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"THE CHILDREN'S STATUE OF THE PIONEER MOTHER'
"The only church we knew was
around our mother's knees."
— Stephen M. White.
See Page 353
Photo by H. E. Poehlman
ELLA STERLING MIGHELS
The Gatherer of "Literary California.
LITERARY CALIFORNIA
POETRY PROSE and
PORTRAITS
Gathered by
ELLA STERLING MIGHELS
Author of the "Story of the Files," "Full Glory of
Diantha," "Little Mountain Princess," "Society and
Babe Robinson," "Fairy Tale of the White Man."
Westward the star of empire takes its way:
The first four acts already past,
A fifth shall close the drama with the day:
Time's noblest offering is the last.
— Berkeley.
HARR WAGNER PUBLISHING CO.
San Francisco, California
1918
Copyright 1918
Harr Wagner Publishing Co.
DEC IS 1918
rf)CI.A5()8588
AH /
CONTENTS 7
CONTENTS
Frontispiece 3
Portrait of the Gatherer 4
The Children's Statue of the Pioneer Mother 3
Dedication 17
California "49" 18
Introduction 19
Foreword 32
For January
The Spirit of Youth Thomas F. Flynn 33
My New Year's Guests Rollin Mallory Daggett 34
Tavernier's Indian Girl , Jerome A. Hart 36
Old California Joaquin Miller 36
Galaxy 1 — Poets and Prose-Writers : 37
Galaxy 2 — Poets and Prose-Writers 38
Just as the New Year Was Dawning Elizabeth McGrath 39
California Anna Catherine Markham 39
The Golden Gate Madge Morris 39
A SiGNificANT Crisis in the West Chester Rowell 40
Poetic Art Edward Robeson Taylor 41
The Death of Poetry James W. Foley 42
The New Poetry George Douglas 42
The Poet-Touch Clarence Urmy 43
Poetry Edwin Markham 43
The Poet Lorenzo Sosso 43
Indirection Richard Realf 44
Mining and Poetry Richard Edward White 45
Re-Discovering the World Benjamin Ide Wheeler 46
Sonnet — To Mrs. Hearst The Gatherer 46
A Tribute to George Hamlin Fitch Charles Mills Gayley 47
A Literary Light of the Early Days
Mary V. Tingley Lawrence 48
A Tribute to Marshall N. J. Bird 50
What Is Education? Mrs. M. M. Bay 50
The Little Red School House of the Early Days
Sarah Connell 50
A Matter of Importance S. Hartman 52
A Brief But Ineffectual Radiance Bret Harte 52
An Editor on Figures of Speech William H. Mills 53
Sutro Forest The Gatherer 54
Practicality Versus Romance Adelaide J. Holmes Bausman 54
The Great Panorama A. E. 55
The Gray Road of Sorrow John Steven McGroarty 55
A Toast to Authors Charles Henry Webb 56
One of the Traditions to Be Handed Down The Gatherer 56
Rondeau Ella M. Sexton 57
William Keith Ina Coolbrith 57
A Word of Praise Kenneth Campbell 58
Short Histories of Things Thomas Nunan 58
Old Ballad of the Pioneers — Home Again 59
8 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
For February
The Phantom Fleet in Panama Lillian H. S. Bailey 60
Valley Forge — Then and Now Bailey Millard 61
The Pioneer Henry T. Fee 62
Abraham Lincoln Joseph Thompson Goodman 63
The Liberty for Which Washington Stood
Samuel M. Shortridge 64
Religious Liberty Nathan Newmark 65
Benefits of the Midwinter Exposition M. H. DeYoung 66
February Twentieth, 1915 Edward H. Hamilton 68
A Chinese Symphony Thomas Nunan 70
Galaxy 3 — Poets and Prose- Writers 71
Galaxy 4 — Poets and Prose-Writers 72
Sonnet to Robert I. Aitken George Sterling 74
On Hearing Kelley's Music of Macbeth Ina Coolbrith 74
A Temple of Culture in Sacramento The Gatherer 75
Mission Dolores George H. Barron 77
The Naming of the Golden Gate John P. Young 78
About the Old Golden Era The Gatherer 79
Lost Treasure Mary Austin 80
In Memory of Verdi James D. Phelan 80
A Star in the Chaos Edwin Markham 83
Matchless Yo Semite Fred Emerson Brooks 84
The Great Panorama A. E. 84
Our Fair Southland Eliza A. Otis 85
A Song of Slavianka.. Honoria R. P. Tuomey 85
To My Parents Maurice V. Samuels 86
Couplet Lorenzo Sosso 86
For March
How the Clouds Come in Through the Golden Gate
Edward A. Pollock 87
Three Little Girls Charles Fayette McGlashan 88
Tree of Donner Lake Gilbert G. Weigle
Unveiling of the Donner Lake Monument
William D. Stephens 91
What the Donner Lake Monument Stands for
Clara K. Wittenmyer 90
The Maiden of Tamalpais Lillian H. S. Bailey 91
The Hymn of the Wind Howard V. Sutherland 92
The Father of San Francisco Zoeth S. Eldredge 94
Room to Turn 'Round In Joaquin Miller 95
To Joan London Merle Robbins Lampson 95
Sing Me a Ringing Anthem Daniel O'Connell 96
Words from a Jewish Rabbi Jacob Voorsanger 97
The Common-Sense of Childhood Margaret Collier Graham 97
Words of a Writer in 1885 Kate Waters 97
The Pioneer Herbert Bashford 98
How the Spring Comes in the High Sierras
Ella Sterling Mighels 99
No Flag But the Starry Banner John J. Barrett 99
The Exile Berton Braley 100
A Cycle Millicent Washburn Shinn 101
How San Francisco Was Named Francisco Palou 102
Bacchanale Waldemar Young 102
CONTENTS 9
Let Me Arise and Away Edward Rowland Sill 103
Has Civilization Bettered the Lot of the Average Man?
.„ Jack London 103
Galaxy 5 — Poets and Prose-Writers 105
Galaxy 6 — Editors, Orators, Authors of Books 106
The Yo Semite Road Bailey Millard 107
Charles Warren Stoddard George Sterling 107
The Law of Antagonism Robert Wilson Murphy 108
The Great White City June Goodrich 109
A Beautiful Sight Noah Brooks 110
The Great Panorama A. E. 110
Broad Acres Make Up Countries Harry J. W. Dam 111
Chivalry and Culture in Early California
Sterling B. F. Clark 111
The Castle of Storm Lillian H. S. Bailey 112
For April
Prize Quatrain — California Lillian H. S. Bailey 113
Meadow Larks Ina Coolbrith 113
The Burning of San Francisco Joaquin Miller 114
The City Hall Statue... Louis J. Stellman 115
A Song of Spring, San Francisco 1908 Charles K. Field 117
The Promise of the Sowing Frank Norris 117
The Avitor William Henry Rhodes 118
San Francisco Howard V. Sutherland 119
Two Extracts from a Novel Flora Haines Loughead 119
A Batchelor's Button P. V. M. 122
The Great Panorama A. E. 122
A Ride in the Night Jerome A. Hart 123
First Meeting of Piutes and Whites
Sarah Winnemucca Hopkins 125
Mount Shasta William F. Burbank 125
California Anna Morrison Reed 125
California Meadow Larks Ella M. Sexton 126
An Easter Song Harriet M. Skidmore 126
Hopkins Institute Ina L. Cook 126
Word Painting Regarding Bubbs Creek Samuel D. Woods 127
Presentiment of Loss Merle Robbins Lampson 128
"Mort Sur Champ D'Honneur" Bartholomew Dowling 129
Walker of Nicaragua T. Robinson W t arren 129
Anecdote of the Disaster of 1906 The Gatherer 136
Sanctuary Helen Dare 131
Resurgam David Lesser Lezinsky 132
Her Poppies Fling a Cloth of Gold Eliza D. Keith 132
For May
Song of an Absent Son Gabriel Furlong Butler 133
Vale Richard Realf 134
Daniel O'Connell Louis Alexander Robertson 135
The Farewell The Gatherer 136
Galaxy 7 — Poets and Prose-Writers 137
Galaxy 8 — Editors and Publishers 138
The Mission Swallows at Carmel George Sterling 141
For These Unknown Charles Phillips 142
Why? P. V. M. 142
To My Father's Memory Agnes Tobin 143
10 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
Richard Edward White Edwin Robeson Taylor 143
The Voice of the Water in the Mountains
Charles Elmer Jenney
Emperor Norton I Fred Emerson Brooks
A Message from Emperor Norton I The Gatherer
Where Broderick Sleeps ...Jeremiah Lynch
Lone Mountain Louis A. Robertson
JUNIPERO SERRA AT THE GOLDEN GATE ..RlCHARD EDWARD WHITE
The Lily of Galilee's Water Patrick S. Dorney
California to the Fleet Daniel S. Richardson
In the Sierras Charles Warren Stoddard
Where a Philanthropist Sleeps The Gatherer
A Tribute to Mrs. Rebecca Lambert The Gatherer
The Great Panorama A. E.
The City of the Living Frank Alumbraugh
Mussel Slough Tragedy William C. Morrow
The Comet Charles Elmer Jenney
At Pollock's Grave Edward Robeson Taylor
Passing Away Charles Grissen
Angeline of Forest Hill .The Gatherer
My House in Order The Gatherer
Cupid in Sausalito David E. W. Williamson
The Pioneer Sarah B. Cooper
For June
When I Am Dead Elizabeth Chamberlain
Love's Slavery Is Sweet Carrie Stevens Walter
A Flight of Mark Twain's
A Sample of California Weather and Climate....Sarah Connell
Love Story of Concha Arguello John F. Davis
Early California a Land of Bachelorhood
Charles B. Turrill
Love is Dead Ella Sterling Mighels
An Idyl of Monterey Anna Cowan Sangster
The Love I Should Forget Richard Edward White
Love and Nature P. V. M.
Lines Written in the Tropics During a Voyage to California..
Edward A. Pollock
A Tremendous Moment The Gatherer
Galaxy 9 — Poets, Prose- Writers and Divines
Galaxy TO— Orators, Editors and Prose-Writers .,
Love Anna Newbegin
Chivalry and Culture in Early California
Sterling B. F. Clark
The Harp of Broken Strings John Rollin Ridge
A Plainsman's Song P. V. M.
Song Florence Richmond
A Fierce Affection David Starr Jordan
I Hear Thy Voice Joseph D. Redding
The Prairie P. V. M.
The Twilight Porch John W. Overall
Amare E. Vivere Holly Dean
Song of Herrera thp: Raider George Homer Meyer
Ballad Henry A. Melvin
Life's Hopes L. A. G.
Forbidden Richard Lew Dawson
Sweetheart Ben Field
CONTENTS 11
A Thought from Lilly O. Reichling Dyer 184
Love Sonnets of a Hoodlum Wallace Irwin 185
The Wedding Is Over 185
Morning John G. Jury 186
A Red, Red Heart A. E. 186
A Thought Charles Elmer Jenney 186
When Love Grows Too Observant Lorenzo Sosso 186
For July
Invocation Ambrose Bierce 187
The Simplicity of Tyranny Adley H. Cummins 189
The Civic Conscience Theodore Bonnet 191
Liberty's Bell Madge Morris Wagner 192
What Is a Republic Stephen M. White 194
Early California Ballad — The Maid of Monterey Anon 195
An Experience in the Philippines Albert Sonnichen 195
A California Sunset Arthur L. Price 197
The Sight of "Old Glory" to an Exile W. Kimball Briggs 197
Geographical 199
Lex Scripta Nathan Kouns 200
The Way of War Jack London 202
The Age of Oratory in California Edward F. Cahill 203
Sword Go Through the Land Clarence Urmy 206
The Coming of Liberty Adley H. Cummins 206
A Star Seen at Twilight John Rollin Ridge 210
What Is Our Country? Newton Booth 211
Makers of the Flag Franklin K. Lane 211
Here and There Edward DeWitt Taylor 212
Dream of a Slacker Sergeant Thomas Kleckner 213
God Bless Our Boys J. H. Lewin 214
For Our Soldiers Lawrence Kip 214
Napoleon's Dying Soldier Agnes S. Taylor 215
About Swords Lorenzo Sosso 215
The Great Panorama A. E. 216
Wars and Wishes George Douglas 216
The Little Lad Agnes Lee 216
For August
A Great Thought Never Dies Calvin B. McDonald 217
In a Hammock Kate M. Bishop 217
To Mrs. Jane Lathrop Stanford Alphonzo G. Newcomer 218
The Sequoias Charles Elmer Jenney 219
Alloyed Frank Rose Starr 220
Quail Charles Elmer Jenney 222
Bare Brown Hills Ella Higginson 221
Waiting for the Rain Sister Anna Raphael 221
The Crowning of Miss Coolbrith 222
Home Influence in Early California
Zoeth Skinner Eldredge 223
Pico Daniel S. Richardson 224
The Nations of the West John D. Barry 225
Muir of the Mountains Bailey Millard 226
The Memory of the Pioneers John F. Davis 226
About Languages .-...George Douglas 226
Port Townsend Leonard S. Clark 227
Driving the Last Spike Sarah Pratt Carr 227
12 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
The First Ship to Enter San Francisco Bay
Zoeth Skinner Eldredge 228
Chinese Curio The Gatherer 228
Life in Bodie in 1865 J. Ross Browne 229
An Early Spanish Scene Gertrude Atherton 229
The Grand Canyon J. Ross Browne 230
A Trip to the Top of Mount Tamalpais Harr Wagner 231
A Tribute to Starr King Flora Haines Loughead 232
A Thought Upon Lake Tahoe Thomas Starr King 233
A Picture of the Lake Tahoe Region.. ..George Wharton James 233
A Tribute to Lake Tahoe Joseph Le Conte 234
A Sierra Snow Plant Ella Sterling Mighels 236
Night on Shasta Ralph Bacon 236
The Great Panorama A. E. 236
Who Goeth Softly Lorenzo Sosso 236
For September
The Miner's Song of Labor John Swett 237
A Fair Exchange Mark Twain 237
A Perfect Day Ina Coolbrith 238
The Spirit of California Rufus Steele 239
A Song of Work Charles A. Keeler 240
All Work Is Prayer Lorenzo Sosso 240
Galaxy 13 — Poets, Prose-Writers and Public Speakers 241
Galaxy 14 — Historical and Scientific Writers 242
Science Ambrose G. Bierce 243
Extract from Early Poem on Mechanic's Art....Edward Pollock 244
A Message from Adley H. Cummins 244
Fraternity Sam Booth 244
Get Leave to Work 247
The Unsolved Problem Mrs. I. Lowenberg 247
Two Friends Charles Henry Webb 247
The Authors' Carnival George Tisdale Bromley 249
Historical 250
Note on the Poem "The Man with the Hoe" The Gatherer 252
"The Man with the Hoe" Edwin Markham 252
The Last of the Hoodlums The Gatherer 253
An Autograph on the Hillside Bailey Millard 255
Coming Home Daniel S. Richardson 255
To A. E P. V. M. 256
A Message from the Native Daughters of the Golden West
Mary E. Brusie 256
A Message from Stephen M. White 258
About the Pioneer Mother Phil Francis 258
An Incident of Hunt's Hili The Gatherer 260
Elizabeth Saunders Fred Emerson Brooks 261
The Nights of California Alfred J. Waterhouse 262
In Praise of the Early California Cattle and Horses
Jacob Wright Harlan 262
"Wild Cow-th" — An Incident The Gatherer 264
To the Ox Edward Robeson Taylor 266
The Judgments of Labor Gabriel Furlong Butler 267
The Picture of a Deserted Garden Annie Laurie 268
A Tribute to Irving M. Scott, The Gatherer 270
The Wheat of San Joaquin Madge Morris 270
The Cayote Mark Twain 271
CONTENTS 13
A Golden Wedding in 1881 The Gatherer 272
To Santa Niebla. Our Lady of the Fogs Jerome A. Hart 273
Galaxy 15 — Orators, Divines, Statesmen 275
Galaxy 16 — Poets and Prose- Writers 276
The Spell of the Mountains Rife Goodloe 277
Tolerance Madge Morris Wagner 277
About the Crickets Of Silverado Robert Louis Stevenson 278
The Cricket Edwin Markham 278
The Noblest Life Lorenzo Sosso 278
The Great Panorama A. E. 279
On the Presidio Hills Martha T. Tyler 279
For October
The Passing of Tennyson Joaquin Miller 280
Bret Harte Edward Robeson Taylor 281
The First Rain John E. Richards 281
Walking Through the Mustard Helen Hunt Jackson 282
A Tribute to the Author of Ramona Madge Morris 283
Helen Hunt Jackson Ina Coolbrith 284
Pioneer and Old Settler's Day The Gatherer 285
Let This Dream Be True Charles Phillips 286
Edwin Booth Ina Coolbrith 286
Edwin Booth, the Expression of Shakespeare
Mary Therese Austin 287
The Review of an Enthusiastic Critic.."Our" Walter Anthony 288
Did the Early Mayans Worship Numbers?
Joseph Thompson Goodman 289
Au Revoir P. V. M. 290
Comfort to Be Found in Good Old Books
George Hamlin Fitch 291
The Builders John E. Richards 292
Along Shore Frank Rose Starr 293
The Lady of My Delight Edward F. O'Day 295
The Mantle of Perfect Innocence Flora Haines Loughead 295
A Tribute to Illustrious Native Sons and Native Daughters
by an Adopted Son Harr Wagner 296
Story of Sawyer's Bar Mrs. Mamie Peyton 298
The Forty-Niner E. H. Clough 299
The Deserted Cabins of Plumas Etha R. Garlick 300
Follow! Follow! The Gatherer 301
The Pioneer's Breed Is Still Here The Gatherer 302
The Indian Summer P. V. M. 303
Count That Alone a Perfect Day Agnes M. Manning 304
October Pictures Marcella A. Fitzgerald 305
The Bandit's Daughter Ella Sterling Mighels 305
The Western Pacific Unknown 307
About Kindness Helen Dare 308
The Great Panorama A. E. 308
The Study of Little Pioneer Boy 309
The Study of Little Pioneer Girl 310
For November
Thanksgiving Proclamation Leland Stanford 311
In Memory of "The Governor" The Gatherer 312
Days of the Bonanza Kings Sarah Connell 312
Judah Edward Robeson Taylor 313
14 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
A Message from Virginia Rose The Gatherer 314
Days of the Railroad Kings Sarah Connell 314
To Mary The Gatherer 315
Call of the Golden Port Ethel Talbot 316
The Pulse of Time P. V. M. 317
Sons of California Jerome A. Hart 318
Where Are Those Sleepers Now? 319
Don Juan Has Ever the Grand Old Air
Lucius Harwood Foote 319
Truth in Trinity Joseph Le Conte 320
Pictures of My Dead Forefathers Janet von Schroeder 321
It Is November Herbert Bashford 322
Chorus of Amazons Virna Woods 322
Dickens in Camp Bret Harte 323
A Wife of Three Years Carrie Stevens Walter 324
A New Being E. A. 325
Loveliness Maria Lacy 325
Behind Each Thing a Shadow Lies Clark Ashton Smith 326
Age Tarries Not Lillian H. S. Bailey 326
Oh My Boy-Rose, Oh My Girl-Rose Ella Sterling Mighels 327
An Impressive Scene Mrs. I. Lowenberg 327
A Message from Viva The Gatherer 328
Move Patiently On, Oh Earth Lyman Goodman 328
A Beautiful Sight in the East End Jack London 329
A Rose Clarence Urmy 329
His Mother Made Him a Little Coat Fannie H. Avery 330
A Little Pioneer Boy Amidst the Sierras of Esmeralda,
Nevada The Gatherer 330
Virgil Williams . Alice Denison Wiley 331
Pioneer Mother's Sayings to Her Children 332
Pioneer Father's Sayings 332
The Children's Song of California Unknown 332
Life from a Practical Standpoint Rachel Hepburn Haskell 333
Saints and Martyrs Charles Henry Webb 334
The Gold-Rocker Cradle The Gatherer 335
Our Duty to the Young M. S. Levy 336
Comfort in Good Old Books George Hamlin Fitch 337
A Tribute to Thomas R. Chapin The Gatherer 338
Regarding Friendship Sarah M. Williamson 339
Friendship Ina Coolbrith 339
Confidence Alice Denison Wiley 339
Compensation Alice Denison Wiley 340
The Great Panorama A. E. 340
Words from a Pen-Woman Josephine Martin 341
The Breath of Innocence Isidor Meyer 341
Seek Not All Wisdom in a Well Lorenzo Sosso 341
Two Ways Robert McKenzie 342
Gone Is the Old Town Lillian H. S. Bailey 342
For December
To California Charles Elmer Jenney 343
A Daughter of the House of David Calvin B. McDonald 344
The White Silence Jack London 344
The Christmas Doll William Bausman 345
The Christmas Spirit Hugh Hume 346
The Midnight Mass Richard Edward White 346
CONTENTS 15
It Was Winter in San Francisco Frances Charles 347
The Call of the North Mary E. Hart 348
Forty Mince Pies The Gatherer 348
The Freshman's Christmas Philip Verrill Mighels 349
Comfort to Be Found in Good Old Books
George Hamlin Fitch 352
The Children's Statue to the Pioneer Mother.... The Gatherer 353
Christmas Reflections "Our" Peter Robertson 354
About Jerusalem Jerome A. Hart 355
How Shall You Destroy the Bible? .Thomas Guard 355
A Christmas Wish for You W. Kimball Briggs 356
Faith Annie E. K. Bidwell 357
A Grain of Wheat John A. B. Fry 358
After the Exposition Edward Robeson Taylor 359
The Thread of Life W. H. Platt 359
Good-bye, Bret Harte Joaquin Miller 360
A Grain of Mustard Seed Charles S. Green 361
The Pioneers of the West Ella Higginson 361
Prodigals Charles A. Murdock 361
A Picturesque Costume of Early Days The Gatherer 362
Voices of the Year Lillian H. S. Bailey 363
A Tribute to Elizabeth Mack 362
The Sea of Life Anna B. Newbegin 364
Another Day and Night Ella Sterling Mighels 364
Beyond Edward Rowland Sill 365
All Is Best Edward Robeson Taylor 365
If You Would Address Charles Henry Webb 366
Ina Coolbrith Herbert Bashford 367
Sunset Herbert Bashford 367
The Eloquence of Calvin B. McDonald 367
A Jewel Song Clarence Urmy 367
The Vestals of California The Gatherer 368
Noel Eugenie H. Schroeder 369
Americanism M. T. Dooling 370
The Giant Hour Godfrey Barney 371
The Red Cross Call W. H. Carruth 371
Vive L'America Millard 372
About the High Sierras Miriam Michelson 373
The Messenger George Sterling 374
Sunset Anna Morrison Reed 375
The Fairy City The Gatherer 375
The Great Panorama A. E. 376
What Is the World's Derision? Lorenzo Sosso 376
My Place of Dreams Al C. Joy 377
The Colorado Ednah Aiken 377
Finis Clark Ashton Smith 381
Good Night, Dear Heart Fannie H. Avery 378
Christmas Greeting Martha Trent Tyler 378
The Promise of Life Howard V. Sutherland 378
A Heaven on Earth Leonard S. Clark 379
The City Woke Arthur Price 380
"It Is Over" 379
California's Day of Peace Harr Wagner 382
16 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
List of Portraits of California Writers Taken from
"The Story of the Files' ' and Additions
(Alphabetically Arranged)
Addis, Yda 139 Guard, Thomas 275 Newmark, Nathan 174
Aiken, Charles S 106 Gates-Tully, Eleanor ...208 Oakes, Emma Henrietta. 173
Aiken, Ednah 139 Gaily, James W 72 Older, Mrs. Fremont.. 207
Alemany, Archbishop ...275 George, Henry 37 p ac heco, Mrs. Romualdo.208
Anthony, James 39 Goodman, Joseph Parkhurst, Emelie T. Y..139
Atherton, Gertrude 276 Thompson 38 Phelan, James D 275
Avery, Fannie H 139 Greene, Clay Meredith. .208 pi x i ey , Frank M 38
Avery, Benjamin P 38 Gunter, Archibald C 208 pittsinger, Eliza 71
Austin, Mary 208 "Hagar" (Janette Pollock, Edward A.'....! 37
Amsden, Dora 207 Phelps) 71 p OW ell, Emily Browne. . 173
Bailey, Lillian H. S 242 Harrison, William P 140 Power, Alice Rose 241
"Betsy B.," Mrs. Austin. 139 Harte, Bret 37 Pollock, William D 72
Bierce, Ambrose 37 Hart, Jerome A 106 Poehlman, H. E 174
Bigelow, Henry Derby.. 140 Hittell, John S 242 Phelph, C. H 140
Booth, Newton 275 Hittell, Theodore 242 Phillips, Charles 241
Brooks, Noah 242 Holder, Charles F 106 Realf , Richard 105
Browne, J. Ross 242 Hutchins, J. M 242 Redding, B. B 72
Bausman, W 140 Higginson, Ella 276 Reed, Anna Morrison ... 139
Bashford, Herbert 105 Hopper, James 241 Rhodes, William H.
Barrett, J. J 72 Hunt, Clarence M 174 (Caxton) 37
Belasco, David 208 Hume, Hugh 140 Richardson, Daniel S 241
Bonnet, Theodore F 208 Hart, Mary E 173 Ridge, John Rollin 72
Bromley, George T 174 Inyi Wallace 2 76 £ ovce > J osi ? h . •• • ■ 242
Bonner, Geraldine 139 T rw j n ^ill 2 76 Robertson, Louis A 241
Brooks, Fred Emerson.. 241 James, George " Wharton.' 174 5? d , din ?' J? s ?P h D 208
Burgess, Gele.tt 276 Jordan, David Starr 268 Rjchards, .John 173
Bertolo, Mariana 241 Josaphare, Lionel 207 Richmond, Florence 20/
Carmany, John H 38 Kahn Julius 208 $ erra > Junipero 275
Cheney, John Vance.... 207 Reele'r, Charles" '.'. '.'.'.'.'. ^241 Savage, R.H.. 208
Cooper, Sarah B 71 j^eith Eliza D 139 Seabough, Samuel t . 140
Cosgrave, J. O'Hara 140 Kellogg Eugenie 173 Shinn, Charles Howard ^ .242
Crane, Lauren E 140 Kingsbury-Cooley Alice 71 Sil1 ' Edward Rowland... 37
Cummins Adley H ...275 K]>b Georgiana' Bruce! 71 Somers, Fred I M .38
Cummms-Mighels, Ella King, Thomas Starr 275 Soneschein, Albert 73
sterling 1U5 Lawrence Mary V Sosso, Lorenzo 105
Craig, Mary L. Hoffman. 139 Tin^lev' 105 Stebbins, Horatio 275
Colburn, Frona E 139 8 / r""u „ Sterling, George 276
Carleton, S. B 140 Le Conte, Joseph 37 Shermarit Edwin 174
Coolbrith, Ina 37 Lezmsky, David Lesser 72 Stoddard Charles
Connell, Sarah 173 Lowenberg, B. (Mrs. I.)241 Warren s7
Davis, John F 275 London Jack 275 Swift John FrankIin .... 72
Daggett, John 174 ^/ n ^. h ' Jeremiah 174 Stellman Louis j 174
Daggett, Rollin M 38 JJartin, Josephine 24 Shortridge? Sarnue l 106
Davis, S. P 72 MacGowan, Alice ...... 201 T oland, Mary Bertha M. 71
Dawson, Emma Frances. 105 MacGowan Cooke Grace.202 « T opsy-Turvy," Elizabeth
Derby, George H. Marriott, Frederick, Sr 38 Chamberlain Wright... 71
(Phoenix) 37 Manning, Agnes 105 Twain> Mark 3Jr
Donovan, Ellen 207 ^f 35 ?!"' Stephen M 72 Turrill Charles B 174
Dowling, Bartholomew.. 72 ^ a ™ ha ™; E ™ lt } • W ' ' *l Taylor, Edward Robeson.276
Doran, James 207 McDonald, Calvin B.... 38 rj Clarence 241
de Young, M. H 38 Mc r C - ra ^ n ' J ose Ph»ie Voorsanger, Jacob 173
Dwinel, I. E 173 Clifford 71 victor, Francis F 71
Douglas, George 174 McEwen, Arthur 106 Van Orden, C 207
Eldredge, Zoeth S 242 McGlashan, Charles F...106 Young, John P 242
Elder, Paul 106 Meyer, George Homer.. 72 Wagner, Harr 106
Ewer, Ferdinand C 275 Menken, Adah Isaacs... 71 Wagner, Madge Morris.. 105
Eyster, Nellie Blessing. . .71 Mighels, Henry Rust 140 Walter, Carrie Stevens.. 105
French, Nora May 207 Millard, Bailey 106 Wasson, Joseph i.140
Ferguson, Lillian 173 Miller, Joaquin 37 Watson, Henry Clay 140
Fitch, Anna M 71 Milne, Robert Duncan . . 72 Webb, Louise H 139
Fitch, George Hamlin... 276 Morrill, Paul 38 White, Stephen Mallory.275
Fitch, Thomas 275 Muir, John 242 White, Richard Edward. 241
Foard, J. Macdonough.. 36 Murdock, Charles A 106 Wiggin, Kate Douglass. 276
Foote, Lucius Harwood..207 Miller, Minnie Myrtle... 71 Wiley, Alice Denison 139
Foltz, Clara Shortridge. . 174 Murphv, Robert Wilson. 207 Whitaker, Herman 276
Flynn, Thomas E 106 Nordoff, Charles 242 Williamson, Sarah M 173
Furlong, Mary De Norris, Frank 276 Wheeler, Benjamin Ide..208
Lacy M 173 Nunan, Thomas 106 Woods, Virna 105
TO THE NATIVE SONS OF THE GOLDEN
WEST AND TO THE NATIVE DAUGHTERS
OF THE GOLDEN WEST, I DEDICATE THIS
VOLUME AS OUR RICHEST HERITAGE
FROM THE GOLDEN AGE OF CALIFORNIA
LITERATURE.
From Argonaut.
Copyright.
California
1849.
INTRODUCTION
Four years' residence in London gave me an excellent
insight into the ideas prevailing there in literary circles, regard-
ing the California writers. The strongest emotion expressed
by the critics in their reviews of the books received from our
snores was, undoubtedly — surprise.
Even after the successes of Joaquin Miller, Bret Harte
and Mark Twain, achieved in that great civilized center of the
English-speaking world, they still marveled at the later writers.
Edward Rowland Sill was known to them and also Charles
Warren Stoddard. But I remember a volume of short stories
of William C. Morrow's that had arrived in 1898, and a certain
delightful reviewer who veiled his identity under the pen-name
of "Phoebus," gave it unstinted praise, finally indulging in the
query, "How is it that these writers on the shores of the
Pacific, in the far off land of California, have achieved an
English equal to the very best in the world, free from idiosyn-
crasy or peculiarity?"
A few months thereafter came a volume of poetry, entitled
"Songs from the Golden Gate," by Ina Coolbrith, which caused
a flutter of posters to adorn all the walls of the underground
railway stations, everywhere, announcing the great discovery
made by the editor of "The Outlook." It was in the nature
of a proclamation to the world, telling that a new star had
arisen on the horizon, unknown to them all, and it was shining
from the West. You might have thought it was a new gold-
diggings that was being thus proclaimed, but that Albert
Kinross, the editor, made it clear that it was a new poet
instead, and he wanted to share his great discovery with the
world so that it might rejoice with him.
Hardly had Jack London started with his vivid short
stories of Alaskan wilds, when the British editors gave him
the warm grasp of welcome. The brilliant genius of Ambrose
Bierce was given instant acclaim. The novels of Gertrude
Atherton and the stories of Kate Douglas Wiggin were
promptly published in English editions. Some of the books
of Frank Norris were turned into serials for the dailies there.
Francis Power and Chester Bailey Fernald arrived the same
week to give their rival Chinese plays of "The First Born,"
and "The Cat and the Cherub," to English audiences and dra-
matic critics, all of whom made much of them in a whirl of
excitement. Edwin Markham was given a stately welcome
to the halls of fame for his great poem, "The Man with the
20 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
Hoe." English magazines published many stories of Gelett
Burgess and P. V. Mighels in the beginning of their careers.
Will and Wallace Irwin were given place there also. In later
years they are still giving welcome to the writers from this
state of ours with meeds of praise to George Sterling, Clark
Ashton Smith and Herman Scheffauer, for their poems, and
to Herman Whitaker and Mary Austin for their prose.
During her lifetime, they gave recognition to Virna Woods,
who wrote the lyrical drama, "The Amazons," a surpassing
performance, full of beauty, and the true Greek spirit. Yet at
home she was only a Sacramento school-teacher. It required
London to give her work its true valuation. Even the scholars
of England accorded a place to Adley H. Cummins for his
"Friesic Grammar and Reading-Book" while he yet lived, and
made mention of his passing in 1889, in "The Athenaeum,"
as a great loss to the world of scholarship. The friendship
of letters makes a mighty bond between men.
Certainly the power of the London Press has done much
for the California writers, from Joaquin Miller, Bret Harte
and Mark Twain, down to the present day, to make them
known in their own land.
Those gallant gentlemen of the press over there across
the Atlantic, deserve our thanks for their generosity and fair
play in matters literary.
Yet not the half has been told of the "Mother-Lode" of riches here
in the way of narrative, wit, poesy and beauty in the literary outcroppings
of our land of California. She has enriched the world's literature and is
still growing gold. In preparing this work my chief desire has been more
to represent "Literary California" as shown in the vivid columns of the
press, where are stories like little paintings of our people, from gifted pens
unknown, yet a part of our every-day life, rather than to make this book
merely the gatherings from the writers who are well-known, which is a
difference with a distinction in favor of atmosphere. "The Farewell; a
Theme for a Painting," and the "Golden Wedding in Santa Clara in
188/," are samples of letters and beauty and skill not to be surpassed,
even though found in the columns of a newspaper, instead of in the pages
of a novel. Many a reporter has graduated into author or poet, but more
have remained to illumine the daily press with their art.
Yet amongst the brightest literary stars of our firmament
shine the names of those who served their apprenticeship
at the shrine of the printing-office requiring copy from them,
by means of which they learned how to write.
While the "Incomparable Three" of our early California
literature, Bret Harte, Joaquin Miller and Mark Twain each
served his apprenticeship at the beginning of his career by
INTRODUCTION 21
writing for daily or weekly papers, and then passed out to
greatness into the splendid world of letters in fiction and in
poetry and prose, yet it was Joaquin Miller who continued both
a poet and a journalist throughout his life, writing of his travels
as a newspaper-correspondent from whatever corner of the
earth he might be in. As a fiction-writer, of a much later
era, Jack London did the same, which has made his name a
familiar one. from a nearer point of view, in the daily press.
Edward F. Townsend (a San Francisco journalist), the creator
of "Chimmie Fadden," went to New York and wrote books
between his contributions to the daily papers there.
As to the dearly-beloved Charles Henry Webb, that is a
story all by itself. I remember hearing my Pioneer Father
reading aloud to the family the "John Paul" letters in the
Sacramento Union up in Aurora, Esmeralda County, Nevada,
and am convinced that that was where the awkward youth,
Sam Clemens, afterward "Mark Twain," got his "first point
of view." A year later Webb established "The Californian,"
a literary journal which preceded the "Overland," and he gath-
ered together the writers afterward made famous under the
regime of Bret Harte's editorship. W T ebb published books, but
was always a journalist to the end, as contributor of editorials
and articles to many of the leading papers of New York city.
I met him there in 1902, already aware of his published works
of wit and humor, and was taken by surprise when he gave
me a copy of his poems to remember him by, and it is from
this that I have culled, "If You Would Address" — , for this
volume which otherwise we should never have known.
The name of Herbert Bashford, playwright and poet,
appears daily in the Evening Bulletin as reviewer of books.
For thirty-five years we sat at the feet of George Hamlin
Fitch as reviewer for the Sunday Chronicle and some of his
intimate talks regarding books of value worth reading having
been put into book-form, brought him such renown and such
demand for further enlightenment on these themes, that he
passed easily into authorship, but always will he retain that
intimate relationship with his reader that he gained in his
long acquaintance with them through the press. Bailey Millard,
poet, writer of books, editor of the Cosmopolitan for years in
New York city, has returned after eleven years of absence to
the city-of-his-love to editorial duties, while still preparing
other material for book-publication.
