annoying and mortifying to me to see credit given me for the design of the park without an equal recognition of your dues. My intentions in this way have often miscarried by no fault of mine any more than of yours—as in the case of the article for the Appleton’s Encyclopedia—where all that I had said of you personally was struck out after the proofs left my hands.

There are several properties in the park held or properly belonging to us 1st The General design, in which our property is mutual, equal and indivisible. 2d Detail of General design from which cannot be separated something of “superintendence” and in which also there is equality of property between us. 3d Architectural design & superintendence in which I have no appreciable property—which is wholly yours. 4th Organization & management of construction force in which you have very little property though more than I have in the last. 5th Administration & managment of the public introduction to and use of the park, in which you have very little property and which I hold to be my most valuable property in it. The relation of the last to the first is vague but intimate, dependent upon the fittingness of the design for an easy, safe and convenient habituation of the public to the customs desirable [154]to be [established] in it and especially to gaining the public regard and respect for it and for that which was necessary to its permanent good use and maintenance. Therefore in one sense this belongs to you equally with me, but so far as this can be disregarded, I mean that you have had little to do with the last division of our service and I have taken more interest in it, given more thought to it, had greater satisfaction in it than in all else together. It was in this too, that without any exertion or labor, but by fact of natural gift, that I have been worth most to the park & have equitably acquired consequently the most of my share of whatever property there is between us resulting from it. I mean that if it had not been for my intense sympathy with and fore-reaching for the best use which the people would, properly introduced and led along and prepared for, find the park to be to them, and the real instinctive devotion and enthusiasm I had for this-and the consequent public support and encouragement and sympathy and guardianship which was secured for our plans and purposes in many details—these would have been shipwrecked again & again, for there was no sufficient good purpose or sympathy with us or courage or greatness of purpose or good taste, or personal respect for us, on the Commission to have secured this, if it had not been for the fact that the heart of the people was with us and was kept with us. I think that whatever success we had or should have had in the 1st & 2d & 3d & 4th of the above indicated fields of our enterprise, that success was made much more complete and permanent and unquestionable and advantageous to us by success in the last—which success was much owing to the operation of causes intimately related to and dependent upon the class of causes which originally made me Superintendent and which made me value that position and the hopes which it suggested or confirmed and established so much more than you could sympathize with me in doing or respect me for doing.

If there is or has been a difference between us, it is on this point. If there has been any failure hitherto on your part to know the grounds of whatever difference there is in my views of what has been due to us two respectively in the business of the Park, from yours, it has been with reference to this, and has not been due to any considerations of expediency not of a private nature, nor to any difference or question of difference in our respective [senses] of propriety, but to an essential difference of nature, temperament, taste—well established, thoroughly exposed and ventilated and agreed [upon,] understood between us, long ago.

I will not write another page. I say finally that I never have concealed anything from you that you had a right to know from me. I certainly do not at this day owe you any information of my views on the question you present to me—as you present it. But the style in which you present it forbids me to treat it lightly. I therefore have taken pains to expose to you, carefully, fully and unsparingly everything in my mind [155]from top to bottom which I can imagine will serve any purpose or desire or curiosity which could rightly have led you to it.

I know that you can have no purpose or plan which I shall not be glad to have you carry out, fully, according to your own ideas. Nor can there be any difference of opinion between us where I am not willing to give up mine for any practical end in which it is concerned. I make you my attorney & authorize you to use my name for any purpose to which you are willing to give your own, with reference to the park, or our affairs. Express your own view as the view of the designers whenever it is desirable.

I am disappointed in much here, but I have the grandest scenery in the world within an one hour’s ride, and it is a very healthful region. We have a mail 12 times a month but are completely isolated—a desert plain 85 miles to the nearest town North & West, and the Sierras—impassible Alpine peaks—for 200 miles to the East. The majority of population Chinamen & Diggers. 9/10ths of the rest floating adventurers, very reckless & rough. The climate is fearfully gloomy in winter, intensely hot in summer and delightful, spring & fall. Laborers & quarrymen get 2½ to 3½ dols. a day, most of ours the last. Mechanics, journeymen $4. Men-servants $75 a month, women not to be had. Capital commands from 1½ to 3½ pr month—the first corresponds to the best long mortgage risks at home, the last for any convenience loans or risks on [wild] or somewhat “fancy” stocks. I suppose that I am hooked and drawn in the chance is fair that I spend my life here. I am successful enough in my way here.

With my best love to Mrs Vaux & the Mclntees.