postponed till "to-morrow?"

I wish there might be something solid in this expectation; that this may
be a region where the restless American will lose something of his hurry
and petty, feverish ambition. Partially it may be so. He will take, he
is already taking, something of the tone of the climate and of the old
Spanish occupation. But the race instinct of thrift and of "getting on"
will not wear out in many generations. Besides, the condition of living
at all in Southern California in comfort, and with the social life
indispensable to our people, demands labor, not exhausting and killing,
but still incessant--demands industry. A land that will not yield
satisfactorily without irrigation, and whose best paying produce
requires intelligent as well as careful husbandry, will never be an idle
land. Egypt, with all its _dolce far niente_, was never an idle land for
the laborer.

It may be expected, however, that no more energy will be developed or
encouraged than is needed for the daily tasks, and these tasks being
lighter than elsewhere, and capable of being postponed, that there will
be less stress and strain in the daily life. Although the climate of
Southern California is not enervating, in fact is stimulating to the
new-comer, it is doubtless true that the monotony of good weather, of
the sight of perpetual bloom and color in orchards and gardens, will
take away nervousness and produce a certain placidity, which might be
taken for laziness by a Northern observer. It may be that engagements
will not be kept with desired punctuality, under the impression that the
enjoyment of life does not depend upon exact response to the second-hand
of a watch; and it is not unpleasant to think that there is a corner of
the Union where there will be a little more leisure, a little more of
serene waiting on Providence, an abatement of the restless rush and
haste of our usual life. The waves of population have been rolling
westward for a long time, and now, breaking over the mountains, they
flow over Pacific slopes and along the warm and inviting seas. Is it
altogether an unpleasing thought that the conditions of life will be
somewhat easier there, that there will be some physical repose, the race
having reached the sunset of the continent, comparable to the desirable
placidity of life called the sunset of old age? This may be altogether
fanciful, but I have sometimes felt, in the sunny moderation of nature
there, that this land mig