The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77,
March, 1864, by Various

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Title: The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864

Author: Various

Release Date: October 7, 2006 [EBook #19492]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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THE

ATLANTIC MONTHLY.

A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS.

VOL. XIII.--MARCH, 1864.--NO. LXXVII.

[Transcriber's Note: Minor typos corrected, and footnotes have been
moved to the end of the text.]

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1864, by TICKNOR
AND FIELDS, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the
District of Massachusetts.

THE QUEEN OF CALIFORNIA.

I can see the excitement which this title arouses as it is flashed
across the sierras, down the valleys, and into the various reading-rooms
and parlors of the Golden City of the Golden State. As the San Francisco
"Bulletin" announces some day, that in the "Atlantic Monthly," issued in
Boston the day before, one of the articles is on "The Queen of
California," what contest, in every favored circle of the most favored
of lands, who the Queen may be! Is it the blond maiden who took a string
of hearts with her in a leash, when she left us one sad morning? is it
the hardy, brown adventuress, who, in her bark-roofed lodge, serves us
out our boiled dog daily, as we come home from our water-gullies, and
sews on for us weekly the few buttons which we still find indispensable
in that toil? is it some Jessie of the lion-heart, heroine of a hundred
days or of a thousand? is it that witch with gray eyes, cunningly
hidden,--were they puzzled last night, or were they all wisdom
crowded?--as she welcomed me, and as she bade me good-bye? Good Heavens!
how many Queens of California are regnant this day! and of any one of
them this article might be written.

No, _Senores!_ No, _Caballeros!_