ine, or in the ocean breeze, or in all three combined, I cannot
say. Certainly the climate is not the home-made common-sense article of
the anti-Rocky Mountain States; and unreality is thrown round life--all
walk and work in a dream."

At Coronado Beach one rushes out after breakfast for an all-day
excursion or morning tramp; here one sits and sits, always intending to
go somewhere or do something, until the pile of unanswered letters
accumulates and the projected trips weary one in a dim perspective. It
is all so beautiful, so new, so wonderful! San Diego is the Naples of
America, with the San Jacinto Mountains for a background and the blue
sunlit bay to gaze upon, and one of the finest harbors in the world. Yet
with all this, few have the energy even to go a-fishing.

Now, as a truthful "tourist," I must admit that in the winter there are
many days when the sun does not shine, and the rainy season is not
altogether cheerful for the invalid and the stranger. Sunshine, glorious
golden sunshine, is what we want all the time; but we do not get it. I
noticed that during the heavy rains the invalids retired to their rooms,
overcome by the chill and dampness, and some were seriously ill. But
then they would have been in their graves if they had remained in the
East. There are many charming people residing in San Diego, well, happy,
useful, who know they can never safely return to their old homes.

There has been such a rosy glamour thrown over southern California by
enthusiastic romancers that many are disappointed when they fail to find
an absolute Paradise.

Humboldt said of California: "The sky is constantly serene and of a deep
blue, and without a cloud; and should any clouds appear for a moment at
the setting of the sun, they display the most beautiful shades of
violet, purple, and green."[1]

[Footnote 1: Humboldt had never been in Alta California, and procured
this information in Mexico or Spain.]

Now, after reading that, a real rainy day, when the water leaks through
the roof and beats in at the doors, makes a depressed invalid feel like
a drenched fowl standing forlornly on one leg in the midst of a New
England storm. With snow-covered mountains on one side and the ocean
with its heavy fogs on the other, and the tedious rain pouring down with
gloomy persistence, and consumptives coughing violently, and physicians
hurrying in to attend to a sudden hemorrhage or heart-failure, the scene
is not wholly gay and in