Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

“ She sat under the long drooping yellow sprays of her acacia-tree, her lap full of the pink Castilian roses, and dreamed. No one could help being in love in the spring, she concluded, given a concrete inspiration; and far be it from any creature so close to nature as herself to attempt to stem that insidious musical scented tide. It was possible that Gwynne would not return, or returning, would flout her; she hardly cared. In fact so steeped was she in the pleasures of merely loving, in a sweet if somewhat halcyon passion, that she had no wish that the mood should be dispelled ”

“ Lady Victoria was far too indifferent to analyze the problems of any woman's soul, but she was keenly alive to the vital suggestion of power in the girl, and of the strong will and intellect, the command over every faculty, evidenced in the strong line of the jaw, the stern noble profile, the calm searching gaze so difficult to sustain. None knew better than Victoria the value and rarity of a free and courageous soul. Such a woman must, when more fully developed, throw the whole weight of her character into the scales balancing for the few whom she recognized as equals and accepted as friends. ”

“ There could be no better augury for a really great and sincere leader; for whether or not Roosevelt was all they imagined, the point to consider was that they had been carried away by their higher enthusiasms, not by those a mere trickster like Colton was trying to stimulate. They had rushed to the polls with all that was best in their natures in the ascendant, eager not only for a great servant that would reform many abuses, but for one that stood at the moment before the country as the embodiment of all that was high-minded, uncompromisingly honest, and nobly patriotic in American life. ”

“ The young people, meanwhile, were very gay, and there was little doubt in Isabel's mind that if she lived in Rosewater and chose to revive and lead the old social life she could drive cards to the wall in the first engagement. She had been much elated with her success, but, of a sudden, as her eyes roved benignantly over her chattering delighted guests, ennui descended upon her: those ancestral mutterings in the soul that stir dim memories of great moments of a greater time, inviting a vague contempt and distaste for the petty incidents and achievements that make up the sum of life. ”

“ I shall never trouble my head with problems or psychology again. We are mere dancing midgets on the scalp of stupendous forces that we do not even dimly apprehend. Earth lets us play until her patience is exhausted with our pretentions as mere human beings, at our insane delusion that the intellectual are not only the equal but the superior of the physical forces; and then she merely shakes herself, and the wisest is as helpless as the idiot, the prince even worse off than the pauper because he has a bigger house to run out of. ”

“ And to rebuild this city—you have seen the Burnham plans—transform it into the most beautiful city of the modern world—to give it a great, instead of a merely brilliant and erratic civilization—a perfect administration—what dreamers! What imagination! It is an inspiration to come into contact with an idealism that money, and power, and daily contact with the mean and base in human nature—"
"I could love you!" cried Isabel. "If you say any more, I believe I shall kiss you again."
"If you do," said Gwynne, deliberately, "I shall neither pinch you nor push you away. ”

“ The most original artist the State had produced had painted a deep frieze which was a series of the strange moonlight scenes that had made his fame: the deep sulphurous blue of the California night sky, the long black shadows, the wind-driven trees, the low desolate adobe houses abandoned in the towns settled by Spain. Now and again a cluster of lights indicated a window-pane and a belated tenant, but the garden walls were in ruins, the tiled roofs sagging, the ancient whitewash was peeling; all blended and lifted into a harmony of color and pathos by the genius of the artist. ”

“ It is your more ordinary mood of calm unvarnished—not to say brutal—directness that gives you your greatest charm as a comrade—even while you repel as a woman."
"Do I repel as a woman?" Isabel had placed one foot on the fender, one hand on the mantel-piece, and as she leaned slightly towards him, the red glow of the lamps and the mellow old scarf softening her features, the small square of neck dazzlingly white, and the position revealing the lines of her figure against the high flames of the logs, she looked more lovely than he had ever seen her. ”

“ Isabel sniffed, and moved her gaze to the fire. But she did not alter her attitude.
"Are you really happy?" asked Gwynne, curiously.
"Of course. So much so that it begins to worry me a little. My puritanical instincts dictate that I have no right to be quite happy. What slaves we are to the old poisons in our blood! I live by the light of my reason, and all is well until one of those mouldy instincts, like a buried disease germ, raps all round its tomb. Then I feel nothing but a graveyard of all my ancestors. ”

“ There never was such a sieve as California—San Francisco—for separating the wheat from the chaff—for determining the survival of the fittest. If I had been worth my salt I should have conquered every obstacle, overcome the family will, when I was young and full of hope and vigor. So would Lyster Stone. San Francisco is stronger than we are. That is the truth in a nutshell. Those that are stronger than she have gone. The rest don't matter. And as so many of those that are really gifted enjoy themselves with only an occasional spasm of self-disgust, they are not greatly to be pitied. ”

