and each line was duly
commenced within the red mark which traversed the sheet from top to
bottom. Solon appeared to have had some trouble getting his effusion
started to suit him. He had begun it, "Know all men by these presents,"
and scratched it out again; he had substituted, "Now at this day comes
the plaintiff, by his attorney," and scratched that out also; he had
tried other sentences of like character, and gone on obliterating them,
until, through much sorrow and tribulation, he achieved the dedication
which stands at the head of his letter, and to his entire satisfaction,
I do cheerfully hope. But what a villain a man must be to blend together
the beautiful language of love and the infernal phraseology of the law
in one and the same sentence! I know but one of God's creatures who
would be guilty of such depravity as this: I refer to the Unreliable. I
believe the Unreliable to be the very lawyer's-cub who sat upon the
solitary peak, all soaked in beer and sentiment, and concocted the
insipid literary hash I am talking about. The handwriting closely
resembles his semi-Chinese tarantula tracks.

SUGAR LOAF PEAK, February 14, 1863.

To the loveliness to whom these presents shall come, greeting:--This is
a lovely day, my own Mary; its unencumbered sunshine reminds me of your
happy face, and in the imagination the same doth now appear before me.
Such sights and scenes as this ever remind me, the party of the second
part, of you, my Mary, the peerless party of the first part. The view
from the lonely and segregated mountain peak, of this portion of what is
called and known as Creation, with all and singular the hereditaments
and appurtenances thereunto appertaining and belonging, is
inexpressively grand and inspiring; and I gaze, and gaze, while my soul
is filled with holy delight, and my heart expands to receive thy
spirit-presence, as aforesaid. Above me is the glory of the sun; around
him float the messenger clouds, ready alike to bless the earth with
gentle rain, or visit it with lightning, and thunder, and destruction;
far below the said sun and the messenger clouds aforesaid, lying prone
upon the earth in the verge of the distant horizon, like the burnished
shield of a giant, mine eyes behold a lake, which is described and set
forth in maps as the Sink of Carson; nearer, in the great plain, I see
the Desert, spread abroad like the mantle of a Colossus, glowing by
turns, with the warm light of the sun, hereinbefo