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Title: The California Birthday Book
Editor: George Wharton James
Release date: August 27, 2004 [eBook #13298]
Most recently updated: October 28, 2024
Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CALIFORNIA BIRTHDAY BOOK ***
THE CALIFORNIA BIRTHDAY BOOK
Prose and Poetical Selections from
the Writings of Living California Authors
with a Brief Biographical Sketch of each
Edited and Arranged, with an Introduction, by
GEORGE WHARTON JAMES
Arroyo Guild Press
Los Angeles, California
1909
To the dearest and best
Literary Partner
man ever had:
MY WIFE
whose critical discernment and fine judgment
have materially aided in making the
selections for this book.
CALIFORNIA--GOD'S COUNTRY.
California--land of the brightest dreams of our childhood; of the
passionate longings of our youth; of the most splendid triumphs of our
manhood. California--land of golden thoughts, of golden hills, of
golden mines, and of golden deeds.
INTRODUCTORY
This book, as its title-page states, is made up of selections from the
writings of California authors. Most of the selections refer to
California--her scenic glories, mountains, valleys, skies, canyons,
Yosemites, islands, foothills, plains, deserts, shoreline; her
climatic charms, her flora and fauna, her varied population, her
marvellous progress, her wonderful achievements, her diverse
industries. Told by different authors, in both prose and poetry, the
book is a unique presentation both of California and California
writers. The Appendix gives further information (often asked for in
vain) about the authors themselves and their work. It is the hope of
the compiler that the taste given in these selections may lead many
Californians to take a greater interest in the writings of their
fellow citizens, and no interest pleases an author more than the
purchase, commendation, and distribution of his book.
If this unpretentious book gives satisfaction to the lovers of
California, both in and out of the State, the compiler will reap his
highest reward. If any suitable author has been left out the omission
was inadvertent, and will gladly be remedied in future editions.
GEORGE WHARTON JAMES.
1098 North Raymond Avenue
Pasadena, California.
October, 1909.
THE CALIFORNIA BIRTHDAY BOOK
CALIFORNIA.
Hearken, how many years
I sat alone, I sat alone and heard
Only the silence stirred
By wind and leaf, by clash of grassy spears,
And singing bird that called to singing bird.
Heard but the savage tongue
Of my brown savage children, that among
The hills and valleys chased the buck and doe,
And round the wigwam fires
Chanted wild songs of their wild savage sires,
And danced their wild, weird dances to and fro,
And wrought their beaded robes of buffalo.
Day following upon day,
Saw but the panther crouched upon the limb,
Smooth serpents, swift and slim,
Slip through the reeds and grasses, and the bear
Crush through his tangled lair
Of chaparral, upon the startled prey!
Listen, how I have seen
Flash of strange fires in gorge and black ravine;
Heard the sharp clang of steel, that came to drain
The mountain's golden vein
And laughed and sang, and sang and laughed again,
Because that "Now," I said, "I shall be known!
I shall not sit alone,
But shall reach my hands into my sister lands!
And they? Will they not turn
Old, wondering dim eyes to me and yearn--
Aye, they will yearn, in sooth,
To my glad beauty, and my glad, fresh youth."
INA D. COOLBRITH,
in _Songs from the Golden Gate._
LET US MAKE EACH DAY OUR BIRTHDAY.
WRITTEN ESPECIALLY FOR THE CALIFORNIA BIRTHDAY BOOK.
Let us make each day our birthday,
As with each new dawn we rise,
To the glory and the gladness
Of God's calm, o'erbending skies;
To the soul-uplifting anthems
Of Creation's swelling strains,
Chanted by the towering mountains,
Surging sea, and sweeping plains.
Let us make each day our birthday--
Every morning life is new,
With the splendors of the sunrise,
And the baptism of the dew;
With the glisten of the woodlands,
And the radiance of the flowers,
And the birds' exultant matins,
In the young day's wakening hours.
Let us make each day our birthday,
To a newer, holier life,
Rousing to some high endeavor,
Arming for a nobler strife,
Toiling upward, looking Godward,
Lest our poor lives be as discords,
In Heaven's symphony of love.
S.A.R.,
_College Notre Dame, San Jose, Cal._
JANUARY 1.
A NEW YEAR'S WISH.
May each day bring thee something
Fair to hold in memory--
Some true light to shine
Upon thee in the after days.
May each night bring thee peace,
As when the dove broods o'er
The young she loves; may day
And night the circle of
A rich experience weave
About thy life, and make
It rich with knowledge, but radiant
With Love, whose blossoms shall be
Tender deeds.
HELEN VAN ANDERSON GORDON.
JANUARY 2.
THE MIRAGE ON THE CALIFORNIA DESERT.
To the south the eye rests upon a vast lake, which can be seen ten or
twelve miles distant from the slopes of the mountains, and when I
first saw it, its beauty was entrancing. Away to the south, on its
borders, were hills of purple, each reflected as clearly as though
photographed, and still beyond rose the caps and summits of other
peaks and mountains rising from this inland sea, whose waters were
of turquoise; yet, as we moved down the slope, the lake was always
stealing on before. It was of the things dreams are made of, that has
driven men mad and to despair, its bed a level floor of alkali and
clay, covered with a dry, impalpable dust that the slightest wind
tossed and whirled in air.
CHARLES FREDERICK HOLDER,
in _Life in the Open._
JANUARY 3.
When the green waves come dashing,
With thunderous lashing,
Against the bold cliffs that defend the scarred earth,
He wheels through the roaring,
Where foam-flakes are pouring,
And flaps his broad wings in a transport of mirth.
JOSIAH KEEP,
in _The Song of the Sea-Bird_, in _Shells and Sea-Life._
JANUARY 4.
A long jagged peninsula, where barren heights and cactus-clad mesas
glow in the biting rays of an unobscured sun, where water holes are
accorded locations on the maps, and where, under the fluttering shade
of fluted palm boughs, life becomes a siesta dream. A land great in
its past and lean in its present. A land where the rattlesnake and
the sidewinder, the tarantula and the scorpion multiply, and where
sickness is unknown and fivescore years no uncommon span of life. A
land of strange contradictions! A peninsula which to the Spanish
_conquistadores_ was an island glistening in the azure web of
romance; a land for which the padres gave their lives in fanatic
devotion to the Cross; a land rich in history, when the timbers of the
_Mayflower_ were yet trees in the forest. Lower California, once
sought and guarded for her ores and her jewels, now a veritable terra
incognita, slumbering, unnoticed, at the feet of her courted child,
the great State of California. Lower California, her romance nigh
forgotten, her possibilities overlooked by enterprise and by the
statesmen of the two republics.
ARTHUR W. NORTH,
in _The Mother of California._
JANUARY 5.
Above me rise the snowy peaks
Where golden sunbeams gleam and quiver,
And far below, toward Golden Gate,
O'er golden sand flows Yuba River.
Through crystal air the mountain mist
Floats far beyond yon distant eagle,
And swift o'er crag and hill and vale
Steps morning, purple-robed and regal.
CLARENCE URMY,
in _A Vintage of Verse._
JANUARY 6.
With the assistance of Indians and swinging a good axe himself, the
worthy padre cut down a number of trees, and, having carried the logs
to the Gulf Coast, he there constructed from them a small vessel which
was solemnly christened _El Triumfo de la Cruz_.
Let Ugarte be remembered not only as a man of fine physique, the
first ship-builder in the Californias, but as an ardent Christian,
a wise old diplomat and a fearless explorer. He stands forth bold,
shrewd and aggressive, one of the most heroic figures in early
California history. * * *
At the same time that Ugarte was exploring the Gulf of California,
Captain George Shevlock of England was cruising about California
waters engaged in a little privateering enterprise. On his return
to England, Shevlock set forth on the charts that California was
an island. This assertion was not surprising, for at this time a
controversy was raging between certain of the Episcopal authorities
on the Spanish Main as to which bishopric _las Islas Californias_
belonged! Guadalajara was finally awarded the "island."
ARTHUR W. NORTH,
in _The Mother of California._
JANUARY 7.
CALIFORNIA.
A sleeping beauty, hammock-swung,
Beside the sunset sea,
And dowered with riches, wheat, and oil,
Vineyard and orange tree;
Her hand, her heart to that fair prince
Whose genius shall unfold
With rarest art her treasured tales
Of life and love and gold.
CLARENCE URMY,
in _A Vintage of Verse._
JANUARY 8.
BACK TO CALIFORNIA.
To the Californian born, California is the only place to live. Why do
men so love their native soil? It is perhaps a phase of the human love
for the mother. For we are compact of the soil. Out of the crumbling
granite eroded from the ribs of California's Sierras by California's
mountain streams--out of the earth washed into California's great
valleys by her mighty rivers--out of this the sons of California are
made, brain, and muscle, and bone. Why then should they not love their
mother, even as the mountaineers of Montenegro, of Switzerland, of
Savoy, love their mountain birthplace? Why should not exiled
Californians yearn to return? And we sons of California always do
return; we are always brought back by the potent charm of our native
land--back to the soil which gave us birth--and at the last back to
Earth, the great mother, from whom we sprung, and on whose bosom we
repose our tired bodies when our work is done.
JEROME A. HART,
in _Argonaut Letters._
JANUARY 9.
GIVE ME CALIFORNY.
Blizzard back in York state
Sings its frosty tune,
Here the sun a-shinin',
Air as warm as June.
Snow in Pennsylvany,
Zero times down East,
Here the flowers bloomin',
A feller's eyes to feast.
* * * * *
Its every one his own way,
The place he'd like to be,
But give me Californy--
It's good enough for me.
JOHN S. MCGROARTY,
in _Just California._
JANUARY 10.
If Mother Nature is indeed as we see her here, broad-browed and
broad-bosomed, strong and calm--calm because strong--swaying her
vain brats by unruffled love, not by fear; by wise giving, not by
privation; by caresses and gentle precepts, not by cuffs and scoldings
and hysterics--why, then she shall better justify our memories and the
name we have given her. It is well that our New England mothers had
a different climate in their hearts from that which beat at their
windows. I know one Yankee boy who never could quite understand that
his mother had gone _home_ till he came to know the skies of
California.
CHARLES F. LUMMIS,
in _The Right Hand of the Continent, Out West,
June_, 1902.
JANUARY 11.
California, the orchid in the garden of the states, the warm
motherland of genius, the land of enchantment, the land of romance,
the land of magic; California, the beautiful courtezan land, whose
ravishing form the enamored gods had strewed with scarlet roses and
white lilies, and buried deep in her bosom rich treasure; California
began the twentieth century with another tale, fantastic, incredible.
* * *
Until the oil was discovered the land had been worth from one to four
dollars an acre, but now offers were made for it from five hundred to
as many thousands.
MRS. FREMONT OLDER,
in _The Giants._
JANUARY 12.
A CALIFORNIAN TO HIS OLD HOME.
I oft feel sad and lone and cold
Here in the Golden West,
When I recall the times of old,
And fond hearts laid to rest;
The gladsome village crowd at e'en,
The stars a-peeping down,
And all the meadows robed in green
Around Claremorris Town.
* * * * *
This is, in truth, a lovely sphere,
A heaven-favored clime,
Here Nature smiles the whole long year,
'Tis summer all the time,
With spreading palms and pine trees tall
And grape-vines drooping down--
But gladly would I give them all
For you, Claremorris Town.
LAURENCE BRANNICK.
JANUARY 13.
The establishment of the Mission of Santa Catarina marks the close of
what may well be termed the third period of Lower California history.
It is a period remarkable for progress rather than for individual
actors. The great Junipero Serra passes quickly across the stage,
figuring as a man of physical endurance and a diplomat--not as an
explorer or a founder of many missions. His most historic act on the
Peninsula was performed when he drew a line of division between the
territory of the Dominicans and the Franciscans. He is a link between
the two Californias.
ARTHUR W. NORTH,
in _The Mother of California._
JANUARY 14.
TO THE U.S. CRUISER CALIFORNIA.
Godspeed our namesake cruiser,
Godspeed till the echoes cease
'Fore all may the nation choose her
To speak her will for peace.
That she in the hour of battle
Her western fangs may show.
That from her broadsides' rattle
A listening world may know--
She's more than a fighting vessel,
More than mere moving steel,
More than a hull to wrestle
With the currents at her keel;
That she bodies a living-spirit.
The spirit of a state,
A people's strength and merit,
Their hope, their love, their fate.
HAROLD S. SYMMES.
JANUARY 15.
CALIFORNIA AND ITALY.
More and more it becomes apparent to me that the Climate of California
spoils one for any other in the world. If Californians ever doubt that
their winter weather is the finest in the world, let them try that of
sunny Italy. If they have ever grumbled at their gentle rains, brought
on the wings of mild winds from the south, let them try the raw rain,
hail, snow, and sleet storms of sunny Italy. And then forever after
let them hold their peace.
JEROME A. HART,
in _Argonaut Letters._
JANUARY 16.
I see thee in this Hellas of the West,
Thy youngest, fairest child, upon whose crest
Thy white snows gleam, and at whose dimpled feet
The blue sea breaks, while on her heaving breast
The flowers droop and languish for her smile,
Thy grace is mirrored in her youthful form,
She lifts her forehead to the battling storm,
As proud, as fair as thou.
* * * * *
Like thee, she opens wide her snowy arms,
And folds the Nations on her mother-breast.
The brawny Sons of Earth have made their home
Where her wide Ocean casts its ceaseless foam,
Where lifts her white Sierras' orient peak
The wild exultant love of all that makes
The nobler life; the energy that shakes the Earth
And gives new eons birth.
S.A.S.H. of College of Notre Dame, San Jose,
in _Hellas._
JANUARY 17.
THE RETURN TO CALIFORNIA.
