The Life of Bret Harte Part 28

[16] "Pioneer Times in California."

[17] Mr. Kipling, who visited California in the year 1898, speaks of "the remarkable beauty" of the women of San Francisco,--descendants in most cases of the Pioneers.

[18] The Reverend Walter Colton, "Three Years in California."

[19] Just across the river, in the State of Illinois, is another Pike County, similar in soil and population; and this Illinois county was the scene of John Hay's "Pike County Ballads."

[20] Eliza W. Farnham, "California, Indoors and Out."

[21] Bayard Taylor, "El Dorado."

[22] Edwin Bryant, "California."

[23] See Thornton's "Oregon and California in 1848."

[24] _A Waif of the Plains._

[25] _When the Waters Were Up at "Jules'."_

[26] In _A First Family of Tasajara_ he gives the same explanation for the beauty of Clementina, which is described as "hopelessly and even wantonly inconsistent with her surroundings."

[27] "The coa.r.s.e, the h.o.r.n.y-handed, the bull-throated were the most successful. They set the fas.h.i.+on, those great men of the pickaxe and the pistol, and a fine, fire-eating, antediluvian, reckless fas.h.i.+on it was."--W. M. Fisher, "The Californians."

[28] How long this continued to be the California point of view is shown by an interesting reminiscence of Professor Royce's. "I reached twenty years of age without ever becoming clearly conscious of what was meant by judging a man by his antecedents, a judgment that in an older and less isolated community is natural and inevitable, and that, I think, in most of our Western communities grows up more rapidly than it has grown up in California, where geographical isolation is added to the absence of tradition."

[29] D. B. Woods, "Sixteen Months at the Gold Diggings."

[30] G. K. Chesterton, in "The Critic."

[31] "Perils, Pastimes and Pleasures of an Emigrant," by J. W.

[32] Eliza W. Farnham, "California, Indoors and Out."

[33] Dancing was a common amus.e.m.e.nt among the miners even when there were no women to be had as partners. "It was a strange sight to see a party of long-bearded men, in heavy boots and flannel s.h.i.+rts, going through all the steps and figures of the dance with so much spirit, and often with a great deal of grace; hearty enjoyment depicted on their dried-up, sun-burned faces, and revolvers and bowie-knives glancing in their belts; while a crowd of the same rough-looking customers stood around, cheering them on to greater efforts, and occasionally dancing a step or two quietly on their own account."--Borthwick's "Three Years in California."

[34] _The Romance of Madrono Hollow._

[35] The Reverend Walter Colton, "Three Years in California."

[36] W. M. Fisher, "The Californians."

[37] Mrs. D. B. Bates, "Incidents on Land and Water."

[38] J. M. Letts, "California Ill.u.s.trated."

[39] "Our Italy."

[40] This quality seems to have persisted, if we can trust Mr. Rudyard Kipling, who wrote in the year 1899: "San Francisco is a mad city....

Recklessness is in the air. I can't explain where it comes from, but there it is. The roaring winds off the Pacific make you drunk, to begin with."

[41] Stephen J. Field, "Personal Reminiscences of California."

[42] William Grey, "Pioneer Times in California."

[43] See the San Francisco "Herald" of May 19, 1856.

[44] D. B. Woods, "Sixteen Months at the Gold Diggings."

[45] The Captain calmly directed the transfer of the women and children, kept his place on the paddle-box, and went down with the others. He was James Lewis Herndon, a Commander in the United States Navy, and the explorer of the Amazon. A monument to his memory was erected by brother officers in the grounds of the Naval Academy at Annapolis. The steamer was bringing $2,000,000 in gold, and the loss of this treasure increased the commercial panic then prevailing in the Atlantic States.

[46] Baron Fairfax of Cameron in the Peerage of Scotland. Many stories are told of his adventures in California.

[47] Bayard Taylor, who visited the mining camps in the winter of '49, found them well organized under the rule of an Alcalde. "Nothing in California," he wrote, "seemed more miraculous to me than this spontaneous evolution of social order from the worst elements of anarchy."

[48] William Grey, "Pioneer Times in California."

[49] "Seeking the Golden Fleece."

[50] Shucks, "Bench and Bar of California."

[51] William Grey, "Pioneer Times in California."

[52] S. J. Field, "Personal Reminiscences of Early Days in California."

[53] Journalistic affrays were frequent. See page 192 _infra_.

[54] C. W. Haskins, "The Argonauts of California."

[55] "Emerson in Concord," page 94.

[56] Introduction to volume ii of Bret Harte's works.

[57] "Alta California" of July 21, 1851.

[58] The Reverend William Taylor, "California Life."

[59] In one day two women, crazed by the sufferings of their children, drowned themselves in the Humboldt River.

[60] E. W. Farnham, "California Indoors and Out."

[61] Before the Civil War, the treatment of women, even in the Eastern cities, was almost invariably courteous and respectful. It was the exception, in New York or Boston, when a man neglected to give up his seat in a public conveyance to a woman; whereas, nowadays the exception is the other way. Profound respect shown to woman as woman is incompatible with a society founded upon an aristocratic, plutocratic, or caste system. It was never known in England. It is the product of a real democracy and of that alone; and in this country, as we become more and more plutocratic, the respect for women diminishes. The great cities of the United States are fast approaching, in this regard, the brutality of London, Paris and Berlin.

[62] In the poem, _Concepcion de Arguello_.

[63] H. A. Wise, "Los Gringos."

[64] H. R. Helper, "The Land of Gold."