The books of Jerome A. Hart, formerly editor of the "Ar-
gonaut," whether fiction, as in "The Vigilante Girl", descrip-
tive, as in "A Levantine Log-Book" and "Two Argonauts in
22 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
Spain", or essays, as in "Sardou and the Sardou Plays", are
couched in elegant English and brightened with wit and hu-
mor. The same perfection that made the "Argonaut" cele-
brated at home and abroad for so many years keeps his pen
faithful to the traditions of our California in his published
works-
Thus do I prove my contention that our literary stars
arose from being newspaper people, and that our newspaper
people are literary artists.
Another thing which is dear to my heart is to give recog-
nition to the children by supplying some selections which are
suited to their understanding. To me the unit of social life
is not the individual, but is represented by the family — the
man, woman and child — made into the oneness of the integer,
for what is good for the child is good for all three, and the
converse is equally true.
I always count the children in as they did in the early
Pioneer days ; and if Stephen M. White's tribute to the Pioneer
Mother appears more than once like a text from Holy Writ in
a sermon, bear with it for their dear sakes. Cherish that
one saying and apply it, and you will have redeemed the
world, even as the Jewish mother, the Catholic mother and
the Protestant mother redeemed our California in the Pioneer
days. This is the story that has never been told by Bret Harte
or any one else, yet it is a vital part of our history.
And if some of the writers protest that "The Gatherer"
has included too many bits of unwritten history under the
head of "Life in California," I would admit the fact with the
declaration that it is my privilege to preserve these things
because of my birthright here. No one now living, probably,
knows of these matters which I gleaned in my childhood, and
as this book is absolutely mine, I propose to make it part-and-
parcel of the past, rather than of the present, although I include
much of the present also. So bear with me, Brothers and
Sisters of the Pen, I have suffered in the producing of this
volume; the tortures of Sisyphus, Tantalus and Ixion have
been mine in these long delays and disappointments; illness
and years have added their weight. Nothing but my strong
immortality has enabled me to survive until this hour, when I
am joyfully reading the proofs of the finished work. Let others
prepare and present a better book than this — but kindly let this
be mine according to the conception that has dominated my
mind from the beginning to the end.
Once you begin the study of "Literary California," you
come under a spell. On our shelves are many volumes of
INTRODUCTION 23
lore most vividly portraying the scenes of long ago; in the
bound volumes of past magazines, weeklies, and dailies are
multitudinous pages containing sparkling gems of thought
from those past and gone. Many a writer has been
"Born to blush unseen"
and die unknown. Yet here and there a mono-poet has
appeared, burned star-like, and paled again, leaving an undying
radiance behind him. We still speak of such men as Edward
A. Pollock, John Rollin Ridge and James Linen, in poetry,
and of "Caxton" Rhodes, John Phoenix (Col. George Haskel
Derby) and Calvin B. McDonald in prose, as immortals. We
are the richer because they lived. The millionaire and the
politician may have strutted for a brief hour in our California,
but such writers live forever.
Amongst us still are many singers hardly known here,
though their songs are published in the Eastern centers, such as
Emma Frances Dawson, author of that celebrated poem, "Old
Glory;" others are Clarence Urmy, Herbert Bashford and
Lorenzo Sosso, well known on the Atlantic side. Of these
Clarence Urmy has the added distinction of being the first
native-born upon the horizon as a poet, his first book under
the title of "A Rosary of Rhyme" winning him honors in
the eighties, while his later works have brought him renown.
Also Ella Higginson whose poem, "The Bare Brown Hills of
San Francisco Bay," has not been surpassed for feeling and
sentiment. The exquisite nature-poems of that shy, dove-eyed
woman. Lillian H. S. Bailey
"Give proof through the night,"
the long dark night of the trance-slumber of Sentiment, —
while Commercialism has flourished fearfully, that Poetry, like
Janus' daughter.
"is not yet dead but only sleepeth."
Grace and beauty are to be found in the poems of Agnes Tobin
and Ella Sexton. The clarion ring of "Liberty's Bell," by
Madge Morris Wagner, assures us of the touch of a master
hand. The stirring metres of Daniel S. Richardson and the
graceful lines of Lucius Harwood Foote are devoted to themes
not touched by our other poets. "Comfort to be Found in Good
Old Books," by George Hamlin Fitch, enters into our inner
life — we cannot do without it. One obtains an added grace
from reading "In a Hammock," by Kate Bishop, and "Spring-
time, Is It Springtime?" by Millicent Washburn Shinn. And
our own Keeler, Charles Keeler, who sings like a bird on the
bough, with heart and soul lifted to heaven, who is there
like him?
24 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
Each of our poets is a law unto himself, borrowing from
no other. Splendid are the lines of Howard Sutherland arid
Charles Elmer Jenney, Charles Phillips, John McGroarty,
Charles K. Field, Rufus Steele, Richard Edward White, and
many others whose names will be found within the covers of
this book, who have illuminated the historic page with their
brilliant imageries.
After the issuing of my volume, "Story of the Files; A
Review of California Writers and Literature," in 1893, I still
continued from force of habit, gathering the fine and splendid
things which appeared in the press, like a species of literary
flotsam and jetsam. Everything by a brother or a sister
writer regarding our land appealed to me, even during the
fourteen years I was absent in New York and London.
"When my play, "Society and Babe Robinson," was
reviewed by George Hamlin Fitch in the San Francisco Chron-
icle, December 7th, 1914, he urged that a new edition of the
"Story of the Files of California," be gotten out by some
publisher. This item coming to the notice of John J. New-
begin, that gentleman wrote me to know if I would undertake
the work. But I took no interest in it; I felt that part was
already done. Instead I was thinking of all this new material
I had gathered, which was still in a state, amorphous, like the
twilight-hour soon entering into the dark night when it would
be lost forever. For it seemed no one else even knew of these
beautiful things — and if my faded-out copies were not to be
preserved it would be the same as if they had never been.
I spread before Mr. Newbegin these remarkable odds and
ends of literary worth, and he saw the possibilities of an orig-
inal publication. He saw that it would be a revelation to those
abroad as well as to those at home — a book telling of the land-
that-lies-far-West-against-the-Pacific, and breathing of its atmos-
phere so poignantly that it would draw home again, the exiles
from foreign shores, as well as awaken the natives and "adopted
ones," to the splendor and glory of their own land.
"all lands above."
I have a faithful coterie of friends devoted to the cause of
"Literature in California". I called upon them to come to my
aid that amongst us all justice might be done to the small as
well as to the great writers, the unknown as well as the known.
And we have worked to this end, also preparing lists of names
of writers to over fourteen-hundred, and seeking to present the
best we could find of prose and poetry. This effort of ours
resulted in our being confronted with material enough for three
large volumes instead of one. But we were restricted to the
INTRODUCTION 25
limits of pages for just one book. It was not easy to meet this
stern decree. For we felt that all this literary riches should
be preserved after all our trouble and all our research, trying
to find them. It was with a pang at heart that I took out eighty
pages at one time and fifty at another, and still another eighty
once more, and reduced the sketches to the fewest words in
consonance with the need for fewer pages.
Out of faithfulness to the old writers, I kept them for the
last. And everything that related to the atmosphere of Cali-
fornia I made paramount. Yet we held that nothing should be
lost of all these gatherings, so we have preserved the overflow
in a special scrap-book, to be placed in the Capitol State Library
in Sacramento for future reference. Acknowledgments must
here be expressed for the kindly assistance of the late James
L. Gillis of this library, especially for the "Thanksgiving Proc-
lamation" of Governor Stanford in 1863, from the Sacramento
Union, which is a splendid example of English in California,
in the early days.
It gives me pleasure, here, to express my thanks to Edwin
Markham, the poet, for the felicitous title of this work of mine.
After the coming out of the previous volume, "Story of the
Files," he wondered why I had chosen such an unmeaning title
for that book. I told him that I preferred the second title, "A
Review of Californian Writers and Literature", but dared not
use it, owing to the storm of protest raised by certain women-
writers from the East, who were employed on our daily press,
who scorned the idea that we had any California writers for the
reason that our writers were not born here. So in order to pro-
duce my cherished "Review" in book-form and avoid further
comment from them, I was compelled to drop the word "Cali-
fornia" altogether. That we had a "File" of our publications
no one could deny, and so that was the reason I had made use
of this "unmeaning" term.
"But you should have named it 'Literary California'; no
one could question that," urged Mr. Markham. "It is too late
now," I replied ; "but if ever I get out another volume on this
theme, I promise you I will use your title". The day came and
I have Edwin Markham to thank for giving me the benefit of
his constructive ability in meeting this difficulty.
My obligations are many to Alexander Robertson, Paul
Elder, James D. Blake and others for the use of books by Cali-
fornia authors. My thanks are due to Charles B. Turrill for
many additional photographs to enrich the contents, particu-
larly those of Padre Serra and Archbishop Alemany. Amongst
those who have extended a helping hand are Harr Wagner,
26 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
author of "Pacific History Stories," and Robert Ernest Cowan,
author of a "Bibliography of the History of California," who
has corrected a number of dates. Also I must mention Theo-
dore Bonnet and Edward F. O'Day, who have sought to aid us
in our efforts to name at least twenty of the best short stories
by our writers, by publishing articles on that subject in "Town
Talk."
I must here express my gratitude to H. E. Poehlman of
the Grizzly Bear Magazine, and of the Camera Club, a N. S.
G. W., for his many kindnesses in helping to make this book
possible, particularly the photographing of the "Children's
Statue of the Pioneer Mother" from my posing of the young of
my neighborhood for this purpose, which grouping appears in
this volume.
A word, here, is due to one who is with us no more, and
yet who gave his ardor of heart to seeking for treasures of
our Californiana for this volume. The late Richard Edward
White, himself a poet, was one who loved other poets. He it
was who brought to my notice the "Chaplet of Verse" by Cali-
fornia Catholic writers, which has preserved the names of many
of our sweet singers, and many beautiful poems from being
lost in the daily press, where they first appeared. His own
best and finest poem, "Brother Felix", appears in his volume
of verse, issued years ago. Another one who would have re-
joiced with me in the coming out of this delayed volume is
one who but lately departed from our ranks, Zoeth S. Eldredge,
the historian, who took particular interest in helping me out
with data, and supplying material relating to Anza and the
early days. Both of these members of our California Literature
Society had youthful hearts and zeal and enthusiasm in their
literary work and took pleasure in the work of others.
"The Pioneer band is fast passing,
Yet their spirit will linger for aye,
The work and foundation they builded
Was not made to crumble away;
But will stand as a monument to them,
And their brave, dauntless spirit of old,
The true heart, the quick hand, the kindness
Are to us far dearer than gold."
Not to be omitted from those who have helped in this
labor of love of ours, is the Lowell High School lad of my
neighborhood, who came in when but fourteen to join the
"Child's Library of the Best Books in the World", and became
a devotee of Californiana. Not only has he typed much of the
great mass of material from which I have chosen the contents
of this book, but also has he taken a pride in helping to select
these contents. When I would have taken out "Lex Scripta",
INTRODUCTION 27
by Nathan Kouns, which is a very long poem, to make place
for twenty other poems of briefer measure, because Nathan
Kouns was unknown to our people, being dead, and no copies
would be sold on his account, while the others were very much
alive, he stayed my hand and prevented the sacrilege. "All the
more reason for keeping it in," he said, gravely; "it is the
greatest poem in the collection, and by keeping it, all of our
people will have a chance to get acquainted with it." Also is
my debt of gratitude due for further encouragement. For
though he is now with Machine Gun Company, Twenty-first
Infantry, at San Diego, yet he has written me to send him my
copy of Clark Ashton Smith's "Poems" to read to a comrade
in the ranks, as the greatest treat imaginable, showing that he
has not studied Californiana in vain. Also because he has
hunted up Miss Coolbrith's Poems in the library there, to
read "The Mariposa Lily" to his comrades in proof of his de-
votion to her and to us all. What greater proof is there of love
than this, reading the poems of a friend to other friends?
Full credit must be given Sarah Connell, connected with
Town Talk, for her valuable assistance, she being an author-
ity on matters historical and literary relating to her native
state. To Sarah M. Williamson, also a native, and a journalist
of note, my thanks are due for the ardor she put into her work,
compiling the classified lists of names of California writers —
a list never before attempted. Many of these names were sup-
plied by the "Story of the Files of California", but hundreds
more have been added belonging to the later days.
Much information has been obtained from the members of
the "California Literature Society", which meets once a month
at the home of Ina Coolbrith on Russian Hill. Mention must
be made here of the crowning of Miss Coolbrith as California
Laureate, June 30th, 1915, during the Authors' Congress, con-
nected with the Panama-Pacific International Exposition.
It was in 1915, during the incumbency of Judge John F.
Davis as Grand President of the N. S. G. W. and of Margaret
Grote Hill as Grand President of the N. D. G. W., that these
grand officers accepted the dedication of this book to their
order.
In dedicating this work to the Native Sons of the Golden West and
the Native Daughters of the Golden West, it is with the hope that they
may seek to k no1 ® these literary stars of ours that "have not waned or
vanished" as an editor proclaimed some time ago, but still shine to our
blessing. It is my earnest desire that each parlor of each county of our
State, from Del Norte to San Diego, will appoint a reader to choose
some poem or extract from this book °f ours » eac/i month, to give forth to
28 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
the brothers and sisters of our order, according to the calendar and to the
season. It will be found that this course of reading is an education in
itself.
****** * * * * %
It is with regret that I must interpolate at this point, after
more than three years of hopes and fears, how, owing to the
circumstances of present-day affairs, the book has been delayed.
By the kindness of James Wood of the Hotel St Francis,
I was enabled to hold, on April 10th, 1918, a reunion of old
friends, together with new friends, there to lay these facts be-
fore them, and to make an effort to "wrest victory out of de-
feat". The response was overwhelming. Members of the press
united with personal friends to make the "Evening of Literary
California" a complete success.
Among the numbers read by friends upon this occasion
were Joaquin Miller's "Goodbye, Bret Harte, Goodnight, Good-
night"; Jack London's "The Way of War", and "The White
Silence"; "Yo Semite", written by Wallace Bruce, was given,
and other interesting contributions from the book by a class
of children. The only live poet to appear on the programme
was Edward Robeson Taylor, who gave by request his sonnet,
entitled, "The Ox", and a ten-liner, on "Poetic Art". Represent-
ing Milton J. Ferguson, State Librarian and successor of the late
James Gillis, came Miss Eudora Garoutte all the way from Sac-
ramento to attend this meeting and to express her tribute of
praise as to the value of the "Story of the Files", and to give
greeting to the proposed companion-volume to the same, "Lit-
erary California". At the close of the meeting, presided over
most gracefully by Charles S. Murdock, the name of Harr
Wagner, the editor and publisher, was called. In response he
came forward and announced that he would co-operate, with
Mr. J. J. Newbegin, for the immediate publication of "Literary
California". There will, therefore, be the unique arrangement
of two publishers and two editions. Friends of our literature
gathered around and offered congratulations, and thus the work
was started afresh. Letters were read from Mrs. Phoebe A.
Hearst, Mr. and Mrs. Jerome A. Hart, offering to be sponsors
for the forthcoming book, and later came letters from Mrs. I.
Lowenberg, M. H. De Young and Senator James D. Phelan, to
the same effect.
Senator Phelan's approval of "Literary California", brought
it to the notice of the Native Daughters of the Golden West
at the assembly of Grand Parlor at Santa Cruz in June, 1918.
Dr. Mariana Bertola, seconded by Mrs. Mamie Peyton, pre-
sented, in a masterly way, a resolution to the effect that the
INTRODUCTION 29
Grand Parlor of Native Daughters of the Golden West endorse
the publication of "Literary California", which motion was ac-
corded an enthusiastic response, the author-and-gatherer of the
same being present as a delegate from Hayward Parlor, No. 122.
Since the publishing of this book at this time is to be a
labor of love and not a money-making proposition, many of
our own people will seek to have it placed in all our libraries,
where they may have easy access to it, and to choose it as a
gift-book for the holiday season, that it may be preserved in
the home-libraries as well as in the public ones; this they will
do to stimulate a study of our own writers and our own litera-
ture, once they discover the depth of the riches thus revealed
in the Mother-Lode, by means of this book, "Literary Cali-
fornia."
One word more I must speak on a matter which I trust
may now be settled definitely, for once and forever; it is to
quiet the prosaic contention, "How can a person be a California
writer who is not born in California?"
"What is a California Writer?" "A California Writer is one who
is born here, or one who is re-horn here . That is my definition. So
let it stand.
It is quite true, as Ambrose Bierce has said, "That the first
comers to California were not of the genius-bearing sex" ; there-
fore our literary stars were born elsewhere. It is also a mat-
ter equally convincing as Arthur McEwen has urged, "That
even Mark Twain got his point-of-view here." That process
makes one re-born. Every one is re-born who comes to remain
here in California. But there are others who have, as it were,
only one foot here. Yet generously we count them in, too.
For the purpose of making clear these distinctions, we
have listed names of these, under different classifications. Cali-
fornia has sent forth many brilliant writers to the great world
of letters who never wrote before their re-birth here. A num-
ber have come here, already having won their laurels elsewhere ;
yet their talents flash up the brighter for their baptism anew
in this beloved land of ours.
We must count in all who have partaken of this mysterious essence
from this spiritualized demijohn of California fire-water, which inspires
them to greater things than they ever did before — we count them all in,
native or "adopted ones" as they may be.
For even our truly-born ones, native of the soil, cradled in
gold-rockers or champagne-baskets, or little wash-tubs, owing
to the exigencies of the early times — even they must leave this
beautiful land of ours to win recognition elsewhere before our
30 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
own people will grant them a place in their hearts, or in their
halls of fame.
I appeal to you, Brothers of the Golden West, and Sisters
of the Golden West. I entreat of you to take an interest in
our own writers. Let us start this revival of letters in Cali-
fornia, and make ready for the return of our boys from France,
who will be coming back to us with a thousand tales to tell,
trembling on their lips. Let us make it possible for them to
take up the profession of letters and to write the stories and
the poems that in their souls arise at this most remarkable era
of the world's history, and a new golden age of literature
shall be ours.
There is many a thing that money cannot buy; health,
happiness and a faithful heart cannot be had for silver and
gold, nor yet those joys of the mind which remain when all else
has departed, to give us INWARD RESOURCES when we
have reached the place,
"Where the sunset glories lie." *
And there is going to be "a new heaven and a new earth,"
when our boys come home. Nothing is going to be quite the
same then, for they must earn their bread in new ways — that is
quite certain. Yet "we cannot live by bread alone", nor by gold
alone. We must also have POETRY and TALES.
George Douglas in the Chronicle says this: "The names of Cali-
fornian writers are £non>n all over the globe. The efforts of our authors
need not to be published, but it is Well that the world should £non>
WHAT A CRADLE OF NATIONAL LITERATURE THIS
STATE HAS BEEN AND IS."
Gold, Wheat and Letters, besides Art and Music, are ours.
But the Art of Letters is the most lasting, for it preserves our
history. As Edward Robeson Taylor says in "Poetic Art",
The cities vanish; one by one
The glories fade that paled the sun;
At Time's continuous, fateful call
The temples and the palaces all fall;
While heroes do their deeds and then
Sink down to earth as other men.
Yet let the poet's mind and heart
But touch them with the wand of art
And lo! they rise and shine once more
In greater splendor than before.
Would you have these glories for yours? Then seek the
books, the files and the scattered riches of our own writers.
INTRODUCTION
31
And amongst other things demand a new edition of "Wander
Songs*' by McGroarty, "California Sunshine" by Lillian H. S.
Bailey, and other poems by other poets, and talk of them,
and start a new thrill all along the line in this dear delight
of finding treasures in our Californiana. Do not let the
gallant gentlemen of the press in London do all the work
of discovering our Ina Coolbriths, our Edward Rowland Sills,
our Jack Londons, our Clark Ashton Smiths, our George Ster-
lings.
I give you, for your own, Gabriel Furlong Butler, who has
voiced for all of us our own emotion in the "Song of An Ab-
sent Son". Let this unknown poet be placed in your hearts
if not in the hall of fame, for that one song of affection and
loyalty to our beloved state.
This is the wish of your Sister-in-California,
THE GATHERER,
Ella Sterling Mighels.
32
Foreword
"How shall I so artfully arrange
my cautious words/' that you may
hear, listen, and be drawn to enter into
this temple of beauty in response to my
"Call to Prayer?" Here you may find
many treasures of the mind and the
heart to the refreshment of your soul
and your faith and your youth, all
flashing with literary iridescence, as
stained-glass windows to illumine the
months of the year.
THE SPIRIT OF YOUTH
Youth is not a time of life; it is a state of mind. It is
the same here in San Francisco or in Lima, Peru. It is not a
matter of ripe cheeks, red lips and supple knees ; it is a temper
of will, a quality of the imagination, a vigor of the emotions.
It is freshness of the deep springs of life.
Youth means a temperamental predominance of courage
over timidity, of the appetite for adventure over the life of ease.
This often exists in a man of fifty more than in a boy of twenty.
Nobody grows old by merely living a number of years. People
grow old by deserting their ideals.
Years wrinkle the skin ; but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles
the soul. Worry, self-distrust, fear and despair — these are the
long, long years that bow the hearts and turn the greening-
spirit back to dust. Whether sixty or sixteen, there is in every
human-being's heart the lure of wonder, the sweet amazement
at the stars and at starlike things and thoughts, the undaunted
challenge of events, the unfailing childlike appetite for what-
next, and the joy of the game of living. You are as young as
your faith, as old as your doubt; as young as your confidence,
as old as your fear; as young as your hope, as old as your
despair.
In the central part of your heart is an evergreen tree ; its
name is Love. So long as it flourishes you are young. When
it dies, you are old. In the central part of your heart there is
a wireless station. So long as it receives messages of beauty,
hope, cheer, grandeur, courage and power from the earth, from
men, and from the Infinite, so long are you young. When the
wires are down and all the central place of your heart is covered
with the snows of cynicism and the ice of pessimism, then you
are grown old, even at twenty, and may God have mercy on
your soul !
Thomas E. Flynn.
From San Francisco Wasp,
September, 1914.
34 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
MY NEW YEAR'S GUESTS
Scene: A chamber in Virginia City, one of the pictures on the wall
being the reduced photographs of over ftve-hundred California Pioneers
of J 849.
Time: Midnight, December 31 , 1881 .
The winds come cold from the southward, with incense of fir and pine,
And the flying clouds grow darker as they halt and fall in line.
The valleys that reach the deserts, mountains that greet the clouds,
Lie bare in the arms of winter, which the prudish night enshrouds.
The leafless sage on the hillside, the willows low down the stream,
And the sentry rocks above us, have faded all as a dream.
The fall of the stamp grows fainter, the voices of night sink low;
And spelled from labor, the miner toils home through the drifting snow.
As I sit alone in my chamber this last of the dying year,
Dim shadows of the past surround me, and faint through the storm I
hear
Old tales of the castles builded, under shelving rock and pine,
Of the bearded men and stalwart I greeted in forty-nine.
The giants with hopes audacious, the giants with iron limb;
The giants who journeyed westward when the trails were new and dim;
The giants who felled the forests, made pathways over the snows,
And planted the vine and fig-tree where the manzanita grows;
Who swept down the mountain gorges, and painted their endless night
With their cabins, rudely fashioned, and their camp-fires' ruddy light;
Who builded great towns and cities, who swung back the Golden Gate,
And hewed from the mighty ashlar the form of a sovereign State;
Who came like a flood of waters to a thirsty desert plain,
And where there had been no reapers grew valleys of golden grain.
Nor wonder that this strange music sweeps in from the silent past,
And comes with the storm this evening, and blends its strains with the
blast,
Nor wonder that through the darkness should enter a spectral throng,
And gather around my table with the old-time smile and song;
For there on the wall before me, in a frame of gilt and brown,
With a chain of years suspended, old faces are looking down;
Five hundred all grouped together — five hundred old Pioneers —
Now list as I raise the taper and trace the steps of the years;
Behold this face near the center; we met ere his locks were gray;
His purse like his heart was open; he struggles for bread today.
To this one the fates were cruel; but he bore his burden well,
And the willow bends in sorrow by the wayside where he fell.
Great losses and grief crazed this one; great riches turned this one's
head;
And a faithless wife wrecked this one — he lives but were better dead.
Now closer the light on this face; 'twas wrinkled when we were young;
His torch drew our footsteps westward; his name is on every tongue.
JANUARY 35
Rich was he in lands and kindness, but the human deluge came
And left him at last with nothing but death and a deathless fame.
'Twas a kindly hand that grouped them — these faces of other years —
The rich and the poor together — the hopes, and the smiles, and the tears
Of some of the fearless hundreds, who went like knights of old,
The banner of empire bearing to the land of blue and gold.
For years have I watched these shadows, as others I know have done;
As death touched their lips with silence, I have draped them one by one,
Till, seen where the dark-plumed Angel has mingled them here and
there,
The brows I have flecked with sable, the living cloud everywhere.
Darker and darker and darker these shadows will yearly grow,
As, changing, the seasons bring us the bud and the falling snow,
And soon — let us not invoke it! — the final prayer will be said,
And strangers will write the record, "The last of the group is dead."
And then — but why stand here gazing? A gathering storm in my eyes
Is mocking the weeping tempest that billows the midnight skies;
And, stranger still — is it fancy? are my senses dazed and weak? —
The shadowy lips are moving as if they would ope and speak;
And I seem to hear low whispers, and catch the echo of strains
That rose from the golden gulches and followed the moving trains.
The scent of the sage and desert, the path o'er the rocky height.
The shallow graves by the roadside — all, all have come back tonight;
And the mildewed years, like stubble, I trample under my feet,
And drink again at the fountain when the wine of life was sweet;
And I stand once more exalted where the white pine frets the skies,
And dream in the winding canyon where early the twilight dies.
Now the eyes look down in sadness. The pulse of the year beats low;
The storm has been awed to silence; the muffled hands of the snow,
Like the noiseless feet of mourners, are spreading a pallid sheet
On the breast of dead December and glazing the shroud with sleet.
Hark! the bells are chiming midnight; the storm bends its listening ear,
While the moon looks through the cloud-rifts and blesses the new-born
year.
And now the faces are smiling. What augury can it be?
No matter; the hours in passing will fashion the years for me.
Bar closely the curtained windows; shut the light from every pane,
While, free from the world's intrusion and curious eyes profane,
I take from its leathern casket, a dinted old cup of tin,
More precious to me than silver, and blessing the draught within,
I drink alone in silence to the "Builders of the West" —
"Long life to the hearts still beating, and peace to the hearts at rest."
Rollin Mallory Daggett.
From "Story of the Fi7es,"
San Francisco, 1893.
36 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
TAVERNIER'S INDIAN GIRL
The Indian maiden gazing in wonder at a ship entering the
Golden Gate was the work of Jules Tavernier. One of the
children of his fertile brain, it was drawn for the title-page of
the Christmas "Argonaut" for 1878. It would have been used
as a cover page every week, but mechanical difficulties in the
press-room caused the fine block to be laid aside except for
Christmas editions.
In Tavernier's immense atelier, a favorite rendezvous for
the Bohemian painters and writers of San Francisco, there were
many sketches which gave evidence of his fertility and origi-
nality in design. He was abounding in ideas. The Indian girl
figured in not a few of his sketches. His was a versatile gen-
ius — he could paint in oils, in water-color, in pastel, in distem-
per; he was a wizard with chalk and charcoal. Photo-zincog-
raphy was just coming in, and Tavernier, Joseph Strong and
Julian Rix did work for some of the earlier numbers of the
"Argonaut" in this new medium. But Tavernier's unique and
beautiful design of the Indian maiden gazing out upon the Gol-
den Gate is all that is remembered of the "Argonaut" illustra-
tions of those vanished years.
ri/ ... , Jerome A. Hart.
Written for
"Literary California."
OLD CALIFORNIA
'Tis a land so far that you wonder whether
E'en God would know it should you fall down dead;
'Tis a land so far through the wilds and weather,
That the sun falls weary and flushed and red, —
That the sea and the sky seem coming together,
Seem closing together as a book that is read:
Oh! the nude, weird West, where an unnamed river
Rolls restless in bed of bright silver and gold;
Where restless flashing mountains flow rivers of silver
As a rock of the desert flowed fountains of gold
By a dark wooded river that calls to the dawn,
And makes mouths at the sea with his dolorous swan:
Oh! the land of the wonderful sun and weather,
With green under foot and with gold over head,
Where the sun takes flame and you wonder whether
Tis an isle of fire in his foamy bed:
Where the ends of the earth they are welding together
In rough-hewn fashion, in a forge-flame red.
Joaquin Miller.
GALAXY 1.— POETS, PROSE-WRITERS, HUMORISTS
Mark Twain
Henry George
Bret Harte
Joaquin Miller
Joseph Le Conte
John Phoenix
Ambrose Bierce
'Caxton" Rhodes
Edward Rowland Sill
Edward A. Pollock
Charles WarrenStoddard
Ina Coolbrith
37
GALAXY 2.— EDITORS AND PUBLISHERS
Frank Pixley
James Anthony
Benjamin P. Avery
Frederick Marriott, Sr.
Calvin B. McDonald M. H. de Young
J. Macdonough Foard Rollin M. Daggett
Fred Somers Joseph T.Goodman
John H. Carmany Paul Morrill
38
JANUARY 39
JUST AS THE NEW YEAR WAS DAWNING
Just as the new year was dawning
His mind wandered back to the past,
Friends of his youth passed before him, —
Would that those visions might last.
Tired and calm he lay resting,
And quietly soon fell asleep,
And thus as we watched by the bedside
He silently passed o'er the deep.
The Pioneer band is fast passing,
Yet their spirit will linger for aye, —
The work and foundation they builded
Was not made to crumble away;
But will stand as a monument to them,
And their brave, dauntless spirit of old.
The true heart, the quick hand, the kindness
Are to us, far dearer than gold.
From "Grizzly, Bear Magazine"; Elizabeth McCrath.
written in Memory of Baruch Pride,
an old Forty-niner who passed away, January, 1916,
in his 87th year, beloved by all.
CALIFORNIA
O California, just the old dear sound —
Again that one word can the whole world bound!
Thank God for that Sierran world, a king
Might go his way, long envying.
Among illimitable peaks high-hung
With forests, dateless, deathless, ever young —
The child-world bright with faith and hope.
Anna Catherine Marfyham.
From "Current Poetry,* 1
February 5th, 1916.
THE GOLDEN GATE
Down by the side of the Golden Gate
The city stands;
Grimly, and solemn, and silent, wait
The walls of the land,
Guarding its door, as a treasure fond;
And none may pass to the sea beyond,
But they who trust to the king of fate,
And pass through the Golden Gate.
The ships go out through its narrow door,
White-sailed, and laden with precious store —
White-sailed, and laden with precious freight,
40 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
The ships come back through the Golden Gate.
The sun comes up o'er the Eastern crest,
The sun goes down in the golden West,
And the East is West, and the West is East,
And the sun from his toil of day released,
f Shines back through the Golden Gate.
Down by the side of the Golden Gate —
The door of life, —
Are resting our cities, sea-embowered,
White-walled, and templed, and marble-towered —
The end of strife.
The ships have sailed from the silent walls,
And over their sailing the darkness falls.
O, the sea is so dark, and so deep, and wide!
Will the ships come back from the further side?
"Nay; but there is no further side,"
A voice is whispering across the tide, —
"Time, itself, is a circle vast,
Building the future out of the past;
For the new is old, and the old is new,
And the true is false, and the false is true,
And West is East, and the East is West,
And the sun that rose o'er the Eastern crest,
Gone down in the West of his circling track,
Forever, and ever, is shining back
Through the Golden Gate of life."
O Soul! thy city is standing down
By its Golden Gate;
Over it hangs the menacing frown
Of the king of fate.
The sea of knowledge so near its door,
Is rolling away to the further shore —
The orient side, —
And the ocean is dark, and deep, and wide!
But thy harbor, O, Soul! is filled with sails,
Freighted with messages, wonder tales,
From the lands that swing in the sapphire sky,
Where the gardens of God in the ether lie.
If only thy blinded eyes could see,
If only thy deaf-mute heart could hear,
The ocean of knowledge is open to thee,
And its Golden Gate is near!
For the dead are the living — the living the dead,
And out of the darkness the light is shed;
And the East is West, and the West is East,
And the sun from his toil of day released,
Shines back through the Golden Gate.
From "Golden Cater Mad § e Morris.
1885.
A SIGNIFICANT CRISIS IN THE WEST
Do the American people realize that they are now facing
on our Pacific frontier what may easily become the most sig-
nificant crisis which the Western world has confronted since
JANUARY 41
Thermopylae — a question not of policy or prosperity or of
progress, but of existence? Nothing can keep our Pacific coast
essentially a white man's country except our continued deter-
mination to keep it so.
Nothing can preserve the essentially American social text-
ures of the states bordering the Pacific except the preservation
of the racial integrity of their population. And if that is not
guarded nothing can prevent the caste system and the wreck
of free institutions from spreading backward over the moun-
tains and across the plans absolutely without limit until the
white man at last takes another stand and establishes a new
frontier at the Rockies, the Mississippi or the Atlantic, with
all the west of the new line outside the precincts of the white
man's world.
It is a question on which a blunder once made can never
be rectified. The frontier of the white man's world must be
established some day, some where. Unless this generation es-
tablishes it at the Pacific coast no future generation will ever
have the chance to establish it so far west, or to maintain it
anywhere except by war and permanent lines of garrisoned
fortresses.
The problem is ours in the next few years in California,
Washington and Oregon, and in the Capital and White House.
The consequences are the whole world's, everywhere, forever.
Chester Rorvell.
From "Collier 's Weekly"
1909.
POETIC ART
The cities vanish ; one by one
The glories fade that paled the sun ;
At Time's continuous, fateful call
The temples and palaces fall;
While heroes do their deeds and then
Sink down to earth as other men.
Yet, let the Poet's mind and heart
But touch them with the wand of art,
And lo ! they rise and shine once more
In greater splendor than before.
Edward Robeson Taylor.
From "Into the Light"
Sherman, French and Company,
Boston, 1912.
42 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
THE DEATH OF POETRY
There is no demand for poetry, according to one of the greatest of
international publishers. — Daily Paper, 1909.
Lay her and her muted lyre By vagrant stream and eerie wood
Here together on this pyre. She wandered with the merry Hood.
And the laurels she has won Piped her pastoral lays oft were
Lay them, lay them, one by one With Goldsmith as interpreter.
As a pillow for her head And Whitman knew her dreamy days
Who lies here forlorn and dead. And went with her up mountain ways.
None to mourn her, none to praise, When gloomy Poe her favor sued,
Homer loved her in his days; She listened and she understood.
Sappho struck the lyre of her, Holmes claimed her joyous presence oft,
Petrarch was her worshipper. And Bryant knew her in her soft
Virgil, Dante, all are mute, And gracious whiles, and Whittier
Hers a split and silenced lute. In green fields would walk with her.
Burns, her erring child and poor, A minister to grief she moved
Byron wooed her, and did Moore By many wooed, yet few she loved,
From her happiest moods beguile And those she best beloved, she lent
Sweetness in a word or smile, Her grandeur of the firmament,
And where subtle Shelley slept Of seas and skies and subtle arts
She caused once an hour — and wept. Of love and grief and human hearts.
Regal, beautiful, she stood Here upon the funeral pyre
In her glorious goddesshood, Lay her and her muted lyre.
Bade Shakespeare, her child to be Know ye, mourners at the bier,
By right of her divinity. 'Tis a goddess that lies here.
Half godlike, and where'er she trod And above thee all as far
She hallowed man and worshipped God. As the weeping angels are.
James W. Foley.
From 4 Wen> York Times**
1905.
THE NEW POETRY
America is the happy hunting-ground for those who are
producing the new poetry, say the British critics, utterly at a
loss to understand why the book-publishing industry in this
country is issuing so many volumes of verse.
******
America more than any other nation buys and actually
reads not only the spring poet, but also the summer, winter
and fall varieties. In no other country are there published so
many volumes of verse or is there so much space devoted to
poetry in newspapers and periodicals. Not content with the
domestic supply, we import cargoes of foreign verse, some of
the British bards admitting that but for the American market
their industry would not be profitable.
* " * * * * *
It is perfectly natural and in line with almost universal
experience that a comparatively young nation should be fruit-
ful in the poetic idea.
******
In poetry, greatness is seldom fully recognized in its day.
Nearly all the immortals were not acknowledged as such until
JANUARY 43
it became necessary to find out just where they were born and
buried.
The best of American poetry is genuinely new, and not
because of its tendency to novel form, but because, like all
great poetries, it is steeped to the chin in the life of its time.
Economists, politicians and historians may show how much that
is old, is in the supposedly new, but there is something new
in every nation, in every day, in every life, and the true poet
is he who sees it and gives it permanent expression.
