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Oh, dear, it was always a painful thing to me to see the Emperor (Norton I.,
of San Francisco) begging; for although nobody else believed he was an Emperor,
he believed it. ... What an odd thing it is, that neither Frank Soulé,
nor Charley Warren Stoddard, nor I, nor Bret Harte the Immortal Bilk, nor any
other professionally literary person of S.F., has ever "written up"
the Emperor Norton. Nobody has ever written him up who was able to see any but
his (ludicrous or his) grotesque side; but I think that with all his dirt &
unsavoriness there was a pathetic side to him. Anybody who said so in print
would be laughed at in S.F., doubtless, but no matter, I have seen the Emperor
when his dignity was wounded; and when he was both hurt & indignant at the
dishonoring of an imperial draft; & when he was full of trouble & bodings
on account of the presence of the Russian fleet, he connecting it with his refusal
to ally himself with the Romanoffs by marriage, & believing these ships
were come to take advantage of his entanglements with Peru & Bolivia; I
have seen him in all his various moods & tenses, & there was
always more room for pity than laughter. He believed he was a natural son of
one of the English Georges--but I wander from my subject.
- letter to William Dean Howells, September 3, 1880
I thank you cordially for your invitation. I was not early enough to be a pioneer,
but was president of the 'Handcart Sub-Pioneers,' and for thirty-five years
have been the only survivor of that organization. Other members were Bummer
and Lazarus and Emperor Norton. In the name of the Sub-Pioneers I beg to drink
with you. Bummer and Lazarus will be remembered as two dogs who, in days agone,
occupied quarters underneath the old Bulletin headquarters, while Emperor Norton
was an eccentric character about town.
- telegram to the California Society of New York, reprinted in the San Francisco
Call, September 10, 1902, p. 4
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