Across the desert waste we sped;
The cactus gloomed on either hand,
Wild, weird, grotesque each frowning head
Uprearing from the sand.
Through dull, gray dawn and blazing noon,
Like furnace fire the quivering air,
Till darkness fell, and the young moon
Smiled forth serene and fair.
A single star adown the sky
Shone like a jewel, clear and bright;
We heard the far coyote's cry
Pierce through the silent night.
Then morning--bathed in purple sheen;
Beyond--the grand, eternal hills;
With sunny, emerald vales between,
Crossed by a thousand rills.
Sweet groves, green pastures; buzz of bee
And scent of flower; a dash of foam
On rugged cliffs; the blessed sea,
And then--the lights of home!
MARY E. MANNIX.
JANUARY 18.
Around the Southern Californian home of the loving twain the roses are
in perpetual bloom. The vines are laden with clustered grapes, the
peach and the apricot trees bend under their loads of luscious fruit,
the milch cows yield their creamy milk, the honey-bees laying in their
stores of sweet spoil, the balmy air breathes fragrance, the drowsy
hum of life is the music of peace.
EDMUND MITCHELL,
in _Only a Nigger._
JANUARY 19.
CALIFORNIA SONG.
DEDICATED TO GEORGE WHARTON JAMES.
Proud are we to own us thine,
Land of Song and Land of Story,
All thy glory
Round our heart-hopes we entwine,
In our souls thy fame enshrine,
California!
Dear to us thy mystic name,
Leal-land; Love-land; Land of Might,
We would write
On the walls of Years thy fame,
With thy love a world inflame,
California!
Dear to us thy maiden grace,
Dear thy queenly Motherhood,
Fain we would
Keep the sun-smiles on thy face,
Worthy live of thy strong Race,
California!
Land of Beauty! Blossom-land!
Land of Heroes, Saints and Sages,
Let the Ages
Witness all thou canst command
From each loyal heart and hand,
California!
S.A.S.H.
JANUARY 20.
I always appreciate things as I go along, for no knowing whether
you'll ever go the same way twice in this world.
ALBERTA LAWRENCE,
in _The Travels of Phoebe Ann._
JANUARY 21.
MOUNT TAMALPAIS.
Home of the elements--where battling bands
Of clouds and winds the rocks defy--
Mute yet great, old Tamalpais stands
Outlined against the rosy sky.
His darkened form uprising there commands
The country round, and every eye
From lesser hills he strangely seems to draw
With lifted glance that speaks of wonder and of awe.
It is the awe that makes us reverence show
To men of might who proudly tower
Above their fellow-men; the glance that we bestow
On one whose native force and power
Have lifted him above the race below--
The pigmy mortals of an hour--
We almost bend the knee and bow the head
To the mighty force that marks his kingly tread.
MRS. PHILIP VERRILL MICHELS,
in _Readings from the California Poets._
JANUARY 22.
Broadly speaking, California is the only _elective_ State. Its
people are not here because their mothers happened to be here at the
time; not as refugees; not as ne'er-do-wells, drifting to do no
better; not even, in bulk, as joining the scrimmage for more money.
They have come by deliberate choice, and a larger proportion of them,
and more single-heartedly, for home's sake than in any other as large
migration on record.
CHARLES F. LUMMIS,
in _The Right Hand of the Continent, Out West,
August_, 1902.
JANUARY 23.
Is there any kind of climate,
Any scene for painter's eye,
The Almighty hath not crowded
'Neath our California sky?
Is there any fruit or flower,
Any gem or jewel old,
Any wonder of creation
This Garden doth not hold--
From the tiny midget blossom
To the grand Sequoia high,
With its roots in God's own country
And its top in God's own sky?
FRED EMERSON BROOKS,
in _Old Abe and Other Poems._
JANUARY 24.
A MENDOCINO MEMORY.
I climbed the canyon to a river-head,
And looking backward saw a splendor spread.
Miles beyond miles, of every kingly hue
And trembling tint the looms of Arras knew--
A flowery pomp as of the dying day,
A splendor where a god might take his way.
* * * * *
It was the brink of night and everywhere
Tall redwoods spread their filmy tops in air;
Huge trunks, like shadows upon shadow cast,
Pillared the under twilight, vague and vast.
* * * * *
Lightly I broke green branches for a bed,
And gathered ferns, a pillow for my head.
And what to this were kingly chambers worth--
Sleeping, an ant, upon the sheltering earth.
EDWIN MARKHAM,
in _Lincoln and Other Poems._
JANUARY 25.
CALIFORNIA.
Queen of the Coast, she stands here emerald-crowned,
Waiting her ships that sail in from the sea,
Fairer than all the western world to me,
Is this young Goddess whom the years have found
Ocean and land, with riches rare and sweet.
Loyally bring their treasures to her feet;
In her brave arms she holds with proud content
The varied plenty of a continent;
In her fair face, and in her dreaming eyes,
Shines the bright promise of her destinies;
Winds kiss her cheek, and fret the restless tides,
She in their truth with faith divine confides,
Watching the course of empire's brilliant fate,
She looks serenely through the Golden Gate.
ANNA MORRISON REED.
JANUARY 26.
Here was our first (and still largest) national romance, the first
wild-flower of mystery, the first fierce passion of an uncommonly
hard-fisted youth. To this day it persists the only glamour between
the covers of our geography. For more than fifty years its only name
has been a witchcraft, and its spell is stronger now than ever, as
shall be coolly demonstrated. This has meant something in the
psychology of so unfanciful a race. The flowering of imagination is no
trivial incident, whether in one farm boy's life or in a people's. It
may be outgrown, and so much as forgotten; but it shall never again be
as if it had never been. Without just that flower we should not have
just this fruit.
CHARLES F. LUMMIS,
in _Out West, June_, 1892.
JANUARY 27.
As time goes on its endless course, environment is sure to crystallize
the American nation. Its varying elements will become unified and the
weeding out process will probably leave the finest human product ever
known. The color, the perfume, the size and form that are placed in
the plants will have their analogies in the composite, the American of
the future.
And now what will hasten this development most of all? The proper
rearing of children. Don't feed children on maudlin sentimentalism or
dogmatic religion; give them nature. Let their souls drink in all that
is pure and sweet. Rear them, if possible, amid pleasant surroundings.
If they come into the world with souls groping in darkness, let them
see and feel the light. Don't terrify them in early life with the fear
of an after world. There never was a child that was made more noble
and good by the fear of a hell. Let nature teach them the lessons of
good and proper living. Those children will grow to be the best of men
and women. Put the best in them in contact with the best outside. They
will absorb it as a plant does sunshine and the dew.
LUTHER BURBANK.
JANUARY 28.
Let us embark freely upon the ocean of truth; listen to every word of
God-like genius as to a whisper of the Holy Ghost, with the conviction
that beauty, truth and love are always divine, and that the real Bible,
whose inspiration can never be questioned, comprises all noble and true
words spoken and written by man in all ages.
WILLIAM DAY SIMONDS,
in _Freedom and Fraternity._
JANUARY 29.
Westward the Star of Empire! Come West, young men! Westward ho! to all
of you who want an opportunity to do something and to be something.
Here is the place in the great Southwest, in the great Northwest, in
all the great West, where you can find an opportunity ready to your
hand. We are only 3,000,000 now. There is room here for 30,000,000.
Where each one of us is now finding an opportunity to do something and
be something there is plenty of room for ten more of you to come and
join us.
G.W. BURTON,
in _Burton's Book on California._
JANUARY 30.
IN CALIFORNIA'S MOUNTAINS.
'Mid the far, fair hills, beneath the pines
With their carpet of needles, soft and brown.
Dwells the precious scent of rare old wines.
Where the sun's distilling rays pour down:
Away from the city, mile on mile,
Far up in the hills where life's worth while.
There the rivulet in gladness leaps
Down a fronded valley, sweet and cool,
Or pausing a little moment sleeps
In a mossy, rock-bound, limpid pool:
Away from the city, mile on mile,
Far up in the hills where life's worth while.
The wild bird carols its sweetest lay,
And the world seems golden with love's good cheer;
There is never a care to cloud the day,
And Heaven, itself, seems, oh, so near!
Away from the city, mile on mile.
Far up in the hills where life's worth while.
WILLIS GEORGE EMERSON.
JANUARY 31.
OUT HERE IN CALIFORNIA.
Out here in California, when Winter's on the scene
And the earth is like a maiden clad in shimmering robes of green;
When the mountains 'way off yonder lift their snowy peaks to God,
While here the dainty flowers raise their faces from the sod;
When the sunbeams kiss the waters till they laugh beneath the rays,
And nature seems a-joining in a matchless hymn of praise;
When there's just enough of frostiness a sense of life to give,
Right here in California it's a comfort just to live.
Out here in California in the January days
The soul of nature seems to sing a jubilee of praise,
And the songbirds whistle clearer, and the blossoms are more fair,
And someway joy and blessing seem about us in the air.
It's cold perhaps off yonder, but we never feel it here,
For the seasons run together through a Summer-haunted year,
And Dame Nature in her bounty leaves us nothing to forgive
Right here in California, where it's comfort just to live.
Out here in California where the orange turns to gold
And Nature has forgotten all the art of growing old,
There's not a day throughout the year when flowers do not grow;
There's not a single hour the streams do not unfettered flow;
There's not a briefest moment when the songsters do not sing,
And life's a sort of constant race 'twixt Summer and the Spring.
Why, just to know the joy of it one might his best years give--
Out here in California, where it's comfort just to live.
A.J. WATERHOUSE.
FEBRUARY 1.
Night-time in California. Elsewhere men only guess
At the glory of the evenings that are perfect--nothing less;
But here the nights, returning, are the wond'rous gifts of God--
As if the days were maidens fair with golden slippers shod.
There is no cloud to hide the sky; the universe is ours,
And the starlight likes to look and laugh in Cupid-haunted bowers.
Oh the restful, peaceful evenings! In them my soul delights,
For God loved California when He gave to her her nights.
ALFRED JAMES WATERHOUSE,
in _Some Homely Little Songs._
FEBRUARY 2.
There it lay, a constellation of lights, a golden radiance dimmed by
the distance. San Francisco the Impossible. The City of Miracles! Of
it and its people many stories have been told, and many shall be; but
a thousand tales shall not exhaust its treasury of romance. Earthquake
and fire shall not change it, terror and suffering shall not break its
glad, mad spirit. Time alone can tame the town, restrain its wanton
manners, refine its terrible beauty, rob it of its nameless charm,
subdue it to the commonplace. May time be merciful--may it delay its
fatal duty till we have learned that to love, to forgive, to enjoy, is
but to understand!
GELETT BURGESS,
in _The Heart Line._
FEBRUARY 3.
INCONSTANCY.
The bold West Wind loved a crimson Rose.
West winds do.
This dainty secret he never had told.
He thought she knew.
But there were poppies to be caressed--
When he returned from his fickle quest,
He found _his_ Rose on another's breast.
Alas! Untrue!
IDA MANSFIELD-WILSON.
FEBRUARY 4.
THE FIRST FLAG RAISING IN CALIFORNIA.
In February, 1829 the ship Brookline of Boston arrived at San Diego.
The mate, James P. Arthur, was left at Point Loma, with a small party
to cure hides, while the vessel went up the coast. To attract passing
ships Arthur and one of his men, Greene, concluded to make and raise a
flag. This was done by using Greene's cotton shirt for the white and
Arthur's woolen shirts for the red and blue. With patient effort they
cut the stars and stripes with their knives, and sewed them together
with sail needles. A small tree lashed to their hut made a flag-pole.
A day or two later a schooner came in sight, and up went the flag.
This was on Point Loma, on the same spot, possibly, hallowed by the
graves of the seventy-five men who lost their lives in the Bennington
explosion, July 21, 1905.
MAJOR W.J. HANDY.
FEBRUARY 5.
Live for to-day--nor pause to fear
Of what To-morrow's sun may bring!
To-day has hours of hope and cheer.
To-day your songs of joy should ring.
The Yesterdays are dead and gone
Adown the long, uneven way;
But Hope is smiling with the dawn--
Live for To-day!
* * * * *
Live for To-day! He wins the crown
Whose work stands but the crucial test!
Who scales the heights through sneer and frown
And gives unto the world his best.
Bend to your task! The steep slopes climb,
And Love's true light will lead the way
To perfect peace in God's own time--
Live for To-day!
E.A. BRININSTOOL
FEBRUARY 6.
It is a peculiar feature of our sailing that within a few hours we may
change our climate. Cool, windy, moist, in the lower bays; and hot,
calm, and quiet in the rivers, creeks, and sloughs. As you go to Napa,
for instance, the wind gradually lightens as the bay is left, the air
is balmier, and finally the yacht is left becalmed. We can, moreover,
in two hours run from salt into fresh water. In spring the water is
fresh down into Suisun Bay; and at Antioch, fresh water is the rule.
The yachts frequently sail up there so that the barnacles will be
killed by the fresh water.
CHARLES G. YALE,
in _The Californian._
FEBRUARY 7.
Across San Pablo's heaving breast
I see the home-lights gleam,
As the sable garments of the night
Drop down on vale and stream.
* * * * *
Hard by, yon vessel from the seas
Her cargo homeward brings,
And soon, like sea-bird on her nest,
Will sleep with folded wings.
The fisher's boat swings in the bay,
From yonder point below,
While ours is drifting with the tide,
And rocking to and fro.
LUCIUS HARWOOD FOOTE,
in _A Red-Letter Day._
FEBRUARY 8.
