OCTOBER 29.
Near noon we came to a little cattle ranch situated in a flat surrounded by red dykes and buttes after the manner of Arizona. Here we unpacked, early as it was, for through the dry countries one has to apportion his day's journeys by the water to be had. If we went farther today, then tomorrow night would find us in a dry camp.
The horses scampered down the flat to search out alfilaria. We roosted under a slanting shed—where were stock saddles, silver-mounted bits and spurs, rawhide riatas, branding-irons, and all the lumber of the cattle business. ∗ ∗ ∗ Shortly the riders began to come in, jingling up to the shed, with a rattle of spurs and bit-chains. ∗ ∗ ∗ The chief, a six-footer wearing beautifully decorated gauntlets and a pair of white buckskinchaps, went so far as to say it was a little warm for the time of year.
STEWART EDWARD WHITE,inThe Mountains.
OCTOBER 30.
HANDS UP!
This is a request that, in the wild and woolly West, "may not be denied"; and the braver the man is to whom it is addressed, the quicker does he hasten to comply. Indeed, it would argue the height of folly if, after a glance into the barrels of a "sawed off", and a look at the determined eyes behind them, covering your every move, you did not instantly elevate your hands, and do it with cheerful alacrity. The plea, "He had the drop on me", will clear you in any frontier Court of Honor.
A.E. LYNCH,inSelf-Torture.
OCTOBER 31.
OUT WEST.
When the world of waters was parted by the stroke of a mighty rod,Her eyes were first of the lands of earth to look on the face of God;The white mists robed and throned her, and the sun in his orbit wideBent down from his ultimate pathway and claimed her his chosen bride;And He that had formed and dowered her with the dower of a royal queen,Decreed her the strength of mighty hills, the peace of the plains between;The silence of utmost desert, and canyons rifted and riven,And the music of wide-flung forests where strong winds shout to heaven.∗ ∗ ∗Calling—calling—calling—resistless, imperative, strong—Soldier and priest and dreamer—she drew them, a mighty throng.The unmapped seas took tribute of many a dauntless band,And many a brave hope measured but bleaching bones in the sand;Yet for one that fell, a hundred sprang out to fill his place,For death at her call was sweeter than life in a tamer race.Sinew and bone she drew them; steel-thewed—and the weaklings shrank—Grim-wrought of granite and iron were the men of her foremost rank.∗ ∗ ∗The wanderers of earth turned to her—outcast of the older lands—With a promise and hope in their pleading, and she reached them pitying hands;And she cried to the Old World cities that drowse by the Eastern main:"Send me your weary, house-worn broods and I'll send you men again!Lo! here in my wind-swept reaches, by my marshalled peaks of snow,Is room for a larger reaping than your o'er-tilled fields can grow;Seed of the Man-seed springing to stature and strength in my sun,Free with a limitless freedom no battles of men, have won."
When the world of waters was parted by the stroke of a mighty rod,Her eyes were first of the lands of earth to look on the face of God;The white mists robed and throned her, and the sun in his orbit wideBent down from his ultimate pathway and claimed her his chosen bride;And He that had formed and dowered her with the dower of a royal queen,Decreed her the strength of mighty hills, the peace of the plains between;The silence of utmost desert, and canyons rifted and riven,And the music of wide-flung forests where strong winds shout to heaven.
When the world of waters was parted by the stroke of a mighty rod,
Her eyes were first of the lands of earth to look on the face of God;
The white mists robed and throned her, and the sun in his orbit wide
Bent down from his ultimate pathway and claimed her his chosen bride;
And He that had formed and dowered her with the dower of a royal queen,
Decreed her the strength of mighty hills, the peace of the plains between;
The silence of utmost desert, and canyons rifted and riven,
And the music of wide-flung forests where strong winds shout to heaven.
∗ ∗ ∗
Calling—calling—calling—resistless, imperative, strong—Soldier and priest and dreamer—she drew them, a mighty throng.The unmapped seas took tribute of many a dauntless band,And many a brave hope measured but bleaching bones in the sand;Yet for one that fell, a hundred sprang out to fill his place,For death at her call was sweeter than life in a tamer race.Sinew and bone she drew them; steel-thewed—and the weaklings shrank—Grim-wrought of granite and iron were the men of her foremost rank.
Calling—calling—calling—resistless, imperative, strong—
Soldier and priest and dreamer—she drew them, a mighty throng.
The unmapped seas took tribute of many a dauntless band,
And many a brave hope measured but bleaching bones in the sand;
Yet for one that fell, a hundred sprang out to fill his place,
For death at her call was sweeter than life in a tamer race.
Sinew and bone she drew them; steel-thewed—and the weaklings shrank—
Grim-wrought of granite and iron were the men of her foremost rank.
