Stevenson and California. 



Ill 



mysteries of the camper's art for which he is so worthily 

 immortalized in the "Silverado Squatters." Even the yacht 

 Casco, which was to bear Stevenson far away to Southern 

 seas, was a familiar craft in our waters, and one on which 

 I myself in those days had the pleasure of a cruise. Of 

 the scenes of his sojourn here and the themes of his 

 writing, Monterey was of course familiar, as it is to all 

 old Californians ; while St. Helena was the very first of 

 Californian mountains that I ever climbed, and that some 

 years before Stevenson's encampment there. It is but the 

 other day that I climbed it again "for auld lang syne" — 

 and Stevenson's sake. 



A new physical region like California, and a new so- 

 ciety like that which grew up here, demand the vision and 

 the interpretive power of strangers to enable its people 

 to see and to understand either themselves or their sur- 

 roundings. The active participant in the organization of 

 such a society is far too much engrossed and immersed 

 in action to discern the real features and quality of the 

 life he is shaping; nor has he time or inclination to muse 

 on the scenery and appointments of the stage on which 

 he is acting his part. All our real knowledge is knowl- 

 edge of differences. Eyes that look out forever on the 

 same scenes are the least likely to know those scenes in 

 their inner essence and reality. The ocean of air in which 

 we live and move and have our being has for us neither 

 taste nor smell. We cannot know its savor at all, not 

 because it has none, but because its is the fundamental 

 and omnipresent savor — the basis by variation from which 

 all other savors are distinguished and discerned. Nor 

 are we in the slightest degree aware of the enormous 

 weight and pressure with which it bears on our physical 

 frames. In Hke manner, because of its very famiHarity 

 to us, the real quality of Californian scenery and of Cali- 

 fornian life had to be distinguished and interpreted for 

 us by others before we could rightly understand and 

 grasp it ourselves. 



It is a remarkable succession of these interpreters, 



