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12 before my mind. This one is rich - that one is handsome. The other is gay but that rich one is wilful - that handsome one will be a costly wife and gay one has too great a zest for balls and superior society. There is dissimilarity of taste between them all and me. We have been educated into dissimilar notions - we should clash constantly. I believe it is bad to marry out of ones level - as for instance the poor to the rich. The sedate to the gay. The intellectual to the frivolous. The good natured to the cross. The lover of home quiet - to the lover of social excitement. The religious to the irreligious. Solomon says to that gettish a wife gettish a good thing. I suppose he meant a good wife. I wish he had put his wisdom to rules for the selection of a good wife - but I suppose poor fellow that was little too much for his head. Marriage was to sum to one like a fairy land - but now it appears more like a field that bears thorns and biers among its roses. But I think marriage in the whole would be happiest condition for me - therefore as soon as I think my business prospects look fair enough I will try to select a wife - though I have not a Solomons head.

On Christmas day 1850 I quitted the Mines of California. Now 16 months I had worked hard and steadily in the mines - and without receiving such returns as I had anticipated. I resolved to quit then. I had invested $1000 in the Speculation of a Dam - which yielded me no returns - and working with a common rocker gave only from $24 to $32. pr week and that uncertainly. I bade advice then to Ford's Bar with $400 in my pocket - to resume again my place in society. I went to Natoma and remained 6 weeks with my friend Horace Williams of Maine. What glorious rest was those weeks We had a beautiful camp - all the luxuries his Stove could afford and there on the spot when I made my first ounce of gold I