I have received your note of the 20th by mail, and the manuscript by express. I am somewhat pressed in preparing for another professional journey, and may not have considered the matter as thoroughly as I should. I agree with your comments in general and shall be glad to bear half the cost of carrying out your proposition.

The matter of the manuscript seems to me all of value, and I would like to have it all made conveniently accessible to the public. Perhaps that which you think might be omitted could take the form of an appendix in smaller type than the body.

The whole disappoints me simply in that it is too much a compilation of others’ work, and is a great deal too little distinctively Harrisonian. The main object that I had in view originally was to float, in the form of a guide-book, a sermon of Harrison’s. That is to say, a paper of skillful instruction and persuasion by which visitors would be induced to use Niagara in a way that would benefit them much more than the way in which nearly all are now prone to use it; in a way that would tend to promote their “spiritual and everlasting welfare,” as the ministers used to say. That is something I cannot do; that few men can do, but which Harrison can. He showed that he could in the manner in which he used to talk about Niagara, and to some extent in the manner in which he wrote about it. People need to be educated to contemplate Niagara when they have an opportunity, not to look upon it as nearly all are disposed to when they first go there, as a grand spectacular exhibition for the promotion of wonder and the gratification of curiosity. Harrison has every now and then said something which shows that he keenly appreciates the need which people have of a little guidance in this respect antithetically to the motive with which the present guide-books and the present guides and most of the public talk about Niagara is adapted to nourish. I am sure that he could write a few words, which might be in the form of a preface or an introduction, that would have more value than all the rest of the book together.

I do not want my name to be presented so prominently as it is on the first page. I think it mars the book for the purpose which it is most desirable to serve, and even apart from that, I question if it is in good taste to give prominence to any man in the foreground of the subject to be presented.

Then I suggest that something should be said, and especially if Harrison could say it in honestly grateful terms, of the progress which has been made thus far in the work of carrying out the plan; something perhaps to gratify State pride in what has already been gained, and something to make the people of the State ashamed of their parsimonious and dilly-dallying method of dealing with it. It seems to me that there is reason for the suspicion that [740]there is a motive of nursing the job in the manner that it is proceeded with, but if Harrison has been led to think from his observation and from conversation with Welch that the work is being done judiciously, even with reference to political considerations, that is to say, considerations of popularity with the voters, I think it would be better that he should say so.

I have written this for you to consider before writing again to Harrison, if you should wish to do so. If you think well of it as a suggestion, put it in your own way to Harrison. I believe that it is in him to say something very fine and helpful in the way of a sermon. How it would be best to go to work to induce him to say it is a delicate question with which you can deal much better than I can. I know that he feels what I want him to express and what he has not attempted to express in the manuscript as it stands. You must put it in the form of a preface yourself if you do not think it likely that you can induce him to do it.

Sincerely Yours