The San Francisco call., 1910-07-22
SOCIETY SHIVERS
And AWAITS BOOK
Prominent Smart Set MatrOn's
Writings May Tell Who
Was Not Who in Past

Thrills of suspense and excitement
are beginning to shiver through society
since Mrs. John Darling announced to
her intimate friends that she was about
to write a book, and, ,of all things.
book dealing with things social in and
around San Francisco.
Mrs. Darling. prominent first as the
daughter of the eminent Judge S. c.
Hastings. then as Mrs. Catherwood. and
now as the wife of Major John T. Dar-
ling, U. S. A, retired, has seen society
grow from the first wee little rootling
planted on the SAND dunes of San
Francisco ever so many years ago She
can tell just who was not who a few
decades ago, and she knows just where
every ones income comes from and just
when It began to get better or worse.
Mrs. Darling has long been recog-
nized as an encyclopedia for family
skeletons and she can-metaphorically
of course-climb any ones family tree
with ease and throw down the apples
Of discord that have sprouted thereon.
She never minces matters when ii
becomes necessary to speak. Long ac-
customed to occupying a leading place
in society, she has acquired the correct
hauteur and frigidity of atmosphere re-
quired for social aspirants and the total
indifference to their sensations which
marks those who have arrived.
Plain speaking is one of her recog-
nized attributes.
She is famous for having said once
when her own family affairs were much
in the public eye: 'I tell you all this
about the mans behavior because if
people will gossip it is best to start
them right
And now she is going to start people
right" about social conditions in San
Francisco. 1t will be interesting to
note who starts for Europe or the tall
timber when the date for the opening
sales of Mrs. Darlings books is an
nounced.
Burlingame will have especial rea-
sons to close its gates and become a
colony of mourning, for Mrs Darling
has in former times made no secret of
her sentiments regarding the residents
of the dairying district of San Mateo.
Riches she is quoted as having said
constitute their only claim to consid-
eration-their efforts to be admitted to
the really exclusive society of the city
are desperate-they are beneath notice
Il don't want to know anything about
Burlingame," she said who is prom
inent there and who isn't; but knowing
and being an old San Franciscan 1 know
them from A to a."
She went further and said that they
were group of well to do people in a
small town making themselves ridi-
culous with their ideas of social life
But Mrs. Darling knew their fathers
and mothers when they were keeping
hotels and stores and that sort of thing.
Doesn't this all point to particular
spicy and interesting chapter on Who
Is Now Who in Burlingame? Or per-
haps she Will ignore them and simply
add foot notes to the annals of GER
tain people known once to fame and
the Hastings Darling family, saying,
Moved to Burlingame and social OBJ
scurity."
Whether Mrs. Darling's book will be
autobiographical with voluminous data
regarding those San Franciscans whom
she. knows or ignores; whether it will
be biographical and fearless, or whether
it will be simply scientific treatise on
society with instances of social usages
and abuses as exemplifed by leading
families remains to be seen.
Mrs. Darling has lived abroad a good
deal in the last decade, family troubles
and financial woes between her and her
daughter, Mrs. Louise Catherwood-La
Montagne-M Maud, making it more con-
venient for her to live outside the
state for a time. But when the recon-
ciIiation took place and there were no
more dangers of horrid lawsuits and
family squabbles she came back and
has lived here since, picking up the
scattered threads of her social acquaint-
anceship and at times threatening to
assume dictatorship.
Society. Old. New and in the Inter
i'm by Mrs. John T. Darling, will be
literary sensation which will cast all
other Californian writers into pleas
ing obscurity.