A few years ago this valley of San Gabriel was a long open stretch of
wavy slopes and low rolling hills; in winter robed in velvety green
and spangled with myriads of flowers all strange to Eastern eyes; in
summer brown with sun-dried grass, or silvery gray where the light
rippled over the wild oats. Here and there stood groves of huge
live-oaks, beneath whose broad, time-bowed heads thousands of cattle
stamped away the noons of summer. Around the old mission, whose bells
have rung o'er the valley for a century, a few houses were grouped;
but beyond this there was scarcely a sign of man's work except the
far-off speck of a herdsman looming in the mirage, or the white walls
of the old Spanish ranch-house glimmering afar through the hazy
sunshine in which the silent land lay always sleeping.
T.S. VAN DYKE,
in _Southern California._
FEBRUARY 9.
The surroundings of Monterey could not well be more beautiful if they
had been gotten up to order. Hills, gently rising, the chain broken
here and there by a more abrupt peak, environ the city, crowned with
dark pines and the famous cypress of Monterey (_Cypressus macrocarpa_.)
Before us the bay lies calm and blue, and away across, can be seen
the town of Santa Cruz, an indistinct white gleam on the mountain side.
JOSEPHINE CLIFFORD McCRACKIN,
in _Another Juanita._
LOS ALTOS.
The lark sends up a carol blithe,
Bloom-billows scent the breeze,
Green-robed the rolling foot-hills rise
And poppies paint the leas.
HANNA OTIS BRUN.
FEBRUARY 10.
SANTA BARBARA.
A golden bay 'neath soft blue skies,
Where on a hillside creamy rise
The mission towers, whose patron saint
Is Barbara--with legend quaint.
HELEN ELLIOTT BANDINI,
in __History of California._
Dare to be free. Free to do the thing you crave to do and that craves
the doing. Free to live in that higher realm where none is fit to
criticise save one's self. Free to scorn ridicule, to face contempt,
to brave remorse. Free to give life to the one human soul that can
demand and grant such a boon--one's own self.
MIRIAM MICHELSON,
in _Anthony Overman._
FEBRUARY 11.
In Carmel pines the summer wind
Sings like a distant sea.
O harps of green, your murmurs find
An echoing chord in me!
On Carmel shore the breakers moan
Like pines that breast the gale.
O whence, ye winds and billows, flown
To cry your wordless tale?
GEORGE STERLING,
in _A Wine of Wizardry and Other Poems._
OAKLAND--BERKELEY--ALAMEDA.
O close-clasped towns across the bay,
Whose lights like gleaming jewels stray,
A ruby, golden, splendid way,
When day from earth has flown.
I watch you lighting night by night,
O twisted strands of jewels bright,
The altar-fires of home, alight--
I who am all alone.
GRACE HIBBARD,
in _Forget-me-nots from California._
FEBRUARY 12.
On the Berkeley Hills for miles away
I went a-roaming one winter's day,
And what do you think I saw, my dear?
A place where the sky came down to the hill,
And a big white cloud on the fresh green grass,
And bright red berries my basket to fill,
And mustard that grew in a golden mass--
All on a winter's day, my dear!
CHARLES KEELER,
in _Elfin Songs of Sunland._
FEBRUARY 13.
THE SUNSET GUN AT ANGEL ISLAND
A touch of night on the hill-tops gray;
A dusky hush on the quivering Bay;
A calm moon mounting the silent East--
White slave the day-god has released;
Small, scattered clouds
That seemed to wait
Like sheets of fire
O'er the Golden Gate.
And under Bonita, growing dim.
With a seeming pause on the ocean's rim,
Like a weary lab'rer, smiles the sun
To the booming crash of the sunset gun.
LOWELL OTUS REESE.
FEBRUARY 14.
MY VALENTINE.
My valentine needs not this day
Of Cupid's undisputed sway
To have my loving heart disclose
The love for her that brightly glows;
For it is hers alway, alway.
Whate'er the fickle world may say,
There's nought within its fair array
That for a moment could depose
My valentine.
Where'er the paths of life may stray,
'Mid valleys dark or gardens gay,
With holly wild or blushing rose,
Through summer's gleam or winter's snows,
Thou art, dear love, for aye and aye.
My valentine.
CLIFFORD HOWARD.
FEBRUARY 15.
JOAQUIN MILLER'S HOME ON THE HIGHTS.
* * * * *
Rugged! Rugged as Parnassus!
Rude, as all roads I have trod--
Yet are steeps and stone-strewn passes
Smooth o'erhead, and nearest God.
Here black thunders of my canyon
Shake its walls in Titan wars!
Here white sea-born clouds companion
With such peaks as know the stars.
* * * * *
Steep below me lies the valley,
Deep below me lies the town,
Where great sea-ships ride and rally,
And the world walks up and down.
O, the sea of lights far streaming
When the thousand flags are furled--
When the gleaming bay lies dreaming
As it duplicates the world.
* * * * *
JOAQUIN MILLER.
FEBRUARY 16.
I have watched the ships sailing and steaming in through the Golden
Gate, and they seemed like doves of peace bringing messages of
good-will from all the world. In the still night, when the scream of
the engine's whistle would reach my ears, I would reflect upon the
fact that though dwelling in a city whose boundaries were almost at
the verge of our nation's great territory, yet we were linked to it by
bands of steel, and Plymouth Rock did not seem so far from Shag Rock,
nor Bedloe's Island from Alcatraz.
LORENZO SOSSO,
in _Wisdom of the Wise._
FEBRUARY 17.
We believe that when future generations shall come to write our
history they will find that in this city of San Francisco we have been
true to our ideals; that we have struggled along as men who struggle,
not always unfalteringly, but at least always with a good heart; that
we have tried to do our duty by our town and by our country and by the
people who look to us for light, and that history will be able to say
of San Francisco that she has been true to her trust as the "Warder of
two continents"; that she has been the jewel set in the place where
the ends of the ring had met; that she is the mistress of the great
sea which spreads before us, and of the people who hunger for light,
for truth, and for civilization; that she stands for truth, a flaming
signal set upon the sentinel hills, calling all the nations to the
blessings of the freedom which we enjoy.
FATHER P.C. YORKE,
in _The Warder of Two Continents._
FEBRUARY 18.
FROM THE MOUNTAIN TOPS, LOOKING TOWARDS SAN FRANCISCO BAY.
From the mountain tops we see the valleys stretching out for leagues
below. The eye travels over the tilled fields and the blossoming
orchards, through the tall trees and along the verdant meadows that
are watered by the mountain streams. Beyond the valley rolls the
ocean, whereon we see the armored vessels, and the pleasure yachts,
and the merchant ships, laden with the grain of our golden shores,
sailing under every flag that floats the sea.
LAURENCE BRANNICK.
FEBRUARY 19.
THE POET'S SONG.
I gather flowers on moss-paved woodland ways
I roam with poets dead in tranced amaze;
Soon must my wild-wood sheaf be cast away,
But in my heart the poet's song shall stay.
CHARLES KEELER,
in _A Season's Sowing._
FEBRUARY 20.
Morning of fleet-arrive was splandid. By early hour of day all S.F.
persons has clustered therselves on tip of hills and suppression of
excitement was enjoyed. Considerable watching occurred. Barking of
dogs was strangled by collars, infant babies which desired to weep was
spanked for prevention of. Silences. Depressed banners was held in
American hands to get ready wave it.
Many persons in Sabbath clothings was there, including 1,000 Japanese
spies which were very nice behaviour. I was nationally proud of them.
Of suddenly, Oh!!!
Through the Goldy Gate, what see? Maglificent sight of marine
insurance! Floating war-boats of dozens approaching directly straight
by line and shooting salutes at people. On come them Imperial Navy of
Hon. Roosevelt and Hon. Hobson; what heart could quit beating at it?
Such white paint--like bath tub enamel, only more respectful in
appearance. * * *
From collected 1/2 million of persons on hills of S.F. one mad yell of
star-spangly joy. Fire-crack salute, siren whistle, honk-horn,
megaphone, extra edition, tenor solo--all connected together to give
impressions of loyal panderonium.
WALLACE IRWIN,
in _Letters of a Japanese Schoolboy._
FEBRUARY 21.
CALIFORNIA TO THE FLEET.
Behold, upon thy yellow sands,
I wait with laurels in my hands.
The Golden Gate swings wide and there
I stand with poppies in my hair.
Come in, O ships! These happy seas
Caressed the golden argosies
Of forty-nine. They felt the keel
Of dark Ayala's pinnace steal
Across the mellow gulf and pass
Unchallenged, under Alcatraz.
Not War we love, but Peace, and these
Are but the White Dove's argosies--
The symbols of a mighty will
No tyrant hand may use for ill.
DANIEL S. RICHARDSON,
in _Trail Dust._
FEBRUARY 22.
The splendors of a Sierra sunset cannot be accurately delineated by
pencil or brush. The combined pigments of a Hill and a Moran and a
Bierstadt cannot adequately reproduce so gorgeous a canvas. The
lingering sun floods all the west with flame; it touches with scarlet
tint the serrated outlines of the distant summits and hangs with
golden fringe each silvery cloud. Then the colors soften and turn into
amber and lilac and maroon. These soon assimilate and dissolve and
leave an ashes of rose haze on all far-away objects, when receding
twilight spreads its veil and shuts from view all but the mountain
outlines, the giant taxodiums and the fantastic fissures of the
canyons beneath.
BEN C. TRUMAN,
in _Occidental Sketches._
FEBRUARY 23.
GOLDEN GATE PARK IN MIDWINTER.
The dewdrops hang on the bending grass,
A dragon-fly cuts a sunbeam through.
The moaning cypress trees lift somber arms
Up to skies of cloudless blue.
A humming-bird sips from a golden cup,
In the hedge a hidden bird sings,
And a butterfly among the flowers
Tells me that the soul has wings.
GRACE HIBBARD,
in _Wild Roses of California._
FEBRUARY 24.
Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature's peace will
flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their
own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will
drop off like autumn leaves.
JOHN MUIR.
It was indeed a glorious morning. The bay, a molten blaze of many
blended hues, bore upon its serene surface the flags of all nations,
above which brooded the white doves of peace. Crafts of every
conceivable description swung in the flame-lit fathoms that laved the
feet of the stately hills, then stepping out, one by one, from their
gossamer night robes to receive the first kiss of dawn.
Grim Alcatraz, girdled with bristling armaments, scintillating in the
sun, suggested the presence of some monster leviathan, emerging from
the deep, still undivested of gems, from his submarine home.
EUGENIA KELLOGG,
in _The Awakening of Poccalito._
FEBRUARY 25.
THE SIERRA NEVADAS
They watch and guard the sleeping dells
Where ice born torrents flow--
A myriad granite sentinels,
Helmed and cuirassed with snow.
* * * * *
Yon glacial torrent's deep, hoarse lute
Its upward music flings--
The great, eternal crags stand mute,
And listen while it sings
O mighty range! Thy wounds and scars,
Thy weird, bewildering forms,
Attest thine everlasting wars--
Thy heritage of storms
And still what peace! Serenity
On crag and deep abyss,
O, may such calmness fall on me
When Azrael stoops to kiss.
GEORGE N. LOWE.
FEBRUARY 26.
Tamalpais is a wooded mountain with ample slopes, and from it on the
north stretch away ridges of forest land, the out posts of the great
Northern woods of _Sequoia sempervirens_, This mountain and the
mountainous country to the south bring the forest closer to San
Francisco than to any other American city. Within the last few years
men have killed deer on the slopes of Tamalpais and looked down to see
the cable cars crawling up the hills of San Francisco to the south. In
the suburbs coyotes still stole in and robbed hen roosts by night.
WILL IRWIN,
in _The City That Was._
FEBRUARY 27.
DAWN ON MOUNT TAMALPAIS.
A cloudless heaven is bending o'er us,
The dawn is lighting the linn and lea;
Island and headland and bay before us,
And, dim in the distance, the heaving sea.
The Farallon light is faintly flashing,
The birds are wheeling in fitful flocks,
The coast-line brightens, the waves are dashing
And tossing their spray on the Lobos rocks.
The Heralds of Morn in the east are glowing
And boldly lifting the veil of night;
Whitney and Shasta are bravely showing
Their crowns of snow in the morning light.
The town is stirring with faint commotion,
In all its highways it throbs and thrills;
We greet you! Queen of the Western Ocean,
As you wake to life on your hundred hills.
The forts salute, and the flags are streaming
From ships at anchor in cove and strait;
O'er the mountain tops, in splendor beaming,
The sun looks down on the Golden Gate.
LUCIUS HARWOOD FOOTE.
FEBRUARY 28.
ENOUGH.
When my calm majestic mountains are piled white and high
Against the perfect rose-tints of a living sunrise sky,
I can resign the dearest wish without a single sigh,
And let the whole world's restlessness pass all unheeded by.
MARY RUSSELL MILLS.
FEBRUARY 29.
MARSHALL SAUNDERS ON SAN FRANCISCO.
How we all love a city that we have once contemplated making our home!
Such a city to me is San Francisco, and but for unavoidable duties
elsewhere, I would be there today. I loved that bright, beautiful
city, and even the mention of its name sends my blood bounding more
quickly through my veins. That might have been _my_ city, and I
therefore rejoice in its prosperity. I am distressed when calamity
overtakes it--I never lose faith in its ultimate success. The heart of
the city is sound. It has always been sound, even in the early days
when a ring of corrupt adventurers would have salted the city of the
blessed herb with an unsavory reputation, but for the care of staunch
and courageous protectors at the heart of it.
San Francisco is not the back door of the continent. San Francisco is
the front door. Every ship sailing out of its magnificent bay to the
Orient, proclaims this fact. San Francisco will one day lead the
continent. A city that cares for its poor and helpless, its children
and dumb animals, that encourages art and learning, and never wearies
in its prosecution of evil-doers--that city will eventually emerge
triumphant from every cloud of evil report. Long live the dear city by
the Golden Gate!
MARSHALL SAUNDERS, _July_, 1909.
