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: - "I
came 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. 2 Remington
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.
