[On San Francisco Examiner stationery]

San Francisco, May 23, 1885

Dear Charlie:-- So you didn’t know whose handwriting it was on the outside of the envelope did you? And you don’t know now, do you old fellow? Well guess a while or will you turn and look at the signature? Have you gone in for spelling reform in the University? or what are your particular duties? I should have written you before that I have been driven to death with a great number of things to do and a great deal of correspondence and have been obliged to drop all writing for fun and friendship. It is six weeks, almost, since I left home with Mr. Adams, the president of Union Pacific RR in his private car.[1] We went to New Orleans, thence to El Paso and to the City of Mexico, Orizaba and Cordova in the [page 2] tropics, thence back to Mexico, up to El Paso, Los Angeles, Yo Semite and here. We leave here on the 25th for the Geysers thence to Salt Lake, up to Portland and Tacoma, across the Northern Pacific to St. Paul and down to Omaha back to Salt Lake etc etc. etc. Lily and my sister with the babies sailed for England today on the Adriatic. I have a place now in Worcestershire in a village called Broadway where I have a 14th Century priory for a studio with oak timbered priory hall, oratory etc. etc. I thought of you when I took it and imagined how you could delight in it all.

Here in San Francisco we are only staying for a few days. We have [page 3] spent a day in Monterey, a day with Gov. Stanford at Palo Alto and this ____ have been all about the bay in a tug. Tomorrow we go to the Cliff House etc. etc. I can’t say I like S.F. very well though the people are very nice. The wind is too high and cold and the city isn’t picturesque enough for me. When we meet again I shall be able to talk with you about it all.

Write me a line when you can (with C.F. Adams Jr. Say care of L. R. Callaway Gen. Man. U.P.R.R. Omaha, Neb.) and tell me how you are getting on. I was delighted to hear of your new position.

Yours always faithfully,

Frank Millet

Notes

1. This is Charles F. Adams, Jr., a longtime mentor and friend of Millet. Here, Millet writes as if Stoddard has never heard of this Adams. This suggests that the Adams family mentioned in Millet's earlier letters may not have been the family of Charles Francis Adams, Jr.