Page:California Inter Pocula.djvu/315



it is  that  we  are  more  fully  up  to  the  times  in  every- thing, much more,  all  things  put  together,  than  al- most any other  community.

It is  easy  to  understand  how  men  and  women  thus thrown together,  strangers  to  each  other,  stranger's in  ideas,  speecli,  and  traditions,  without  the  substra- tum, as a  social  foundation,  which  only  can  coalesce as society  slowly  develops,  fail  to  have  that  interest in each  other  and  that  intense  loyalty  which  charac- terizes older and  more  settled  communities. Society here is  a  malformation,  or  rather  it  is  yet  not  society, but only  materials  for  society;  yet  nowhere  will  the people quicker  or  more  heartily  unite  for  the  public good; nowhere  are  they  more  free  and  social  than here; nowhere  is  there  less  clap-trap  and  ridiculous apings of  things  traditional  than  here.

Strangers coming  together  cannot  immediately  em- brace and become  brothers. They have  too  little  in common,  see  too  many  faults  in  each  other;  will  not mellow on  the  insta.nt  asperities  of  character. The seeds of lasting  friendship  are  usually  planted  in  early  life, and matured  in  a  soil  of  warm  and  tender  sympathy,  in order  to  produce  a  plant  which  will  endure  the  storms of selfishness  that  beat  upon  it  in  after  life. Once the social  heart  of  California  lay  so  imbedded  in  gold that it  could  not  throb. The passions  were  let  loose, and a  moral  leprosy  infected  the  people  like  an  epi- demic. But all  this  passed  away,  as  every  epidemic passes, after  having  weeded  society  of  some  of  its weaknesses, and  left  it  in  fair  condition  for  permanent growth.

To the  great  majority  of  the  pioneers  the  Sierra was a  sphinx  propounding  a  riddle,  which  they  must answer. Thousands laid  down  their  lives  in  the  at- tempt, for there  were  the  lion's  claws  to  tear  the  un- successful venturer in  pieces. Of rare  celestial  beauty was the  face  and  bosom  of  the  goddess  as  she  lured men to  their  destruction;  of  dark  ferocity  was  she  as she  lapped  them  to  their  fin