1 8 Life and Sport on the Pacific Slope 



Then, and not till then, we can take our rightful 

 place in the senate-house of the world. 



When I was asked to write this book, I replied 

 that although I was provided with matter for it, 

 the varied experiences of seventeen years, yet the 

 manner of setting them forth adequately would 

 prove, I feared, beyond my powers. I have reason 

 to know that the people of the West are extremely 

 sensitive to criticism — especially from Englishmen. 

 And having many warm friends in the West, 

 having, moreover, many connections by marriage 

 amongst them, wishing, if I did write at all, to 

 write with entire frankness, I hesitated for a long 

 time before I undertook a task that may be best 

 described by the old Greek word of — " bitter-sweet." 

 In the Greek it is "sweet-bitter," for the ancients 

 held that the bitter follows the sweet — and re- 

 mains. We, as Christians, hold otherwise. With 

 us the sweet prevails and endures. Speaking per- 

 sonally — and it is only as an individual who has 

 lived many years of his life in the West that I am 

 entitled to a hearing — I would say emphatically 

 that the bitter has passed from me. Were it not 

 so I would hold my tongue. More, had I not 

 suffered in common with the people of the West, 

 did I not know, as they know, the peculiar trials 

 and temptations of a new country, if I was not 

 willing to share the blame, to shoulder my part 

 of the load, I would lay down my pen before it is 

 hardly wet. My object is primarily to show what 

 life in the West is, not what it ought to be. I 

 believe in the Pacific Slope. I am profoundly con- 



