Page:California Inter Pocula.djvu/396

 lis,  and

thence is  scattered  to  every  quarter. Sent to  the  east, sent to  the  west,  sent  to  Europe,  to  Asia,  there  to gladden  thousands,  why  should  not  some  of  it  gladden me by  gladdening  mhie? There is  gold  enough  for others but  none  for  me. I have  drank  of  Acheron, let me  now  drink  of  Lethe. My past  let  me  consign to oblivion,  and  regenerate  once  more  take  my  place amono; the  honorable  of  the  earth. Brino; forth  the divining-rod, the  witch-hazel  of  the  epidemic  demono- pathy, and  let  its  subtleties  become  so  clearly  percep- tible to the  sublimated  brain  of  the  bearer,  that  the arch-witch gold  may  be  found,  aye,  gold  I  aye,  gold !

Hundreds went  mad. Lunatics roamed  the  streets at large;  indeed,  it  sometimes  seemed  as  if  all  were lunatics. Horrible is  the  disordered  laugh  of  mad- men and fiends ;  and  so  is  the  hollow  mournful  mirth of riothio;  starvelinorg,  makino;  dismal  with  their  half- ghostly orgies  the  lonely  canon. But they  were  not all as  insane  as  they  seemed. Should any  object  dear to them  be  laid  in  their  pathway,  they  would  turn aside the  evil  influences  of  their  avarice  or  morality,  as Ulysses,  who  affected  madness  to  escape  the  Trojan campaign, turned  aside  his  plough  when  the  infant Telemachus was  laid  in  the  furrow.

Prostrate in  blank  despair,  oblivious  from  drink,  or battling  undismayed,  the  life  struggle  still  continues. Walk round  the  arena,  pass  by  the  fortunate — they are the  exceptions,  and  can  care  for  themselves — but glance at  some  who  have  fallen. The old  white-whis- kered bell-boy who  answers  your  summons  at  the hotel was  once  a  wholesale  grocer,  with  a  business  of six  millions  a  year ;  that  waiter  in  the  restaurant  was once colonel  in  the  Austrian  service ;  an  aide-de-camp to Larmorcier  hires  himself  to  a  paper-hanger;  there is a  doctor  driving  a  dray,  here  a  graduate  of  Trinity college, Dublin,  tending  bar,  and  so  on.

As the  development  of  the  country  increased  its classical abnormities,  with  some  of  its  greatest  charms diminished, and  with  the  glamour  of  unreality  origin-