The Days of a Man 



1892 



Califor- 



She first 

 lowed us 



breadth of the whole great state. Something of 

 California's lure I had myself sensed while here in 

 1880. But it was not until it became our home that 

 we could be truly called " Californiacs," to use the 

 apt word coined by Inez Haynes Irwin. Having 

 fallen under the spell, I tried to give others some 

 notion, however incomplete, of the ineffable charm 

 which bound and still binds us both. My essay 

 entitled "California and the Californians " appeared 

 originally in The Atlantic Monthly, 1 and has been 

 thrice reprinted as a booklet. Across the interven- 

 ing years, it seems to embody in a degree our "first 

 fine, careless rapture," and from it, therefore, I now 

 venture to quote. 



The Californian loves his state because his state first loved 

 him. He returns her love with a fierce affection that to men 

 who do not know California is always a surprise. . . . 



To know the glory of California scenery, one must live 

 close to it through the changing years. From Siskiyou to San 

 Diego, from Shasta to Santa Catalina, from Mendocino to 

 Mariposa, from Tahoe to the Farallones lake, crag, or 

 chasm, forest, mountain, valley, or island, river, bay, or jutting 

 headland every scene bears the stamp of its own peculiar 

 beauty, a singular blending of richness, wildness, and warmth. 

 Coastwise everywhere sea and mountains meet, and the surf 

 of the cold Japanese Current breaks in turbulent beauty 

 against tall rincones and jagged reefs of rock. Slumbering 

 amid the heights of the Coast Range lie golden valleys dotted 

 with wide-limbed oaks, or smothered under over-weighted 

 fruit trees. Here, too, crumble to ruins the old Franciscan 

 missions, each in its own fair valley passing monuments of 

 California's first page of written history. 



Inland rises the great Sierra with spreading ridge and foot- 

 hill, like some huge sprawling centipede its granite back 

 unbroken for a thousand miles. Frost-torn peaks of every 



1 November, 1898. 



C 434 



