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Title: The California Birthday Book
Author: Various
Language: English
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*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "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 conning towers
of the creosote.
MARY AUSTIN,
in _The Land of Little Rain._
JUNE 13.
EL CAMINO REAL.
_El Camino Real_--"The Royal Road," is the poetic name given to
the original government road of Spanish California that joined the
missions from San Diego to San Francisco de Solano. The route selected
by the Franciscan Fathers was the most direct road that was
practicable, connecting their four Presidios, three Pueblos and
twenty-one Missions. By restoring this road and making it a State
Highway with the twenty-one missions as stations, California will
come to possess the most historic, picturesque, romantic and unique
boulevard in the world.
MRS. A.S.C. FORBES,
in _Missions and Landmarks._
JUNE 14.
Because we have such faith in the charms of California; because we
have such faith in the future of our city that we believe that once
strangers come here they will remain in it, as of old the hero
remained in the land of the ever-young; because we believe that this
state can support ten, aye, twenty times its present population, we
extend an invitation to all home-seekers, no matter where found. Come
to California! Its valleys are wide open for all to come through and
build therein their homes of peace. Its coasts teem with wealth. The
riches of its mountains have not been half exploited. We believe that
all that is necessary to fill this State with a great and prosperous
population is that the people should see the State and know it as it
is.
FATHER P.C. YORKE,
in _The Warder of Two Continents._
JUNE 15.
EL CAMINO REAL.
It's a long road and sunny, and the fairest in the world--
There are peaks that rise above it in their sunny mantles curled,
And it leads from the mountains through a hedge of chaparral,
Down to the waters where the sea gulls call.
It's a long road and sunny, it's a long road and old.
And the brown padres made it for the flocks of the fold;
They made it for the sandals of the sinner-folk that trod
From the fields in the open to the shelter-house of God.
* * * * *
We will take the road together through the morning's golden glow,
And will dream of those who trod it in the mellowed long ago.
JOHN S. MCGROARTY,
in _Just California._
JUNE 16.
Mrs. Bryton surveyed the coarse furnishings of the adobe with disgust
as she was led to the one room where she could secure sleeping
accommodation. It contained three beds with as many different colored
spreads, queer little pillows, and drawn-work on one towel hanging on
a nail. The floor had once been tiled with square mission bricks; but
many were broken, some were gone, and the empty spaces were so many
traps for unwary feet.
MARAH ELLIS RYAN,
in _For the Soul of Rafael._
JUNE 17.
Of all the old grandees who, not forty years before, had called the
Californias their own; living a life of Arcadian magnificence,
troubled by few cares, a life of riding over vast estates clad in silk
and lace, _botas_ and _sombreros_, mounted upon steeds as
gorgeously caparisoned as themselves, eating, drinking, serenading at
the gratings of beautiful women, gambling, horse-racing, taking part
in splendid religious festivals, with only the languid excitement of
an occasional war between rival governors to disturb the placid
surface of their lives--of them all Don Roberto was a man of wealth
and consequence today.
GERTRUDE ATHERTON,
in _The Californians._
JUNE 18.
The house was a ruinous adobe in the old Mexican quarter of Los
Angeles. The great, bare, whitewashed room contained only the altar
and a long mirror in a tarnished gilt frame; one, the symbol of
earthly vanity; the other, the very portal of heaven. All the carved
mahogany furniture had long since gone to buy food and charcoal or a
rare black gown.
AMANDA MATHEWS,
in _The Old Pueblo._
All sorts of men came here in early days--poor men of good family who
had failed at home, or were too proud to work there; desperadoes,
adventurers, men of middle life and broken fortunes--all of them
expecting everything from the new land, and ready to tear the heart
out of any one who got in their way. * * * Of course, there are
Californians and Californians.
GERTRUDE ATHERTON,
in _A Whirl Asunder._
JUNE 19.
Beneath the surface--ah, there lie a numerous host, sad relics of
bygone times. In our cities in poverty, wretchedness, and, alas! too
often in dissipation, or, happier fate, in canyon or on hillside where
woodman's axe is heard, one may find men wearily, sadly, often
faithfully performing their daily labor who were born heirs to leagues
of land where ranged mighty herds of cattle and horses--men who as
boys, perhaps, played their games of quoits with golden slugs from the
Indian baskets sitting about the courtyard of their fathers' houses.
HELEN ELLIOTT BANDINI,
in _Some of Our Spanish Families._
JUNE 20.
Jameson's cord led out to the Spanish quarter. Some old senoras, their
heads covered with shawls, their clothes redolent with the smell of
garlic, from time to time shambled across his pathway. They were heavy
old women, in worn flapping slippers and uncorseted figures. * * *
With them, this saying, "It is time to be old," to throw down the game
like some startled player, and cast one's self on the mercies of the
Virgin, had come twenty years or so before it should.
FRANCES CHARLES,
in _The Siege of Youth._
A JUNE WEDDING.
The sweetheart of Summer weds today--
Pride of the Wild Rose clan:
A Butterfly fay
For a bridesmaid gay,
And a Bumblebee for best man.
CHARLES ELMER JENNEY,
in _Out West, June_, 1902.
JUNE 21.
They went to a one-room adobe on the plaza. A rich, greasy odor came
out from it with puffs of the onion-laden smoke of frying things which
blurred the light of the one candle set in the neck of a bottle. * * *
In the centre of the floor a circle of blackened stones held a fire of
wood coals, on the top of which rested a big clay griddle. Cakes of
ground corn were frying there, and on the stove were _enchiladas_
and _tamales_ and _chili-con-carne_ being kept warm. The air
was thick with the pungent, strong smells.
GWENDOLEN OVERTON,
in _The Golden Chain._
JUNE 22.
The homely house furnishings seemed to leap out of the darkness; the
stove, the littered table, and the couch, the iron crucifix, and the
carved cradle in the corner--all his long life Juan will see them
so--and 'Cencion turned; the dusky veil was blown and rent like the
sea mist, revealing--Holy Mother of Heaven! her father, Cenaga, the
outlaw! Juan Lopez fell on his knees below the window, the smoking
rifle clattered from his broken grasp, and the missile sped, aimless
and harmless, high into the adobe wall.
GERTRUDE B. MILLARD,
in _An Outlaw's Daughter, S.F. Argonaut, Nov._, 1896.
IN HUMBOLDT.
Dim in the noonday fullness,
Dark in the day's sweet morn--
So sacred and deep are the canyons
Where the beautiful rivers are born.
LILLIAN H. SHUEY,
in _Among the Redwoods._
JUNE 23.
The glow of the days of Comstock glory was still in the air. San
Francisco was still the city of gold and silver. The bonanza kings had
not left it, but were trying to accommodate themselves to the palaces
they were rearing with their loose millions. Society yet retained its
cosmopolitan tone, careless, brilliant, and unconventional. There were
figures in it that had made it famous--men who began life with a pick
and shovel and ended it in an orgy of luxury; women, whose habits of
early poverty fell off them like a garment, and who, carried away by
their power, displayed the barbaric caprices of Roman empresses.
The sudden possession of vast wealth had intoxicated this people,
lifting them from the level of the commonplace into a saturnalia of
extravagance. Poverty, the only restraint many of them had ever felt,
was gone. Money had made them lawless, whimsical, bizarre. It had
developed all-conquering personalities, potent individualities. They
were still playing with it, wondering at it, throwing it about.
GERALDINE BONNER,
in _Tomorrow's Tangle._
JUNE 24.
Menlo Park, originally a large Spanish grant, had long since been cut
up into country places for what may be termed the "Old Families of San
Francisco!" The eight or ten families that owned this haughty precinct
were as exclusive, as conservative, as any group of ancient families
in Europe. Many of them had been established here for twenty years,
none for less than fifteen. This fact set the seal of gentle blood
upon them for all time in the annals of California.
GERTRUDE ATHERTON,
in _The Californians._
JUNE 25.
John Bidwell, prince of California pioneers, was my chief in a
memorable camping trip in the northern Sierras. What a magnificent
camper was Bidwell! What a world of experience, what a wealth of
reminiscence! What a knowledge; what unbounded hospitality! Not while
life lasts can I forget the gentle yet commanding greatness of this
man, whose friendships and benefactions were as broad as his spreading
acres of Rancho Chico.
ROCKWELL D. HUNT,
in _Camping Out in California, Overland Monthly,
September_, 1907.
JUNE 26.
The average stage-driver merits one's liveliest gratitude. He is the
essence of good nature and thoughtfulness. His stories, tinctured by
his own quaint personality, ward off the drowsy wings of sleep and
materially shorten the long hours of the night. * * * To the
households scattered along his route he is the never-failing bearer of
letters, and newspapers, and all sorts of commodities, from a sack of
flour to a spool of cotton. His interest in their individual needs is
universal, and the memory he displays is simply phenomenal. He has
traveled up and down among them for many years, and calls each one by
his or her given name, and in return is treated by them as one of the
family. He is sympathetic and friendly without impertinence, and in
spite of your aching head and disjointed bones, you feel an
undercurrent of regret that civilization will soon do away with these
fresh and original characters.
NINETTA EAMES,
in _Overland Monthly, January_, 1888.
JUNE 27.
When the June sunshine gladdened the Sacramento Valley, three little
bare-footed girls walked here and there among the homes and tents of
Sutter's Fort. They were scantily clothed, and one carried a thin
blanket. At night they said their prayers, lay down in whatever tent
they happened to be, and, folding the blanket about them, fell asleep
in each other's arms. When they were hungry they asked food of
whomsoever they met. If anyone inquired who they were, they answered
as their mother had taught them: "We are the children of Mr. and Mrs.
George Donner." But they added something which they had learned since.
It was: "And our parents are dead."
C.F. McGLASHAN,
in _History of the Donner Party._
JUNE 28.
This cart was gaily decorated with a canopy which was in fact an
exquisitely embroidered silken bedspread. The background was of
grass-green silk, embroidered over the entire field with brightest red
and yellow, pink and white roses, with intertwining leaves and stems,
making the old _carreta_ appear to be a real rose-bower blooming
along the King's Highway. From the edges hung a rich, deep, silken
knotted fringe. Beneath the heavy fringe again hung lace curtains.
MRS. A.S.C. FORBES,
in _Mission Tales in the Days of the Dons._
A half-naked beggar will find a dirty ribbon out of an ash-barrel to
ornament himself, if he happens to be a she. * * * We women are such
striking guys without our first little aids to the ugly.
MIRIAM MICHELSON,
in _Anthony Overman._
JUNE 29.
During this unsettled period (1849), the "judge of first instance," or
alcalde, sat each day in the little school-room on the plaza of San
Francisco, trying cases, and rendering that speedy justice that was
then more desirable than exact justice, since men's time, in those
early days of 1849, was worth from sixteen dollars to one hundred
dollars per day. The judge listened to brief arguments, announced his
decision, took his fees, and called up another case; hardly once in a
hundred trials was there any thought of an appeal to the Governor at
Monterey.
CHARLES HOWARD SHINN,
in _Mining-Camps._
JUNE 30.
Like the senators Cineas found at Rome, they were an assembly of
kings, above law, who dealt out justice fresh and evenly balanced as
from the hand of the eternal. In all the uprisings in California there
has never been manifested any particular penchant on the part of the
people for catching and hanging criminals. They do not like it.
Naturally the law detests vigilance because vigilance is a standing
reproach to law. Let the law look to it and do its duty.
HUBERT HOWE BANCROFT,
in _Popular Tribunals._
AMONG THE MARIPOSA BIG TREES.
Older than man or beast or bird,
Ancient when God first spake and Adam heard--
We gaze with souls profoundly stirred
And plead for one revealing word.
But the great trees all are silent.
BENJAMIN FAY MILLS.
JULY 1.
VINTAGE IN THE GOLDEN LAND.
O fruit of changeless, ever-changing beauty!
Heavy with summer and the gift of love--
Caressingly I gather and lay you down;
Ensilvered as with dew, the innocent bloom
Of quiet days, yet thrilling with the warmth
Of life--tumultuous blood o' the earth!
The vital sap, the honey-laden juice
Dripping with ripeness, yields to murmuring bee
A pleasant burden; and the meadow-lark
With slow, voluptuous beak the nectar drinks
From the pierced purple.
* * * * *
How good it is, to sense the vineyard life!
To touch the fresh-veined leaves, the straggling stems,
The heavy boughs that bend along the ground;
And like a gay Bacchante, pluck the fruit
And taste the imperial flavors, beauty-wild
And singing child-songs with the bee and bird,
Deep in the vineyard's heart, 'neath the open sky--
Wide, wide, and blue, filled with sun-flooded space
And the silent song of the ripening of days!--
Eternal symbol of the bearing earth--
Harvest and vintage.
RUBY ARCHER.
JULY 2.
Whatever you believe when you are alone at night with the little imp
of conscience seated on the bedpost and whispering to you what to do,
whatever you believe to be best for yourself and best for your city at
that time, you do that thing and you won't be far wrong.
ANDREW FURUSETH.
JULY 3.
Above an elevation of four thousand feet timber is quite abundant.
Along the river-bottoms and low grounds the sycamore is found as
clean-limbed, tall and stately as elsewhere. The cottonwood, too, is
common, though generally dwarfed, scraggy and full of dead limbs. A
willow still more scraggy, and having many limbs destroyed with
mistletoe, is often found in the same places. The elder rises above
the dignity of a shrub, or under-shrub, but can hardly be found a
respectable tree. Two varieties of oak are common, and the alder forms
here a fine tree along the higher water-courses.
T.S. VAN DYKE,
in _Southern California._
JULY 4.
A WESTERN FOURTH.
Here, where Peralta's cattle used to stray;
Here, where the Spaniards in their early day
Rode, jingling, booted, spurred, nor ever guessed
Our race would own the land by them possessed;
Here, where Castilian bull-fights left their stain
Of blood upon the soil of this New Spain;
Here, where old live-oaks, spared till we condemn.
Still wait within this city named for them--
We celebrate, with bombshell and with rhyme
Our noisiest Day of Days of yearly time!
O bare Antonio's hills that rim our sky--
Antonio's hills, that used to know July
As but a time of sleep beneath the sun--
Such days of languorous dreaming are all done!
MARY BAMFORD,
in _Fourth of July Celebration, Oakland_, 1902.
JULY 5.
THE LIVE-OAKS.
In massy green, upon the crest
Of many a slanting hill,
By gentle wind and sun caressed,
The live-oaks carry still
A ponderous head, a sinewy breast,
A look of tameless will.
They plant their roots full firmly deep,
As for the avalanche;
And warily and strongly creep
Their slow trunks to the branch;
A subtle, devious way they keep,
Thrice cautious to be stanch.
A mighty hospitality
At last the builders yield,
For man and horse and bird and bee
A hospice and a shield,
Whose monolithic mystery
A curious power concealed.
RUBY ARCHER,
in _Los Angeles Times._
JULY 6.
FATE AND I.
"Thine the fault, not mine," I cried.
Brooding bitterly,
And Fate looked grim and once again
Closed in and grappled me.
"Mine, not thine, the fault," I said,
Discerning verity,
And Fate arose and clasped my hand
And made a man of me.
HAROLD S. SYMMES,
in _The American Magazine, April_, 1909.
JULY 7.
THE BROTHERHOOD OF TREES.
Dear brotherhood of trees! With you we find
Robust and hearty friendship, free from all
The laws of petty gods men travail for.
No wrangle here o'er things of small avail--
No knavery, nor charity betrayed--
But comrade beings--'Stalwart, steadfast, good.
You help the world in the noblest way of all--
By living nobly--showing in your lives
The utmost beauty, the full power and love
That through your wisdom and your long desire
Thrill in your vibrant veins from heart of earth.
Open your arms, O Trees, for us who come
With woodland longings in our pilgrim souls!
RUBY ARCHER.
JULY 8.
The scene was a ravine that had been cloven into the flank of a mighty
mountain as if by the stroke of a giant's axe. For about half a mile
this gash ran sharp and narrow; but at the upper end, the resting
place of the travelers, it widened into a spacious amphitheatre,
dotted with palm trees that rose with clean cylindrical boles sixty to
eighty feet before spreading their crowns of drooping leafage against
the azure of a cloudless sky--a wonderful touch of Egypt and the East
to surroundings typical of the American Far West.
EDMUND MITCHELL,
in _In Desert Keeping._
The noblest life--the life of labor;
The noblest love--the love of neighbor.
LORENZO SOSSO,
in _Wisdom for the Wise._
JULY 9.
THE LIVE OAKS AT MENLO PARK.
The road wound for some half mile through a stretch of uncultivated
land, dotted with the forms of huge live-oaks. The grass beneath them
was burnt gray and was brittle and slippery. The massive trees, some
round and compact and so densely leaved that they were impervious to
rain as an umbrella, others throwing out long, gnarled arms as if
spellbound in some giant throe of pain, cast vast slanting shadows
upon the parched ground. Some seemed, like trees in Dore's drawings,
to be endowed with a grotesque, weird humanness of aspect, as though
an imprisoned dryad or gnome were struggling to escape, causing the
mighty trunk to bow and writhe, and sending tremors of life along each
convulsed limb. A mellow hoariness marked them all, due to their own
richly subdued coloring and the long garlands of silvery moss that
hung from their boughs like an old, rich growth of hair.
GERALDINE BONNER,
in _Tomorrow's Tangle._
JULY 10.
MADRONA.
No other of our trees, to those who know it in its regions of finest
development, makes so strong an appeal to man's imagination--to his
love of color, of joyful bearing, of sense of magic, of surprise and
change. He walks the woods in June or July and rustles the mass of
gold-brown leaves fresh fallen under foot, or rides for unending weeks
across the Mendocino ranges--and always with a sense of fresh interest
and stimulation at the varying presence of this tree.
W.L. JEPSON,
in _Trees of California._
JULY 11.
THE WOODS OF THE WEST.
Oh, woods of the west, leafy woods that I love.
Where through the long days I have heard
The prayer of the wind in the branches above,
And the tremulous song of the bird.
Where the clust'ring blooms of the dog-wood hang o'er--
White stars in the dusk of the pine,
And down the dim aisles of the old forest pour
The sunbeams that melt into wine!
* * * * *
Oh, woods of the west, I am sighing today
For the sea-songs your voices repeat,
For the evergreen glades, for the glades far away
From the stifling air of the street,
And I long, ah, I long to be with you again
And to dream in that region of rest.
Forever apart from this warring of men--
Oh, wonderful woods of the west!
HERBERT BASHFORD,
in _At the Shrine of Song._
JULY 12.
The Mohave yucca is a remarkable plant, which resembles in its nature
both the cactus and the palm. It is found nowhere save in the Mohave
Desert. It attains a height of thirty or forty feet, and the trunk,
often two or three feet in diameter, supports half a dozen irregular
branches, each tipped with a cluster of spine-like leaves. The
flowers, which are of a dingy white color, come out in March and last
until May, giving off a disagreeable odor. The fruit, however, which
is two or three inches long, is pulpy and agreeable, resembling a date
in flavor.
ARTHUR J. BURDICK,
in _The Mystic Mid-Region._
JULY 13 AND 14.
Throughout the coast region, except in the extreme north, this Live
Oak is the most common and characteristic tree of the Coast Range
valleys which it beautifies with low broad heads whose rounded
outlines are repeated in the soft curves of the foothills. Disposed in
open groves along the bases of low hills, fringing the rich lands
along creeks or scattered by hundreds or thousands over the fertile
valley floors, the eyes of the early Spanish explorers dwelt on the
thick foliage of the swelling crowns and read the fertility of the
land in these evergreen oaks which they called Encina. The chain of
Franciscan Missions corresponded closely to the general range of the
Live Oak although uniformly well within the margin of its geographical
limits both eastward and northward. The vast assemblage of oaks in the
Santa Clara Valley met the eyes of Portola, discoverer of San
Francisco Bay, in 1769, and a few years later, Crespi, in the
narrative of the expedition of 1772, called the valley the "Plain of
Oaks of the Port of San Francisco." Then came Vancouver, Englishman
and discoverer. Although he was the first to express a just estimate
of the Bay of San Francisco, which he declared to be as fine as any
port in the world, nevertheless it is his felicitous and appreciative
description of the groves of oaks, the fertile soil (of which they
were a sign), and the equable climate that one reads between his lines
of 1792 the prophecy of California's later empire.
W.L. JEPSON,
in _Silva of California._
JULY 15.
Huge live-oaks, silvered with a boar of lichen, stretched their boughs
in fantastic frenzies. Gray fringes of moss hung from them, and
tangled screens of clematis and wild grape caught the sunlight in
their flickering meshes or lay over mounds of foliage like a torn
green veil. * * *
For nearly two miles the carriage drive wound upward through this
sylvan solitude. As it approached the house a background of emerald
lawns shone through the interlacing branches, and brilliant bits of
flower beds were set like pieces of mosaic between gray trunks.
GERALDINE BONNER,
in _The Pioneer._
JULY 16.
