María Amparo Ruiz de Burton

“ My love to all of you, my good and beloved friends. Heaven bless you all.
I don't ask you to think kindly of me, for I know you will. I feel sick in mind and body; and how I wish I could have slept under your hospitable roof.
Tell Retty to write or telegraph how Alice is. I was so disappointed not to find Miss Mercedes when I drove back. I had felt so sure I heard her voice calling me, that I was faint with disappointment and thoroughly heartsick.
Good-by, dear Tano, again. God bless you all.
Ever your true friend,
Clarence. ”

“ Don Mariano Alamar, Gabriel and Victoriano—his two sons—had also silently witnessed Mr. Darrell's lawful appropriation of their own property. Gabriel was pale and calm. Victoriano was biting his lips, and his face was flushed.
“The government has for sale hundreds of millions of acres, but yet these men must come and take my land, as if there was no other,” said Don Mariano, sadly.
“And as we pay the taxes on the land that they will cultivate, our taxes will double next year,” Gabriel added.
“Undoubtedly. That climax to injustice has been the most fatal of all the hardships imposed upon us. ”

“ One more long kiss and they parted, her heart sinking under a load of undefined terrors.
From the seventh heaven Clarence had to come down again to prosaic earth; and after bidding adieu to Mercedes, he drove back home to speak to his father. The old man was sitting in his easy chair on the porch, smoking his pipe, alone, behind the curtain of honeysuckle, white jasmine and roses, so carefully trained over the porch by Mrs. Darrell and Alice. Seeing his son driving back towards the front steps, he walked down to meet him. Clarence was glad that he seemed in a better humor. ”

“ I suppose you wish to drive me from your house. Be it so. I leave now—never to enter it again.”
“That suits me. You are too greasy for both of us to live under the same roof,” said Darrell, contemptuously, with a gesture of disgust.
“Good-by, mother; good-by, my sisters; good-by, boys—take care of mother and the girls. God bless you.”
With a piercing cry, that rang through the house, Alice ran to Clarence, and throwing her arms around his neck, said:
“Kiss me, my darling, for if you leave us I shall be wretched until you return. Oh! I can't let you go.” ”

“ On leaving her hammock to take a chair Mercedes had shown those tantalizing tip ends of her slippers, half hidden in a mass of lace ruffles. That was all, and yet poor Clarence was disconcerted, and became more and more so, on perceiving that there were not less than nine ladies on that veranda; nine pairs of eyes which had undoubtedly observed his own, devouring the blue rosettes.
“What is the news, pray? Don't kill us with suspense,” pleaded Miss Corina Holman.
“The news is that Colonel Scott has arrived at San Francisco, and will be in San Diego next week.” ”

“ Mercedes asked, with her eyes fixed on her book.
“Lizzie and Elvira, of course,” Rosario answered.
“I will when the wedding day is fixed.”
“It will soon be, when George arrives,” Doña Josefa said.
“That will be time enough for my work,” said Mercedes, looking from her book down the valley, towards the Darrell house, as if casually observing from under the awning the green meadows below.
“What made you come here? The back veranda is entirely shaded, and much cooler. I have been waiting for you there. Pshaw!” said Victoriano, coming forward and stretching open a hammock to throw himself into it. ”

“ No doctor dared say whether he would die or survive his terrible fall, or his health remain impaired. No one dare venture a prophecy for so dark a future.
In the meantime Clarence got his house ready for occupation, and as soon as Gabriel could be removed without danger, they took up their residence there. In the silent recesses of her heart Lizzie thanked God that her surroundings were again those of a lady. She shuddered to remember the poverty she endured for so long a time, and she would have felt really happy could she have been sure that her beloved Gabriel would live. ”

“ Darrell's View of Our Land Laws. Of all the horrible tortures that the human mind is capable of conjuring up with which to torment itself, none was greater to William Darrell than the consciousness of being ridiculous—the conviction that people were laughing at him. He had seen Victoriano and his own Everett so convulsed with laughter, laughing at him, laughing in his presence, laughing so heartily that they could scarcely stand up. This laughter of the two boys was the most vivid picture in the panorama of living scenes which he himself had evoked. ”

“ Is it because I am not handsome like Bob Gunther?” said he, with a painful sneer. “Believe me, I shall be a devoted, loving husband; none can love you more passionately and devotedly.”
“I do not doubt it. But I cannot. Please don't ask me, and don't hate me.”
“Mr. Robert Gunther,” said the tall waiter, and Bob's broad brow and good-natured smile shone at the door.
The delightful sojourn at Newport was now over. The Mechlin family were again at their town residence in New York City. Elvira and Mercedes, as it was their habit, were that evening having their cosy chat before going to bed. ”

“ The monied men, of course—the monopolists. They are our Fire Pillars! Unfortunate California! if thou art to follow such guides, thy fate shall be to grovel for money to the end of time, with not one thought beyond, or above, money-making, and not one aspiration higher than to accumulate millions greedily for rapacity's sake—without once remembering the misery that such rapacity has brought upon so many innocent people—the blight it has spread over so many lives. Thy ambition shall be to control the judiciary and utterly debauch the legislative branch of our Government ”