George Douglas.
From the "San Francisco Chronicle" 19 14;
this is given in reply to Foley's poem,
published nine years before, showing that Poetry
Was "not dead but only sleeping"
THE POET-TOUCH
What is the poet-touch? Ah me, that every bard might gain it
And having once attained the prize, forever might retain it;
To touch no thing that's vile, unless to teach the world to scorn it,
To touch no thing that's beautiful save only to adorn it!
Clarence Urmy.
From "A California Troubadour,"
A. M. Robertson, San Francisco, 1912.
POETRY
She comes like the husht beauty of the night,
And sees too deep for laughter;
Her touch is a vibration and a light
From worlds before and after.
Edwin Markham.
From "Story of the Files of California,"
San Francisco, 1893.
THE POET
To preach the wisdom of the ages,
To glorify those seers and sages
Who taught that life is but transition;
To seek denial in endeavor,
To sing to men God's truths forever,
This is the poet's holy mission.
To give a voice to spirits voiceless,
To make rejoice the heart rejoiceless,
To worship Love and Faith and Beauty;
To learn Life's everlasting meaning,
Which Nature seems forever screening,
This is the poet's glorious duty.
44 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
To be the symbol of creation,
The warrior of his land and nation,
Whatever dangers may surround her;
To see her glory not diminished,
To see her mighty race is finished,
When Liberty divine has crowned her.
And when men's deeds of valor dwindle,
To reawaken and enkindle
Within their souls a higher splendor;
To be amidst the van forbearing,
To be the first of freemen daring,
The last of mortals to surrender.
To lead where none may seem to follow
Along the pathway of Apollo,
Where Powers Eternal seem to set him,
This should the poet do forever,
Though myriads laugh at his endeavor,
Though men remember or forget him.
From the Lorenzo Sosso.
"Story of the Files of California"
1893.
INDIRECTION
A POEM OF GREAT BEAUTY
Fair are the flowers and the children, but their subtle suggestion is
fairer;
Rare is the roseburst of dawn, but the secret that clasps it is rarer;
Sweet the exultance of song, but the strain that precedes it is sweeter;
And never was poem yet writ, but the meaning out-mastered the metre.
Never a daisy that grows, but a mystery guideth the growing;
Never a river that flows, but a majesty scepters the flowing;
Never a Shakespeare that soared, but a stronger than he did enfold him;
Nor never a prophet foretells, but a mightier seer hath foretold him.
Back of the canvas that throbs, the painter is hinted and hidden;
Into the statue that breathes, the soul of the sculptor is bidden;
Under the joy that is felt lie the infinite issues of feeling;
Crowning the glory revealed is the glory that crowns the revealing.
Great are the symbols of being, but that which is symboled is greater;
Vast the created and beheld, but vaster the inward creator;
Back of the sound broods the silence, back of the gift stands the giving;
Back of the hand that receives thrill the sensitive nerves of receiving.
Space is nothing to spirit, the deed is outdone by the doing;
The heart of the wooer is warm, but warmer the heart of the wooing;
And up from the pits where these shiver, and up from the heights
where those shine,
Twin voices and shadows swim starward, and the essence of life is
divine.
From "Readings from the California Poets; 9 f^chard Realf.
by Edmund Russell Doxey, Publisher,
San Francisco, 1893.
JANUARY 45
MINING AND POETRY
The shaft some thousand fathoms I descended,
To where stout miners worked 'mid endless night,
The walls reflected back my taper's light
As through these catacombs of gold I wended,
I saw the rocks from where God placed them rended
By patient stroke of pick and muscle's might,
And then I saw the metal fair and bright
Cleared of the dross with which 'twas whilom blended
I thought, while watching them the quartz refine,
The poet with these toilers is akin:
Although a different meed he seeks to win,
For he, instructed by a power divine,
Selects from thoughts ignoble, mean, and poor,
The golden ones that ever must endure.
Richard Edward White.
RE-DISCOVERING THE WORLD BY RE-THINKING IT
In spite of the conflicting cries which arise here and there
from the market-place, it would seem there are some plain
things of simple observation concerning which those who sit
in the porch might be esteemed to be reasonably agreed. First,
there is the importance of learning some one thing well. The
achievement of units bears a very lax relation to getting an
education. A congeries of two and three-hour courses selected
because of their convenient time, their pleasant name and their
charitable basis of credit, may yield a degree, but will not,
however numerous, make MIND, any more than many moulds
of jelly will build a wall.
* * * In doing one thing well, the student will learn
more or less about other things. Through one field mastered
he gets the lay of the land all about him. It is the one way
known among men. * * * The subject of study a man
chooses is of far less importance than the attitude he learns
to assume toward the truth. * * * It is not a man's out-
ward equipment that counts, but his character. The subject
of study is to be regarded as little more than a certain healthy
food for a growing mental organism. Feed well, keep clean,
and let nature do the rest.
Of more importance still than subject or training is the
competence to transmute the form of learning into the form
of discovery. Toward stimulating this competency, in short
range or in great, all higher training must strive. * * *
Fresh thinking is the very breath of life to a university. A
man who has once, in small or great, exhausted all that is
46 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
known on a given matter, and, having proceeded alone beyond
the outer picket line of the advance, has gained glimpses of new-
lands in new relation to the old, has become thereby a changed
man for all his life. A new fever is in his blood. It is no
longer worth his while to borrow. He has now discovered.
Man rises to the highest there is in him when he shakes
himself free from imitation, superstition and convention; and
setting free MIND above the ruts of matter, re-discovers his
world by re-thinking it. * * *
A university is a place where men living together in the
sharing of outlook and tasks may shape their lives to social
need by learning to understand one province where human
thought has leveled roads, and by helping, find the further way.
If our walls are to bear but one inscription, let these five
words standing at the entering in of its gates tell what the uni-
versity is for: "To Help Find the Way."
Benjamin Ide Wheeler.
From an address given at Stanford University
on Founder s Day, Friday, March 10, 1916,
by President Wheeler of the University of California.
TO MRS. PHOEBE A. HEARST
AS REGENT AND PATRON OF THE UNIVERSITY OF
CALIFORNIA
The children cannot "live by bread alone,"
For some have gifts of Art and Song,
And some to Science fair belong
As e'en the very stars have known
The while they grind at Earth and Stone.
And so it seems from out the throng
Comes one with fairy step and strong
Bright wand as from another zone
To give them benison at fateful hour,
And more than this! — She e'en bestows
Herself like guardian angel from the wood,
Upon that youthful brood to give them power —
Preserving pattern thus, to each who knows
The sweetness of her gracious ladyhood.
The Gatherer.
JANUARY 47
A TRIBUTE TO GEORGE HAMLIN FITCH
George Hamlin Fitch — critic, lover and maker of literature,
teacher of life!
I have, Sir, for many years followed your career as a liter-
ary critic, and have been thankful that so wise a guide has been
vouchsafed to that large public in California whose reading is
almost altogether confined to the daily newspaper, and to that
other public which knows you through the essays that have
been gathered within the covers of your books. You have been
a teacher of doctrine that is vital, an admirer and a maker of
the beauty that is art. Your doctrine of life — your philosophy
of what is worth while — I venture to reconstruct from your
criticism of the masters of English prose.
You teach that "the spiritual life is far more important than
the material life"; that "spiritual fervor and moral force" drive
the wheel of progress; that of literature the supreme test is
"spiritual potency"; that "the spiritual life is the greatest thing
in this world", and that in it alone we find abiding "strength
and comfort". You teach that "work is worship and that the
night soon cometh when no man can work"; that it is by
struggle alone that we approach "that culture of the mind and
soul which is the more precious the harder the fight to secure it."
You teach that in work is happiness — "in good, honest
work done with all a man's heart and soul, the only enduring
happiness". You teach that in faith is inspiration ; in faith,
enthusiasm. For child and man these words of yours are a
timely warning and a tonic". It seems to me that the saddest
thing in this world is to lose one's youthful enthusiasms. When
you can keep these fresh and strong, after years of contact with
a selfish world, age cannot touch you".
You, Sir, like the chief among your prophets and masters,
Thomas Carlyle, have sounded a bugle-call to youth and age
"to lift them through the fight", to breathe into them "the in-
domitable spirit which makes life look good even to the man
who feels the pinch of poverty and whose outlook is dreary".
You teach that which is most worthy of homage in the prophets
and makers of our English prose ; and what you teach we find
in your motive and service, too.
You admire the visions of verity and righteousness in art;
the sublimity and the humor and the pathos, the terror and the
beauty, of imaginative and emotional appeal in literature ; the
music of impassioned prose, the harmony and thunder of the
organ-tone, the rhapsody of the harp, the voice of the flute;
the grandeur and the sweetness, the riches and the simplicity.
48 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
What you have taught others to admire, you have yourself
made, in your quiet and unassuming way, in the art of literary
criticism. And what you have created is but the image of the
heart of the maker. Admiring the image, we admire most the
heart of you.
Charles Mills Galley.
From "Hayrvard Journal"
October 6, 1916.
(Delivered at Elder's Gallery September 2, 1916, on the occasion of "An Afternoon
with George Hamlin Fitch's Works;" the author being in London at the time. Other
speakers who thus joined in honoring their fellow-companion who has added to the
riches of "Literary California," in many ways, were the following: George Douglas,
William Herbert Carruth, Zoeth S. Eldredge, Robert Rea, Charles B. Field, Bailey
Millard, Richard Edward White, Ina Coolbrith and Ella Sterling Mighels.)
A LITERARY LIGHT OF THE EARLY DAYS
The "Shirley Letters", written by Mrs. Louise Clappe in
1851 and 1852, and published in the "Pioneer Magazine" of
1854 and 1855, will always have a unique and unchallenged
place as the background of typical California literature. Here
was the Pioneer pen that blazed the trail to western romance
for all the brilliant early California writers.
To her knowledge of art, science and history, she added
personal charm and a sympathy and enthusiasm in the interests
and endeavors of her fellowmen, so that from her arrival with
her husband, Dr. Clappe, in San Francisco in 1849, she made a
decided and far-reaching impress upon the community during
the formative period of the new state.
Early in 1851, Dr. and Mrs. Clappe went to the enticing
mines, and located at Rich bar on the North Fork of the Feather
river. There, amid the frenzied struggle for earthly wealth, she
built on the higher foundation of "cabin-home" influence and
womanly ministration, at the same time recognizing the virgin
soil, the unprecedented, unheard-of opportunity for her facile
pen; and she transcribed the wonderful scenes of trail and
camp, and the pathetic and the humorous dramas being enacted
about her. She portrayed the excited, picturesque types of hu-
manity, the glamor, the thrilling incidents of adventure, of
gambling with nature for gold or for destruction — the spirit of
which she immortalized in those spontaneous, fascinating epis-
tles which were intended only for the family "at home". But
Ferdinand C. Ewer, the gifted editor of the "Pioneer Magazine",
rescued them from obscurity.
The "Letters" were hailed in the east as a wonderful "find",
and among those here who were captivated by their charm was
Bret Harte, then called Frank Bret Harte. His story of "The
Outcasts of Poker Flat" (which did not appear until many
JANUARY 49
years later) had its foundation in a graphic picture she gives
in one of the "Letters" of the fallen women being driven out
of the camp. He enjoyed her brilliant wit and conversation ;
and she opened his vision to the mountain possibilities for the
pen — of treasures of history to be yielded up where she felt
she had but done "placer work".
Upon the death of her husband, Mrs. Clappe became a
teacher in the San Francisco public schools, notably in the high
school, where she exercised a beneficial and lasting influence.
She enriched every life that she intimately touched. Nothing
missed her discerning spirit. Quick to discover anything espe-
cially promising in a pupil, she stimulated him or her to de-
velop the gift. Some of her students have achieved reputation
as writers and in other fields of high endeavor.
Among her discoveries was Charles Warren Stoddard, the
poet, who adored her. To him she was "Ariel" with magic
wand. In addition to her school-duties, she, by request, estab-
lished classes in elocution, art and literature which were largely
attended by ladies of society. She held her salon, bringing to-
gether the most cultivated and distinguished men and women
of California, and from the east. Such men as Ralph Waldo
Emerson and Agassiz were her guests. Here such spirits as
John Muir often sought her company. She was the first one
to give parlor recitals and to promote amateur theatricals in
San Francisco.
Before she left the city to make her final home in the
east, a grand musicale was given to do her honor, and in loving
reverential recognition of her worth. A resultant purse of some
$2000, born of the California spirit of those days, was humbly
and gratefully put into her hand. But a deeper expression that
thousands of us former pupils added was evidenced in tears
and an ache of heart as we saw her depart.
In New York city that noble woman came "into her own",
enjoying her adored niece, Genevieve Stebbins, the accomplished
family of her old friend, Dr. Ferdinand C. Ewer, of the "Pioneer
Magazine" (then a celebrated clergyman of fashionable New
York), and the many gifted friends she drew about her by the
graces of her spirit. As a crowning glory, a member of the dis-
tinguished Field family took her all over Europe, where she
especially sought the old art-galleries with which she had famil-
iarized herself and hosts of others, but had scarce hoped to see.
Her summers were spent in New Jersey in the happy sub-
urban home of some members of Bret Harte's family, and it
was from there she passed "over the divide". Rich Bar, the
mining camp, with its flash and flame and its material gold, is
50 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
long since forgotten; but the wealth of herself that she gave
there, and gave so liberally all through her illuminating life,
endures, and has its part in the establishment of the Kingdom
of Good.
Mary V. Tingle^ Lawrence.
A tribute from one early writer to another,
written for "Literary California" 191 5.
A TRIBUTE TO MARSHALL, THE DISCOVERER OF
GOLD IN CALIFORNIA
We build in bronze our memory of the immortal Marshall,
not for the paltry piece of gold he picked up from the American
river, January 24th, 1848, but for the Pioneer in the man that
made possible the accident of discovery. The greatest great-
ness on earth is to be made the chosen instrument of God in
making possible the highest happiness of humanity. And this
was the part of Marshall and the early men of that time.
They were the messengers of Jehovah, the prophets of the
highest, the John the Baptists of geography, crying in the wil-
derness, "Prepare ye the way! make His paths straight for the
highest civilization, and for the mightiest commerce of the
world" ! That piece of gold was merely the beginning of greater
riches to come when the seed was to be planted in the sands,
and to put forth a thousandfold more in bountiful harvests for
future generations.
N. J. Bird.
From an address given in the
California Building, Columbian Exposition,
Chicago, 1893.
WHAT IS EDUCATION?
"Education is a systematic training of the natural faculties."
Mrs. M. M. Bay.
Silver Hill, Haywards,
1907.
THE LITTLE RED SCHOOL-HOUSES OF EARLY DAYS
I have some vivid memories of those old schools and school-
houses, which, like all Pioneer institutions, were rough and
ready and demanded adaptability from those who essayed to
preside over them. In the absence of clocks one learned to
JANUARY 51
judge time by the sun, and with but the scantiest of equipment,
and that usually home-made, it devolved upon the teacher to
devise both means and methods. One district I particularly
remember for the variety of its incidental excitement. Myste-
rious Valley was in a lost corner less than a hundred miles
from San Francisco, as the crow flies. It was at the end of
ten miles of bad road beyond the terminus of a twenty-mile
stage line. The schoolhouse, built of green pine lumber in the
rough, was designed for summer use only, the available funds
being sufficient for six months, or, to be accurate, one hundred
and twenty days of schooling in the year. Accordingly, there
was no provision for heating, and when an untimely spell of
cold weather fell upon us in mid-April and chattering teeth and
blue and shivering limbs protested, some of the older boys vol-
unteered to build a fire out in the open, to which teacher and
pupils alike adjourned and danced about the cheerful flames
until circulation was restored. In less than a month's time
the warm weather had set in and the unceiled roof wept pitchy
tears on desk and floor, while every now and then a sharp
crack, a gleam of sunshine, and a metallic "ping" advised us
that another shake had warped off. Our schoolhouse would
have proved an ideal place for the study of "nature", had that
fad been on the official register in the sixties, seventies and
eighties of the nineteenth century. Birds in variety flew in
under the eaves, and, perching upon the rafters, sang so lustily
that it was often necessary to modify the daily programme and
defer oral recitations until quiet was restored. Jack rabbits
and Molly-cottontails hopped cheerfully up to the doorstep to
investigate, and in the evening, after the door was locked, squir-
rels and wood-rats would appropriate or make havoc of every
scrap of paper, or any book carelessly left within their reach.
Lizards we heeded not at all, but snakes, though probably
harmless, were never welcomed visitors. One day I found one
of the reptiles stretched along the rod at the bottom of a map,
leisurely exploring the United States, and on another occasion,
when some of the smallest pupils, after wriggling and squirm-
ing in their seats, began to climb upon the benches, an inquiry
into the cause of the excitement brought out the reply that
"there's a big sna-ik a-comin' up", and sure enough, something
like a yard of the reptile had already emerged through a knot-
hole in the floor, with more to come.
Sarah Connell.
From "Life in California.* 1
52 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
A MATTER OF IMPORTANCE
I desire to remind you that the schoolhouse is the garden-
spot in which great minds are developed and cultivated. The
schoolhouse is the sign-post of civilization, education and en-
lightenment. When a new schoolhouse is erected it shows the
desire of that community to benefit the tender young who are
to follow in our wake. * * *
While we are fortunate to live in this great, prosperous
land, which is universally admired for its inexhaustible re-
sources, prolific soil, and its many grand virtues that bring pros-
perity to its inhabitants, I beg to remind you that it is not the
natural wealth with its bountiful resources alone that has de-
veloped the wonderful prosperity which challenges the admira-
tion of the dwellers of the old world, but it is the bright intel-
lect and superior education of the many great men it has pro-
duced. Compared with the old world, America is in its infancy,
yet it has developed men of remarkable minds in all walks of
life — men of the keenest powers of conception for designing and
of wonderful ability for execution — men who have, in a few
generations, transformed a savage land into a civilization, a
wilderness into admirable cultivation, and a continent filled
with nomadic wild tribes, with whom law and order were an
unknown quantity, into one of the greatest civilized nations
known to ancient or to modern history.
Education welded with that real unadulterated liberty en-
joyed by all in this blessed country is the great secret of this
wonderful success and achievement, and the schoolhouse is the
first step for the young to enable them to obtain that funda-
mental training to fit them for their life's career. It is there-
fore meet, and a sacred duty, for every community to provide
liberally for this start in life for them, by building comfortable
and sanitary schoolhouses, and by selecting able and competent
school-teachers to lead them to civilization, education and en-
lightenment.
From an address delivered at the S - Har ^ m ^
opening of a new school-house in Merced,
on Arbor Day, March 26, 1909.
a
A BRIEF BUT INEFFECTUAL RADIANCE"
"Go forth, young man, into the wilderness."
The young man bowed his head, and urged his horse for-
ward in the bleak and barren plain. In half an hour every
vestige of the camp and its unwholesome surroundings was lost
JANUARY 53
in the distance. It was as if the strong, desiccating wind, which
seemed to spring up at his horse's feet, had cleanly erased the
flimsy structures from the face of the plain, swept away the
lighter breath of praise and plaint, and dried up the easy flow-
ing tears. The air was harsh but pure; the grim economy of
form and shade and color in the level plain was coarse but not
vulgar; the sky above him was cold and distant but not re-
pellent; the moisture that had been denied his eyes at the
prayer-meeting overflowed them here; the words that had
choked his utterance an hour ago now rose to his lips. He
threw himself from his horse, and kneeling in the withered
grass — a mere atom in the boundless plain — lifted his pale face
against the irresponsive blue and prayed.
He prayed that the unselfish dream of his bitter boyhood,
his disappointed youth, might come to pass. He prayed that
he might in higher hands become the humble instrument of
good to his fellow man. He prayed that the deficiencies of his
scant education, his self-taught learning, his hopeless isolation,
and his inexperience might be overlooked or reinforced by grace.
He prayed that the Infinite Compassion might enlighten his
ignorance and solitude with a manifestation of the Spirit; in
his very weakness he prayed for some special revelation, some
sign or token, some visitation or gracious unbending from that
coldly lifting sky. The low sun burned the black edge of the
distant tules with dull eating fires as he prayed, lit the dwarfed
hills with a brief but ineffectual radiance, and then died out.
The lingering trade winds fired a few volleys over its grave*
and then lapsed into a chilly silence. The young man staggered
to his feet; it was quite dark now, but the coming night had
advanced a few starry vedettes so near the plain they looked
like human watchfires. For an instant he could not remember
where he was. Then a light trembled far down at the entrance
of the valley. Brother Gideon recognized it. It was in the
lonely farmhouse of the widow of the last Circuit preacher.
Bret Harte.
From "An Apostle of the Tules"
WHY DO EDITORS DISCOURAGE YOUNG WRITERS
FROM INDULGING IN FIGURES OF SPEECH?
"It is because the ornate is more liable to abuse than the
sober; ornament construction and do not construct ornamenta-
tion. A house must have walls. Simplicity of construction
would be four walls with partitions. Angles are made for the
purpose of relieving monotony — clouds break up the monotony
54 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
of the sky. The stars give brilliancy, light and ornamentation
to the midnight firmament. It is night that gives light and joy
to day. Thought intensifies emotions ; the emotion which comes
from intensity of thought is true emotion. Emotion unsupported
by thought is merely the wings without the bird, the soul with-
out the personality, spirit that was not evolved from matter.
The earth must have warmth but not melting fervor. There is
a grandeur in eloquence when it lifts the mind to a lofty sum-
mit, but the summit on which it stands must be somber and
substantial. The difference between thoughtful work and
merely poetic fancy is the difference between a fire in the house
and a house on fire."
William H. Mills.
From "Story of the Files of California,"
San Francisco, 1893.
SUTRO FOREST
Trees and the Man, I sing, for here behold !
The white sand once a sweep of dunes and hills
The fervent wish and will of him fulfils,
Transformed to forests green and bold
Against the blue horizon and the sunset's gold.
And here is music from the trees, in trills
And pipings sweet, while fragrant breath distills
To electrify the atmosphere. I hold
That all the golden stores of Sutro's wealth
Bestowed on Art and Letters though they be
As fair as shines above the Northern Crown,
Yet greater is the joy that comes with health
Restored by blessed trees by this decree,
Planted by his order to redeem the town.
The Gatherer.
PRACTICALITY VERSUS ROMANCE
Practicality comes from good, hard reasoning, but it pays
when it does come. It will bury your dead and dry your tears.
It will enable you to go hungry with very little murmuring.
It will ease your thirst and make your old clothes look respect-
able. It will show you how to live, how to make what money
there is to be made, how to stand rain, cold or heat. It will
help you to part from all you love best on earth, and, better
still, will enable you to live with disagreeable people. Will
romance do this? Will day-dreams mend your stockings?
FEBRUARY 55
Will wishing and longing for the unattainable bring it to you?
It will paint the cloud sometimes and put music into the wind.
It will tinge the seasons with beauty, and often will beautify
even age itself, but it is not a profitable reality in the long run.
Adelaide J. Holmes Bailsman.
From the "Seattle Spectator,"
1893.
THE GREAT PANORAMA
In January is seen the beginning of the great panorama of
Growing Things in California. The life-impulse starts suddenly
in the trees first of all. What a wonderful sight is the orange-
tree with its glossy green leaves, with three stages of growth
going on at one and the same time, the golden fruitage hiding
in the leaves, the green and gold half ripe on the way to per-
fection, and crowning all, the orange-blossoms in their pure
whiteness to serve for the bridal of Nature and her regal lord,
the Sun.
A. E.
THE GRAY ROAD OF SORROW
The world has many a road for the feet of you and me,
They cross the winding hills where the winds are blowing free,
They dip down the valleys and through many a place they're cast,
And the gray road of sorrow, oh, we come to it at last.
We come to it at last in the mists and sighing rain,
And though we leave it oft the whiles, we come to it again;
We come to it again with the sighing rains that fall
On the gray road of sorrow that loves and lures us all.
Once I thought to never walk that gray road hedged with yew,
Nor ever did you think to come, if I can read you true —
'Twas then that life and love were young, our blood with youth aflame,
Yet I found you on the gray road when first to it I came.
I found you in the sighing rain, beside the hedge of yew,
With the trouble dim upon your eyes that once were dancing blue,
With the trouble in the eyes of you, the hot tears on your cheek,
And the lips of you a-tremble with the word you could not speak.
i
And yet, oh, heart of me, as we wander down the years,
We fear it less and love it more, that gray road of tears —
The gray road of sorrow with its whispering yew and rain,
Its heartaches of memory, its trouble and its pain.
For, trod we ne'er the gray road, but always laughed along
The paths of the primrose and the sunlit trails of song —
Had we walked but where the happy throngs of mirth and pleasure go,
The throb of the gray road we had not learned to know.
56 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
And 'tis not when the laughter and lilt of joy and song
Rings down the way of roses, where the gay and happy throng,
That life has most to give us, but it is when falls the rain
On the gray road of sorrow with its heart-break and pain.
So, here's my glass to yours, and I'll quaff with you the wine,
And I'll give you back another song for that you gave for mine,
But when God calls us near him, with souls and hearts laid bare,
The gray road of sorrow is the road that we must fare.
John Steven McGroarty.
A TOAST TO AUTHORS
Hither, minions, bear a cup,
I know not what it be;
But since it has a Scotchy smell,
We'll call it "barley bree."
And this good cup I empty now,
And will refill the same
To all who authors really are
And all who have the name.
To those who gather up the fruit,
To those who shake the tree,
To those who think that art is Art,
And those who disagree.
So, stand and hold your glasses high,
And turn the lights down low,
And chant to speed the going ghost
The dirge of Long Ago.
And if a twelvemonth hence we meet
To swaddle the New Year
And shroud the dying one, God grant —
God send we all be here!
Charles Henry Webb.
From "Watch Night at the Authors Club" in
"With Lead and Line" Cambridge,
Houghton and Mifflin, 1901.
ONE OF THE TRADITIONS TO BE HANDED DOWN
One day I was in the editorial office of the "San Fran-
ciscan", which ran for a year, from 1885 to 1886. The two
editors, Joseph Goodman and Arthur McEwen, were philoso-
phizing regarding the attitude held by a young man when he
first starts out in life. Said McEwen, "His first idea is to RE-
FORM the world." "Yes," agreed Goodman, "but after he has
FEBRUARY 57
been knocking around a while, he finds it to be much more
pleasant to CONFORM to the world."
This amused me very much, and I went down to the Gol-
den Era office, where I was assistant-editor at that time, and
repeated these sayings to the proprietor and editor, Harr Wag-
ner. Mr. Wagner smiled and added, "And after another ten
years or so, he makes up his mind to PERFORM and do some-
thing for the world."
A quarter of a century later, these brilliant bon mots being
told to a young lad named Bram Nossen, a student at the Low-
ell High school, he also smiled and gave another to add to the
list. "And after another ten years or so he either INFORMS
or DEFORMS the world."
The Gatherer.
From
"Life in California."
RONDEAU
This New Year's Eve the fire burns low
And midnight draweth slowly near;
Pale phantoms from the past appear
To mock me as the moments go
And memory's bitter floods o'erflow;
"Too late, too late," they gibe and jeer,
"Too late," my heart re-echoes, dear;
To ashes gray fades Hope's last glow
This New Year's Eve!
Yet list ! Exultant, silver-clear
The chimes ring in a glad new year!
What lies within its fateful clasp
We dare not guess, we may not grasp,
But sudden leaps Hope's flame, my dear,
This New Year's Eve !
Ella M. Sexton.
WILLIAM KEITH
We read that under the far Indian skies
The dusk magician with his magic wand
Calls from the arid and unseeded sand,
Whereon the shadowless sun's hot fervor lies,
A perfect tree, before our wondering eyes.
First a green shoot uplifts a tender hand,
Then trunk and spreading foilage expand
To flower and fruit; — and then it droops and dies.
58 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
But he — our wizard of the tinted brush —
In God's diviner necromancy skilled,
Gives to our vision earth, in grandeur free!
Rose-gold of dawn, and evening's purple hush,
The Druid-woods with nature's worship filled,
The mountains and the everlasting sea.
Ina Coolbrith.
A WORD OF PRAISE
A little bit of praising now and then
Is sweet as any comb of nectared honey;
It often gives a man the strength of ten,
And really makes the worst of weather sunny.
It soothes the sore heart and is a balm
For bruises that a chap is given daily;
A scented oil to lay the waters calm,
Whereon is skimming every shallop gaily!
There's music in a word or two of praise,
Such as the rose is singing in the dawning;
Or philharmonic zephyr-organ plays
When larks and linnets linger on the lawning!
It heals the aching ear of all its woe,
Of testy temper discords that assail it;
When from the heart its lyric fountains flow
And find another heart but to regale it!
Despondency will scatter as a mist
Before the sunbeam of a bit of praise,
Or as canker in a wild rose kissed
By some dew-lipped fairy of the moony ways.
So when a little poisoned dart is fired
By some one from a quiver filled with malice,
May some gentle spirit, with an art inspired,
Heal all the pain with dew from Praise's chalice!
Kenneth Campbell.
"Sacramento Bee.*'
SHORT HISTORIES OF THINGS
For Use in the Schools Profusely Illustrated
By THOMAS NUNAN
The History of Creation
The world was created just as we found it —
Water and land, with air right around it.
FEBRUARY 59
That's about all that we ever can know,
The whole thing was done such a long time ago.
♦Probably the shortest complete history of this important incident.
HOME AGAIN
Home again, home again, from a foreign shore,
And oh! it fills my soul with joy
To meet with friends once more.
Here I dropped the parting tear
To cross the ocean's foam,
But now I'm once again with those
Who fondly greet me home.
Music sweet, music soft, lingers 'round the place,
And oh, I feel the childhood charm
That Time cannot efface.
Then give me but my homestead roof,
I'll ask no palace dome, for I can live a happy life
With those I love at home.
Chorus — Home again, etc.
Ballad Sung by the Pioneers.
THE PHANTOM FLEET IN PANAMA
All shimmering in the morning's glow,
Strange ships appear off Cuba's shore
And linger in a brooding wind —
Such craft no living men have seen before ;
As if from centuries long ago
Brave voyagers came to seek once more
The way to Ind.
Their royal colors catch the light,
Till tropic showers dim the day,
And wrapped in billowy mists of white,
They drift as phantoms gray.
Perchance Magellan haunts the blue,
Or Cortez seeks for conquests new,
And wraiths pursue the fabled way
To India and old Bombay.
Those were the bravest days of time
When frail ships dared the chartless seas —
Bright pictures of romance and rime,
King's pennants in the breeze.
The "Pass to India," unknown,
Bewildering led, now here, now there,
And "Seven Golden Cities" shone,
But magic of the air.
A hundred years of fearless quest
From Palos to the Golden Gate ;
They saw the long shores of the West,
But not the Sunset Strait.
They gained Columbia's wide land —
The shores the earnest Pilgrim trod,
Where Washington gave high command,
And Lincoln spoke with God.
And now earth-men with heaven conspire;
The mountain from its place have hurled,
And slain the dragon in the mire,
To give a pathway to the world.
With Panama's wall of rock cut through
They flow as one, the oceans vast ;
The world awakes, the dream is true
That moved the splendid past.
From
"Youth's Companion."
The phantom ships no longer wait,
The fleet of dreams salutes the breeze;
All sails are set to ride the strait
That joins the mighty seas.
The trade-wind answers far, and now
The admiral's bark comes sailing fast,
Columbus, Balboa, at the prow ;
The way appears at last !
The phantom ships float wavering, free,
From arctic's white and silent spell,
From vales of wrecks beneath the sea —
Quaint bark and caravel.
All shadowless on waves of glass, _
They skirt old island shores again ;
Enveiled in silv'ry showers, they pass
To Pearly Darien.
Where signal-lights gleam from the tower
They gather in the harbor foam ;
As wide-winged birds at day's last hour
With one accord sweep home.
With flutt'ring flags of many lands,
With lifted cross, or low mass said,
With laden spoils, or golden sands,
Armadas of the dead.
As banking clouds the heavens compel,
They pass unbarred from sea to sea —
Quaint bark and galley, caravel,
Through locks and lake made free.
"The quest is done, let flags be furled !"
(Voices pulsing in the air.)
"Oh, not in vain we scaled the world,
Dei gratia, haste to prayer."
And anchored in the sunset's gold,
The ships are ranked in proud array,
As in the gorgeous pomp of old
They dedicate the way.
Lillian H. S. Bailey.
FEBRUARY 61
VALLEY FORGE— THEN AND NOW
The snow is sifting silently down through the stark limbs
of the trees on the hill above Valley Forge — "the cold, bleak
hill" of which Washington wrote in his pitiful letter to Con-
gress, the forlorn, forbidding hill on which the embattled farm-
ers labored in the trenches or lay "under frost and snow with-
out clothes or blankets".
The Valley Forge of the winter of 1906 is not so different
from the Valley Forge of the winter of 1778, but that, standing
here alone in the snow, I can easily visualize the whole scene
of that century-old season which, to me, more strongly typifies
the patience and endurance of our precious patriots than any
other in the pages of their glorious history. * * * It is easy
to look back a little further, to see the poor soldiers marching
to these winter quarters ; it is easy to trace their route through
the snow by the blood that oozes from their bare, frost-bit-
ten feet.
Why have these men come here in such straits? They
have come because Sir William Howe has established himself
in Philadelphia, only twenty-four miles down the Schuylkill —
they have come here to suffer and to wait rather than to give
up the country to the ravages of the enemy.
The story of their desperate shifts and cheerless straits is
true — as true as that the solemn river flows below the hill and
that the sorrowful cedar stands over there against the gray
sky. One believes what one sees, * * * and I know that
the glorious tale is true. Have I not just come up from the
little stone house in the valley below where Pater Patriae
made his headquarters.
Here I see grim-faced men who, for want of blankets, sit
up all night by fires ; I see thousands of sick men crowding
hospitals that are for the most part log-huts or frail wigwams
of twisted boughs. I see them dying for want of straw to put
between themselves and the frozen ground on which to lie.
* * * As I look down among these splendid rebels — these
men so glorious in their rags that the meanest of them would
put to shame the proudest plutocrat who ever bought a jury
or a legislature — I dream anew with them of the democracy
for which they fought, and worse than fought, here in the
cold and snow.
And while I dream I wonder. I wonder with what pa-
tience, with what fortitude, they would have suffered all this
had they known that the most of what they were to gain for
their sons and daughters by their Homeric, their Promethean
62 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
trials, would in a brief cycle of time be wrested from them by
a handful of self-appointed, and consciously iniquitous men,
sitting at the receipt of custom, their shadows brooding darkly
over all the land.
What were the ideals of these men of Valley Forge? * * *
Down from the "cold bleak hill" I look. I see them now —
how could I fail to see them? — these martyrs, moving from
hut to cheerless hut, trailing their red blood through the camp,
and over there, a little apart, proud Pater Patriae, on his knees,
praying — praying for what?
Among the trees the darkness is falling with the snow.
Night is closing down. The wintry bitterness is deepening.
Now the barefoot men light their camp-fires anew, and huddle
about them, turning first their breasts and then their half-clad
backs to the feeble flames.
But over there, apart, alone, Pater Patriae is still pray-
ing in the snow.
Bailey Millard.
A very beautiful bas-relief by James E. Kelly, entitled "Washington Praying at
Valley Forge," was placed with fitting ceremonies in 1908 to commemorate the spot.
Inspired by the theme, Mr. Millard the same year visited the historic scene and pre-
pared an article for the "Cosmopolitan," from which the above is condensed.
THE PIONEER
Somewhere, O earth, thy tangled woods
O'ertop the lonely plain.
Somewhere, amid dim solitudes,
Thy mists of silence reign.
Yet he shall come with purpose high
Deep in his valiant heart,
And where thy purple vistas lie
Shall stand the pulsing mart.
Somewhere primeval echo dies
Across the wastes untrod,
And wild and far and lone there lies
The wilderness of God.
But he shall come uncouth and plain,
His burning soul adream,
And where thy virgin waste hath lain
The fragrant farmstead gleam.
Tho' far and high thy treasures lie,
Enwrapt with hazard, still
Before thy face he shall defy
Thy might to balk his will.
FEBRUARY 63
For he shall come as morning light,
And earth rock-ribbed and sere
Shall yield the largess of its might
To him, the Pioneer.
Harry T. Fee.
From "Sunset"
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
A nation lay at rest. The mighty storm
That threatened their good ship with direful harm,
Had spent its fury; and the tired and worn
Sank in sweet slumber, as the spring-time morn
Dawned with a promise that the strife should cease;
And war's grim face smiled in a dream of peace.