The Yellow Pine is the most abundant and widely distributed tree of
the forests of California and is particularly characteristic of the
Sierra Nevada, where it attains its finest development. The largest
trees most commonly grow along the ridges and it is the ridges which
the trails ordinarily follow. Here the traveler may journey day after
day, over needle-carpeted or grassy ground, mostly free of underbrush,
amidst great clean shafts 40 to 150 feet high, of really massive
proportions but giving a sense of lightness by reason of their color,
symmetry, and great height. No two trunks in detail of bark are
modeled exactly alike, for each has its own particular finish; so it
is that the eye never wearies of the fascination of the Yellow Pine
but travels contentedly from trunk to trunk and wanders satisfyingly
up and down their splendid columns--the finest of any pine.
W.L. JEPSON,
in _Silva of California._
JULY 17.
MENDOCINO.
A vast cathedral by the western sea,
Whose spires God set in majesty on high,
Peak after peak of forests to the sky,
Blended in one vast roof of greenery.
The nave, a river broadening to the sea:
The aisles, deep canyons of eternal build;
The transepts, valleys with God's splendor filled;
The shrines, white waterfalls in leaf-laced drapery;
The choir stands westward by the sounding shore;
The cliffs like beetling pipes set high in air;
Roll from the beach the thunders crashing there;
The high wind-voices chord the breakers' roar;
And wondrous harmonies of praise and prayer
Swell to the forest altars evermore.
LILLIAN H. SHUEY,
in _Among the Redwoods._
JULY 18.
They were passing an orange-grove, and they entered a road bordered
with scarlet geraniums that wound for a mile through eucalyptus trees,
past artificial lakes where mauve water-lilies floated in the sun, and
boats languorously invited occupants. Finally they came upon a smooth
sward like that of an English park, embellished with huge date-palms,
luxuriant magnolias, and regal banana-trees. Then they passed a brook
tumbling in artificial cascades between banks thick with mossy ferns,
and bright with blossoms. The children led their companion beneath fig
and bay trees through an Italian garden; all of this splendid luxury
of verdure had sprung from the desert as the result of a fortune
patiently spent in irrigation.
MRS. FREMONT OLDER,
in _The Giants._
JULY 19.
Some men have an eye for trees and an inborn sympathy with these
rooted giants, as if the same sap ran in their own veins. To them
trees have a personality quite as animals have, and, to be sure, there
are "characters" among trees. I knew a solitary yellow pine which
towered in the landscape, the last of its race. Its vast columnal
trunk seemed to loom and expand as one approached. Always there was
distant music in the boughs above, a noble strain descending from the
clouds. Its song was more majestic than that of any other tree, and
fell upon the listening ear with the far-off cadence of the surf, but
sweeter and more lyrical, as if it might proceed from some celestial
harp. Though there was not a breeze stirring below, this vast tree
hummed its mighty song. Apparently its branches had penetrated to
another world than this, some sphere of increasing melody.
C.H. KIRKHAM,
in _In the Open._
JULY 20.
You will think the gentlemen were fine dandies in those Mexican days,
when I tell you that they often wore crimson velvet knee trousers
trimmed with gold lace, embroidered white shirts, bright green cloth
or velvet jackets with rows and rows of silver buttons and red sashes
with long streaming ends. Their wide-brimmed _sombreros_ (hats)
were trimmed with silver or gold braid and tassels. * * * Each
gentleman wore a large Spanish cloak of rich velvet or embroidered
cloth, and if it rained, he threw over his fine clothes a
_serape_, or square woolen blanket, with a slit cut in the middle
for the head.
ELLA M. SEXTON,
in _Stories of California._
JULY 21.
ON THE PLANTING OF THE TREES AT THE PACIFIC THEOLOGICAL
SEMINARY, OAKLAND.
And what shall be the children's tree,
To grow while we are sleeping?
The maple sweet; the manzanete;
The gentle willow weeping;
The larch; the yew; the oak so true,
Kind mother strong and tender;
Or, white and green, in gloss and sheen,
Queen Magnolia's splendor?
One wan, hot noon. His path was strewn,
Whose love did all love quicken,
With leaves of palm while song and psalm
Held all the world to listen.
For His dear sake, the palm we'll take--
Each frond shall be a prayer
That He will guide, whate'er betide,
Until we meet Him there.
CHARLES J. WOODBURY.
JULY 22.
The landscape, glazed with heat, seemed to faint under the unwinking
glare of the sun. From the parched grass-land and the thickets of
chaparral, pungent scents arose--the ardent odors that the woods of
foot-hill California exhale in the hot, breathless quiescence of
summer afternoons. * * *
The air came over it in glassy waves, carrying its dry, aromatic
perfume to one's nostrils. On its burnt expanse a few huge live-oaks
rose dark and dome-like, their shadows, black and irregular, staining
the ground beneath them.
GERALDINE BONNER,
in _The Pioneer._
JULY 23.
With great discomfort and considerable difficulty they threaded this
miniature forest, starting all sorts of wild things as they went on.
Cotton-tail rabbits fled before them. Gophers stuck their heads out of
the ground, and viewed them with jewel-like eyes, then noiselessly
retreated to their underground preserves. Large gray ground squirrels
sat up on their haunches, with bushy tails curled gracefully around
them and wee forepaws dropped downward as if in mimic courtesy, but
scampered off at their approach. Flocks of birds arose from their
feeding grounds, and lizards rustled through the dead leaves.
FLORA HAINES LOUGHEAD,
in _The Abandoned Claim._
JULY 24.
THE SENTINEL TREE.
(CYPRESS POINT, CALIFORNIA.)
A giant sentinel, alone it stands
On rocky headland where the breakers roar,
Parted from piny woods and pebbled shore.
Holding out branches as imploring hands.
Poor lonely tree, where never bird doth make
Its nest, or sing at morn and eve to thee,
Nor in whose shadow wild rose calleth bee
To come on gauzy wing for love's sweet sake.
Nature cares for thee, gives thee sunshine gold,
Handfuls of pearls cast from the crested waves,
For thee pink-throated shells soft murmurs hold,
And seaweed vested chorists chant in caves.
Whence came thee, lone one of an alien band.
To guard an outpost of this sunset land?
GRACE HIBBARD,
in _Forget-me-nots from California._
JULY 25.
IN THE MEXICAN JUNGLE.
The jungle, however, rang with life. Brilliant birds flew, screaming
at their approach--noisy parrots and macaws; the _gaucamaya_, one
flush of red and gold; a king vulture, raven black save for his
scarlet crest. From the safe height of a saber, monkeys showered
vituperations upon them. Once an _iguana_, great chameleon
lizard, rose under foot and dashed for the nearest water; again a
python wound its slow length across the path. Vegetation was equally
gorgeous, always strange. He saw plants that stung more bitterly than
insects; insects barely distinguishable from plants. Here a tree bore
flowers instead of leaves; there flowers grew as large as trees. * * *
Birds, beasts, flowers--all were strange, all were wonderful.
HERMAN WHITAKER,
in _The Planter._
JULY 26.
Sitting in the white-paved pergola at Montecito. with overhead a leafy
shelter of pink-flowered passifloras, looking out over the little
lake, its surface dotted with water-lilies, its banks fringed with
drooping shrubs and vines, the hum of the bee and the bird in the
air--I looked down over a wonderful collection of nearly 200 rare
palms and listened to the music that floated up from their waving
branches like that of a thousand silken-stringed eolian harp; and
there came into my mind visions of a people that shall be strong with
the strength of great hills, calm with the calm of a fair sea, united
as are at last the palm and the pine, mighty with the presence of God.
BELLE SUMNER ANGIER,
in _The Garden Book of California._
JULY 27.
THE GIANT SEQUOIAS.
O lofty giants of the elder prime!
How may the feeble lips, of mortal, rhyme
A measure fitted to thy statures grand,
As like a gathering of gods ye stand
And raise your solemn arms up to the skies,
While through your leaves pour Ocean's symphonies!
What Druid lore ye know! What ancient rites--
Gray guardians of ten thousand days and nights,
Watching the stars swim round their sapphire pole,
The ocean surges break about earth's brimming bowl.
The cyclone's driving swirl, the storm-tossed seas.
Hymning for aye their myriad litanies!
* * * * *
What dawn of Life saw ye, Grand Prophets old?
What pristine years? What advents manifold?
When first the glaciers in their icy throes
Were grinding thy repasts; and feeding thee with snows?
What earthquake shocks? What changes of the sun?
While ye laughed down their wrack and builded on!
JOHN WARD STIMSON,
in _Wandering Chords._
JULY 28.
High above on the western cliff a giant head of cactus reared infernal
arms and luminous bloom. One immense clump threw a shadow across the
cliff road where it leaves the river plain and winds along the canyon
to the mesa above the sea--the road over which in the old days the
Mission Indians bore hides to the ships and flung them from the cliffs
to the waiting boats below.
MARAH ELLIS RYAN,
in _For the Soul of Rafael._
JULY 29.
Distinct from all others, the sequoias are a race apart. The big-tree,
and the redwood of the Coast Range, are the only surviving members of
that ancient family, the giants of the fore-world. Their immense
trunks might be the fluted columns of some noble order of
architecture, surviving its builders like the marble temples of
Greece--columns three hundred feet high and thirty feet through at the
base. Such a vast nave, such majestic aisles, such sublime spires,
only the forest cathedrals know. Symmetrical silver firs, giant cedars
and spruce, grow side by side with sugar pines of vast and irregular
outline, whose huge branches, like outstretched arms, hold aloft the
splendid cones--such is the ancient wood.
C.H. KIRKHAM,
in _In the Open._
JULY 30.
Said one, "This city, as you know,
Though young in years, as cities go,
Has quite a history to repeat
If records have been kept complete.
Oft has it felt the earthquake shock
That made the strongest building rock.
And more than once 'gone up' in smoke
Till scarce a building sheltered folk.
The citizens can point to spots
Where people fashioned hangman's knots
With nimble fingers, to supply
Some hardened rogues a hempen tie,
Whom _Vigilantes_ and their friends
Saw fit to drop from gable-ends."
PALMER COX,
in _The Brownies Through California._
JULY 31.
ROSEMARY.
Indian summer has gone with its beautiful moon.
And all the sweet roses I gathered in June
Are faded. It may be the cloud-sylphs of Even
Have stolen the tints of those roses for Heaven.
O bonnie bright blossom! in the years far away.
So evanished thy bloom on an evening in May.
The sunlight now sleeps in the lap of the west,
And the star-beams are barring its chamber of rest.
While Twilight is weaving her blue-tinted bowers
To mellow the landscape where slumber the flowers.
I would fain learn the music that won thee away,
When the earth was the beautiful temple of May;
For our fancies were measured the bright summer long
To the carols we learned from the lark's morning song.
They still haunt me--those echoes from Child land--but now
My heart beats alone to their musical flow.
_Then_ I never looked up to the portals on high,
For our Heaven was here; and our azure-stained sky
Was the violet mead; the cloud-billows of snow
Were the pale nodding lilies; the roses that glow
On the crown of the hill, gave the soft blushing hue:
The gold was the crocus; the silver, the dew
Which met as it fell, the glad sunlight of smiles.
And wove the gay rainbow of Hope, o'er our aisles.
But the charm of the spring-time has vanished with thee;
To its mystical speech I've forgotten the key;
Yet, if angels and flowers _are_ closely allied,
I may trace thy lost bloom on the blushing hillside;
And when rose-buds are opening their petals in June,
I'll feel thou art near me and teaching the tune.
Which chanted by seraphim, won thee away
On that blossoming eve, from the gardens of May.
MARY V. TINGLEY LAWRENCE,
in _Poetry of the Pacific._
A VOICE ON THE WIND.
And out of the West came a voice on the wind:
O seek for the truth and behold, ye shall find!
O strive for the right and behold, ye shall do
All things that the Master commandeth of you.
For love is the truth ye have sought for so long,
And love is the right that ye strove for through wrong.
Love! love spheres our lives with a halo of fire,
But God, how 'tis dimmed by each selfish desire!
CHARLES KEELER,
in _Idyls of El Dorado_ (out of print).
AUGUST 1.
THE AGE OF THE SEQUOIAS.
Prof. Jordan estimates that the oldest of the sequoias is at least
7000 years old. The least age assigned to it is 5000 years. It was a
giant when the Hebrew Patriarchs were keeping sheep. It was a sapling
when the first seeds of human civilization were germinating on the
banks of the Euphrates and the Nile. It had attained its full growth
before the Apostles went forth to spread the Christian religion. It
began to die before William of Normandy won the battle of Hastings. It
has been dying for a thousand years. And unless some accident comes to
it, it will hardly be entirely dead a thousand years from now. It has
seen the birth, growth and decay of all the generations and tribes and
nations of civilized men. It will see the birth and decay of many more
generations. It is the oldest living thing on the face of the earth.
G.W. BURTON,
in _Burton's Book on California._
AUGUST 2.
Adown the land great rivers glide
With lyric odes upon their lips,
The sheltered bay with singing tide
Forever woos the storm-tossed ships--
And yet, for me more magic teems
By California's willowed streams.
* * * * *
For some the crowded market place.
The bustle of the jammed bazaars.
The fleeting chance in fortune's race
That ends somewhere amid the stars--
Give me a chance to gather dreams
By California's willowed streams.
CLARENCE URMY,
in _Sunset Magazine._
AUGUST 3.
But what the land lacks in trees it nearly makes up in shrubs. Three
varieties of sumac, reaching often as high as fifteen or eighteen
feet, and spreading as many wide, stand thick upon a thousand
hill-sides and fill with green the driest and stoniest ravines. Two
kinds of live oak bushes, two varieties of lilac, one with white, the
other with lavender flowers, the _madrona_, the coffee-berry, the
manzanita, the wild mahogany, the choke-berry, all of brightest green,
with _adenostoma_ and _baccharis_, two dark-green bushes,
looking like red and white cedar, form what is called the chaparral.
Three varieties of dwarf-willow often grow along the water-courses,
and with the elder, wild grape, rose and sweet-briar, all well huddled
together, the chinks filled with nettles and the whole tied together
with long, trailing blackberry vines, often form an interesting
subject of contemplation for one who wants to get on the other side.
T.S. VAN DYKE,
in _Southern California._
AUGUST 4.
You who would find a new delight in the wild and waste places of the
earth, a new meaning to life, and an enlarged sympathy with your
fellow creatures, should seek them out, not in the books, but in their
homes. One bird learned and known as an individual creature, with a
life all its own, is worth volumes of reading. Listen to their
call-notes; observe their plumage and their motions; seek out their
homes, and note their devotion to their young. Then will the lower
animals become invested with a new dignity, and the homes builded not
with hands will become as sacred as the dwelling-place of your
neighbor.
CHARLES KEELER,
in _Bird Notes Afield._
AUGUST 5.
THE NAVEL ORANGE 250 YEARS AGO.
Most Americans know an orange by sight, and we of California count it
a blood relation. We do grow the best orange in the world, and ship
thousands of loads of it in a year; and we have a modest notion that
we invented it, and that we "know oranges." But the handsomest, the
fullest and the most erudite treatise on oranges ever printed does not
derive from California, nor yet from the Only Smart Nation.... On the
contrary, it was printed in Rome in the year 1646.... More accurate
drawings of these fruits have never been printed; and the
illustrations cover not only the varieties and even the "freaks" of
the Golden Apple, but the methods of planting, budding, wall-training
and housing it. Perhaps the point likeliest to jar our complacent
ignorance is the fact that this venerable work describes and pictures
seedless oranges, and even the peculiar "sport," now an established
variety, which we know as the "Navel." Two hundred and fifty seven
years ago it was called the "Female, or Foetus-bearing orange;" but no
one today can draw a better picture, nor a more unmistakable, of a
navel orange.
CHARLES F. LUMMIS,
in _Out West._
AUGUST 6.
THE SIERRA NEVADAS.
Serene and satisfied! Supreme! As lone
As God, they loom like God's archangels churl'd;
They look as cold as kings upon a throne;
* * * * *
A line of battle-tents in everlasting snow.
JOAQUIN MILLER.
AUGUST 7.
TO THE VIOLET.
Welcome little violet,
I gladly welcome thee;
Peeping with thy dewy eyes
So shyly out at me.
Modest little violet
Hide not thy face away.
I love thee and thy sweet perfume,
Thy purple-hued array.
Sweetest little violet,
I'll pluck thee gently dear,
I'll nurture thee so tenderly--
Then have of me no fear.
Sweetest little violet,
Delight of every heart;
No flow'ret rare is like thee fair,
None praised as thou art.
BERTHA HIRSCH BARUCH.
AUGUST 8.
August is a word of dire import in the bird-lover's calendar. It means
virtually the end of the bird season. The wooing and nesting and
rearing the family are all over, and now looms before the feathered
population that annual trouble--the change of dress, the only time in
his life--happy soul!--that he has to concern himself about clothes.
In the business of getting a new suit he has more trouble than a fine
lady, for he has to shake off the old garments, while getting the new,
bit by bit, here a feather and there a feather, today a new
wing-quill; tomorrow a new plume on his dainty breast.
OLIVE THORNE MILLER.
AUGUST 9.
CHILDREN IN A CALIFORNIA GARDEN.
Legendry and literature may be taught to your children in the garden.
Tell them the pretty story of how Cupid's mother gave the rose its
thorns; the tale of the sensitive plant; and point out to them the
equipment of the cacti for their strange, hard life on the desert; the
lovely human faces filled with the sweetness of remembrance that we
find in the pansy bed. Show them the delight of the swift-flying
hummingbird in the red and yellow blossoms of the garden, and the
sagacity of the oriole in building his nest near the lantana bush--so
attractive to the insects upon which the scamp feeds.
BELLE SUMNER ANGIER,
in _The Garden Book of California._
AUGUST 10.
ON JOAQUIN MILLER.
Sierra's poet! high and pure thy muse
Enthroned doth sit amongst the stars and snows;
And from thy harp olympian music flows,
Of glacier heights and gleaming mountain dews.
Of western sea and burning sunset hues.
And we who look up--who on the plain repose,
And catch faint glimpses of the mount that throws
Athwart thy poet-sight diviner views.
And not alone from starry shrine is strung
Thy lyre, but timed to gentler lay,
That sings of children, motherhood and home,
And lifts our hearts and lives to sweeter day.
Oh, bard of Nature's heart! thy name will rest
Immortal in thy land--our Golden West!
DORA CURETON,
in _Sunset Magazine._
AUGUST 11.
THE PESSIMIST.
The pessimist leads us into a land of desolation. He makes for the
sight blossoms of ugliness; for the smell repellant odors; for the
taste bitterness and gall; for the hearing harsh discord, and death
for the touch that is the only relief from a desert whose scrawny life
lives but to distress us.
ABBOTT KINNEY,
in _Tasks By Twilight._
The leaves of the wild gourd, lying in great star shaped patches on
the ground, drooped on their stems, and the spikes of dusty white sage
by the road hung limp at the ends, and filled the air with their
wilted fragrance. The sea-breeze did not come up, and in its stead
gusts of hot wind from the north swept through the valley as if from
the door of a furnace.
MARGARET COLLIER GRAHAM,
in _Stories of the Foothills._
AUGUST 12.
ENTICEMENT.
Then haste, sweet April Dear.
Thou alone canst find her.
Her hair so soft, so silken soft thy breezes blow
And thou shall laugh with her, give her thy first sweet kiss.
On her white blossom's snow ...
Why, why, dost thou not fly, on clouds of love.
'Tis thou alone canst find her.
Thou fain would'st ask doth she love thee.
Thou knowest well
She loves thee,
April Dear.
ADRIADNE HOLMES EDWARDS.
AUGUST 13.
Our pitcher-plant is one of the most wonderful and interesting of all
the forms that grow, linking, as it were, the vegetable world with the
animal, by its unnatural carnivorous habits.
No ogre in his castle has ever gone to work more deliberately or
fiendishly to entrap his victims while offering them hospitality, than
does this plant-ogre. Attracted by the bizarre yellowish hoods of the
tall, nodding flowers, the foolish insect alights upon the former and
commences his exploration of the fascinating region.
But at last, when he has partaken to satiety and would fain depart, he
turns to retrace his steps. In the dazzlement of the transparent
windows of the dome above, he loses sight of the darkened door in the
floor by which he entered and flies forcibly upward, bumping his head
in his eagerness to escape. He is stunned by the blow and plunges
downward into the tube below. Here he struggles to rise, but countless
downward-pointing, bristly hairs urge him to his fate.
MARY ELIZABETH PARSONS,
in _The Wild Flowers of California._
AUGUST 14.
Sausalito is noted for its abundance of flowers. These not only grow
in thick profusion in the quaint hillside gardens, but are planted
beside the roadways, covering many an erstwhile bare and unsightly
bank with trailing vines, gay nasturtiums and bright geraniums. There
is something in the spirit of this hillside gardening, this planting
of sweet blossoms for the public at large, that is very appealing.
HELEN BINGHAM,
in _In Tamal Land._
AUGUST 15.
A GROUP OF CACTI.
(IN CALIFORNIA.)
Flower of the desert, type mysterious, strange,
Like bird or monster on some sculptured tomb
In Egypt's curious fashion wrought, what change
Or odd similitude of fate, what range
Of cycling centuries from out the gloom
Of dusty ages has evolved thy bloom?
In the bleak desert of an alien zone,
Child of the past, why dwellest thou alone?
Grotesque, incongruous, amid the flowers;
Unlovely and unloved, standing aside,
Like to some rugged spirit sheathed in pride;
Unsmiling to the sun, untouched by showers--
The dew falls--every bud has drunk its fill:
Bloom of the desert, thou art arid still!
