In this new edition of "The Footprints" some changes will be found, changes which all will agree make an improvement over the original volume. "Primeval California," first published in October, 1881, in the old Scribner's (now The Century) Magazine, when James G. Holland was its editor, is at times Stoddard at his best. "In Yosemite Shadows" shows us the young Stoddard full of boyish enthusiasm—he could not have been more than twenty when it was written and published, in the old Overland, then edited by Bret Harte. It is more than a gloriously poetic description of Yosemite, when Yosemite still dreamed in its virgin beauty; it is the revelation of a poet's beginnings, for it gives us in the rough, just finding their way to the light, all those gifts which later won Stoddard his fame.
The third addition to this volume is "An Affair of the Misty City," a valuable chapter, since it is wholly autobiographical, and at the same time embodies pen portraits of all the celebrities of California's first literary days, that famous group of which Stoddard was one. Of all the group, Ina Coolbrith was closest and dearest to Stoddard's heart. The beautiful abiding friendship which bound the souls of these two poets together has not been surpassed in all the poetry and romance of the world. These last added chapters are taken from "In the Pleasure of His Company," which is out of print and may never be republished.
The "Mysterious History," included in the original editions of "The Footprints" has wisely been left out. It had no proper place in the book: Stoddard himself felt that. The additions which have been supplied by Mr. Robertson, who was for years Stoddard's publisher, and in whom the author reposed the utmost confidence, make a real improvement on the original book.
"We have often met in spirit ere this," Stoddard wrote me. We had; and we meet again and again. I feel him very near me as I write these words; and I feel, too, that his gentle soul will visit everyone who reads the chronicles he has here set down, so that even though no shaft rise in marble glory to mark his last resting place, still in unnumbered hearts his memory will be enshrined. With his poet friend, Thomas Walsh, well may we say:
"Vain the laudation!—What are crowns and praise
To thee whom Youth anointed on the eyes?
We have but known the lesser heart of thee
Whose spirit bloomed in lilies down the ways
Of Padua; whose voice perpetual sighs
On Molokai in tides of melody."
CHARLES PHILLIPS.
San Francisco,
September first,
Nineteen hundred and eleven.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
[Old Days in El Dorado—] [I. "Strange Countries for to See"] [II. Crossing the Isthmus] [III. Along the Pacific Shore] [IV. In the Wake of Drake] [V. Atop o' Telegraph Hill] [VI. Pavement Pictures] [VII. A Boy's Outing] [VIII. The Mission Dolores] [IX. Social San Francisco] [X. Happy Valley] [XI. The Vigilance Committee] [XII. The Survivor's Story] [A Bit of Old China] [With the Egg-Pickers of the Farallones] [A Memory of Monterey] [In a Californian Bungalow] [Primeval California] [Inland Yachting] [In Yosemite Shadows] [An Affair of the Misty City—] [I. What the Moon Shone on] [II. What the Sun Shone on] [III. Balm of Hurt Wounds] [IV. By the World Forgot]