"Senor Barrow, I congratulate you," Morale said, in his native tongue.
"A woman who cannot be won away by passion or by chance, is a woman of
gold."
GERTRUDE B. MILLARD,
in _On the Ciudad Road, The Newsletter, Jan._, 1899.
AT THE PRESIDIO OF SAN FRANCISCO.
The rose and honey-suckle here entwine
In lovely comradeship their am'rous arms;
Here grasses spread their undecaying charms.
And every wall is eloquent with vine;
Far-reaching avenues make beckoning sign,
And as we stroll along their tree-lined way,
The songster trills his rapture-breathing lay
From where he finds inviolable shrine.
And yet, within this beauty-haunted place
War keeps his dreadful engines at command.
With scarce a smile upon his frowning face,
And ever ready, unrelaxing hand ...
We start to see, when dreaming in these bowers,
A tiger sleeping on a bed of flowers.
EDWARD ROBESON TAYLOR,
in _Moods and Other Verse._
MARCH 1.
THE CITY'S VOICE.
A mighty undertone of mingled sound;
The cadent tumult rising from a throng
Of urban workers, blending in a song
Of greater life that makes the pulses bound.
The whirr of turning wheels, the hammers' ring
The noise of traffic and the tread of men,
The viol's sigh, the scratching of a pen--
All to a vibrant Whole their echoes fling.
Hark to the City's voice; it tells a tale
Of triumphs and defeats, of joy and woe,
The lover's tryst, the challenge of a foe,
A dying gasp, a new-born infant's wail.
The pulse-beats of a million hearts combined,
Reverberating in a rhythmic thrill--
A vital message that is never still--
A sweeping, cosmic chorus, unconfined.
LOUIS J. STELLMANN,
in _San Francisco Town Talk, December_ 6, 1902.
MARCH 2.
From his windows on Russian Hill one saw always something strange and
suggestive creeping through the mists of the bay. It would be a South
Sea Island brig, bringing in copra, to take out cottons and idols; a
Chinese junk after sharks' livers; an old whaler, which seemed to drip
oil, home from a year of cruising in the Arctic. Even the tramp
windjammers were deep-chested craft, capable of rounding the Horn or
of circumnavigating the globe; and they came in streaked and
picturesque from their long voyaging.
WILL IRWIN,
in _The City That Was._
MARCH 3.
WILD HONEY.
The swarms that escape from their careless owners have a weary,
perplexing time of it in seeking suitable homes. Most of them make
their way to the foot-hills of the mountains, or to the trees that
line the banks of the rivers, where some hollow log or trunk may be
found. A friend of mine, while out hunting on the San Joaquin, came
upon an old coon trap, hidden among some tall grass, near the edge of
the river, upon which he sat down to rest. Shortly afterward his
attention was attracted to a crowd of angry bees that were flying
excitedly about his head, when he discovered that he was sitting upon
their hive, which was found to contain more than 200 pounds of honey.
JOHN MUIR,
in _The Mountains of California._
MARCH 4.
PHOSPHORESCENT SEA WAVES, BALBOA BEACH, CAL.
Responsive to my oar and hand,
Touching to glory sea and sand.
A glint, a sparkle, a flash, a flame,
An ecstasy above all name.
What art thou, strange, mysterious flame?
Art thou some flash of central fire,
So pure and strong thou wilt not expire
Tho' plunged in ocean's seething main?
Mayest thou not be that sacred flame,
Creative, moulding, purging fire.
Aspiring, abandoning all desire
Shaping perfection from Life's pain?
MARY RUSSELL MILLS,
in _Fellowship Magazine._
MARCH 5.
THE JOY OF THE HILLS.
I ride on the mountain tops, I ride;
I have found my life and am satisfied.
* * * * *
I ride on the hills, I forgive, I forget
Life's hoard of regret--
All the terror and pain
Of the chafing chain.
Grind on, O cities, grind;
I leave you a blur behind.
I am lifted elate--the skies expand;
Here the world's heaped gold is a pile of sand.
Let them weary and work in their narrow walls;
I ride with the voices of waterfalls!
I swing on as one in a dream; I swing
Down the airy hollows, I shout, I sing!
The world is gone like an empty word;
My body's a bough in the wind, my heart a bird.
EDWIN MARKHAM,
in _The Man with a Hoe, and Other Poems._
MARCH 6.
We move about these streets of San Francisco in cars propelled by
electric energy created away yonder on the Tuolumne River in the
foothills of the Sierras; we sit at home and read by a light furnished
from the same distant source. How splendid it all is--the swiftly
flowing cascades of the Sierra Nevadas are being harnessed like
beautiful white horses, tireless and ageless, to draw the chariots
of industry around this Bay.
CHARLES REYNOLDS BROWN.
MARCH 7.
BACK, BACK TO NATURE.
Weary! I am weary of the madness of the town,
Deathly weary of all women, and all wine.
Back, back to Nature! I will go and lay me down,
Bleeding lay me down before her shrine.
For the mother-breast the hungry babe must call,
Loudly to the shore cries the surf upon the sea;
Hear, Nature wide and deep! after man's mad festival
How bitterly my soul cries out for thee!
HERMAN SCHEFFAUER,
in _Of Both Worlds._
MARCH 8.
Across the valley was another mountain, dark and grand, with flecks of
black growing _chemisai_ in clefts and crevices, and sunny slopes
and green fields lying at its base. And oh, the charm of these
mountains. In the valley there might be fog and the chill of the
north, but on the mountains lay the warmth and the dreaminess of the
south.
JOSEPHINE CLIFFORD McCRACKIN,
in _Overland Tales._
The furious wind that came driving down the canyon lying far below him
was the breath of the approaching multitude of storm-demons. The giant
trees on the slopes of the canyon seemed to brace themselves against
the impending assault. * * *
At the bottom of the canyon, the Sacramento River here a turbulent
mountain stream, and now a roaring torrent from the earlier rains of
the season, fumed and foamed as it raced with the wind down the canyon
hurrying on its way to the placid reaches in the plains of California.
W.C. MORROW,
in _A Man: His Mark._
MARCH 9.
THE ROCK DIVING OF MOUNTAIN SHEEP.
On another occasion, a flock ... retreated to another portion of this
same cliff (over 150 feet high), and, on being followed, they were
seen jumping down in perfect order, one behind another, by two men who
happened to be chopping where they had a fair view of them and could
watch their progress from top to bottom of the precipice. Both ewes
and rams made the frightful descent without evincing any extraordinary
concern, hugging the rock closely, and controlling the velocity of
their half-falling, half-leaping movements by striking at short
intervals and holding back with their cushioned, rubber feet upon
small ledges and roughened inclines until near the bottom, when they
"sailed off" into the free air and alighted on their feet, but with
their bodies so nearly in a vertical position that they appeared to be
diving.
JOHN MUIR,
in _The Mountains of California._
MARCH 10.
The ridge, ascending from seaward in a gradual coquetry of foot-hills,
broad low ranges, cross-systems, canyons, little flats, and gentle
ravines, inland dropped off almost sheer to the river below. And from
under your very feet rose range after range, tier after tier, rank
after rank, in increasing crescendo of wonderful tinted mountains to
the main crest of the Coast Range, the blue distance, the mightiness
of California's western systems. * * * And in the far distance,
finally, your soul grown big in a moment, came to rest on the great
precipices and pines of the greatest mountains of all, close under the
sky.
STEWART EDWARD WHITE,
in _The Mountains._
MARCH 11.
TO YOU, MY FRIEND.
To you, my friend, where'er you be,
Though known or all unknown to me;
To you, who love the things of God,
The dew-begemmed and velvet sod,
The birds that trill beside their nest.
"Oh, love, sweet love, of life is best;"
To you, for whom each sunset glows.
This message goes.
To you, my friend. Mayhap 'tis writ
We ne'er shall meet. What matters it?
Where'er we roam, God's light shall gleam
For us on hill and wold and stream.
And we shall hold the blossoms dear,
And baby lips shall give us cheer,
And, loving these, leal friends are we,
Where'er you be.
To you, my friend, who know right well
That life is more than money's spell,
Who hear the universal call,
"Let all love all, as He loves all,"
Oh, list me in your ranks benign,
Accept this falt'ring hand of mine
Which, though unworthy, I extend.
And hold me friend.
A.J. WATERHOUSE.
MARCH 12.
Strength is meant for something more than merely to be strong;
And Life is not a lifetime spent in strain to keep alive.
CHARLES F. LUMMIS,
in _The Transplantation._
MARCH 13.
HER KING.
A winsome maiden planned her life--
How, when she was her hero's wife,
He should be royal among men,
And worthy of a diadem.
Through all the devious ways of earth
She sought her king;
The snows of Winter fell before--
She walked o'er flowers of vanished Spring
Into the Summer's fragrant heat;
She bent her quest, with rapid feet,
Then saddened; still she journeyed down
The Autumn hillsides, bare and brown,
Through shadowy eves and golden morns;
And lo! she found him--crowned with thorns.
ANNA MORRISON REED.
MARCH 14.
The area of San Francisco Bay proper is two hundred and ninety square
miles; the area of San Pablo Bay, Carquinez Straits, and Mare Island,
thirty square miles; the area of Suisun Bay, to the confluence of the
San Joaquin and Sacramento rivers, is sixty-three square miles. The
total bay area is therefore four hundred and eighty square miles; and
there are hundreds of miles of slough, river, and creek. A yachtsman,
starting from Alviso, at the southern end of the bay, may sail in one
general direction one hundred and fifty-four miles to Sacramento,
before turning. All of this, of course, in inland waters.
CHARLES G. YALE,
in _The Californian._
MARCH 15.
It was the green heart of the canyon, where the walls swerved back
from the rigid plain and relieved their harshness of line by making a
little sheltered nook and filling it to the brim with sweetness and
roundness and softness. Here all things rested. Even the narrow stream
ceased its turbulent down-rush long enough to form a quiet pool.
Knee-deep in the water, with drooping head and half-shut eyes, drowsed
a red-coated, many-antlered buck.
On one side, beginning at the very lip of the pool, was a tiny meadow,
a cool, resilient surface of green, that extended to the base of the
frowning wall. Beyond the pool a gentle slope of earth ran up and up
to meet the opposing wall. Fine grass covered the slope--grass that
was spangled with flowers, with here and there patches of color,
orange and purple and golden. Below, the canyon was shut in. There was
no view. The walls leaned together abruptly and the canyon ended in a
chaos of rocks, moss-covered and hidden by a green screen of vines and
creepers and boughs of trees. Up the canyon rose far hills and peaks,
the big foot-hills, pine covered and remote. And far beyond, like
clouds upon the border of the sky, towered minarets of white, where
the Sierra's eternal snows flashed austerely the blazes of the sun.
JACK LONDON,
in _All Gold Canyon._
MARCH 16.
Except you are kindred with those who have speech with great spaces,
and the four winds of the earth, and the infinite arch of God's sky,
you shall not have understanding of the desert's lure.
IDAH MEACHAM STROBRIDGE,
in _Miner's Mirage Land._
MARCH 17.
ST. PATRICK'S DAY IN CALIFORNIA.
This day we celebrate is a day of faith, faith in God and the
motherland. It is a day of gratitude to the God whose grace brought
our fathers into the Christian life, a day of gratitude to the nations
which received our fathers and blessed them with the privileges of
citizenship. Let us not mind the minor chord of sorrow and
persecution. Let us rather take the major chord of glory and of honor,
and from the days of scholarship and of freedom to the present moment
of a world's national power, let us chant the hymns of glory and sing
of victory.
BISHOP THOMAS J. CONATY.
MARCH 18.
Said one, who upward turned his eye,
To scan the trunks from earth to sky:
"These trees, no doubt, well rooted grew
When ancient Nineveh was new;
And down the vale long shadows cast
When Moses out of Egypt passed,
And o'er the heads of Pharaoh's slaves
And soldiers rolled the Red Sea waves."
"How must the timid rabbit shake,
The fox within his burrow quake,
The deer start up with quivering hide
To gaze in terror every side,
The quail forsake the trembling spray,
When these old roots at last give way,
And to the earth the monarch drops
To jar the distant mountain-tops."
PALMER COX,
in _The Brownies Through California._
MARCH 19 AND MARCH 20.
A WINDOW AND A TREE IN ALTADENA.
By my window a magician, breathing whispers of enchantment,
Stands and waves a wand above me till the flowing of my soul,
Like the tide's deep rhythm, rises in successive swells that widen
All my circumscribed horizon, till the finite fades away;
And the fountains of my being in their innermost recesses
Are unsealed, and as the seas sweep, sweep the waters of my soul
Till they reach the shores of Heaven and with ebb-tide bear a pearl
Back in to the heart's safe-keeping, where no thieves break through
nor steal.
* * * * *
By my window stands confessor with his hands outstretched to bless me,
And on bended knee I listen to his low "Absolvo te."
Ne'er was mass more sacramental, ne'er confessional more solemn,
And the benediction given ne'er shall leave my shriven soul.
* * * * *
Just a tree beside my window--just a symbol sent from Heaven--
But with Proteus power it ever changes meaning--changes form--
And it speaks with tongues of angels, and it prophesies the rising
Of the day-star which shall shine out from divinity in man.
LANNIE HAYNES MARTIN.
MARCH 21.
IN THE REDWOOD CANYONS.
Down in the redwood canyons cool and deep,
The shadows of the forest ever sleep;
The odorous redwoods, wet with fog and dew,
Touch with the bay and mingle with the yew.
Under the firs the red madrona shines,
The graceful tan-oaks, fairest of them all,
Lean lovingly unto the sturdy pines,
In whose far tops the birds of passage call.
Here, where the forest shadows ever sleep,
The mountain-lily lifts its chalice white;
The myriad ferns hang draperies soft and white
Thick on each mossy bank and watered steep,
Where slender deer tread softly in the night--
Down in the redwood canyons dark and deep.