MARY E. MANNIN.
AUGUST 16.
In late spring and early summer upon the fading grasslands and on the
dry sunny slopes of the hills, the Mariposa tulips set their
long-stemmed chalices of delicate color. Bulbous plants of the lily
family, they are frequently called Mariposa lilies, but as a matter of
fact their relationship is very near to the true tulips of the Old
World, and like the latter, they have been extensively introduced into
cultivation both in this country and abroad.
The petals are often conspicuously marked with lines and dots and
eye-like spots in a manner that suggests the gay wings of a butterfly,
whence the term, "Mariposa," which is the Spanish word for that
insect.
ELIZABETH H. SAUNDERS,
in _California Wild Flowers._
AUGUST 17.
COPA DE ORO.
(CALIFORNIA POPPY.)
Thy satin vesture richer is than looms
Of Orient weave for raiment of her kings,
Not dyes of olden Tyre, not precious things
Regathered from the long forgotten tombs
Of buried empires, not the iris plumes
That wave upon the tropics' myriad wings,
Not all proud Sheba's queenly offerings,
Could match the golden marvel of thy blooms,
For thou art nurtured from the treasure-veins
Of this fair land; thy golden rootlets sup
Her sands of gold--of gold thy petals spun,
Her golden glory, thou! of hills and plains,
Lifting, exultant, every kingly cup
Brimmed with the golden vintage of the sun.
INA D. COOLBRITH,
in _Songs from the Golden Gate._
AUGUST 18.
The Golden Eagle is California's noblest bird of prey. He is more than
a match for any animal of his own size. Not a beast of the field or a
fowl of the air can dispossess him; he stands intrepid before every
earthly power except the hand of man. He is shy and wary at all times,
clean and handsome, swift in flight and strong in body. An experience
gained in the fiercest of schools makes the Eagle as formidable as any
creature of the wild. He is a valuable inhabitant of any cattle range
or farming community. His food consists almost entirely of the ground
squirrels that are so abundant through the California hills and cause
such damage to the grain fields.
WILLIAM L. FINLEY,
in _Feathered Foragers._
AUGUST 19.
THE POPPY'S CHIMES.
With all this youth to cheer his eyes
No man is ever old,
With all this wealth to fill his purse
No one need lack for gold.
O rare Ben Jonson, you should see
The draught that I may sup:
How sweet the drink, her kiss within.
The poppy's golden cup.
My lowly queen, I bow to thee
And worship with my soul:
I hope to drink her love from out
The poppy's golden bowl.
Look up, my sweet, and catch my words,
A secret I would tell:
I think I hear her "Yes" ring from
The poppy's golden bell.
CHARLES McKNIGHT SAIN,
in _Sunset, August_, 1908.
AUGUST 20.
Flowering vines overhung, climbed and clung about the balcony pillars
and balustrades. Roses drooped in heavy-headed cascades from
second-story railings; the wide purple flowers of the clematis climbed
aloft. On one wall a heliotrope broke in lavender foam and the creamy
froth of the Banksia rose dabbled railings and pillars and dripped
over on to the ground. It was a big, cool, friendly looking house with
a front door that in summer was always open, giving the approaching
visitor a hospitable glimpse of an airy, unencumbered hall.
GERALDINE BONNER,
in _The Pioneer._
AUGUST 21.
A DREAM OF POPPIES.
Brown hills long parched, long lifting to the blue
Of summer's brilliant sky but russet hue
Of sere grass shivering in the trade-wind's sweep.
Soon, with light footfalls, from their tranced sleep
The first rains bid the poppies rise anew,
And trills the lark exultant summons, too.
How swift at Fancy's beck those gay crowds leap
To glowing life! The eager green leaves creep
For welcome first; then hooded buds, pale gold,
Each tender shower and sun-kiss help unfold
Till smiling hosts crowd all the fields, and still
A yellow sea of poppies breasts each hill
And breaks in joyous floods as children hold
Glad hands the lavish cups as gladly fill!
ELLA M. SEXTON,
in _The Golden Poppy._
AUGUST 22.
CALIFORNIA.
Her poppies fling a cloth of gold
O'er California's hills--
Fit emblem of the wealth untold
That hill and dale and plain unfold.
Her fame the whole world fills.
ELIZA D. KEITH.
_How can one convey meaning to another in a language_ which that
other does not understand? I can only tell you the charm of the
desert, when you, too, have learned to love it. And then there will be
no need for me to speak.
IDAH MEACHAM STROBRIDGE,
in _Miner's Mirage Land._
AUGUST 23.
THE PÆAN OF THE POPPIES.
The mountains sway with flame
Where the frail glories tremble--
Fair fallen stars of fire!
The valleys green acclaim
The legions that assemble
In royal robe and tire,
With timbrel, shawm and choir.
* * * * *
Afar in darker lands
I feel their kisses burning
As sweet, uncertain lips.
As faint, unhindered hands
Are felt by exiles yearning
On shores when tears eclipse
The wan and westering ships.
HERMAN SCHEFFAUER,
in _Looms of Life._
AUGUST 24.
PEACE.
No hand have I on rudder laid;
All my oars lie idly by;
All my sheets are steadfast made.
For Love now guides me silently.
His are the waves and flowing tide;
He is my bark and chart and hand;
He is companion at my side;
His the coming and departed land.
Somewhere, I know, I port shall win;
Somewhen I know, dear friends, I'll see;
Love, "The I Am" is lord within!
Daily he brings mine own to me.
HENRY HARRISON BROWN,
in _Now, March_, 1900.
AUGUST 25.
IN THE SEASON OF POPPIES.
From the shoulders of Dawn the night shadow slipped,
As the shy, saintly Moon evaded her tryst
With the roystering Sun, who eagerly sipped
From the valley's green cup the golden-white mist.
Day flashed like a smile from Dawn's rosy mouth,
With a passion of birds and fragrant appeals,
And the warm winds up from the sleepy South
Sluiced the red, scented gold of our poppy fields.
HARLEY R. WILEY,
in _Overland Monthly, Sept._, 1908.
AUGUST 26.
WHEN THE POPPY GOES TO SLEEP.
Now the sandman comes a-calling,
And those eyes can scarcely peep:
It is little children's bedtime
When the poppy goes to sleep.
In the west the sun is sinking,
And the chickens go to roost:
And the poppy folds its petals
That the beaming sun had loosed.
* * * * *
And the poppy like the Arab,
Silent in the close of day,
Fearful of the coming darkness,
Folds its tent and steals away.
Hear the sandman's final warning
On the land and on the deep,
Saying, "Good night, good night, good night,"
When the poppy goes to sleep.
CHARLES McKNIGHT SAIN,
in _The Call of the Muse._
AUGUST 27.
THE SIERRA SNOW-PLANT.
Thou growest in eternal snows
As flower never grew;
The sun upon thy beauty throws
No kiss--the dawn no dew.
Thou knowest not the love-warm marl
Of Earth, but dead and white
The wastes wherein thy roots ensnarl
Ere thou art freed in light.
Where blighted dawns, with twilight blent,
Die pale, thou liftest strong,
A tongue of crimson, eloquent
With one unceasing song.
O Life in vasts of death! O Flame
That thrills the stark expanse;
Let Love and Longing be thy name!
Love and Renunciance.
HERMAN SCHEFFAUER,
in _Looms of Life._
AUGUST 28.
IN A CALIFORNIA GARDEN.
Thro' the green cloister, folding us within.
The leaves are audible--our ear to win;
They whisper of the realm of old Romance.
Of sunny Spain, and of chivalric France;
And poor Ramona's love and her despair,
Thrill, like Aeolian harp, the twilight air--
So the dear garden claims its mystic due.
Linking the legends of the Old and New.
FRANCES MARGARET MILNE,
in _The Grizzly Bear Magazine, June_, 1909.
AUGUST 29.
The evening primrose covers the lower slopes with long sheets of
brightest yellow, and from the hills above, the rock-rose adds its
golden bloom to that of the sorrel and the wild alfalfa, until the
hills almost outshine the bright light from the slopes and plains. And
through all this nods a tulip of delicate lavender; vetches, lupins
and all the members of the wild-pea family are pushing and winding
their way everywhere in every shade of crimson, purple and white. New
bell-flowers of white and blue and indigo rise above the first, which
served merely as ushers to the display, and whole acres ablaze with
the orange of the poppy are fast turning with the indigo of the
larkspur. The mimulus alone is almost enough to color the hills.
T.S. VAN DYKE,
in _Southern California._
AUGUST 30.
THE MARIPOSA LILY.
Insect or blossom? Fragile, fairy thing,
Poised upon slender tip, and quivering
To flight! a flower of the fields of air;
A jeweled moth; a butterfly, with rare
And tender tints upon his downy wings,
A moment resting in our happy sight;
A flower held captive by a thread so slight
Its petal-wings of broidered gossamer
Are light as the wind, with every wind astir,
Wafting sweet odor, faint and exquisite.
O dainty nursling of the field and sky.
What fairer thing looks up to heaven's blue
And drinks the noontide sun, the dawning's dew?
Thou winged bloom! thou blossom-butterfly!
INA D. COOLBRITH,
in _Songs from the Golden Gate._
AUGUST 31.
CALIFORNIA PHILOSOPHY.
You kin talk about yer eastern states, their stiddy growth 'nd size,
'Nd brag about yer cities, with their business enterprise;
You kin blow about tall buildin's runnin' clean up to the clouds,
'Nd gas about yer graded streets 'nd chirp about yer crowds;
But how about yer "twisters" 'nd the cyclones you have there,
That's runnin' 'round uncorralled 'nd a-gittin' on a tear,
'Nd a-mixin' towns 'nd counties up at sich a tarnal rate
A man can't be dead sartin that he's in his native state.
You needn't talk to me about yer "enterprise" 'nd "go,"
Fer how about them river floods us folks hear tell of so,
Where a feller goes to bed at night with nary thought o' fear,
'Nd discovers in the mornin' that he's changed his hemisphere;
'Nd where grasshoppers eat the crops 'nd all about the place,
But leave that gilt-edged mortgage there ter stare you in the face.
If that is where you want ter live it's where you'd orter be,
But I reckon ol' Cal'forny's good 'nough fer me.
I sort o' low the climate thar is somewhat diff'runt too,
Accordin' to the weather prophet's watchful p'int o' view.
In course, if ten foot snowbanks don't bother you at all,
Er slosh 'nd mud 'nd drizzlin' rain, combined with a snowfall,
It's just the most delightful spot this side o' heaven's dome--
But I kind o' sorter reckon that I couldn't call it home.
When you talk about that climate, it's all tomfoolery,
Fer sunny ol' Cal'forny's good enough fer me.
Oh, you live away back east, you don't know what you miss
By stayin' in that measly clime, without the joy an' bliss
Of knowin' what the weather is from one day to the next;
It's "mebby this," "I hope it's that," er some such like pretext.
Come out to Californy' whar the sky is allers bright,
'Nd where the sun shines all the while, with skeerce a cloud in sight;
You'd never pine fer eastern climes--ther's no denyin' that--
Fer when you want a heaven on earth, Los Angeles stands pat.
E.A. BRININSTOOL.
CALIFORNIA.
In all methinks I see the counterpart
Of Italy, without her dower of art.
We have the lordly Alps, the fir-fringed hills,
The green and golden valleys veined with rills,
A dead Vesuvius with its smouldering fire,
A tawny Tiber sweeping to the sea.
Our seasons have the same superb attire,
The same redundant wealth of flower and tree,
Upon our peaks the same imperial dyes,
And day by day, serenely over all,
The same successive months of smiling skies.
Conceive a cross, a tower, a convent wall,
A broken column and a fallen fane,
A chain of crumbling arches down the plain,
A group of brown-faced children by a stream,
A scarlet-skirted maiden standing near,
A monk, a beggar, and a muleteer,
And lo! it is no longer now a dream.
These are the Alps, and there the Apennines;
The fertile plains of Lombardy between;
Beyond Val d'Arno with its flocks and vines,
These granite crags are gray monastic shrines
Perched on the cliffs like old dismantled forts;
And far to seaward can be dimly seen
The marble splendor of Venetian courts;
While one can all but hear the mournful rhythmic beat
Of white-lipped waves along the sea-paved street.
O childless mother of dead empires, we,
The latest born of all the western lands,
In fancied kinship stretch our infant hands
Across the intervening seas to thee.
Thine the immortal twilight, ours the dawn,
Yet we shall have our names to canonize,
Our past to haunt us with its solemn eyes,
Our ruins, when this restless age is gone.
LUCIUS HARWOOD FOOTE.
SEPTEMBER 1.
THE SCARF OF IRIS.
Something magical is near me--hidden, breathing everywhere,
Shaken out in mystic odors, caught unseen in the mid-air.
Life is waking, palpitating; souls of flowers are drawing nigh;
Flitting birds with fluted warble weave between the earth and sky;
And a soft excitement welling from the inmost heart of things
Such a sense of exaltation, such a call to rapture brings,
That my heart--all tremulous with a virgin wonderment--
Waits and yearns and sings in carols of the rain and sunshine blent,
Knowing more will be revealed with the dawning every day--
For the fairy scarf of Iris falls across the common way.
RUBY ARCHER.
SEPTEMBER 2.
To the left as you rode you saw, far on the horizon, rising to the
height of your eye, the mountains of the Channel Islands. Then the
deep sapphire of the Pacific, fringed with the soft, unchanging white
of the surf and the yellow of the shore. Then the town like a little
map, and the lush greens of the wide meadows, the fruit-groves, the
lesser ranges--all vivid, fertile, brilliant, and pulsating with
vitality.
STEWART EDWARD WHITE,
in _The Mountains._
SEPTEMBER 3.
Never was garden more unintentionally started, and never did one prove
greater source of pleasure. * * * One day, about Christmas time, my
little nephew brought me two small twigs of honeysuckle--not slips or
shoots, and I stuck them in the ground by the front porch. * * * When
it was just eighteen months old honeysuckle vines were twining tenderly
about the corner pillars of the porch, drawing their network across to
the other support, and covered with bunches of white, creamy tubes, the
air heavy with their perfume. * * * The climbing rose had reached the
lattice work, and its yellowish flowers formed a most effective
contrast to the sky-blue of the sollya blossoms, trained up on the
other side of the porch. The beds were edged variously with dark blue
violets and pink daisies, above which bloomed salvias, euphorbias,
lantanas, tube-roses, forget-me-nots, carnations, white lilies, Japan
lilies, iris, primroses, ranunculus, lilies-of-the-valley, pansies,
anemones, dahlias, and roses--white, red, pink, yellow, crimson,
cream--in the wildest profusion.
JOSEPHINE CLIFFORD McCRACKIN,
in _Another Juanita._
SEPTEMBER 4.
AFTERWARD.
A dying moon fell down the sky,
As one looked out to see
The place where once her soul endured
Its lengthened Calvary.
Of all the mem'ries gathered there--
Their faces wan with tears--
One only smiled--a baby's smile--
To rectify the years.
DOROTHEA L. MOORE.
SEPTEMBER 5.
The harvesting of hops is the conjunction of the rude essentials of
farm life with the highest effect in art. What artist but would note
enthusiastically the inimitable pose of that young girl tip-toeing to
bring down the tuft of creamy blossoms overhead; or the modest nudity
of the wee bronze savage capering about a stolid squaw in a red
sprigged muslin? Indeed, there is indescribable piquancy in this
unconscious grouping of the pickers and their freedom from restraint.
For each artistic bit--a laughing face in an aureole of amber clusters,
a statuesque chin and throat, Indians in grotesquely picturesque
raiment, and the yellow visages of the Chinese--the vines make an
idyllic framing with a sinking summer sun in the background lending a
shimmering transparency to leaf and flower.
NINETTA EAMES,
in _Hop-Picking Time, The Cosmopolitan, November_, 1893.
SEPTEMBER 6.
Golf has spread with great rapidity throughout California, and though
many people may have taken it up from an idea that it is the correct
thing, the game will always be popular, especially in the Southern part
of the State, where more people of leisure live than in the Northern
part, and where the large infusion of British and Eastern residents
tends to foster a love of out-door sports. Golf may be played in any
part of Central or Southern California on any day in the year when a
gale is not blowing or heavy rain falling. Occasionally the strong
winds render golfing somewhat arduous, but the enthusiast can play on
about three hundred and fifty days in the year.
ARTHUR INKERSLEY,
in _Overland Monthly._
SEPTEMBER 7.
My roses bud and bloom and fail me never,
From Lent and Whitsun to the Christmas time;
Climbing in eagerness and great endeavor--
Our Southland bushes ever love to climb.
JAMES MAIN DIXON,
in _My Garden._
How bright the world looked, to be sure; flowers covered the earth, not
scattered in niggardly manner as in the older, colder Eastern states,
but covering the earth for miles, showing nothing but a sea of blue, an
ocean of crimson, or a wilderness of yellow. Then came patches where
all shades and colors were mixed; delicate tints of pink and mauve, of
pure white and deep red, and over all floated a fragrance that was
never equaled by garden-flowers or their distilled perfume.
JOSEPHINE CLIFFORD McCRACKIN,
in _Overland Tales._
SEPTEMBER 8.
The love that gives all, craves all, asks nothing, is so bitter that no
one lifts the cup voluntarily, and yet if the sweetness of it could be
distilled, prosperous love would regard it enviously and kings seek it
on foot.
AMANDA MATHEWS,
in _Hieroglyphics of Love._
The world will never be saved from its sin and shame until a larger
number of men are ready to lash themselves like Ulysses of old to those
enduring principles of righteousness which stand erect like masts and
sail on, no matter what sirens of personal indulgence sing along the
course.
CHARLES REYNOLDS BROWN.
SEPTEMBER 9.
TO CALIFORNIA:
Queen of the Sunset!
Within the crown upon thy forehead glow
The crystal jewels of eternal snow.
Down at thy feet the broad Pacific towers,
And Summer ever binds thy breast with flowers.
MADGE MORRIS WAGNER,
in _Debris._
The religious life of California is characterized by the spirit of
freedom and tolerance. The aim has been to "Render unto Caesar the
things which are Caesar's," by legislating only in regard to those
secular interests in which all stand alike before the law and to leave
to the free and untrammeled decision of the individual conscience those
deeper, personal attitudes and relationships "which are God's."
CHARLES REYNOLDS BROWN.
SEPTEMBER 10.
Gay little oriole, fond little lover,
Watching thy mate o'er her tiny ones hover,
Tell me, I pray, from your cottonwood tree,
When will my true love come riding to me?
Will he come with his lariat hung at his side?
On a wild prancing bronco, my love, will he ride?
So high on your tree top you surely can see,
O, how will my true love come riding to me?
Sing of my lover and tell me my fate,
Will he guard me as fondly as thou dost thy mate?
Dear oriole, sing, while I listen to thee--
When will my true love come riding to me?
CHARLES KEELER,
in _Overland Monthly._
SEPTEMBER 11.
LOOKING BACKWARD!
My heart aches, and a poignant yearning pains
My pulse, as though from revel I had waked
To find sore disenchantment.
Oh for the simple ways of childhood,
And its joys!
Why have I grown so cold and cynical?
My life seems out of tune;
Its notes harsh and discordant;
The crowded thoroughfare doth fret me
And make lonely.
Darkling I muse and yearn
For those glad days of yore,
When my part chorded too,
And I, a merry, trustful boy,
Found consonance in every friend without annoy.
Since then, how changed!
Strained are the strings of friendship; fled the joys;
Seeming the show.
An alien I, unlike, alone!
And yet my mother! The welcome word o'erflows the eye,
And makes the very memory weep.
No, love is not extinct--that sweetest name--
The covering ashes keep alive the flame.
MALCOLM McLEOD,
in _Culture Simplicity._
SEPTEMBER 12.
The overgoing sun shines upon no region, of equal extent, which offers
so many and such varied inducements to men in search of homes and
health, as does the region which is entitled to the appellation of
"Semi-Tropical California."
BEN C. TRUMAN,
in _Semi-Tropical California._
SEPTEMBER 13.
THE CRESTED JAY.
The jay is a jovial bird--heigh-ho!
He chatters all day
In a frolicsome way
With the murmuring breezes that blow--heigh-ho!
Hear him noisily call
From a redwood tree tall
To his mate in the opposite tree--heigh-ho!
Saying: "How do you do?"
As his top-knot of blue
Is raised as polite as can be--heigh-ho!
O impudent jay,
With your plumage so gay,
And your manners so jaunty and free--heigh-ho!
How little you guessed
When you robbed the wren's nest,
That any stray fellow would see--heigh-ho!
CHARLES KEELER,
in _Elfin Songs of Sunland._
SEPTEMBER 14.
It is to prevent the wholesale slaughter of songbirds that I appeal to
you. The farmer or the fruit-raiser has not yet learned enough to
distinguish friend from foe, and goes gunning in season and out of
season, so that the cherry orchard, when the cherries are ripe, looks
like a battle-field in miniature, the life-blood of the little slain
birds rivaling in color the brightness of their wings and breast. And
all this destruction of song, of gladness, of helpfulness, because the
poor birds have pecked at a few early cherries, worthless, almost, in
the market, as compared to the later, better kinds, which they do not
interfere with.
