CHAPTER XXII.—Perplexities at Alamar.
It has generally been the custom of biographers to treat their subject after he is resting peacefully in his grave, indifferent to the world's opinion. Seldom has a man “been written” (in a biography) until he is past knowing what is said of him in print. Epitaphs are non-committal, or laudatory only, and too brief; they are solely a charitable or affectionate tribute to the dead, intended to please the living. Biographies—it is to be supposed—are intended, or should be, admonitory; to teach men by the example of the one held up to view—be this an example to be followed or to be avoided. But if no offense be intended by the biographer, why wait until a man is forevermore beyond hearing what is said of him, before his fellows are told in what and how he surpassed them so much as to be considered worthy of special notice? If he ought to be reproved, let him know it; and if we must worship him as a hero, let him know it also. Only such an irascible man—for instance—as Dr. Johnson was, could have received the homage of admiration and reverence such as Boswell's, so impatiently, almost ungratefully. It is more natural for man to receive incense at least passively, and endeavor to deserve it. Biographies, therefore, ought to be intended, not to mislead readers, but to instruct them. From this point of view, then, it would be difficult to say flattering things of Mr. Darrell, and more difficult yet to say them of the other squatters of Alamar, in a biographical sketch.
Mr. Darrell did not receive the news of the appeal being dismissed as Mrs. Darrell and Clarence had hoped. Mr. Darrell was evidently out of humor with the executive branch of the Government—with the Attorney General—and he discussed the matter with himself in many an animated soliloquy. High as his opinion of Congress was and had always been, he, in his ill humor, even went so far as to say—to himself—that this much respected body of legislators had been entirely too lenient with the conquered natives. Congress ought to have confiscated all their lands and “only allowed them one hundred and sixty acres each.” The idea that they (the conquered) should be better off than the Americans! They should have been put on an equality with other settlers, and much honor to them, too, would have been thereby, for why should these inferior people be more considered than the Americans?
“Inferior? What are you talking about? It is enough to see one of those Alamar ladies to learn that they are inferior to nobody,” said Mrs. Darrell, happening to overhear the last words of her lord's soliloquy. “Neither are the Californians considered better than Americans because the Government did not take all their lands from them. I declare, William, you have gone back to your old unfortunate ideas which brought so many troubles to us in Napa and Sonoma. You forget those troubles, and you are ready to bring them back again.”
“No, I ain't; but I always will maintain that the Spanish Californians should not have a right to any more land than Americans.”
“And they have not. The Government does not give them any more land; all they ask and expect is that the Government may not take away what they had. You see this perfectly well, and you know that every time you have disregarded this truth, we have suffered. This time it might lead to worse suffering, since it is Clarence that might be made very miserable; and if he is, so must I. Then good-by happiness for me.”
“Why should Clarence be made miserable?”
“Because he is devotedly attached to Miss Mercedes; and if you are to be the enemy of her family, perhaps she will not marry him.”
“Marry him? Does Clarence think she will marry him? She marry a squatter?” He laughed derisively.
“Clarence is no squatter.”