∗ ∗ ∗
The wanderers of earth turned to her—outcast of the older lands—With a promise and hope in their pleading, and she reached them pitying hands;And she cried to the Old World cities that drowse by the Eastern main:"Send me your weary, house-worn broods and I'll send you men again!Lo! here in my wind-swept reaches, by my marshalled peaks of snow,Is room for a larger reaping than your o'er-tilled fields can grow;Seed of the Man-seed springing to stature and strength in my sun,Free with a limitless freedom no battles of men, have won."
The wanderers of earth turned to her—outcast of the older lands—
With a promise and hope in their pleading, and she reached them pitying hands;
And she cried to the Old World cities that drowse by the Eastern main:
"Send me your weary, house-worn broods and I'll send you men again!
Lo! here in my wind-swept reaches, by my marshalled peaks of snow,
Is room for a larger reaping than your o'er-tilled fields can grow;
Seed of the Man-seed springing to stature and strength in my sun,
Free with a limitless freedom no battles of men, have won."
SHARLOT HALL,inOut West.
NOVEMBER 1.
One night when the plain was like a sea of liquid black, and the sky blazed with stars, we rode by a sheep-herder's camp. The flicker of a fire threw a glow out into the dark. A tall wagon, a group of silhouetted men, three or four squatting dogs, were squarely within the circle or illumination. And outside, in the penumbra of shifting half light, now showing clearly, now fading into darkness, were the sheep, indeterminate in bulk, melting away by mysterious thousands into the mass of night. We passed them. They looked up, squinting their eyes against the dazzle of the fire. The night closed about us again.
STEWART EDWARD WHITE,inThe Mountains.
NOVEMBER 2.
THE DROUTH: 1898.
No low of cattle from these silent fieldsFills, with soft sounds of peace, the evening air;No fresh-mown hay its scented incense yieldsFrom these sad meadows, stricken brown and bare.The brook, that rippled on its summer way,Shrinks out of sight within its sandy bed,Defenseless of a covert from the ray,Dazzling and pitiless, that beams o'erhead.The rose has lost its bloom; the lily dies;Our garden's perfumed treasures all are fled;The bee no longer to their sweetness flies,The humming-bird no longer dips his head.The butterfly—that fairy-glancing thing—Ethereal blossom of the light and air!No longer poises on its fluttering wing;How could it hover in this bleak despair?
No low of cattle from these silent fieldsFills, with soft sounds of peace, the evening air;No fresh-mown hay its scented incense yieldsFrom these sad meadows, stricken brown and bare.
No low of cattle from these silent fields
Fills, with soft sounds of peace, the evening air;
No fresh-mown hay its scented incense yields
From these sad meadows, stricken brown and bare.
The brook, that rippled on its summer way,Shrinks out of sight within its sandy bed,Defenseless of a covert from the ray,Dazzling and pitiless, that beams o'erhead.
The brook, that rippled on its summer way,
Shrinks out of sight within its sandy bed,
Defenseless of a covert from the ray,
Dazzling and pitiless, that beams o'erhead.
The rose has lost its bloom; the lily dies;Our garden's perfumed treasures all are fled;The bee no longer to their sweetness flies,The humming-bird no longer dips his head.
The rose has lost its bloom; the lily dies;
Our garden's perfumed treasures all are fled;
The bee no longer to their sweetness flies,
The humming-bird no longer dips his head.
The butterfly—that fairy-glancing thing—Ethereal blossom of the light and air!No longer poises on its fluttering wing;How could it hover in this bleak despair?
The butterfly—that fairy-glancing thing—
Ethereal blossom of the light and air!
No longer poises on its fluttering wing;
How could it hover in this bleak despair?
FRANCES M. MILNE,inFor Today.
NOVEMBER 3.
During this first autumn rain, those of us who are so fortunate as to live in the country are conscious of a strange odor pervading all the air. It is as though Dame Nature were brewing a vast cup of herb tea, mixing in the fragrant infusion all the plants dried and stored so carefully during the summer. When the clouds vanish after this baptismal shower, everything is charmingly fresh and pure, and we have some of the rarest of days. Then the little seeds, harbored through the long summer in earth's bosom, burst their coats and push up their tender leaves, till on hillside and valley-floor appears a delicate mist of green, which gradually confirms itself into a soft, rich carpet—and all the world is verdure clad. Then we begin to look eagerly for our first flowers.
MARY ELIZABETH PARSONS,inThe Wild Flowers of California.
NOVEMBER 4.
In basketry the Pomo Indians of California found an outlet for the highest conceptions of art that their race was capable of. Protected by their isolation from other tribes, they worked out their ideas undisturbed—with every incentive for excellence they had reached a height in basketry when the American first disturbed them which has never been equaled—not only by no other Indian tribe, but by no other people in the world in any age. These stolid Indian women have a knowledge of materials and their preparation, a delicacy of touch, an artistic conception of symmetry, of form and design, a versatility in varying and inventing beautiful designs, and an eye for color, which place their work on a high plane of art.
CARL PURDY,inOut West.