O! doubly sweet the sleep when tranquil light
Breaks on the dangers of the fearful night,
And full of trust, we seek the dreamy realm
Conscious a faithful pilot holds the helm,
Whose steady purpose and untiring hand,
With God's grace will bring us safe to land.
And so the Nation rested, worn and weak,
From long exertion —
God! What a shriek
Was that which pierced to farthest earth and sky
As though all Nature uttered a death cry!
Awake ! Arouse ! yet sleeping warders, ho !
Be sure this augurs some colossal woe;
Some dire calamity has passed o'erhead —
A world is shattered or a god is dead!
What ! the globe unchanged ! The sky still flecked
With stars? Time is? The universe not wrecked?
Then look ye to the pillars of the State !
How fares it with the Nation's good and great?
Since that wild shriek told no unnatural birth
Some mighty soul has shaken hands with earth.
Lo! murder hath been done. Its purpose foul
Hath stained the marble of the Capitol
Where sat one yesterday without a peer !
Still rests he peerless, but upon his bier.
64 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
Ah, faithful heart, so silent now — alack!
And did the Nation fondly call thee back,
And hail thee truest, bravest of the land,
To bare the breast to the assassin's hand?
And yet we know if that extinguished voice
Could be rekindled and pronounce its choice
Between this awful fate of thine, and one —
Retreat from what thou didst or wouldst have done,
In thine own sense of duty, it would choose
This doom — the least a noble soul could lose.
There is a time when the assassin's knife
Kills not, but stabs into eternal life;
And this was such an one. Thy homely name
Was wed to that of Freedom, and thy fame
Hung rich and clustering in its lusty prime;
The God of Heroes saw the harvest time,
And smote the noble structure at the root
That it might bear no less immortal fruit.
Sleep ! honored by the Nation and mankind !
Thy name in History's brightest page is shrined,
Adorned by virtues only, and shall exist
Bright and adorned on Freedom's martyr list.
The time shall come when on the Alps shall dwell,
No memory of their own immortal Tell;
Rome shall forget her Caesars, and decay
Waste the Eternal City's self away;
And in the lapse of countless ages, Fame
Shall one by one forget each cherished name;
But thine shalt live through time, until there be
No soul on earth but glories to be free.
Joseph Thompson Goodman.
From
"Virginia Enterprise"
1865.
THE LIBERTY FOR WHICH WASHINGTON STOOD
The nation's power and glory do not altogether depend
upon the triumph of its arms; they rest upon the righteous-
ness of its people and the quality of justice which it metes
out to all men. The liberty for which Washington stood was
FEBRUARY 65
the liberty of equality — absolute equality of public burdens,
absolute equality of public duties. He believed in a republic
of law, a government of order, wherein and whereunder all
men should be protected, and secure in "life, liberty, and the
pursuit of happiness."
Samuel M. Shortridge.
"Washington; Liberty Under Law,"
an address delivered February 22, 1891 ,
at the banquet of the
California Sons of the American Revolution.
From "Notable Speeches by Notable Speakers
of the Great West," Harr Wagner;
San Francisco: Whitaker and Ray Co., 1902.
RELIGIOUS LIBERTY
Before there can be a common religion, even though it be
based on the highest ethical grounds, there must be that har-
monious recognition of each person's right to his own religious
belief through which alone unity can be wrought out of diver-
sity. Religious liberty, in the fullest sense, must therefore be
our first goal on the road to any universal religion on this
earth. Fortunately, in this country, the founders and friends
of our Republic have from the start proclaimed and expounded
the doctrine of religious liberty. * * *
Little that is new can be said about Washington. We
all know that he embodied that rarest of combinations, a union
of goodness with greatness. * * * A characteristic of Wash-
ington which is perhaps less known than his other traits was
his devotion to religious liberty. Once, before the Revolution,
when directing the manager of his plantation to obtain a ser-
vant, he wrote that the man selected must be competent and
reliable, but that it did not matter what his religious belief
was, whether he were Christian, Jew, Mohammedan or Pagan.
On another occasion he pointed out that it would be absurd
for those who were fighting for liberty to interfere with liberty
of conscience. Especially notable in this direction were his
letters to the Jewish and the Catholic congregations in answer
to addresses of congratulation on his accession to the Presidency.
Particularly touching in his letter to the historic Jewish
congregation at Newport, then of commercial prominence and
promise, was his reference to the Jew as having been forced
to wander over the earth, but as finding in this country an
asylum and a refuge, where in the words of the prophet he
66 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
could sit under his own vine and fig-tree, and there should be
none to make him afraid.
Nathan NeWmarl?.
From address delivered before Golden Gate Lodge
of the B'nai B'rith Order, which erected EzekieVs
famous statue of "Religious Liberty" in
Fairmount Park, Philadelphia.
Published in "The Hebrew"
San Francisco, March 15, 1918.
BENEFITS OF THE MIDWINTER EXPOSITION
Now that the California Midwinter International Exposi-
tion has been successfully launched, it is far more interesting
to speculate upon its probable effects than to discuss what led
to the conception of the idea. No doubt the observation of the
fact that a large collection of fine exhibits from all countries
of the globe was ready to be drawn upon gave the primary im-
pulse to the thought that California might have an exposition;
but I am inclined to think that the consideration that an im-
perative necessity existed that something should be done to
rescue San Francisco from a commercial collapse was the con-
trolling motive.
It is not difficult to recall the condition of affairs that ex-
isted in this city in June last. Distrust and apprehension filled
the public mind. In common with the rest of the country,
we were on the verge of a financial panic. Now that we have
safely weathered the storm we may refer to facts which were
not openly spoken of at the time, although they were recog-
nized by those who felt the business pulse of the city. Well-
informed men clearly saw that unless something was done to
divert the public mind from the contemplation of an impending
trouble, a panic must ensue which might sweep away the sound-
est financial and business concerns.
I think it was a clear apprehension of the existing state
of affairs that caused the suggestion to hold a Midwinter Ex-
position in San Francisco to be taken up and pushed with
energy. Had the idea been thrown out at another time — for
instance, while the city was enjoying the fullest degree of
prosperity — the argument that it would be idle to attempt to
get up a great fair immediately upon the closing of Chicago's
wonderful exposition might have proved too much for the sug-
gestion. But when men are keenly in earnest to arrest a real
or fancied danger, ridicule or fear of failure has few terrors.
To all dissuading arguments the answer was promptly made
FEBRUARY 67
that it could not injure California to make the attempt to hold
an exposition, and that the fruits of success would be all the
more appreciated because of the obstacles overcome.
This was the proper spirit to display, and it explains why
so great an undertaking has been successfully carried out in
so brief a period. It must not be lost sight of that in exactly
five months from the day of breaking ground in Golden Gate
park the executive committee of the California Midwinter Ex-
position was enabled to formally open a fair which many com-
petent critics pronounce second only to those of Chicago and
Paris, and fully abreast of the Centennial Exposition of 1876,
back of which was the national credit and all the patriotic feel-
ing of the United States.
It is not only the brief period in which this great work
was accomplished that is striking; the manner of its accom-
plishment is equally impressive. The beautiful buildings and
gardens that now adorn the Midwinter Exposition grounds were
called into existence without the gift of a single dollar from
the nation, state, or municipality. All the money expended has
been derived from voluntary subscriptions or from the letting
of concessions, the presence of which contributes to the suc-
cess of the enterprise.
Californians may not appreciate the magnitude of this feat.
Those who daily observe the growth of a thing are very apt to
underestimate its importance. There is nothing truer than the
adage that "familiarity breeds contempt", and a too intimate
acquaintance with an object often makes us overlook its beauty
and underrate its value. But while we may take the creation
of a city of one hundred beautiful buildings in five months as
a simple thing, the outside world does not do so. In the east
and in other parts of the world the performance is commented
upon as something wonderful; and while Congress, with a
timidity that was something amusing, feared to do anything
for the California Midwinter Exposition, lest its action might
be construed into giving the enterprise a national character, dis-
tinguished Americans and prominent journalists are now felic-
itating themselves that they live in a country so great and with
such vast resources that the holding of two World's fairs within
a twelvemonth of each other is possible.
I think I may say, with safety, that no achievement of re-
cent days will give so much satisfaction to the patriotic Amer-
ican as the successful promotion of the Midwinter Exposition.
It will enable the orator to point to the striking fact that the
United States is the only country in the world that could vent-
ure upon running two expositions in a year and to emphasize
68 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
the vastness of his country by calling attention to the fact that
in less than three months after the greatest fair of modern times
closed its gates in Chicago another great fair was opened in
San Francisco, twenty-three hundred miles distant.
That eulogies of this kind will reflect glory upon California
and redound to the benefit of her people goes without saying.
It will be impossible for the friendly critic to praise the achieve-
ment without, at the same time, acknowledging the fact that
only an enterprising and progressive people could have accom-
plished such results. And with this will come the further reflec-
tion that even the most energetic and enterprising of peoples
would be powerless to accomplish great things unless they had
the material means with which to bring them about. And this
reflection had already produced gratifying fruit, as any one may
discern who has any acquaintance with the eastern press. The
journals of that section are now teeming with articles describing
our enormous and varied resources, and the prediction is being
made that, having all the elements within our boundaries to
make an empire, we may expect in the near future to contest
supremacy with the state that now bears the proud title of
the Empire state of the Union.
That the outcome of favorable comments such as these I
have referred to must be a largely increased immigration to
California of home-seekers is inevitable. The ancient Hebrews,
whose poets sang of the lands flowing with milk and honey,
filled their hearers with the yearning to occupy them — and in
like manner will the readers of the effusions of the eastern
editors inspire the people of that section to escape to a land
where the conditions of life are less harsh and the promises of
reward greater than in the older and more crowded parts of
the Union.
M. H. de Young.
From "The Calif ornian,"
March, J 894.
FEBRUARY TWENTIETH, 1915
Lift up thy gates, oh city of the world's delight; and be
ye lifted up, ye pleasure-inviting doors! At last the people of
California, the great-hearted endeavorers of San Francisco have
come into their own. * * * The achievement is a lesson to
the worldi from a people undaunted, unshaken, unafraid.
* * * The unparalleled crowd that over flooded the great
gates, braving an uncertain morning sky, is the pledge of the
people that they are worthy of the triumph and will give to
it unexampled support.
FEBRUARY 69
The oratory of the occasion was nobly adequate. And
how we of the far-flung West love the play of emotions !
Eyes strained and faces grew tense over the raptured sentences
of Lane and Rolph and Johnson, and in a hand-turn we were
a-shout over a cynical cajolery of Will Crocker. * * * Then,
too, we of California know how to sing. Some of the legions
of the morning's parade boomed their songs in inspiring meas-
ures ; and the ceremonial chorus rang out in deep-throated reso-
nances, true and glad and free. * * * Then came the touch
of the chained lightning that leaped from a President's finger
in far-away Washington to open, with the might of a giant,
but with the ease of a child, those heavy doors in palaces where
the magicians of machinery and art have told their tales of
power and woven their mystic spells. I saw the gates of the
Palace of Art swing on the touch of twelve as if opened by
fingers from the realm of aerie.
* * * I had watched through the waiting years and
had beheld those massive wondrous buildings lift from what
was a morass their glories toward the sun. I had seen Creation
step steadily and confidently from the void. And I had thought
there was no thrill that architecture can give or that color can
excite that my heart had not already known. But the com-
pleted work seems more than the eye can yearn for or than the
soul could keep. And if words falter at the glories of the day,
who, since the Prophets of old, could begin to tell the wonders
of the night. No eyes have ever seen such illumination, for
not till now was it upon land or sea. "The Northern Lights
came down o' the nights'' to mingle with the blazonry that
leaped from tower and spire and dome. * * * Wholesome
fun has its full place in the pageant. * * * Between two
breaths there is the opportunity to turn from the nobility of
the student to the antics of the clown.
The gull is to be the bird-emblem of the Exposition and
not the hand-feeding pigeon or the embarrassed dove — the
gull that sails and poises, flings and darts on untired wing —
the gull whose courage dares the sea. He is the bird, of the
untrammeled air, master of the elements, eager, confident and
his own. His ease, his daring and his grace are typical of the
Exposition's seaside home, and of the attributes of the men and
women who made of that Exposition a fact-crystallized dream.
And the day itself was an epitome of the Exposition's
story. It began in question and doubt and darkness. It
struggled through the hours of travail and endeavor. And
then it came out resplendent, perfect and serene. The twin
questions, "Will it be a success?" and "Will it storm?" were
70 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
both answered in convincing fullness by the same controlling
Power; and by the night's bedside we all could kneel with
grateful hearts to say : "All glory be to God !"
Edward H. Hamilton.
From San Francisco Examiner" ; relating to the
opening of the "Panama-Pacific International Exposition " ;
February 20, 1915.
FEAST OF LILIES AND NIGHT OF LANTERNS
A CHINESE SYMPHONY
Poor old Ah Jim half crouching stood,
While fell the drizzling rain,
His store of New Year wares to sell —
The lilies that he loved so well,
Some sticks of sugar-cane,
Queer candies tasting much like wood,
And painted cakes or plain.
The lanterns in the alley shone
With silken red and) green,
Their colors blending in the night
And making there as gay a sight
As man has often seen.
Such festive nights Ah Jim had known
In faraway Nankeen.
The while he crouched before his wares,
His dreams went o'er the sea;
Again a merry boy he strayed,
To music that the tom-tom made —
Though weak and old was he.
Forgotten all were Ah Jim's cares
In New Year reverie.
That's all the tale : Alone he stood,
While fell the drizzling rain.
His store of New Year wares to sell —
The lilies that he loved so well,
Some sticks of sugar-cane,
Queer candies tasting much like wood,
And painted cakes or plain.
Last night was New Year's Eve in Chinatown. Rain
subdued the sounds of the celebration but only heightened
the color. Spectators were few.
GALAXY
Anna M. Fitch
"Hagar" Janette Phelps
Georgiana Bruce Kirby
Adah Isaacs Menken
3.— POETS AND PROSE-WRITERS
Minnie Myrtle Miller Frances F. Victor
Bertha M. B. Toland Elizabeth Chamberlain Wright
"Topsy Turvy"
Nellie B. Eyster Josephine Clifford McCrackin
Eliza Pittsinger Sarah B.Cooper
71
GALAXY 4.— POETS AND PROSE-WRITERS
John Rollin Ridge
George Homer Meyer
Robert Duncan Milne
John Vance Cheney
StephenMassett
B. B. Redding
J. J. Barrett
S. P. Davis
Bartholomew Dowling
David Lesser Lezinsky
James W. Gaily
William D. Pollock
72
FEBRUARY 73
Dupont street, as usual, was the central market-way for
the sidewalk merchants and the peddlers who were there in
hundreds with booths, portable stands, wagons and baskets,
and pretentious white awnings stretched to protect some of
the larger booths added a feature to the picturesque scene of
this annual street fair of the artistic Orientals.
"A happy Chinese New Year to you, and many of them,"
was the sentiment of the night, and all the residents of the
district seemed to turn out in peace and good fellowship.
The red and green lanterns adorned all the streets and
alleys, and on some of the larger buildings there were exten-
sive and beautiful displays. Orchestras, stationed at the
theatres and prominent association homes, gave sound that
was fitting accompaniment of the color.
Did you ever hear a Chinese orchestra? Listen! A clang,
two squeaks and a disturbance of the peace, all done musically
and repeated at proper intervals.
The booths were beautiful with the lilies that are so dear
to the Chinese. There were thousands of these plants in
blossom, and this year's stock is exceptionally large. Almond
branches just beginning to shoot out their buds were almost
as common, and there were chrysanthemums and other flowers,
including some very fragrant specimens that had been brought
from China and here command high prices. The queerly colored
cakes and the rubber-like candies were everywhere on sale, and
standing against nearly every telephone pole were the long
sticks of sugar-cane. Dozens of wagons stood loaded with
oranges, which white men cried in Chinese and: Chinamen
cried in English.
Most of the actual shouting in the streets was done by
white peddlers. This year the Caucasian invasion seemed more
marked than ever, and even an ordinary street fakir was there
with his show and all his spieling clamor.
Yet, in spite of the white men's interference it was a feast
of the lilies and a night of the lanterns ; streets and alleys
being filled with beauty for the painter.
Night softened the harshness and the lights gave emphasis
to the picturesqueness.
The New Year began at midnight and the celebration will
be continued today.
Thomas Nunan.
From "San Francisco Examiner'.
74 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
SONNET TO ROBERT I. AITKEN
The abiding marble shadows forth thy dream;
But in what quarries of infinity-
Must spirit strive with formlessness to free
The Vision? Lo! upon the mind's extreme
It bursts from darkness like a dawn supreme —
The rainbow of an undiscovered sea,
A blossom of that vine of mystery
Whose roots touch night, whose flowers in morning gleam.
We are but thoughts. With music or the pen
We tell what silences about us brood,
And limn with masteries of hue or stone,
Set for a little in the sight of men,
The visions of that mighty solitude
From which we come, to which we pass, alone!
George Sterling.
ON HEARING KELLEY'S MUSIC OF MACBETH
O Melody, what children strange are these
From thy most vast, illimitable realm?
These sounds that seize upon and overwhelm
The soul with shuddering ecstacy ! Lo ! here
The night is, and the deeds that make night fear;
Wild winds and waters, and the sough of trees
Tossed in the tempest; wail of spirits banned,
Wandering, unhoused of clay, in the dim land;
The incantations of the Sisters Three,
Nameless of deed and name — the mystic chords
;, Nameless repetitions of the mystic words;
The mad, remorseful terrors of the Thane,
And bloody hands, which bloody must remain,
Last, the wild march; the battle, hand to hand
Of clashing arms, in awful harmony,
Sublimely grand, and terrible as grand!
The clan-cries; the barbaric trumpetry;
And the one fateful note, that, throughout all
Lead's, follows, calls, compels, and holds in thrall.
Ina Coolbrith.
From "Songs From the Golden Gate" ;
Boston and New York:
Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1895.
FEBRUARY 75
A TEMPLE OF CULTURE IN EARLY DAYS IN
SACRAMENTO
We are well acquainted with the legends of early Spanish
culture in the days of the padres, as extended to the native
Indian tribes, but no word is ever spoken of the civilizing
influences brought into California by the pastors of many
churches of a later era, to overcome the lawlessness of worse
than Indians, overrunning the land. When the Pioneer women
came across the plains or by sea to make homes for them-
selves whether from Europe or the eastern shores of the
United States, they brought with them their traditions. As
Stephen Mallory White says, "The only church we knew was
around our mother's knees". But with that church firmly
fixed, it was not long until the cross, the spire and the meeting-
house followed.
Of many of these centres of culture, taking root and ex-
panding everywhere in the hamlets, the towns and the cities,
there were few so catholic, so broad, so universal in its minis-
trations to the community at large as the one I remember in
Sacramento, presided over by the Rev. I. E. Dwinell from
1863 to 1883. Himself a Vermonter, he brought the finest and
the best in taste and manners from Boston to the west, and
for a period of twenty years established and carried on this
temple of culture which prevailed over crudeness and rawness
and sloth and ignorance.
No matter to what church one belonged, it was there that
social life crystallized into form and beauty. Not only did
the wives and families of the railroad kings and other aristo-
crats of that time occupy pews there, but there was a lyceum-
course provided that brought the finest and the best lecturers,
artists, scientists, singers, famous men and women from the
world's centres into our midst. I remember the temperance
orator, Gough, who told us that a maiden was like a camellia,
you could not even breathe upon it without leaving a mar, it
was so precious and so exquisite, and the same with a maiden
as with the flower. Came there Agassiz, the great, to tell us of
the marvels being discovered in the field of science. The
famous Ole Bull touched his magic violin and gave us an in-
sight to realms beyond. Mrs. Marriner and Walter Campbell
sang for us in the days of their youth. Governor Newton
Booth, the orator, told us of "Swedenborg". General W. H. L.
Barnes addressed us on the theme, "What shall we do with
our boys?" And presently from every lip came the irresistible
reply, "Marry them off to our girls, of course !"
76 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
Under the leadership of Charles Prodger, one of the most
charming of men, so brotherly and so paternal in his pro-
tective guardianship over the younger ones, were held the
most remarkable of social evenings I have ever known, and it
has been my good fortune to know the best in San Francisco,
Chicago, New York and London. The wit and humor, the
good taste and the elegance that prevailed there fitted one
for court-circles. Wonderful games were inaugurated, that
sharpened the wits, and brought all together in a brotherly and
sisterly way, as if in a family-group. What beautiful girls
and manly boys were there, growing up together in that place,
according to the traditions that made for the preserving of
future generations ! The half of the story can never be told,
yet today, the descendants of these are the ones who are hold-
ing our California together for the days that are still before
us. Here was created the leaven that hath leavened the lump
r social life down to the present hour.
Among those to be remembered as units in the congrega-
tion were Mrs. A. N. Towne with her little girl like a picture in
their place in the church; Mrs. Mark Hopkins and her two
nephews; Mrs. Charles Crocker with her daughter and sons
in their budding childhood; Mrs. Leland Stanford and her
sister, Miss Lathrop; John W. Pew and his handsome bride;
never to be forgotten for her grace of heart and exquisite
taste. Here also were the wives and children of the celebrated
James Anthony and Paul Morrill, editors of the "Sacramento
Union". It was an education to the young to grow up in the
midst of such scenes and such people.
The same type of man as was Longfellow was the dearly
beloved pastor of this flock. In the earlier days of his pastorate,
it is told "there were very few gray heads in his congrega-
tion. Both men and women were in the full vigor of prime
youth. It was an active, restless community, surging like the
sea, some coming and going and returning again, now to San
Francisco, then to a newly discovered mining-region, then to
a daring business venture. There were others passing through
the city as if borne on the current of the river, and lingering
for a little time, like a fruitful branch that would stay, held
back by the eddy, yet that would rush onward at length swept
away to the great ocean beyond. One of these transients, the
most celebrated of them all, was George Kennan who had
united with this church in the spring of 1865, just previous
to his departure for northeastern Siberia on his way to Russia."
Kennan's appreciation of the championship of the pastor
George Kennan was a writer for the Century and published books on Russia.
FEBRUARY 77
who drew so many fine spirits into that temple of culture is
thus expressed : "Many times while sitting by the lonely camp-
fire watching out the long hours of the Arctic night, on some
desolate steppe, I have thought of you andj of the friends in
Sacramento, and cherished the hope that I might in God's
time, see you all again."
In his farewell to his people, held together thus till 1883,
Mr. Dwinell referred to the close relationship that had existed
between them. His felicitous style is well shown in the fol-
lowing: "I have been with you also on memorable occasions
of domestic joy. If I should call together the persons I have
married during these twenty years, that I might preach to them
on the duties of married life, and they should: come, there would
be enough white-veiled brides, and kid-gloved grooms to fill
this church and have an overflow meeting that would nearly
fill the lecture-room besides, for there would be one thousand
and sixty persons present."
From "Life in California \ by the Gatherer.
Quotations made from "Memoir of Israel Edson Drvinell",
Henry E. JeWett; Oakland. Cal.
W. B. Hardy, publisher, 1892.
1776— MISSION DOLORES
Oft have we gazed in wonder
At the rude but stately pile
Of Dolores fast decaying
'Neath its somber rustic tile.
This quaint adobe structure
With its arched door and bell
If they alone could utter
What storied verse they'd tell.
Of the days when bold vaquero
Filled the air with shout and song
As through the fertile fields and pasture
They drove their herds along;
And of the days now far removed
Along Time's lengthened way
When the rustic natives heard its chime,
And hastened there to pray.
As we pass its sacred portal
A distant taper greets the eye,
Like a lonely star in heaven
When the sun has left the sky.
78 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
Dim light from small high windows
Shrouds in gloom the outlines where
Stood the rude constructed altar
Where were offered Mass and prayer.
But now, alas; no chime we hear,
No choir of voices sweet,
Whose music wafted heavenward,
In unison to meet.
And now around its crumbling form
The green-leaved ivy creeps,
While 'neath the shadow of its walls
In peace the Padre sleeps.
From "The Scoop"; San Francisco. Ceorge H ~ Barron -
THE NAMING OF THE GOLDEN GATE
The name given to the entrance of the bay of San Fran-
cisco was not suggested, as is sometimes assumed, by the
discovery of gold in California, although its bestowal occurred
nearly concurrently with that event.
So far as written records are concerned, they are silent on
the subject of naming the entrance, and it is probable that
no one took the trouble to apply a particular designation to
it, although the islands and points about the bay were promptly
supplied with names. De Ayala is credited with giving to what
we call Angel Island the name of Isla de los Angeles, but
he forgot to christen the opening which gave access to it
from the Pacific.
To John C. Fremont belongs the honor of conferring the
appellation Golden Gate, but curiously enough, in accordance
with the tendency which had not yet run its course, he called
it "Chyrsopolae". This designation appears on the map of
Oregon and California which accompanied the geographical
memoirs published by him in 1848.
These memoirs were written before the discovery of gold
at Sutter's mill, which was made in the same year, and in them
Fremont took pains to make clear why he had selected the
Greek title. Like all the discerning Pioneers, he was pro-
foundly impressed with the belief that the harbor would one
day bear a great commerce on its waters, and that it would
outrival Chrysoceros, the Golden Horn of Byzantium.
The Pioneers accepted the name, but promptly converted
it into English, and doubtless many of them who had no
acquaintance with the geographical memoir of Fremont imag-
ined that it was the steady stream of gold passing through the
portal which suggested the happy title.
From "San Francisco Chronicle'; June 7, 1914.
FEBRUARY 79
ABOUT THE GOLDEN ERA
"Oh, yes ! the Golden Era was a great paper, and if the
same policy had been continued, it would be a great paper
today," said its old editor and founder, J. Macdonough Foard,
when I interviewed him on the subject in 1885.
I wonder if the present generation can appreciate the
pathos of the old miners still living in the great past rather
than in the present. Not long ago the Examiner said in its
review column : ''The Golden Era has come to hand. While
it is rather crude, yet there is a delightful crispness and flavor
to it, unlike any other publication".
And this review, with almost singular fitness, might be
said of every issue in those good old times. For I saw that
ancient product once with my own eyes — a great pile of
rusty, dusty tomes, breathing of the "velvet bloom of time",
in a dark little room near the corner of Clay and Montgomery
streets. The story of "Literary California" began in the early
fifties with the publishing of the Golden Era bearing the
device, "Westward the star of empire takes its way".
While it was never wonderful or great, yet it is the mem-
ories stirred by every line and every advertisement, bringing
up vivid pictures of the past, that make it always hallowed
and fondly remembered. Here are many names heralded in the
very largest of type — names and names — but it is only those
who were unannounced andf unsung that have made any
impress whatever on the later years. The most interesting
things, indeed, are the mere fragments of these slowly evolving
writers of our own soil who found their viewpoint here in the
days of their youth.
Here is a scrap of art-criticism from Mark Twain, which
certainly is crisp enough to belong to him. The great picture
of "Samson and Delilah" (exhibited later, in 1884, in the
Mechanic's Institute) had just arrived from Europe and was
hanging in a well-known saloon. Says Mark, confidently, in his
role of art-critic : "Now what is the first thing you see in
looking at this picture down at the Bank Exchange? Is it the
gleaming eyes and fine face of Samson? or the muscular Philis-
tine gazing furtively at lovely Delilah? or is it the rich drapery,
or the truth to nature in that pretty foot? No, sir. The first
thing that catches the eyes is the scissors on the floor at her
feet. Them scissors is too modern — there warn't no scissors
like them in them days, by a darned sight" !
The Gatherer.
80 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
LOST TREASURE
The palpable sense of mystery in the desert air breeds
fables, chiefly of lost treasure. Somewhere within its stark
borders, if one believes report, is a hill strewn with nuggets;
one seamed with virgin silver; and old clayey water-bed where
Indians scooped up earth to make cooking pots and shaped
them reeking with grains of pure gold. Old miners drifting
about the desert edges, weathered into the semblance of the
tawny hills, will tell you tales like these convincingly. After
a little sojourn in that land you will believe them on their
own account. It is a question whether it is not better to be
bitten by the little horned snake of, the desert that goes side-
wise and strikes without coiling, than by the tradition of a
lost mine.
For all the toil the desert takes of a man it gives compen-
sations, deep breaths, deep sleep, and the communion of the
stars. It comes upon one with new force in the pauses of the
night that the Chaldeans were a desert bred people. It is hard
to escape the sense of mystery 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.
From "The Land of Little Rain* ; New York-'
Houghton, Mifflin and Co.
IN MEMORY OF VERDI
Here in California, we are a cosmopolitan people. Every
land has made a contribution to our citizenship and each is
proud of a particular ancestry. How proud are the Italians of
their Verdi ! They call us here today, and we gladly respond,
to pay our debt of gratitude to the greatest musical composer
of the century. There are tongues which we do not under-
stand, but music is the common language of the world,, and
when Verdi speaks to us, our emotions — sensitive to his art —
hearken to the voice of the master. We understand him ; we
answer to his passionate appeals; we rejoice in his triumph;
we bend to his reproof. He sings of the life of man in the
FEBRUARY 81
exalted cadences of the lyric muse, stirring to action the slum-
bering soul or faltering heart. His is the sublimation of
eloquence.
As the faculties of man are God-given, he who employs
them in their highest perfection must best be serving God.
The genius who creates is like unto divinity. The power which
can awaken love and fear, pity and remorse, by the varying
strains of his music, mysteriously persuasive, resembles the
voice of conscience and suggests the spirit which dominates
the universe. That is the pinnacle of human attainment. That
is the consummation of art. It is not the wealth of a Croesus
nor the despotic sway of a Caesar that excites our real wonder
or admiration, it is the triumph of thought; it is the assertion
of the mastery of the mind. It is not the mere pomp of power
or the luxury of wealth — it is the influence of the true and
the beautiful that betokens the progress of civilization. There
is no compulsion of tyrants in our appreciation of Verdi's art.
It is the allegiance of love.
Who was this Italian boy who lived to rank in his sphere
with the greatest of mankind? He was born eighty-six years
ago (February 24, 1801) in the Dutchy of Parmo, of poor
parents, who kept a village store. He enjoyed no adventitious
advantages, yet rose rapidly in a profession, in which he was
encouraged by musical friends, and again seriously discouraged
in his nineteenth year by his rejection at the Conservatory of
Milan. But perseverance kindled his native talents — in fact it
has been saidl that genius is nothing but hard work — untU he
was able to refuse the highest decoration proffered by his King.
He was singularly independent and sought only the approval
of the people; hence it is safe to say that his music will live
because it is the expression of human nature. He did not, like
others, endeavor to create a taste by which he would be
enjoyed.
He gave poetry to life and lifted it from sordid ways to
hopefulness and enthusiasm, and the people rose to their
leader. His first operas were introduced with difficulty, which
all beginners experience; but the Italian ear long trained in
musical composition and with inherited taste from old, accepted
Verdi as a master. When once known he was thereafter loved.
He is classed by the critics as the head of the Italian romantic
school. It is claimed for Rossini, his distinguished country-
man, that he was more of the classical, as his operas, with
which we are familiar, will testify— "The Barber of Seville"
and "William Tell". Another countryman and also a contem-
porary, perhaps influenced the more— Donizetti, whose "Lucia
82 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
di Lammermoor," "La Favorita" and "Don Pasquale" have
entertained us so often, even in this modest temple. (The
old Tivoli.)
****** ****
As Ford and Massinger and Beaumont and Fletcher pre-
ceded Shakespeare, so Rossini, Donizetti and Bellini heralded
the coming of Verdi, who was to surpass them all. It has
been alleged that Wagner also influenced Verdi's later work,
but eminent critics dispute this. Wagner is mainly dramatic.
* * * When one is mad and tempestuous in love, jealousy
or anger, he may go to Wagner and storm like the gods in
their wrath. Wagner wrote of an age half barbaric; Verdi of
cultivated and civilized life; but in Aida he showed his Wag-
nerian capacity for the treatment of strong and fearful natures
that characterize the untamed spirit of the old Egyptians.
What versatility! What capacity! Of Verdi's thirty operas
his Shakespearean "FalstarT" (which many assert is his great-
est composition) was written by him at the age of eighty-one.
The critics say that in form, harmonization and orchestration
it is his masterpiece.
The first period of his work is illustrated! by "Nubuco",
"I. Lombardi" and "Ernani" ; the second by "Rigoletto", "La
Traviata" and "II Trovatore", and the third and greatest pe-
riod, showing his full development, by the operas "Aida",
"Otello" and "FalstafT". Whatever may be the judgment of
mere critics, who after all compose but a small portion of an
audience, the melodies of "Rigoletto", "La Traviata" and "II
Trovatore" will, as now, reach the popular heart of succeed-
ing generations ; and from St. Petersburg to San Francisco
the music will be sung as long as love lasts. * * * And
after life is fled, the strains of the master, still true to human
nature, it is said, will linger somewhere between the angels
and the demons and will possess, even then, powers to mollify
the pangs of perdition. Does not Owen Meredith sing
Of all the operas that Verdi wrote
The best to my taste is "II Trovatore",
And Mario can soothe with a tenor note
The souls in Purgatory.
But death will not silence his voice. * * * After a re-
markable life, during which he raised high the standard of art,
created music which is chanted and applauded by the world,
patriotically championing his country's cause, and benevolently
giving his vast fortune for the care of the old musicians whose
inspired instruments had given voice and expression to the chil-
dren of his soul, he died at the age of fourscore years and six,
honored and beloved not alone by his countrymen, but by mil-
lions of men and women who were and are still the daily recip-
FEBRUARY 83
ients of his sublime messages, written in undying melody. That
is immortality on this earth — to live in one's creative works ;
and it is the state wherein mortals most resemble the gods.
Our Italian-American citizens of California perform a
worthy service by commemorating their great names. * * *
There is much in the mountains andj valleys, sky and sea of
beautiful Italy to inspire genius; and perhaps the physical
joy of life in that favored land had much to do with the glory
of her sons. In all physical respects California resembles Italy.
Our skies, our mountains, our valleys, are not less fair. May
we not hope to emulate in Art and Science the older land,
whose sons have done so much for the progress of the world
and whose unfading beauty has self-conferred an immortality
all its own.
James D. Phelan.
From an address given at the Tivoli Opera House, San Francisco, February 24,
1901 ; on the occasion of the "Verdi Memorial Exercises".
A STAR IN THE CHAOS
There are many men and women who feel hampered by the
shackles of conventional life ; these, many of them, got a new
inspiration in the free spaces of the new land (California) —
they had reached a ground where they could take a firmer hold
upon their dreams. This liberation of course had its dangers;
it liberated some to a new freedom, while it liberated others
to a new license. * * * "There was little law (as one of the
Pioneer men confessed in later years), but a large amount of
good order; there were no churches, but a great deal of re-
ligion ; no politics, but a large number of politicians. Crime
was rare, for punishment was certain. I think I never before
saw justice administered with so little loss of time and at
less expense." In long-established societies men and women
build up false standards, create false distinctions, form into
classes, into exclusive sets and coteries. * * *
But there was a touch of divine magic upon those early
mining days. The consciousness of brotherhood spread over
all the men of '49. Men were getting acquainted with one an-
other's cults and customs, and were finding out * * * that
all men are one. * * * All this was an enlarging experi-
ence to them, a spiritual revolution. Thus the old artificial lines
of cleavage among men were disappearing. * * * In the
dance, at the funeral, at the Fourth of July celebration, as well
as in the comradery of the gold gulches, men were uniting
according to the gravitations of character; artificial class lines,
church lines, race lines — all were passing away from the
84 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
thoughts of men. We find then that there was something
original in the way men met one another in that new theater
of struggle. A man was accepted on his face value. * * *
Nor did a man's comrades ever ask him about his creed or
station. They seemed to feel that a man's creed is only a
shell in which he thinks he lives; that he really lives in his
daily deed. Hence we see in this mining life something unique
and noble; there was no question as to past or pedigree. A
man was accepted for what he was at the moment; he was
measured by the way he did the day's work. This fine custom
was the basis for a widespread comradery; friendship was
almost universal. Here was a star in the chaos.
In a degree at least the men of that time touched upon a
great principle; they faced squarely the issue of throwing off
humbug and conventionality and to prefer the vital fact of
things. There was something fine in this phase of their life;
there was a hint in it of that divine world of prophecy of
which it is written, "Behold, I make all things new."
Edwin Markham.
From "California the Wonderful" ;
New York: Hearst, 1914.
MATCHLESS YO SEMITE
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.
From "Old Abe and Other Poems".