JOSEPHINE CLIFFORD McCRACKIN.
SEPTEMBER 15.
THE VOICE OF THE CALIFORNIA DOVE.
Come, listen O love, to the voice of the dove,
Come, hearken and hear him say,
"There are many Tomorrows, my love, my love,
There is only one Today."
And all day long you can hear him say,
This day in purple is rolled,
And the baby stars of the milky way
They are cradled in cradles of gold.
Now what is thy secret, serene gray dove,
Of singing so sweetly alway?
"There are many Tomorrows, my love, my love,
There is only one Today."
JOAQUIN MILLER.
SEPTEMBER 16.
With the tip of his strong cane he breaks off a piece of the serried
bark, and a spider scurries down the side of the log and into the
grass. He chips off another piece, and a bevy of sow-bugs make haste to
tumble over and play dead, curling their legs under their sides, but
recovering their senses and scurrying off after the spider. The cane
continues to chip off the bark, and down tumble all sorts of
wood-people, some of them hiding like a flash in the first moist earth
they come to; others never stopping until they are well under the log,
where experience has taught them they will be safe out of harm's way.
And they declare to themselves, and to each other, that they will never
budge from under that log until it is midnight, and that wicked
meadow-lark is fast asleep.
ELIZABETH AND JOSEPH GRINNELL,
in _Birds of Song and Story._
SEPTEMBER 17.
SIESTA.
A shady nook where nought is overheard
But wind among the eucalyptus leaves,
The cheery chirp of interflitting bird,
Or wooden squeak of tree-frog as it grieves.
The resting eye broods o'er the running grass,
Or nodding gestures of the bowed wild oats;
Watches the oleander lancers pass,
And the bright flashing of the oriole notes.
Hushed are the senses with the drone of bees
And the far glimmer of the mid-day heat;
Dreams stealing o'er one like the incoming seas,
Soft as the rustling zephyrs in the wheat;
While on the breeze is borne the call of Love
To Love, dear Love, of Majel, the wild dove.
CHARLES ELMER JENNEY,
in _Western Field, Dec._, 1905.
SEPTEMBER 18.
One summer there came a road-runner up from the lower valley, peeking
and prying, and he never had any patience with the water baths of the
sparrows. His own ablutions were performed in the clean, hopeful dust
of the chaparral; and whenever he happened on their morning
splatterings, he would depress his glossy crest, slant his shining tail
to the level of his body, until he looked most like some bright
venomous snake, daunting them with shrill abuse and feint of battle.
Then suddenly he would go tilting and balancing down the gully in fine
disdain, only to return in a day or two to make sure the foolish bodies
were still at it.
MARY AUSTIN,
in _The Land of Little Rain._
SEPTEMBER 19.
MEADOW LARKS.
Sweet, sweet, sweet! O happy that I am!
(Listen to the meadow-larks, across the fields that sing!)
Sweet, sweet, sweet! O subtle breath of balm.
O winds that blow, O buds that grow, O rapture of the Spring!
Sweet, sweet, sweet! Who prates of care and pain?
Who says that life is sorrowful? O life so glad, so fleet!
Ah! he who lives the noblest life finds life the noblest gain.
The tears of pain a tender rain to make its waters sweet.
Sweet, sweet, sweet! O happy world that is!
Dear heart, I hear across the fields my mateling pipe and call.
Sweet, sweet, sweet! O world so full of bliss--
For life is love, the world is love, and love is over all!
INA D. COOLBRITH,
in _Songs from the Golden Gate._
SEPTEMBER 20.
How could we spare the lark, that most companionable bird of the
plains? Wherever one may wander ... his lovely, plaintive, almost human
song may be heard nearly everywhere, at frequent intervals the livelong
day. He is one of the blessings of this land, one which every lover of
beautiful song welcomes as heartily as the ordinary mortal the warm,
bright days of this climate.
CHARLES FRANKLIN CARTER,
in _Some By-Ways of California._
SEPTEMBER 21.
THE MEADOW LARK AND I.
The song of life is living
The love-heart of the year;
And the pagan meadow-lark and I
Can nothing find to fear.
We build our simple homes
For opulence of rest
Among the hills and the meadow grass,
And sing our grateful best.
RUBY ARCHER.
SEPTEMBER 22.
THE RUBY-CROWNED KNIGHT.
The dominant characteristic of the Ruby-Crown is subtlety. He conceals
his nest, and even his nest-building region, so successfully that few
there are who know where he breeds, or who ever find his nest, hidden
in the shaggy end of a high, swinging branch of spruce or pine, deep in
the California mountain recesses. His prettiest trick of concealement
is the way he alternately hides and reveals the bright red feathers in
his crown. You may watch him a long time, seeing only a wee bit of an
olive-green bird, toned with dull yellow underneath, marked on wings
and about the eyes with white; but suddenly, a more festive mood comes
upon him. The bird is transformed. A jaunty dash of brilliant red
upcrests itself upon his head, lighting up his quiet dress.... For
several moments this flame of color quivers, then it burns into a mere
thread of red and is gone.
VIRGINIA GARLAND,
in _Feathered Californians._
SEPTEMBER 23.
SONG OF THE LINNETS.
"Cheer!" "Cheer!" sing the linnets
Through rapturous minutes,
When daylight first breaks
And the golden Dawn streaks
Through the rose of the morning--so bright!
"Gone! gone is the Night! It is light!"
"We have buried our heads
Under eaves of the sheds,
Where our tender broods sleep;
And the long watch we keep
Through the darkness and silence--till dawn.
It is morn! It is morn! It is morn!"
JOHN WARD STIMSON,
in _Wandering Chords._
SEPTEMBER 24.
THE HUMMING BIRD.
Buz-z! whir-r!--a flash and away!
A midget bejeweled mid flowers at play!
A snip of a birdling, the blossom-bells' king,
A waif of the sun-beams on quivering wing!
O prince of the fairies, O pygmy of fire,
Will nothing those brave little wings of yours tire?
You follow the flowers from southern lands sunny,
You pry amid petals all summer for honey!
Now rest on a twig, tiny flowerland sprite,
Your dear little lady sits near in delight;
In a wee felted basket she lovingly huddles--
Two dots of white eggs to her warm breast she cuddles!
Whiz-z! whiff! off to your flowers!
Buzz mid the perfume of jasmine bowers!
Chatter and chirrup, my king of the fays,
And laugh at the song that I sing in your praise!
CHARLES KEELER,
in _Elfin Songs of Sunland._
SEPTEMBER 25.
THE HUMMING BIRD.
A sudden whirr of eager sound--
And now a something throbs around
The flowers that watch the fountain. Look!
It touched the rose, the green leaves shook,
I think, and yet so lightly tost
That not a spark of dew was lost.
Tell me, O rose, what thing it is
That now appears, now vanishes?
Surely it took its fire-green hue
From day-breaks that it glittered through;
Quick, for this sparkle of the dawn
Glints through the garden and is gone.
EDWIN MARKHAM,
in _Lincoln and Other Poems._
SEPTEMBER 26.
She led the way to the climbing rose at the front of the house, and
carefully lifting a branch, motioned to the boys to look under it.
There, hidden in the leafy covert, no higher than the young girl's
chin, was the daintiest nest ever seen, made of soft cotton from the
pussy willows by the brook, interwoven with the finest grasses and
green mosses, and embroidered with one shining golden thread. And there
was wee mother humming-bird, watching them a moment with bright,
inquiring eyes, then darting off and poising in the air just above
their heads, uncovering two tiny eggs about the size of buckshot, lying
in a downy hollow like a thimble.
FLORA HAINES LOUGHEAD,
in _The Abandoned Claim._
SEPTEMBER 27.
THE RUSSET-BACKED THRUSH.
He dwells where pine and hemlock grow,
A merry minstrel seldom seen;
The voice of Joy is his I know--
Shy poet of the Evergreen!
In dawn's first holy hush I hear
His one ecstatic, thrilling strain,
So sweet and strong, so crystal clear
'Twould tingle e'en the soul of Pain.
At close of day when Twilight dreams
He shakes the air beneath his tree
With such exquisite song it seems
That Passion breathes through Melody.
HERBERT BASHFORD,
in _At the Shrine of Song._
SEPTEMBER 28.
In Marin County birds hold a unique place, for, as the county is
sparsely populated, possessing many wild, secluded valleys, and
unnumbered rolling hills covered with virgin forests, it is but natural
that the birds should congregate in great numbers, reveling in the
solitude which man invariably destroys.
HELEN BINGHAM,
in _In Tamal Land._
THE ABALONE.
I saw a rainbow, for an instant, gleam,
On the west edge of a receeding swell;
The next soft surge,
Which whispering sought the shore,
Swept to my feet an abalone shell;
It was the rainbow I had seen before.
JOHN E. RICHARDS,
in _Idylls of Monterey._
SEPTEMBER 29.
THE SEAGULL.
A ceaseless rover, waif of many climes,
He scorns the tempest, greets the lifting sun
With wings that fling the light and sinks at times
To ride in triumph where the tall waves run.
The rocks tide-worn, the high cliff brown and bare
And crags of bleak, strange shores he rests upon;
He floats above, a moment hangs in air
Clean-etched against the broad, gold breast of dawn.
Bold hunter of the deep! Of thy swift flights
What of them all brings keenest joy to thee--
To drive sharp pinions through storm-beaten nights,
Or shriek amid black hollows of the sea?
HERBERT BASHFORD,
in _At the Shrine of Song._
SEPTEMBER 30.
TO A SEA GULL AT SEA.
Thou winged Wonder!
Tell me I pray thy matchless craft,
Poised in air, then slipping wave-ward,
Mounting again like an arrow-shaft,
Circling, swaying, wheeling, dipping,
All with never a flap of wing,
Keeping pace with my flying ship here,
Give me a key to my wondering!
Gales but serve thee for swifter flying,
Foam crested waves with thy wings thou dost sweep,
Wonderful dun-colored, down-covered body,
Living thy life on the face of the deep!
ANNIE W. BRIGMAN.
OCTOBER 1.
THE PASSING OF SUMMER.
She smiled to the hearts that enshrined her,
Then the gold of her banner unfurled
And trailing her glories behind her
Passed over the rim of the world.
HARLEY R. WILEY,
in _New England Magazine, October_, 1906.
The California condor, the largest of all flying birds, is found only
on this coast and only in the southern half of that, although an
occasional specimen has been seen in the high Sierra Neveda. Of all the
sailing or soaring birds he is the most graceful and wonderful,
drifting to and fro, up and down, right or left, in straight lines or
curves, for hours at a time, darting like an arrow or hanging still in
air with equal ease on that motionless wing whose power puzzles all
philosophy.
T.S. VANDYKE.
OCTOBER 2.
Wild fowl, quacking hordes of them, nest in the tulares. Any day's
venture will raise from open shallows the great blue heron on his
hollow wings. Chill evenings the mallard drakes cry continually from
the glassy pools, the bittern's hollow boom rolls along the water
paths. Strange and far-flown fowl drop down against the saffron, autumn
sky. All day wings beat above it with lazy speed; long flights of
cranes glimmer in the twilight. By night one wakes to hear the clanging
geese go over. One wishes for, but gets no nearer speech from those the
ready fens have swallowed up. What they do there, how fare, what find,
is the secret of the tulares.
MARY AUSTIN,
in _The Land of Little Rain._
OCTOBER 3.
MOCKING BIRD.
Warble, whistle and ripple! wake! whip up! ha! ha!
Burgle, bubble and frolic--a roundelay far!
Pearls on pearls break and roll like bright drops from a bowl!
And they thrill, as they spill in a rill, o'er my soul:
Then thou laughest so light
From thy rapturous height!
Earth and Heaven are combined, in thy full dulcet tone;
North and south pour the nectar thy throat blends in one!
Flute and flageolet, bugle, light zither, guitar!
Diamond, topaz and ruby! Sun, moon, silver star!
Ripe cherries in wine!
Orange blossoms divine!
Genius of Songsters! so matchless in witchery!
Nature hath fashioned thee out of her mystery!
JOHN WARD STIMSON,
in _Wandering Chords._
OCTOBER 4.
THE MOCKING BIRD.
Can anything be more ecstatic than the mockingbird's manner as he pours
out his soul in song, flirting that expressive tail--that seems hung on
wires, jerking those emphatic wings, which say so much, turning his
dainty head this way and that, and now and then flinging himself upon
the air--light as a feather--in pure delight, and floating down to
place again without dropping a note. It is a poem in action to see him,
so lithe, so graceful in every movement.
OLIVE THORNE MILLER.
OCTOBER 5.
THE MOCKING BIRD.
Each flower a single fragrance gives,
But not the perfume of the rest;
Within each fruit one flavor lives,
Not all the flavors of our quest;
In every bird one song we note
That seems the sweeter without words;
Yet from the mock-bird's mellow throat
Come all the songs of other birds.
FRED EMERSON BROOKS,
in _Pickett's Charge and Other Poems._
OCTOBER 6.
When a mocking-bird looks squarely at you, not turning his head one
side, and then the other, like most birds, but showing his front face
and using both eyes at once, like an owl--when he looks squarely at you
in this way, he shows a wise, wise face. You almost believe he could
speak if he would, and you cannot resist the feeling that he is more
intelligent than he has any right to be, having behind those clear,
sharp eyes, only "blind instinct," as the wise men say.
OLIVE THORNE MILLER.
A sunset in San Juan is truly worth crossing either a continent or an
ocean to witness, when the ranges toward La Paz are purple where the
sage-brush is, and rose-color where the rains have washed the steep
places to the clay, and over all of mesa and mountain the soft glory of
golden haze.
MARAH ELLIS RYAN,
in _For the Soul of Rafael._
OCTOBER 7.
THE MOCKING BIRD.
He has an agreeable way of improving upon the original of any song he
imitates, so that he is supposed to give free music-lessons to all the
other birds. His own notes, belonging solely to himself, are beautiful
and varied, and he sandwiches them in between the rest in a way to suit
the best. No matter who is the victim of his mimicry, he loves the
corner of a chimney better than any other perch, and carols out into
the sky and down into the black abyss as if chimneys were made on
purpose for mocking-birds.
ELIZABETH AND JOSEPH GRINNELL,
in _Birds of Song and Story._
OCTOBER 8.
I love the mocking-bird; not because he is a wonderful musician,
for--as I have heard him--that he is not; nor because he has a sweet
disposition, for that he certainly has not, but because of his
mysterious habit of singing at night, which seems to differentiate him
from his kind, and approach him to the human; because of his rapturous
manner of song, his joy of living; because he shows so much character,
and so much intelligence.
OLIVE THORNE MILLER.
The lift of every man's heart is upward; to help another human soul in
its upward evolution is life's greatest and most joyful privilege; to
lend ourselves each to the other as an inspiration to grander living is
life's highest ministry and reward.
DANA W. BARTLETT,
in _The Better City._
OCTOBER 9.
THE WATER OUZEL.
The vertical curves and angles of the most precipitous torrents he
traces with the same rigid fidelity, swooping down the inclines of
cascades, dropping sheer over dizzy falls amid the spray, and ascending
with the same fearlessness and ease, seldom seeking to lessen the
steepness of the acclivity by beginning to ascend before reaching the
base of the fall. No matter though it may be several hundred feet in
height he holds straight on, as if about to dash headlong into the
throng of booming rockets, and darts abruptly up ward, and, after
alighting at the top of the precipice to rest a moment, proceeds to
feed and sing.
JOHN MUIR,
in _The Mountains of California._
OCTOBER 10.
Who can hear the wild song of the ouzel and not feel an answering
thrill? Perched upon a rock in the midst of the rapids, he is the
incarnation of all that is untamed, a wild spirit of the mountain
stream, as free as a raindrop or a sunbeam. How solitary he is, a lone
little bird, flitting from rock to rock through the desolate gorge,
like some spirit in a Stygian world. Yet he sings continually as he
takes his solitary way along the stream, and bursts of melody, so eerie
and sylvan as to fire the imagination, come to the ear, sounding above
the roar of the torrent. Like Orpheus, he seeks in the nether world of
that wild gorge for his Eurydice, now dashing through the rapids, now
peering into some pool, as if to discern her fond image in its depths,
and calling ever to lure her thence from that dark retreat up into the
world of light and love.
C.H. KIRKHAM,
in _In the Open._
OCTOBER 11.
TO LOS ANGELES.
May this great city of Los Angeles, destined to be a mighty metropolis,
flanked by the mountains and the sea, grow in the spirit of charity and
toleration between man and man, and in the fear and love of God. May
our city ever remain a fair virgin, sought for by the valiant sons from
all lands, adorned with the wealth of the golden orange and caressed by
the clinging vine.
(_Fiach Fionn_) LAURENCE BRANNICK.
OCTOBER 12.
Like most of the early cities of the coast, Los Angeles owes its origin
to the proselyting enthusiasm of the Spanish priesthood. The Mission of
San Gabriel had been in existence ten years, and it had gathered
several thousand Indians under its guardianship when it was proposed to
establish a pueblo in that vicinity in order that a temporal
development might proceed together with the spiritual. Had there been
no mission at San Gabriel to hold the savages in check by the force of
a religious awe, and to lead them to industrial pursuits, there
probably would have been no founding of a city on the lands above the
Los Angeles river--at least not until some date half a century later.
C.D. WILLARD,
in _History of the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce._
MY CREED.
I believe the best I can think, being fully persuaded that if this be
not true, it is because the truth transcends my present power of
thought.
BENJAMIN FAY MILLS.
OCTOBER 13.
THE BEAUTIES OF LOS ANGELES.
So beautiful for situation, between its guardian mountain ranges and
the smiling sea, so wonderful in its resources and its possibilities is
this charming valley of ours, that one cannot reasonably doubt that its
manifest destiny is to be a world sanitarium. * * * To him who seeks it
wisely here, no demand of necessity, comfort or luxury is impossible.
MADAME CAROLINE SEVERANCE,
in _The Mother of Clubs._
OCTOBER 14.
The entire situation with regard to manufacturing in Southern
California has undergone a radical change in the last few years, by
reason of the discovery of oil in great quantities in and around Los
Angeles, and in other sections of Southern and Central California. This
puts an entirely new face on the fuel question, and removes, in a great
measure, what has always been the most serious problem in manufacturing
development.
C.D. WILLARD,
in _History of the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce._
A fog had drifted in during the night and was still tangled in the tops
of the sycamores. The soft, humid air was sweet with the earthy scents
of the canyon, and the curled fallen leaves of the live-oaks along the
flume path were golden-brown with moisture. Beads of mist fringed the
silken fluffs of the clematis, dripping with gentle, rhythmical
insistence from the trees overhead.
MARGARET COLLIER GRAHAM,
in _Stories of the Foothills._
OCTOBER 15.
All believed they were located over an inexhaustible, subterranean lake
of oil, and Oilville, city of tents and shacks, within a month had
acquired the recklessness, the devil-may-care air of a mining camp, or
the Pennsylvania oil fields. * * * Then there was a pause in the work,
for the experts decided that the new oil which spouted forth in such
vast quantities was too heavy and malodorous to serve as an illuminant.
Presently, however, it was discovered that this defect was a virtue,
for here was a non-explosive petroleum that could be utilized in great
quantities as a fuel, and work was hastened with renewed vigor, for now
California possessed the monopoly of the one great need, not only of
herself, but of all the world.
MRS. FREMONT OLDER,
in _The Giants._
OCTOBER 16.
SAN PEDRO.
MORNING.
A smooth, smooth sea of gray, gray glass;
An open sea, where big ships pass
Into the sun;
A boat-dotted harbor; gulls, wheeling and screaming,
And surf-song and fisher-cry end our night's dreaming.
Day has begun.
EVENING.
A broken sea of rosy jade;
A rose-pink sky; black ships that fade
Into the night;
Across the bay, the city seems
But elfin music, drowsy dreams
And silver light!
OLIVE PERCIVAL.
OCTOBER 17.
SUNSET IN SAN DIEGO.
The city sits amid her palms;
The perfume of her twilight breath
Is something as the sacred balms
That bound sweet Jesus after death,
Such soft, warm twilight sense as lie
Against the gates of Paradise.
Such prayerful palms, wide palms upreached!
This sea mist is as incense smoke,
Yon ancient walls a sermon preached,
White lily with a heart of oak.
And O, this twilight! O the grace
Of twilight on my lifted face.
JOAQUIN MILLER,
in _Collected Poems._
OCTOBER 18.
AT EVENTIDE.
Behind Point Loma's beacon height
In shimmering waves of grey and gold
The winter sunset dies; and Night
Drops her dusk mantle, fold on fold,
At Eventide.
And now, above yon shadowy line
That faintly limns the distant bar,
Through darkening paths, with steps that shine,
She comes at last, our favorite star,
At Eventide.
O friend, our lives are far apart
As Western sea from Eastern shore!
But in their orisons, dear heart,
Our souls are with you, evermore,
At Eventide.
MARY E. MANNIX.
OCTOBER 19.
THE DOUGLAS SQUIRREL.
