Hollenbeck Hotel
Los Angeles California,
June 20, 1901
Dear Father
Three nights and two days on the Santa Anita Ranch, a day at Santa Barbara with Harry Hollister, a night here to think it over, and I leave this evening on the Limited with this conclusion: that you have no happier child than Dot [Lottie Steffens Hollister]–unless it is Jimmy Hollister?
They are the prize impression of my trip, the best think I have seen. Her you know. He is one of the finest young men I have ever met, simple, reserved, solid and with Dot he is beautiful. There is love there, but love may be passionate, violent, selfish. Jimmy is gentle, kind and easily affectionate. As I told Dot, too, he is able. What he does, he does without a strain, and I noted in him that calm sense of reserve power which I have found in the big men of Wall Street. He has repose, because he has strength, maybe even power, and if a crisis ever comes in their lives she will find James Hollister a big, brave man. Dot is all right.
They all like her. Will and Harry and the Mexican “Jo.” They have accepted “Jimmy’s young wife” as they call her with a touch of humor that is a touch of human affection.
She is nervous just now. Her condition makes her so, but it is purely the excitement of extraordinary happiness, and there isn’t an element in their situation that is not just as it should be. Write to her as often as you all can till she is through her time, but rely on her tall, handsome young husband to see her out.
I am delighted.
I’m almost as happy over them as they are over themselves, and I’m inclined to forget everything else in the thought of the little old home of adobe on the Santa Anita Ranch.
I’m glad that I got away with disturbing it, but I wouldn’t take that chance again.
I wouldn’t go near them again fora a long while lest I should make some slip.
[…]
You and Mamma are sound and clear for whatever may come. Lulu [Steffens] is changed remarkably, and Laura [Steffens] has her problem to solve; Laura is the youngest of us, and there is time for her. I’d like to write a long letter to her, only she seems so self reliant, that it would be a little like interference. But I believe in her also. I like everybody, in fact. and I like you just as you are.
Love to all and goodbye.
Lincoln Steffens
V 1, p 149,
Collected Letters
Drake Station 