THE GREAT PANORAMA
In February the land is a mass of beauty and loveliness with the
bursting into bloom of the almond trees — a sheer delight to the eye
and inner senses. No one can remain insensible to the grace and
charm that come with this evanescent glory, covering all the dry places
from sight and breathing of unseen forces only half guessed. For the
Portuguese tell fairy tales of the almond time and say that new life
comes to those who linger around these bursting blooms, turning from
white to pink ere they pass away.
A. E.
MARCH 85
OUR FAIR SOUTHLAND
Behold this Southland, 'neath as perfect skies
As ever sun shines on, or stars arise :
Laughing in beauty, redolent with bloom.
In Winter fair as is a Summer's noon.
Luminous days are set
Colorful like the fire-opal, and yet
Filled full of balm is the Midwinter's heart —
Days in which storms have never any part.
The still noons
Golden with light, are full of happy dreams
Akin to summer's brightest; running streams
Syllable in music the dreams they hold
Of ripening harvest gleaming in the gold
Of yellow wheat and corn and orange spheres
And amber wines ; and, ever listening, hears
The passing hour, the swift advancing tread
Of Ceres coming, by Pomona led.
The hum of bees December bends to hear,
Poured in soft murmurs to the waiting ear;
In greenest meadows the sleek cattle feed
'Neath the lush grasses ; note they not nor heed
Midwinter's presence. No mad moods has he
Of storms or cold or elementary revelry;
Sandaled with blossoms, lo! he passes here,
Suncrowned and fruitful, monarch of the year.
From "California Where Sets the Sun" ; Eliza A. Otis.
Los Angeles, Cal.
A SONG OF SLAVIANKA
A thousand cattle feed upon the hills
Above the Russian's ancient redwood fort,
And busy craft go freighted from the hills
Where once the Kodiak Indian made his port.
The wooded canyons echo back the sound
Of rushing engines where the deer once sped,
And waving grain grows lush upon the ground
Where long the red men laid away their dead.
Along the ocean's line of dazzling hue
The smoke of commerce e'er is trailing low,
Where glides the Russian River's winding blue
To meet the glad Pacific's ebb and flow.
Honoria R. P. Tuomey.
86 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
TO MY PARENTS
In those dark periods of self-distrust,
When Inspiration, sleeping, seems away,
And Night refuses promise of the Day;
If then we toil, 'tis only that we must,
And because we know that All is just,
Or that the struggling Self is more than clay,
Ill-fitted and faint-hearted for the fray
Which offers, tho' we conquer, but Life's crust.
What then recalls the courage that we miss?
What holds our Faith alive andj gives us power
To trample thicket and to wing abyss?
'Tis that eternal, never wasting dower:
The trust of those who love us. It is this
That turns our empty time to fruitful hour.
Maurice V. Samuels.
From "The Florentines" ;
New York: Brentanos, 1904.
BETTER TO SPEAK A PLATITUDE
Better to speak a platitude
Than not express your gratitude.
Lorenzo Sosso.
From "Wisdom for the Wise".
HOW THE CLOUDS COME IN THROUGH THE
GOLDEN GATE
The air is chill and the hour grows late,
And the clouds come in through the Golden Gate,
Phantom fleets they seem to me,
From a shoreless and unsounded sea;
Their shadowy spars and misty sails,
Unshattered haye weathered a thousand gales —
Slow wheeling, lo, in squadrons gray,
They part and hasten across the Bay,
Each to its anchorage finding way.
Where the hills of Sausalito swell,
Many in gloom may shelter well;
And others — behold ! — unchallenged pass
By the silent guns of Alcatraz;
No greetings of thunder and flame exchange
The armed isle and the cruisers strange.
Their meteor flags, so widely flown,
Were blazoned in a world unknown ;
So, charmed from war, or wind, or tide,
Along the quiet wave they glide.
What bear these ships? What news? What freight
Do they bring- us through the Golden Gate?
Sad echoes to words in gladness spoken,
And withered hopes to the poor heart-broken.
, Oh, how many a venture we
Have rashly sent to the shoreless sea !
*******
The air is chill and the hour grows late,
And the clouds come in through the Golden Gate,
Freighted with sorrow, chilled with woe; —
88 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
But these shapes that cluster, dark and low,
Tomorrow shall be all aglow !
In the blaze of the coming morn these mists,
Whose weight my heart in vain resists,
Will brighten and shine and soar to Heaven
In thin white robes, like souls forgiven ;
For Heaven is kind, and everything,
As well as a winter, has a SPRING.
So praise to God ! who brings the day
That shines our regrets and fears away;
For the blessed morn I can watch and wait,
While the clouds come in through the Golden Gate.
Edward A. Pollock.
From "Poems" ;
Philadelphia: Lippincott, J 876.
THREE LITTLE GIRLS
A PROSE BIT RELATIVE TO THE DONNER PARTY.
When the June sunshine gladdened the Sacramento valley,
three little barefooted girls walked here and there among the
houses and tents of Sutter's fort. They were scantily clothed,
and one carried a thin blanket. At night they said their pray-
ers, lay down in whatever tent they happened to be, and fold-
ing the blanket about them, fell asleep in each other's arms.
When they were hungry they asked food of whomsoever they
met. If any one 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."
Charles Fayette McClashan.
From "The History of the Donner Party;
A Tragedy of the Sierras".
Today the same hills tower about the lake. The gaunt,
tall trees that broke the force of the icy blasts when the little
children of the Donner party sought to keep warm in the sun
while their elders fought to find a way out over yonder snow
barriers to California beyond, still stand.
What stories they could tell if they could but talk, those
trees ! They saw the brave men of the party go forth with
stout determination, and they saw them return with the light
gone out of their eyes and grim despair writ on their wan lips,
MARCH 89
that had smiled hope into the hearts of their dear ones when
they left. And they saw them go and return, and then go and
never return again. If they could talk, those tall, silent trees,
they might tell what became of those brave men. And if they
could talk they might relate to us the child prattle of those
brave men's little famished children as they sat awaiting fa-
thers' return with the food they were never to taste.
If they could talk, those tall, gaunt trees might tell us
where lies the bravest woman of all that party, who kissed her
two little babes good-bye and remained behind to perish of star-
vation with her injured husband, because she thought her duty
of wife called her to die with him, with whom she had lived
so happily in their happier days.
But those trees, bowed down with their weight of snow ;
those hills, blanketed deep with their load of winter white;
those crags, hoary and high, the ashen, cold sky above, the
snowflakes that have come each winter since that cruel win-
ter, tell no story that we can understand.
Only the zero wind, as it sobs over the wastes, seems to
bring the cries of little children. It is silent but for that, this
place where the Donner party perished. It is silent, this snow
waste at the elbow of Truckee, gay "Land of Winter Sports."
Editorial Department, San Francisco Examiner; W eigLe.
Lecturer in Journalism, University of California,
Extension Division.
THE UNVEILING OF THE DONNER LAKE
MONUMENT
We are gathered here today to commemorate an historical
incident in the early history of the Western land — an incident
replete with deeds of heroism, of suffering and of sacrifice.
But in a broader sense we are here to dedicate a monu-
ment to the courage, the valor and the unconquerable spirit of
California Pioneers, the men and women who braved the burn-
ing desert and the snowbound summits to help build on these
far Pacific slopes a free and enlightened commonwealth.
Westward the course of empire was taking its way and
those early Pioneers saw in this glorious Western land of sun-
shine the home of their dreams. As we look back over the
brief period that has elapsed since the Donner party set out
on their long pilgrimage, we cannot but marvel at the trans-
formation that has taken place.
What was then an almost unknown and an almost un-
peopled region is today a rich empire, studded with thriving
90 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
cities and towns; a land of limitless wealth; a commonwealth
second to none in refining influences of art and science and
culture; the home of three million loyal and devoted American
men and women.
As we contemplate the hardships endured and the sublime
courage displayed by that group of sturdy Pioneers, we realize
that we of this generation are face to face with a situation that
calls for the same spirit of resolute devotion to duty and the
same willingness to endure, if need be, the extreme of per-
sonal sacrifice.
At this moment the eyes of the world are focused upon the
conflict that is raging on Europe's battle-scarred fields, anx-
iously awaiting the issue that means so much to the peace
and safety of the whole world.
California's sons are there, doing their part heroically,
grandly. They are there to fight for the preservation of the
liberty of the whole world. And they are there to fight to win.
In conclusion, permit me on behalf of the State to ex-
press to the Native Sons and to the Native Daughters of the
Golden West, two organizations that are so loved and respected
in this great commonwealth, the gratitude and appreciation we
all feel for the splendid services being rendered by your organ-
izations in taking the leadership in this great work of preserv-
ing California's history. Through your foresight much already
has been done, and today's dedication adds another to your
already long list of public services. Donner lake now becomes
a landmark inseparably associated with the history and tra-
ditions of our glorious state.
William D. Stephens.
Governor of California;
From "Address on This Occasion",
June 6, 1918.
WHAT THE DONNER LAKE MONUMENT
STANDS FOR
WORDS BY A NATIVE DAUGHTER
Sculptor John McQuarrie, through this statue that tells
of the coming of the Pioneer, has exercised his ability to put
into permanency "thoughts that breathe."
The Pioneer Father, led hither by the lure of the West,
with its possibilities for stalwart manhood, unflinchingly faces
the future of his journey, the goal of which is to receive and
hold all that life for him claims as most dear. The Pioneer
Mother, his wife beside him, is as full of courage as he. In
MARCH 91
her tender helpfulness we can almost hear her whisper, "We
have 'tackled the dread' and thus far have overcome all obsta-
cles, than which none surely can be worse; the light is ahead;
together, side by side, heart with heart, we'll follow its gleam."
The little daughter, kneeling by her father, touching yet not
hindering him, is sufficiently appalled by the mystery and un-
certainty of it all as to show by her reverential attitude that
their father's God is their God and their trust is in Him. It
is truly a happy idea as well as a beautiful inspiration of the
artist to show the Christian faith of the parents through the
attitude of their little child. Yet the group were incomplete
but for that other one — the babe in his mother's arms ! The
baby boy to signify beyond what can be expressed in words,
the perpetuity of the manhood of the Pioneer.
Clara K. W ittenmyer .
Author of the Susan L. Mills
Memory Book, 1915.
THE MAIDEN OF TAMALPAIS
Long ago in the mythical ages
Y\ nen the daughters of Eve were fair,
A maiden came down from the valley
To the bay and the misty cool air.
She called to her lover, fruit-laden,
She flung wide her tresses so free,
And fleet-footed ran through the rushes
To the billowy, white-capped sea.
She joyed in the long waves rolling,
Laughed when they broke into snow,
Till the strong Tide-King embraced her,
Kissed her and bore her low.
Then Tremblor, the shaper of ridges,
Lifted her up from the deep,
And laid her to rest on the mountain.
Forever in beauty to sleep.
The maiden on Tamalpais lying,
Waits for the voice and the hand
Of the Faultless, the Chosen, the Kingly,
She loved in the barlev-white land.
92 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
By the Bay of St. Francis she's sleeping,
In the wind on the edge of the sky,
Where the redwoods stay her mantle
And the sunset glories lie.
Lillian H. S. Bailey.
From "San Francisco Call"; 1910.
The female profile outlined by the ridge of Mt. Tamalpais is a
remarkable natural curiosity which is best seen from the deck of a ferry-
boat on San Francisco Bay.
THE HYMN OF THE WIND
I am the Wind, whom none can ever conquer;
I am the Wind, whom none may ever bind.
The One who fashion'd ye,
He, too, has fashion'd me —
He gave to me dominion o'er the air.
Go where ye will, and ever shall ye find
Me singing, ever free,
Over land and over sea,
From the fire-belted Tropics to the Poles.
I am the Wind. I sing the glad Spring's coming;
I bid the leaves burst forth and greet the sun.
I lure the modest bloom
From out the soil-sweet gloom;
I bid the wild-bird leave the drowsy South.
My loves are violets. By my pure kisses won,
They spring from earth, and smile,
All-innocent, the while
I woo them in the aisles of pensive woods.
I am the Wind. From dew-pearl'd heights of wonder
I fall like music on the listening wheat.
My hands disturb its calm
Till, like a joyous psalm,
Its swaying benediction greets the sky.
I kiss the pines that brood where seldom falls
The solace of the light,
And the hush'd voice of Night
Soothes the awed mountains in their sombre dreams.
I am the Wind. I whip the roaring waters
Until their breasts are white with angry foam;
Until the mad waves strain
Like molten hills in pain,
And hurl themselves to death upon the shore.
The sea-birds scream, and gather to their home
When I fly before the Hand
That drives me to the land,
And with me, too, the oceans and the clouds.
MARCH 93
I am the Wind. I sing amid the silence
That shrouds the solemn Arctic in its night.
I drive the stinging snow,
The iceberg and the floe —
My breath can doom the white bear to its lair.
I chant the hymns when summer comes, and light
Awakens the frozen seas.,
The hills and sleeping trees,
And all the land looks fondly to the sun.
I am the Wind. I was ere ye awaken'd.
Before ye were, my cry had startled space.
From flaming star to star
I wander'd, and afar
I sang the songs of Promise and of Hope.
I was the first to see God's awful Face,
And nightly I intone
Such Hymns as He alone
May hear where He is brooding, over all.
I am the Wind. I sweep the breathless places
Wherein the stars through countless aeons roll.
I hear from many climes
Man's praise arise, like chimes,
And filter through the ether up to God.
Upon my wings each liberated soul
Whom Death accords new birth
Is borne aloft from earth
To higher worlds of which ye only dream.
I am the Wind. I see enorme creations
Starring the vault above ye, and below.
Where bide the Seraphim
In silent places dim
I pass, and tell your coming in the end.
Omniscient I, eternal; and I know
The gleaming destiny
That waits ye, being free,
When ye have pass'd the border-line of Death.
I am the wind — the Lord God's faithful servant;
'Twixt earth and sky I wander, and I know
His Sign is ever found
The blue-veil'd earth around,
As on the furthest spheres that whirl in space.
All things are His; and all things slowly go
Through manifold degrees
Of marvelous mysteries,
From life to highest life, from highest life to Him.
I am the Wind. I know that all is tending
To that bright end; and ye, through years of toil,
Shall reach at last the height
Where Freedom is, and Light;
And ye shall find new paths that still lead up.
94 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
Be free as I; be patient and have faith;
And when your scroll is writ
And God shall pass on it,
Ye need not fear to face Him — He is Love.
Howard V. Sutherland.
From "San Francisco News Letter";
February 15, 1913.
THE FATHER OF SAN FRANCISCO
In September, 1775, Lieutenant-Colonel Juan Bautista de
Anza began his second journey to California, bringing with
him the soldiers and settlers for the foundation of San Fran-
cisco. Since the retreat of the ten thousand Greeks under
Zenophon in the year 400 B. C, there has been no march to
equal this journey. Xenophon had an army of disciplined
troops, the best soldiers in Europe, and his line of march from
Cunaxa to the Euxine was about seven hundred miles.
Anza led an expedition of two hundred and forty souls,
of which one hundred and sixty were women and children.
He crossed deserts far more deadly than those traversed by
Xenophon, higher mountain ranges, and broader rivers. His
line of march from San Miguel Horessitos to Monterey was
three hundred and eighty-six leagues — one thousand and three
miles — and the time consumed in the journey was four months.
He had no doctor or other medical assistance, and while eight
children were born on the road, he saved them all, losing but
one mother in child-birth. The country traversed by him was
rilled with warring tribes and Indians, but wherever he went
he caused wars to cease and converted the tribesmen into
friends, not only with the Spaniards but also with each other.
From the Colorado river, Anza notified the viceroy that with
the Yumas as friends the passage of the river was safe but
that if the contrary were the case, it could not be crossed by
the Spaniards.
After reaching Monterey, Anza, leaving the expedition
in camp, proceeded: to the peninsula of San Francisco and
selected sites for the presidio and mission, and then returning
to Monterey, he turned the expedition over to his lieutenant
and prepared for his return journey to Sonora. As he mounted
his horse on the plaza the people of the expedition thronged
about him, dissolved in tears, and with embraces and wishes
for his happiness bade him farewell, "giving me praises," says
the simple soldier, "which I do not deserve". They wept, he
MARCH 95
says in his diary, not so much because they had left home and
friends to come to this far country, but because they should see
his face no more.
Anza's character may be read in the pages of his diary.
He was by nature, simple and kindly, responsive to the call
of duty, and true to the chivalrous traditions of heroic Spain.
It is not easy to estimate the value of the services of this
gallant soldier, and the monument erected in San Francisco
to the "Pioneers of California" is incomplete without his name.
Zoeth S. Eldredge.
From "The Beginnings of San Francisco" ; 19/2.
ROOM TO TURN AROUND IN
Room! Room to turn round in, to breathe, and be free
And to grow to be giant, to sail as at sea,
With the speed of the wind, on a steed with his mane
To the wind, without pathway, or route, or a rein!
Room! Room to be free where the white-bordered sea
Blows a kiss to a brother as boundless as he;
And to east and to west, to the north and the sun,
Blue skies and brown grasses are welded as one,
And the buffalo came like a cloud on the plain,
Pouring on like the tide of a storm-driven main,
And the lodge of the hunter to friend or to foe
Offers rest, and unquestioned you come or you go,
My plains of America! Seas of wild lands!
From a land in the seas in a raiment of foam,
That has reached to a stranger the Welcome of home,
I turn to you, lean to you, lift you my hands!
Joaquin Miller.
TO JOAN LONDON
ON HER SIXTEENTH BIRTHDAY.
Oh, maid, whose lips and eyes so lightly smiled
But yesterday, where has your girlhood flown?
What charm is this that falls upon the child,
And claims her lovely being for its own?
My memory sees the lost, my eyes the new;
Each is complete; I cannot choose the fairer,
But since for youth time gives a perfect due,
Why grieve when what I now behold is rarer?
96 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
And you, sweet maiden, do you sometimes sigh
At losing girlhood's glad and joyous mirth?
Cease yearning, for a greater charm mounts high,
Which like a flower sprung from the earth,
Now stands revealed, though far from understood—
A thing of truth and glory, womanhood.
Merle Robbins Lampson.
From Unpublished Poems by Author of
"On Reaching Sixteen and Other Verses. 1 *
Geyserville, California: 1916.
SING ME A RINGING ANTHEM
Sing me a ringing anthem
Of the deeds of the buried past,
When the Norsemen brave dared the treacherous wave
And laughed at the icy blast.
And fill me a brimming beaker
Of the rich Burgundian wine,
That the chill of years with its chain of tears
May unbind from this breast of mine.
For working and watching and waiting
Make the blood run sluggish and cold,
And I long for the fire and the fierce desire
That burned in the hearts of old.
I can dream of the fountains plashing,
In the soft, still summer's night,
And of smothered sighs and of woman's eyes,
And the ripe ruddy lips and bright.
But better the tempest's fury
With its thunders and howling wind,
And better to dare what the future may bear,
Than to muse on what lies behind.
Then chant me no tender love-song,
With its sweet and low refrain,
But sing of the men of the sword and the pen,
Whose deeds may be done again.
Daniel O'Connell.
From "Story of the Files' ;
San Francisco: 1893.
MARCH 97
THE COMMON SENSE OF CHILDHOOD
Children, if they have any sense at all, have usually a very
plain, unvarnished kind of common sense. We who are older
may indulge in imaginative flights and emotional orgies and
deceive ourselves and each other with half-truths, but to them
in their helplessness we owe the best we have acquired, and
we owe it to them unadulterated with speculation and uncol-
ored with fancy.
Margaret Collier Graham.
From "A Matter of Conscience," in "Do They
Really Respect Us? and Other Essays" ;
San Francisco: A. M. Robertson, 1912.
WORDS FROM A JEWISH RABBI
It is a matter of note not to be overlooked that religion
and culture commenced their struggle for control in San
Francisco and all throughout California with the first rush
of the gold-seekers ; which tends to prove that the gambling,
the drinking, the speculating, the rioting — in short the excesses
of a people that has ventured much, and therefore cares little
for the future, were but ephemeral, to become dissipated by
the forces of law and order which prevailed from that time on.
In 1849, the Mission Dolores was the old landmark of
the zeal and the devotion of the Roman Catholic missionaries.
Early in that year the Protestant denominations began to
erect their chapels, and simultaneously the Pioneers of the
ancient confraternity of Israel, as is their wont all over the
world, gave signs that they, too, had not left their religion
behind in the homes whence they had come.
Jacob Voorsanger.
WORDS OF A WRITER IN 1885
Let those who would benefit our youth remember that
"innocence is the virtue of childhood" ; and whoso would make
a war on adult sin, let him so conduct the campaign that this
citadel shall not be invaded. Xafc Waters.
"Franccsa" ; from "San Franciscan" ', August, 1885.
Ishi, the Indian, roamed through the woods, lived on berries, stole
an occasional calf, and had a prospect of happy years ahead. But he
didn't know what money was. He was captured, brought down to civ-
ilization, accumulated $369.90 — and died of tuberculosis. Dig out your
own moral.
98 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
THE PIONEER
Oh, staunch pathfinder! grizzled Pioneer!
Your brown, thick-furrowed face has known the heat
Of sun-scorched plain, and felt the stinging sleet
On mountain peaks. Yet ever of good cheer
You toiled, though lean, pale Hunger came so near
You heard the tread of his approaching feet;
Dark-browed Despair you sometimes downward beat
And stood above the prostrate form of Fear.
I count you as a soldier brave and true ;
A hero loved of heroes, whose strong hand
Upheld the flag of Progress to the skies ;
Who suffered patiently, and never knew
Defeat, and who within a wild weird land
Did strike the blow that bade a new world rise.
Herbert Bashford.
From "At the Shrine of Song" ;
San Francisco: Harr Wagner Pub. Co., 1909.
HOW THE SPRING COMES IN THE HIGH SIERRAS
Dead and cold the sweet world lay
Beneath her shroud of snow,
And my brother and I we mourned the day,
For O we loved her so.
We wandered forth 'neath the gloomy sky
Her sad death-wail to sing,
And my brother he cried with weeping eyes,
"God has forgot the Spring".
Brown and bare on the bank near by
Stood the willow-branches, dead,
And I wept to think of the Summer skies
And the glories, past and fled.
When lo! a marvel met mine eye
In all that frozen scene,
There in the willow-branches, dead and dry,
Were the bursting buds of green.
And O we laughed, my brother and I,
And straightway 'gan to sing;
We sang for joy 'neath the gloomy sky,
He'd not forgot the Spring.
MARCH 99
"Sweet world, awake, arise!
Put off thy shroud of snow,
And greet with joy this glad surprise,
Thou are but sleeping, this we know.
"Sweet world, awake, arise !
Beneath this awful gloom ;
The kiss of Spring is on thine eyes,
The willow is in bloom."
Ella Sterling Mighels.
From the "Cosmopolitan Magazine", March 1888.
NO FLAG BUT THE STARRY BANNER
Oh, land of Heaven-born freedom, "sweet land of liberty";
land of our birth or our adoption, mistress of our hearts and
queen of our affections, land rescued to independence by the
splendid aid of our Irish forefathers, land redeemed from disso-
lution by the sterling help of our Irish kinsmen; benevolent
empire, spreading out the domain of your free institutions by
the generous help of our brothers and sons; sacred land, hal-
lowed by the blood of the Irish race on your every field of
battle; land consecrated with the graves of our loved ones who
lived and died beneath your sheltering shield; land dear to us
by the benefactions you have flung at the feet of every Irish
exile who has come within your gates; land good to us and
ours and all, beyond the goodness of all the other nations of
the world to men since time began; land of our first fealty
and our best love, of our sworn allegiance and our undivided
loyalty; land of the free, beloved America — in this day of
difficulty, as in all your troubled days that have gone before,
the Irishmen and sons of Irishmen within your borders will
ask no questions but of your best interests, will shrink from
aught that might embarrass or embroil you, and will know no
flag but yours.
John J. Barrett.
From oration delivered in Festival Hall, Exposition;
St. Patrick's Day, March 17, 1915.
100 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
THE EXILE
I want to go, want to go, want to go West again,
Out where the men are the truest and best again,
Out where my life will have savor and zest again,
Lord, but I'm sick for it, sick for it all!
Sick to be back where my heart is unbound; again,
Somehow I'm lost and I want to be found again
Where I belong, on my natural ground again,
Out where the men and the mountains are tall.
I want to go, want to go, want to go West again,
Feel the brisk air in my throat and my chest again,
Wing myself back like a bird to the nest again,
Up where it's roomy and open and grand.
Up where the sunshine is golden and glorious,
Manners as bluff and bracing as Boreas,
Nobody distant — and no one censorious,
Comradeship sure of the deep Western brand.
I want to go, want to go, want to go West again,
Hear the old gang with its quip and its jest again,
Ride a good horse and be decently dressed again —
Corduroys, stetson and old flannel shirt.
Flowers and trees — I have suffered a blight of them,
Give me the peaks with the gray and the white of them,
Granite and snow — I am sick for the sight of them —
Blessed old memories — yet how they hurt.
I want to go, want to go, want to go West again,
Up near the top of the mountainous crest again —
Gulches and gorges and cliffs and the rest again,
Heaving themselves in their grandeur to view.
Let me just feel the old thrill in my breast again.
Know old cam'raderie mutely expressed again.
Gee, but I want to go, want to go West again,
Back to the mountains, old girl — and to you!
Berton Braky.
New York: George Doran Co., 1915.. By permission.
Note: This poem has a splendid swing to it; and a sentiment that
belongs to us here, though the writer of it is counted in because of his
spirit, rather than because he is a sojourner in our midst. — The Gatherer.
MARCH 101
A CYCLE
i.
Spring-time — is it spring-time?
Why, as I remember spring,
Almonds bloom and blackbirds sing;
Such a shower of tinted petals drifting to the clovery floor,
Such a multitudinous rapture raining from the sycamore;
And among the orchard trees —
Acres musical with bees —
Moans a wild dove, making silence seem more silent than
before.
Yes, that is the blackbird's note;
Almond petals are afloat;
But I had not heard or seen them, for my heart was far away.
Birds and bees and fragrant orchards — ah ! they cannot bring
the May:
For the human presence only
That has left my ways so lonely,
Ever can bring back the spring-time to my autumn of today.
II.
Autumn — is it autumn?
I remember autumn yields
Dusty roads and stubble-fields ;
Weary hills, no longer rippled o'er their wind-swept slopes with
grain ;
Trees all gray with dust that gathers ever thicker till the rain;
And where noisy waters drove
Downward from the heights above,
Only bare white channels wander stonily across the plain.
Yes, I see the hills are dry,
Stubble-fields about me lie.
What care I when in the channels of my life once more I see
Sweetest founts long sealed and sunken bursting upward glad
and free?
Hills may parch or laugh in greenness,
Sky be sadness or sereneness,
Thou my life, my best beloved, all spring-time comes with
thee.
Milicent Washburn Shinn.
From Edmund Russell's "Evenings fpith California Poets' ;
San Francisco, 1893.
102 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
HOW SAN FRANCISCO WAS NAMED
When Father Junipero Serra received his orders from the
Visitant-general respecting the names which he was to give to
the new missions in California, he observed that the name of
the founder of their order was not among them, and calling
the attention of his superior to the fact, exclaiming, "Is not
our Father San Francisco to have a mission?" to which the
Visitant-general replied, "If San Francisco desires a mission,
let him show you a port, and he shall have it." In the year
1769 an expedition was dispatched from San Diego for the pur-
pose of settling Monterey. The expedition missed the port,
but discovered a much larger and finer bay further to the
north, which had been till then unknown. The commander of
the expedition and his religious associates decided that this
discovery must be the work of St. Francis, and accordingly
they gave his name to the place, setting up a cross, and taking
possession after the usual manner.
Francisco Palou.
From Quotation used in <i Personal Narrative' of
John Russell BartletU United States
Boundary Commissioner, J 854.
BACCHANALE
On many slopes the vineyards grow,
All sturdy 'gainst the blustering
Of winds of March that madly blow
Where grapes will soon be clustering.
Red grapes and white — the red for wine
That warms the heart to cheeriness,
The white to sparkle when you dine,
A valiant foe to dreariness !
On far-flung hills, in twisted shapes,
The greening leaves are quivering
With thrill of life, and soon the grapes
Their souls will be delivering
In luscious drops of red and white
From press of laughing winery,
The white the moon's cool robe of night,
The red the sun's warm finery!
Waldemar Young.
From "S. F. Chronicle'; March, 1916.
MARCH 103
LET ME ARISE AND AWAY
Let me arise and away
To the land that guards the dying day,
Whose moonlight poured for years untold
Has drifted down in dust of gold ;
Whose morning splendors fallen in showers
Leaves ceaseless sunrise in the flowers.
"I sat last night on yonder ridge of rocks
To see the sun set over Tamalpais;
Whose tinted peaks suffused with rosy mist
Blended the colors of the sea and sky
And made the mountain one great amethyst,
Hanging against the sun.
I hold my hand up. so, before my face,
It blots ten miles of country and a town.
'Tis well God does not measure a man's worth
By the image in his neighbor's retina.
Edward Rowland Sill.
From "Story of the Files" ; San Francisco: 1893.
HAS CIVILIZATION BETTERED THE LOT OF THE
AVERAGE MAN
Let us see. In Alaska, along the banks of the Yukon
River, near its mouth, live the Innuit folk. They are a very
primitive people, manifesting but mere glimmering adumbra-
tions of that tremendous artifice, Civilization. Their capital
amounts possibly to S10 per head. They hunt and fish for
their food with bone-headed spears and arrows. They never
suffer from lack of shelter. Their clothes, largely made from
the skins of animals, are warm. They always have fuel for
their fires, likewise timber for their houses * * * They are
healthy and strong and happy. Their one problem is food.
They have their times of plenty and times of famine. In good
times they feast; in bad times they die of starvation. But
starvation, as a chronic condition, present with the large num-
ber of them, all the time, is a thing unknown. Further they
have no debts.
In the United Kingdom, on the rim of the Western Ocean,
live the English folk. They are a consummately civilized
people. Their capital amounts to at least SI 500 per head. They
104 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
gain their food, not by hunting and fishing, but by toil at
colossal artifices. For the most part they suffer from lack of
shelter. The greater number of them are vilely housed, do not
have fuel enough to keep them warm, and are insufficiently
clothed. A constant number never have any houses at all, and
sleep shelterless under the stars. Many are to be found winter
and summer, shivering on the streets in their rags. They have
good times and bad. In good times most of them manage to
get enough to eat, in bad times they die of starvation. They
are dying now, they were dying yesterday and last year, they
will die tomorrow and next year, of starvation ; for they, unlike
the Innuit, suffer from a chronic state of starvation.
There are 40,000,000 of the English folk, and 939 out of
every 1000 of them die in poverty, while a constant army of
8,000,000 struggles on the ragged edge of starvation. Further,
each babe that is born, is born in debt to the sum of $110.
This is because of an artifice called the National Debt.
In a fair comparison of the average Innuit and the average
Englishman, it will be seen that life is less rigorous for the
Innuit; that while the Innuit suffers only during bad times
from starvation, the Englishman suffers during good times as
well; that no Innuit lacks fuel, clothing or housing, while the
Englishman is in perpetual lack of these three essentials. In
this connection it is well to instance the judgment of a man
such as Huxley. From the knowledge gained as a medical
officer in the East End of London, and as a scientist pursuing
investigations among the most elemental savages, he concludes,
"Were the alternative presented to me I would deliberately
prefer the life of a savage to that of the people of Christian
London."
**********
There can be no mistake. Civilization has increased man's
producing power an hundred fold, and through mismanagement
the men of Civilization live worse than the beasts, and, have
less to eat and wear and protect them from the elements than
the savage Innuit in a frigid climate who lives today as he lived
in the stone age ten thousand years ago.
**********
"And there in the camp of famine,
In wind and cold and rain,
Christ, the great Lord of the Army,
Lies dead upon the plain."
From "People of the Abyss" ;
New York and London: McMillan Co., 1906.
Jack London.
GALAXY 5.— POETS AND PROSE WRITERS
Agnes Manning Herbert Bashford Richard Realf
Ella Sterling Mighels Emma Frances Dawson Lillian H. S. Bailey
Edwin Markham Madge Morris Wagner Virna Woods
Mary V. T. Lawrence Carrie Stevens Walter Lorenzo Sosso
105
1 ;
GALAXY 6.— EDITORS, ORATORS, AUTHORS OF BOOKS
Arthur McEwen
Chas. S, Aiken
Charles A. Murdock
Samuel M. Shortridge
Chas. F. Holder
Bailey Millard
Harr Wagner
Jerome A. Hart
Thomas E. Flynn
Paul Elder
Thomas Nunan
C. F. McGlashan
106
MARCH 107
THE YO SEMITE 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.
From "Songs of the Press* 1 .
CHARLES WARREN STODDARD
O Muse ! within thy Western hall,
To mellow chord and crystal string,
At many harps thy chosen sing —
His was the greatest soul of all.
He sang not as the leaping faun,
By voiceless rivers cool and clear,
Nor yet as chants the visioned^see
When darkness trembles with the dawn.
A milder music held his lyre —
A wistful strain, all human-sweet,
Between the ashes at our feet
And stars that pass in alien fire.
His skies were sombre, but he lit
His garden with a lamp of gold,
Where tropic laughters left untold
The sadness buried in his wit.
Lonely, he harbored to the last
A boyish spirit, large and droll —
Tardy of flesh and swift of soul,
He walked with angels of the Past.
With tears his laurels still are wet —
But now we smile, whose hearts have known
The fault that harmed himself alone —
The art that left a world in debt.
108 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
Of all he said, I best recall —
"He knows the sky who knows the sod,
And he who loves a flower loves God".
Sky, flower and sod, he loved them all.
From all he wrote (not for his day)
A sense of marvel drifts to me —
Of morning on a purple sea,
And fragrant islands far away.
George Sterling.
From "The House of Orchids and Other Poems";
San Francisco: A. M. Robertson, 1911.
THE LAW OF ANTAGONISM
The sun being but newly created and feeble in his power,
yet needed another force to counteract the solar attraction;
this was the attraction of gravitation, or the persistent will
force of the Deity. Without this law of antagonism the sun
would very soon rob our planet of its vitality, but this law of
attraction is so wisely adjusted that it restores what otherwise
would be dissipated by the sun's action ; or the earth would
become parched and unfit for the home of any kind of life.
• This law of antagonism is divine in its origin and includes
in its range all forms of existence, animate and inanimate; it
is the great law by which the onward progress of the world
is accomplished, from the lowest to the highest forms of life.
By it the balancings of nature are secured ; by it the mists are
lifted up; the clouds surrender their treasure, and the floods
are carried back to the sea ; the moaning winds, the muttering
thunder and the vivid lightning put to confusion the elements
of the atmosphere, purify the earth, and prophesy of man.
Man himself is subject to the same law. He swings from
one extremity of the arc to the other, till at last he settles down
at the point of progress and moves forward. The next genera-
tion moves in the same way, only in a longer arc, and finds a
higher resting point. One generation is sacrificed to another,
as forests feed on the rich soil of their predecessors. Men are
persecuted in one age and die martyrs, but the next age makes
heroes of them and builds monuments over their graves.
Scientific and philosophic and religious truths are perse-
cuted in one age and immortalized in another; laughed at and
driven out of the world, then ushered in with music and banners
and shouts of the multitude. The see-saw of civilizations, na-
tions and empires has been a forward movement over the graves
MARCH 109
of the buried past. The dead past is but the prelude of the on-
ward future; out of the ruins of the old come the institutions
of the new. Thus the majestic procession moves on to perfec-
tion. Matter and mind alike are under the general superintend-
ence of the All-Wise.
Robert Wilson Murphy.
From "A Key to the Sacred Vault";
San Francisco, 1890.
THE GREAT WHITE CITY
Shasta! my beautiful Shasta,
I have come back again — to you,
Ages ago it seems, I went,
To travel the wide world through.
You have not changed in splendor,
Great, White Mother of Pearl,
Manifold! I now behold
The wonders you unfurl.
The Indians of the long ago,
To whom you gave a Home,
Named you "The Great White City,"
And like the ancient Rome,
You had Seven Cities,
All built of marble white;
Great, white, beautiful cities,
That gleamed like gems in the night.
Your cities all perfect and peaceful,
Made you an ivory God,
You stood through the aeons, a sentinel,
Where only the Indians trod.
When one day the thundered rumble
And roaring, came from your heart,
And the flames of a great volcano
Destroyed your cities of art.
Buried them deep in the mountain,
Forever and anon,
The cremation left a symbol
For Tomorrows to dwell upon.
The Indians mourned their cities,
And prophesied the theft;
Home of the great white cities,
You were the monument left!
You, the prophecy of ages,
Lie white and gleaming there,
The Marbled Cities' symbol
Robed in immaculate care.
