[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 coarse, the horny-handed, the bull-throated were the most successful. They set the fashion, those great men of the pickaxe and the pistol, and a fine, fire-eating, antediluvian, reckless fashion 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 amusement 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 shirts, 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 Madroño Hollow.
[35] The Reverend Walter Colton, “Three Years in California.”