hine, its golden spring poppy and its golden summer verdure, seems
both literally and figuratively, a golden land golden and gay. It is a
land full of contradictions however. For those amazing memorials from a
prehistoric past give it in places a strange air of tragedy. I challenge
this grey old earth to produce a strip of country more beautiful, also
more poignant and catastrophic in natural connotation, than the one
which includes these cypresses of Monterey. Yet this same mordant area
holds Point Lobos, a headland which displays in moss and lichens all
the minute delicacy of a gleeful, elfin world. I challenge the earth
to produce a region more beautiful, yet also more gay and debonair in
natural connotation, than the one which enfolds San Francisco. For here
the water presents gorgeous, plastic color, alternating blue and gold.
Here Mount Tamalpais lifts its long straight slopes out of the sea
and thrusts them high in the sky. Here Marin County offers contours of
dimpled velvet bursting with a gay irridescence of wildflowers. Yet that
same gracious area frames the grim cliff-cup which holds San Francisco
bay--a spot of Dantesque sheerness and bareness.

--and this.

This is what nature has done. But man has added his deepening touch
in one direction and his enlivening touch in another. The early
fathers--Spanish--erected Missions from one end of the State to the
other. These are time-mellowed, mediaeval structures with bell-towers,
cloisters and gardens, sunbaked, shadow-colored; and in spots they make
California as old and sad as Spain. Later emigrants--French--have built
in the vicinity of San Francisco many tiny roadside inns where one can
drink the soft wines of the country. Framed in hills that are garlanded
with vineyards, these inns are often mere rose-hidden bowers. They make
California seem as gay as France. I can best put it by saying that I
know of no place so "haunted" in every poetic and plaintive sense as
California; yet I know of no place so perfectly suited to carnival and
festival.

All of this is part of the reason why you can't surprise a Californian.

This looks like respite, but there's no real relief in sight Easterners.
Keep right on reading, Californiacs!

Yes, California is beautiful.

Once upon a time, a Native Son lay dying. He did not know that he was
going to die. His physician had to break the news to him. He told the
Californian that the process would not be long or painful. He w