110 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
Shasta! my beautiful Shasta,
I turn again to you,
Of all the world's great landscapes,
You, the nearest perfect view.
June Goodrich.
Redding, Cal, December 30, 1915.
A BEAUTIFUL SIGHT
Below was a winding valley, dotted with isolated lofty-
pines, and bright with green grass. A blue stream rambled
about the vale and emptied into a muddy-looking lake at the
south. This was Honey Lake, and the stream was Susan's
river. Beyond, westward, was a vast wall, bristling with trees
and crowned with white peaks. It was the Snowy Range of
mountains. Beyond it was the promised land.
The boys gazed with delight on the emerald valley and
the sparkling river; but chiefly were they fascinated by the
majestic mountains beyond these. They were not near enough
to see the smaller features of the range. But their eyes at
last beheld the boundary that shut them out of the Land of
Gold. The pale green of the lower hills faded into a purple-
blue, which marked where the heavy growth of pines began.
Above this and broken with many a densely shadowed gulch
and ravine, rose the higher Sierra, bald and rocky in places,
and shading off into a tender blue where the tallest peaks,
laced with snow, were sharply cut against the sky.
Before the young emigrants were water, rest and pastur-
age. But beyond were the mysterious fastnesses in which men,
while they gazed, were unlocking the golden secrets of the
earth. Up there, in those vague blue shadows, where the
mountain-torrents have their birth, miners were rending the
soil, breaking the rocks, and searching for hidden treasure.
The boys pressed on.
Noah Brooks.
From "The Boy Emigrants'.
THE GREAT PANORAMA
In March there is a riot of blossoms of the peach, the
cherry and the apricot trees, everywhere. One becomes used
to it by that time. And the little elf-queen of Growing Things
is working so hard to get the fruitage started just right she
comes forth from her hiding into plain sight and says, at the
solstice time, "See, the meadow lark is here, and bees and but-
terflies! Mortals, all rejoice — the lovely Spring is here."
MARCH 111
BROAD ACRES MAKE UP COUNTRIES
Broad acres make up countries but a State is made by men,
And if this land grow justly grand, be ye remembered then.
Remember, as each plenteous year its ripe reward outpours,
You by your father's glory shine — your sons must shine by
yours.
If civil strifes in future rise, your hand must guide the helm,
Your wisdom and integrity stand fast when storms o'erwhelm,
And may God grant to us and ours, in all the years to be
Our State still holds her ocean-throne in peerless majesty.
Han)) ]. W. Dam.
From "The Last Crusade" ;
"Golden Era Magazine" 1885.
CHIVALRY AND CULTURE IN EARLY CALIFORNIA
EXTRACT FROM A LETTER WRITTEN IN 1851.
As for this country being backward like all other new
countries, it is a mistake. It is as far (if not farther) advanced
in literature, science, and the arts as any state in the Union.
There is more talent in the cities and in the mines of California
than in any of the older states. This may seem a broad asser-
tion, but it is nevertheless true.
We have many weddings here, even though the outside
world considers that we are semi-barbarous. I have married
two couples, myself, since I became alcalde. The fact of it
is this : Nothing in this country is the same as it is in the
states. Everything is changed — man's nature even ! I am no
more the same person. It cannot be expressed in words — no
power of language can portray or convey a correct idea of the
state of life in California.
There are no laws, but very few crimes are committed.
Gambling and intemperance reign supreme but there is little
drunkenness or dishonesty. And the great cause of these
anomalies is mostly FEAR. If a man does wrong we hang
him at once. If one trespasses upon the rights of another, he
shoots him and that ends it. So that everyone counts well
the cost before he engages in anything doubtful.
As I have sat under a tree on a Sabbath, listening to the
preacher I have wished for the genius of a painter to transfer
to canvass the scene that presented itself. The minister is
praying, near at hand sounds the auctioneer crying, "Going,
going, gone !" Then comes from the gambling-tables "Twenty-
five on the king'' ; then the woodsman's ax is heard, next the
112 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
"Whoa, gee up there, go 'long" from the driver of an ox-team.
And amid all this din of medley, sound voices of heterogeneous
beings in conglomerated variety of pursuits and chaotic antag-
onisms. How strange that there should be anything like order,
and yet everything moves harmoniously !
Sterling B. F. Clark.
Extract from letter owned bp The Gatherer.
THE CASTLE OF STORM
I bless the storm that keeps you here to-day,
The furious beating of the wind and rain,
The pelting streams against the window-pane;
I bless the flood that swept the bridge away,
The lashing of the gale, the trees a-sway;
The wind-torn blossoms, opened out in vain ;
What e'er the ruin, I can call it gain
Because, storm-bound, a little while you stay.
Since you are here there seems no cold or gloom ;
The day is perfect in my gladdened heart;
How bright the hearth-flame in the little room !
The wet, wind-baffled songsters have no call ;
But here with you, the wide world set apart,
Love loosens sunshine, and I claim it all.
Lillian H. S. Bailey.
CALIFORNIA
Sown is the golden grain, planted the vines;
Fall swift, O loving rain, lift prayers, O pines;
O green land, O gold land, fair land by the sea,
The trust of thy children reposes in thee.
Lillian H. S. Bailey.
From "Golden Era' ; 1885.
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 ! O skies, serene and blue,
That shut the velvet pastures in, that fold the mountain's
crest !
.sweet, sweet, sweet! What of the clouds ye knew?
The vessels ride a golden tide, upon a sea at rest.
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 Coolbrith.
From "Songs from the Golden Gate" ;
New York: Houghton & Mifflin, 1895.
114 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
SAN FRANCISCO
(From his home "The Heights" on the hills across the bay the poet saw the
burning of San Francisco following the earthquake of April 18th)
Such darkness, as when Jesus died !
Then sudden dawn drave all before.
Two wee brown tomtits, terrified,
Flashed through my open cottage door;
Then instant out and off again
And left a stillness like to pain —
Such stillness, darkness, sudden dawn
I never knew or looked upon !
This ardent, Occidental dawn
Dashed San Francisco's streets with
gold,
Just gold and gold to walk upon,
As he of Patmos sang of old.
And still, so still, her streets, her steeps,
As when some great soul silent weeps;
And, oh, that gold, that gold that lay
Beyond, above the tarn, brown bay !
And then a bolt, a jolt, a chill,
And Mother Earth seemed as afraid ;
Then instant all again was still,
Save that my cattle from the shade
Where they had sought firm, rooted clay,
Came forth loud lowing, glad and gay,
Knee-deep in grasses to rejoice
That all was well, with trumpet voice.
Not so yon city — darkness, dust,
Then martial men in swift array !
Then smoke, then flames, then great
guns thrust
To heaven, as if pots of clay —
Cathedral, temple, palace, tower —
An hundred wars in one wild hour !
And still the smoke, the flame, the guns,
The piteous wail of little ones !
The mad flame climbed the costly steep,
But man, defiant, climbed the flame.
What battles where the torn clouds keep !
What deeds of glory in God's name !
What sons of giants — giants, yea —
Or beardless lad or veteran gray.
Not Marathon nor Waterloo
Knew men so daring, dauntless, true.
Three days, three nights, three fearful
days
Of death, of flame, of dynamite,
Of God's house thrown a thousand ways ;
Blown east by day, blow west by
night —
By night? There was no night. Nay,
nay,
The ghoulish flame lit nights that lay
Crouched down between this first, last
day.
I say those nights were burned away !
And jealousies were burned away,
And burned were city rivalries,
Till all, white crescenting_ the bay,
Were one harmonious hive of bees.
Behold the bravest battle won !
The City Beautiful begun:
One solid San Francisco, one,
The fairest sight beneath the sun.
From "Sunset" ; June-July, 1906.
Joaquin Miller.
APRIL 115
SUMMARY OF THE SITUATION
The calamity seems overwhelming and yet the people are
not overwhelmed. Everything has been destroyed except that
indomitable American pluck, that unconquerable American
spirit which will not be subdued. The past is already forgot-
ten, the future is in everyone's mind. The question is not
how shall San Francisco be restored, but how shall it be
made greater than it was, greater than it ever could have been,
except for this fire. * * * In a month there will be the
beginning of a new and splendid city; in a year it will have
assumed shape and in from three to five years it will be built
and busy, an example of American progress and prosperity.
If you stand upon one of the hills of San Francisco and
look only at the ruined city at your feet, you might be dis-
couraged at the prospect; but if you look out upon the glorious
bay and see ships from every port in the world floating upon
its satin surface, if you look across the bay and see the long
lines of railroads from the North and the South and the East
centering there, if you look beyond over the great valleys
teeming with grain and fruits, flowing with milk and honey;
if you look further still to the mighty mountains rich in gold
and precious ores, you know that the re-building of a greater
San Francisco is as well assured as that the sun now sinking
beyond the Golden Gate will rise tomorrow above the snow-
capped peaks of the Sierras.
William Randolph Hearst.
From "Sunday Examiner";
May 13, 1906.
THE CITY HALL STATUE
Am I to fall and crumble into dust,
My fragments trampled under foot, unknown? —
I, who have stood for years in pride and trust
Of power, regnant, on my erie throne?
Through days uncounted I have watched, serene,
The puerile human throng pass, far below ;
Silent, in mock importance I have seen
The rulers of our city come and go.
The honest and the criminal have dwelt
And wrought their destinies beneath my feet;
Have legislated wisely and have smelt
Like hungry curs, the Tempter's carrion meat.
116 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
Here stood I, calm, undaunted, while the Earth
Shook, in its palsy, like a withered hand.
Here I have watched the city's sure rebirth
From nature's fury and the fire's brand.
Ah, gruesome jest of Fate ! that I have foiled
God's mighty elements, to end my span
Of life — a vandal's prey — to be despoiled
Of being by the hand of puny Man !
Louis J. Stellman.
From "The Vanished Ruin Era' ; San Francisco: 1906.
A SONG OF SPRING— SAN FRANCISCO, 1908
The ordinary poet sings
Of very ordinary things —
Of primroses and daffodils, the stereotype of spring
Such rhapsodists as these belong
To the common or garden kind of song —
I string my lyre to higher strain — a city's blossoming!
The modest muse is satisfied
With violets blue and daisies pied,
With pallid flags that hide among the grasses delicate,
But to my ear such measures lag;
I hail the wild, exultant flag
That laughs above the towering steel and marks its ultimate.
The little "shooting-star" that shines
Among the tangled, grounded vines
May serve to stir the season's frenzy in a milder man;
The fire is kindled in my eye
To watch the rosy meteors fly
When red-hot rivets are flung forth and caught within a can!
A gentler laureate may dream
Of gossip with a babbling stream
(It's easy in a city flat to write that kind of drool!)
For me, no pebbled brook can teach
So musically sweet a speech
As that reiterative ring of the pneumatic tool.
APRIL 117
Chirp on, ye bards of commerce, let
Your music stir the old spring fret;
I sing a bigger blossom-time than you have gurgled of ;
From mighty roots of concrete deep
The giant flowers spring from sleep
Along the barren highways in the city of my love !
Charles K. Field.
THE PROMISE OF THE SOWING
By now it was almost day. The east glowed opalescent.
All about him Annixter saw the land inundated with light.
But there was a change. Overnight something had occurred.
In his perturbation the change seemed to him, at first, elusive,
almost fanciful, unreal. But now as the light spread, he looked
again at the gigantic scroll of ranch lands unrolled before him
from edge to edge of the horizon. The change was not fanci-
ful. The change was real. The earth was no longer bare.
The land was no longer barren — no longer empty, no longer
brown. All at once Annixter shouted aloud.
There it was, the Wheat, the Wheat! The little seed
long planted, germinating in the deep, dark furrows of the soil,
straining, swelling, suddenly in one night had burst upward to
the light. The wheat had come up. It was there before him,
around him, everywhere, illimitable, immeasurable. The
winter brownness of the ground was overlaid with a little
shimmer of green. The promise of the sowing was being
fulfilled. The earth, the loyal mother, who never failed, who
never disappointed, was keeping her faith again. Once more
the strength of nations was renewed. Once more the force of
the world was revivified. Once more the Titan, benignant,
calm, stirred and woke, and the morning abruptly blazed into
glory upon the spectacle of a man whose heart leaped exuber-
ant with the love of a woman, and an exulting earth gleaming
transcendant with the radiant magnificence of an inviolable
pledge.
Frank Norris.
From "The Octopus".
118 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
THE AVITOR
A PROPHETIC POEM PUBLISHED IN 1875
Hurrah for the wings that never tire —
For the nerves that never quail;
For the heart that beats in a bosom of fire —
For the lungs whose cast-iron lobes respire
Where the eagle's breath would fail.
As the genii bore Aladdin away,
In search of his palace fair,
On his magical wings to the land of Cathay,
So here I will spread out my pinions today
On the cloud-borne billows of air.
Up! up! to its home on the mountain crag,
Where the condor builds its nest,
I mount far fleeter than the hunted stag,
I float far higher than Switzer flag —
Hurrah for the lightning's guest!
Away, over steeple and cross and tower —
Away over river and sea;
I spurn at my feet the tempests that lower,
Like minions base of a vanquished power,
And mutter their thunders at me.
Diablo frowns, as above him I pass,
Still loftier heights to attain;
Calaveras' groves are but blades of orass —
Lo Yo Semite's sentinel peaks a mass
Of ant-hills dotting a plain !
Sierra Nevada's shroud of snow,
And Utah's desert of sand,
Shall never again turn backward the flow
Of that human tide which may come and go
To the vales of the sunset land!
Wherever the coy earth veils her face
With tresses of forest hair;
Where polar pallors her blushes efface
Or tropical blooms lend her beauty and grace —
I can flutter my plumage there!
APRIL 119
Where the Amazon rolls through a mystical land —
Where Chiapas buried her dead —
Where Central Australia deserts expand —
Where Africa seethes in Saharas of sand —
. Even there shall my pinions spread.
No longer shall earth with her secrets beguile,
For I, with undazzled eyes,
Will trace to their sources the Niger and Nile,
And stand without dread on the boreal isle,
The Colon of the skies.
Then hurrah for the wings that never tire —
For the sinews that never quail ;
For the heart that throbs in a bosom of fire —
For the lungs whose cast-iron lobes respire
Where the eagle's breath would fail.
William Henry Rhodes.
Published in 1875.
From "Collection of Caxton" ;
Copyrighted by Mrs. Susan Rhodes.
SAN FRANCISCO
Heedless of what portentious years may hold,
I, the Pacific's darling, the delight
Of hurricane and sea-fog, of the bright
Broad orb of Hope, have heard sad stories told
Of ancient kingdoms of the days of old,
Cities of stone with symbols strange bedight,
O'er which the pitiless, destroying Night
Has poured her darkness and destruction roll'd.
That past concerns not me. Today I stare,
Splendid and consequential at the flare
Of ominous stars. I know what must be, must.
Beneath the wind-whipt Banner of the Bear
The laughter of my children wakes the air —
I fear not Time, nor its o'erpowering dust !
Howard V . Sutherland.
From ,l San Francisco News Letter**.
120 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
YO SEMITE
Waiting tonight for the moon to rise
O'er the cliffs that narrow Yo Semite's
skies ;
Waiting for darkness to melt away
In the silver light of a midnight day ;
Waiting like one in a waking dream,
I stand alone by the rushing stream.
Alone in a temple vast and grand,
With spire and turret on every hand ;
A world's cathedral with walls sublime,
Chiseled and carved by the hand of time ;
And over all heaven's crowning dome,
Whence gleam the beacon lights of home.
The spectral shadows dissolve and now
The moonlight halos El Capitan's brow,
And the lesser stars grow pale and dim
Along the sheer-cut mountain rim;
And, touched with magic, the gray walls
stand
Like phantom mountains on either hand.
Yet I know they are real, for I see the
spray
Of Yo Semite all in the moonlight play,
Swaying and trembling, a radiant glow,
From the sky above to the vale below ;
Like the ladder of old, to Jacob given,
A line of light from earth to heaven.
And there comes to my soul a vision
dear,
As of shining spirits hovering near;
And I feel the sweet and wondering
power
Of a presence that fills the midnight
hour;
And I know that Bethel is everywhere,
For prayer is the foot of the angel's
stair.
A light divine, a holy rest,
Floods all the valley and fills my breast ;
The very mountains are hushed in sleep
From Eagle Point to Sentinel Keep ;
And a life-long lesson is taught me
tonight,
When shrouded in shadow, to wait for
the light.
Waiting at dawn for the morn to break,
By the crystal waters of Mirror Lake;
Waiting to see the mountains gray
Clearly defined in the light of day,
Reflected and throned in glory here.
A lakelet that seems but the valley's tear.
i
Waiting — but look ! the South Dome
bright
Is floating now in the sea of light ;
And Cloud's Rest glistening with caps of
snow,
Inverted stands in the vale below,
With tow'ring peaks and cliffs on high
Hanging to meet another sky.
O crystal gem in setting rare !
O soul-like mirror in middle air!
O forest heart of eternal love,
Earth-born, but pure as heaven above!
This Sabbath morn we find in thee
The poet's dream of purity.
APRIL 121
The hours pass by ; I am waiting now
On Glacier Point's o'erhanging brow ;
Waiting to see the picture pass,
Like the fleeting show of a wizard glass ;
Waiting — and still the vision seems
Woven of light and colored with dreams.
But the cloud-capped towers and pillars
gray
Securely stand in the light of day ;
The temple wall is firm and sure,
The worshippers pass, but it will endure,
And will, while loud Yo Semite calls
O grand and majestic organ choir,
With deep-toned voices that never tire !
O anthem written in notes that glow
On the rainbow bars of Po-ho-no !
O sweet Te Deum forever sung,
With spray like incense heavenward
swung.
Thy music my soul with rapture thrills,
And there comes to my lips "thy templed
hills,
Thy rocks and rills" — a nation's song.
From valley to mountain borne aloud;
My country's temple, built for thee !
Crowned with the Cap of Liberty.
O country reaching from shore to shore ;
O fairest land the wide world o'er ;
Columbia dear, whose mountains^ rise
From fertile valleys to sunny skies,
Stand firm and sure and bold and free,
As thy granite-walled Yo Semite.
From "Story of the Files'*; San Francisco: 1893.
Wallace Bruce.
TWO EXTRACTS FROM A NOVEL
Let men preach if they will, the strong ties of human
love, the sacred links of friendship, the holy sanctity of the
marriage-tie ; I will show you a bond more powerful than all
these, more enduring than human affection, more indissoluble
than priestly rite, more tenacious than friendship ; and it is the
humiliating fellowship of crime. There is only one tie on earth
that is stronger, and that is the bond of suffering and loss.
A DESCRIPTION OF PROFESSOR DAVIDSON OF THE
ACADEMY OF SCIENCES.
Although past fifty, the Professor was a singularly hand-
some man, with a superbly modeled head, fine dark eyes and
a face lined with thought. His head was crowned with waving
iron-gray hair, confined with a skull-cap of black velvet, and
when he threw back his head with indescribable dignity, he
looked as if he had stepped from an old portrait, painted in a
122 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
day when all men were brave in action, pure in mind and
heroic in purpose. Age which was stealing upon him would
never dim the fire of his eye, or add aught but power and
beauty to his noble countenance.
Flora Haines Loughead.
From the novel "The Man Who Was Guilty",
which ran as a serial in the "San Franciscan ", 1886.
A BACHELOR'S BUTTON
Dear Heart, that time when we were once engaged
And every thought our happiness presaged,
You made a promise that I ne'er forgot —
Perhaps, alas ! because you kept it not.
You said in accents of a silvery note :
"I'll sew that button, honey, on your coat".
Dear Heart, when we were disengaged, that day,
You said you'd be my sister, any way.
And so I thought perhaps that button yet
My coat at your beloved hands would get.
But years went by, and ever I must note,
No button yet upon my fading coat.
Dear Heart, I'm growing old; my coat, alack!
Has long departed on a beggar's back.
I'll follow soon, and creep beneath the mould
With single-hearted yearnings all untold:
And then perhaps, your promised word to save,
You'll sow a bachelor's button on my grave.
P. V. M.
From "Out of a Silver Flute"; N. Y., 1896.
THE GREAT PANORAMA
In April, still there are blossoms of the late apple-trees
coming into bloom, the fruit is beginning to hint of itself in
tiny shapes, and strawberries are ripening for the table, early
in season, the green leaves make the world a place of beauty
and grace to behold.
A. E.
APRIL 123
A RIDE IN THE NIGHT
How Diana found herself in the saddle and galloping
through the darkness beside the bandit, she could not exactly
tell. The bandit by her side rode on in silence. On and on
they rode through the desert for what seemed hours. How
her companion knew the road if there was a road, she could
not understand. At last ahead of them the stars began to
grow pale, the sky luminous. The moon was rising. On the
horizon ahead she could see a black line of saw-like moun-
tains, outlining against the cold glimmer of the moon. * * *
The desert began to change; the monotonous plain was broken
by ravines. The mountains were coming nearer; in the cold
air of the desert night they had stood out sharp and colorless
under the chilly light like the dead peaks of the lunar world;
now there was a faint suggestion of color about them — not yet
warm and flaming reds and yellows but cold dull tints of
amethyst and amber. The dawn was coming. As they passed
a clump of greasewood, two or three animals seemed to start
out of the shadows — long afterward Diana remembered this
group, sharply photographed on her brain — mules, burros,
figures of men. Even this bivouac brought no word from her
silent escort — there was no sound save the "pad-pad" of their
horses' hoofs, the creak of saddle-leather and the jingle of bit-
chains and spurs. * * * When they were within easy dis-
tance of the town, Basquez signaled to his band to draw rein,
and turning to her, said, "Vaya usted con Dios, senorita!"
And after him like a litany, the band repeated in deep
voiced unison, "Vaya usted con Dios!"
Diana waved her hand to the little group of outlaws and
turned the head of her wearied mustang toward the town. Not
the least curious thing in this strange night was the farewell
of the bandits as she left them, "May God go with you !"
Jerome A. Hart.
Extract from "A Vigilante Girl" ;
A. C. McClurg: 1910;
Published by A. L. Burt Company.
124 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
FIRST MEETING OF PIUTES AND WHITES
I was born somewhere near 1844, but am not sure of the
precise time. I was a very small child when the first white
people came into our country. They came like a lion, yes, a
roaring lion andi have continued so ever since, and I have
not forgotten their first coming. My people were scattered at
that time over nearly all the territory now known as Nevada.
My grandfather was chief of the entire nation, and was
camped near Humboldt Lake, with a small portion of his
tribe, when a party traveling eastward from California was
seen coming. When the news was brought to my grand-
father, he asked what they looked like. When told that they
had hair on their faces and were white, he jumped up and
clasped his hands together, and cried aloud: "My white
brothers — my long-looked for white brothers have come at
last." He immediately gathered some of his leading men, and
went to the place where the party had gone into camp. Arriv-
ing near them, he was commanded to halt in a manner that
was readily understood without an interpreter. Grandpa at
once made signs of frendship by casting down his robe and
throwing up his arms to show them he had no weapons; but
in vain — they kept him at a distance. He knew not what to
do. He had expected to have so much pleasure in welcoming
his white brothers to the best in the land, that after looking
at them sorrowfully for a little while, he came away quite
unhappy. But he would not give them up so easily. He took
some of his most trustworthy men and followed them day after
day, camping near them at night and traveling in sight of
them by day, hoping in this way to gain their confidence. But
he was disappointed, poor, dear old soul!
I can imagine his feeling for I have drank deeply from
the same cup. When I think of my past life and the bitter
trials I have endured, I can scarcely believe I live, and yet I
do; and with the help of Him who notes the sparrow's fall, I
mean to fight for my down-trodden race while life lasts.
* * * ^he third year more emigrants came, and that sum-
mer, Captain Fremont, who is now General Fremont.
My grandfather met him and they were soon friends. They
met just where the railroad crosses the Truckee River, now
called Wadsworth, Nevada. Captain Fremont gave my grand-
father the name of Captain Truckee, and he also called the
river after him. Truckee is an Indian word; it means "all
right" or "very well".
APRIL 125
A party of 12 of my people went to California with Captain
Fremont, and helped him to fight the Mexicans. When my
grandfather came back he told the people what a beautiful
country California was.
Sarah Winrtemucca Hopkins
From "Life Among the Piutes; Their Wrongs and Claims" ;
Edited by Mrs. Horace Mann;
New York: G. P. Putnam s Sons, 1883.
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.
From "Frank Leslie's Magazine"; 1887.
CALIFORNIA
Queen of the Coast, she sits there emerald crowned,
Waiting her ships that sail in from the sea.
Brighter than all the western world, to me,
Seems this young goddess whom the years have found.
Ocean and sand, fraught with their treasures sweet,
Vie as they bring their burdens 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 full promise of her destinies;
Winds kiss her cheek, while fret the restless tides,
She in their truth, with trust divine confides ;
Watching the course of Empire's brilliant star,
She looks with patient eyes, across the Bar.
Anna Morrison Reed.
From Edmund Russell s "Evenings with California Poets";
San Francisco: 1893.
126 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
CALIFORNIA MEADOW LARKS
What joy, O lark, wells in your liquid trill,
What hopes that silver cadence scarce conceals
From us, and to your dreaming mate reveals !
Harsh was your querulous note, or mute until
Summer's long drought fled at the south wind's will;
Then through the pauses of the rain appeals
Your warble clear, while soft the new grass steals
O'er field and upland to each waiting hill.
Now, though such rapture thrills your song, though sweet
Those haunting falls of melody we hear
In your low, restless flight (still hovering near
That hidden nest your love, and Spring to greet)
Yet, lark, within your strain some nameless, fleet
And subtle grief compels a sudden tear!
Ella M. Sexton.
AN EASTER SONG
Sing, merry birds! ring, joyous bells!
And while the gleeful music swells,
Your censers swing, O lilies white !
And o'er green floors of grassy dells
Dance, Easter beams of golden light!
Harriet M. Skidmore.
From "Chaplet of Verse by Calif ornia Catholic Writers" ;
San Francisco: 1889.
HOPKINS INSTITUTE
High on a hill her towers rose
What time she housed the soul of art ;
From threshold unto pinnacle
Supreme her glory, proud her heart.
Then fate, portentous, struck her down
In rage for some unknown offense —
A mausoleum on the height,
The tomb of her magnificence.
Ina L. Cool^.
APRIL 127
WORD PAINTING REGARDING BUBB'S CREEK
From the discovered trail we descended through a little
canyon to the level of Bubb's creek, and before the day died,
we were camped upon its banks — and what a glorious place it
was ! No pen can describe it for no mind could put its glories
into language worthy of the theme. We awoke from our
dreams at dawn — and such a dawn ! * * * Over our heads
streamed great pinions of light, long shafts that shot their
glory into the clouds, crowning the heights beyond us in the
West, framing the headlands on whose stony brows, from
Creation's dawn, eternal snows had held their life against all
the battles of the sun. Here were fleecy clouds, great conti-
nents of white, loosely floated into the blue, changing each
moment like a drilling regiment on parade, and as they shifted
back took on new shapes and piled higher and higher into
the heavens. Thus the day opened, disclosing the faces and
ridges and near glories of the most wonderful groups of
scenery in the heart of the High Sierras.
* * * In the foreground a wild, rock-walled valley,
rested the eyes which grew dim at times with the endless
vision of the mightier pageant in the heavens above. Down
through these sunless woods leaped and dashed the great
creek, almost a river in its volume of waters. Just a mile
away were three perpendicular cliffs. Out over the skylined
rim of these, three great waterfalls, not less than twenty-five
feet in height, sprang into the air and swayed like long ribbons
into the valley below. The distance was so great, that, as
these falls swayed in the breeze like delicate laces, they lost
the solidity of their first outleap and dissolved into mists.
Now and then the breeze swayed toward us and we caught
the faint splash of waters, evanescent voices full of poetic
suggestion. * * * The night fell upon us with a thrall of
stars, the great white moon and the glory of the moonlight
mountains. * * *
It has been written that it is not a good thing for man
to be alone. This philosophy is relative only, for it is in the
loneliness only of an inert life that leaves its mark upon the
mind. The story of John Muir's life in the Sierra's where he
grew from mediocrity to greatness, the experiences of Audubon
who wandered for years in the depths of the Eastern woods,
refute the statement. They sought for and found the beauty
of the world in the pathless depths of Nature, and grew in
strength both mental and moral, upon the majesty of the great
spaces wherein the mountains are set as monuments.
Is there any land or latitude such as California holds,
128 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
where multitudes and variety — things delicate and stupendous
— appalling and alluring, winsome and awful — are tangled to-
gether almost within the same horizon? The vast sweep of
the sky above us and the far-off sky-lines are not the least
of the great things that made up the wonderful scene that
was before us by the rushing waters of Bubb's Creek.
Samuel D. Woods.
From "Lights and Shadows of Life on the Pacific Coast;"
New York: 1910.
PRESENTIMENT OF LOSS
I wander out in the great night, alone,
One of a mighty company of things
Of giant size. Now silent whisperings
Tell me I am a brother, newly thrown
Into companionship with all the skies,
The hills and rivers, and the towering trees,
And all the stars. My heart, despite all these,
Feels a great void ; its spirit cannot rise.
O'erhead and far there gleam the stars, clothed deep
In mystery ; and the night is oddly strange ;
The river's weird enchantings never change.
On shipless, soundless oceans am I tossed ;
My soul's foreboding fears that o'er me sweep
Are uttered in one gasp of moaning, "Lost!!'
Why wail your death? — for if you did not die
You never could have lived, since birth and death
Must come with life. We would not miss your life :
Why mourn your death? And what will tears avail,
Save platitudes of sympathy from those
Who see the outward manifest of grief?
Is there not something more in grief than show?
What good is done when we exhibit pain?
The friend I lost in you cannot be found
In many men who walk the earth; and I,
In hallowed thought of you will weep no tears,
But in deep silence will I ruminate
Upon your life, study and venerate
Your deeds of grace, which you can do no more.
Merle Robbins Lampson.
From "The Giant Loss", A Sonnet Sequence in
Memoriam of Harry K. Cummings, by Author of
"On Reaching Sixteen and Other Verses";
Ceyserville, California, 1916.
APRIL 129
"MORT SUR CHAMP D'HONNEUR"
Oh, think not that there's glory won
But on the field, of bloody strife,
Where flashing blade and crushing gun
Cut loose the silver chords of life.
Carve deep his name in brass or stone,
Who for his home and country bled,
Who lies uncoffined and unknown,
Upon the field of honor dead.
But carve there too, the names of those
Who fought the fight of faith aud truth,
Bending beneath life's wintry snows,
Or battling in the pride of youth.
Whoe'er have kindled one bright ray
In hearts whence hope and joy had fled,
Have not lived vainly: such as they
Are on the field of honor, dead.
And those who sink on desert sand,
Or calmly rest 'neath ocean wave,
Dropping the cross from weary hand,
Telling no more its power to save :
The true, the pure, the brave, the good,
Falling at duty's post still shed
A radiant light o'er plain and flood —
Though on the field of honor dead.
Thus may we live, thus may we die,
In earnest, valiant, faithful fight;
True to man's loftiest destiny —
True to our God, ourselves, and right.
Thus when we sleep, as sleep we must,
In ocean's cell or earth's dark prison,
Be this memorial o'er our dust,
Though dead he is not here, but risen.
Bartholomew Dorvling.
WALKER OF NICARAGUA
To have looked at William Walker, one could scarcely
have credited him to be the originator and prime mover of so
desperate an enterprise as the invasion of the state of Sonora.
His appearance was that of anything else than a military
chieftain. Below the medium height, and very slim, I should
130 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
hardly imagine him to weigh over a hundred pounds. His hair
light and towy, while his almost white eyebrows and lashes
concealed a seemingly pupiless, gray, cold eye, and his face
was a mass of yellow freckles, the whole expression very
heavy. His dress was scarcely less remarkable than his
person. His head was surmounted by a huge white fur hat,
whose long nap waved with the breeze, which, together
with a very ill-made short-waisted blue coat, with gilt buttons,
and a pair of grey, strapless pantaloons, made up the ensemble
of as unprepossessing-looking a person as one would meet
in a day's walk. I will leave you to imagine the figure he cut
in Guaymas with the thermometer at 100, when every one
else was arrayed in white. Indeed half the dread which the
Mexicans had of filibusters vanished when they saw this their
Grand Sachem — such an insignificant-looking specimen. But
any one who estimated Mr. Walker by his personal appearance,
made a great mistake. Extremely taciturn, he would sit for
an hour in company without opening his lips ; but once inter-
ested, he arrested your attention with the first word he uttered,
and as he proceeded, you felt convinced that he was no ordinary
person.
T. Robinson Warren.
From "Dust and Foam, or Three Oceans and Tn>o Continents" ;
New York: Scribner, 1858.
ANECDOTE OF THE DISASTER OF 1906
Many were the experiences of the period during the fire
and earthquake upheaval of San Francisco in April, 1906, to
be told later and handed down to posterity. Among these is
one of a purely domestic nature which has survived as follows:
Six months had passed and some Eastern ladies were dining
with a San Francisco couple, when the subject arose, the
guests expressing their sympathy and saying it must have been
a terrible thing to have passed through.
The hostess glanced at her husband and replied with
equanimity: "Oh, I don't know! so far as I was concerned
I rather enjoyed the earthquake-and-fire, for it is the only
thing which has happened for thirty-five years for which my
husband has not held me responsible".
From "Grizzly Bear Magazine".
APRIL 131
SANCTUARY
One of the most wonderful revolutions — of twofold benefi-
cence — is going on in our national parks at this moment, in the
making of them into wild-life sanctuaries.
It is remarkable in that it is doing as much for man as for
the wild creatures that are protected from him.
Perhaps, indeed, it is doing even more for him ; for it is
teaching him not only that it is possible to live in amity with
the wild animals — heretofore presumably formidable, savage
and antagonistic — but with his own kind as well.
The confidence that wild animal protection engenders is
mutual.
Even the unaccustomed city folk that grow quite panicky
at thought of a bear at large in the woods find their composure
returning when they observe the bear accepting their presence
indifferently, even cheerfully.
Folks fresh from Market street, seeing a bear rise dripping
out of the crystal waters of the Merced and come galloping
along a regular park road to meet them (to greet them how?)
are apt to feel their hair standing on end and turning in its
sockets; but when he observes the rules of the road, politely,
they recover themselves sufficiently to exclaim :
"Well! Did you ever? Isn't he the cute thing!"
And the possibility of a new relation to life — larger,
friendlier, more tolerant, more interdependent, of a juster mutu-
ality, dawns upon them.
Wild creatures are shy and retire before the advance of
man; but when they find him unaggressive they come out and
are willing to keep the truce with him, and to make such
advances as seem discreet.
The notion that wild beasts are lurking in ambush to
pounce upon and rend you soon gives way to the shamefaced
consciousness that man is the aggressor and inciter of an-
tagonism.
One of the loveliest sights I have ever seen was of a doe
shoulder deep in the seeded grass and wild flowers of a moun-
tain meadow up near Glacier point, with the afternoon sun
slanting long upon her. A doe is essentially a gentle and
appealing creature in her exquisite defenselessness, and posed
thus, with soft eyes unalarmed, watching our auto glide into
view and out again, she made such a beautiful picture of peace
and plenty, security and contentment as would move any heart
to gladness that human coming and going should be accepted
so calmly.
132 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
The wild creatures are willing enough to let us share the
earth with them if we will but let them share it with us
unmolested.
And this disposition on their part that we are coming to
recognize in the wild-life sanctuaries afforded by our national
parks suggests that even human beings might live amicably
together in this world if we could adjust our minds to respect-
ing each others' rights.
Helen Dare.
From "The San Francisco Chronicle", 1916.
RESURGAM
Ye days of April came so sweet —
/ seemed to hear the flowers' feet
Come running upward 'neath the sod-
Yearning to lift their heads to Cod!
Ye days of April.
From "Story of the Files of California'
San Francisco: 1893.
David Lesser Lezinsk$>
HER POPPIES FLING A CLOTH OF GOLD
Her poppies fling a cloth of gold
O'er California hills —
Fit emblems of the wealth untold
That hill and dale and plain unfold,
Her name the whole world fills.
Eliza D. Keith.
SONG OF AN ABSENT SON
Within my heart a song shall be
Made of thy name's sweet melody,
For all my heartstrings sound to thee!
California !
When careless gods, in their disdain,
Surged me in seas of bitter pain,
Leaving on love's bright hours a stain,
Then did I learn life's meanings, where
Thy brown hills rise, sublime and fair,
Thou who canst overcome despair!
California !
