Prefatory Note 



My Dear Chief, — I dedicate this book to you 

 with profound pleasure, in acknowledgment of an 

 affection and sympathy which have been sealed 

 by a great sorrow. From your hands I received 

 a loyal, loving wife ; but the fact that she was 

 born in California has not shackled my lips in 

 speaking of the West. She, I know, would have 

 entreated me to write with a free hand ; and if at 

 times I seem to criticise somewhat harshly certain 

 women who, consciously or unconsciously, are 

 widening the gulf between their husbands and 

 themselves, let it be remembered by my friends 

 that I have judged these women according to a 

 standard set by a daughter of the West, a standard 

 of tenderness, fidelity, unselfishness, and modesty 

 to which few wives, be their country what it may, 

 can attain. 



Many and many a time have you and I talked 

 over the subjects treated in these pages ; but 