“ Isabel shivered. The glow had gone, there was only the intense dark fiery blue behind the stars—silver and crystal and green; one rarely sees a golden star in California. There were scattered lights in Rosewater and on the hillsides; and the night boat winding through the marsh was a mere chain of colored lights; here and there a lamp on a head mast looked like a fallen star.
"That is the way I generally feel after the glow has disappeared," said Gwynne, abruptly. "Let us go in." ”

“ When Gwynne and Isabel descended the steps and stood looking down upon the scene for a moment, the younger people were dancing. Every woman seemed to have been fired with the ambition to contribute her own part to the brilliancy of the night. There were tiaras by the score in these days, and the gowns had journeyed half-way round the world. There had been imported gowns in the immortal Eighties, when Mrs. Yorba reigned, but never a tiara; and Isabel for the first time fully realized the significant changes worked by the vast modern fortunes and their ambitious owners. ”

“ I should say we had patronized at least half the saloons in San Francisco before we started for the underworld. As we finally supported each other up the hill—we hadn't the price of a cab left between us—it seemed to me that I was ascending from a jungle of antediluvian men and women and beasts for ever and ever on the rampage. San Francisco is the most wonderful city in the world inasmuch as she not only exists but thrives on the top of such outrageous rottenness. And no wonder that the men like Hofer are desperate. We were escorted by a policeman after all, and he seemed to enjoy himself. ”

“ But until then every steeple, every tower, the great piles of stone and brick in the valley, the old gardens full of eucalyptus-trees and weeping willows, the strange assortment of architectures on Nob Hill, even the rows of houses on the tapering half-circle of hills beyond the valley, miles away, stood out as bright and sharp and shadowless as if caught and imprisoned in a crystal ball. It was the drifting smoke that seemed to bind all together and make the city fit for humanity. ”

“ If one cannot be a genius one can at least be an artist. I have never had much cause to be as direct as stage lightning, but as I enjoyed it I suppose I may infer that even brutal frankness is not foreign to my nature. Perhaps, like father, I am a snob at heart and liked the sensation of a sort of artistic alliance with the British aristocracy. Well, if I develop snobbery I can root out that weed—or persuade myself that some other motive is at the base of a disposition to adopt any of the characteristics of this people: a woman can persuade herself of any sophistry she chooses. ”

“ Isabel intended in time to give the house a new façade, and had gloated over such of the Burnham plans as had been reproduced by the city press. These lovely plans were designed to make the city as classic and imposing as Nature had dreamed of when she piled up that rugged amphitheatre out of chaos; and Isabel had long since resolved that, if she could not be the first to plant a bit of ancient Athens upon a brown and ragged bluff, the high tide of her fortunes should coincide with the awakening of the city to the sense of its architectural guilt. ”

“ It was a fit setting for the triumphant hour of the "most remarkable young man since the younger Pitt," a phrase which, if not notably suave, at least possessed an astonishing vigor, and was almost as familiar in American and continental newspapers as in his own proud nation; a nation always so keen to possess the first in all departments of excellence—creating them out of second-class material when the first is lacking—that the wonder was she had been so long accepting Elton Gwynne. Nothing, perhaps, but a noble desire for a really great man restrained her. ”

“ I was infatuated with Munich, and its exteriors satisfied me. It has a large courteous grandly-hospitable air, as if it were the private property of a king, to which, however, all strangers are royally welcome. It is the ideal king's city: life but no bustle; neither business, as we understand the word, nor poverty; a city of infinite leisure and infinite interest, a superb living picture-book, where one is ever amused, interested, both stimulated and soothed. ”

“ Gwynne twisted about and looked at San Francisco. The palaces were on the heights and in the Western Addition—out towards the Presidio and the Golden Gate; but hundreds of tiny dwellings clung to the precipitous sides of Telegraph Hill and Russian Hill as if their foundations were talons. And each had its bit of garden, or its balcony full of flowers. Telegraph Hill, the great bluff where the city turned almost at a right angle from north to south, was given over largely to Mexicans and Italians, and was uncommonly vivid. And the streets were full of people. ”

“ But it is a mere harness of flowers, worn as a sort of a joke for most of the people in society to-day have flown upward on happy golden wings from strata where as much was known of chaperons as the American newspapers know about handling British titles. But, for my part, I find the whole change a vast improvement. Nothing could be duller than a girl's life in my time. And if society—the world of mere fashion—has broadened, how much more should be expected of us, who are the vanguard of our sex? ”

