To them, these early days will be as unreal as the misty wreaths
clinging around the Sierras.
The romance of the Gilded Age! Each decade throws a deeper mantle
of the shadowy past over the struggles of fresh hearts that failed
in the mad race for gold.
Their lives become, day by day, a mere disjointed mass of paltry
incident. Their careers point no moral, even if they adorn the
future tale. The type of the argonaut itself begins to disappear.
Those who returned freighted with gold to their foreign homes are
rich, and leading other lives far away. Those who diverted their
new-found wealth into industries are prospering. They will leave
histories and stable monuments of their life-work. But the great
band of placer hunters have wandered into the distant territories
of the great West. They leave their bones scattered, under the
Indian's attack, or die on distant quests. They drop into the stream
of unknown fate. No moral purpose attended their arrival. No high
aim directed their labors. As silently as they came, the rope of
sand has sifted away. Their influence is absolutely nothing upon the
future social life of California. Even later Californian society
owes nothing of its feverish strangeness to these gold hunters.
Pages:
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181