NOVEMBER 5.
WHEN IT RAINS IN CALIFORNY.
When it rains in CalifornyIt makes the tourist mad,But folks that's got the crops to raiseIs feelin' mighty glad;I stand out in the showers,Wet as a drownded rat,And watch the grain a-growin',And the cattle gettin' fat.Sorry for them Easterners,Kickin' like Sam Hill,But the sun-kissed land is thirstyAnd wants to drink its fill.Oh, hear the poppies laughin',And the happy mockers sing,When it rains in Californy,Through the glory of the spring.
When it rains in CalifornyIt makes the tourist mad,But folks that's got the crops to raiseIs feelin' mighty glad;I stand out in the showers,Wet as a drownded rat,And watch the grain a-growin',And the cattle gettin' fat.
When it rains in Californy
It makes the tourist mad,
But folks that's got the crops to raise
Is feelin' mighty glad;
I stand out in the showers,
Wet as a drownded rat,
And watch the grain a-growin',
And the cattle gettin' fat.
Sorry for them Easterners,Kickin' like Sam Hill,But the sun-kissed land is thirstyAnd wants to drink its fill.Oh, hear the poppies laughin',And the happy mockers sing,When it rains in Californy,Through the glory of the spring.
Sorry for them Easterners,
Kickin' like Sam Hill,
But the sun-kissed land is thirsty
And wants to drink its fill.
Oh, hear the poppies laughin',
And the happy mockers sing,
When it rains in Californy,
Through the glory of the spring.
JOHN S. McGROARTY,inJust California.
NOVEMBER 6.
The broad valley had darkened. The mountains opposite had lost their sharp details and dulled to an opaque silver blue in the mists of twilight. They had become great shadow mountains, broad spirit masses, and seemed to melt imperceptibly from form to form toward the horizon....
There had come a harmony more perfect than life could ever give. It included all their love that had gone before and something greater, vaster—all life, all nature, and all God.
HAROLD S. SYMMES,inThe Divine Benediction, Putnam's, Oct., 1906.
NOVEMBER 7.
AFTER THE RAIN.
"Sweet fields stand dressed in living green,"That late were brown and bare.The twitter of the calling birdsWith music fills the air.Was ever sky so heavenly blue—"Clear shining after rain!"Was ever wind so soft and pure,To breathe away our pain!Oh, roses white, and roses red,Your fragrant leaves unfold!Oh, lily, lift your chalice pureAnd show your heart of gold!
"Sweet fields stand dressed in living green,"That late were brown and bare.The twitter of the calling birdsWith music fills the air.
"Sweet fields stand dressed in living green,"
That late were brown and bare.
The twitter of the calling birds
With music fills the air.
Was ever sky so heavenly blue—"Clear shining after rain!"Was ever wind so soft and pure,To breathe away our pain!
Was ever sky so heavenly blue—
"Clear shining after rain!"
Was ever wind so soft and pure,
To breathe away our pain!
Oh, roses white, and roses red,Your fragrant leaves unfold!Oh, lily, lift your chalice pureAnd show your heart of gold!
Oh, roses white, and roses red,
Your fragrant leaves unfold!
Oh, lily, lift your chalice pure
And show your heart of gold!
FRANCES MARGARET MILNE,inFor To-day.
NOVEMBER 8.
She does not appear in public, and her name is seldom seen in the newspapers. She writes no books, delivers no lectures, paints no great pictures, but remains the inconspicuous, silent worker, blessing her home, reinforcing her husband, bringing up her children, and doing the most important work God has intrusted to the hands of a woman. She is still a great force in the nation; for the hand that rocks the cradle still rules the world. Whenever you find a great man, you will find a great woman. All successful men, it will be found, depend upon some woman. So Garfield thought when he kissed his mother after kissing the Bible, when made President of the United States.
REV. WILLIAM RADER,inLecture on Uncle Sam; or The Reign of the Common People.
NOVEMBER 9.
Found that "gracious hollow that God made" in his mother's shoulder that fit his head as pillows of down never could. Cried when they took him away from it, when he was a tiny baby, "with no language but a cry." Cried once again, twenty-five or thirty years afterward, when God took it away from him. All the languages he had learned, and all the eloquent phrasing the colleges had taught him, could not then voice the sorrow of his heart so well as the tears he tried to check.
ROBERT J. BURDETTE,inThe Story of Rollo.
NOVEMBER 10.
Lovely color and graceful outline and clever texture are good things, but we need more, much more, for the making of a real picture. When the soul is brimming with an overflowing bounty of beauty, all means are inadequate to express the fullness of its splendor. Man has not yet come to his full heritage, but every new mode of expression is an added language which brings him a little nearer to it.
W.L. JUDSON,inThe Building of a Picture.
The future of this country depends naturally upon the caliber of the succeeding generations, and if the Catholic Church is to succeed in California or elsewhere along material as well as spiritual lines, it must keep the fear of God in our men and the love of children in our women, and if these two fundamental virtues are thoroughly sustained, we need have no anxiety as to the future.
