The Old East in the New West [pp. 360-367]

THE OLD EA ST IN THE NEW WEST. c.
pith and muscle that shall go far toward
strengthening our purpose in life.
It is our last night, indeed. To-morrow we return to the platitudes of business and routine, leaving the "sabre of
my sire" to rust upon the wall, and the
prompter's bell hanging in a chamber
of memory out of sight and hearing. So
the curtain rings down upon a spring
month full of merry scenes, and some
serious soliliquies, also; and it will not
rise again-for the act is over.
THE OLD EAST IN THE NEW WEST.
O other country presents so many
contrasts grouped together as
California. Here, where the Occident
exchanges salutations across the waters
with the Orient, the youngest born of
states is brought into near neighborhood
with the oldest survivor of the sisterhood of nations. But more than thathere on our own soil and amongst ourselves we have a strange mingling of
elements.
Magnificent halls and handsome residences rear their proud heads in the
space of a few weeks or months, to be
occupied by masters who have been the
architects of their own fortunes, and who
cannot adorn their walls with relics of
a distinguished ancestry; and not far
off are ruins-monuments of a past age,
and of events and modes of life as peculiar and as distinctly marked as any era
of ancient history.
Here are farms, orchards and vineyards
yielding their first fruits on soil which
has been waiting for the plough since the
waters of the deluge were abated; and on
the slopes of hills, whose rocky records
bear as ancient dates as those which
any other land can boast, there is found
every variety of soil, with the vegetable
productions of almost every climate.
On our streets are encountered people of every nation; and costumes which
laugh at the fashion plates. The independent Californian dresses as he pleases; he dares to wear a hat that suits himself, whether Paris and London, New
York and Boston, approve his taste or
not. Here, the French modes only two
months old are set off by contrast with
styles which were already ancient several
hundred years ago. One man plies his
trade by the aid of machinery with all
the recent improvements; another plods
slowly on with tools which may have
been in use when Confucius was travelling from state to state instructing rulers
in the science of government.
Almost side by side we have christian
churches and heathen temples. Here,
the irrepressible talkers about mesmerism and spiritual influences, as doctrines
recently discovered, suddenly meet the
table-tippers and clairvoyants who have
received their arts and delusions from
times as old as when the rude inhabitan4s
of our fatherlands were sacrificing to
Woden and to Thor.
The visitor from the East, while rushing down the western slopes of the
Sierras and whirling around the curves,
wondering at the boldness, enterprise
and energy which has accomplished
such a work as the Pacific railroad in
so short a time, looks from the window
of his luxurious car upon a caravan of
pedestrians wending their toilsome way
by narrow mountain paths, with burdens
suspended from their carrying poles,
in no way different from what he will see
when, having stepped from the car to
the steamer and crossed the ocean, he
lands upon the shore which those burden-carriers but lately left.
360
[OCT.