We withered under it; California
had lost its soul for us; at noon or in dreams that balmy land would
nevermore be the paradise it once was to us. The last hand that pressed
our own, when we sailed for the Isthmus on our way home, was the same
that had been first to give us our California welcome. Just before the
lines were cast off, Starr King stood at the door of our state-room, and
said,--
"I could not bear to have you go away without one more good-bye. Here
are the _cartes-de-visite_ I promised. They look hard-worked, but they
look like me. Good bye! God bless you! I hope to make a visit to the
East next summer, and then we will get together somewhere by the sea.
Good bye!"
He went down the ladder. When the steamer glided off, his bright face
sent benedictions after us as far as we could see; and then, for the
last time on earth, that great, that good, that beloved man faded from
our sight,--but, oh! never from our hearts, either in the here or the
hereafter. "We shall see him, but not now." We shall be together with
him "in the summer, by the sea"; but that summer shall have other glory
than the sun to lighten it, and the sea shall be of crystal.
King was to have joined us in our Yo-Semite trip. We little knew that we
were losing, for this world, our last opportunity of close daily
intercourse with his sweet spirit, though we were grievously
disappointed when he told us, on the eve of our setting out, that work
for the nation must detain him in San Francisco, after all.
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