JOSEPH SCOTT,inSpeech at the Seattle Exposition.
NOVEMBER 11.
BEAUTY.
A hint is flung from the scene most fairThat real beauty is not there;That earth and blossom, sea and sky,Would be empty without the seeing eye,That form and color, movement and rhythmAre not true elements of heavenTill passed through transforming power of thought;For eye seeth only what soul hath wrought.Ah! Beauty, thou the flowering artOf the upright mind and guileless heart.
A hint is flung from the scene most fairThat real beauty is not there;That earth and blossom, sea and sky,Would be empty without the seeing eye,That form and color, movement and rhythmAre not true elements of heavenTill passed through transforming power of thought;For eye seeth only what soul hath wrought.Ah! Beauty, thou the flowering artOf the upright mind and guileless heart.
A hint is flung from the scene most fair
That real beauty is not there;
That earth and blossom, sea and sky,
Would be empty without the seeing eye,
That form and color, movement and rhythm
Are not true elements of heaven
Till passed through transforming power of thought;
For eye seeth only what soul hath wrought.
Ah! Beauty, thou the flowering art
Of the upright mind and guileless heart.
MARY RUSSELL MILLS.
NOVEMBER 12.
THE BRAKEMAN AT CHURCH.
After asking the Brakeman if he had been to each of the leading churches, the querist finally suggested the Baptists. "Ah, ha!" he shouted. "Now you're on the Shore Line! River Road, eh? Beautiful curves, lines of grace at every bend and sweep of the river; all steel rail and rock ballast; single track, and not a siding from the round-house to the terminus. Takes a heap of water to run it through; double tanks at every station, and there isn't an engine in the shops that can run a mile or pull a pound with less than two gauges. ∗ ∗ ∗ And yesterday morning, when the conductor came around taking up fares with a little basket punch, I didn't ask him to pass me; I paid my fare like a little Jonah—twenty-five cents for a ninety-minute run, with a concert by the passengers thrown in."
ROBERT J. BURDETTE,Pastor Emeritus Temple Baptist Church, Los Angeles.
NOVEMBER 13.
Directly opposite sat a Chinese dignitary richly apparrelled, serene, bland, bearing with courteous equanimity flirtatious overtures of an unattached blonde woman at his left, and the pert coquetry of a young girl at the other side. The mother of the girl ventured meek, unheeded remonstrances between mouthfuls of crab salad. ∗ ∗ ∗
"But you have not answered my question," he reminded her. "Do you believe in affinities?"
"I think that I do," hesitatingly.
"You are not certain?"
"N-o; if to have an affinity means to have a very dear friend, whom one trusts, and whom one desires to make happy—"
"You speak as if you had such a friend in mind," he hazarded.
"I have," she replied simply.
"Happy man!" he sighed.
"I referred to my St. Bernard dog."
"Oh!" Protracted silence. "No use," he drawled. "My pride will not let me enter the lists with a St. Bernard."
"That is not pride, but modesty," she asserted, and laughed. Her laughter reminded Horton of liquid sunshine, melted pearls, and sparkling cascades.
IDA MANSFIELD WILSON,inAccording to Confucius.
NOVEMBER 14.
There's only one thing to do, there can be but one—to say the thing your soul says, to live the life your heart wills, to die the death your imagination approves and your spirit sanctions!
MIRIAM MICHELSON,inAnthony Overman.
NOVEMBER 15.
TWO LITTLE CHINESE SISTERS.
Their blouses were of pink silk, and their trousers of pale lavender. They wore gay head-dresses, and were indeed beautiful to look upon.
Sai Gee, a little-footed playmate of theirs, lived a few doors from them, and they had no difficulty in finding her home. Sai Gee was also dressed up in her gayest attire. ∗ ∗ ∗ Sai Gee could play the flute. It was really wonderful. She sat upon a stool, over which an embroidered robe had been thrown, and played to them. Her hair was done in a coil back of her right ear, and her little brown face was sweet and wistful as she brought forth from the flute the most wonderful sounds.
JESSIE JULIET KNOX,inLittle Almond Blossoms.
NOVEMBER 16.
She was only a little yellow woman from Asia, with queer, wide trousers for skirts and rocker-soled shoes that flopped against her heels. Her uncovered black hair was firmly knotted and securely pinned and her eyes were black of color and soft of look. ∗ ∗ ∗ She saw the morning sun push its way through a sea of amber and the nickel dome of the great observatory on Mount Hamilton standing ebony against the radiant East. She heard the Oriental jargon of the early hucksters who cried their wares in the ill-smelling alleys, and with tears she added to the number of pearls which the dew had strewn upon the porch.
W.C. MORROW,inThe Ape, the Idiot and Other People.
NOVEMBER 17.