Thou knowest — all to thee I gave,
When love, lamenting could not save,
And in thy peace there is a grave,
California !
Some day, when days are weariest,
I, in thy bosom shall be blessed
With mine own heritage of rest,
California !
From thy swift-slipping golden years
I grasped the joy that age outwears —
Time's gift of memories and tears ;
Thus shall I say farewell to thee,
Thou who hast known mine ecstacy
When all the glad young years of me
Were thine, California!
134 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
Though I am far from thee, alone,
I was, I am, thy Native Son!
Take thou this song of love, my own
California !
See, in my cup, long drained of wine,
I pledge in smiles and tears ; thou'rt mine !
When I am dust let me be thine,
California !
Gabriel Furlong Butler.
From "Grizzly Bear Magazine" ; 1910.
VALE
De mortuis nil nisi bonum." When
For me the end has come and I am dead,
And the little, voluble, chattering daws of men
Peck at me curiously, let it then be said
By some one brave enough to tell the truth :
Here lies a great soul killed by cruel wrong.
Down all the balmy days of his fresh youth
To his bleak, desolate noon, with sword and song,
And speech that rushed up hotly from the heart,
He wrought for liberty, till his own wound
(He had been stabbed), concealed by painful art
Through wasting years, mastered him and he swooned,
And sank there where you see him lying now
With the word "Failure" written on his brow.
But say that he succeeded. If he missed
World's honors, and world's plaudits, and the wage
Of the world's deft lacqueys, still his lips were kissed
Daily by those high angels who assuage
The thirstings of the poets — for he was
Born unto singing — and a burthen lay
Mightily on him, and he moaned because
He could not rightly utter in the day
What God taught in the night. Sometimes, natheless,
Power fell upon him, and bright tongues of flame,
And blessings reached him from poor souls in stress;
And benedictions from black pits of shame,
And little children's love, and old men's prayers,
And a Great Hand that led him unawares.
MAY 135
So he died rich. And if his eyes were blurred
With thick films — silence ! he is in his grave.
Greatly he suffered ; greatly, too, he erred ;
Yet broke his heart in trying to be brave.
Nor did he wait till Freedom had become
The popular shibboleth of courtiers' lips;
But smote for her when God himself seemed dumb
And all his arching skies were in eclipse.
He was a-weary, but he fought his fight,
And stood for simple manhood; and was joyed
To see the august broadening of the light
And new earths heaving heavenward from the void.
He loved his fellows, and their love was sweet —
Plant daisies at his head and at his feet.
Richard Realf.
From "The Story of the Files' ;
Published first in "The Argonaut"; October, 1878.
DANIEL O'CONNELL
IN MEMORIAM
The wreath we bring and lay with loyal hand
Upon the stone which crowns the spot where thou
So oft hast wandered in the past to stand
Where we, who honor thee, are gathered now ;
This wreath will fade ere scarce a day hath fled,
But 'round thy brow are bound the living leaves
That seat the Singer with the Deathless Dead —
The few whose laurels Fame not often weaves.
Thy lips are mute; but each melodious strain
Thy fancy conjured from the vibrant chords,
Lives in our love, there ever to remain
Among the dearest treasures Memory hoards.
Louis Alexander Robertson.
Lines spoken while placing a wreath upon the Memorial Seat erected to
Daniel O'Connell in Sausalito.
From "From Crypt and Choir" ;
San Francisco: A. M. Robertson, 1904.
136 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
THE FAREWELL
A SUBJECT FOR A PAINTING
It so happened that there was a day in May in 1885, when
a remarkable outpouring of the people of San Francisco from
their homes, came forth to honor a man of distinction, who
was turning has face away from the setting sun, and returning
to the home of his childhood in old Spain. This was Arch-
bishop Alemany who had been sent to California in 1850, a
stranger in a strange land, yet who had come to gather the
scattered flocks together and make them one people. After
his thirty-five years of service, he was now seventy-two years
of age, and had long planned to return to that land whence he
had come. On this day, the 27th of May, he was leaving
California, and the outpouring of the people during the cere-
monies preceding and upon that date, makes that incident
historical in our annals.
The first ceremony began with a concourse of fifty-five
clergymen. Then followed one of the laity, composed of
many prominent men and women well known in our earlier
years of San Francisco, among whom were the Tobins, the
Barrons, the Donohues, the Fairs, the Burnetts, the Phelans,
the Barroillets, the Casserlys, the Carrigans, and a hundred
others of equal distinction in circles of wealth and social life.
Next followed a farewell to the St. Joseph's Benevolent Society,
which had been founded by the Archbishop in 1860, for the
benefit of the widows and orphans, the sick and needy, and
which had expended the sum of $135,000, for these purposes.
This also was an overflow meeting, composed of members and
their families.
A touch of the Orient was revealed in the next ceremony
connected with the departure of the Archbishop ; it was the
gathering of Catholic Chinese in the hallways, leading to the
parlors of St. Mary's Cathedral, and composed of Chinamen
representing nearly every province of the Flowery Kingdom.
Among these was the wife of an interpreter whose four
children had been baptized a few weeks before. So pleased
had been the Archbishop with the success of his Chinese
mission that he had purchased them a lot, and had set apart
enough to build them a chapel for themselves. They had stood
there in the hallway waiting for over an hour for his appearance.
On the Sunday of the departure, many were the memories
recalled. From early morn he officiated at the services in the
Cathedral of St. Mary, and hundreds came and went. Later
on, the aged Archbishop, weakened by his continuous service
MAY 137
on that last clay, rose and walked to the centre of the altar,
and began a confirmation-address to several hundred children
who gathered about the altar to be received into the church.
The girls in white with wreaths of flowers upon their heads,
and boys in black suits, knelt before the altar as the Arch-
bishop spoke to them and confirmed them. He was deeply
moved by the scene. His voice quivered with emotion and
tears filled his eyes. After a few words to the boys and girls,
he then sought to express his thoughts on the immortality
of the soul.
At 2 o'clock, the vestibule and hall were filled with people,
and a crowd surged to the sidewalk to catch a last glimpse
of the departing Archbishop. As soon as they saw him, all
knelt, men, women and children. The women sobbed. He
advanced to the carriage which was waiting for him, blessed
the kneeling company and spoke consoling words to them.
One poor woman clung to him and said, "Won't you pray for
my poor girl?" And he replied, "Yes, God bless you."
Eighty people took the three o'clock boat and crossed
the bay. On the Oakland mole these scenes were repeated.
At the Oakland station, there was a scene perhaps never before
witnessed in the country. As the train stopped, a crowd of
three hundred or more gathered about the last car, which was
the one occupied by the Archbishop and the party escorting
him. As he stepped on the platform, a hundred hands were
stretched out to his.
The stop at the station was but for a moment, and slowly
the people saw the train moving away. Simultaneously they
fell on their knees, more than three hundred of them, some
on the track, some on the rails, others on the walk. Reverently
the men removed their hats. The tide was rippling in and
dashing against the rocks on the beach. The sun was glisten-
ing on the water, making a shining path of light across the
bay. The train drew away from the kneeling people, and the
Archbishop removing his hat, blessed them with his out-
stretched hand. As he stood in this reverential attitude, the
wind blew his gray locks, and tears came into his eyes. The
train gathered speed and soon was whirling along the shore,
and out of sight of the heavy-hearted people who were rising,
with the sunlight and the Archbishop's blessing on their
heads.
At Port Costa he took final leave of those men who had
been laboring with him all those many years. With one
accord, the clergy and the laity knelt in the aisle and received
the final blessing. As the old man passed through the car
138 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
to a Pullman at the head of the train he was received with
respect by every one. As the sections of the train ran on to
the ferry-boat, he stood on the platform and waved a farewell
to his friends, who bade him Godspeed with full hearts. At
Sacramento, a few hours later, a delegation boarded the
special car, and another ceremony followed, after which the
departing Archbishop came out on the platform to give his
blessing to many who were there to behold him for the last
time.
From the record of this day, given in the weekly press,
are here chosen a few words gathered as a message to be
remembered by those who come after, for all those of that
wonderful day belong now to the past. "When first I came
to San Francisco, it took me a whole day to cross the bay
in an open boat."
"The education of the young, of the dear, innocent, beauti-
ful little children is one of our greatest cares. Our mission
might be envied by the angels. We train up the hearts of
them to love and know God and serve Him. We teach them
truths which are to endure for all time, and to make their
souls, if faithful to that teaching, shine as the stars in
heaven."
"When first I came here how few children there were!
Now wherever I go, I see armies of children. A few years
ago in Sonoma and the northern districts, there were none to
be seen, but now there are very many. All these dear little
children will be lost to the world and to eternity, if you do not
devise means by which they may be reclaimed from a life of
idleness."
"I cannot speak of my life here without my emotions
overcoming me. I came here with diffidence and weak in
heart, but the kindness with which I was greeted, the hearty
co-operation which was tendered me, strengthened me in. my
purpose and made me forget my lack of power."
"I do not think I was born to be a Bishop, and I told
Pius IX so, but nevertheless they made me a Bishop."
"I am not exactly the second founder of the Church in
California, though you may call me so, but I have zealously
labored to discharge my duties. Nor can I say I have done
them well. My heart and my sympathies for you all, and this
beautiful land were immediately upon my arrival in 1850,
enlisted in your behalf. When I shall have left, and the
breadth of many a league of land and ocean divides us from
GALAXY 7.— POETS AND PROSE-WRITERS
Emelie T. Y. Parkhurst Yda Addis
Ednah Aiken "Betsy B," Mary T. Austin
Geraldine Bonner Alice Denison Wiley
Mary L. Hoffman Craig Fannie Avery
Frona Eunice Colburn
Anna Morrison Reed
Eliza D. Keith
Louise H. Webb
139
GALAXY 8.— EDITORS AND PUBLISHERS
William Bausman
Hugh Hume
Joseph Wasson
S. B. Carleton
Henry Clay Watson
Lauren S. Crane
Harry Bigelow
Samuel Seabough
Charles Henry Phelps
J. O'Hara Cosgrave Henry Rust Mighels William P. Harrison
140
MAY 141
each other, many will be the moments when the tears shall
spring to my eyes at the thought that perhaps never again shall
I be permitted to see you. I leave to you my heart and my
affection."
Taken from "San Francisco Monitor, May, 1885;
Edited and condensed from seven columns in the
above by The Gatherer.
THE MISSION SWALLOWS AT CARMEL
When the mating-time of the lark is near
And down in the meadow the blackbirds swing,
They come with the music and youth of the year,
Sure as the blossoms tryst with spring.
When willow and alder don their leaves,
Up from the cloudy south they fare,
To flit all day by the Mission eaves
And build their nests in the shadow there.
O'er field and meadow, a restless throng,
They dart and swoop till the west is red,
Swift of wing and chary of song,
That the eggs be hatched and the nestlings fed.
Serra sleeps within sound of the sea,
And the flock he fathered is long since still.
Over their graves the wild brown bee
Prowls, and the quail call over the hill.
Serra is dust for a hundred years,
Dust are the ladies and lords of Spain —
Safe from sorrow and change and tears,
Where the grass is clean with the springtide rain.
Meekly they slumber, side by side,
Cross and sword to the furrow cast,
Done forever with love and pride,
And sleep, as ever, the best at last.
But over the walls that the padres laid,
The circling swallows come and go,
Still by the seasons undismayed,
Or the storms above or the dead below.
Ceorge Sterling.
From "Beyond the Breakers and Other Poems" ;
San Francisco: A. M. Robertson, 1914.
142 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
FOR THESE UNKNOWN
IN MEMORY OF THE UNKNOWN SOLDIER DEAD.
Sleep where they may, above them Memory lingers,
A tender light within her shadowed eyes,
And in the wind's low touch lovingly fingers
Each fallen leaf that on the grave mound lies.
And what if fame pass by in clarioned splendor,
Or triumph all unheeding, lead her train?
For those unknown, there wakes a chord more tender
Than ever echoed in the victor's paean ;
For over them, full mindful of their glory,
Low hidden in a field of graves unnamed,
The soft winds weave for me the splendid story
Of heroes whom the heavens have acclaimed:
No laurel wreaths lie on their breasts, no flowers
Make gardens of the gloom and hush of death;
But in the night's deep spirit-haunted hours,
Their deeds are chanted on the heaven's breath.
And when the night has passed and all translucent
With kindling light glows Orient's architrave,
The kind leaves fall, by Memory's soft hands loosened,
A trembling tribute on each unknown grave.
Charles Phillips.
WHY?
Why is it that the groansome loads of Fate
Are thrust, not on the shoulders, broad and strong,
Of beings swart and big who daily throng
The ways of Life, but on the Souls that late
Have staggered, spent and tired, from burdens great,
And now deserve the laurel which their long
And patient suff'ring earned? It seems all wrong!
Why cannot Fate attack its size and mate?
Great God! — perhaps it does; perhaps the weak
Refined and pure, are ablest, after all
To bear the thorns and briers that abound
In Heaven's path ; and when they — aching, meek —
Complete the task, some obstacle must fall,
And Souls of Men advance another round.
P. V. M. (Inspired by Ina Coolbrith.)
From "Out of a Silver Flute" ;
New York: 1896.
MAY 143
TO MY FATHER'S MEMORY
They will not blame me if my poet repeat
A thousand times his phrases like a child :
For like a child, to all that he can meet,
He talks of love that's vigilant and wild.
To Petrarch, life was but a mirror fair,
Wherein his lady's beauties tranced lay,
Her eyes, her lips, her voice, her smile, her hair
Made the strange spectrum of his lonely day.
For me, I con these bright monotonous things
That, when my angel meets me on the strand
And stuns me in the rushing of his wings,
I may say something he can understand.
Agnes Tobin.
From dedication to "Madonna Laura" ;
London: William Heinemann, 1906.
RICHARD WHITE
IN MEMORIAM
He walked so softly that he never trod
In hurt of anything that breathed the air,
And in his bosom felt the pulse of God
That pointed him to ways divinely fair.
Edward Robeson Taylor.
April 21, 1918.
THE VOICE OF THE WATER IN THE MOUNTAINS
NIGHT IN THE YO SEMITE.
I have lain all night a-listening
To the voice of the water in the mountains,
Where in the white moonlight glistening
Are assembled the mighty fountains.
Blued with the mists of twilight,
The guardian walls grew dimmer;
Outlined alone by the sky-light
Where the stars begin to glimmer.
144 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
Softly the night-breeze is creeping
In and out through the pines,
But ever the waters are sweeping
Forth from their high confines.
The beast to his lair is driven,
The bird in her nest is dreaming,
But ever the eyes of Heaven
See the rushing waters' gleaming.
Over the verge of the chasm
The moon's pale orb appears,
But her peace calms not the spasm —
The throes of the waters fierce.
Loud now is their voice as thunder,
With volley and thud and rumble,
Now a mountain seems rent asunder,
Now a crash, then a distant grumble.
Then faint grow the stars more distant.
A light in the Orient creepeth,
Up rise the great domes, all resistant,
And Dawn, but the water ne'er sleepeth.
I have lain all night a-listening
To the voice of the water in the mountains,
To its tale, from the world's first christening,
To the time there shall be no more fountains.
Charles Elmer Jenney.
From "California Nights' Entertainment" ;
Edinburgh: Valentine & Anderson.
EMPEROR NORTON I
Monarch by choice of the Golden West,
Usurper by right of his own behest,
What though his reign was a world-wide jest-
This wise old Emperor Norton —
There never was monarch so kindly as he,
So lordly in rags, democratic and free,
With never a battle on land or sea —
Our good old Emperor Norton.
MAY 145
His soldierly dress we can never forget,
With its tarnished and old-fashioned epaulette,
A white plug hat with a side rosette —
One suit had Emperor Norton —
With a monster cane as a regal mace,
Entwined with the serpent that tempted the race,
This monarch of mystery held his place,
Majestical Emperor Norton.
Exacting no bounty but moderate need,
While the light of his life was excellent creed,
For he never had done an ignoble deed,
This raggedy Emperor Norton.
There never was tribute more modestly laid,
By banker and merchant more willingly paid,
And never were titles more cheerfully made
Than those by Emperor Norton.
All men are usurpers somewhat in their way,
But the high and the lowly acknowledged his sway,
And even the children would pause in their play
With greetings for Emperor Norton.
No King ever ruled better people, I vow —
Those old San Franciscans were peers, anyhow —
For none but the noble would smilingly bow
To a mock-regal Emperor Norton.
Fred Emerson Brooks.
From 'The Overland", 1917.
A MESSAGE FROM EMPEROR NORTON I
Nothing in our early days was more charming than the sight of
the poor throneless emperor in all his regalia, on parade on Kearny
street with the rest of the fashionable world, stopping to present to
some pretty little girl, the rose-bud bouquet from his coat-lapel.
Everyone humored the harmless old man in his vagary that he was
a person to be honored, and both mother and child would accept the
proffered gift as from one of importance, and smile and bow in
return and wish him ''Good-day" most politely.
When death claimed the body of the man notable in our early
annals as one whose loss of fortune had affected his brain, he was
buried in the Masonic cemetery in the shadow of Lone Mountain's
cross. But the memory remained in the hearts of those little girls to
whom he had presented the flower from his breast as they passed in
the crowded street. They never forgot him. When others tried to
make mock of the story of his affliction, they always smiled and told
of the pretty ceremony and how Emperor Norton had given them a
flower to remember him by.
146 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
Years passed. A committee came into existence in 1913 resolved
to visit the cemeteries on Decoration-day out in the neglected region
of Lone Mountain and hold services there. They sought the grave
of Edward A. Pollock, the author of "When the Clouds Come in
Through the Golden Gate", and that of Richard Realf, the author of
that great poem, "Vale", also that of Bernard Dowling, who wrote
"Dead on the Field of Honor", and "Hurrah for the Next That Dies",
and for that of the author of the "Old Oaken Bucket". They also
were led to view the spot where lay set apart by the Masonic Cemetery
to mark the resting-place of Emperor Norton I. And to their surprise
they found it already decorated by bunches of rose bud bouquets in
memory of those he had given to the young away back more than a
quarter of a century before. A silence fell upon them and they knew
that he had builded better than he knew. Those little girls, now
grandmothers, had not forgotten him.
The Gatherer.
"Life in California*, 1916.
WHERE BRODERICK SLEEPS
The intelligence of Broderick's death, September 16, 1859, spread
like a pestilence. People refused to credit that which their hearts
dreaded — that he had been thus slain in the very morning of his
career; that his sun had set while it was yet day. But the conviction,
the sad conviction was verity. Men's hearts sank; eyes were moistened
by tears which the sternest pride of manhood could not repress, and
voices were hushed to earnest whisperings. * * * There was no
concerted signal of woe, no set form or phase of sorrow; but gloom
like a black mist crested the town and its expression was silenced.
* * * Moved by the fullness of their individual sorrow, men
suspended business, draped doors and repaired slowly to their homes.
San Francisco had never such a day in its stormy existence. There
are those living who yet recall the universal gloom. * * * On
Sunday afternoon the body was removed to the Plaza, deposited on a
catafalque, and without music, banners, religion, organizations or
chairman, but in the presence of the dead and of thirty thousand
silent living men, Colonel Baker pronounced a discourse almost
unrivaled in English. The Monte Diablo range to the east, recalling
the Alban Hills; the sparkling September sun, scarce equalled by
Italia's brilliant sunshine; the seven hills of San Francisco, like the
seven hills of Rome — the first towering o'er the plaza where lay the
stricken senator, while the others, looking over the forum, on the
mangled body of the first of the Caesars — surely, to the modern An-
tony, who lived and died as did his ancient prototype, the parallel must
have occurred when he exclaims:
"What hopes are buried with him in the grave."
He sleeps at the base of Lone Mountain, itself as lonely as he,
where, facing the lordly Pacific, he lies, a pathetic and memorable
sacrifice to the minotaur of human slavery.
Jeremiah Lynch.
From "A Senator of the Fifties";
San Francisco: A. M. Robertson, 191 1.
MAY 147
LONE MOUNTAIN
Thou cross-crowned hill to which I often turn,
Although no dead of mine lie slumbering there,
I watch the western skies behind thee burn
And my pale lips are parted with a prayer
Till resignation drives away despair.
With tear-dimmed eyes I gaze and can discern
The silent resting-place for which I yearn,
And unto which with faltering feet I fare.
When I shall rest beneath thee evermore,
And cold gray fogs drift o'er me from the deep,
Perchance — who knows? — the voices of the sea
Rolling in deep-toned music from the shore,
May not be all unheard in that last sleep,
Murmuring a long, low slumber-song to me.
Louis A. Robertson.
From "The Dead Calypso and Other Verses";
San Francisco: A. M. Robertson, 1 90 J .
JUNIPERO SERRA AT THE GOLDEN GATE
The sun shines bright, the fog is burned away,
The Golden Gate lies open, sea and land
Smile as if touched by the Almighty's hand.
A hundred years ago, on such a day
With sandles shod, in garb of saddest gray,
Did that Franciscan monk, that hero grand,
The good Junipero, the padre stand
And gazing out to sea thus did he say:
"Praise be to God and thanks, for His grace
We His weak ministers this deed have wrought,
In reaching thus the goal we long have sought.
Further to go is old paths to retrace;
Christ's holy rood to the land's end is brought,
The cord of Francis holds the earth in its embrace."
Richard Edward White.
148 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
THE LILY OF GALILEE'S WATER
Mid the tallest reeds in the ranks of wealth,
Where the sunlight laughs forever,
Where the woe of want ne'er crushed out health,
Nor poisoned the wings of the weather,
Far purer than gold, more guileless than glee,
And sweet as the most loving of mothers —
A lily as fair as the foam of the sea
Wept the woe that was woven for others.
'Twas charity bloomed where the proudling seals
Men's fountain of love for each other,
Where the puny or poor but vainly appeals
As a child of the Lord and a brother,
Though grown in the groves — gilded groves of the great-
The lily loved all — thorn, thistle and clover,
And its pure heart pulsed as the seas pulsate
In the breath of the winds passing over.
So downward from hillocks and upward from streams —
From waters of woe and storms that were chilly,
Each sad-stricken waif, seeking life-giving gleams,
Was drawn to the heart of the beautiful lily.
And cresses that craved and brambles and rue,
Found favor though sombered in shadow,
For the lily could bless as the sunbeams do —
The storm and the stream and the meadow.
'Twas gloomy and grey — 'twas a wintry morn,
And the blast swept solemnly over
The puny and poor — dumb thistle and thorn,
And cresses and bramble and clover.
And they quivered and quailed as the word was said,
From the heart of the town to the river,
"Lo , the lily ye loved lies lowly and dead,
And your poverty's with you forever."
Ah, few are the flowers so bannered and blest
As the lily God plucked from the poorest;
For fed by the tears of the truest and best,
It blooms where its glory is surest.
Too pure to be pained in the groves of the great,
'Twas culled for the crown of its Author
To blossom forever in heavenly state
As the lily of Galilee's water.
Patrick S. Dorney.
MAY 149
In Memoriam of the late Nellie Crocker, second daughter of the late Judge
E. B. Crocker of Sacramento, to whose funeral obsequies, in the winter of 1877,
flocked the lame, the halt, the blind, and poverty-stricken, whom she had befriended
during her young life. Although a "sandlotter" in his sympathies, yet Mr. Dorney
was so affected by this scene, he wrote this tribute to her memory. It first appeared
anonymously in the "Sacramento Bee" and was later reprinted in the "Golden
Era". Original almost to the point of peculiarity, yet there is a deep pathos to be
read between the lines.
From "Golden Era Magazine" ; January, 1885.
CALIFORNIA TO THE FLEET
Behold, upon the 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.
Come in, O ships ! The purple crown
Of Tamalpais is looking down,
And from the Contra Costa shore
Diablo leans across once more
To listen for the signal gun,
Proclaiming that a port is won.
O ships! Thou art not of the sea;
It was the land that mothered thee —
The broad, sweet land, the prairies wide,
The mine, the forge, the mountain side;
And so the rivers hastening
Through valleys where the med'larks sing,
Come freighted with Love's offering.
Behold, they leap the granite wall
Where far the dim Sierra call;
And lordly Shasta, from his throne,
Looks down the canons, dark and lone,
To smile his welcome to the tide;
Come in, O ships ! The Gate stands wide.
Think not we love, O squadrons gray,
Grim war's magnificent array !
'Tis not that gleaming turrets reel
Above thy decks of belted steel,
And frowning guns look down, that we
Extend glad arms and hearts to thee.
150 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
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;
The pledges of a nation's power,
To use alone in that dread hour
When Justice fails, and Wrong shall dare
Uplift its front in menace there.
Come in, O ships ! The voyage is done.
Magellan's stormy cape is won ;
And all the zones have seen thee trail
The glorious banners down the gale.
No stranger here to greet thee springs ;
It is thine own sweet land that sings
Come in — come home; the Gate swings wide,
Drift in upon the happy tide;
For lo, upon the yellow sands,
I wait with garlands in my hands.
Daniel S. Richardson.
From "Trail Dust" ;
San Francisco: A. M. Robertson, 1908.
IN THE SIERRAS
Out of the heat and toil and dust of trades,
Far from the sound of cities and of seas,
I journeyed lonely and alone; I sought
The valley of the ages and the place
Of the wind-braided waters.
si;*********
So we toiled;
Now through the clustering groves' white-cushioned boughs,
And now through openings and anon between
The tall unbending columns that impale
The architectural forests.
There no lack
Of the imploring cries that startle us —
The jay-bird's shrill alarms, and many notes
Untraceable to any tongue whatever,
Heaven-born and brief.
Anon we sank
Into the awful canyons, where the brook
MAY 151
Hissed between icy fangs that cased the shore,
Slim, lank, and pallid blue.
******* * * *
Journeying
Under the sky's blue vacancy, I saw
How nature prints and publishes abroad
Her marvelous gospels !
Here the wind burnt bark
Like satin glossed and quilted; scattered twigs
In mysterious hieroglyphics ; the giant shrubs
That seem to point to something wise and grave ;
The leafless stalks that rise so desolate
Out of their slender shafts, within the drift;
Under the dripping gables of the fir
The slow drops softly sink their silent wells
Into the passive snow; and over all,
Swept the brown needles of the withering pine.
Thither, my comrades, would I fly with thee
Out of the maelstrom, the metropolis,
Where the pale sea-mist storms the citadels
With ghastly avalanches.
The hot plains,
Dimmed with a dingy veil of floating dust,
The brazen foot-hills the perennial heights,
And the green girdle of the spicy wood
We tread with gathering rapture.
Still we climb !
The season and the summit passed alike,
High on the glacial slopes we plant our feet
Beneath the gray crags insurmountable;
Care, like a burden falling from our hearts;
Joy, like the wings of morning, spiriting
Our souls in ecstacy to outer worlds
Where the moon sails among the silver peaks
On the four winds of heaven !
Charles Warren Stoddard.
From "Century Magazine" ; 1886.
WHERE A PHILANTHROPIST SLEEPS
Thirty-seven years ago, a citizen of California passed from earth. But his
name still abides with us. Born in August, 1796, in Fredericksburg, Pennsylvania.
James Lick came to California to do a great work. He amassed great wealth, lived
very economically and died like a king. He loved his state and lived for it. At
his death it was found he had executed a deed of trust leaving his millions to be
utilized for certain noble and benevolent purposes, under the direction of Dr. Still-
man, Horace Davis, A. S. Hallidie, Jo. O. Eldridge, John O. Earl, and Lorenzo
Sawyer, and the survivors of them.
152 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
It was the sensation of the day — a day which still continues because of the
wonderful judgment and far-reaching acumen of the man who thus set apart his
gold to do his will.
It may be a matter of interest to those who honor the name of James Lick to
know where he has found sepulture. His body lies beneath his grandest gift of
science, "nor has any king couch more magnificent". While the scientists are
counting the stars in the heavens down at the Lick Observatory, all that remains
of the mortal part of the great philanthropist reposes beneath that great structure,
which his forethought has made possible.
r "T 'x • n vx • " The Gatherer,
brom Life in Lalifornia ;
"Mechanics Fair Daily"; Sept 2, 1913.
A TRIBUTE TO MRS. REBECCA LAMBERT
She was a Captain's wife who sailed the seas
Until the captain died; and then she gave
Her fortune, and every day and hour to save
"Her boys" from "land-sharks", and the stern decrees
Of law that bound them down and turned the keys
Of prison on them at the will of every knave
That ruled the water-front. As brave
As any lioness, with every breeze
That brought "her boys" to San Francisco-town
She stood and fought at bay for them. All unforgot
The Sailor's Home on Rincon Hill — the crown
Of all her work — yet greater still, God-wot
The Sailor's grave-yard by the shore so brown,
Another home where the salt, salt wavelets lave,
And here she lies within her grave
Amidst them all until the Day of Great Renown —
Oh, Sailor-boys — a violet to mark the spot !
The Gatherer.
From 1852 till 1886, she gave her life to "her boys". The
"Ladies' Seamen s Friend Society of the Port of San Francisco was
founded by her. A portrait of Mrs. Lambert hangs in the Golden
Gate Museum.
THE GREAT PANORAMA
In May the flowers are everywhere; orange gold poppies
emblazon themselves everywhere in riotous profusion on the
hillsides ; dainty little flowers join together to make a Persian
carpet design alongside the roadways. Roses are sweet and
gorgeous in their soft appeal to the eye and the olfactories, as
if wafted from a sphere beyond earth. Fruits hang temptingly
on the trees, but hardly to their highest perfection.
A. E.
MAY 153
THE CITY OF THE LIVING
In a long vanished age, whose varied story-
No record has today —
So long ago expired its grief and glory
There flourished, far away,
In a broad realm, whose beauty passed all measure,
A city fair and wide
Wherein the dwellers lived in peace and pleasure
And never any died.
Disease and pain and death, those stern marauders
Which mar our world's fair face,
Never encroached upon the pleasant borders
Of that fair dwelling place.
No fear of parting and no dread of dying
Could ever enter there;
No mourning for the lost, no anguished crying,
Made any face less fair.
Without the city's walls, death reigned as ever,
And graves rose side by side;
Within, the dwellers laughed at his endeavor,
And never any died.
Oh, happiest of all earth's favored places!
O bliss! to dwell therein!
To live in the sweet light of loving faces
And fear no grave between!
To feel no death-damp, gathering cold and colder
Disputing life's warm truth —
To live on, never lowlier or older,
Radiant in deathless youth!
And hurrying from the world's remotest quarters,
A tide of pilgrims flowed
Across broad plains and over mighty waters
To find that blest abode,
Where never death should come between and sever
Them from their loved apart —
Where they might work, and win and live forever
Still holding heart to heart.
And so they lived in happiness and pleasure,
And grew in power and pride,
And did great deeds, and laid up stores of treasure,
And never any died.
And many years rolled on and saw them striving,
With unabated breath;
And other years still found and left them living,
And gave no hope of death.
Yet listen, hapless soul, whom angels pity
Craving a boon like this —
Mark how the dwellers in that wondrous city
Grew weary of their bliss.
One and another, who had been concealing
The pain of life's long thrall,
154 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
Forsook their pleasant places and came stealing
Outside the city walls.
Craving with wish that brooked no more denying,
So long had it been crossed,
The blessed possibility of dying —
The treasure they had lost.
Daily the current of rest-seeking mortals
Swelled to a broader tide,
Till none were left within the city's portals,
And graves grew green outside.
Would it be worth the having or the giving,
The boon of endless breath?
Ah, for the weariness that comes of living
There is no cure but death!
Ours were indeed a fate deserving pity,
Were that sweet rest denied;
And few, methinks, would care to find the city
Where never any died.
Frank Alumbaugh.
THE MUSSEL SLOUGH TRAGEDY
Every stalk of the bright green wheat that grew there on
the eleventh of May; every tender spray of alfalfa; every fruit
tree, loaded with its perfumed burden of flowers; every thrifty
home and happy household — everything _of life, where death
had been before was a monument and a breathing witness to
the struggles, hardships and dire sufferings of those Pioneers
in Mussel Slough who dug the ditches that carried water into
the desert, transforming it into a garden whose loveliness is
not surpassed on all the broad face of the earth; dug the
ditches in poverty, hunger, and rags, while rich men jibed
them, and men less brave derided them; dug the ditches to
make a home and shelter for their wives and children who had
not enough to eat; worked through burning heat and freezing
cold, through water and through choking dust with the mock-
ing world at their backs and the hope of a peaceful future
before them. * * * The land that was heretofore utterly
valueless became so productive and the demand for it became
so great that the enhanced value consequent upon the toil of
the early settlers would have been sufficient to make one man
fabulously rich. * * *
Soon they came to her house. A great change had taken
place there. She saw all her household goods in the road,
where they had been recently put. And they were all covered
with dust. In particular, one famous quilt, which she had
made with her own hands, a great many years before, and
MAY 155
which she had treasured from year to year — a many-colored
quilt of the finest silk — lay all in a shapeless bundle in the dirt.
If she had not been a spirit, she would have felt aggrieved at
this; but of what use were all those cherished things now?
The spirit with whom she rode begged her not to get out,
telling her that the house had been taken from her in her
absence as were those other homes on the day when they had
had that great fight; but she did not think that any one could
rob a poor old woman of her home ; and she begged so pite-
ously that he tenderly lifted her from the wagon.
(There follows an altercation between the man who came
to the door of the house and the man in the wagon who
championed the cause of the now homeless woman.)
But in the midst of it, she fell unconscious to the ground.
He raised her head and anxiously spoke to her but no answer
came; then he placed the gaudy silk quilt in the bottom of
the wagon and tenderly gathered her up in his great strong
arms and laid her thereon. She was at the end of her long
and dreary journey at last.
William C. Morrow.
From "Blood Money' ;
San Francisco: F. J. Walker, 1882.
THE COMET
(HALLEY'S COMET, MAY, 1910)
Again there flares across the skies of night
Thy blazing torch, O warden of the years,
Proclaiming all is well among the spheres,
And that another age of man hath flight.
Since 'round its great elipse hath sped thy light.
God many wonders hath given to our seers:
Full many a dream of man as truth appears
Since last thou flashed across the human sight.
Long centuries ago fair Norman dames
Thy marvel on their people and their times
Wove blindly in their Bayeau tapestry;
So I, today, enkindled by thy flames.
Weave here again in thread of patient rhymes
Thy story for unknown posterity.
Charles Elmer Jenney.
From "California Nights' Enter iainment** ;
Edinburgh: Valentine & Anderson.
156 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
AT POLLOCK'S GRAVE
No heaven-born blossoms ever blow,
The wild grass withers on the desolate ground,
No meanest marking headstone can be found,
Where he who soared so high now lies so low.
For him "the air is chill" ; no longer flow
His tears for lost Olivia; no more is bound
The Falcon to the rocks all doom-encrowned ;
His Chandos Picture's spectres, who can know?
Apollo's child, thy fate is but the one
Of him who makes a brother of the sun,
And in the "Realms of Gold" bears dazzling light;
Thou art a member of that radiant host
Which holds its torch before men's blinded sight,
And dies all unregarded at its post.
Edward Robeson Taylor.
May 28, 1914. Unpublished.
PASSING AWAY
Robed in her white garments, she sat resigned,
A happy smile upon her pure, pale face;
While down her slender temples fell entwined,
Bathed in gold, from the sun's last lingering rays,
The dark brown hair, giving her still sweeter grace.
Within the leafy arbor's green confine,
And many blue-eyed violets growing near,
Around her clustering roses and jasmine;
A bride for heaven only could appear
So fair, so sweet, so child-like and divine.
Charles Crissen.
From " 'Golden Era": 1885.
ANGELINE OF FOREST HILL
She was born in Placer county, the first of the family of eleven
children, exquisitely fair with a white rose complexion and with eyes
darkly violet. At seventeen this firstling of the flock closed her eyes
to earth, and opened them in heaven. One by one, the little brothers
and sisters as they were born and grew, took on this white rose look
of delicacy, till there were five that had gone, and only six that were
left to the bereaved parents.
The father was a miner, seeking the gold in the earth as his
work; the mother was one of those prodigies of maternal love that
MAY 157
are at once the spiritual and the material providence of the race. Of
her it could well be said as was of the original Pioneer mother, "The
only church they knew was around their mother's knees", for there
are still wildernesses left in California for women to civilize. Forest
Hill was indeed far away from the centers of social life, but this
mother brought order out of chaos. Snowed in, in the winter-time, yet
all was well with that brood of hers, for every provision had been
made for the season, so that the flock was comfortable, and they had
learned to be company to each other during those hours hemmed in
away from all the outer world. Green and beautiful in the summer
with every kind of useful fruit and vegetable growing in luxuriousness.
everything was stored away to prepare for the winter-solstice again.