One never tires of this bright chip of nature--this brave little voice
crying in the wilderness--of observing his many works and ways, and
listening to his curious language. His musical, piny gossip is as
savory to the ear as balsam to the palate; and, though he has not
exactly the gift of song, some of his notes are as sweet as those of a
linnet--almost flute-like in softness, while others prick and tingle
like thistles. He is the mocking-bird of squirrels, pouring forth mixed
chatter and song like a perennial fountain; barking like a dog,
screaming like a hawk, chirping like a blackbird or a sparrow; while in
bluff, audacious noisiness he is a very jay.
JOHN MUIR,
in _The Mountains of California._
OCTOBER 20.
A beautiful sight it must have been, the wild-eyed graceful mustang
with its gaily dressed rider sweeping hither and thither among the
frightened hosts, swerving suddenly to right or left to avoid the horns
of some infuriated beast, the riata flashing high in air, then, with
unerring aim, descending upon the shoulders of some reluctant prisoner;
amid all the confusion the bursts of musical laughter or noisier
applause, then the oaths, in the liquid Spanish tongue sounding sweetly
to the ear of the uninitiated.
HELEN ELLIOTT BANDINI,
in _Camping with Fox-Hounds in Southern California,
Overland Monthly, February_, 1892.
OCTOBER 21.
Immediately, with that short, pumping bay that tells the trail is hot,
the game near, and sends the blood rushing to one's very finger-ends,
the swaying, eager line of hounds came swiftly down the rocky slope,
across the gully ahead and up the other side, following, exactly, the
path of the game. One directly behind the other they went, heads well
up, so strong was the scent, necks out-stretched, rumps in air, tails
wagging in short, fierce strokes. No thought had they for us, intent
only on the game their noses told them must be close at hand.
HELEN ELLIOTT BANDINI,
in _Hunting the Wild Cat in Southern California. From
Overland Monthly, March_, 1892.
OCTOBER 22.
Life is a fight. Millions fail. Only the strong win. Failure is worse
than death. Man's internal strength is created by watching
circumstances like a hawk, meeting her every spring stiff and straight,
laughing at her pit-falls--which in the beginning of life are excess,
excess, and always excess, and all manner of dishonor. Strength is
created by adversity, by trying to win first the small battles of life,
then the great, by casting out fear, by training the mind to rule in
all things--the heart, the passions, the impulses, which if indulged
make the brain the slave instead of the master. Success, for which
alone a man lives, if he be honest with himself, comes to those who are
strong, strong, strong.
GERTRUDE ATHERTON,
in _Rulers of Kings._
OCTOBER 23.
WITH THE ARIZONA COWBOYS.
The cow or steer that is selected to be roped or cut out rarely
escapes. While the horse is in hot pursuit the rider dexterously
whirls his riata above his head until, at a favorable moment, it
leaves his hand, uncoiling as it flies through the air, and if the
throw is successful, the noose falls over the animal's head. Suddenly
the horse comes to a full stop and braces himself for the shock. When
the animal caught reaches the end of the rope it is brought to an
abrupt halt and tumbled in a heap on the ground. * * * The cowboy is
out of the saddle and on his feet in a jiffy. He grasps the prostrate
animal by the tail and a hind leg, throws it on its side, and ties its
four feet together, so that it is helpless and ready for branding or
inspection.
J.A. MUNK,
in _Arizona Sketches._
OCTOBER 24.
So here I am--settled at the ole Bar Y. And it'd take a twenty-mule
team t'pull me offen it. Of a evenin', like this, the boss, he sits
on the east porch, smokin'; the boys're strung along the side of
the bunk-house t'rest and pass and laugh; and, out yonder, is the
cottonwoods, same as ever, and the ditch, and the mesquite leveler'n
a floor; and--up over it all--the moon, white and smilin'.
Then, outen the door nigh where the sunflowers're growin', mebbe she'll
come--a slim, little figger in white. And, if it's plenty warm, and not
too late, why, she'll be totin' the smartest, cutest---- * * * That's
my little wife--that's Macie, now--a-singin' to the kid!
ELEANOR GATES,
in _Cupid: the Cow-Punch._
OCTOBER 25.
Let this be known, that a west-land ranch is no more than a farm, and
a farm at the outermost edge of man's dominions is forever a school
and a field of strife and a means of grace to those who live thereon.
* * * The ways of the earth, the ways of the seasons, the ways of the
elements, these had something to impart, eternally. And man, no longer
in the bond with the wild things all about him, wages ceaseless war
against them, to protect his crops and the fowls and the animals that
have come beneath his guardian-ship and know no laws of the air-folk,
the brush-folk, or the forest-folk with whom they were once in
brotherhood.
PHILIP VERRILL MIGHELS,
in _Chatwit, the Man-Talk Bird._
OCTOBER 26.
And after supper, when the sun was down, and they was just a kinda
half-light on the mesquite, and the old man was on the east porch,
smokin', and the boys was all lined up along the front of the
bunk-house, clean outen sight of the far side of the yard, why I just
sorta wandered over to the calf-corral, then 'round by the barn and
the Chink's shack, and landed up out to the west, where they's a row
of cottonwoods by the new irrigatin' ditch. Beyond, acrost a hunderd
mile of brown plain, here was the moon a-risin', bigger'n a dishpan,
and a cold white. I stood agin a tree and watched it crawl through the
clouds. The frogs was a-watchin', too, I reckon, fer they begun to
holler like the dickens, some bass and some squeaky. And then, frum
the other side of the ranch-house, struck up a mouth-organ.
ELEANOR GATES,
in _Cupid: the Cow-Punch._
OCTOBER 27.
EL VAQUERO.
Tinged with the blood of Aztec lands,
Sphinx-like, the tawny herdsman stands,
A coiled riata in his hands.
Devoid of hope, devoid of fear,
Half brigand, and half cavalier--
This helot, with imperial grace,
Wears ever on his tawny face
A sad, defiant look of pain.
Left by the fierce iconoclast,
A living fragment of the past--
Greek of the Greeks he must remain.
LUCIUS HARWOOD FOOTE.
His broad brimmed hat push'd back with careless air,
The proud vaquero sits his steed as free
As winds that toss his black, abundant hair.
JOAQUIN MILLER.
OCTOBER 28.
There was to be a _rodeo_ on the Del Garda ranch. Out of the thousands
of that moving herd could they single the mighty steer that bore their
brand, or the wild-eyed cow whose yearling calf had not yet felt the
searing-iron. Into the very midst of the seething mass would a
_vaquero_ dart, single out his victim without a moment's halt, drive
the animal to the open space, and throw his lasso with unerring aim.
If a steer proved fractious two of the centaurs would divide the
labor, and while one dexterously threw the rope around his horns, the
other's lasso had quickly caught the hind foot, and together they
brought him to the earth.
JOSEPHINE CLIFFORD McCRACKIN,
in _Overland Tales._
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 buckskin _chaps_, went so far as to say it was a little warm
for the time of year.
STEWART EDWARD WHITE,
in _The 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,
in _Self-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 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.
* * * * *
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,
in _Out 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,
in _The Mountains._
NOVEMBER 2.
THE DROUTH: 1898.
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 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?
FRANCES M. MILNE,
in _For 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,
in _The 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,
in _Out West._
NOVEMBER 5.
WHEN IT RAINS IN CALIFORNY.
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 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,
in _Just 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,
in _The 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 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!
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,
in _For 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,
in _Lecture 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,
in _The 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,
in _The 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,
in _Speech at the Seattle Exposition._
NOVEMBER 11.
BEAUTY.
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,
in _According 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,
in _Anthony 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,
in _Little 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,
in _The 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,
in _A 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 DAVIS
in "Long Ago in San Joaquin," in _Sunset 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.
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,
in _California 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,
in _Concentration: 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,
in _The 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,
in _Lecture 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,
in _The 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,
in _Southern 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,
in _A 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,
in _The 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,
in _Sunday Times Magazine._
NOVEMBER 28.
CALIFORNIA TO IRELAND.
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,
in _The Right Hand of the Continent, Out West,
June_, 1902.
NOVEMBER 30.
By a queer sequence of circumstances, the essays, begun in the _Lark_,
were continued in the _Queen_, 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,
in _The 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,
in _The 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,
in _Southern 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,
in _Inaugural 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,
in _Literary 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,
in _Mining 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,
in _Mining 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,
in _The 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,
in __Mining 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,
in _The Mountains._
DECEMBER 10.
GOD IS EVERYWHERE.
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.
MARY RUSSELL MILLS,
in _Fellowship Magazine._
DECEMBER 11.
THE KILLING OF THE DEVIL, AS TOLD IN THE
LANGUEDOC FOLK-TALE OF THE 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,
in _Tales of Languedoc._
DECEMBER 12.
FROM "AFTER HEARING PARSIFAL."
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,
in _Now, May_, 1904.
DECEMBER 13.
THE VOICE OF THE SNOW.
Silently flying through the darkened air, swirling, glinting, to their
appointed places, they seem to have taken counsel together, saying,
"Come, we are feeble; let us help one another. We are many, and
together we will be strong. Marching in close, deep ranks, let us roll
away the stones from these mountain sepulchers, and set the landscape
free. Let us uncover these clustering domes. Here let us carve a lake
basin; there a Yosemite Valley; here, a channel for a river with
fluted steps and brows for the plunge of songful cataracts. Yonder let
us spread broad sheets of soil, that man and beast may be fed; and
here pile trains of boulders for pines and giant sequoias. Here make
ground for a meadow; there for a garden and grove."
JOHN MUIR,
in _The Mountains of California._
DECEMBER 14.
It was winter in San Francisco--not the picturesque winter of the
North or South, but a mild and intermediate season, as if the great
zones had touched hands, and earth were glad of the friendly feeling.
There is no breath from a cold Atlantic to chill the ardor of these
thoughts. Our great, tranquil ocean lies in majesty to the west. It
can fume and fret, but it does so in reason. It does not lash and
storm in vain.
FRANCES CHARLES,
in _The Siege of Youth._
May the tangling of sunshine and roses never cease upon your path
until after the snows of Winter have covered your way with whiteness.
MARTIN V. MERLE,
in _The Vagabond Prince, Act IV._
DECEMBER 15.
It was one of those wonderful warm winter days given to San Francisco
instead of the spring she has never experienced. After a week's rain
the sun shone out of a sky as warmly blue as late spring brings in
other climates. The world seemed in a very rapture of creation. The
bay below the garden, new washed and sparkling like a pale emerald,
spread gaily out, and the city's streets terraced down to meet it. The
peculiar delicacy and richness of California roses coaxed by the
softness of the climate to live out-doors sent up a perfume that
hot-house flowers cannot yield. The turf was of a thick, healthy, wet
green, teeming with life. The hills beyond were green as summer in
California cannot make them, and off to the west against the tender
sky the cross on Lone Mountain was etched.
MIRIAM MICHELSON,
in _Anthony Overman._
DECEMBER 16.
The story is never fully told, and the power of paint or pen can never
express entirely the glory or the strength of the conception which
impelled it. The best is still withheld, inexpressible in human terms.
Our best songs are still unsung; our best thoughts are still unuttered
and must so remain until eyes and ears and hands are quickened by a
diviner life to a keener sensibility.
W.L. JUDSON,
in _The Building of a Picture._
Another value in dialect is the fact that sounds are often retained
that are lost in the standard speech, or softer, sweeter tones are
fostered and developed.
JAMES MAIN DIXON,
in _Dialect in Literature._
DECEMBER 17.
It is a compensation for many ills to awaken some December morning and
feel in the air the warmth of summer and see in the foliage the glad
green of spring. Children play in the parks, and the sun shines, and
even the older folks grew merry. * * * It had been such a day as comes
during Indian summer in other countries. The air had been very kindly
and had breathed nothing but gentleness toward man and vegetation.
Toward February people would be out searching for wild flowers on the
suburban hills.
FRANCES CHARLES,
in _The Siege of Youth._
DECEMBER 18.
FROM THE FRENCH.
How vain is life!
Love's little spell,
Hate's little strife,
And then--farewell!
How brief is life!
Hope's lessening light
With dreams is rife,
And then--good night!
BLANCHE M. BURBANK.
"Everyone for himself," is the law of the jungle. But slowly a new
form of expression is shaping and we are beginning to take pride in
the things that are "ours," rather than in that which alone is "mine."
DANA W. BARTLETT,
in _Our Governtnert in Social Service, or
a Nation at Work in Human Uplift._
DECEMBER 19.
"BACK THERE."
"Back there," the gambler-wind the snow is shuffling,
Flake after flake down--dealing in despair;
The bladeless field, the birdless thicket muffling,
But now no more the river's stillness ruffling.
Oh, bitter is the sky, and blank its stare--
Back there!
"Back there," the wires are down. The blizzard, meaning
No good to man or beast, shakes loose his hair.
The storm-bound train and locomotive preening
His sable plume, the ferry-boat, careening
Between the ice-cakes, icy fringes wear--
Back there!
TRACY and LUCY ROBINSON,
in _Out West._
DECEMBER 20.
"OUT HERE."
"Out Here," a mocker trills his carol olden,
High-perched upon some eucalyptus near.
The meadow lark replies; oranges golden
Peer from the green wherewith they are enfolden,
And perfume fills the winey atmosphere--
Out Here!
"Out Here," through virgin soil, in sunlight mellow--
Ay, and in moonlight!--man his plow may steer,
Nor lose life's edge in friction with his fellow;
Nor, parchment-bound, with yellowing creeds turn yellow,
But feel his heart grow younger every year--
Out Here!
TRACY and LUCY ROBINSON,
in _Out West._
DECEMBER 21.
HAPPY HEART.
As I go lightly on my way
I hear the flowers and grasses talk:
I listen to the gray-beard rock:
I know what 'tis the tree-tops say.
A thousand comrades with me walk
As I go lightly on my way.
As I go lightly on my way
A bonnie bird a greeting sings,
And gossip from a far clime brings;
A grumbling bee growls out "Good-day";
A jest the saucy chipmonk flings,
As I go lightly on my way.
As I go lightly on my way
The brook trips by with dancing feet,
And Song and Laughter soft repeat
Their cadence as I watch its play;
And whispers low the wind, and sweet,
As I go lightly on my way.
CHARLES E. JENNEY,
in _Country Life in America, September_, 1902.
DECEMBER 22.
EUCALYPTUS BLOSSOMS.
I fell asleep beneath a fragrant
Arrow-leafed tree;
And all night long its drooping branches
Showered sweet dreams on me.
But when the dawn-wind stirred the tree tops
I saw, oh wondrous sight!
My dreams, pale spheres amid the leafage,
Ethereal, poised for flight.
MARGARET ADELAIDE WILSON,
in _Out West Magazine._
DECEMBER 23.
TO MODJESKA.
Crowned with the glory of artistic achievement, with the love and
devotion of friends and family, with the homage of the world, her
royal yet sweet and gentle spirit has risen from the earth to shine
above like a brilliant star, perpetually transmitting its pure white
light to a reverently admiring multitude.
BERTHA HIRSCH BARUCH,
_Inscribed on banner accompanying floral tribute of
the Fine Arts League._
NIGHT ON THE DESERT.
All daylight he followed through endless hot marches
The trail of a plodding desire:
Now with night he has lost the fierce fever of getting,
Adrowse by his dull-embered fire.
Immeasurable silences compass him over,
His body grows one with the streams
Of sands that slide and whisper around him;
The stars draw his soul: and he dreams.
MARGARET ADELAIDE WILSON,
in _Pall Mall Magazine._
DECEMBER 24.
CHRISTMAS.
The sun's glory lies on the mountain
Like the glow of a golden dream,
Or the flush on a slumbering fountain
That wakes to dawn's roseate beam.
So the year's day dies in a glory,
And dying, like sunrays unfurled,
Casts the peace and love of Christ's story
Over the heart of the world.
HAROLD T. SYMMES.
DECEMBER 25 AND 26.
THE NAZARINE.
A manger-cradled child, his mother near,
And one they call his father standing by,
Shepherd and Magi, with the gifts they bear,
An angel chorus rolling through the sky--
Once more the sacred mystery we scan,
And wonder if the Christ be God's best gift to man.
Pale, patient Pleader, for the poor and those
Whose hearts are homes of sorrow and of pain,
Thy voice is as a balm for all their woes;
Through twenty centuries it calleth plain
As when it breathed the invitation blest--
"Ye weary, come to Me, and I will give you rest."
Reason may seek to ruin, science scorn,
But that great love of Thine hath made us wise
In wisdom not of understanding born,
That bids us turn to Thee with longing eyes
And outstretched hands. We know that Thou art He.
Nor do we seek a sign as did the Pharisee.
Sweet festival that bringeth back once more
The golden dreams of childhood, let us turn
Like little children to the Christmas lore
That once did hold us spellbound, till we learn
Again the lesson of Thy love; for we
Must be like children, Lord, ere we can come to Thee.
LOUIS ALEXANDER ROBERTSON,
in _Cloistral Strains._
DECEMBER 27.
MEMORIES.
I watched the dying embers, my vision blurred apace--
I trod once more that hallowed ground, of kith, of kin, of race.
I saw again the turf-fire send its living flame on high,
Saw youthful figures grouped around the Yule board, laden, nigh.
The latch went up, the neighbors came and instantly good cheer
Went 'round the festive gathering 'till the Christ-child hour drew near,
The piper played, the dance began, and child and parent fond
Tripped back and forth, tripped high and low, with smile of loving bond.
ELLEN DWYER DONOVAN,
in _The Christinas Card._
DECEMBER 28.
MOUNT SHASTA.
As lone as God, and white as Winter moon,
Mount Shasta's peak looks down on forest gloom.
The storm-tossed pines and warlike-looking firs
Have rallied here upon its silver spurs.
Eternal tower, majestic, great and strong,
So silent all, except for Heaven's song--
For Heaven's voice calls out through silver bars
To Shasta's height; calls out below the stars,
And speaks the way, as though but quarter rod
From Shasta's top unto its maker, God.
WILLIAM F. BURBANK.
DECEMBER 29 AND 30.
WHERE THE CREAMY YUCCA BLOOMS.
Say mate, I'm in the foothills;
Got a tent to sleep in nights,
Far away from beaten highways
And the talk of human rights;
Far away from din and tumult,
Where the greed of pelf consumes--
I've a corner, here, of heaven
Where the creamy yucca blooms.
God! the newborn sense of freedom!
Down in chain and bolt and bar,
Rent the vain that kept in hiding
Lore of sky and silver star.
Wisdom dwelleth not in cities;
'Tis the foothill night illumes--
Where the insects chant their hymnals,
And the creamy yucca blooms.
Get a move on, mate, come out here,
Leave the deadly fever-dreams
Of the street and of the market
Where the "rocky yellow" gleams.
Here you live in every moment,
And the soul its own assumes
In this blessed bit of heaven,
Where the creamy yucca blooms.
ELIZABETH BAKER BOHAN,
in _West Coast Magazine._
DECEMBER 31.
ELECTRICITY ON THE COMSTOCK.
Born from nothing, it leaps into existence with the full-fledged
strength of a giant, dies, is born again; lives a thousand lives and
dies a thousand deaths in a single pulsating second of time.
It soars to every height, plunges to every depth, and stretches its
vast arms throughout illimitable space.
It plants the first blush upon the cheek of dawn; with brush of gold
upon the glowing canvas of the west, it tells the story of the dying
day.
At its mere whim and caprice, a thousand pillars of light leap from
the dark and sullen seas which surge about the poles, while from its
shimmering loom it weaves the opalescent tapestry of the aurora to
hang against the black background of the arctic night.
It rouses nature from her winter sleep, breaks the icy fetters of the
frost that binds the streams, lifts the shroud of snow from off the
landscape, woos the tender mold and bids the birth of bud and blossom;
dowers the flower with perfume and clothes the earth with verdure of
the spring.
It rides the swift courses of the storms that circle round the bald
crest of old Mount Davidson; cleaves the black curtain of the night
with scimitar of flame; rouses the lightnings from their couch of
clouds and wakes the earthquake.
Beneath its touch, the beetling crag, which took omnipotence a
thousand years to rear, crumbles into dust, the mere plaything of the
idle wind; it lays its hand upon the populous city with its teeming,
restless multitude. And yesterday, where stood the glittering spire,
the shining tower, the frowning battlement, today the cold gray ocean
rolls in undisputed might.
It gathers the doings of the day from the four corners of the world,
the tales of love and death, of fire and flood, of strife and
pestilence, and under eight thousand miles of shivering sea, whispers
the babble of two hemispheres.
It turns the wheels of peace where poor men toil, and helps the
husbandman to plow and plant and reap his whispering grain.
It rides the wings of war where brave men die; and when it stalks
between contending hosts, exalts the kingly crest and helps an empire
plant its flag of conquest.
It glows in lonely attics where weary workers toil to earn their
crust. It shines o'er scenes where feet of feasters tread the halls of
revelry. It lights the mourners on their pathway to the tomb. It
glares in haunts where jeweled ringers lift the cup of pleasure to the
month of sin, 'mid the sobbing of the sensuous music and flow of
forbidden wine; and speeding on its way illumes the dim cathedral
aisle, where surpliced priest proclaims the teachings of the master,
and golden-throated choirs lift their hosannas to the King of Kings.
It was the Maker's ally at the dawn of time, and when God from the
depths of infinite space, said "Let there be light," it sent the pulse
of life along creation's veins, baptized earth's cold brow with floods
of fire, and stood the sponsor of a cradled world.
SAM P. DAVIS.