Sing is not included in the category of "goody-goody" boys. He is full of fun, and play, and willful pranks, and he sees the ridiculous side of everything quickly, but he seems naturally to accept only the good and to shun evil in any form. He is pure and innocent by nature and seems attracted to every person of similar characteristics. He has discernment and watches the faces of people closely, seeming to care more for their motives than for their deeds.
NELLIE BLESSING EYSTER,inA Chinese Quaker.
NOVEMBER 18.
INDIAN ARROW HEADS FOUND IN CALIFORNIA.
Obsidian is a beautiful, translucent volcanic rock, usually black, with cloudy flecks, as are seen in jade; like jade it is so hard as to be capable of taking an edge like a razor. Flaked on its flat surface and often beautifully serrated on the edge, an arrowhead or a spearhead is in itself a thing of beauty and a work of art, whether the Indian manufacturer knew it or not.
L. CLARE DAVISin "Long Ago in San Joaquin," inSunset Magazine.
In a year, in a year, when the grapes are ripe,I shall stay no more away—Then if you still are true, my love,It will be our wedding day.In a year, in a year, when my time is past—Then I'll live in your love for aye.Then if you still are true, my love,It will be our wedding day.
In a year, in a year, when the grapes are ripe,I shall stay no more away—Then if you still are true, my love,It will be our wedding day.
In a year, in a year, when the grapes are ripe,
I shall stay no more away—
Then if you still are true, my love,
It will be our wedding day.
In a year, in a year, when my time is past—Then I'll live in your love for aye.Then if you still are true, my love,It will be our wedding day.
In a year, in a year, when my time is past—
Then I'll live in your love for aye.
Then if you still are true, my love,
It will be our wedding day.
JACK LONDON.
NOVEMBER 19.
Had California owed her settlement and civic life wholly to the vanguard of that pioneer host, which … pressed steadily westward to Kansas and the Rockies, the Golden State would not have today that literary flavor that renders her in a measure a unique figure among the western states of the country.
JAMES MAIN DIXON,inCalifornia and Californians in Literature.
NOVEMBER 20.
All things are but material reflections of mental images. This is realized in picture and statue in temple and machine. The picture is but a faint representation of the picture in the soul of painter. He did his best to catch it with brush and canvas. Had it not existed for him before the brush was in his hand, it would never have been painted. ∗ ∗ ∗ Concentration is the only mental attitude under which mental images (ideals) shape themselves into the material life. As long as you hold an ideal before you that long is it shaping itself into your body, your business and into your social life. When you change your ideal then the new begins to shape itself. Have you, like the sculptor, held to one till it carves itself "into the marble real?" Or have you taken the life-block and placed it into the hands of an Ideal today, another tomorrow, and another next day, till you have as many ideals as you have days? ∗ ∗ ∗ Is not your life a composite of all these, not one complete? Concentration means holding to one ideal until your objective life becomes that mental picture. Thus it is true: I am that which I think myself to be.
HENRY HARRISON BROWN,inConcentration: The Road to Success.
NOVEMBER 21.
The process which we call evolution is the return of the atom to God, or the extension of consciousness in the growing creation, and this process which unifies all that exists or can exist in our world is the working out of the One Purpose and Plan by the One Power. This is what we mean by the Spiritual Constitution of the Universe, and in the light of this thought every person, animal, plant and mineral, every atom and all force, all events and circumstances and conditions and objects are more or less intelligent and conscious expressions of the One Purpose and the One Life. Man is thus led to count nothing human foreign to him, and his inner eyes open to perceive Truth, Goodness and Beauty everywhere.
BENJAMIN FAY MILLS,inThe New Revelation.
NOVEMBER 22.
Laughter is the music of the soul. It is the sun falling on the rain drops. Laughter is the nightingale's voice in the night. It chases away care, destroys worry. It is the intoxicating cup of good nature, which cheers, but does not cheat. Laughter paints pictures, dreams dreams, and floods life with love. Blessed are the people who can laugh! Laughter is religion and hope; and the apostles of good nature, who see the bright side of life, the queer and funny things among men, the clowns in Vanity Fair, as well as the deep and terrible pathos of life, are missionaries of comfort and evangels of good health.
REV. WILLIAM RADER,inLecture on Uncle Sam; or The Reign of the Common People.
NOVEMBER 23.
Given so unique a climate as ours of Southern California, one would expect it to be hailed gladly as a helper in the solution of this problem of how and where to build and how to adorn one's home. For it really meets the most trying items of the problem, making it a pure pleasure.
Instead, then, of the styles which suit the winter-climate of other states, and which, transplanted here, have grown too often into mongrel specimens of foreign style and other times—we should adapt our Southern California homes, first of all, to the climatic conditions which prevail here.
MADAME CAROLINE SEVERANCE,inThe Mother of Clubs.
NOVEMBER 24.
