1892] A California Rhapsody 



height and bearing pierce the blue wastes above, their slopes 

 dark with forests of giant trees. . . . Dropped here and 

 there gleam turquoise lakes which mark the craters of dead 

 volcanoes, or swell the polished basins where vanished glaciers 

 did their last work. Through mountain meadows run swift 

 brooks o'erpeopled with trout, while from the crags leap full- 

 throated streams, blown half away in mist before they touch 

 the valley floor. Far down the fragrant canyons sing the 

 green and troubled rivers, twisting lower and lower to the com- 

 mon plain. Even the hopeless stretches of alkali and sand, 

 sinks or graves of dying streams, are redeemed by the De- 

 lectable Mountains that shut them in. And everywhere the 

 landscape swims in crystalline ether, while over all broods 

 the warm California sun. 



As there is from end to end of the state scarcely one com- Two 

 monplace mile, so from one end of the year to the other dawns seas ns 

 scarcely a colorless day. Two seasons only has California; 

 but two are enough, if each in its way be perfect. Certain out- 

 side critics have called the climate "monotonous." Good 

 health is equally so. In terms of Eastern experience, our 

 seasons may well be defined as "late in the spring and early in 

 the fall" 



Half a year of clouds and flowers, 



Half a year of dust and sky, 



according to Bret Harte. But with dust 1 follows an unbroken 

 succession of days of sunshine and dry, invigorating air loaded 

 with the fragrance of the resinous tarweed, while everywhere 

 the land riots in a boundless overflow of vine* and orchard. 

 Each season thus brings in turn its fill of satisfaction. If one 

 must indicate a choice, let it perhaps be June, for then the air 

 is softest, and a touch of summer's gold o'erlies the green of 

 winter. But October, when the first swift rains "dash the whole 

 long slope with color," and leave the clean-washed atmosphere 

 so absolutely transparent that even distance is no longer blue, 

 has a charm scarcely less alluring. 



As for man, he is never the climate's slave, never beleaguered 

 by powers of the air; winter and summer alike call him out of 



1 Largely eliminated since the automobile came into common use and led 

 to the building of thousands of miles of roads of asphalt and concrete. 



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