You're a lucky guy to have the Huntington so near. I'm a lucky guy to have the Newberry Library which has in its large collection Whitehouse's journal. I saw it a couple of years ago. I open it and the ancient dusts of Montana rise to my nostrils. The writing is inconsistent in size, depending, I conjecture, on the type pen, steel, quill, used.
Writing is thin and faded in places nearly illegible.
The text periodically grows faint as Whitehouse, running short of ink, thins his pot with water. One section had been carried unprotected, the outer page darker and soiled. A minute flake, a fragment of paper barely larger than dust, falls to the table. I take the flake and put it in my mouth, swallow it.