Houses furnished in all the styles of modern decorative art rise in all directions, embowered in roses, geraniums, heliotropes, and lilies that bloom the long year round and reach a size that makes them hard to recognize as old friends. Among them rise the banana, the palm, the aloe, the rubber tree, and the pampas-grass with its tall feathery plumes. Here and there one sees the guava, the Japanese persimmon, Japanese plum, or some similar exotic—but grapes and oranges are the principal product. Yet there are groves of English walnuts almost rivaling in size the great orange orchards, and orchards of prunes, nectarines, apricots, plums, pears, peaches, and apples that are little behind in size or productiveness.
T.S. VAN DYKE,inSouthern California.
NOVEMBER 25.
He saw a great hall furnished in the most extravagantly complete style of Indian art. The walls were entirely covered with Navaho and Hopi blankets. There was a frieze of Apache hide-shields, each painted with a brave's totem, and beneath, a solid cornice of buffalo skulls. Puma-skins carpeted the floor; at least a hundred baskets trimmed with wood-pecker and quail feathers were scattered about; trophies of Indian bows, arrows, lances, war-clubs, tomahawks, pipes and knives decorated the wall spaces. Two couches were made up of Zuni bead-work ornaments and buck-skin embroideries. In spite of all this, it was a tastefully designed room, rather than a museum, flaming with color and vibrant with vitality.
GELETT BURGESS,inA Little Sister of Destiny.
NOVEMBER 26.
She sent a hundred messages out into the hills by thought's wonderful telegraphy. She saw the yellow-green of the new shoots; the gray-green of the gnarled live oak; she felt that the mariposa was waking in the brown hillside. She almost heard the creamy bells of the tall yucca pealing out a hymn to the God who expresses himself in continual creation. Then, O, wonder of wonders! Over the same invisible wires came back the response: It all means love, the earth's rendings, the rains, winds, scorchings—it all means love in the grand consummation, nothing but love. She thrilled to the wonder of it.
ELIZABETH BAKER BOHAN,inThe Strength of the Weak.
NOVEMBER 27.
THE IDEAL CALIFORNIA EDITOR.
The ideal editor must be a colossal, composite figure, one to whom no man of whatever age, race or color, is a stranger; one whose mobility of character and elasticity of temperament expands or contracts as occasion demands, without deflecting in the least from the law of perfect harmony. He must know how to smile encouragement, frown disapproval, or, at an instant's notice bow deferentially and attend with utmost courtesy to wearisome stories of stupid patrons, or listen to the fantastic schemes of radical reformers and, with apparent seriousness and ostensible amiability, nod acquiescence to the wild-eyed revolutionist upon whom he inwardly vows to keep a careful watch lest the fire-brand agitator commit serious public mischief. The ideal editor of the popular press must be the quintescence of tact; an adroit strategist, a sagacious chief executive, keenly critical, ably judicial, broad, generous, sympathetic, hospitable, aye, charitable, magnanimous, ready to forgive and forget, patient and long-suffering when subjected to the competitive lash of adverse criticism, bearing calumny rather with quiet dignity than stooping to low and vulgar forms of retaliation.
BERTHA HIRSCH BARUCH,inSunday Times Magazine.
NOVEMBER 28.
CALIFORNIA TO IRELAND.
Great! Erect! Majestic! Free!Thrilled with life from sea to sea.See the Motherland upholdTo the sky her Green and Gold.
Great! Erect! Majestic! Free!Thrilled with life from sea to sea.See the Motherland upholdTo the sky her Green and Gold.
Great! Erect! Majestic! Free!
Thrilled with life from sea to sea.
See the Motherland uphold
To the sky her Green and Gold.
LAURENCE BRANNICK.
NOVEMBER 29.
And the books! Without final data at hand, I incline to believe that by the time the war came along to give us a new text, California had already, in a dozen years, doubled the volume of American literature. In the same way, of course, that it was doubled again—for our war literature was not mostly written upon the battle-field. In half a century this current has not ceased. It is a lean month even now which does not see, somewhere, some sort of book about California. It is certain that as much literature (using the word as it is used) has been written of California as of all the other states together. This means, of course, only matter in which the State is an essential, not an incident.
CHARLES F. LUMMIS,inThe Right Hand of the Continent, Out West, June, 1902.
NOVEMBER 30.
By a queer sequence of circumstances, the essays, begun in theLark, were continued in theQueen, and, if you have read these two papers, you will know that one magazine is as remote in character from the other as San Francisco is from London. But each has happened to fare far afield in search of readers, and between them I may have converted a few to my optimistic view of every-day incident. To educate the British Matron and Young Person was, perhaps, no more difficult than to open the eyes of the California Native Son. The fogs that fall over the Thames are not very different to the mists that drive in through the Golden Gate, after all!
GELETT BURGESS,inThe Romance of the Commonplace.
DECEMBER 1.