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES
ANGIER, BELLE SUMNER, (Mrs. Walter Burn.) Special training in
floricultural and horticultural subjects. Staff writer on Los Angeles
Times and Los Angeles Express. Writer on garden and floral topics for
California newspapers and many magazines. _Author:_ Garden Book of
California. _Address:_ 1036 N. Washington St., Los Angeles, Calif.
ARCHER, RUBY, _b._ Kansas City, Mo., Jan. 28, 1873. _Ed._ Kansas City
High School and private tutors. Contributor of poems, translations
from French and German dramas and lyrics, prose articles on Art,
Architecture, Music, Biblical Literature, Philosophy, etc., for papers
and magazines. _Author:_ Little Poems. $1.25. Thought Awakening.
$1.00. _Address:_ R.F.D. No. 8, Box 11-A, Los Angeles, Calif. (The
Studio is at Granada Park, on the Covina Electric Line.)
AUSTIN, MARY. _Author:_ The Land of Little Rain, an account of the
California Desert. $2.00. The Basket Woman, a book of Indian myths and
fanciful tales for children. $1.50. Isidro, a romance of Mission days.
$1.50. The Flock, an account of the shepherd industry of California.
$2.00. Santa Lucia, a novel. $1.50. Lost Borders, the people of the
desert. _Address:_ Carmel-by-the-Sea, California, or care of Harper
Bros., New York.
BAMFORD, MARY ELLEN, _b._ Healdsburg, Calif. _Author:_ Up and Down the
Brooks. Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 75c. Her Twenty Heathen. Pilgrim
Press. 50c. My Land and Water Friends. D. Lothrop & Co. The Look About
Club. D. Lothrop & Co. Second Year of the Look About Club. D. Lothrop
& Co. Janet and Her Father. Congregational S.S. & Pub. Soc. Marie's
Story. Congregational S.S. & Pub. Soc. Miss Millie's Trying. Hunt &
Eaton. Number One or Number Two. Hunt & Eaton. A Piece of Kitty
Hunter's Life. Hunt & Eaton. Father Lambert's Family. Phillips & Hunt.
Thoughts of My Dumb Neighbors. Phillips & Hunt. Eleanor and I.
Congregational S.S. & Pub. Soc. Talks by Queer Folks. D. Lothrop Co.
Jessie's Three Resolutions. Am. Bap. Pub. Soc. In Editha's Days. Am.
Baptist Pub. Soc. Three Roman Girls. Am. Baptist Pub. Soc. Out of the
Triangle. D.C. Cook Pub. Co. 25c. Ti: A Story of San Francisco's
Chinatown. D.C. Cook Co. 25c. The Denby Children at the Fair. D.C.
Cook Co. _Address:_ 621 E. 15th St., East Oakland, Calif.
BANCROFT, HUBERT HOWE, _b._ May 5, 1832, Granville, Ohio. _Ed._
Granville Academy until sixteen years of age. Clerk in bookstore in
Buffalo, N.Y. Came to San Francisco March, 1852. While building up a
large book-selling and publishing house, Mr. Bancroft worked for 30
years on the colossal history which bears his name, issued in Vols. as
follows: The Native Races of the Pacific States, 5 vols. History of
Central America, 3 vols. History of Mexico, 6 vols. North Mexican
States and Texas, 2 vols. California, 7 vols. Arizona and New Mexico,
1 vol. Colorado and Wyoming, 1 vol. Utah and Nevada, 1 vol. Northwest
Coast, 2 vols. Oregon, 2 vols. Washington, Idaho and Montana, 1 vol.
British Columbia, 1 vol. Alaska, 1 vol. California Pastoral, 1 vol.
California Inter Pocula, 1 vol. Popular Tribunals, 2 vols. Essays and
Miscellany, 1 vol. Literary Industries, 1 vol. Also Book of the Fair,
Book of Wealth, Resources of Mexico, The New Pacific, etc. _Address:_
2898 Jackson St., San Francisco.
BANDINI, HELEN ELLIOTT (Mrs. Arturo), _b._ Indianapolis, _Ed._ in
public schools. Came to California in 1874 when father was president
of Indiana Colony, which founded Pasadena. Writer for newspapers and
magazines. _Author:_ History of California (Am. Book Co.) The Romance
of California History (in press.) _Address:_ 1149 San Pasqual St.,
Pasadena. Calif.
BARTLETT, DANA WEBSTER, _b._ Bangor, Me., Oct. 27, 1860. _Ed._ Iowa
College (Grinnell, La.,) 1882. Attended Yale and Chicago Theol. Sems.
Pastor Phillips Church, Salt Lake. Since 1896 pastor Bethlehem Inst.
Church, Los Angeles, which now covers six city lots. _Author:_ The
Better City: "Our Government in Social Service." _Address:_ Bethlehem
Institutional Church, Los Angeles, Calif.
BARUCH, BERTHA HIRSCH, _b._ Province of Posen, Germany. Came to New
London, Conn., with father in 1876. Wrote poetry in her teens and was
encouraged by Rose Hawthorne Lathrop in her literary efforts. Active
in College Settlement and Univ. Ext. work. Attended Penn. Univ. and
Yale. On editorial staff Los Angeles Times. _Address:_ 1168 W. 36th
St., Los Angeles, Calif.
BASHFORD, HERBERT, _b._ Sioux City, Ia., 1871. Contributor to leading
magazines on literature and the drama. _Author:_ The Wolves of the
Sea; The Tenting of the Tillicums: At the Shrine of Song, etc. Writer
of several successful plays, The Defiance of Doris, etc. _Address:_
San Jose, Calif.
BINGHAM, HELEN, _b._ San Francisco, Aug. 23, 1885. _Ed._ private
tutors, with special reference to Archaeology. _Author:_ In Tamal
Land. $2.00. _Address:_ 785 Cole St., San Francisco, Calif.
BLAND, HENRY MEADE, _b._ Suisun, Solano Co., Calif., April 21, 1863.
_Ed._ public schools, University of the Pacific (Ph.D., 1890),
Stanford University (M.A., 1895). Professor English Literature since
1898 at State Normal School, San Jose. Contributor leading magazines.
_Author:_ A song of Autumn and Other Poems. 1908. $1.00. _Address:_
State Normal School, San Jose, Calif.
BOHAN, MRS. ELIZABETH BAKER, _b._ England, August 18. When 4 years old
came to Milwaukee, Wisc. _Ed._ in public schools. Married in Milwaukee
and began to write short stories, poems, and philosophical articles.
_Author:_ The Drag-net, 1909, C.M. Clark, Boston. The Strength of the
Weak, Grafton Co., Los Angeles $1.50 each. _Address:_ 1844 Santa Cruz
Street, Los Angeles, California.
BOOTHS, CHARLES BEACH, _b._ Stratford, Conn., July 3, 1851. _Ed._
Stratford Acad. 1894 came to Los Angeles. Pres. Nat. Irrigation
Congress, 1896-7. Writer on Conservation of National Resources.
_Address:_ Los Angeles, Calif.
BRANNICK, LAURENCE, _b._ Scardene, Co. Mayo, Ire., May 24, 1874. _Ed._
St. Jarlath's College, Tuam and Maynooth College. B.A. 1907 Univ. S.
Calif. Writer for papers and magazines. Especially interested in
perpetuation of Gaelic language. _Address:_ Station K., Los Angeles,
Calif.
BRIGMAN, MRS. ANNIE W., _b._ Honolulu, Dec. 3. Came to California in
young girlhood. Writer of verses to accompany her own artistic
photographs. _Address:_ 647 32nd St., Oakland, Calif.
BRININSTOOL. E.A., _b._ Warsaw, Wyoming Co., N.Y., October 11, 1870.
Attended common school until 17. In 1887 learned printer's trade. In
1895 came to Calif. In 1900 began to write humorous verse for the Los
Angeles Times, Record, Examiner and Express. Since 1905 on Los Angeles
Express in editorial paragraphs and a short column of verse and
miscellaneous matter, dubbed, "Lights and Shadows." _Address:_ The
Express, Los Angeles, Calif.
BROOKS, FRED EMERSON, _b._ Waverly, N.Y., Dec. 5, 1850. _Grad._
Madison (now Colgate) Univ., 1873. Lived in S.F. 1873-1891. S.F. Call
styled him California's Celebration Poet. Writer of plays, magazine
articles, etc. _Author:_ Old Ace and Other Poems. Pickett's Charge and
Other Poems, (both by Forbes & Co., Chicago.) _Address:_ 564 W. 182nd
St., New York.
BROWN, HENRY HARRISON, _b._ June 26, 1840, Uxbridge, Mass. _Ed._ at
public schools, Nichols Academy at Dudley, Mass., and Meadville,
Penn., Divinity School. Began to teach school when he was 17, and with
the exception of three years in service during the Civil War continued
teaching till he was 30. Preacher in Unitarian churches for 7 years;
lectured for 17 years on reformatory topics. _Pub._ in San Francisco
from 1900 to 1906, _Now: A Journal of Affirmation_. Is contributor to
progressive magazines and lectures extensively. _Author:_
Concentration: The Road to Success. 50c. and $1.00. How to Control Fate
Through Suggestion. 25c. Not Hypnotism, But Suggestion. 25c. Man's
Greatest Discovery. 25c. Self Healing Through Suggestion. 25c. The
Call of the Twentieth Century. 25c. Dollars Want Me: The New Road to
Opulence. 10c. _Address:_ "Now" Home, Glenwood, Santa Cruz Co., Calif.
BRUN, SAMUEL JACQUES, _b._ Mime, Province of Gard, France, of Huguenot
parents. _Grad._ French Univ. Instructor in French at Haverford
College, Cornell Univ., Stanford Univ. Now an attorney. _Author:_
Tableaux de la Revolution (a French reader, 9th ed.) Tales of
Languedoc (Folk Lore.) $1.50. _Address:_ 110 Sutter St., and 1467
Willard St., San Francisco.
BRUN, MRS. S.J., nee Hanna Otis, _b._ Auburn, N.Y. Writer for
magazines. _Address:_ 1467 Willard St., San Francisco.
BURBANK, BLANCHE M., _b._ West Troy, N.Y. Has lived most of her life
in California. Has written poems for the magazines. _Author:_ Reed
Notes, 1905. _Address:_ Union Square Hotel, San Francisco, Calif.
BURBANK, LUTHER, _b._ Lancaster, Mass., March 7, 1849. _Ed._ at
Lancaster, and in the schools of adversity, Nature, and prosperity.
_Author:_ The Training of the Human Plant. _Address:_ Santa Rosa,
Calif.
BURBANK, WM. F., _b._ in San Francisco. _Ed._ Oakland High School and
State University. Written poems for magazines, etc. _Address:_ Union
Square Hotel, San Francisco, Calif.
BURDETTE, ROBT. JONES, _b._ July 30, 1844. Greensboro, Greene Co.,
Penn. _Grad._ High School, Peoria, Ill., 1861. D.D. Kalamazoo College,
1905. Writer on Peoria Transcript and Evening Review. Writer and
afterwards editor Burlington Hawkeye. Large contributor to newspapers
and magazines. Pastor Temple Baptist Church, July, 1903, to August,
1909. Resigned through ill health. _Author:_ The Sons of Asaph. The
Life of William Penn. Smiles Yoked With Sighs, 1900. Rise and Fall of
a Mustache, 1877. Chimes From a Jester's Bells, 1897. _Address:_
Sunnycrest, Orange Grove Ave., Pasadena, Calif.
BURGESS, GELETT, _b._ Boston, January 30, 1866. _Ed._ public schools,
Boston. _Grad._ Massachusetts Institute Technology, B.S., 1887.
Instructor topo. drawing University of California, 1891-4. Ass. Ed.
The Wave, 1894-5. Edited Lark, San Francisco, 1895-7. _Author:_
Vivette, (novelette.) Copeland & Day, 1897. $1.25. The Lively City
O'Ligg, (Juvenile.) F.A. Stokes Co., 1899. $1.50. Goops, and How to be
Them, (Juvenile.) Stokes Co., 1900. $1.50. A Gage of Youth, (Poems,
chiefly from "The Lark.") Small, Maynard & Co., 1901. $1.00. The
Burgess Nonsense Book, (Prose and Verse.) Stokes Co., 1901. $2.00. The
Romance of the Commonplace. Elder & Shepherd, S.F., 1901. $1.50. More
Goops, and How Not to Be Them, (Juvenile.) Stokes Co., 1903. $1.50.
The Reign of Queen Isyl. Short stories in collaboration with WILL
IRWIN. McClure, Phillips & Co., 1903. $1.50. The Picaroons. Short
stories in collaboration with WILL IRWIN. McClure, Phillips & Co.,
1904. $1.50. The Rubaiyat of Omar Cayenne. (Satire and Parody.)
Stokes, 1904. 75c. Goop Tales. (Juvenile.) Stokes Co., 1904. $1.50. A
Little Sister of Destiny. (Short Stories.) Houghton, Mifflin & Co.,
1904, $1.50. The White Cat. (Novel.) Bobbs-Merrill Co., 1907. $1.50.
The Heart Line. (Novel.) Bobbs-Merrill Co., 1907. $1.50. The Maxims of
Methuselah. (Satire and Parody.) Stokes Co., 1907. 75c. Blue Goops and
Red. (Juvenile.) Stokes Co., 1909. $1.35 net. Lady Mechante. (4-wart
Novel.) Stokes Co., 1909. $1.50. _Address:_ 1285 Commonwealth Ave.,
Boston, Mass.
CARR, SARAH PRATT, _b._ Maine, 1850. Taken to California 1852. _Ed._
in public schools of California. Wrote for newspapers and magazines.
Short time Unitarian minister. _Author:_ The Iron Way, McClurg's,
$1.50. Waters of Eden, run serially in Alaska-Yukon magazine. Billy
Tomorrow. (Juvenile book.) McClurg's. _Address:_ The Hillcrest,
Seattle, Wash.
CARTER, CHARLES FRANKLIN, _b._ Waterbury, Conn., July 19, 1862.
_Grad._ School of Fine Arts, Yale University. Pupil of J. Alden Weir,
New York City. Resided in California 1891-95, 1898-1900. _Author:_ The
Missions of Nueva California, 1900. The Whitaker & Ray Company. $1.50.
Out of print. Some By-Ways of California, 1902. The Grafton Press, New
York. $1.25. _Address:_ 232 S. Main St., Waterbury, Conn.
CHARLES, FRANCES, _b._ San Francisco, Cal., April 10, 1872. _Ed._ S.F.
public schools. _Author:_ In the Country God Forgot. The Siege of
Youth. The Awakening of the Duchess. Pardner of Blossom Range. All by
Little, Brown & Co. $1.50 each. _Address:_ 370 26th Ave., Richmond
District, San Francisco, Calif.
CHENEY, JOHN VANCE, _b._ Groveland. N.Y., Dec. 29, 1848. _Grad._
Temple Hill Acad., Geneseo, N.Y., at 17. Practiced law, 1875. Came to
California in 1876. Librarian Pub. Library, San Francisco, 1887-94.
Newberry Lib., Chicago, 1894-1909. _Author:_ The Old Doctor, 1881.
Thistle Drift (poems) 1887. Wood Blooms, 1888. The Golden Guess, 1872.
That Dome in Air, 1895. Queen Helen, 1895. Out of the Silence, 1897.
Lyrics, 1901. Poems, 1905. Editor 3 Caxton Club pubs. _Address:_ 3390
Third St., San Diego, Calif.
CLARK, GALEN, 96 years old. Went to Yosemite in 1853. Known as Father
of Yosemite. _Author:_ Big Trees of California: Their History and
Characteristics. The Indians of Yosemite: Their History, Customs and
Traditions. $1.00. Paper 50c. _Address:_ 216 11th St. Oakland, Calif.
CONNOLLY. JAMES, _b._ County Cavan, Ireland July 12, 1842. In 1852
came to Dennis, Mass. _Ed._ public schools. At 13 went to sea, at 18
second mate, at 21 first mate. Later master. For 18 years has resided
at Coronado. Writer of poems and short stories for magazines.
_Author:_ The Jewels of King Art. _Address:_ Coronado, Calif.
COX, PALMER, _b._ Granby, Quebec, Can., April 28, 1840. _Grad._ Granby
Academy. In 1862 came to San Francisco _via._ Panama. Contributed to
Golden Era, Alta California, and Examiner, etc. _Author:_ Squibs of
California, 1874. (Later republished as Comic Yarns.) Hans Von
Petter's Trip to Gotham. How Columbus Found America. That Stanley.
Queer People. All now o.p. Then he invented the Brownies and in quick
succession were published The Brownies, Their Book; Another Book; The
B.'s at Home; The B.'s Around the World; The B.'s Through the Union;
The B.'s Abroad; The B.'s in the Philippines. $1.50 each. The B. Clown
in B. Town. $1.00. The B. Primer. 40c. All by Century Co. The B.
Calendar, McLoughlin Bros., N.Y. $1.00. Palmer Cox's Brownies.
Spectacular play. The B.'s in Fairyland (Children's Cantata.) Also
articles in leading magazines. _Address:_ Pine View House, East
Quogue, L.I.
DAGGETT, MARY STEWART, _b._ Morristown. O., May 30, 1856. _Ed._
Steubenville, O., Seminary, 1873. Writer for newspapers and magazines.
_Author:_ Mariposilla, 1895. The Broad Isle, 1899. _Address:_ Columbia
Hill, Pasadena, Calif.
DAVIS, SAM P., _b._ Branford, Conn., April 4, 1850. Newspaper and
magazine writer for 40 years. Lecturer and public speaker--also
politician. _Author:_ One book Short Stories and Poems, and The First
Piano in Camp. _Address:_ Public Industrial Commission, Carson City,
Nevada.
DILLON, HENRY CLAY, _b._ Lancaster, Wis., Nov. 6, 1846. _Ed._ public
schools and Lancaster Academy. _Grad._ Racine College, 1872 (Gold
Medalist, 1870.) Came to California in 1888. Writer of clever short
stories and law. Lecturer on Common Law Pleading, etc., University of
Southern Calif. _Address:_ Colorado Orchards, Long Beach, Calif., and
Los Angeles, Calif.
DONOVAN, ELLEN DWYER, _b._ Castletown, Beara, Co. Cork, Ire. _Ed._
Academy Sisters of Mercy. Came to Calif, and contributor to leading
magazines on Art Criticism. Writer of short stories. Will shortly
publish a Romance of Ireland in the Nineteenth Century. _Address:_
Ashbury St., San Francisco, Calif.
EDHOLM-SIBLEY, MARY CHARLTON, _b._ Freeport, Ill., Oct. 28, 1854.
_Ed._ public schools and college. Writer and lecturer on social and
economic subjects. Founded Lucy Charlton Memorial for unfortunate
women and children, in Oakland. _Author:_ Traffic in Girls. 30c. Sales
go to help the Memorial. _Address:_ 904-6 Security Bldg., Los Angeles,
Calif.
EDWARDS, ADRIADNE HOLMES, _b._ Placerville, Cal., May 7. Student of
Grand Opera. Writer and composer of songs. _Author:_ My Nightingale,
Sing On (words and music.) O Bonniest Lassie Yet. Enticement.
_Address:_ Hotel Hargrave, 112 W. 72nd St., New York.
EMERSON, WILLIS GEORGE, _b._ near Blakesburg, Monroe Co., Iowa, March
28, 1856. _Ed._ district school, Union Co., Ia. Attended Knox College,
Galesburg, Ill. Studied law. Admitted to practice in District U.S. and
other courts. Taught country school for four years. Platform orator.
His speech replying to "Coin" Harvey's Financial School was issued as
a Republican campaign document, 1896, and in 1900 over half a million
copies of his speech on sound money were circulated throughout the
country. _Author:_ Winning Winds, 1901. Fall of Jason, 1901. My
Pardner and I, 1901. Buell Hampton, 1902. The Builders, 1905. The
Smoky God, 1908. Has written over 100 stories of travel and sketches
of mining camps and mountain scenery. _Address:_ Los Angeles, Calif.
EVANS, TALIESIN, _b._ Manchester, Eng., Nov. 8, 1843. _Ed._ private
schools England and Wales. _Author:_ Fisher's Advt. Guide to Calif.,
1870. Editor and author of Popular History of Calif. (Revised and
enlarged. First edition by Lucia Norman), 1883. American Citizenship,
1892. Municipal Government, 1892. _Address:_ 212 Fourth St., Oakland,
Calif.
EYSTER, MRS. NELLIE BLESSING, _b._ Frederick, Md. Lived in California
since 1876. Active in W.C.T.U., Indian and Chinese mission work.
Contributor to magazines. Lost the MSS. of two books in S.F. fire of
1906. _Author:_ Sunny Hours, or The Child Life of Tom and Mary.
Chincapin Charlie. On the Wing. Tom Harding and His Friends. A
Colonial Boy. A Chinese Quaker. _Address:_ 2618 Hillegass Ave.,
Berkeley, Calif.
FAIRBANKS, HAROLD WELLMAN, _b._ Conewango, Cattaraugus Co., N.Y., Aug.
29, 1860. _Ed._ State Normal, Fredonia, N.Y. _Grad._ B.S., University
Mich., 1890. Ph.D., University Calif., 1896. Engaged in geological and
geographical work: State Mining Bureau. 1890-1894. Asst. U.S.
