the eternal seeds of misery, despair and death ever
gnawing at their heart-strings, the unsuccessful ones
carry a bold, brave front, treating lightly misfortune.
Melpomene's tragic face is wreathed in laughing ivy.
They are not the men to groan over sickness and mis-
fortune. They toil on, bankrupt in everything but
hope, doubt contending with expectation as the pick,
blow after blow, sinks among the boulders, with no
more thought of giving up than the gambler who
loses a bet. Their life has been a happy-go-lucky
one; every blow they struck was a wager. No .won-
der they used to bet at the gaming tables, it being so
much easier to gamble thus than to bet a hard da^^'s
work against the ten dollars that they would get or
not get. Thus we see how money which comes freely
from river bank or faro bank would go freely ; we see
how it was that prodigality would follow so closely
upon the heels of avarice ; we see how infidelity
springs from hnpulse, until only one prayer is left to
the miner. " Give us, O God, with the appetite, the
gold to satisfy it.
In a general analysis of character prevailing in Californian society in its nascency, we must not lose sight of its composite and heterogenous qualities. Each individual member of society was a particle, independent of and in a manner antagonistic to every other particle. Notwithstanding the general homo- geneity of material, there were antagonisms of inter- est, of disposition, of morals. Final concretion had not yet set in. There was then an absence of those clique-formations, political coalescings, and little society crystalizations which have since become so marked a feature in the community; and when organizations came, one of the first was a banding of villians for purposes of depredation. Every honest man's mind was intent upon its own affairs, and dwelt little on those aff*ecting others or the public weal, except where safety or greater gain made closer communion neces- sary. All were strangers to each other; of their past
