They are original,and regard you between the brows with unabashed eyes as a sister might look at her brother.They are instructed,too,in the folly and vanity of the male mind,for they have associated with "the boys"from babyhood,and can discerningly minister to both vices or pleasantly snub the possessor.They possess,moreover,a life among themselves,independent of any masculine associations.They have societies and clubs and unlimited tea-fights where all the guests are girls.They are self-possessed,without parting with any tenderness that is their sex-right;they understand;they can take care of themselves;they are superbly independent.When you ask them what makes them so charming,they say:--"It is because we are better educated than your girls,and--and we are more sensible in regard to men.We have good times all round,but we aren't taught to regard every man as a possible husband.Nor is he expected to marry the first girl he calls on regularly."Yes,they have good times,their freedom is large,and they do not abuse it.They can go driving with young men and receive visits from young men to an extent that would make an English mother wink with horror,and neither driver nor drivee has a thought beyond the enjoyment of a good time.As certain,also,of their own poets have said:--"Man is fire and woman is tow,And the devil he comes and begins to blow."In America the tow is soaked in a solution that makes it fire-proof,in absolute liberty and large knowledge;consequently,accidents do not exceed the regular percentage arranged by the devil for each class and climate under the skies.
But the freedom of the young girl has its draw-backs.She is--Isay it with all reluctance--irreverent,from her forty-dollar bonnet to the buckles in her eighteen-dollar shoes.She talks flippantly to her parents and men old enough to be her grandfather.She has a preive right to the society of the man who arrives.The parents admit it.
This is sometimes embarrassing,especially when you call on a man and his wife for the sake of information--the one being a merchant of varied knowledge,the other a woman of the world.In five minutes your host has vanished.In another five his wife has followed him,and you are left alone with a very charming maiden,doubtless,but certainly not the person you came to see.
She chatters,and you grin,but you leave with the very strong impression of a wasted morning.This has been my experience once or twice.I have even said as pointedly as I dared to a man:--"Icame to see you."
"You'd better see me in my office,then.The house belongs to my women folk--to my daughter,that is to say."He spoke the truth.The American of wealth is owned by his family.They exploit him for bullion.The women get the ha'pence,the kicks are all his own.Nothing is too good for an American's daughter (I speak here of the moneyed classes).
The girls take every gift as a matter of course,and yet they develop greatly when a catastrophe arrives and the man of many millions goes up or goes down,and his daughters take to stenography or typewriting.I have heard many tales of heroism from the lips of girls who counted the principals among their friends.The crash came,Mamie,or Hattie,or Sadie,gave up their maid,their carriages and candy,and with a No.2Remington and a stout heart set about earning their daily bread.
"And did I drop her from the list of my friends?No,sir,"said a scarlet-lipped vision in white lace;"that might happen to us any day."It may be this sense of possible disaster in the air that makes San Francisco society go with so captivating a rush and whirl.
Recklessness is in the air.I can't explain where it comes from,but there it is.The roaring winds of the Pacific make you drunk to begin with.The aggressive luxury on all sides helps out the intoxication,and you spin forever "down the ringing grooves of change"(there is no small change,by the way,west of the Rockies)as long as money lasts.They make greatly and they spend lavishly;not only the rich,but the artisans,who pay nearly five pounds for a suit of clothes,and for other luxuries in proportion.
The young men rejoice in the days of their youth.They gamble,yacht,race,enjoy prize-fights and cock-fights,the one openly,the other in secret;they establish luxurious clubs;they break themselves over horse-flesh and other things,and they are instant in a quarrel.At twenty they are experienced in business,embark in vast enterprises,take partners as experienced as themselves,and go to pieces with as much splendor as their neighbors.Remember that the men who stocked California in the fifties were physically,and,as far as regards certain tough virtues,the pick of the earth.The inept and the weakly died en route,or went under in the days of construction.To this nucleus were added all the races of the Continent--French,Italian,German,and,of course,the Jew.
The result you can see in the large-boned,deep-chested,delicate-handed women,and long,elastic,well-built boys.It needs no little golden badge swinging from the watch-chain to mark the native son of the golden West,the country-bred of California.
Him I love because he is devoid of fear,carries himself like a man,and has a heart as big as his books.I fancy,too,he knows how to enjoy the blessings of life that his province so abundantly bestows upon him.At least,I heard a little rat of a creature with hock-bottle shoulders explaining that a man from Chicago could pull the eye-teeth of a Californian in business.
Well,if I lived in fairy-land,where cherries were as big as plums,plums as big as apples,and strawberries of no account,where the procession of the fruits of the seasons was like a pageant in a Drury Lane pantomime and the dry air was wine,Ishould let business slide once in a way and kick up my heels with my fellows.The tale of the resources of California--vegetable and mineral--is a fairy-tale.You can read it in books.You would never believe me.