The Bohemian Club, whose real founder is said to have been the late Henry George, was formed in the '70's by newspaper writers and men working in the arts or interested in them. It had grown to a membership of 750. It still kept for its nucleus painters, writers, musicians and actors, amateur and professional. They were a gay group of men, and hospitality was their evocation. Yet the thing which set this club off from all others in the world was the midsummer High Jinks. The club owned a fine tract of redwood forest fifty miles north of San Francisco. In August the whole Bohemian Club, or such as could get away from business, went up to this grove and camped out for two weeks. On the last night they put on the Jinks proper, a great spectacle in praise of the forest with poetic words, music and effects done by the club. In late years this has been practically a masque or an opera. It cost about $10,000. ∗ ∗ ∗ The thing which made it possible was the art spirit which is in the Californian.
WILL IRWIN,inThe City That Was.
DECEMBER 2.
Nearly all is now covered with a luxuriant growth of vegetation the most diverse, yet all of it foreign to the soil. Side by side are the products of two zones, reaching the highest stages of perfection, yet none of them natives of this coast.
Gay cottages now line the roads where so recently the hare cantered along the dusty cattle-trail; and villages lie brightly green with a wealth of foliage where the roaring wings of myriads of quail shook the air above impenetrable jungles of cactus.
T.S. VAN DYKE,inSouthern California.
DECEMBER 3.
∗ ∗ ∗ The chief and highest function of the University is to assert and perpetually prove that general principles—laws—govern Man, Society, Nature, Life; and to make unceasing war on the reign of temporary expedients. ∗ ∗ ∗ There never was a period or a country in which the reign of fundamental law needed constant assertion and more perpetual proof than our own period and our own country. ∗ ∗ ∗ The living danger is that society may come to permanently distrust the reign of law. ∗ ∗ ∗ A national or a personal life built on expedients of the day, like a house built on the sand, will inevitably come to ruin.
PRESIDENT HOLDEN,inInaugural Address of University of California, 1886.
DECEMBER 4.
And now my story is told, the story of my work, and the story of my life. Looking back over all the long stretch of years that I have carried this heavy burden, though I should not care to assume it again, yet I am not sorry to have borne it. Of the various motives which urge men to the writing of books, perhaps the most worthy, worthier by far than the love of fame, is the belief that the author has something to say which will commend itsself to his fellow-man, which perchance his fellow-man may be the better for hearing. If I have fulfilled in some measure even the first of these conditions, then has my labor not been in vain.
HUBERT HOWE BANCROFT,inLiterary Industries.
DECEMBER 5.
LAW IN THE EARLY MINING-CAMPS.
Here, in a new land, under new conditions, subjected to tremendous pressure and strain, but successfully resisting them, were associated bodies of freemen bound together for a time by common interests, ruled by equal laws, and owning allegiance to no higher authority than their own sense of right and wrong. They held meetings, chose officers, decided disputes, meted out a stern and swift punishment to offenders, and managed their local affairs with entire success; and the growth of their committees was proceeding at such a rapid rate, that days and weeks were often sufficient for vital changes, which, in more staid communities, would have required months or even years.
CHARLES HOWARD SHINN,inMining Camps.
DECEMBER 6.
New towns were laid out in the valleys to supply the camps, and those already established grew with astonishing rapidity. Stockton, for instance, increased in three months from a solitary ranch-house to a canvas city of one thousand inhabitants. Sacramento also became a canvas city, whose dust-clouds whirled, and men, mules, and oxen toiled; where boxes, barrels, bales innumerable, were piled in the open air, no shelter being needed for months. For the City Hotel, Sacramento, thirty thousand dollars per year was paid as rent, although it was only a small frame building. The Parker House, San Francisco, cost thirty thousand dollars to build, and rented for fifteen thousand dollars per month.
CHARLES HOWARD SHINN,inMining Camps.
DECEMBER 7.
The prospector is the advance agent of progress, civilization and prosperity. ∗ ∗ ∗ It is for the sight of a yellow streak in his pan that he has been tempted to endure the fatigue, cold, and hunger of the mountains, and the heat, thirst and horror of the desert.
The prospector is a man of small pretensions, of peaceful disposition, indomitable will, boundless perseverance, remarkable endurance, undoubted courage, irrepressible hopefulness, and unlimited hospitality He is the friend of every man till he has evidence that the man is his enemy, and he is the most respected man in the mining regions of the West.
ARTHUR J. BURDICK,inThe Mystic Mid-Region.
DECEMBER 8.
To a little camp of 1848 a lad of sixteen came one day, footsore, weary, hungry, and penniless. There were thirty robust and cheerful miners at work in the ravine; and the lad sat on the bank, watching them awhile in silence, his face telling the sad story of his fortunes. At last one stalwart miner spoke to his fellows, saying:
"Boys, I'll work an hour for that chap if you will."
At the end of the hour a hundred dollars' worth of gold dust was laid in the youth's handkerchief. The miners made out a list of tools and necessaries.
