572 ROMANCE OF Book III. 
and its great and glorious achievements. The trader's busi- 
ness in itself may be eminently prosaic; but when you see 
the stores of precious bars piled up in the banking-houses 
of San Francisco, while in the street before the windows 
are lounging about the bearded and weather-beaten men 
who brought the gold to daylight, you must confess that 
you are looking on a picture of wonderful fortunes and 
incidents, of adventurous life, of remarkable human cha- 
racter, and of extraordinary exhibitions of energy, in com- 
parison with which the fictions of a Eugene Sue are dull 
and trivial. And how wonderfully are all the figures in 
this grand composition, various as their forms may be, 
united into one harmonious whole by the influence of the 
prevailing tone ! The gentleman and lady in most 
fashionable attire, in splendid vehicle or on high-bred 
horses ; the simple man of business, with his acute 
and worldly-wise physiognomy ; the intelligent mechanic 
with the expression of independence and security in 
his trade, and with the consciousness of his dignity 
as a man and a citizen ; the European merchant, who 
has become a cosmopolitan during a previous residence 
in China, East India, Australia, Chili, Peru, or Mexico ; 
the smart Yankee, never without a scheme for making a 
fortune ; the slippery lawyer and the unscrupulous poli- 
tician and demagogue, hand-in-hand with the speculator 
and land-claimant; the scientific physician, who has re- 
ceived his education in the best schools of the United 
States and Europe, who has studied in Germany or at 
Paris ; the quack, who had been a barber in his native 
country, and is now transformed into a great doctor in this 
distant land of gold ; the man of scientific pursuits, with 
some specimens of newly-discovered plants, fishes, or 
insects; the projector of great enterprises in mining, metal- 
