to make it harder, but because--as a
Californiac--I couldn't help it, and to show you what, in the way of a
State, the Native Son is accustomed to. You will have to admit that
it is some State. The emblem on the California flag is singularly
apposite--it's a bear.

--oh boy!--San Francisco!

And if, in addition to being a Californian, this Native Son visiting the
East for the first time, is also a San Franciscan, he has come from a
city which is, with the exception of peacetime Paris, the gayest and
with the exception of none, the happiest city in the world; a city
of extraordinary picturesqueness of situation and an equally notable
cosmopolitanism of atmosphere; a city which is, above all cities, a
paradise for men.

San Francisco, which invents much American slang, must have provided
that phrase--"this man's town." For that is what San Francisco is--a
mans town.

I dare not appeal to Easterners; but Californiacs, I ask you how could I
forbear to say something about "the city"?

San Francisco, or "the city"', as Californians so proudly and lovingly
term her, is peculiarly fortunate in her situation and her weather.
Riding a series of hills as lightly as a ship the waves, she makes real
exercise of any walking within her limits. Moreover the streets are
tied so intimately and inextricably to seashore and country that San
Francisco's life is, in one sense, less like city life than that of
any other city in the United States. Yet by the curious paradox of her
climate, which compels much indoor night entertainment, reinforced by
that cosmopolitanism of atmosphere, life there is city life raised to
the highest limit. Last of all, its size--and personally I think there
should be a federal law forbidding cities to grow any bigger than
San Francisco--makes it an engaging combination of provincialism and
cosmopolitanism.

Not scenery this time, Reader, nor climate, but weather. Like scenery
and climate, it must be done. Hurdle this paragraph, Easterners! Keep on
reading, Californiacs!

The "city" does its best to put the San Franciscan in good condition.
And the weather reinforces this effort by keeping him out of doors.
Because of a happy collaboration of land with sea, the region about
San Francisco, the "bay" region--individual in this as in everything
else--has a climate of its own. It is, notwithstanding its brief
rainy season, a singularly pleasant climate. It cannot be described as
"temperate" in the sense, fo