George Hamilton
George Hamilton, the second son of Samuel and Liza Hamilton, grew into a man whose life was a deliberate counterpoint to his father's. Where Samuel was a visionary inventor and a man of ideas, George was a conservative, a realist, and a natural accumulator of wealth. His story is one of steady, unglamorous success, a testament to the power of practicality in a family of dreamers.
Identity and Background
From childhood, George was marked by a courtliness and a sinless nature that set him apart. He was described as a "tall handsome boy, gentle and sweet, who had from the first a kind of courtliness" and was "polite and what they used to call 'no trouble.'" He inherited his father's neatness of clothing and body, but not his intellectual restlessness. His virtue, the narrator speculates, may have lived on a lack of energy, as it was later discovered he had pernicious anemia. George's conservatism was not merely a personal preference but a defensive reaction. As a boy, he likely heard the talk in the San Lucas store about his father, Samuel, who was a foreigner and an Irishman at a time when the Irish were much disliked in America. Samuel's variability, his ideas and innovations, made him a figure of suspicion in a small, cut-off community. A shining man like Samuel could cause trouble, proving too attractive to the wives of duller men. Little boys do not want their fathers to be different, and George may have picked up his conservatism right then, forming a personality in opposition to the very qualities that made his father beloved by the valley later on.
Life and Fortune
George Hamilton was one of those individuals "truly beloved of the gods" to whom things come without effort. While his father could not make money, George could not help making it. When he raised chickens and his hens began to lay, the price of eggs went up. His fortune began in earnest when two friends running a small store came to the point of bankruptcy. George lent them a pittance to tide them over, receiving a one-third interest in return. The store was on its feet within a year, expanding in two, opening branches in three, and its descendants, a great mercantile system, came to dominate a large part of the area. He also took over a bicycle-and-tool shop for a bad debt, and when a few rich people bought automobiles, his mechanic worked on them. Pressure from a determined poet named Henry Ford, whose plans seemed ridiculous, led George to accept the southern half of the valley as his exclusive area for Ford sales. Within fifteen years, the valley was "two-deep in Fords" and George was a rich man driving a Marmon. His success was built not on invention but on shrewd, conservative business practices, a stark contrast to his father's patent fever that drained the family's meager resources.
Relationships and Conflict
George's relationship with his father, Samuel, was complex, marked by a fundamental difference in worldview. Samuel was a man who thought big, while George thought little. Samuel's inventions and patents, his love of poetry and philosophy, were a source of family poverty and, for George, a source of embarrassment and a lesson in what to avoid. This dynamic is captured in a conversation after Samuel's death, when the family gathered. George, along with Will, suggested that Samuel might be persuaded to sell the ranch and move to town, a proposal born of practicality but one that Tom Hamilton recognized as an insult to their father's pride. George's instinct was to manage and solve problems with money and logic, a method that could not comprehend the depth of Samuel's connection to his land. His role in the family was that of the provider and the fixer, a position that brought him respect but also a certain distance from the more brilliant, troubled members of his family like Tom.
Change and Ending
George's life was one of steady accumulation, not dramatic change. He remained a conservative in politics and everything else, avoiding revolutionary ideas with suspicion and distaste. He liked to live so that no one could find fault with him, which meant living as nearly like other people as possible. His success was a quiet, relentless force, a counterweight to the tragic fates of his siblings, Tom and Dessie. He did not share their capacity for great joy or great sorrow; his was a life of application and order. In the end, George Hamilton stands as a successful, respected businessman, a pillar of the community, but one whose very virtues—caution, conservatism, a lack of imagination—were the qualities that allowed him to thrive in a world that often destroyed the more brilliant members of his family.