LILLIAN H. SHUEY,
in _Among the Redwoods._
MARCH 22.
You rode three miles on the flat, two in the leafy and gradually
ascending creek-bed of a canyon, a half hour of laboring steepness in
the overarching mountain lilac and laurel. There you came to a great
rock gateway which seemed the top of the world. * * * Beyond the
gateway a lush level canyon into which you plunged as into a bath;
then again the laboring trail, up and always up toward the blue
California sky, out of the lilacs, and laurels, and redwood chaparral
into the manzanita, the Spanish bayonet, the creamy yucca, and the
fine angular shale of the upper regions. Beyond the apparent summit
you found always other summits yet to be climbed, and all at once,
like thrusting your shoulders out of a hatchway, you looked over the
top.
STEWART EDWARD WHITE,
in _The Mountains._
MARCH 23.
DONNER LAKE.
So fair thou art--so still and deep--
Half hidden in thy granite cup.
From depths of crystal smiling up
As smiles a woman in her sleep!
The pine trees whisper where they lean
Above thy tide; and, mirrored there
The purple peaks their bosoms bare,
Reflected in thy silver sheen.
So fair thou art! And yet there dwells
Within thy sylvan solitudes
A memory which darkling broods
And all thy witchery dispels.
DANIEL S. RICHARDSON,
in _Trail Dust._
MARCH 24.
DONNER LAKE.
Donner Lake a pleasure resort! Can you understand for one moment how
strange this seems to me? I must be as old as Haggard's "She," since I
have lived to see our papers make such a statement. It is years since
I was there, yet I can feel the cold and hunger and hear the moan of
the pines; those grand old trees that used to tell me when a storm was
brewing and seemed to be about the only thing there alive, as the snow
could not speak. But now that the place is a pleasure resort--the moan
of the pines should cease.
VIRGINIA REED MURPHY.
MARCH 25.
THE LURE OF THE DESERT LAND.
Have you slept in a tent alone--a tent
Out under the desert sky--
Where a thousand thousand desert miles
All silent 'round you lie?
The dust of the aeons of ages dead,
And the peoples that tramped by!
* * * * *
Have you lain with your face in your hands, afraid,
Face down--flat down on your face--and prayed,
While the terrible sandstorm whirled and swirled
In its soundless fury, and hid the world
And quenched the sun in its yellow glare--
Just you and your soul, and nothing there?
If you have, then you know, for you've felt its spell,
The lure of the desert land.
And if you have not, then you could not tell--
For you could not understand.
MADGE MORRIS WAGNER,
in _Lippincott's._
MARCH 26.
One of the most beautiful lakes in the world is Lake Tahoe. It is six
thousand feet above sea-level, and the mountains around it rise four
thousand feet higher. * * * The first thing one would notice, perhaps,
is the wonderful clearness of the lake water. As one stands on the
wharf the steamer _Tahoe_ seems to be hanging in the clear green
depths with her keel and propellers in plain sight. The fish dart
under her and all about as in some large aquarium. * * * Every stick
or stone shows on the bottom as one sails along where the water is
sixty or seventy feet deep.
ELLA M. SEXTON,
in _Stories of California._
MARCH 27.
A PLAINSMAN'S SONG--MY LOVE.
Oh, give me a clutch in my hand of as much
Of the mane of a horse as a hold,
And let his desire to be gone be a fire
And let him be snorting and bold!
And then with a swing on his back let me fling
My leg that is naked as steel
And let us away to the end of the day
To quiet the tempest I feel.
And keen as the wind with the cities behind
And prairie before--like a sea,
With billows of grass that lash as we pass.
Make way for my stallion and me!
And up with his nose till his nostril aglows,
And out with his tail and his mane,
And up with my breast till the breath of the West
Is smiting me--knight of the plain!
Oh, give me a gleam of your eyes, love adream
With the kiss of the sun and the dew,
And mountain nor swale, nor the scorch nor the hail
Shall halt me from spurring to you!
For wild as a flood-melted snow for its blood--
By crag, gorge, or torrent, or shoal,
I'll ride on my steed and lay tho' it bleed,
My heart at your feet--and my soul!
PHILIP VERRILL MICHELS,
in _Harper's Weekly._
MARCH 28.
Lo, a Power divine, in all nature is found,
A Power omniscient, unfailing, profound;
A great Heart, that loves beauty and order and light.
In the flowers, in the shells, in the stars of the night.
JOSIAH KEEP,
in _Shells and Sea-Life._
MARCH 29.
BACK TO THE DESERT.
Call it the land of thirst,
Call it the land accurst,
Or what you will;
There where the heat-lines twirl
And the dust-devils whirl
His heart turns still.
* * * * *
Back to the land he knows,
Back where the yucca grows
And cactus bole;
Where the coyote cries,
Where the black buzzard flies
Flyeth his soul!
BAILEY MILLARD,
in _Songs of the Press._
MARCH 30.
DRIVING THE LAST SPIKE, 1869.
Under the desert sky the spreading multitude was called to order.
There followed a solemn prayer of thanksgiving. The laurel tie was
placed, amidst ringing cheers. The golden spike was set. The
trans-American telegraph wire was adjusted. Amid breathless silence
the silver hammer was lifted, poised, dropped, giving the gentle tap
that ticked the news to all the world! Then, blow on blow, Governor
Stanford sent the spike to place! A storm of wild huzzas burst forth;
desert rock and sand, plain and mountain, echoed the conquest of their
terrors. The two engines moved up, touched noses; and each in turn
crossed the magic tie. America was belted! The great Iron Way was
finished.
SARAH PRATT CARR,
in _The Iron Way._
MARCH 31.
THE SPIRIT OF THE WEST.
All wearied with the burdens of a place
Grown barren, over-crowded and despoiled
Of vital freshness by the weight of years.
A sage ascended to the mountain tops
To peer, as Moses once had done of old,
Into the distance for a Promised Land:
And there, his gaze toward the setting sun.
Beheld the Spirit of the Occident,
Bold, herculean, in its latent strength--
A youthful destiny that beckoned on
To fields all vigorous with natal life.
The years have passed; the sage has led a band
Of virile, sturdy men into the West.
And these have toiled and multiplied and stamped
Upon the face of Nature wondrous things.
Until, created from the virgin soil,
Great industries arise as monuments
To their endeavor; and a mighty host
Now labors in a once-untrodden waste--
Quick-pulsed with life-blood, from a heart that throbs
Its vibrant dominance throughout the world.
Today, heroic in the sunset's glow,
A figure looms, colossal and serene.
In royal power of accomplishment,
That claims the gaze of nations over sea
And beckons, still, as in the years agone.
The weary ones of earth to its domain--
That they may drink from undiluted founts
An inspiration of new energy.
LOUIS J. STELLMAN,
in _Sunset Magazine, August_, 1903.
DESERT LURE.
The hills are gleaming brass, and bronze the peaks,
The mesas are a brazen, molten sea,
And e'en the heaven's blue infinity,
Undimmed by kindly cloud through arid weeks,
Seems polished turquoise. Like a sphinx she speaks,
The scornful desert: "What would'st thou from me?"
And in our hearts we answer her; all three
Unlike, for each a different treasure seeks.
One sought Adventure, and the desert gave;
His restless heart found rest beneath her sands.
One sought but gold. He dug his soul a grave;
The desert's gift worked evil in his hands.
One sought for beauty; him She made her slave.
Turn back! No man her 'witched gift withstands.
CHARLTON LAWRENCE EDHOLM,
in _Ainslee's, July_, 1907.
APRIL 1.
Hark! What is the meaning of this stir in the air. why are the brooks
so full of laughter, the birds pouring forth such torrents of sweet
song, as if unable longer to contain themselves for very joy? The
hills and ravines resound with happy voices. Let us re-echo the
cheering vibrations with the gladness of our hearts, with the hope
arisen from the tomb of despair. With buoyant spirit, let us join in
the merry mood of the winged songsters; let us share the gaiety of the
flowers and trees, and let our playful humor blend with the musical
flow and tinkle of the silvery, shimmering rivulet. Greetings, let
fond greetings burst from the smiling lips on this most happy of all
occasions! The natal day of the flowers, the tender season of love and
beauty, the happy morn of mother Nature's bright awakening! The
resurrection, indeed! The world palpitating with fresh young life--it
is the Holiday of holidays, the Golden Holiday for each and all--the
Birth of Spring.
BERTHA HIRSCH BARUCH,
_Copyright_, 1907.
APRIL 2.
Almost has the Californian developed a racial physiology. He tends
to size, to smooth symmetry of limb and trunk, to an erect, free
carriage; and the beauty of his women is not a myth. The pioneers were
all men of good body; they had to be to live and leave descendants.
The bones of the weaklings who started for El Dorado in 1849 lie on
the plains or in the hill cemeteries of the mining camps. Heredity
began it; climate has carried it out.
WILL IRWIN,
in _The City That Was._
APRIL 3.
AN EASTER OFFERING.
I watched a lily through the Lenten-tide;
From when its emerald sheath first pierced the mould.
I saw the satin blades uncurl, unfold,
And, softly upward, stretch with conscious pride
Toward the fair sky. At length, the leaves beside,
There came a flower beauteous to behold,
Breathing of purest joy and peace untold;
Its radiance graced the Easter altar-side.
And in my heart there rose a sense of shame
That I, alas, no precious gift had brought
Which could approach the beauty of this thing--
I who had sought to bear the Master's name!
Humbly I bowed while meek repentance wrought,
With silent tears, her chastened offering.
BLANCHE M. BURBANK
APRIL 4.
For all the toll the desert takes of a man it gives compensations,
deep breaths, deep sleep, and the communion of the stars. It comes
upon one with new force that the Chaldeans were a desert-bred people.
It is hard to escape the sense of mastery as the stars move in the
wide, clear heavens to risings and settings unobscured. They look
large and near and palpitant; as if they moved on some stately service
not needful to declare. Wheeling to their stations in the sky, they
make the poor world fret of no account. Of no account you who lie out
there watching, nor the lean coyote that stands off in the scrub from
you and howls and howls.
MARY AUSTIN,
in _The Land of Little Rain._
APRIL 5.
DESERT CALLS.
There are breaks in the voice of the shouting street
Where the smoke drift comes sifting down,
And I list to the wind calls, far and sweet--
They are not from the winds of the town.
O I lean to the rush of the desert air
And the bite of the desert sand,
I feel the hunger, the thirst and despair--
And the joy of the still border land!
For the ways of the city are blocked to the end
With the grim procession of death--
The treacherous love and the shifting friend
And the reek of a multitude's breath.
But the arms of the Desert are lean and slim
And his gaunt breast is cactus-haired,
His ways are as rude as the mountain rim--
But the heart of the Desert is bared.
HARLEY R. WILEY,
in _Out West Magazine._
APRIL 6.
In the universal pean of gladness which the earth at Eastertide raises
to the Lord of Life, the wilderness and the solitary place have part,
and the desert then does in truth blossom as the rose. And how
comforting are the blossoms of the desert when at last they have come!
When the sun has sunk behind the rim of the verdure-less range of
granite hills that westward bound my view, and the palpitating light
of the night's first stars shines out in the tender afterglow, I love
to linger on the cooling sands and touch my cheek to the flowers. Now
has the desert shaken off the livery of death, and ... is become an
abiding place of hope.
CHARLES FRANCIS SAUNDERS,
in _Blossoms of the Desert._
APRIL 7.
There had been no hand to lay a wreath upon his tomb. But soon, as
if the weeping skies had scattered seeds of pity, tiny flowerets,
yellow, blue, red, and white, were sprouting on the sides of the
grave. * * * A delicious perfume filled the air. The desert cemetery
was now a place of beauty as well as a place of peace. But the silence
and solitude remained unbroken, except when a long-tailed lizard
scurried through the undergrowth, or a big horned toad, white and
black, like patterned enamel, took a blinking peep of melancholy
surprise into the yawning ditch that blocked his accustomed way.
EDMUND MITCHELL,
in _In Desert Keeping._
APRIL 8.
To those who know the desert's heart, and through years of closest
intimacy--have learned to love it in all its moods; it has for them
something that is greater than charm, more lasting than beauty a
something to which no man can give a name. Speech is not needed, for
they who are elect to love these things understand one another without
words; and the desert speaks to them through its silence.
IDAH MEACHAM STROBRIDGE,
in _Miner's Mirage Land._
At length I struck upon a spot where a little stream of water was
oozing out from the bank of sand. As I scraped away the surface I saw
something which would have made me dance for joy had I not been
weighed down by the long boots. For there, in very truth, was a live
Olive, with its graceful shell and a beautiful pearl-colored body.
JOSIAH KEEP,
in _West Coast Shells._
APRIL 9.
DESERT DUST.
With all its heat and dust the desert has its charms. The desert dust
is dusty dust, but not dirty dust. Compared with the awful organic
dust of New York, London, or Paris, it is inorganic and pure. On those
strips of the Libyan and Arabian deserts which lie along the Nile, the
desert dust is largely made up of the residuum of royalty, of withered
Ptolemies, of arid Pharaohs, for the tombs of queens and kings are
counted here by the hundreds, and of their royal progeny and their
royal retainers by the thousands. These dessicated dynasties have been
drying so long that they are now quite antiseptic.
The dust of these dead and gone kings makes extraordinarily fertile
soil for vegetable gardens when irrigated with the rich, thick water
of the Nile. Their mummies also make excellent pigments for the brush.
Rameses and Setos, Cleopatra and Hatasu--all these great ones, dead
and turned to clay, are said, when properly ground, to make a rich
umber paint highly popular with artists.
JEROME HART,
in _A Levantine Log-Book._
APRIL 10.
