The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52. Dame Shirley
wreathed foreheads, stood, sublime in their very monotony, the glorious Sierra Nevada.
Besides changes in capitalization and punctuation, the words, "the summits of," are inserted before "the glorious Sierra." Compare Bret Harte's lines—
Above the pines the moon was slowly drifting,
The river sang below;
The dim Sierras, far beyond, uplifting
Their minarets of snow.
By the word "Sierras" the mountain-range called the Sierra Nevada is not meant, but merely teeth-like summits thereof, which uplift their snow-clad peaks, or "minarets." The Spanish word "sierra" means, in English, a saw, and also a ridge of mountains and craggy rocks. "Nevada" means here, in connection with "Sierra," snowy. Thus, "the snowy ridge of mountains and craggy rocks," or, to express the meaning more clearly in English, the snowy serrated mountain-range. Bret Harte's capitalization of "Sierras" may be safely challenged. The lines are from his poem, Dickens in Camp.
The Buttes mentioned by Shirley are the Marysville Buttes. "Butte" is French, and descriptive, and French trappers bestowed the name.
Shirley sometimes uses an adverb instead of an adjective. Thus on page 332, speaking of a tame frog on the bar at a rancho, she says—
You cannot think how comically [comic] it looked hopping about the bar, quite as much at home as a tame squirrel would have been.
An old San Francisco printer once heard a newspaperman say that this little incident furnished the suggestion to Mark Twain for his Jumping Frog of Calaveras, but, unfortunately, regarded the remark as of no more importance than much other gossip current among printers and newspapermen.
Shirley, like many another writer, used marks of quotation improperly, when the language of the author cited was altered or adapted. Worse than this are many instances of gross misquotation. In the former case, the quotation-marks were deleted; in the latter, accuracy was the aim.
On page 79 quotation-marks are deleted, the language used being adapted, thus, "clothe themselves with curses as with a garment." Compare Psalms cix, 18, "He clothed himself with cursing like as with his garment."
On page 101 a correction is made; thus, "As thy day is, so shall thy strength be" (Deut. xxxiii, 25). In the Letters this read, "As thy days, so," etc.
On page 268 quotation-marks are deleted, as the language used is adapted, and in a strict sense is also inaccurate; thus, "The woman tempted me, and I did eat." Compare Genesis iii, 12, 13.
12. And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat.
13. And the Lord God said unto the woman, What is this that thou hast done? And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat.
Blunders and mistakes of all sorts might be set out, but it is not deemed advisable to pursue this matter any further. It is, however, necessary to say something further of The Pioneer itself, and the paper-cover title of the May, 1855, number is reprinted here, with an outline drawing of the crude woodcut vignette printed in the original. It was impossible to secure a satisfactory facsimile of the title. The names of some of the agents of the magazine are of historical interest.
The PIONEER
or
California Monthly Magazine
May, 1855
SAN FRANCISCO
Published by LE COUNT & STRONG Nos. 111 & 113 Montgomery Street
For Sale at all the Bookstores in the City
AGENTS
J. W. Jones, Benicia; Chas. Binney, Sacramento; R. A. Eddy & Co., Marysville; Geo. Vincent & Co., Coloma; Langton & Bro., Downieville; A. Roman, Shasta; Roman & Parker, Yreka; Nash & Davis, Placerville; Adams & Co., Jackson; Adams & Co., Georgetown; Adams & Co., Mud Springs; C. O. Burton, Stockton; Cannaday & Cook, Sonora; A. A. Hunnewell, Columbia; J. Coffin, Mokelumne Hill; Miller & Co., Chinese Camp; Elliott Reed, San José; Alexander S. Taylor, Monterey; R. K. Sweetland, Volcano; Langton & Bro., Sierra County; Dr. Steinberger, agent Adams & Co., Oregon; Henry M. Whitney, Honolulu, S.I.
Monson & Valentine, Printers, 124 Sacramento Street
But few copies of the Pioneer are known to be in existence. Odd numbers are sometimes found, but these are generally in a mutilated condition, while the bound volumes lack the advertisements.
The first number was issued in January, 1854, and the last in December, 1855. The first letter of the Shirley series appeared in the initial number, and the last one in the final issue. The magazine seems to have been well received in the East, and the Eastern magazines reviewed it very favorably.
Of Shirley herself it is not necessary to say much in this Foreword. She was a typical Massachusetts girl, although born in New Jersey, the residence of the family in the latter state being merely temporary, as is clearly shown by her correspondence. A letter from Miss Katherine Powell, librarian of the Amherst Town Library, sheds some light on the early associations of Shirley. In part, she says—
In spite of widespread inquiries, I have been able to get … [but little] concerning Louise Amelia Knapp Smith. There are no people now living here who knew her even by hearsay. The records of Amherst Academy show that she attended that institution in 1839 and 1840. … Miss Smith's name adds another to the long list of writers who have lived here at one time or another, and Amherst Academy has added many names to that list. Two of them—Emily Dickinson the poet, and Emily Fowler Ford—were schoolmates of Miss Smith. Mrs. Ford was the granddaughter of Noah Webster (an Amherst man [one of the founders of Amherst College]) and daughter of Professor Fowler [the phrenologist], who wrote several books. Eugene Field was, some years later, a student of the old Academy, and in his poem, My Playmates, he mentioned by their real names a number of his old schoolmates. Helen Hunt Jackson was a contemporary of Miss Smith here, and, although she did not attend the Academy, must have been well known to her.
Amherst, it should be said, was the home-town of Shirley's family, and to it she often fondly refers in the Letters. It is not cause for wonder that she is not now remembered in Amherst. Her correspondence shows that the members of the family, although devotedly attached to one another, were inclined to disperse.
Mrs. Mary Viola Tingley Lawrence has kindly permitted the printing in this volume of a paper prepared by her to be read before a literary society, containing much that is interesting of Shirley's life. Mrs. Lawrence is well known among the literati of San Francisco. She was a contributor to the old Overland. What is of more interest here is the fact that she was a favorite pupil of Shirley, and later her most intimate friend in California. It was from a selection of poetry gathered by Mrs. Lawrence that Bret Harte obtained the larger portion of his selection entitled "Outcroppings" (San Francisco, 1866), a title, by the way, claimed by Mrs. Lawrence as her own.
Rich Bar and Indian Bar, in Butte County at the time the Shirley Letters were written, are now in Plumas County, consequent upon a change of the county boundary lines. There are two Rich Bars on the Feather River, the minor one being on the Middle Fork, and oftentimes mistaken for the one made famous by Shirley. James Graham Fair, one of the earliest multimillionaires of California, and United States Senator from Nevada, panned out his first sackful of gold at Rich Bar, and probably at the time Shirley was writing her Letters. Many other men, whose names