"You go," they said, "and buy these, and come back. We'll have a good claim staked out for you. Then you've got to paddle for yourself." Thus genuine and unconventional was the hospitality of the mining-camp.
CHARLES HOWARD SHINN,inMining Camps.
DECEMBER 9.
Down in the gulch bottoms were the old placer diggings. Elaborate little ditches for the deflection of water, long cradles for the separation of gold, decayed rockers, and shining in the sun the tons and tons of pay dirt which had been turned over pound by pound in the concentrating of its treasure. Some of the old cabins still stood. It was all deserted now, save for the few who kept trail for the freighters, or who tilled the restricted bottom lands of the flats. Road-runners racked away down the paths; squirrels scurried over worn-out placers, jays screamed and chattered in and out of the abandoned cabins. And the warm California sun embalmed it all in a peaceful forgetfulness.
STEWART EDWARD WHITE,inThe Mountains.
DECEMBER 10.
GOD IS EVERYWHERE.
Under the grass, the flowers, and the sodGo deep enough and you will find God.The royal red-gold of the sunset glowA veil for His unseen face doth show.And all the star-cool vastnesses of nightStill hide Him not from the Spirit's sight.I will see Him in all, I will trust Him in all,I will love but the God, to the God will I call.Till God, full and perfect, every soul shall reveal,And God's glorious purpose each life shall fulfill;Till the earth showeth whole, without break, without seam,Till God's truth and God's beauty stand clear and supreme.
Under the grass, the flowers, and the sodGo deep enough and you will find God.The royal red-gold of the sunset glowA veil for His unseen face doth show.And all the star-cool vastnesses of nightStill hide Him not from the Spirit's sight.
Under the grass, the flowers, and the sod
Go deep enough and you will find God.
The royal red-gold of the sunset glow
A veil for His unseen face doth show.
And all the star-cool vastnesses of night
Still hide Him not from the Spirit's sight.
I will see Him in all, I will trust Him in all,I will love but the God, to the God will I call.Till God, full and perfect, every soul shall reveal,And God's glorious purpose each life shall fulfill;Till the earth showeth whole, without break, without seam,Till God's truth and God's beauty stand clear and supreme.
I will see Him in all, I will trust Him in all,
I will love but the God, to the God will I call.
Till God, full and perfect, every soul shall reveal,
And God's glorious purpose each life shall fulfill;
Till the earth showeth whole, without break, without seam,
Till God's truth and God's beauty stand clear and supreme.
MARY RUSSELL MILLS,inFellowship Magazine.
DECEMBER 11.
THE KILLING OF THE DEVIL,AS TOLD IN THE LANGUEDOC FOLK-TALE OFTHE THREE STRONG MEN.
Oh! that was a desperate struggle—terrific and horrible to see! The devil shrieked and howled; he scratched and bit; while Crowbar, dumb and purple in the face, gave telling blows with his fists. He could not strike the devil's head, because of the horns, and he could not grab his body, because it was so sleek and slimy. At length the devil's strength gave out. Crowbar siezed him by the throat, threw him on his back, put a knee upon his breast, and, with the cane in his right hand, gave him a blow between the horns that split his head in two. But he died hard. His head was split open, yet he was struggling, whipping the ground with his tail, and foaming at the mouth. At last he was still.
SAMUEL JACQUES BRUN,inTales of Languedoc.
DECEMBER 12.
FROM "AFTER HEARING PARSIFAL."
The century new announces, "Victory!"—Through Music's witchery o'er Sin and HellMan is redeemed. The Christ is here! The SoulNow claims its own! Nor hope nor fearNor prayer nor hunger now, for lo! 'tis here,The expected Kingdom—God's and Man's! 'Tis here!Day-dawn has come! The world-wide quest is o'er!The Grail was never lost! 'Twas folded safeWithin the petals of my heart, and thouEnchanter wise, reveal'st to me, my Self!
The century new announces, "Victory!"—Through Music's witchery o'er Sin and HellMan is redeemed. The Christ is here! The SoulNow claims its own! Nor hope nor fearNor prayer nor hunger now, for lo! 'tis here,The expected Kingdom—God's and Man's! 'Tis here!Day-dawn has come! The world-wide quest is o'er!The Grail was never lost! 'Twas folded safeWithin the petals of my heart, and thouEnchanter wise, reveal'st to me, my Self!
The century new announces, "Victory!"—
Through Music's witchery o'er Sin and Hell
Man is redeemed. The Christ is here! The Soul
Now claims its own! Nor hope nor fear
Nor prayer nor hunger now, for lo! 'tis here,
The expected Kingdom—God's and Man's! 'Tis here!
Day-dawn has come! The world-wide quest is o'er!
The Grail was never lost! 'Twas folded safe
Within the petals of my heart, and thou
Enchanter wise, reveal'st to me, my Self!
HENRY HARRISON BROWN,inNow, May, 1904.