The mountain wall of the Sierra bounds California on its eastern side.
It is rampart, towering and impregnable, between the garden and the
desert. From its crest, brooded over by cloud, glittering with crusted
snows, the traveler can look over crag and precipice, mounting files
of pines and ravines swimming in unfathomable shadow, to where, vast,
pale, far-flung in its dreamy adolescence, lies California, the
garden.
GERALDINE BONNER,
in _The Pioneer._
APRIL 11.
MIRAGE IN THE MOHAVE DESERT.
They hear the rippling waters call;
They see the fields of balm;
And faint and clear above it all,
The shimmer of some silver palm
That shines thro' all that stirless calm
So near, so near--and yet they fall
All scorched with heat and blind with pain,
Their faces downward to the plain,
Their arms reached toward the mountain wall.
ROSALIE KERCHEVAL.
APRIL 12.
The desert calls to him who has once felt its strange attraction,
calls and compels him to return, as the sea compels the sailor to
forsake the land. He who has once felt its power can never free
himself from the haunting charm of the desert.
GEORGE HAMILTON FITCH,
in _Palm Springs, Land of Sunshine Magazine._
IN SANCTUARY.
The wind broke open a rose's heart
And scattered her petals far apart.
Driven before the churlish blast
Some in the meadow brook were cast,
Or fell in the tangle of the sedge;
Some were impaled on the thorn of the hedge;
But one was caught on my dear love's breast
Where long ago my heart found rest.
CHARLES FRANCIS SAUNDERS,
in _Overland Monthly, July_, 1907.
APRIL 13.
For fifteen months the desert of California had lain athirst. The
cattle of the vast ranges had fled from the parched sands, the dying,
shriveled shrubs, appealing vainly, mutely, for rain, and had taken
refuge in the mountains. They instinctively retreated from the death
of the desert and sheltered themselves in the green of the foot-hills.
North, east, south, and west, rain had fallen, but here, for miles on
either side of the little isolated station * * * the plain had so
baked in the semi-tropical sun until even the hardiest sage-brush took
on the color of the sand which billowed toward the eastern horizon
like an untraveled ocean.
MRS. FREMONT OLDER,
in _The Giants._
APRIL 14.
The strong westerly winds drawing in through the Golden Gate sweep
with unobstructed force over the channel, and, meeting the outflowing
and swiftly moving water, kick up a sea that none but good boats can
overcome. To go from San Francisco to the usual cruising grounds the
channel must be crossed. There is no way out of it. And it is to this
circumstance, most probably, we are indebted for as expert a body of
yachtsmen as there is anywhere in the United States. Timid, nervous,
unskilled men cannot handle yachts under such conditions of wind and
waves. The yachtsmen must have confidence in themselves, and must have
boats under them which are seaworthy and staunch enough to keep on
their course, regardless of adverse circumstances.
CHARLES G. YALE,
in _Yachting in San Francisco Bay_, in _The Californian._
APRIL 15.
THE LIZARD.
I sit among the hoary trees
With Aristotle on my knees
And turn with serious hand the pages,
Lost in the cobweb-hush of ages;
When suddenly with no more sound
Than any sunbeam on the ground,
The little hermit of the place
Is peering up into my face--
The slim gray hermit of the rocks,
With bright, inquisitive, quick eyes,
His life a round of harks and shocks,
A little ripple of surprise.
Now lifted up, intense and still,
Sprung from the silence of the hill
He hangs upon the ledge a-glisten.
And his whole body seems to listen!
My pages give a little start,
And he is gone! to be a part
Of the old cedar's crumpled bark.
A mottled scar, a weather mark!
EDWIN MARKHAM,
in _Lincoln and Other Poems._
APRIL 16.
I lived in a region of remote sounds. On Russian Hill I looked down
as from a balloon; all there is of the stir of the city comes in
distant bells and whistles, changing their sound, just as scenery
moves, according to the state of the atmosphere. The islands shift as
if enchanted, now near and plain, then removed and dim. The bay
widening, sapphire blue, or narrowing, green and gray, or, before a
storm, like quicksilver.
EMMA FRANCES DAWSON,
in _An Itinerant House._
APRIL 17.
Although we dread earthquakes with all their resultant destruction,
yet it is well to recognize the fact that if it were not for them we
would find here in California little of that wonderful scenery of
which we are so proud. Our earthquakes are due to movements similar to
those which, through hundreds of thousands of years, have been raising
the lofty mountains of the Cordilleran region. The Sierra Nevada
range, with its abrupt eastern scarp nearly two miles high, faces an
important line of fracture along which movements have continued to
take place up to the present time.
HAROLD W. FAIRBANKS,
in _The Great Earthquake Rift of California._
APRIL 18.
APRIL EIGHTEENTH.
Three years have passed, oh, City! since you lay--
A smoking shambles--stricken by the lust
Of Nature's evil passions. In a day
I saw your splendor crumble into dust.
So vast your desolation, so complete
Your tragedy of ruin that there seemed
Small hope of rallying from such defeat--
Of seeing you arisen and redeemed.
Yet, three short years have marked a sure rebirth
To splendid urban might; a higher place
Among the ruling cities of the earth
And left of your disaster but a trace.
Refined in flame and tempered, as a blade
Of iron into steel of flawless ring--
City of the Spirit Unafraid!
What wondrous destiny the years will bring!
LOUIS J. STELLMAN,
in _San Francisco Globe, April_ 18, 1909.
APRIL 19.
O, EVANESCENCE!
(SAN FRANCISCO.)
I loved a work of dreams that bloomed from Art;
A town and her turrets rose
As from the red heart
Of the couchant suns where the west wind blows
And worlds lie apart.
Calm slept the sea-flats; beneath the blue dome
Copper and gold and alabaster gleamed,
And sea-birds came home.
But I woke in a sorrowful day;
The vision was scattered away.
Ashes and dust lie deep on the dream that I dreamed.
HERMAN SCHEFFAUER,
in _Looms of Life._
APRIL 20.
SAN FRANCISCO.
What matters that her multitudinous store--
The garnered fruit of measureless desire--
Sank in the maelstrom of abysmal fire,
To be of man beheld on earth no more?
Her loyal children, cheery to the core.
Quailed not, nor blenched, while she, above the ire
Of elemental ragings, dared aspire
On victory's wings resplendently to soar.
What matters all the losses of the years,
Since she can count the subjects as her own
That share her fortunes under every fate;
Who weave their brightest tissues from her tears,
And who, although her best be overthrown,
Resolve to make her and to keep her great.
EDWARD ROKESON TAYLOR,
in _Sunset Magazine._
APRIL 21.
They could hear the roar and crackle of the fire and the crashing of
walls; but even more formidable was that tramping of thousands of
feet, the scraping of trunks and furniture on the tracks and stones. *
* * It was a well and a carefully dressed crowd, for by this time
nearly everyone had recovered from the shock of the earthquake; many
forgotten it, no doubt, in the new horror. * * * They pushed trunks to
which skates had been attached, or pulled them by ropes; they trundled
sewing machines and pieces of small furniture, laden with bundles.
Many carried pillow-cases, into which they had stuffed a favorite
dress and hat, an extra pair of boots and a change of underclothing,
some valuable bibelot or bundle of documents; to say nothing of their
jewels and what food they could lay hands on. Several women wore their
furs, as an easier way of saving them, and children carried their
dolls. Their state of mind was elemental. * * * The refinements of
sentiment and all complexity were forgotten; they indulged in nothing
so futile as complaint, nor even conversation. And the sense of the
common calamity sustained them, no doubt, de-individualized them for
the hour.
GERTRUDE ATHERTON,
in _Ancestors._
APRIL 22.
The sun is dying; space and room.
Serenity, vast sense of rest,
Lie bosomed in the orange west
Of Orient waters. Hear the boom
Of long, strong billows; wave on wave,
Like funeral guns above a grave.
JOAQUIN MILLER,
in _Collected Poems._
APRIL 23.
SAN FRANCISCO.
IN CHRISTMAS TWILIGHT, 1898.
In somber silhouette, against a golden sky,
Francisco's city sits as sunbeams die.
The serrated hills her throne; the ocean laves her feet:
Her jeweled crown the Western zephyrs greet;
Their breath is fragrance, sweet as wreath of bride,
In winter season as at summer tide.
AFTER APRIL 18, 1906.
Clothed with sack-cloth, strewn with ashes,
Seated on a desolate throne
'Mid the spectral walls of stately domes
And the skeletons of regal homes,
Francisco weeps while westward thrashes
Through the wrecks of mansions, stricken prone
By the rock of earth and sweep of flame
Which, unheralded and unbidden, came
In the greatness of her pride full-blown
And at the zenith of her matchless fame.
TALIESIN EVANS.
APRIL 24.
And let it be remembered that whatever San Francisco, her citizens and
her lovers, do now or neglect to do in this present regeneration will
be felt for good or ill to remotest ages. Let us build and rebuild
accordingly, bearing in mind that the new San Francisco is to stand
forever before the world as the measure of the civic taste and
intelligence of her people.
HUBERT HOWE BANCROFT,
in _Some Cities and San Francisco._
APRIL 25.
SAN FRANCISCO.
Queen regnant she, and so shall be for aye
As long as her still unpolluted sea
Shall wash the borders of her brave and free,
And mother her incomparable Bay.
The pharisees and falsehood-mongers may
Be rashly blatant as they care to be,
She yet with dauntless, old-time liberty
Will hold her own indomitable way.
A Royal One, all love and heart can bear.
The all of strength that human arm can wield.
Are thine devotedly, and ever thine;
And thou wilt use them till thy brow shall wear
A newer crown by high endeavor sealed
With gems emitting brilliances divine.
EDWARD ROBESON TAYLOR,
in _Sunset Magazine._
APRIL 26.
Until a man paints with the hope or with the wish to stir the minds of
his fellows to better thinking and their hearts to better living, or
to make some creature happier or wiser, he has not understood the
meaning of art.
W.L. JUDSON,
in _The Building of a Picture._
CALIFORNIA ON THE PASSING OF TENNYSON.
All silent ... So, he lies in state ...
Our redwoods drip and drip with rain ...
Against our rock-locked Golden Gate
We hear the great, sad, sobbing main.
But silent all ... He passed the stars
That year the whole world turned to Mars.
JOAQUIN MILLER.
APRIL 27 AND 28.
In ended days, a child, I trod thy sands,
The sands unbuilded, rank with brush and brier
And blossom--chased the sea-foam on thy strands,
Young city of my love and my desire!
I saw thy barren hills against the skies,
I saw them topped with minaret and spire,
On plain and slope thy myriad walls arise,
Fair city of my love and my desire.
With thee the Orient touched heart and hands;
The world's rich argosies lay at thy feet;
Queen of the fairest land of all the lands--
Our Sunset-Glory, proud and strong and sweet!
I saw thee in thine anguish! tortured, prone.
Rent with earth-throes, garmented in fire!
Each wound upon thy breast upon my own.
Sad city of my love and my desire.
Gray wind-blown ashes, broken, toppling wall
And ruined hearth--are these thy funeral pyre?
Black desolation covering as a pall--
Is this the end, my love and my desire?
Nay, strong, undaunted, thoughtless of despair,
The Will that builded thee shall build again,
And all thy broken promise spring more fair.
Thou mighty mother of as mighty men.
Thou wilt arise invincible, supreme!
The earth to voice thy glory never tire,
And song, unborn, shall chant no nobler theme,
Proud city of my love and my desire.
But I--shall see thee ever as of old!
Thy wraith of pearl, wall, minaret and spire,
Framed in the mists that veil thy Gate of Gold,
Lost city of my love and my desire.
INA D. COOLBRITH.
APRIL 29.
The cataclysmal force to which we owe
Our glorious Gate of Gold, through which the sea
Rushed in to clasp these shores long, long ago,
Came once again to crown our destiny
With such a grandeur that in sequent years
This period of pain which now appears
Pregnant with doubt, shall vanish as when day
Drives the foreboding dreams of night away.
Born of the womb of Woe, where Sorrow sighs,
Fostered by Faith, undaunted by Dismay,
Earth's fairest City shall from ashes rise.
LOUIS ALEXANDER ROBERTSON,
in _Through Painted Panes._
APRIL 30.
Old San Francisco, which is the San Francisco of only the other
day--the day before the earthquake--was divided midway by the Slot.
The Slot was an iron crack that ran along the center of Market street,
and from the Slot arose the burr of the ceaseless, endless cable that
was hitched at will to the cars it dragged up and down. In truth,
there were two Slots, but, in the quick grammar of the West, time was
saved by calling them, and much more that they stood for, "The Slot."
North of the Slot were the theaters, hotels and shipping district, the
banks and the staid, respectable business houses. South of the Slot
were the factories, slums, laundries, machine shops, boiler works, and
the abodes of the working class.
JACK LONDON,
in _Saturday Evening Post._
MAY 1.
HAWAII, WEDNESDAY, MAY 1. 1907.
A year ago, Jack and I set out on a horseback trip through the
northern counties of California. It just now came to me--not the date
itself, but the feel of the sweet country, the sweetness of mountain
lilacs, the warm summer-dusty air. * * * And here in Hawaii, I am not
sure but I am at home, for our ground is red, too, in the Valley of
the Moon, where home is--dear home on the side of Sonoma Mountain,
where the colts are, and where the Brown Wolf died.
CHARMIAN K. LONDON,
in _Log of the Snark._
MAY 2.
A dull eyed rattlesnake that lay
All loathsome, yellow-skinned, and slept,
Coil'd tight as pine-knot, in the sun
With flat head through the center run,
Struck blindly back.
JOAQUIN MILLER.
The air was steeped in the warm fragrance of a California spring.
