I have received yours of December 1st, January 18th, Jan 30th, and Feb 5th; also the plans of the Marion house and the report of Gantt’s speech. No copies of the New Path have yet arrived.

I like the plan very much and quite agree with your view of the advantage of a symmetrical design under the circumstances. Until the Estate begins to pay expenses I cannot begin to think of building. There is a fair prospect that I may do so next year. In the meantime we are making ourselves comfortable in a very decent suite of rooms over a stone-walled warehouse of the Company. I hope to be able to build a log-cabin and live in it during a part of the hot weather at a point higher in the mountains and near the largest of the groves of the Big trees.

I wish very much that I could see you and talk for an hour or two about the matter of your letter of January 18th. It seems to me to be a pretty bad muddle. I do not well see how you can have misunderstood my letter of Nov. 26th, as much as I infer that you have, nor do I see how I could better guard against misunderstanding than I did in that. I certainly cannot do so under present circumstances, therefore I will only say that the views that you formerly held and now relinquish upon the influence of my letter are precisely the views as far as I can see which that letter was designed to express and defend and certainly they are much more nearly in accordance with my views than those which you now state that you have adopted from me. I infer that if we could thoroughly understand each other we should cordially agree. Let it be clearly understood that I repudiate and decline and insist that I always have repudiated and declined wholly and heartily the position of superiority which you seem to consent to yield to me. It ought not be necessary for me to say that I fully adopt the following paragraph of your letter: “I think the last analysis would show that after all I have a share in X’ having included it in my estimate of X and that in both together, that is, in the park not as a work of the arts of architecture and landscape gardening only but of the art of administration and good government in its extended sense we stand as co-workers.” I am very sorry that there should have seemed to you to be occasion for apprehension that your first letter had [209]offended me or was likely to cause a serious or permenant chill of friendship and cordiality. I only said that if I should take the plainest meaning of your words I should repel them as unjust and uncalled for but this meaning I did not take and only inferred from them that there was some intellectual misunderstanding or mystery between us which I had not previously appreciated and which it was best should be cleared up.

With regard Vielé I naturally don’t like to see the paragraphs which I do, for instance in the Home Journal and in the correspondence and condensed items of the California papers but I can’t think what should be done about it if anything. I should prefer, if possible that Vielé should be thrown upon his defence for making a claim to the present design of the Park before a body of gentlemen, as, for instance our common peers of the Century. I think that if he has made such a claim publicly either he or we should be disgracefully dismissed from the Club or at least he should be required to retract it. I chiefly apprehend that the matter may come up again in the future in a more serious way, as for instance if Vielé should become a candidate for an important office and the interests of a large party and its newspaper organs should become associated with his in this matter.

It appears to me that the best way to meet him with the general public would be to present the two plans side by side, or one overlying the other. A reproduction of some transcript of his plans for which he is responsible would be best if such a transcript could be obtained as I think it might from Valentine’s or some other official publication of Wood or the Commissioners under whom Vielé first acted. I remember seeing it before our day in some public form, perhaps in the newspapers. In a popular publication it might be prudent to hint in some way that the topography of the ground was such that at certain points there could well be no choice in the lines of road to be followed and that of course at such points all plans conceived at all in the natural style must be approximately alike, also that the requirements of the Commissioners made it necessary that all the plans should contain certain common features and that the topography of the ground was such as to admit of no choice in the location of some of these. Also that if ponds were introduced they would of necessity be placed only in the low grounds of the site; it is therefore probably true that Mr. Vielé knew as he stated that nine out of ten of the plans would in certain respects be similar to his, or follow his choice, his choice being, in these respects, no other than Hobson’s choice. That his plan had many faults and that our design avoided these faults without sacrificing even as much as his the natural advantages of the ground could I think be easily shown by a few comparisons which would illustrate his poverty of resource and general littleness and meanness of landscape effects: this would be shown for instance, by a comparison of breadth of waters, and of the greatest extent of green-sward both in area and in [210]stretch unbroken by road or plantations. Thus, there is in our plan one stretch of unbroken view across turf from near the South drive near the Cricket ground (rock in front of the elliptical bridge) to the North end of the Green. I don’t think Vielé had any stretch one quarter as long as this.

I think that such a general report to the public as you propose is quite desirable but it would be a very great undertaking to prepare it in a satisfactory manner and one in which I fear I could give you no assistance.

The great point would be that the Park has been constructed not nearly as much for the present as for the future; that no criticism could be justly made upon the effect of the planting until the result aimed at should be reached, which will not be in less than twenty years, while its perfection must not be expected in less than fifty; that it would be very easy to completely neutralize the general effect intended in many particulars, by the introduction of what might be supposed to be unimportant objects proposed as improvements; and to indicate what real and essential additions and improvements might be made harmoniously with its design.

There need be no hurry about it, and if you feel able to undertake the preparation of such a paper, taking time for it when nothing else presses upon you, I shall be very glad. If you can send it to me in whole or in detachments I shall be glad to make any suggestions or notes for additions to it that I can. I turned over my letter-book lately and it made me boil with indignation to see how cruelly and meanly Green had managed me—how entirely regardless he was of honor, generosity and truth, and what a systematic small tyranny, measured exactly by the limit of my endurance he exercised over me. It was slow murder. It made my head swim to read my studied and pathetic remonstrances and entreaties. I don’t know that I regret my course because the object was worthy of it what ever it may cost me.

I have been in a good deal of distress ever since I came here. I only got medical advice last week, when in San Francisco. The doctor told me my heart was much enlarged, and that I was an invalid for life. Nothing troubles me so much or so soon & surely as writing. This experiment of dictation is not successful. I can read & attend to ordinary business—so I don’t have to write, without inconvenience, but can’t walk far, or up hill at all, or ride hard. I expect to gain upon it, and if the mines come out luckily—as luckily as they are now promising, I can live here a quiet life & give the children a fair education. I can’t lay up much except by better luck than I expect. I think I can do my duty. When not at all fatigued I am comfortable & jolly. Mrs O. will write you. We are very well (with the above exception) & Mary finds matters here better than she expected, I think.