“ Everett thought as all the family did—that Clarence, being the favorite child of the old man, and having naturally a winning manner and great amiability, combined with persuasiveness, would influence his father, and dispel his bad humor. But if the family had known what was boiling and seething in the cauldron of their father's mind, they would have perceived that, for once, neither Clarence's influence, nor yet the more powerful one wielded by Mrs. Darrell, would at present be as effective as they heretofore had been.
Time alone must be the agent to operate on that hard skull. ”

“ If I were not living, George could take his wife, his mother and sister, to reside in New York, but because I cannot live in that climate, all those dear ones remain in this exile.”
“But why should you call it exile? They don't think it is; and even if it were, my friend, you have no right to cut your life off at your will,” said Don Mariano.
“Why not? Life is a free gift, and often a very onerous one. ”

“ But as my faith in our law-givers is not so blind, my belief is that Congress had no more right to pass any law which could give an excuse to trespass upon your property, than to pass a law inviting people to your table. I feel a sort of impatience to think that in our country could exist a law which is so outrageously unjust. My pride as an American is somewhat different from that of my father. He thinks it is a want of patriotism to criticise our legislation. ”

“ It is like setting irresponsible trespassers loose upon a peaceable people, and then rewarding their outrage. To let any one take up your lands right before your eyes is outrage enough, but to cap the climax by authorizing people to plant crops without fences and then corral your cattle, which must be attracted to the green grass, I call positively disgraceful, in a community which is not of vandals. It is shameful to the American name. ”

“ Henceforth, money shall be the sole requisite upon which to base social claims. High culture, talents, good antecedents, accomplishments, all were now the veriest trash. Money, and nothing but money, became the order of the day. Many of the newly created money-nobility lived but a day in their new, their sporadic, evanescent glory, and then, with a tumble of the stocks, went down head-foremost, to rise no more. But some of the luckiest survived, and are yet shining stars. Lizzie saw all this from her humble seclusion. ”

“ We have had no one to speak for us. By the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo the American nation pledged its honor to respect our land titles just the same as Mexico would have done. Unfortunately, however, the discovery of gold brought to California the riff-raff of the world, and with it a horde of land-sharks, all possessing the privilege of voting, and most of them coveting our lands, for which they very quickly began to clamor. There was, and still is, plenty of good government land, which any one can take. But no. The forbidden fruit is the sweetest. They do not want government land. ”

“ Mechlin. “I never saw such complete subversion of the laws of reasoning as these men exhibit. Good luck has made them think that to genius they owe success. Thus their moral blindness makes them take as an insulting want of proper deference any allusion to those rights of others which, in their feverish greed, they trample. For this reason they hate San Diego, because San Diego is a living proof of their wrong-doing; a monument reminding California of their deadly egotism, of the injury done by unscrupulous men to their fellow-men. ”

“ Our law-givers doubtless mean well, but they have—through lack of matured reflection, I think, or lack of unbiased thought—legislated curses upon this land of God's blessings. I love my country, as every true-hearted American woman should, but, with shame and sorrow, I acknowledge that we have treated the conquered Spaniards most cruelly, and our law-givers have been most unjust to them. Those poor, defenseless ones whom our Government pledged its faith to protect, have been sadly despoiled and reduced to poverty. ”

“ Victoriano remarked.
“During litigation, yes; but there have been cases where honest men have, in good faith, taken lands as squatters, and after all, had to give them up. No, I don't blame the squatters; they are at times like ourselves, victims of a wrong legislation, which unintentionally cuts both ways. They were set loose upon us, but a law without equity recoils upon them more cruelly. Then we are all sufferers, all victims of a defective legislation and subverted moral principles.” ”

“ Hornblower conjectured rightly. Roper's disgrace was condoned by San Diego, because he was under the patronage of Judge Lawlack, and in San Diego everybody has a law suit.
But has the Judge no moral responsibility in this? Has he the right to impose upon the community a man so self-debased and noxious? If the Judge were to withdraw his support Peter would collapse like a pricked gas-bag, to be swept off into the gutter. But the Judge is the genii, “the Slave of the Ring” and his power keeps the little gas-bag afloat, soaring as high as it is in the nature of little gas-bags to soar. ”

“ Time goes on, and as it slips by, ruin approaches us. We invested all our means in San Diego, hoping that Colonel Scott would build his railroad. Now we see plainly that unless you withdraw your opposition to Scott we are ruined men, and many more innocent people are in the same situation. So we come to you and say, if you will not let any one else build us a railroad, then do build it yourself. It will save us from ruin and give you untold wealth. We will be glad to see you make millions if we only secure for ourselves our bread and butter,” said Mr. Holman. ”

“ They will certainly sacrifice San Diego if their influence in Congress is so great! Poor San Diego! my poor, little, native town, to be sacrificed to the heartless greed of four or five men.”
“And what claim have these men upon the American people? Think of that! Have they or their fathers ever rendered any services to the nation? None whatever. All they rely upon is their boldness in openly asking that others be sacrificed, and backing their modest request with money earned out of the road they built with Government funds and Government credit. ”

“ Any one not acquainted with the real facts might have supposed that there was no more land to be had in California but that which belonged to the natives. Everybody seemed to have forgotten that for each acre that was owned by them, there were thousands vacant, belonging to the Government, and which any one can have at one dollar and twenty-five cents per acre. No, they didn't want Government land. The settlers want the lands of the lazy, the thriftless Spaniards. Such good-for-nothing, helpless wretches are not fit to own such lordly tracts of land. ”