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Anthony Trollope (1815-82) http://tinyurl.com/Trollope

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The Trade of the Place

From A Letter from Anthony Trollope, [1875] 1946.

Reader: Daniel Maloney

Visitors to San Francisco may or may not enjoy the weather; they may or may not be drawn to its variety of cultural pursuits. But even the most discerning visitor might be impressed with the "trade of the place."

Anthony Trollope saw nothing much to praise during an 1875 visit to San Francisco, but he did get a charge out of San Francisco's entrepreneurial spirit.

In trade there is a speculative rashness which ought to ensure ruin according to our old world ideas, but which seems to be rewarded by very general success. The stranger may [of course] remember if he pleases that the millionaire who builds a mighty palace is seen and heard of and encountered at all corners while the bankrupt will probably sink unseen into obscurity. But in San Francisco there is not much bankruptcy; and when it does occur no one seems to be so little impressed as the bankrupt. There is a goodnature, a forbearance, and an easy giving of trust which to an old fashioned Englishman like myself seem to be most dangerous, but which I was assured there form the readiest mode of building up a great commercial community.

Author of dozens of novels, Anthony Trollope was one of the most successful English novelists of the Victorian era.