INCENTIVE TO LITERARY LABOR.

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most in the mind of the writer; the just rather than the expedient. Remember also that literary fame is seldom lasting and is scarcely worth the looking after. "What do they think of Tupper?" asked some one of Thackeray. They do not think of Tupper," was

the reply.

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The true writer writes not alone for fame or for money, he writes because he has something to say. Hunger is the incentive underlying all literary activity. Bodily hunger has produced thousands of books; mind hunger, soul hunger, other thousands.

Poor indeed is the ambition which cannot sink self in the object to be attained. Such is political ambition, place-seeking, whose immediate and only desire is self-gratification. Such were not the missionary fathers' aspirations, willing to wait until after death for their reward. Political ambition is pure selfish ness. Yet the enthusiasm of politics is better than stale, flat emptiness. Above this is the ordinary traffic of the hour, in which the pencil-maker, the clothier, and the tobacconist, more solicitous for the reputation of his wares than his own, spends his life in improving some trick or method which he may leave as an heirloom to his son. A forgetfulness of self is the direct means of attaining any object, even when that object is self-aggrandisement.

There is something better in this enigmatical existence of ours even than well-deserved honor, and fairly earned fame; for in the teachings of the Christ do we not read that in good deeds it is well that the right hand should not know the doings of the left? To embody in one's self the good, to burn away all hateful vice which as Cicero says, though it were concealed from the eyes of gods and men is most pernicious; to hold with Seneca that nobleness is none the less noble when prostrate in the dust; or with others of the porch-philosophers that virtue is better than fame, and that if a man does well it matters. little whether he be known or not.

CHAPTER IX.

SOCIAL ANALYSIS.

No one, indeed, who is once led to dwell on the matter, can fail to see how absurd is the proposition that there can be a rational interpretation of men's combined actions, without a rational interpretation of those thoughts and feelings by which their individual actions are prompted.

-Herbert Spencer.

IN California we behold the achievements of an intelligent and exceedingly well-mixed population under conditions nowhere else existing. One result will be a people on this coast different from any other on the globe. The chosen specimen of manhood from among all nations, they have affirmed their exceptional qualities by achievements both novel and Titanic. diating from the central El Dorado, they have with unprecedented rapidity transformed the Pacific slope. from a wilderness and hunting-field into a number of flourishing states, and have assumed the rôle of civilizing mediums toward Spanish America and the transoceanic Orient.

Ra

The combination of elements so powerful was appropriately effected by one of the strongest of

attractions.

All men love money; some for money's self, others for the good or evil that money will accomplish. It is safe to say that all mankind, crave the power that money contributes. This is one of the deep-seated impulses everywhere found in nature, but made intelligible more especially in the mind of man. God is all-powerful; nature is an eternity of contending forces; the lives of beasts are a struggle for the mastery, and man is ever in the fiercest of the contest. Taking it all in all, beginning early and continuing

THE PRIMARY INCENTIVE.

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late, avarice is probably the strongest constant passion that finds lodgment in the human breast. It is more general, being so far as we can discern equally powerful amongst all nations, castes, and conditions of men, ruling alike savage and civilized, young and old, high and low, learned and ignorant. The London banker covets Nevada's silver not less than the Asiatic launderer; pure patriotism demands pay for its services in gold as persistently as the commonest servitude; piety scorns it not, and even philanthropy esteems it for more than one reason. There are outbursts of passion which for the moment tower above avarice, but there is no flame which burns so uniformly hot and steady. Love often rises superior to lucre, but is sure in the end to sink beneath it. And so with religious enthusiasm, mind-culture, and every other appetite and ambition, however conspicuous they may appear above the often hidden main incentive. Love of gold alone is all-powerful, and will so continue as long as gold remains the embodiment of human good and human greed.

While not in itself lovely or lovable, the yellow metal is so intimately associated in our minds with the gratification of our desires as the means for acquiring the lovable and pleasurable, that we learn to love it for itself. The miser willingly denies himself the comfort it buys for the mere pleasure of possessing it. So with love of power and love of praise. Seeking these first for the benefits in their train, men soon learn to love them for their own sake; like the eater of opium, who, partaking of the insidious drug first to allay the pains of disease, in time takes it for the happiness it directly gives. With rusting millions write they their names with faint fingers upon the seashore sands, where next morning their more thoughtful children will search in vain for any trace of them, save in hoarded wealth, which obscures rather than enhances their memory.

Such were the motives actuating the early comers

to California. And now let us examine the nature of the material for nation-making that came; for thus shall we gain two things, a knowledge of what this society now is, and some idea of what it will be.

Here was the final point of reunion for the human race, after the dispersion on the plains of Asia, when Aryans turned westward on their tour of conquest and colonization, leaving the Tartars to follow and to overrun the celestial and Indian empires. Now after a journey of four thousand years, during which time environment has been actively at work, coloring mind and warping manners, the same brotherhood, though severally changed by circumstances, meet upon the shores and islands of the Pacific, meet to restore the mental equilibrium of the race, and to unify society. No human event since the parting is pregnant with greater importance than the meeting.

Incentive was added to the influx by the expectation of easy acquirement, without rendering the customary equivalent in time, talents, and labor. Moreover, the period was ripe for such movements. Steam had elaborated a new and expeditious means for spanning the oceans and overcoming many of their still repellent monsters. Political turmoils had roused the sedate nations of Europe to deeds and enterprise, and imbued the youth with a thirst for adventure. In northern America the westward march of settlement had been given fresh impulse by the conquest of Mexican border lands. Disbanded soldiers stood eagerly prepared to enter and reap the result of their achievements, and trappers and pioneers had opened paths across the trackless continent to a land already famed as flowing with milk and honey.

Predominant was the English-speaking elementAnglo-Saxon blood and brains Americanized by a century or two of free thought and untrammeled activity. It was but natural that the masters of the soil, by conquest and gradual pioneer immigration, should excel in number as well as influence. Next to

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the Mexicans they were nearest to the borders, with two great routes at their command, one by sea, provided with all essential facilities, the other by land, for which they above all other nations were well equipped. They possessed, moreover, a marked advantage over other nationalities for migration and colonization, by virtue of the century-training in backwood life, and expansion of the frontier settlements by constant accessions from the seaboard states. Herein they had developed the practical adaptability and self-reliance inherited from the mother race, so much so as to surpass even that so far preeminent colonist element.

Of the English themselves and their character, it is not necessary here to speak at length. The representative Englishman we know by his grave, taciturn, meditative demeanor, his strong intellect, his big, burly, awkward frame, and his overshadowing egoism. We know him by his sound mind soundly bodied; by his coarse energy bordering on brutality; by his respect for law, for conventionalities and traditions; by his hatred of cant, and his love of fairness even in the most brutal of his pastimes. Having a keen sense of their own rights, the English learn to respect the rights of others-particularly of the strong and well armed. They are self-willed, captious in their criticisms, jealous in their love of freedom, firm in the maintainance of general good conduct. In their treatment of conquered provinces, rights and humanity are too often ignored, and while pretending to the highest benevolence no nation has ever surpassed them in acts of injustice and cruelty. Though forcing a deleterious drug on some, and firing others out of the mouths of cannons, they nevertheless were the first to take active measures for the abolition of human slavery, and many other good works. Their merchants are noted for fair dealing, their statesmen for a love of right, and their women for virtue. Of all nations they best know themselves, and are by no