Every crease and wrinkle of the encircling hills was reflected in the
blue stillness of the laguna. Patches of poppies blazed like bonfires
on the mesa, and higher up the faint smoke of the blossoming buckthorn
tangled its drifts in the chaparral. Bees droned in the wild
buckwheat, and powdered themselves with the yellow of the mustard, and
now and then the clear, staccato voice of the meadow-lark broke into
the drowsy quiet--a swift little dagger of sound.
MARGARET COLLIER GRAHAM,
in _Stories of the Foothills._
MAY 3.
THE SEA GARDENS AT CATALINA.
The voyager when the glass-bottom boat starts is first regaled with
the sandy beach, in three or four feet of water. He sees the wave
lines, the effect of waves on soft sand, the delicate shading of the
bottom in grays innumerable; now the collar-like egg of a univalve or
the sharp eye of a sole or halibut protruding from the sand. A school
of smelt dart by, pursued by a bass; and as the water deepens bands of
small fish, gleaming like silver, appear; then a black cormorant
dashing after them, or perchance a sea-lion browsing on the bottom in
pursuit of prey. Suddenly the light grows dimmer; quaint shadows
appear on the bottom, and almost without warning the lookers on are in
the depths of the kelpian forest.
CHARLES FREDERICK HOLDER,
in _Life in the Open._
MAY 4.
THE HIDEOUS OCTOPUS.
From the glass-bottom boat we can see all the fauna of the ocean, and,
without question, the most fascinating of them all is the octopus.
Timid, constantly changing color, hideous to a degree, having a
peculiarly devilish expression, it is well named the _Mephistopheles
of the Sea_, and with the bill of a parrot, the power to adapt its
color to almost any rock, and to throw out a cloud of smoke or ink, it
well deserves the terror it arouses. The average specimen is about two
feet across, but I have seen individuals fourteen feet in radial
spread, and larger ones have been taken in deep water off shore.
CHARLES FREDERICK HOLDER,
in _The Glass Bottom Boat._
MAY 5.
A SIERRA STORM FROM A TREE TOP.
Being accustomed to climb trees in making botanical studies, I
experienced no difficulty in reaching the top of this one (a pine
about 100 feet high), and never before did I enjoy so noble an
exhilaration of motion. The slender tops fairly flapped and swished in
the passionate torrent, bending and swirling backward and forward,
round and round, tracing indescribable combinations of vertical and
horizontal curves, while I clung with muscles firm braced, like a
bobolink on a reed.
JOHN MUIR,
in _The Mountains of California._
MAY 6.
There is a breeziness, a spaciousness, an undefiled ecstasy of purity
about the High Sierras. Nature, yet untainted by man, has expressed
herself largely in mighty pine-clad, snow-topped blue mountains, and
rolling stretches of foot-hills; in rivers whose clarity is as perfect
as the first snow-formed drops that heralded them; and a sky of chaste
and limpid blue, pale as with awe of the celestial wonders it has
gazed upon. But there is an effect of simplicity with it all, an
omission of sensational landscape contrasts.
MIRIAM MICHELSON,
in _Anthony Overman._
The ocean is a great home. Its waters are full of life. The rocks
along its shores are thickly set with living things; the mud and sand
of its bays are pierced with innumerable burrows, and even the abyss
of the deep sea has its curious inhabitants.
JOSIAH KEEP,
in _West Coast Shells._
MAY 7.
THE COMING OF THE RAILROAD.
(IN CALIFORNIA.)
It was folded, away from strife,
In the beautiful pastoral hills;
And the mountain peaks kept watch and ward
O'er the peace that the valley fills--
Kept watch and ward lest the bold world pass
The fair green rampart of hills.
* * * * *
The rains of the winter fell
In benison on its sod;
And the smiling fields of the spring looked up,
A thanksgiving glad, to God;
And the little children laughed to see
The wild-flowers star the sod.
* * * * *
Hark! hark! to the thundrous roar!
Like a demon of fable old,
The fiery steed of the rail hath swept
Thro' the ancient mountain-hold.
And the green hills shudder to feel his breath--
The challenge of New to Old.
FRANCES MARGARET MILNE,
in _For Today._
MAY 8.
JOAQUIN MILLER TO THE MONEY GETTER.
Yes! I am a dreamer.
* * * * *
While you seek gold in the earth, why, I
See gold in the steeps of the starry sky;
And which do you think has the fairer view
Of God in heaven--the dreamer or you?
JOAQUIN MILLER.
MAY 9.
THE GLASS BOTTOM BOAT AT CATALINA.
When you land in the beautiful Bay of Avalon, on Santa Catalina
Island, you are met, not by hackmen, but by glass-bottom boatmen:
"Here you are! Marine Jimmie's boat, only fifty cents." "Take the
_Cleopatra_," or "Right away now for the Marine Gardens." These
craft, that look like old-fashioned river side-wheelers are made on
the Island, and some range from row-boats with glass bottoms to large
side-wheel steamers valued at $3000. There is a fleet of them, big and
little, and they skim over the kelp beds, and have introduced an
altogether new variety of entertainment and zoological study combined.
CHARLES FREDERICK HOLDER.
in _The Glass Bottom Boat._
MAY 10.
THE HANGING SEA GARDENS AT CATALINA.
The animals of the hanging gardens are not confined to the kelp or the
rocks of the bottom. The blue water where the sunlight enters brings
out myriads of delicate forms, poising, drifting, swimming, the
veritable gems of the sea; some are red as the ruby; others blue like
sapphire; some yellow, white, brown, or emitting vivid flashes of
seeming phosphorescent light. Ocean sapphires they are called; the
true gems of the sea, thickly strewn in the deep blue water. Sweeping
by, poised in classic shapes, are the smaller jelly-fishes; crystal
vases, so delicate that the rich tone of the ocean can be seen through
them, changing to a steely blue. Some are mere spectres, a tracery of
lace; others rich in colors and flaunting long trains.
CHARLES FREDERICK HOLDER,
in _Life in the Open._
MAY 11.
BUILDING THE TRANSCONTINENTAL RAILWAY.
Few can realize the problem before those intrepid men, who, with
little money and large hostility behind them, hauled their strenuously
obtained subsistence and material over nearly a thousand miles of
poorly equipped road. They fought mountains of snow as they had never
before been fought. They forced their weak, wheezy little engines up
tremendous grades with green wood that must sometimes be coaxed with
sage-brush gathered by the firemen running alongside of their creeping
or stalled iron horses. There were no steel rails. Engineers worked
unhelped by the example of perfected railroad building of later times.
No tracks or charts of the man-killing desert! No modern helps, no
ready, over-eager capital seeking their enterprise! Only skepticism,
hatred from their enemies, and "You can't do it!" flung at them from
friend and foe.
SARAH PRATT CARR,
in _The Iron Way._
MAY 12.
ANGLING THE SWORDFISH.
As he brought the great fish around again, a wonderful sight with its
gaudy fins, enormous black eyes and menacing sword, the head boatman
hurled the heavy spear into it. The swordfish fairly doubled up under
the shock, deluging with water the fishermen, its sword coming out and
striking the boat. A moment more and it might have escaped; but one of
the men seized it by the sword, while another threw a rope around it,
and the big game was theirs; in all probability the first large
swordfish ever taken with a rod and reel.
CHARLES FREDERICK HOLDER,
in _Big Game at Sea._
MAY 13.
The old Greeks taught their children how to sing, because it taught
them how to be obedient. This is a difficult universe to the man who
drives dead against it, but to the man who has learned the secret of
harmony through obedience it is a happy place. Discord is sickness;
harmony is health. Discord is restlessness; harmony is peace. Discord
is sorrow; harmony is joy. Discord is death; harmony is life. Discord
is hell; harmony is heaven. He who is in love and peace with his
neighbors, filling the sphere where God has placed him, hath heaven in
his heart already. Only through blue in the eye, the scientist tells
us, can blue out of the eye be seen. Only through C in the ear can C
out of the ear be heard. Only through Heaven down here can Heaven up
there be interpreted.
MALCOLM McLEOD,
in _Earthly Discords._
MAY 14.
As one approaches the mission from the road, it defines itself more
and more as a distinct element in the view: the hills ... seem to
distribute themselves on either side, as though realizing that here,
at least, they are subordinate and must not intrude. This brings Santa
Lucia into view, directly behind the mission, and thus the two most
prominent, most interesting, most beautiful objects in the landscape
are brought together in one perfect whole: Mt. Santa Lucia--Nature's
grandest creation for miles around; Mission San Antonio--man's
noblest, most artistic handiwork between Santa Barbara and Carrnelo.
CHARLES FRANKLIN CARTER,
in _Some By-Ways of California._
MAY 15.
There is what may be called a _sense_ of the sea, which is
indefinable. No lesser body of water, no other aspect of Nature
affords this. It is in the air, like a touch of autumn, and we know it
as much through feeling as through seeing. The coast is saturated for
some distance inland with this presence of the sea, much as the beach
is soaked with salt water. It is music and poetry to the soul and as
elusive as they, wrapping us in dreams and yielding fugitive glimpses
of that which we may never grasp, but which skirts, like a beautiful
phantom, the mind's horizon. Like music, it is an opiate, and unlocks
for us new states of mind in which we wander, as in halls of alabaster
and mother-of-pearl, but where, alas, we may not linger. We can as
readily sound the ocean as fathom the feelings it inspires. It is too
deep for thought. As often as the sea speaks to us of the birth of
Venus and of Joy, so also does it remind of Prometheus bound and the
thrall of Nature.
STANTON DAVIS KIRKHAM,
in _In the Open._
MAY 16.
The morning breeze with breath of rose
Steals from the dawn and softly blows
Beneath the lintel, where is hung
My little bell with winged tongue;
Steals from the dawn, that it may be
An oracle of peace to me;
For hark! athwart my fitful dreams
There mingles with the Orient beams
A wakening psalm of tinkling bell:
"God brings the day, and all is well."
CLIFFORD HOWARD,
in _The Wind Bell._
MAY 17.
CATCHING A SWORDFISH.
The swordfish was not disturbed by reflections of any kind. Of an
uncertain and vicious temper it was annoyed, then maddened by being
held by something it could not see, and dropping into the water it
dashed away in blind fear and fury, still feeling the strange, uncanny
check which seemed to follow it as a sheet of foam. Cutting the water
one hundred, two hundred feet, it shot ahead with the speed of light,
then still held, still in the toils, it again sprang into the air
with frenzied shake and twist, whirling itself from side to side,
striking terrific blows in search of the invisible enemy. Falling,
the swordfish plunged downward, and reached two hundred feet below
the surface and the bottom, then turned, and rose with a mighty
rush, going high into the air again, whirling itself completely over
in its madness, so that it fell upon its back, beating the sea into
a maelstrom of foam and spume, in its blind and savage fury.
CHARLES FREDERICK HOLDER,
in _Big Game at Sea._
MAY 18.
One is disposed to put "climate" in the plural when writing of so
large a state as California and one so wonderfully endowed with
conditions which make health, comfort and beauty in all seasons. Its
great length of coast-line and its mountain ranges irregularly
paralleling that, offer a wealth of resource in varying temperature,
altitudes, shelter from the sea breezes or exposure to them, perhaps
unequaled by any state in the union, or indeed by any country in the
world.
MADAME CAROLINE SEVERANCE,
in _The Mother of Clubs._
MAY 19.
A GLOUCESTER SKIPPER'S SONG.
Oh, the roar of shoaling waters, and the awful, awful sea,
Busted shrouds and parting cables, and the white death on our lee!
Oh, the black, black night on Georges, when eight score men were lost!
Were ye there, ye men of Gloucester? Aye, ye were; and tossed
Like chips upon the water were your little craft that night--
Driving, swearing, calling out, but ne'er a call of fright.
So knowing ye for what ye are, ye masters of the sea,
Here's to ye, Gloucester fishermen, a health to ye from me!
JAMES B. CONNOLLY,
in _Scribner's, May_, 1904.
MAY 20.
DEDICATION TO HIS FIRST BOOK.
* * * It is the proudest boast of the profession of literature, that
no man ever published a book for selfish purposes or with ignoble aim.
Books have been published for the consolation of the distressed; for
the guidance of the wandering; for the relief of the destitute; for
the hope of the penitent; for uplifting the burdened soul above its
sorrows and fears; for the general amelioration of the condition of
all mankind; for the right against the wrong; for the good against,
the bad; for the truth. This book is published for two dollars per
volume.
ROBERT J. BURDETTE,
in _The Rise and Fall of the Mustache._
MAY 21.
THE YOSEMITE ROAD.
There at last are the snow-peaks, in virginal chastity standing!
Through the nut-pines I see them, their ridges expanding.
Ye peaks! from celestial sanctities benisons casting,
Ye know not your puissant influence, lifting and lasting;
Nothing factitious, self-conscious or impious bides in you;
On your high serenities
No hollow amenities
Nor worldly impurities cast their dread blight;
August and courageous, you stand for the right;
The gods love you and lend you their soft robes of white.
BAILEY MILLARD,
in _Songs of the Press._
MAY 22.
ON THE STEPS OF THE LECONTE MEMORIAL LODGE, YOSEMITE VALLEY.
I wonder not, whether it is well with this true seer,
Who saw, while dwelling in the flesh, foundations strong and broad;
I do not doubt that when he ceased to worship in this temple,
Serene, he passed from beauty unto beauty, from God to God.
BENJAMIN FAY MILLS.
Within, a whole rainbow is condensed in one of these magnificent
shells.
JOSIAH KEEP,
in _West Coast Shells._
MAY 23.
TO YOSEMITE.
The silence of the centuries,
The calm where doubtings cease,
And over all the brooding of God's presence
And the spell of perfect peace!
O Granite Cliffs that steadfast face the dawn,
O Forest Kings that heard Creation's sigh!
