Chapter XXXII: Another Change

The world seemed coming to an end, I mean my world. I had “ran for office” and was not elected, I had lectured and the people did not call for more, my mines and all they contained were still under ground. The cities I had planned were still unbuilt, I had written for our county paper and gained a small county, but cashless reputation. The fall of 1866 was at hand, and I was saying “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity,” when one day I received an unexpected letter from the publisher of a San Francisco weekly paper (_The Golden Era_). He said in substance, “Come to San Francisco and try your chances on the _Era_. We will do the best we can for you.”

I went and was met by the good and great-hearted Joseph Lawrence, the principal publisher, and up to that time an entire stranger to me.

The transformation in my life was sudden and startling. It was from the mountain solitudes to the bustle of a great city, from the miner’s cabin to the elegancies of the first-class hotel in which my friend positioned me; from the society of the “boys” to that of artists, actors, editors, and writers, some since of world-wide reputation.

It was the sharpest corner I had ever turned in my life. It led into a new road, a new life, new associations, new scenes, and eventually new countries.

And this change came sudden, unexpected at the “darkest hour” and like “a thief in the night.”

San Francisco had changed greatly since I had left it eight years previous. Much of the old “’49” characteristic had disappeared or was disappearing. The roughness in garb and manner had abated, the high silk hat topped more masculine heads, the afternoon feminine promenade on the main shopping streets was more elegantly attired, “society” was classifying itself into sets and “circles” more or less pretentious, many more men had homes to rest in at night, the glare and splendor of the openly public gambling house had gone, the revolver as an outside garniture of apparel had disappeared.

I could write with some facility. In other respects, I was awkward, unassimilative with the new element about me, and what is called “shy and retiring” which really implies a kind of vanity demanding that the world shall come and pet you without your having the courage to boldly face it and assert your place in it or whatever you may think your place. I was afraid of being quizzed or made a mark of ridicule by others, and any pretentious fop could with ease make me take a back seat and make me keep my mouth shut. One night Mr. Lawrence invited me to call with him on a noted actress. I refused out of pure dread. Dread of what? Of an opinion I had previously manufactured in my own mind of what the actress might think of me; when I should probably have been of about as much importance to her as a house fly. The consequence which we shy and retiring people attach to ourselves in our secret mind is ridiculously appalling.

Mr. Lawrence remained in San Francisco but a few months after my advent on the _Era_. While he stayed he did all in his power to give me, socially and otherwise, a good “send off.” He introduced me to aspiring and successful people, placed me in good material surroundings and opened for me the door to a successful element. That was all he could do, and in my estimation about all one person can do to really advance the fortunes of another.

But when he left I descended, hired the cheapest lodgings, lived on the cheese-paring plan, and was thereby brought mainly into contact with that cheap element in human nature which longs for the best things in the world, is willing even in some way to beg for them, looks on the prosperous with envy and aversion and expends most of its force in anxiety or grumbling, instead of devising ways and means to push forward.

So for the most part I did. I accepted the lowest remuneration for my services, deeming it the inevitable, went figuratively hat in hand to those who bought my articles, and brought my mind at last to think they had done me a great favor on paying me my just dues. I was always expecting starvation or failure of some sort and for that very reason got a near approach to it. My cheap lodgings brought me a sneak thief who stole the first decent suit of clothes I had worn for years in less than forty-eight hours after I had put them on. My associations brought me people who were always moaning over their luck, living mentally in the poorhouse, and therefore we mutually strengthened and supported each other on the road to what was little better than the poorhouse.

Like them, I never thought of being else than a worker for wages, and ran away mentally at any idea of taking responsibilities. Like them I regarded the class who did, as living in a world I never could reach. Like them I regarded the only sure and safe haven was a “job,” or situation at steady, regular wages.

So, for years I had indifferent luck, and lived a good deal on the threadbare side of life. The cause and the fault lay entirely in myself. Industriously, though unconsciously I sat down on myself, punched myself into corners; as I in mind accepted the bottom of the heap as the inevitable I stayed near the bottom.

If I should live that and previous portions of my life over again, I should probably do the same thing. Because I believe there is a truth in predestination. In other words, when you are in a certain mental condition your physical life and fortune will be an exact correspondence or material reflection of that condition. When you grow out of that condition and get a different mind your surroundings, fortunes, and associations will be in accordance with that state of mind. Thank Heaven, we can grow. But the I that existed twenty-five years ago was predestined to meet the fortunes it did twenty-five years ago, and those fortunes could only change as the mind of that “I” changed.