We thought of stopping in Kansas City, but when we got there we found a train ready and a crowd of hospitable Kansians to take us on to Lawrence, to which I proceeded. I shall not soon forget my good days in L., in company with Judge Usher and his sons, (especially John and Linton,) true westerners of the noblest type. Nor the similar days in Topeka. Nor the brotherly kindness of my RR. friends there, and the city and State officials. Lawrence and Topeka are large, bustling, half-rural, handsome cities. I took two or three long drives about the latter, drawn by a spirited team over smooth roads. THE PRAIRIES (_and an Undeliver'd Speech_) At a large popular meeting at Topeka--the Kansas State Silver Wedding, fifteen or twenty thousand people--I had been erroneously bill'd to deliver a poem. As I seem'd to be made much of, and wanted to be good-natured, I hastily pencill'd out the following little speech. Unfortunately, (or fortunately,) I had such a good time and rest, and talk and dinner, with the U. boys, that I let the hours slip away and didn't drive over to the meeting and speak my piece. But here it is just the same: "My friends, your bills announce me as giving a poem; but I have no poem--have composed none for this occasion. And I can honestly say I am now glad of it. Under these skies resplendent in September beauty--amid the peculiar landscape you are used to, but which is new to me--these interminable and stately prairies--in the freedom and vigor and sane enthusiasm of this perfect western air and autumn sunshine--it seems to me a poem would be almost an impertinence. But if you care to have a word from me, I should speak it about these very prairies; they impress me most, of all the objective shows I see or have seen on this, my first real visit to the West. As I have roll'd rapidly hither for more than a thousand miles, through fair Ohio, through bread-raising Indiana and Illinois--through ample Missouri, that contains and raises everything; as I have partially explor'd your charming city during the last two days, and, standing on Oread hill, by the university, have launch'd my view across broad expanses of living green, in every direction--I have again been most impress'd, I say, and shall remain for the rest of my life most impress'd, with that feature of the topography of your western central world--that vast Something, stretching out on its own unbounded scale, unconfined, which there is in these prairies, combining the real and ideal, and beautiful as dreams. "I wonder indeed if the people of this continental inland West know how much of first-class _art_ they have in these prairies--how original and all your own--how much of the influences of a character for your future humanity, broad, patriotic, heroic and new? how entirely they tally on land the grandeur and superb monotony of the skies of heaven, and the ocean with its waters? how freeing, soothing, nourishing they are to the soul?