“Ah! boys,” he winds up, in tones tremulous with tearful regret, “you fellows will never see such lively times as we of the early days.”
His tall figure passes on with uncertain gait, stopping at garden fences here and there to execute one or two old-school compliments for the ladies who are spending their evenings under vine-draped porches; and when he takes an easy-chair by invitation, and begins a story laid in the spring of 50, the Judge is conscious in his heart that the full saloon veranda is looking and saying, “The wimmun always did like him.”
The 49 rough, too, still stays in almost every camp. He evaded rope by joining the “Vigilants,” and has become a safe and fangless wolf in sheep’s clothing. He found early that he could sponge and swindle a larger amount from any given community than could be plundered, to say nothing of the advantages of personal security. But now all these characters are, God be thanked! few and widely scattered. Our present census enrolls a safe, honest, reputable population, who respect law and personal rights, and who, besides, look into the future with a sense of responsibility and resolve.
It is very much the habit of newly arrived people to link the past and present too closely in their estimate of the existing status. That dreadful nightmare of early years is unfortunately, not to say cruelly, mixed up with to-day. I think this must in great measure account for the virtuous horror of that saintly army of travellers who write about California, taking pains to open fire (at sublimely long range) with their very hottest shot upon the devoted dwellers here. Such bombardment in large pica, with all the added severity of double-leading, does not interrupt the Sierra tranquillity; they marry and are given in marriage, as in the days of Noah, regardless of explosions of many literary batteries. Nor is this peaceful state altogether because the projectiles fall short. There are people here who read, and read thoroughly. Can we think them hyper-sensitive if surprised when, after opening heart and doors to scribbling visitors, they find themselves held up to ridicule or execration in unimpeachable English and tasteful typography?
An equally false impression is spread by that considerable class of men whose courage and energy were not enough to win in open contest there, and who publicly shake off dust from departing feet, go East in ballast, and make a virtue of burning their ships, forgetful that for one waterlogged craft a hundred stanch keels will furrow the Golden Gate.
Between the cruelly superficial criticism of most Eastern writers and dark predictions from those smug prophets, the physical geographers, Californians have nothing left them but their own conscious power; not the poorest reliance in practical business, like building futures, one should say.
I am not going to deny that even yet there flickers up now and then a lingering flame of that 49 Inferno. If I did, the lively and picturesque auto-da-fé of “Austrian George,” the other day, would be moved to amend me.
We must admit the facts. California people are not living in a tranquil, healthy, social régime. They are provincial,—never, however, in a local way, but by reason of limited thought. Aspirations for wealth and ease rise conspicuously above any thirst for intellectual culture and moral peace. Energy and a glorious audacity are their leading traits.
To the charge of light-hearted gayety, so freely trumpeted by graver home critics, I plead them guilty. There is nowhere that dull, weary expression and rayless sedateness of face we of New England are fonder of ascribing to our tender conscience than to east winds. So, too, are wanting difficulties of bronchia and lungs, which might inferentially be symptoms of original sin.
Is Californian cheerfulness due to wide-spread moral levity, or to perpetual sunshine and green salads through the round year tempting weak human nature to smile?