Geological Survey, 1897-98. _Author:_ text books: Stories of Our
Mother Earth. 60c. Home Geography. Rocks and Minerals. All by Ed. Pub.
Co., Boston. Physiography of California. Macmillan. The Western United
States. D.C. Heath. Practical Physiography for High Schools. Allyn &
Bacon. _Address:_ Arch St., Berkeley, Calif.
FORBES, MRS. A.S.C. (nee Harrye Smith) _b._ Pennsylvania. Came
California 1895. Works for re-establishment of El Camino Real. Created
and established Nat. Naval Memorial. _Author:_ Mission Tales in Days
of the Dons. $1.50. California Missions and Landmarks. 25c. _Address:_
1104 Lyndon St., South Pasadena, Calif.
GATES, ELEANOR (Mrs. R.W. Tully.) _Ed._ Stanford, Univ. of Calif.
Leaped into fame with her first book. Biography of a Prairie Girl,
first pub. in Century Magazine. _Author:_ Biography of a Prairie Girl,
1904. The Plow Woman, 1907. Cupid, the Cow Punch, 1908. Good Night,
1908. _Address:_ Alma, Calif.
GUINN, J.M., writer of History of Southern California. Secretary S.
Cal. Hist. Soc. Member Los Angeles Board of Education. _Address:_ 5539
Monte Vista St., Los Angeles, Calif.
HART, JEROME ALFRED, _b._ San Francisco. Sept. 6, 1854. _Ed._ Cal.
public schools. Asso. editor, 1880-91. editor, 1891-1906. San
Francisco Argonaut, to which contributed letters of foreign travel
(1887-1904), and translations from French, German, Spanish, etc. Sec.
1880-91, pres. 1891-1906, of The Argonaut Publishing Co. _Author:_
Argonaut Letters, 1900. Two Argonauts in Spain. 1904. A Levantine
Log-Book, 1905. Argonaut Stories (edited) 1906. Contributor to
magazines, etc. _Address:_ Weyewolde, Santa Clara Co.. Calif.
HIBBARD, GRACE, _b._ Mass. _Ed._ in Mass. _Author:_ Wild Poppies.
Moulton, Buffalo, N.Y. $1.00. California Violets. Robertson, S.F.
$1.00. Wild Roses of California. Robertson. $1.00. Forget-Me-Nots From
California. Robertson. $1.00. Booklets: More California Violets. 25c.
California Christmas Songs. 25c. Daffodils. 25c. Songs of the Samisen.
25c. 'Neath Monterey Pines. 25c. Del Monte Oaks. 25c. Santa Claus
Cheated, and Other Christmas Stories. Twenty-eight poems have been set
to music. _Address:_ Pacific Grove, Calif.
HOLDEN, EDWARD SINGLETON, _b._ St. Louis, Nov. 5. 1846. _Grad._ Wash.
Univ., 1866. West Point 1870. Pres. Univ. of Cal. 1885-8. Director
Lick Observatory 1888-98. Librarian U.S. Military Acad. since 1901.
_Author:_ many scientific works. See Who's Who. Handbook Lick
Observatory, 1888. Mountain Observatories, 1896. Pacific Coast
Earthquakes, 1898, etc. _Address:_ West Point, N.Y., and Century Club,
New York.
HOWARD, CLIFFORD, _b._ October 12, 1868, Bethlehem, Penn. Came to
Calif, in 1906. _Author:_ Thoughts in Verse, 1895; (out of print.) Sex
Worship: An Exposition of the Phallic Origins of Religion, 1897.
$1.50. The Story of a Young Man: a Life of Christ, 1898. $2.50.
Graphology, 1904. 50c. Curious Facts, 1905. 50c. Washington as a
Center of Learning, 1905. $1.00. The Passover. What Happened at
Olenberg. _Address:_ Los Angeles, Calif.
HUNT, ROCKWELL DENNIS, _b._ Sacramento, Calif., Feb. 3, 1868. _Grad._
Napa College. Ph.B., 1890. A.M., 1902. Johns Hopkins Univ. Ph.D.,
1895. Prof. Hist. Napa College, 1891-3. Prof. Hist. and Political Sc.,
Univ. of Pacific, 1895-1902. Prin. San Jose High School, 1902-1908.
Lect. Stanford Univ., 1898. Prof. Economics and Sociology, Univ. of S.
Calif., 1908, _Author:_ California the Golden. _Address:_ 1319 W. 37th
Place, Los Angeles, Calif.
IRWIN, WALLACE, _b._ Oneida, N.Y., Mar. 15, 1875. _Grad._ Denver High
School, 1895. At Stanford Univ., 1896-9. Special writer S.F. Examiner,
Ed. S.F. News-Letter 1901, and Overland Monthly 1902. _Author:_ Love
Sonnets of a Hoodlum. Paul Elder, S.F. 25c and 50c. Rubaiyat of Omar
Khyyam, Jr. Paul Elder, S.F. 50c and 75c. Nautical Lays of a Landsman.
Dodd, Mead Co., N.Y. $1.00. At the Sign of the Dollar. Duffield & Co.,
N.Y. $1.00. Chinatown Ballads. Duffield & Co., N.Y. $1.00. Random
Rhymes and Odd Numbers. Macmillan Co., N.Y. $1.50. Shame of the
Colleges. Outing Pub. Co. Letters of a Japanese Schoolboy. Doubleday,
Page & Co. $1.50. _Address:_ 273 W. 84th St., New York.
IRWIN, WILL, _b._ Oneida, N.Y., Sept. 14, 1873. _Grad._ Denver High
School, 1892. Stanford Univ. A.B. 1899. Contr. fiction, etc., to mags.
Ed. S.F. Wave 1900. Ed. McClure's 1906-7. _Author:_ Stanford Stories
(with C.K. Field), 1900. The Reign of Queen Isyl (with Gelett
Burgess), 1903. The Picaroons (with G. Burgess), 1904. The Hamadyads
(verse), 1904. The City That Was, 1907. _Address:_ 42 E. 28th St., New
York.
JAMES, GEORGE WHARTON, _b._ Gainsborough, Eng., Sept. 27, 1858. _Ed._
Queen Elizabeth's Grammar School. Litt.D. Santa Clara College.
_Author:_ In and Around the Grand Canyon, 1900. $2.50, $10.00. Indian
Basketry, 1903. $2.50. Indians of the Painted Desert Region, 1903.
$2.00. Traveler's Hand-Book to S. Calif., 1904. $1.00. How to Make
Indian and Other Baskets, 1903. $1.00. In and Out of the Missions of
Calif., 1905. $3.00. The Story of Scraggles, 1906. $1.00. The Wonders
of the Colorado Desert, 1906, 2 vols. $5.00. What the White Race May
Learn From the Indian, 1906. $1.50. Through Ramona's Country, 1908.
$2.00. The Grand Canyon of Arizona, 1909. $1.00. The Hero Book of
California, 1909. $1.50. _Address:_ 1098 N. Raymond Ave., Pasadena,
California.
JENNEY, CHARLES ELMER, _b._ Mattapoisett, Mass., Sept. 5, 1872. _Ed._
common schools. Came to Calif. (Fresno) 1891. _Author:_ Scenes of My
Childhood, 1900. $1.50. _Address:_ 219 Glenn Ave., Fresno, Calif.
JEPSON, WILLIS LINN, _b._ Vacaville township, August 19, 1867. _Ed._
at California and Cornell Univ. Ph.B. 1889. Ph.D. 1898. Research
student at Harvard 1896. Royal Gardens at Kew, England and Royal
Gardens at Berlin, Germany, 1905-1906. Ed. of Erythea, 7 vols.,
1893-1900, the first journal of botany published west of the
Mississippi River. _Author:_ Flora of Western Middle California.
Cunningham, Curtis & Welch. $5.00. High School Flora for the Pacific
Coast. D. Appleton & Co. 50c. The Silva of California. Univ. of Calif.
Press, in type since August, 1908. The Trees of California.
Cunningham, Curtis & Welch, S.F., in press. Also numerous botanical
papers in journals and proceedings of societies and institutions.
_Address:_ 2704 Hillegass Ave., Berkeley. Calif.
JORDAN, DAVID STARR, _b._ Gainesville, Wyoming Co., N.Y., Jan. 19,
1851. _Grad._ Cornell Univ. M.S. 1872. L.L.D. 1886. L.L.D., Johns
Hopkins, 1902. Indiana Univ. 1909. Pres. Indiana State Univ.,
1883-1891. Came to Calif, as Pres. Stanford 1891. _Author:_ Manual of
Vertebrates. A.C. McClurg & Co. $1.50. Science Sketches. A.C. McClurg
& Co. $1.25. Animal Life. Appleton. $1.25. Animal Studies. Appleton.
$1.75. Footnotes to Evolution. Applcton. $1.50. Evolution and Animal
Life. Appleton. $1.50. Imperial Democracy. Appleton. $1.50. Book of
Knight and Barbara. Appleton. $1.50. The Fate of Iciodorum. Henry Holt
& Co. $1.00. Fishes. Henry Holt & Co. $3.00. Guide to the Study of
Fishes. Henry Holt & Co. $8.00. Fish Stories. Henry Holt & Co. $1.50.
Standeth God Within the Shadow. Thos. Y. Crowell & Co. 75c. College
and the Man. 75c. Philosophy of Hope. 75c. The Innumerable Company.
75c. Life's Enthusiasms. 75c. The Strength of Being Clean. 75c. The
Call of the Twentieth Century. 75c. Religion of a Sensible American.
75c. The Higher Sacrifice. 75c. All by C.L. Stebbins, Boston. The
California Earthquake of 1906. A.M. Robertson. $2.50. Luther Burbank.
A.M. Robertson. $1.50. The Care and Culture of Men. Whitaker & Ray.
$1.50. Matka and Kotik. Whitaker & Ray. $1.50. The Voice of the
Scholar. Paul Elder & Co. $1.50. The Stability of Truth. _Address:_
Stanford University, Calif.
JUDSON, WILLIAM LEES, _b._ Manchester, Eng., April 1, 1842. Studied
art New York, London, Paris. Studios in London, Ont., and Chicago,
Ill. Came to California 1893. Dean of Fine Arts Department University
of Southern California since 1906. Contributor magazines on art
subjects. _Author:_ The Building of a Picture, 1898. 30c. _Address:_
College of Fine Arts, 212 Thorne St., Los Angeles, Calif.
KEELER, CHARLES, _b._ Milwaukee, Wis., Oct. 7, 1871. _Ed._ Milwaukee
and New York, and Berkeley High Schools. Special course Univ. of
Calif. Contr. to magazines. _Author:_ (Many books out of print.) Bird
Notes Afield. $2.00. San Francisco and Thereabouts. _Address:_ 2727
Dwight Way, Berkeley, Calif.
KEEP, JOSIAH, _b._ Paxton, Mass, May 11, 1849. _Ed._ Amherst College.
A.B. 1874. A.M. 1877. Came to Calif. 1877. Since 1885 Prof. of Nat.
Sc. in Mills College. _Author:_ Common Sea Shells of California, 1881.
West Coast Shells, 1887. Shells and Sea Life, 1901. West American
Shells, 1904. (Most of these destroyed in S.F. fire, 1906.) New
edition of West American Shells now out. _Address:_ Mills College,
Calif.
KEITH, ELIZA D., _b._ San Francisco. _Ed._ S.F. High School. Writer
editorial, descriptive, current topics for newspapers and magazines.
Public speaker on Civics and Patriotism. Introduced Flag Salute in
S.F. schools. _Address:_ 1519 Jackson St., San Francisco, Calif.
KERCHEVAL, ROSALIE, _b._ Nov. 8, San Antonio, Texas. Came to Calif,
when a few months old. Wrote poems for papers and magazines. Joint
author with her father of book of poems, pub. in 1883. _Address:_ 1817
N. Rosetta St., Los Angeles, Calif.
KINNEY, ABBOTT, _b._ Brookside, N.J., Nov. 16, 1850. Was spl. contr.
with Helen Hunt Jackson to report on Calif. Mission Indians. Chairman
State Bd. Forestry. _Author:_ Conquest of Death, 1893. Tasks by
Twilight, 1893. Eucalyptus, 1895. Forest and Water, 1901. _Address:_
Venice, Calif.
KIRKHAM, STANTON DAVIS, _b._ Nice, France, Dec. 7, 1868. _Ed._ Calif,
public schools and Mass. Inst. of Technology. _Author:_ Mexican
Trails. A record of travel in Mexico, 1904-1907, and a glimpse at the
life of the Mexican Indian. G.P. Putnam's Sons, New York. $1.75. The
Philosophy of Self-Help. An application of Practical Psychology to
daily life. G.P. Putnam's Sons, New York. $1.25. In the Open. Intimate
studies and appreciations of Nature. Paul Elder & Co., San Francisco.
$1.75. Where Dwells the Soul Serene. Philosophical essays. Paul Elder
& Co., San Francisco. $1.50. The Ministry of Beauty. Philosophical
essays. Paul Elder & Co., San Francisco. $1.50. _Address:_
Canandaigua, N.Y.
KREBS, MRS. ABBIE E., _b._ Providence, R.I., March 19, 1842. Brought
around Cape Horn to San Francisco in childhood. Writer for newspapers
and magazines. _Address:_ Fair Oaks, San Mateo Co., or The Fairmount,
San Francisco, Calif.
LAWRENCE, ALBERTA, _b._ Cleveland, O., July 20, 1875. _Ed._ New York
City. Writer in magazines. Eighteen months Assistant Ed. Literature,
Art and Music. Came to California 1904. Organized Strangers' League,
an interdenominational work among churches for care of strangers.
_Author:_ The Travels of Phoebe Ann. $1.50. _Address:_ 1565 E.
Colorado St., Pasadena, Calif.
LAWRENCE, MARY VIOLET, MRS., _b._ Indiana. Came to California in early
fifties. Wrote sketches and poems for newspapers and magazines. Made
selection of poems to which Bret Harte's name was attached, known as
"Outcroppings." _Address:_ 1034 Vallejo St., San Francisco, Calif.
LONDON, CHARMIAN (Kittridge), writer of poems and sketches for
newspapers and magazines. _Author:_ The Log of the Snark--Jack
London's sea voyage around the world. _Address:_ Glen Ellen, Calif.
LONDON, JACK, _b._ San Francisco, Jan. 12, 1876. _Ed._ Oakland High
School and Univ. of Calif. Writer of short stories and essays on
Political Economy. _Author:_ Song of the Wolf, 1900. The God of His
Fathers, 1901. A Daughter of the Snows, 1902. The Children of the
Frost, 1902. The Cruise of the Dazzler, 1902. The People of the Abyss,
1903. Kempton-Wace Letters, 1903. The Call of the Wild. 1903. The
Faith of Men, 1904. The Sea Wolf, 1904. The Game, 1905. War of the
Classes, 1905. Tales of the Fish Patrol, 1905. Moon Face, 1906. White
Fang, 1907. Before Adam, 1907. Love of Life, 1907. The Iron Heel,
1907. The Road, 1907, etc. _Address:_ Glen Ellen, Calif.
LOUGHEAD, MRS. FLORA HAINES, _b._ Milwaukee, Wis. Journalist and
writer of short stories for magazines. Reviewer for S.F. Chronicle for
several years. _Author:_ Libraries of California, 1878. The Man Who
Was Guilty, 1886. Handbook of Natural Science, 1886. Quick Cooking,
1890. The Abandoned Claim, 1892. The Man From Nowhere, 1892. The Black
Curtain, 1897. _Address:_ Alma, Calif.
LOWE, GEORGE N., _b._ near Leicester, England, in 1867. _Ed._ in the
school of stern life, and is still getting his education. Writes verse
for the newspapers and magazines. _Address:_ 2004 Shattuck Ave.,
Berkeley, California.
LUMMIS, CHARLES FLETCHER, _b._ Lynn, Mass., Mar. 1, 1859. _Ed._
Harvard. A.B. Litt. D. Santa Clara College. City editor Los Angeles
Times 1885-7. Editor Out West Magazine. Librarian Los Angeles Public
Library since June 21, 1905. Founder and president Landmarks Club.
Founder (1902) and chairman Exec. Com. Sequoia League. Founder and
secretary South West Society Archaeol. Inst. Am. 1903. _Author:_ A New
Mexico David, 1891. A Tramp Across the Continent, 1892. Some Strange
Corners of Our Country, 1892. Land of Poco Tiempo, 1893. The Spanish
Pioneers, 1893. The Man Who Married the Moon, 1894. The Gold Fish of
Gran Chimu, 1896. The Enchanted Burro, 1897. The Awakening of a
Nation. Mexico Today, 1898. _Address:_ 200 E. Ave. 43, Los Angeles,
Calif.
LYNCH, A.E., _b._ Tara Hall, Co. Heath, Ire., Nov. 7, 1845. _Ed._
Jesuit Colleges, Ire., and Belgium. Came to California 1873 for 2
years. Again in 1886 under Gen. Miles. Six years in Arizona on cattle
ranch. Contributor poems and articles to magazines and newspapers.
_Address:_ Commissary Dept., State School, Whittier, Calif.
MANNIX, MRS. MARY E., _b._ New York City. Removed with parents to
Cincinnati when very young. _Ed._ at Mt. Notre Dame, Reading, Ohio.
_Grad._ of Convent of the Sisters of Namur. First story and verses
published in the Catholic World, when nineteen years of age. Since
that time has written for nearly all the Catholic magazines,
principally the Ave Maria. Writes fiction, children's stories, verses,
biographies, reviews, sketches, and translations from the French,
German and Spanish. _Author:_ Life of Sister Louise of Cincinnati,
Ohio, Superior of the Mother House of America, Sisters of Notre Dame
of Namur. The Tales That Tim Told. A Life's Labrynth. Chronicles of
the Little Sisters. The Fortunes of a Little Emigrant. Pancha and
Panchita. As True as Gold. The Children of Cupa. Cupa Revisited. The
Haldeman Children. Lives of the Saints for Catholic Youth, 3 vols. The
Pilgrim From Ireland (translated from the German of Dom Maurus Carnot,
O.S.B.) Two books in press--My Brother and I, and The Eagle and the
Chamois, translated from the German of Dom Maurus Carnot. _Address:_
1804 Fourth St., San Diego, Calif.
MARTIN, LANNIE HAYNES, _b._ Jan. 9, 1874. Blountville, Tenn. _Ed._
Sullins College, Bristol, Va., and privately. Came to Calif. 1905.
Contributor to eastern, southern and western magazines. Volume of
verse in preparation. _Address:_ Altadena, Calif.
MATHEWS, AMANDA, _b._ Peoria, Ill., Jan. 31, 1866. Came to Calif.
1877. _Ed._ Univ. of Cal. Teacher. _Author:_ The Hieroglyphics of
Love. $1.00. _Address:_ 313 East Ave. 60, Los Angeles. Calif.
McCRACKIN, MRS. JOSEPHINE CLIFFORD, _b._ 1838, Castle Petershagen, on
the Weser, Prussia. Came to St. Louis, Mo., 1846. _Ed._ private
school. Came to Calif, in early sixties. One of earliest writers on
Overland. Writer ever since for leading magazines. Organized Bird and
Tree Protection Soc. of Calif. _Author:_ Overland Tales, 1876. Another
Juanita, 1892. _Address:_ 31 Union St., Santa Cruz, Calif.
McGLASHAN, C.F., _b._ Janesville, Wis., Aug. 12, 1847. Crossed the
plains to Calif, in 1854. Editor Truckee Republican. Specially
interested in historic writing of the Calif, pioneers, etc. Has made
an interesting collection of relics of the Donner and other pioneer
parties. _Author:_ History of the Donner Party. _Address:_ Truckee,
Calif.
McGROARTY, JOHN S., _b._ Penn., Aug. 20, 1862. _Ed._ public and
parochial schools and at Hillman Acad. In 1890 he came to Calif.
Writer of songs and descriptive stories for newspapers and magazines.
On editorial staff Los Angeles Times. Editor West Coast Magazine.
_Author:_ Just California, 1907. Wander Songs, 1908. _Address:_ Care
of West Coast Magazine, Los Angeles, Calif.
McLEOD, MALCOM, _b._ Prince Edward Island, Canada, May 24, 1867. _Ed._
Dalhousie College, Halifax. N.S., and Princeton, N.J. _Author:_
Heavenly Harmonies. Earthly Discords. The Culture of Simplicity. A
Comfortable Faith, all by F.H. Revell Co. _Address:_ 969 San Pasqual
St., Pasadena, Calif.
MERLE, MARTIN V., _b._ San Francisco, Calif., May 27, 1880. _Ed._
Cooper public school, St. Ignatius College and Polytechnic High
School, San Francisco. _Grad._ A.M., 1906, Santa Clara College, Santa
Clara. _Author of plays:_ The Light Eternal. The Vagabond Prince. And
a one-act play, The Lady O'Dreams. _Address:_ 714 Broderick St., San
Francisco.
MIGHELS, MRS. ELLA STERLING, _b._ California. Began authorship early.
Lady manager for San Francisco at Chicago World's Fair. _M._ in 1896
Philip Verrill Mighels. _Author:_ The Little Mountain Princess.
