“Surely the cutting edge of all our usual misfortunates comes from their character of loneliness,” James wrote. In regular life, we suffer alone. But in San Francisco, each person’s “private miseries were merged in the vast general sum of privation.” As a result, to James, the victims didn’t seem like victims; they seemed empowered. He did not hear “a single whine or plaintive word,” even among those who’d suffered the starkest losses. There was only “cheerfulness.”
