Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1880-12-11
BAY GOSSIP.
TIE RAINY sESsoN-READING OLD LOVE
LETTERS.
Street Scenes and Thoughts in Opening
winter-Some Chat About Women.
| Dress, Talent and Art
San FRANcIsco. December s. IssO.

SAN Francisco. December s, 1880.
| The first rainy day of the season comes
like the breaking up of an old habit; it is
refreshing in its newness and change; it
washes the dust from time and the cobwebs
out of the mind. The second day ia a
lonesome one, the third a dull one, and
when the days drag on into whole drip
ping-wet week they become dreary enough,
| if one but sits down to think of them. In
romance rainy days are given over to
raking out the ashes of memory, looking at
keepsakes and reading old iove-letters, but
in reality and reality is such bore =
one darns stockings, makes old clothes into
new, and longs for something to break
monotony. The love-letters of our youth,
that seemed then SO filed with thoughts
that burnt and words thrilled through
with something strange and sweet, they
are like old fires if you read them again to-
day-sll dead and quite gone out. Yet
! you wouldn't be half the man or woman
you are II those experiences OF
LOVE LONG AGO
H ad not been yours, and there should be
no regret or shame at memory OF those
fond and foolish times. Most like they go
before to prepare the heart for ripper,
deeper, purer things and the way leads up
from altar to altar till the highest and holy
of holes shuts out the stepping stones that
still rise to point the way. Young woman,
if it was fair love, and an honest love, don't
be ashamed of it because it is an old love.
1t will make of you better wife and
mother by and by. [ can remember when
letters weren't such everyday affairs as now,
and every one was religiously kept; but
in these times OF postal cards and rapid
mails everybody writes to everybody, and
few preserve correspondence. a notable
exception to this wholesale destroying,
however, find in the letters of
MRS. MARY CoLBY,
OF Benicia, whose recent death is shortly
to be followed by her life, with copious ex-
tracts from correspondence, in book form.
She was woman of ten thousand, closely
connected with the Grange interests of the
State, dear to the church, invaluable to the
cause of missions, and the very center OF
widespread circle of friends. Her col
umn in the Pacific was read far and
near, and her writings on Grange subjects
were we'll known. Her letters, recalled
for selection, return from all quarters of
the globe, one correspondence in particu-
lar coming from Turkey. A reading OF
old letters such as hers were well worth a
rainy day now and then. In the city here
the majority have no time for porting over
sentiments penned in the past. We live In
the present fer the future. We run busy
race. We are an eager, restless people,
for whose street transit nothing less than a
cable road is rapid enough, whose gigantic
business operations seem all too slow IN
comparison with the millions of a stock
bubble floating just out of reach, who
seem our very selves formed on the prlnci-
pies of the cable chain, which goes over
and round, and round and over, and buzz
and rush. and hurry and begin again. No
one seems TO have time for the romance of
attics and old letters and ashes of men,
DRY, and people go out whether 1t rains or
nc, and shop and promenade, and have po-
lice escort across kearny street. Magnli-
cent clothes are on review in spite OF I'M
derfoot and overhead, and whether 1t were
the RAIN or no, last week yet saw some OF
THE PRETTIEsT WOMEN
l ever saw in San Francisco. a very
vision went laughing by me, bright, brown
eyed, bubbling over in brave and buoy
ant brilliancy that met me like the sparkle
of a diamond laid against the sunlight. 1t
was worth the battle with rain and mud
just to have seen her, clothed as she was
in the softest seal skin a cataract Of water
could never have injured | should Just
have liked to squeeze her cheeks together
because she was so beautiful. She re-
minded me of Mrs. Milton s. Latham,
once the lovely Miss McMullen, than
whom San Francisco never held fairer.
When Mrs. Latham looked out from her
carriage, against the background of
its dark-red satin lining her brown
eyes wore peculiarly soft and velvety
expression of remarkable beauty of which |
have heard a hundred speak. The
Latham house, with its rolling lawn, has
gone to the Newlands now. Mrs. New
lands was Miss Clara Sharon, sometimes
POLITICALLY spoken of as the Rose OF
Sharon" and it is here also that Miss Flora
Sharon, youngest daughter OF my house
and name," does her counting, so they say,
with Sir Thomas Hesketb, of the steam
yacht Lancashire Witch. With people
who have been brought up to any amount
of wealth and station, is the important
condition preceding marriage still 1.-The
courtin'," and just little matter-sweet,
oh very sweet l-of a smile, kiss and a
blush, or is it heavy and formal affair." |
wonder, like their bank accounts, for in
fIoir siikap FRANC thar lief hf
calls to be made | remember Miss Sharon
as having a pleasant, girlish face and
piquant bearing, and she was in the make
up of pretty moving picture framed once
in picturesque mass of curtained drapery,
Perhaps there isn't a woman of us (but
this, of course, sub rosd) that doesn't envy
experience, if this be indeed a genuine
courtship. saw
TIE PLAINEST WOMAN
OF my acquaintance half am hour after she
said yes to her first proposal and the
prettiness that had throbbed into her face
had not yet faded out. / think she guessed
of the light in her eyes and the strange
new beauty that had fallen upon her, for
| she turned away on an errand made for the
occasion, and [ never saw either again.
But these be secrets we half smile and
pooh pooh at, even to ourselves, and surely
they are indiscreetly prated of to the pub
lie, though letter, born of a rainy day, to
friends nearer than some known friends,
may perhaps be pardoned an indiscretion
or two by the same. The most elegant
cloaks are worn to-day, made OF warm.
heavy goods, or perhaps Of black silk, and
trimmed all about with fur. Sometimes
they are circular cloaks, but those give the
wearer a crouching look and are very I'M
graceful, and the most are dolmans fitted
with loose sleeves. Everybody affects
| CABLE CORD AND TAssELs,
Using it in various waya, sometimes ar
ranging it as figure at the left side of the
skirt, sometimes as if lacing it across the