Teach me thy simple creed, that, living, I
May live like thee, and as serenely die!
E.F. GREEN.
TO THE UNNAMED FALL IN THE YOSEMITE VALLEY.
Thou needest not that any man should name thee;
God counts thine ethereal jewels, one by one;
And, lest some selfish, inappropriate word should claim thee,
Silent, we watch thee sparkle in the sun.
BENJAMIN FAY MILLS.
MAY 24.
The white man calls it Bridal Veil. To the Indian it is Po-ho-no,
Spirit of the Evil Wind.
The white man, in passing, pauses to watch the filmy cloud that hangs
there like a thousand yards of tulle flung from the crest of the rocky
precipice, wafted outward by the breeze that blows ever and always
across the Bridal Veil Meadows. By the light of the mid-afternoon the
veil seems caught half-way with a clasp of bridal gems, seven-hued,
evanescent; now glowing with color, now fading to clear white sun rays
before the eye.
BERTHA H. SMITH,
in _Yosemite Legends._
MAY 25.
MATCHLESS YOSEMITE.
High on Cloud's Rest, behind the misty screen,
Thy Genius sits! The secrets of thy birth
Within its bosom locked! What power can rend
The veil, and bid it speak--that spirit dumb,
Between two worlds, enthroned upon a Sphinx?
Guard well thine own, thou mystic spirit! Let
One place remain where Husbandry shall fear
To tread! One spot on earth inviolate,
As it was fashioned in eternity!
FRED EMERSON BROOKS,
in _Old Abe and Other Poems._
You ask for my picture. I have never had one taken. I have my reasons.
One is that a man always seems to me most of an ass when smirking on
cardboard.
GERTRUDE ATHERTON,
in _Rulers of Kings._
MAY 26.
INVITATION TO AN INDIAN FEAST IN YOSEMITE.
As the time of the feast drew near, runners were sent across the
mountains, carrying a bundle of willow sticks, or a sinew cord or leaf
of dried grass tied with knots, that the Monos might know how many
suns must cross the sky before they should go to Ah-wah-nee to share
the feast of venison with their neighbors. And the Monos gathered
together baskets of pinion nuts, and obsidian arrow-heads, and strings
of shells, to carry with them to give in return for acorns and
chinquapin nuts and basket willow.
BERTHA H. SMITH,
in _Yosemite Legends._
MAY 27.
It is owing to the ever active missionary spirit among the Friars
Minor (Franciscans) that millions upon millions of American Indians
have obtained the Christian faith. The children of St. Francis were,
indeed, the principal factors in the very discovery of America,
inasmuch as the persons most prominently connected with that event
belonged to the Seraphic Family. Fr. Juan Perez de Marchena, the
friend and counsellor of Christopher Columbus, was the guardian or
superior of the Franciscan monastery at La Rabida; * * * and the great
navigator likewise belonged to the Third Order.
FR. ZEPHYRIN,
in _Missions and Missionaries of California._
MAY 28.
JUNIPERO SERRA.
Not with the clash of arms or conquering fleet
He came, who first upon this kindly shore
Planted the Cross. No heralds walked before;
But, as the Master bade, with sandalled feet,
Weary and bleeding oft, he crossed the wild.
Carrying glad tidings to the untutored child
Of Nature; and that gracious mother smiled,
And made the dreary waste to bloom once more.
Silently, selflessly he went and came;
He sought to live and die unheard of men--
Praise made his pale cheek glow as if with shame.
A hundred years and more have passed since then.
And yet the imprint of his feet today
Is traced in flowers from here to Monterey.
MARY E. MANNIX.
MAY 29.
San Gabriel!
I stand and wonder at thy walls
So old, so quaint; a glory falls
Upon them as I view the past.
And read the story which thou hast
Preserved so well.
* * * * *
San Gabriel!
What souls were they who fashioned thee
To be a blessed charity!
What faith was theirs who bore the cross,
And counted wealth and ease but loss,
Of Christ to tell!
* * * * *
San Gabriel!
A glamour of the ancient time
Remains with thee! Thou hast the rhyme
Of some old poem, and the scent
Of some old rose's ravishment
Naught can dispel!
* * * * *
LYMAN WHITNEY ALLEN,
in _A Parable of the Rose._
MAY 30.
Wherever a green blade looks up,
A leaf lisps mystery,
Whereso a blossom holds its cup
A mist rings land or sea,
Wherever voice doth utter sound
Or silence make her round--
There worship; it is holy ground.
JOHN VANCE CHENEY,
_The Grace of the Ground_, in _Poems._
MAY 31.
TO MOUNT WILSON.
Thou mystic one! Thou prophet hoar!
Thy teachings quicken--man's shall fade.
Ere man was dust thou wert before;
Thy bosom for his resting place was made.
And when thou tak'st in thy embrace
And hold'st me up against the sky
And Earth's fair 'broideries I trace--
All girdled in by circling bands that tie
Unto her side my destiny--
Then unto me thou dost make clear
Why with Life's essence here I'm thrilled.
Then all thy prophecies I hear,
And in my being feel them all fulfilled.
And as the narrow rim of eye
Contains the vast and all-encircling sky.
So in the confines of the soul
The undulating universe may roll.
And out in space, my soul set free,
I turn an astral forged key
Which opes the door 'twixt God and me,
I hear the secrets of Eternity!
In Immortality I trust,
Believing that the cosmic dust--
Alike in man and skies star-sown--
Is pollen from the Amaranth blown.
LANNIE HAYNES MARTIN.
Pause upon the gentle hillside, view San Carlos by the sea
'Gainst pale light a shape Morisco wrought in faded tapestry.
'Neath Mt. Carmel's brooding shadow, peaceful lies the storied pile,
And the white-barred river near it sings a requiem all the while.
* * * * *
Where were roofs of tiles or thatches, roughest mounds mark every
side,
And where once the busy courtyard searching winds find crevice wide.
* * * * *
AMELIA WOODWARD TRUESDELL,
in _A California Pilgrimage._
JUNE 1.
In fifteen years the Mission of San Juan Bautista had erected one of
the most beautiful and ornate chapels in Alta California, which,
together with the necessary buildings for the padres, living rooms and
dormitories for the neophytes, storehouses and corrals for the grain
and cattle, formed three sides of a patio two hundred feet square,
with the corrals leading away beyond. The Indians, with only a few
teachers and helpers, had done all this work.
MRS. A.S.C. FORBES,
in _Mission Tales in the Days of the Dons._
JUNE 2.
From his (the Indian's) point of view there is perhaps love; even,
it may be, romance. Much depends upon the standpoint one takes. The
hills that look high from the valley, seem low looking down from
the mountain. * * * For the world over, under white skin or skin
of bronze-brown, the human heart throbs the same; for we are
brothers--aye, brothers all!
IDAH MEACHAM STROBRIDGE,
in _Loom of the Desert._
We had seen the spire of the Episcopal Church, which forms so pleasing
a feature in the bosom of the valley, pale and fade from sight; the
lofty walls of the old Mission of San Gabriel were no longer visible
Suddenly from out the silence and gathering shades fell upon our ears
a chime so musical and sweet, so spiritually clear and delicate, that
had honest John Bunyan heard it he might well have deemed himself
arrived at the land of Beulah. * * * It was the hour of vespers at
the Old Mission.
BEN C. TRUMAN,
in _Semi-Tropical California._
JUNE 3.
The Mission San Gabriel and its quadrangle of buildings made a
beautiful picture. It nestled against distant hills, and neither stood
out from the dim background nor entirely melted within it. It
attracted the eye--this pink, yellow-gray of the little stone church
crowned with dull-reddish tile, and supported by a bulwark of quaint
buttresses. The picture was perfect--but since then the chill hands of
both temblor and tempest have touched rudely the charm and blighted
the pride of all of the California Missions--San Gabriel Archangel.
MRS. A.S.C. FORBES,
in _Mission Tales in the Days of the Dons._
JUNE 4.
Obey my word, O Ten-ie-ya, and your people shall be many as the blades
of grass, and none shall dare to bring war unto Ah-wah-nee. But look
you ever, my son, against the white horsemen of the great plains
beyond, for once they have crossed the western mountains, your tribe
will scatter as the dust before the desert wind, and never come
together again.
BERTHA H. SMITH,
in _Yosemite Legends._
San Juan, Aunt Phoebe, is one of the places where there is an old
Mission. People in this country (California) think a great deal of
them. I've remarked to Ephraim, "Many's the time," says I, "that the
Missions seem to do more real good than the churches. They get hold of
the people better, somehow. I'll be real glad to set me down in one,
and I do hope they'll have some real lively hymns to kind of cheer us
up."
ALBERTA LAWRENCE,
in _The Travels of Phoebe Ann._
JUNE 5.
In proper California fashion we made our nooning by the roadside,
pulling up under the shade of a hospitable sycamore and turning
Sorreltop out to graze. We drew water from a traveling little river
close at hand, made a bit of camp-fire with dry sticks that lay about,
and in half an hour were partaking of chops and potatoes and tea to
the great comfort of our physical nature.
CHARLES FRANCIS SAUNDERS,
in _A Pala Pilgrimage, The Travel Magazine._
JUNE 6.
Yellow-white the Mission gleamed like an opal in a setting of velvety
ranges under turquoise skies. About its walls were the clustered
adobes of the Mexicans, like children creeping close to the feet of
the one mother; and beyond that the illimitable ranges of mesa and
valley, of live-oak groves and knee-deep meadows, of countless springs
and canyons of mystery, whence gold was washed in the freshets; and
over all, eloquent, insistent, appealing, the note of the meadow-lark
cutting clearly through the hoof-beats of the herd and the calls of
the vaqueros.
MARAH ELLIS RYAN,
in _For the Soul of Rafael._
The missions should be thought of today as they were at their best,
when, after thirty years of struggle and hardship, they had attained
the height of their usefulness, which was followed by thirty years of
increase and prosperity, material as well as spiritual--the proud
outcome of so humble a beginning--before their final passing away.
CHARLES FRANKLIN CARTER,
in _The Missions of Nueva California._
JUNE 7.
Already the Emperor has given to us many fine paintings, vestments and
a chime of sweetest bells. How we long to hear them calling out over
the sea of vast silence, turning the white quiet into coral hues of
deeper thrill! The church bells singing to the people of Al-lak-shak,
recall the wandering Padres' labors among your thousands here in
California. Those who cannot understand the great words of the
teachers may look upon the beauteous pictures of the Madonna and the
Child; all can understand that love.
MRS. A.S.C. FORBES,
in _Mission Tales in the Days of the Dons._
JUNE 8.
JUNE. (IN CALIFORNIA.)
Oh June! thou comest once again
With bales of hay and sheaves of grain,
That make the farmer's heart rejoice,
And anxious herds lift up their voice.
I hear thy promise, sunny maid,
Sound in the reapers' ringing blade.
And in the laden harvest wain
That rumbles through the stubble plain.
Ye tell a tale of bearded stacks.
Of busy mills and floury sacks,
Of cars oppressed with cumbrous loads,
Hard curving down their iron roads
Of vessels speeding to the breeze.
Their snowy sails in stormy seas.
While bearing to some foreign land
The products of this Golden Strand.
PALMER COX,
in _Comic Yarns._
JUNE 9.
MADAME MODJESKA'S DEVOTION TO THE CATHOLIC CHURCH.
During the hey-day of A.P.A.-ism in this section, Madame Modjeska
returned from a triumphant tour and played for a week in Los Angeles.
* * * She selected as her principal piece--Mary Stuart. * * * At the
final scene of the play, as Mary Stuart passes out to her execution,
Modjeska in the title-role held us spellbound by the intense emotions
of the situation. The sight of her beautiful face, upturned to heaven,
showing the expression of the zeal and fervor of her Catholic heart,
was intensified by the manner in which she carried the crucifix and
rosary in her hand, and was the last glimpse of her as she disappeared
from the stage. There was a thrill passed over the audience, which had
its effect, not only upon the unbeliever, but likewise upon the
pusillanimous member of the church.
JOSEPH SCOTT,
in _The Tidings._
JUNE 10.
The Mission floor was with weeds o'ergrown,
And crumbling and shaky its walls of stone;
Its roof of tiles, in tiers on tiers,
Had stood the storms of a hundred years.
An olden, weird, medieval style
Clung to the mouldering, gloomy pile,
And the rhythmic voice of the breaking waves
Sang a lonesome dirge in its land of graves.
Strangely awed I felt, that day,
As I walked in the Mission old and gray--
The Mission Carmel at Monterey.
MADGE MORRIS WAGNER,
in _Mystery of Carmel._
JUNE 11.
Up to the American invasion, the traveler in California found welcome
in whatsoever house. Not food and bed and tolerance only, but warm
hearts and home. Fresh clothing was laid out in his chamber. His jaded
horse went to the fenceless pasture; a new and probably better steed
was saddled at the door when the day came that he must go. And in the
houses which had it, a casual fistful of silver lay upon his table,
from which he was expected to help himself against his present needs.
It was a society in which hotels could not survive (even long after
they were attempted) because every home was open to the stranger; and
orphan asylums were impossible. Not because fathers and mothers never
died, but because no one was civilized enough to shirk orphans.
CHARLES F. LUMMIS.
in _The Right Hand of the Continent, Out West,
August_, 1892.
JUNE 12.
Go as far as you dare in the heart of a lonely land, you cannot go so
far that life and death are not before you. Painted lizards slip in
and out of rock crevices, and pant on the white-hot sands. Birds,
humming-birds even, nest in the cactus scrub; woodpeckers befriend the
demoniac yuccas; out of the stark, treeless waste rings the music of
the night-singing mocking bird. If it be summer and the sun well down,
there will be a burrowing owl to call. Strange, furry, tricksey things
dart across the open places, or sit motionless in the co