“ I love work. I love out-door life. I love the long evenings with my books and my thoughts, and my plans for the future—all my own. I revel in the thought that I can never be unhappy again, because now I love no one. I loved my poor father, and suffered with him in his fits of repentance and shame. I loved, of course, that man. I have absolutely nothing in common with Paula, and my mother is merely a pretty memory. ”

“ What use have you for so much strength? You have forsworn matrimony. You disclaim the intention of going forth and entering the great battle of the intellects—having, as you say, no talents. You have isolated yourself from love, so you need no uncommon supply of strength to meet suffering. You will always have money enough, and you appear to have been born with the gift of making it. Even if you elect to be the leader of fashion in San Francisco, your equipment need not be of unadulterated steel. But I cannot fancy why you entertain any such ambition. ”

“ Isabel and Gwynne sat down in the dining-room and ate their breakfast—on fragments—calmly and methodically, talking constantly of the earthquake, it is true, but instinct with that curious casuistry that a certain safety lay in following the ordinary routine of life; perhaps—who knows?—so great is the egoism of the human spirit—that the unswerving march of man in his groove might restore the balance of nature. ”

“ She had risen with no very keen regret for her vanished claims upon men long since married and consoled, for she had never been what is called a marrying girl, but with her mind inclined to gloomy meditation upon lost opportunities far more dear. She had never ceased to believe that, the fates conspiring, she might have become one of the great musicians of the world; for although she was willing to admit the defect of will that had reduced her to the ranks, she had not grasped the historic fact that the born artist accomplishes his fulfilment in spite of all obstacles, imagined or real. ”

“ But Isabel was an ardent dreamer, and as she sat in her silent old home, high above the city's unresting life, she imagined herself into a blissful picture where she should realize to the full all the desires dear to the heart of a girl. ”

“ If a man can make a good living, what in—ah, what on earth more can he want in a town that gives him the best things in the world to eat, the jolliest all-night life, the finest fellows in the world, the prettiest women to look at, a climate that puts new life into old horses—life's a dead easy game out here—when you don't develop too much ambition. ”

“ I had paid the tribute to my youth and sex. I felt really alive for the first time, existing in the actual not in the dream world. There are women and women; and quite enough of the fine old domestic order to keep the world going; but there is a vast and increasing number that are never really alive and worth anything to themselves or life until they have worked through that necessary madness, buried it, and settled down to those infinite interests upon which matrimony, happy or otherwise, bolts a thousand doors. ”

“ What more could a man want than the most fascinating woman in the world, whom only his own passion could shock from mere existence into the fulness of life? But Gwynne, in the depths of his swimming brain, had wanted something more, and Isabel knew that if he had slept as ill as herself, the doubt had more than once assailed him if she were anything more than a charming beautiful and clever creature, save perverse and egotistical ”

“ It was not that the illusions of youth had received a hard blow, for many of them had disappeared long since in Paris, when she had supported an American girl of decent family but too much liberty through the most desperate experience that a young woman, alone and friendless in a foreign city, well could have. The girl had died cursing all men and the folly of women, and after Isabel had buried her and the leading cause of her repentance, she returned to her lonely flat in a state of disillusion and disgust which seemed to encase her by no means susceptible heart in a triple panoply. ”

“ Those that are crying the loudest against the grafters are just waiting for a chance to graft good and hard themselves. I am, and I don't care who knows it. Only I don't waste any strength kicking. The labor party works itself up over trusts and capitalists, and most of the capitalists come out of that factory, and are the first to grind those left behind them, under both heels. They know what I know, and what you'll know before you get through, that the only fun in life is to be got out of power and money."
The face as sharp as a razor but by no means dishonest rose before Gwynne. ”

“ We have other faults; the serenest optimist would never deny them; but, faults or no faults, we crown civilization to-day. The richest man in America has not the least idea what it means to live like a gentleman in our sense. And there is no flaw in my appreciation of your country. In many respects it is the most marvellous the world has known—but—I sometimes wonder if the pioneer blood in my veins is red enough to stand it. No matter what the most successful reformers accomplish, there will be no high civilization here in our time—no background. ”

“ But he merely remarked:
"I am suddenly inspired With a desire to see San Francisco. Are you too busy? Are we too late for the tide?"
"Just in time," said Isabel, promptly; "and I shall be ready as soon as the launch is. Do you know that it is Saturday? You could not have chosen a better day."
As they pushed off, all the marsh and its creek was covered with a low white mist that gave it the appearance of a great lake, a ghost lake through which the little steamer just leaving Rosewater two miles above coiled its way like a monstrous white bird feeling uneasily for a foothold. ”