I find my mind wholly unfit for the studies which the present state of the Telegraph requires from me, being distracted and irritated by the constant necessity for standing on the defensive.

Smith will be Smith I know, and, therefore, as he is the appointed thorn to keep a proper ballast of humility in S.F.B.M.

with his load of honors, why, be it so, if I can only have the proper strength and disposition to use the trial aright....

Write me some encouraging news if you can.

How will the present calm in political affairs affect our California matters ?" The calm to which he referred was the apparent one which had settled down on the country after the election of Buchanan, and which, as everybody knows, was but the calm before the storm of our Civil War.