Loring, Boston. Portrait of a California Girl, in collection of
Stories by California Authors. Wagner, S.F. Story of Files of
California. Serial: Society and Babe Robinson. Grizzly Bear Co., L.A.
The Full Glory of Diantha. Forbes & Co., Chicago. _Address:_ 1605
Baker St., San Francisco, Calif.
MIGHELS, PHILIP VERRILL, _b._ Carson City, Nevada, April 19, 1869.
_Ed._ Carson schools. Studied law in Nev. Art in N.Y. _M._ Ella
Sterling Cummings June, 1896. _Author:_ Out of a Silver Flute (poems.)
Nella, the Heart of the Army. The Crystal Scepter. Bruvver Jim's Baby.
The Ultimate Passion. Dunny, a Mountain Romance. Sunnyside Tad. Beechy
Daw and Other Tales. When a Witch is Young. The Furnace of Gold.
_Address:_ Care of Harper & Bros., New York.
MILLARD, BAILEY, _b._ Markesan, Wis., Oct. 2, 1859. Lit. Ed. S.F.
Examiner. _Author:_ Great American Novel (essays.) She of the West,
1900. Songs of the Press, 1902. The Lure O'Gold, novel, 1904. Many
short stories in magazines, etc. _Address:_ Palisade, N.J.
MILLARD, GERTRUDE B., _b._ July 8th, 1872, Sheboygan, Wis. Came to
California Feb., 1893, from Jamestown, N. Dak. _Ed._ Boston, Mass.,
and Jamestown, N.D. _Author_ of short stories for magazines.
_Address:_ San Jose, Calif.
MILLER, JOAQUIN--the Poet of the Sierras, _b._ in Wabash Dist., Ind.,
Nov. 10, 1841. Editor (1863) Eugene, Ore., Democratic Register.
_Author:_ The Building of the City Beautiful, a poetic romance.
Complete Poems, 6 vols., 1909. _Address:_ The Hights, Dimond, Calif.
MILLER, OLIVE THORNE, _b._ Auburn, N.Y., June 25, 1831; _Author:_ True
Bird Stories. $1.00 net. The First Book of Birds. $1.00. School
edition, 60c net. The Second Book of Birds. $1.00 net. Upon the
Tree-Tops. $1.25. Little Brothers of the Air. $1.25. A Bird-Lover in
the West. $1.25. Bird-Ways. 16mo, $1.25. In Nesting Time. $1.25. With
the Birds in Maine. $1.10. Our Home Pets. $1.25. _Address:_ 5928 Hays
Ave., Los Angeles, Calif.
MILLS, BENJAMIN FAY, _b._ Rahway, N.J., June 4, 1857. Evangelical
Minister, 1878-1897. Liberal Minister, lecturer, writer and social
reformer, 1897. Founded The Fellowship, representing "Religion Without
Superstition," 1904. Lived in California 1875-6, 1899--. _Author:_
God's World. The Divine Adventure. Twentieth Century Religion. The New
Revelation. Editor Fellowship Magazine. _Address:_ Los Angeles. Calif.
MILLS, MARY RUSSELL (Hill), _b._ Minneapolis. June 24, 1859. _M._ to
Benjamin Fay Mills, 1879. Co-founder of The Fellowship, 1904. Teacher
of Emerson and the Spiritual Life. Minister of the Los Angeles
Fellowship, 1904-8. Associate editor of the Fellowship Magazine.
_Author:_ The Art of Living. The Fellowship Religion, and numerous
essays and poems. _Address:_ Los Angeles.
MILNE, MRS. FRANCES MARGARET, _b._ Ireland, County of Tyrone. Came to
Calif. in 1869. _Ed._ at home. _Author:_ For To-Day. (Poems.) James H.
Barry Co., S.F. A Cottage Gray, and Other Poems. C.W. Moulton,
Buffalo. Heliotrope, a San Francisco Idyll. The J.H. Barry Co.
_Address:_ The Public Library, San Luis Obispo, Calif.
MITCHELL, EDMUND, _b._ Glasgow, Scotland, Mar. 19, 1861. _Ed._ Elgin
Acad. Aberdeen Univ. _Grad._ 1881. (Gold Medalist Eng. Lit.) Ed.
writer Glasgow Herald. In 1886 Asst. Ed. Times of India, Bombay. In
1889 editorial staff of Melbourne Age. In 1904, editorial staff Los
Angeles Times. _Author:_ The Temple of Death. 75c net. Towards the
Eternal Snows. 75c net. Plotters of Paris. 75c net. The Lone Star
Rush. $1.50 net. Only a Nigger. $1.50 net. The Belforts of Culben.
$1.50 net. The Despoilers. $1.50 net. Chickabiddy Stories, $1.00 net.
In Desert Keeping. $1.50 net. All except the last, originally pub. in
England. Now imported. To be had from author. _Address:_ 1710 Hobart
Boulevard, Los Angeles, Calif.
MUIR, JOHN, _b._ Dunbar, Scot., Apl. 21, 1838 _Ed._ in Scotland and
Univ. of Wis. Discoverer of the Muir Glacier, Alaska. Author of many
articles in magazines, newspapers, etc., on physiography and natural
history of the Pacific Coast, etc. _Author:_ The Mountains of
California, 1894. Our National Parks, 1901. Editor Picturesque
California. _Address:_ Martinez, Calif.
MUNK, JOSEPH A., _b._ Colnmbiana Co., Ohio, Nov. 9, 1847. _Ed._ public
schools Salem, O. Fought in Civil War. In 1865 Mt. Union College,
Alliance, O. _Grad._ Eclectic Med. Inst. of Cinn., in 1867. Came to
Los Angeles in 1892. Has great collection Arizoniana. _Author:_
Arizona Sketches, 1906. Arizona Bibliography, 1908. _Address:_ Los
Angeles, Calif.
NORTH, ARTHUR WALBRIDGE, _b._ Marysville, Cal. Oct. 26, 1874. _Grad._
Oakland High School, and Univ. of Cal. A.B. 1896. Contributor to
magazines and reviews. _Author:_ Mother of California, an historical
and geographical review of Lower California (Mex.) Paul Elder & Co.,
1908. $2.00. Camp and Camino in Lower California (in press.) Baker &
Taylor Co. _Address:_ 126 North St., Walton, N.Y.
OLDER, MRS. FREMONT (Cora Baggerly), _b._ New York. _Ed._ private
teachers and Syracuse Univ. _Author:_ The Socialist and the Prince,
1902. Funk & Wagnalls. The Giants, 1905. _Address:_ The Fairmount, San
Francisco, Calif.
PAYNE, EDWARD B., _b._ Vermont. _Ed._ Iowa College and Oberlin.
_Grad._ in 1874. Congr. preacher, Berkeley, Calif. Became Unitarian.
Preached Springfield, Mass., 4 years; Manchester, N.H., 2-1/2 years;
Leominster, 5 years; Berkeley, Calif., 5 years. Founded Altruria, near
Santa Rosa, a co-operative settlement of 60 members and pub. a
magazine, "Altruria." _Address:_ Glen Ellen, Calif.
PERCIVAL, OLIVE, _b._ July 1, 1868, Sheffield, Ill. _Ed._ public
schools Sheffield, Ill., and Cleveland, Ohio. _Author:_ Mexico City:
An Idler's Note Book. _Address:_ 906 Union Trust Bldg., Los Angeles,
Calif.
RADER, WILLIAM, _b._ Cedarville, Chester Co., Pa., Dec. 17, 1862.
Pastor 2nd Cong. Church, San Francisco, ten years. Now pastor Calvary
Pres. Church. Editorial writer San Francisco Bulletin. _Author:_ The
Elegy of Faith, 1902. Truths for Today, 1902. Uncle Sam, or the Reign
of the Common People, (in Notable Speeches of Greater West.) Liberty
and Labor. _Address:_ 2702 Laguna St., San Francisco, Calif.
RICHARDSON, DANIEL S., _b._ Mar. 19, 1851, West Acton, Mass. Came to
Calif. in 1855. _Ed._ public schools of S.F. and Univ. of Calif. Twice
decorated by Emperor of Japan. Writer of short stories and poems for
magazines. _Author:_ Trail Dust (poems) 1909. _Address:_ 221 Sansome
St., San Francisco, Calif.
REED, ANNA MORRISON, MRS., _b._ Dubuque, Ia. Came to Calif. when an
infant. _Ed._ Mrs. Perry's Seminary, Sacramento. Writer and lecturer.
Editor and founder Northern Crown Magazine; Petaluma, Sonoma Co.,
Independent. _Author:_ Poems, 1880. Later Poems. _Address:_ Petaluma,
Calif.
SAIN, CHARLES McKNIGHT, _b._ Mt. Pleasant, O., Mar. 11, 1863. Traveler
and writer for magazines, etc. _Author:_ An Expectant Heir to
Millions, 1896. The Serpent, 1902, both out of print. The Call of the
Muse (poems.) Where Rolls the Oregon (poems.) _Address:_ Care Mrs. Lou
A. Curran, Hollywood, Calif.
SAMUELS, MAURICE V., _b._ San Francisco, Oct. 3, 1874. _Grad._ 1894
Univ. Calif. Lawyer in S.F. for 7 years. Playwright. _Author:_ The
Florentines, blank-verse art-comedy, Brentano, 1904. $1.00. _Address:_
Hotel St. Margaret, 129 W. 47th St., New York City.
SAUNDERS, CHARLES FRANCIS, _b._ July 12, 1859, Bucks County, Penn.
_Ed._ in Philadelphia. _Grad._ Friends' Central School. Came first to
California 1902. Resided in Pasadena since 1905. Contributor to
magazines of both coasts on subjects covering travel, plant life, the
Indians of the Southwest, etc., besides occasional verse. Editor
1894-7 of "The United Friend," religious monthly, Philadelphia.
_Author:_ In a Poppy Garden. R.G. Badger, Boston, 1903, and wrote
descriptive text for Mrs. Saunders's published collection of color
prints entitled, California Wild Flowers. W.M. Bains, Philadelphia,
1905. _Address:_ 580 N. Lake Ave., Pasadena, Calif.
SAUNDERS, MARSHALL, _b._ in Nova Scotia. Lived for awhile in San
Francisco and in California began study of birds and animals.
_Author:_ Beautiful Joe. $1.25. My Pets. $1.25. Several other books.
_Address:_ 28 Carleton St., Halifax, N.S., Canada.
SCHEFFAUER, HERMAN, _b._ San Francisco, Feb. 3, 1876. _Ed._ public and
private schools. Studied architecture and art at Mark Hopkins
Institute. Writer for newspapers, magazines and reviews in France,
England, Germany and America. _Author:_ Both Worlds poems, 1903. Looms
of Life, 1908. $1.25. The Sons of Baldur, 1908. Niagara. An American
Romance of four generations, 1909. Sire of Bohemian Club Jinks, 1908.
_Address:_ 184 Eldridge St., New York.
SCOTT, JOSEPH, _b._ Penrith, Cumberlandshire, Eng., July 16, 1867.
_Ed._ St. Cuthbert's College, Ushaw, Durham. Prof. Rhetoric and Eng.
Lit. St. Bonaventure's College, Allegheny, N.Y. Came to Calif. 1893
Pres. Board of Ed. of Los Angeles. Writer on Educational and Civic
Subjects for newspapers and magazines. _Address:_ Los Angeles, Calif.
SETON, GRACE GALLATIN, _b._ Sacramento, Calif., Jan. 28, 1872. _Ed._
Packer Collegiate Inst., Brooklyn. Writer for newspapers and magazines
of America, England and France. _Author:_ A Woman Tenderfoot. Nimrod's
Wife. Doubleday, Page & Co. _Address:_ 80 W. 40th St., New York, and
Wyndygoul, Cos Cob, Conn.
SEVERANCE, CAROLINE MARIA SEYMOUR, _b._ Canandaigua, N.Y., Jan. 12,
1820. One of founders and first president, 1868, of New England
Woman's Club. Known as "The Mother of Women's Clubs." _Author:_ The
Mother of Women's Clubs (with Mrs. Ella Giles Ruddy.) $1.00.
_Address:_ 896 W. Adams St., Los Angeles, Calif.
SEXTON, MRS. ELLA M., _b._ Ill. _Ed._ in St. Louis, Mo. Came to Calif.
in 1874. Contributor to Eastern and Pacific Coast magazines. _Author:_
Stories of California. Macmillan & Co. California at Christmas-Tide
(poems). Also a collection of Mission poems and one of Children's
Verse. She has also seven one-act comedies used by clubs and for
amateur production. _Address:_ 171 Parnassus Ave., San Francisco,
Calif.
SHINN, CHARLES HOWARD, _b._ Austin, Texas, April 29, 1852. _Ed._ Univ.
of Calif, and Johns Hopkins Univ. Taught school. Contributor to
newspapers and magazines. For ten years Inspector Univ. of Calif.
Experimental Stations. Appointed 1902 head forest ranger Sierra
Reserve, Calif. _Author:_ Pacific Rural Handbook, 1879. Land Laws of
Mining Districts, 1884. Mining Camps, 1885. Co-operation on the
Pacific Coast, 1888. Story of a Mine, 1897. Various Forestry
Monographs, etc. _Address:_ Northfork, Madera Co., Calif.
SHINN, MILLICENT WASHBURN, _b._ Niles, Calif., April 15, 1858. _Grad._
Univ. of Calif. A.B. 1880. Ph.D. 1898. Editor Californian, 1882.
Editor Overland Monthly, 1883-94. _Author:_ Notes on the Development
of a Child (also in German.) The Biography of a Baby, 1901. The
Development of the Senses, and the First Two Years of Childhood. Also
poems, stories, essays, critiques, etc. _Address:_ Niles, Calif.
SHUEY, LILLIAN H., MRS. Has lived in Calif, practically all her life.
_Ed._ public schools and Napa branch of Univ. of Pacific. Taught 16
years in public schools. _Author:_ David of Juniper Gulch. Laird &
Lee. 50c. Don Luis' Wife. Lamson & Wolffe. 50c. California Sunshine,
The Humboldt Lily. Among the Redwoods (verses.) The Necromancers (a
novel, in preparation.) _Address:_ 657 60th St., Oakland, Calif.
SIMONDS, WILLIAM DAY, _b._ Rockford, Ill., Mar. 31, 1855. _Grad._
State Normal School, Vt. Spaulding Classical Academy, Barrie, Vt.,
1880. Studied Amherst College and Chicago Theological Inst. Pastor
First Unitarian Church, Oakland, Calif. _Author:_ Patriotic Addresses.
Sermons From Shakespeare. Freedom and Fraternity. _Address:_ 1233
First Ave., Oakland, Calif.
SMYTHE, WILLIAM ELLSWORTH, _b._ Worcester, Mass., Dec. 24, 1861.
Initiated Nat. Irrigation Congress, 1891. Sec. until 1893, chairman
until 1895. Est. _Irrigation Age_, 1891. Edited it until 1896.
Lecturer and writer on Irrigation and Economic Problems. _Author:_ The
Conquest of Arid America. Constructive Democracy. History of San
Diego, 2 vols. _Address:_ 1448 C St., San Diego, Calif.
SOSSO, LORENZO, _b._ Mar. 2, 1867, Turin, Italy. Came to Calif. in
July, 1875. _Author:_ Poems, 1888. Poems of Humanity, 1891. In Realms
of Gold, 1902. Proverbs of the People, 1903. Wisdom of the Wise, 1905.
_Address:_ 179 De Long Ave., San Francisco, Calif.
STELLMAN, LOUIS J., _b._ Baltimore, Md., Jan. 6, 1877. Came to Calif.
July, 1896. Connected S.F. Examiner since 1897. Wrote "Observer"
Sketches for L.A. Herald, published in book form 1903. Whitaker & Ray.
75c. _Address:_ Press Club, San Francisco, Calif.
STIMSON, JOHN WARD, _b._ Paterson, N.J., Dec. 16, 1850. _Grad._ Yale,
1872. Also Ecole des Beaux Arts, Paris. Lecturer and art teacher
Princeton Univ. Assoc. editor The Arena. Contributor to various art
exhibitions and magazines. _Author:_ The Law of Three Primaries.
Principals of Vital Art Education. The Gate Beautiful. Wandering
Chords, etc. _Address:_ 14 W. 48th St., New York.
STROBRIDGE, IDAH MEACHAM, _b._ Contra Costa Co., June 9, 1855. _Ed._
Mills Seminary. Contributor to newspapers and magazines. _Author:_ In
Miner's Mirage Land, 1904. DeLuxe, $6.00. The Loom of the Desert,
1907. $1.75. DeLuxe $6.00. The Land of the Purple Shadows, 1909.
$1.75. DeLuxe $6.00. All pub. by Artemisia Bindery. _Address:_
Artemisia Bindery. 231 E. Ave. 41, Los Angeles, Calif.
SUTHERLAND, HOWARD V., _b._ Cape Town, South Africa, _Ed._ England and
Germany. _Author:_ The Legend of Love. The Old, Old Story. Jacinta, a
Californian Idyll. Bigg's Bar, and Other Klondike Ballads. Songs of a
City. Idylls of Greece. $1.00. Ditto second series. $1.00. _Address:_
314 Seventeenth St., Denver, Colo.
SYMMES, HAROLD S., _b._ San Francisco, 1877. _Ed._ public schools.
B.A. Univ. of California, 1899. Doctor's degree _summa cum laude_
Univ. of Paris, 1903. Was appointed to Columbia Univ., department of
English, the same year. _Author:_ Les Debuts de la Critique Dramatique
en Angleterre, 1903. Out of print. Contributor of verse and prose to
American and English periodicals. _Address:_ Garden St., Redlands,
Calif.
TULLY, RICHARD WALTON. _Ed._ Univ. of Calif. Writer of short stories
and plays. Rose of the Rancho, in collaboration with David Belasco,
has had a most successful run. _Address:_ Alma, Calif.
URMY, CLARENCE, _b._ San Francisco, July 10, 1858. _Ed._ public
schools and Napa College. Contributor poetry to all the leading
magazines, East and West. _Author:_ A Rosary of Rhyme, 1884. A Vintage
of Verse, 1897. _Address:_ San Jose, Calif.
WATERHOUSE, A.J., _b._ May 27, 1855, in Wisconsin. _Ed._ public
schools in Wisconsin, High School, Rochester, Minn., and Ripon
College, Wis. Writer for newspapers and magazines. Asst. editor The
California Weekly, S.F. _Author:_ Some Homely Songs, 1899. Lays for
Little Chaps, 1902. _Address:_ 2422 McGee Ave., Berkeley, Calif.
WHITAKER, HERMAN, _b._ Huddersfield, Eng., Jan. 14, 1867. _Ed._ public
school. Served in British army, 2nd Battalion W. Riding Reg. 1884-5.
_Author:_ The Probationer. The Settler. The Planter. All pub. by
Harper Bros. $1.50 each. _Address:_ 220 James Ave., Oakland, Calif.
WILEY, HARLEY RUPERT, _b._ Wisconsin, April 5, 1855. Trekked to Calif.
1865-6. _Ed._ Santa Rosa, Calif. Univ. of Calif. (L.L.B.) Past twelve
years lecturer on Jurisprudence in Univ. of Calif. Writer on Law, and
verse for magazines. _Address:_ Faculty Club, Berkeley, Calif.
WILLARD, CHARLES DWIGHT, _b._ Bloomington, Ill., Jan. 20, 1860. _Ed._
public school, Chicago. A.B. 1883 Univ. of Mich. Came to Calif. in
1888. Writer of short stories and on civic matters. _Author:_ History
of Los Angeles. The Free Harbor Contest. History of Los Angeles
Chamber of Commerce. City Government. _Address:_ Los Angeles, Calif.
WILSON, MRS. IDA MANSFIELD, play-wright, dramatic critic, actress,
lecturer. Writes plays and magazine articles. _Address:_ 2020 Clinton
Ave., Alameda, Calif.
YORKE, PETER CHRISTOPHER, _b._ Aug. 15, 1864, Galway, Ire. _Ed._ St.
Jarlath's College, Tuam, Maynooth, and the Cathedral University of
America. Made S.T.D. by Pius X., 1906. Regent State University. Writer
and lecturer on religious topics. _Address:_ Oakland, Calif.
ZEPHYRIN, FR. (Charles Anthony Englehardt), _b._ Hanover, Bilshausen,
Germany, Nov. 13, 1851. Came to N.Y. Dec. 8, 1852. _Ed._ public
schools. Classics in Franciscan College. Entered Franciscan order, in
Tentopolis, Ill., Sept. 22, 1872, making profession Sept. 28, 1873.
Ordained June 18, 1878. In 1880 began work among Menominee Indians in
Wis. 1894 to Adrian, Harbor Springs, Mich., Indian School. Studied
Indian languages, etc., 21 years. Historian of Franciscan Order in
Calif. _Author:_ Franciscans in California. Franciscans in Arizona.
Missions and Missionaries of California, 3 vols., (first vol. out.)
_Address:_ The Orphanage, Watsonville, Calif.
Here endeth the quotations from living California Authors selected by
George Wharton James and done by him into this book at the Arroyo
Guild Press, 201 Avenue 66, (Garvanza), Los Angeles, Calif., in the
year of Our Salvation One Thousand Nineteen Hundred and Nine.
*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The California Birthday Book" ***
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