Thus season followed season and they had plenty and freedom
and lands. But each time the waxen rose-bud had gone to sleep, the
mother's heart had given warning that all was not well. There was
some malign influence in that beautiful place with which she could
not cope. It was beginning to be understood that" in the springs and
waters was too much iron or other mineral for the well-being of the
young. So eagerly she prepared the way for a change in soil, climate
and productions to save her brood. Not easy was this to be done.
The father loved his free life in the mountains, seeking and finding
gold. So also the eldest son. But the mother's anxious eye noted the
white-rose look of Angeline stealing over his face, too, and she became
resolute. The eldest was sent to the great city to take up the profes-
sion of nursing, the son to study for the civil service. One daughter
married and moved away. Then came the mother and the brood to
the city, and she secured employment for the father, and thus coaxed
him from his beloved mountains to take up life under new conditions.
The younger son and daughter each found places to work day-times
and attended night-school to gain an education. The youngest as
beautiful as a princess in a fairy story went to a convent school.
This mother was a queen indeed in her little kingdom. She ruled well
and wisely. Her own gifted hands made the bread, washed the clothes
and ironed them, cut out pretty gowns for her daughters and contrived
them, added to which she radiated in her neighborhood to such a
degree that always was she doing something for others. And the
beautiful smile, with which she greeted one, gave an added joy to
living.
She comforted the mourner from the deep springs of her own
responsive nature. With always some bright story or anecdote from
her own experience to tell to "point a moral or adorn a tale" — yet in
the midst of it she would say, "Yes, as I was telling Angeline — did you
hear me — say 'Angeline'? I meant one of the other girls," and she
would continue her incident without a pause. Always the name of
that firstling of the flock was on her lips, till one knew that to the
mother "they still were eleven" and she still held them in her heart.
There was never a shadow on her bright face, nor a sign on her lips,
for she cherished the living too deeply to mar their lives with anything
like grief for the absent. Xor yet would she shut them out in the
dim darkness as if they had never been. They were only on a journey.
It came to pass that all of us who knew her, also knew Angeline
— fair Angeline of Forest Hill who seems a vision of that place, always
young, always beautiful — a tradition of our land.
The Gatherer.
From "Life in California'.
158 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
PORT-U-GAL, MY PORT-U-GAL
A LAMENT
May be sung to the refrain of "The Danube River".
O, Port-u-gal, my Port-u-gal
I long to press thy shore,
But O alas ! I fear 't will be
That I'll behold thee
No more, no more.
Oh ! in this land, so fair and sweet,
'T is here I've made my home,
And here it is I think I'll stay,
My feet no more
To roam, to roam.
Upon the hill, where white marbles gleam,
And all the pathways wind,
'T is there with friends who've gone before
I think I'll find
My Port-u-gal.
The Gatherer.
From "Life in California*.
A Portuguese who has been in California for twenty years and over told me
one day of his homesickness for the old country, but that he never expected to
see that land again. Waving with his hand significantly toward the hill where
rose the tombs of the Catholic cemetery of Haywards, he said, "I think it's there
I'll find my Port-u-gal".
MY HOUSE IS IN ORDER
My house is in order.
There is no one to fret,
I can go at my work
Without hindrance or let.
My work is a pastime —
And my work it loves me —
But I'm seeing the child
That once stood by my knee.
Earth is all beautiful
And Life, it is sweet,
But I'm listening to hear
The sound of her feet.
MAY 159
When the Comforter, Death,
So tall and so fair
Shall come to my door,
I know she'll be there.
The Gatherer.
From "Life in California" ; 1909.
CUPID IN SAUSALITO
RONDEAU
Love fled the town, 't was late in May
And indolently thought to stray
Where, just beneath a green-grown hill,
There ran a cool, refreshing rill
That chased the sultry air away,
And there he let his fancies play
Till sleeping by his darts he lay.
Was it to slumber — all was still —
Love fled the town?
A shout aroused him in dismay
And up he sprang prepared to slay
Or wound, perhaps, with practised skill —
Far better 't were at once to kill.
The barb flew straight — I mind the day
Love fled the town.
David E. W. Williamson.
1885.
"All honor to those sturdy pioneers, who, with self-sacrificing zeal
and devotion, open up a primeval croft, whether in the physical, mental
or moral wilderness, thus making it richer and brighter for those who
follow after them.**
Sarah B. Cooper.
WHEN I AM DEAD
"When you are dead and lying at rest
With your white hands folded above your breast —
Beautiful hands, too well I know,
As white as the lilies, as cold as the snow,
I will come and bend o'er your marble form,
Your cold hands cover with kisses warm,
And the words I will speak and the tears I will shed
Will tell I have loved you — when you are dead!
When you are dead your name shall rise
From the dust of the earth to the very skies,
And every voice that has sung your lays
Shall wake an echo to sound your praise.
Your name shall live through the coming age
Inscribed on Fame's mysterious page,
'Neath the towering marble shall rest your head,
But you'll live in memory — when you are dead!"
Then welcome, Death! thrice welcome be!
I am almost weary waiting for thee;
Life gives no recompense — toil no gain,
I seek for love and I find but pain;
Lily-white hands have grown pale in despair
Of the warm red kisses which should be their share.
Sad, aching heart has grown weary of song,
No answering echo their notes prolong;
Then take me, Oh, Death, to thy grim embrace !
Press quickly thy kiss on my eager face
For I have been promised, oh, bridegroom dread,
Both Love and Fame — when I am dead !
Elizabeth Chamberlain, ("Carrie Carlton", and Topsy Turvy")
From "Story of the Files" 1893.
JUNE 161
LOVE'S SLAVERY IS SWEET
BALLAD
I would my soul were free
From love's sweet slavery,
The heights of perfect peace to proudly greet;
I'd know no chains to fret
Love's slavery is sweet!
Could I forget you, dear,
Cease wishing you were here,
Cease holding spirit-arms your own to meet,
I know that peace I'd gain,
In freedom from Love's chain,
But slavery is sweet.
And so — I cannot, dear,
Cease wishing you were here,
Cease holding spirit-arms your own to meet,
Nor ever wish to be
From such dear bondage free —
Love's slavery is sweet!
Carrie Stevens Walter.
From "Rose Ashes**;
San Francisco, 1890.
A FLIGHT OF MARK TWAIN'S
* * * In Sacramento it is fiery Summer always, and
you can gather roses, and eat strawberries and ice-cream, and
wear white linen clothes, and pant and perspire, at eight or
nine o'clock in the morning, and then take the cars, and at noon
put on your furs and your skates, and go skimming over
frozen Donner lake, seven thousand feet above the valley,
among snowbanks fifteen feet deep, and in the shadow of
grand mountain-peaks that lift their frosty crags ten thousand
feet above the level of the sea. There is a transition for you !
Where will you find another like it in the Western hemi-
sphere? And some of us have swept around snow-walled
curves of the Pacific railroad in that vicinity, six thousand
feet above the sea, and looked down as the birds do, upon the
deathless Summer of the Sacramento valley, with its fruitful
fields, its feathery foliage, its silver streams, all slumbering in
the mellow haze of its enchanted atmosphere, and all infinitely
162 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
softened and spiritualized by distance — a dreamy, exquisite
glimpse of fairyland, made all the more charming and striking
that it was caught through a forbidding gateway of ice and
snow, and savage crags and precipices.
Mark Twain.
From "Innocents at Home" ;
London: Chatto & Windus, 1910.
A SAMPLE OF CALIFORNIA WEATHER
AND CLIMATE
So you want me to tell you once again of my trip from
Quincy, Plumas county, via the old stage route to Oroville,
and on to San Francisco, and how, in that distance, rather
less than two hundred miles, "as the crow flies," I experienced
such diversity in both weather and climate.
It was seven o'clock on a bright, sunny spring morning
in mid-April, 1884, when we set out upon our journey of
about eighty miles. The snow had melted; the ground was
comparatively dry, and the early spring work of plowing had
just begun in American valley. Seven miles out on the road,
at the foot of Spanish Pass, the snow was still a foot deep;
a little distance further on we abandoned the Concord coach,
passengers and mail being transferred to a box-sleigh that
had been left under a sheltering tree by the roadside on the
previous day. The snow continued to deepen, and our next
halt was to outfit the four horses with snow-shoes which, also,
had been cached under a convenient tree.
Buck's ranch, at the top of the divide, was the station
where horses were changed and passengers halted for dinner,
and when our driver cheerfully called, "Here we are at
Buck's", I could see not a sign of the house and barns — nothing
but the field of snow and the track before us — but presently
we swung round a curve, and down an incline perhaps a fur-
long in length, between high snow banks, at the other end
of which there glimmered a light which proved to be coming
from the fire in a great open fireplace high enough for a man
to walk into. We ate our noonday meal by candle-light, and
left the inhabitants cheerfully optimistic. They said the snow
was going fast and they expected to be "out" in a week or
two more.
We had been enjoying a remarkably fine view of the Sac-
ramento valley and the Marysville Buttes and as I had no
recollection of seeing it on the up-trip in the previous Septem-
JUNE 163
ber, I asked the driver if we were on the same road, and
received the enigmatic answer that we were and we weren't,
supplemented by the explanation that there were about forty-
five feet of snow under us and that what I had supposed to be
young pines growing about us were really the tops of tall
trees rooted in the ground far below.
The second day's travel reversed the proceedings of the
first, for at intervals, the horses discarded their snow-shoes and
the sleigh was abandoned for another coach. The weather con-
tinued bright and pleasant, and towards afternoon it was
decidedly warm. At Bidwell's Bar we had ripe oranges picked
fresh from the famous tree, the first one planted in the northern
part of the state, and when we arrived at Oroville in the even-
ing, snow was about the last thing one would have thought of.
During the night a rainstorm set in, and the next day the
skies wept incessantly all through the Northern Sacramento
valley; it was a dripping landscape that presented itself, and
a day far more mid-winter than California spring. This con-
tinued until we reached Sacramento, where a change of trains
necessitated a delay of an hour or two. Coming through
Livermore valley there was not an indication of rain. Farmers
in shirt-sleeves and straw hats were out in the fields raking
the hay which they had cut, and bare-footed children in sum-
mery costume waved their greetings to the train.
Sarah Connell.
From "Life in California 11 ;
a story the children like to hear, 1916.
LOVE STORY OF CONCHA ARGUELLO
Lines written in the tropics during a voyage to California.
(The occasion of the following remarks was the placing of a bronze tablet
upon the oldest adobe building in San Francisco, the former residence of the
Comandante, now the Officers' club, at the Presidio, under the auspices of the
California Historical Landmarks league, on Serra Day, November 24, 1913.)
I am glad to see this bronze tablet affixed to this noble
adobe building. I take it, that when some of the wooden eye-
sores that here abound are torn down, in the necessary beauti-
fication that should precede 1915, this old historic building — a
monument to Spanish chivalry and hospitality — will be spared.
We have too few of them left to lose any of them now. And
of all buildings in the world, the Presidio army post should
guard this one with jealous care, for here was enacted one of
the greatest, sweetest, most tragic love stories of the world —
a story which is all the Presidio's own, and which it does not
have to share with any other army post.
164 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
To you, men of the army, my appeal ought to be an easy
one. You have no desire to escape the soft impeachment that
the profession of arms has ever been susceptible to the charms
of woman. The relaxation of Mars to Venus is not simply a
legend of history, is founded on no mere mythology — their
relationship is as sure as the firmament, and their orbits are
sometimes very close together.
There is one name that should be the perennial toast of
the men of this Presidio. We have just celebrated by a
splendid pageant the four-hundredth anniversary of the dis-
covery of the Pacific Ocean by Balboa, and we chose for queen
of that ceremony a beautiful girl by the name of Conchita.
There was another Conchita once, the daughter of the coman-
dante of this Presidio, the bewitching, the beautiful, the radiant
Concha Arguello.
In this old Presidio she was born. In the old Mission
Dolores she was christened. Here, it is told, that in the merry
exuberance of her innocent babyhood, she danced instead of
prayed before the shrine. In the glory of these sunrises and
day-vistas and sunsets, she passed her girlhood and bloomed
into womanhood. In this old adobe building she queened it
supremely. Here she presided at every hospitality; here she
was the leader of every fiesta.
To this bay, on the 8th of April, 1806, in the absence of
her stern old father in Monterey, and while the presidio was
under the temporary command of her brother Luis, there
came from the north the "Juno", tne vessel of the Russian
Chamberlain Rezanov, his secret mission an intrigue of some
kind concerning this wonderland, for the benefit of the great
Czar at St. Petersburg. He found no difficulty in coming
ashore. Father was away. Brother was kind. Besides the
Russian marines looked good, and the officers knew how to
dance as only military men know how to dance. The hospi-
tality was Castilian, unaffected, intimate, and at the evenings'
dances in this old building their barrego was more graceful
than any inartistic tango, and in the teaching of the waltz
by the Russians — there was no "hesitation".
Then came Love's miracle; and by the time the coman-
dante returned to his post, ten days later, the glances of the
bright-flashing eyes of the daughter had more effectively pul-
verized the original scheme of the chamberlain, than any old
guns of her father on this fort could have done. Their troth
was plighted, and, as he belonged to the Greek church, with
a lover's abandon, he started home to St. Petersburg, the
tremendous journey of that day by way of Russian America
JUNE 165
and across the plains of Siberia, to obtain his Emperor's con-
sent to his marriage. Xo knight of chivalry ever pledged more
determined devotion. He assured even the governor that.
immediately upon his return to St. Petersburg, he would go
to Madrid as ambassador extraordinary from the Czar, to
obviate every kind of misunderstanding between the powers.
From there he would proceed to Vera Cruz, or some other
Spanish harbor in Mexico, and then return to San Francisco.
to claim his bride.
On the 21st of May, about four o'clock in the afternoon,
the ''Juno" weighed anchor for Sitka, and in passing the fort.
then called the fort of San Joaquin, she saluted it with seven
guns and received in return a salute of nine. The old chron-
icler who accompanied the expedition says that the governor.
with the whole Arguello family, and several other friends and
acquaintances, collected at the fort and waved an adieu with
hats and handkerchiefs. And one loyal soul stood looking
seaward, till a vessel's hull sank below the horizon.
How many fair women, through the pitiless years, have
thus stood — looking seaward ! Once more the envious Fates
prevailed. Unknown to his sweetheart. Rezanov died on the
overland journey from Okhotsk to St. Petersburg, in a little
town in the snows of central Siberia. With a woman's
instinctive and unyielding faith, the beautiful girl waited and
watched for his return, waited the long and dreary years till
the roses of youth faded from her cheeks. True heart, no
other voice could reach her ear! Dead to all allurement, she
first joined a secular order, ''dedicating her life to the instruc-
tion of the young and the consolation of the sick'', and finally
entered the Dominican sisterhood, where she gave the remainder
of her life to the heroic and self-effacing service of her order.
Xot until late in life did she have the consolation of learning —
and then quite by accident — that her lover had not been false
to her, but had died of a fall from his horse on his mission to
win her. Long years afterward she died, in 1857. at the con-
vent of St. Catherine : and today, while he sleeps beneath a
Greek cross in the wilds of Siberia, she is at rest beneath a
Roman cross in the little Dominican cemetery at Benicia,
across the Bay.
This history is true. These old walls were witnesses to
part of it. These hills and dales were part of the setting for
their love-drama. One picnic was taken by boat to what is
now called the Island of Belvedere yonder. One horseback
outing was taken to the picturesque canon of San Andres, so
named by Captain Rivera and Father Palou in 1774. Gertrude
166 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
Atherton has given us the novel, and Bret Harte has sung
the poem, founded upon it.
When we think of the love stories that have survived the
ages, Alexander and Thais, Pericles and Aspasia, Anthony and
Cleopatra, and all the rest of them — some of them a narrative
unfit to handle with tongs — shall we let this local story die?
Shall not America furnish a newer and purer standard? If
to such a standard Massachusetts is to contribute the courtship
of Miles Standish, may not California contribute the Courtship
of Rezanov? You men of this army post have a peculiar right
to proclaim this sentiment; in such an enlistment you, of all
men, would have the right to unsheathe a flaming sword. For
this memory of the comandante's daughter is yours — yours to
cherish, yours to protect. In the barracks and on parade, at
the dance and in the field, this "one sweet human fancy"
belongs to this Presidio; and no court-martial nor departmental
order can ever take it from you.
John F. Davis.
From "California Romantic and Resourceful";
San Francisco: A. M. Robertson, 1914.
EARLY CALIFORNIA A LAND OF BACHELORHOOD
In the early mining days California was practically a land
of bachelorhood. A woman in the "diggin's" was the "observed
of all observers". If she passed from one mining-camp to
another, work was suspended along the route she pursued, and
they who were beardless boys when they left their monther's
side, rough, unkempt miners now, gathered around to do
honor to the lady who visited their section of country. It
mattered not how scanty her physical charms, she was yet a
woman and women were kind, generous, helpful, beautiful.
It mattered not if she was a wife. Her husband must stand
aside and patiently witness the admiration of men, many of
whom had not seen a woman, yea, for many years. It was
not unfrequent that these occasions should be not only an
event in the "camp", but also a financial episode in the life
of the newcomer. The miners were generous to a fault, and
"dust" and "nuggets" in the absence of coin, were poured into
the lap of her who reminded those hard-working men of the
mothers, sisters, sweethearts, and wives who were left behind
in "the States".
Scarcely one in a hundred of all those who hastened to the
new land of gold had the least intention of remaining there
JUNE 167
longer than barely the time necessary to amass a fortune.
Lovers left their sweethearts at the gate promising soon to
return and bring with them the glittering gold that would
make the journey of life a pleasure-voyage; husbands bade
the good wives and the little ones good-bye for a season. But
who can predict the future? There was a charm about the far-
off land, once they had arrived there, which was irresistible.
If the youth returned to wed, the honeymoon was ofttimes
passed in journeying back to California.
Wives, mothers, sisters, children were sent for. Soon
happy homes smiled over lovely valleys, and mountain gorges
echoed the prattle of little ones. The plains began to lay
aside their garments of wild oats and put on the clothing of
orchard, vineyard and grain-field; school-houses and churches
dotted the landscape; prosperous towns grew; cities expanded
and a State was born. It was an Arabian Night's tale told in
the prose of every day life.
Charles B. Turrill.
From an address given in New Orleans, January, 1886.
LOVE IS DEAD
Love is dead !
And all the world which smiled
With roses red
And asphodel, beguiled
By odors, spicy sweet
And sense of joy complete,
Seeming a place of soft delight
By intoxicating breezes fanned
Is now a scorched and desert land
Glaring with its burning sand,
Where I lie stricken all alone,
Where I lie fallen mute and prone.
Love is dead !
And my poor heart, once beating
Rhythmically true to all the fleeting
Music of the spheres above,
With a wild fantastic sense
Of triumphant joy intense,
As part of all the universe of love,
Is now a dull and pulseless thing,
Heavy hanging like a broken wing,
No longer craving life or breath —
Praying only for the peace of death.
168 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
Do not the roses breathe as sweet?
The pulses of the heart still beat?
And gloriously as e'er before
With added splendours more and more
The sky its pageant spread?
Ah yes, for other eyes to see,
But not for me, but not for me —
For Love is dead.
Ella Sterling Mighels.
From "Cosmopolitan" ; May, J 909.
AN IDYL OF MONTEREY
When summer days grow long and clear,
With June-time comes a memory, dear,
Of one glad day beneath the blue
In quaint old Monterey with you.
I mind the narrow, crooked street,
The old brick pave that tripped our feet;
Th' adobe houses, white and low,
The scarlet peppers, row on row.
The sweet Castilian roses made
Anon a bower of perfumed shade.
From casement, opened to the air,
Peeped dusky faces here and there.
I mind the church beyond the town;
The dusky highway winding down
Where sleek brown cattle grazed the farms,
Towards fair Del Monte's newer charms.
How deeply blue the skies that day!
And bluer still the sparkling bay!
The summer breeze like music bore
The sounds of mirth from wave and shore.
O'er many Junes the sun has set;
The years between were glad, and yet
I fain would live again that day
With you, in quaint old Monterey.
Anna Cowan Sangster.
From "Overland Monthly'; Aug., 1899.
JUNE 169
THE LOVE I SHOULD FORGET
' Tis time I should forget thee now,
Since thou so much art changed.
Since broken has been every vow
And we have grown estranged.
would we never had to part,
O would we never met,
The old love lingers in my heart,
The love I should forget.
Although thou hast grown changed and cold,
Thou dost remember still
How e'en my lightest word of old
Thine inmost soul would thrill,
1 cannot dream 'though far apart
Thou hast forgot while yet
The old love lingers in my heart,
The love I should forget.
In spite of changes time may bring,
In spite of space and tears,
My soul unto thy soul will cling
Through all the endless years ;
Though in the world we live apart,
Fate hath her fiat set
The old love lingers in my heart,
The love I should forget.
Ballad. Richard Edward White.
LOVE AND NATURE
THEME FOR A PAINTING
Down such a hill as singers poetize —
Bloom-jeweled, smooth with grass, its easy slope
Inviting quick descent, and yet with hope
Inspiring upward-climbers to the rise —
Two beings race all mindlessly ; and one
Is Nature, wild and free ; 't is she that leads ;
And Love the other is ; he swiftly speeds
In hot pursuit. Her hair is wild, undone —
A matchless black, as if 't were woven fine
Of webs of night; unclad of robes is she,
Except that free about her loins and loose
A leopard's skin is girt in careless use.
170 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
And wreathed about her breast bewitchingly
Are garland roses, blushing to entwine
Her tingling form; a smile is on her lips
And in her eyes is life and gleam and fire —
Oh, everything but soul! With keen desire
To pass her in the race, Love rudely whips
The blooms aside with reddened feet and knees
And forward leans in eagerness, his hand
Outstretched to clutch a mocking, waving strand
Of air-buoyed tresses. In the race the bees
All honey-hungry, join: thus fast adown
The ever steeper hill. But at the top,
With sharp commands, entreaties, cries to stop,
Is Wisdom, watching anxiously, a frown,
A look of pity and a trickling tear
Upon her face. A warning doth she call
With Thunder's voice, as if God's forces all
Were hers wherewith to warn. Yet reason, fear
And shame alike are impotent in this
The frolic of the soulless pair and blind —
Who yet more swiftly leave the hill behind* —
And just before them is a precipice.
P. V. A/., Inspired by Ella Sterling Mighcls.
From "Out of a Silver Flute'; New York, 1895.
LINES WRITTEN IN THE TROPICS DURING A
VOYAGE TO CALIFORNIA
The clouds are darkening Northern skies,
Yet these are all serene,
The snow in Northern valleys lies,
While tropic shores are green.
But radiance tints those far-off hills,
No summer can bestow,
For there the light of memory dwells
On all we love below.
I watch yon point of steadfast light
Declining in the sea,
Yon polar star, that night by night
Is looking, love, on thee.
"Oh, give me, Heaven," I constant sigh
"For all this flowery zone,
A colder clime, a darker sky
And her I love — alone."
Edward A. Pollock-
JUNE 171
A TREMENDOUS MOMENT
That the facts in the case of the elopement of Senorita
Josefa Carillo and Captain Henry Fitch may be known forever
without doubt, I am here presenting a private paper written
for me by a member of that family of eleven brave sons and
beautiful daughters, whose descendants have intermarried with
the Americans, thus making an integral part of our common-
wealth.
This letter relates the incidents connected with the return
from the elopement, in the following words :
It was Andre Pico (not Pio as has been stated) who took
mother (Senorita Carillo) to meet father (Captain Henry
Fitch) where he was waiting for her in a boat, sailors rowing
them toward father's ship. Captain Smith was on board ; he
had accompanied father always since he had become captain ;
by grandfather Fitch's request (as father was so young when
he began to serve).
Captain Smith married them out at sea. Then arriving
at Valparaiso, they were married again by a Catholic priest
in a Catholic church. Mother being faint, a part of the cere-
mony of kneeling was omitted.
On their return, arriving at Monterey from Valparaiso,
father would not consent to let mother land, as word had been
sent him that Don Joaquin Carillo (mother's father) meant tu
wipe out the disgrace of their having eloped, by shooting
them both on sight.
However, mother was determined to see her father, to
implore his forgiveness and blessing even, though it should
cost her her life. So she enlisted the help and the sympathies
of her maid and of one of the sailors, who consented to go
with her and put her on shore.
At midnight, after father had retired in his stateroom,
they stole out and into a boat and rowed to shore, she taking
her infant son in her arms. The maid and the sailor returned
to the ship, leaving her alone on the shore where wild animals
lived — it was miles from any house. She made her way safely,
however, and finally reached Tia Juana's house, where she
rested until next morning.
Immediately the whole town knew about it, and many
came to see her and beg of her not to go to her father's
house, as he was intending to kill her, having a gun by his
side all the time for that purpose. Her mother and sisters
and brothers came to meet her weeping, and begging her not
172 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
to go to her father's, but she was determined to see him,
and went.
Reaching the gate of the garden, still holding her babe,
she knelt down and walked on her knees, she began talking
to him and imploring his forgiveness, assuring him of her
undying love and respect (mother was very eloquent, yon
know). She could see her father through the open door — he
had thrown himself down upon his bed, face downwards, in
an agony of emotion — in a battle between love and duty —
LOVE, for she was his favorite child, and DUTY, for* so it
behooved him to deal with an offspring who had, as he
imagined it to be, brought disgrace into his family.
Mother still came on, talking so beautifully, so lovingly,
so penitently (with outstretched arms that held her babe) — on
to the very threshold, on towards the bed where her father
lay. Don Joaquin stood up, raised the gun and — then looked
at his daughter and her babe — the gun dropped out of his
hand and he stretched out his arms and took them to his
heart. Immediately there arose sounds of rejoicing and of
weeping together out in the street, for many relatives and
neighbors had congregated in the hope, to avert the tragic end
of the romance.
And all were overcome at the mingled grief and despair
of both father and daughter, now turned to joy and happiness
once more at this great reconciliation.
A messenger was now sent to Don Enrique to come, and
join them.
In the meantime, poor father was wild with anxiety —
having the bay dragged, searching for his wife's body, think-
ing she must have jumped overboard from her wild despair
over her father's anger against her.
However, all was well — and after being in San Diego
some days later, through the authority of the church they were
ordered again to be married to complete the unfinished cere-
mony of the Valparaiso marriage by holding lighted candles as
they knelt for a long time, and by a three-days' continued
ceremony and celebration of High Mass, which served to make
all things right and well.
The Gatherer.
From "Life in California*.
GALAXY 9.— POETS, PROSE-WRITERS AND DIVINES
Emily Browne Powell Lillian Ferguson Sarah M. Williamson
Mary E. Hart Eugenia Kellogg Sarah Connell
Jacob Voorsanger John Richards Emma Henrietta Oakes
I. E. Dwinell Mary De Lacey M. Furlong Albert Sonnichen
173
GALAXY 10— ORATORS, EDITORS AND PROSE-WRITERS
John Daggett
Charles B. Turrill
George Douglas
H. E. Poehlman
George T. Bromley
Jeremiah Lynch
Clara Shortridge Foltz
George Wharton James
Edwin Sherman
Nathan Newmark
Clarence M. Hunt
Louis J. Stellman
174
JUNE 175
LOVE
Love stands waiting with open arms,
Love that shields from vain alarms,
Love unbought, 't is priceless, pure —
Love, life's changes to endure.
Love that spans the flood of tears,
Sighs and hopes of weary years —
Love that blots out all life's past,
Breathes through the soul and holds Love fast.
Anna Neivbegin.
CHIVALRY AND CULTURE IN EARLY CALIFORNIA
EXTRACTS FROM A LETTER WRITTEN IN 1850.
One year ago, tonight, at this very hour I was one hundred
and fifty miles west of Salt Lake crossing the desert, my
mouth parched with thirst, and myself speechless, without the
first desire to live and without expectation of ever reaching
the spring in the mountains that might save me. And here
tonight I am writing from California to her who has just
assured me by letter that her love is as constant as mine,
and if it be as constant as I believe it to be pure, in a few
months more I shall meet her once again never more to part.
It seems as though my affection for you increases every
day, for there is hardly an hour while awake but that I find
myself attempting to depict and picture to my mind a scene
which I imagine will be the happiest of my life : the time
when I shall return to strike glad hands with you.
* * * I am pleased to hear of your studies and improve-
ment in music with the guitar and the piano. I was just
looking at your miniature and a thought occurred to my mind
which has presented itself a thousand times. How even more
lovely you would look if you would part your raven-black
hair upon the top and comb it both ways down, instead of
drawing some of it backward from the front to the back. I
have only time to say that you have surpassed yourself in
this last letter, it being the nonpareil of all the thousand-and-
one letters you have written to me, in your final saying that
you are willing to leave your home in Pennsylvania and that
you wish to live in California.
There does not a day pass but that my imagination pic-
tures to my mind the happy time in anticipation of meeting
176 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
you and delivering unto your possession that which I have
already given, my hand and heart, and claiming yours in
return.
The letter before me has occasioned me more joy and
delight than could be told in an octavo — it has transported me
and I go about my business with a lightsome heart and a glad
countenance.
Believe me language cannot express with what affection
and truth I write forever yours, qtft? T TNf
Extract from letter dated J 850; written by author of
"Diary of a Forty-Niner" ; published in
"Grizzly Bear Magazine* ; author having died in 1852;
Original owned by The Gatherer.
THE HARP OF BROKEN STRINGS
And now by Sacramento's stream,
What memories sweet its music brings ;
The vows of love, its smiles and tears
Hang o'er this harp of broken strings.
It speaks, and midst her blushing fears
The beauteous one before me stands !
Pure spirit in her downcast eyes,
And like twin doves her folded hands!
It breathes once more, and bowed with grief,
The bloom has left her cheek forever,
While, like my broken harp-strings now,
Behold her form with feeling quiver!
She turns her face o'errun with tears,
To him that silent bends above her,
And by the sweets of other years,
Entreats him still, oh ! still to love her !
He loves her still — but darkness galls
Upon his ruined fortunes now,
And it is his evil doom to flee,
The dews like death are on his brow.
And cold the pang about his heart;
Oh ! cease — to die is agony !
'T is worse than death when loved ones part.
John Rollin Ridge.
From "Story of the Files'*; San Francisco, 1893.
JUNE 177
A PLAINSMAN'S SONG
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 afire,
An let him be snorting and bold!
And then with a swing, on his back let me fling
My leg that is as 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!
Ah, give me a gleam of your eyes, love, adream
With the fas of the sun and the dew,
And mountain nor vale, nor 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!
P. V. M.
From "Harpers Weekly"; J 906.
SONG
I heard a flute in the night,
An old-time sweetest tune;
Then, soft as clouds that drift from sight,
When evening curtains out the light,
It passed like scented June.
Yet think that I can e'er forget,
The music of that strain?
From out my dreams dim eyes are wet
For every joy our souls had met,
Thou love was born in vain.
Florence Richmond.
From "Heart of the Rose".
178 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
A FIERCE AFFECTION
The Californian loves his state because his state loves
him. He returns her love with a fierce affection that to men
who do not know California is always a surprise. Hence he
is impatient of outside criticism. Those who do not love Cali-
fornia, cannot understand her, and to his mind their shafts,
however aimed, fly wide of the mark. * * * The charm of
California has in the main, three sources — scenery, climate and
freedom of life. To know the glory of California scenery, one
must live close to it through the changing years. * * *
Inland rises the great Sierra, with spreading ridge and foothill,
like some huge, sprawling centipede its granite back unbroken
for a thousand miles. * * * The climate of California is
especially kind to childhood and old age. * * *The third
element of charm in California is that of personal freedom.
The dominant note in the social development of the state is
individualism, with all that it implies of good or evil. Man is
man in California ; he exists for his own sake, not as a part of a
social organism. He is in a sense superior to society. In the
first place it is not his society; he came from some other region
on his own business. Most likely he did not intend to stay;
but having summered and wintered in California, he has become
a Californian, and now he is not contented anywhere else.
Life on the coast has, for him, something of the joyous irrespon-
sibility of a picnic. * * * The Californian is peculiarly
sensitive as to his own personal freedom of action. Toward
public rights or duties he is correspondingly indifferent. In
the times of National stress, he paid his debts in gold and asked
the same of his creditors, regardless of the laws or the customs
of the rest of the United States.
To him gold is still money, and a national promise to pay
is not. * * * Varied ingenuity California demands of her
Pioneers. Their native originality has been intensified by cir-
cumstances until it has become a matter of tradition and habit.
The processes of natural selection have favored the survival
of the ingenious, and the quality of adequacy has become
hereditary. * * * Under all the deviations and variations
of the social life here, lies the old Puritan conscience, which
is still the backbone of the civilization of the republic. Life
in California is a little fresher, a little freer, a good deal richer,
in its physical aspect, and for these reasons, more intensely
and characteristically American. * * * California is the
most cosmopolitan of all the states of the Union and such she
will remain. Whatever the fates may bring her, her people
JUNE 179
will be tolerant, hopeful and adequate, sure of themselves,
masters of the present, fearless of the future.
David Starr Jordan.
From "California and the Calif ornians" ;
San Francisco: A. M. Robertson, 1907.
I HEAR THY VOICE
I hear thy voice when meadow larks are trilling,
Trilling o'er the dewy lea,
I hear, hear thee when the swallows bring
Their evening song to me,
Fly forth today, wing ye away,
Bear ye my answer across the sea,
My heart is thine, beloved!
Alone I am waiting for thee.
I see thy face in every fleeting shadow
Wafted over field and fell,
I see, see thee in the rosebud blushing
In the hidden dell.
Only thy voice, only thy form
Shall in my soul forever dwell.
Fly on the wings of the morning
My envoys, this message to tell !
Ballad, both words and music;
Boston: G. Shirmer, 1918.
Joseph D. Redding.
THE PRAIRIE
An inland sea of acres broad, and where
The undulating grassy billows leap
Exultantly; and far away and fair,
A schooner braves the mystic Western deep.
P. V. M.
180 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
THE TWILIGHT PORCH
In Memory of Moonlight Nights in Sacramento in 1870, when the young men recited
this poem to their lady-loves and soon after married them.
I would barter tonight a ton of gold
For an hour of the lovelit days of old,
When the cool South wind in its flow and float,
Just from the Tropic's fragrant throat
Rocked the leaves of the summer trees
As it rocks the boats of the Mexic seas.
As I sit alone in the porch tonight,
In the selfsame chair and the dim twilight,
I miss the voice of a gentle girl
And the touch of an overhanging curl, —
The trust that knew no shock or check,
The clinging arms around my neck,
And the eyes that said when bent over me,
"God marries, you know, the vine to the tree."
I thought just then as I looked on her,
With the pride of a human worshiper,
That the Sultan might search the Orient-land
From the Golden Horn to Samarcand,
And send his spies where the snows caress
The mountain-tops of the white Cherkess,
And none could be found as fair as she
Who stood on the twilight-porch with me.
I sometimes think when I pass away
In the hazy light of a summer's day,
Borne on the wings of a seraph band
To the silvery light of the Summerland,
That when in the midst of the spirits there,
Though their eyes be blue and their faces fair,
And the songs they sing be sweeter than
Young Mozart's song in the Vatican,
I should turn away to the realms below
Where your blue eyes beam and your sweet lips glow,
And sigh for the touch of the little hands
That cooled my brow like fairy fans,
Or stealthily crept along my sleeve
In the dim twilight of a summer-eve
Till they lay just under my chin as white
As the snow that gleams in an Arctic night.
I know I should long for the chair that stood
JUNE 181
In the twilight-porch; and the womanhood
That made you come with your velvet feet,
And your laylike words, soothing and sweet,
Your coaxing eyes, and the delicate arts
That men will love in their queen of hearts,
And fold your hands just under my chin
And ask my heart to let you in !
Yes, full well I know that the seraph-band
On the beautiful plains of the Summer-Land
Would miss me when I thought of you;
The snow-flake arms and the eyes of blue,
The sweet meek face and the human tricks,
Where Art and Nature so intermix,
That none save Love could tell anyone
Where the girl left off and the woman begun !
Ah ! sweet, I fear should I leave you here,
I would wander away from the spirit-sphere
And be with you when the seraph-band
Would want me up in the Summer-Land !
That in spite of a sweeter world than this,
I might barter its bliss for a human kiss,
While the fairest spirits would gaze and grieve,
And your hand stole stealthily up my sleeve,
Till folded and resting just under my chin,
You asked my heart to let you in.
John W. Overhall
From an old scrap-book made tp Adley H. Cummins;
Sacramento, 1873.
AMARE E'VIVERE
It is a blessed thing to love,
To love not wisely but too well,
To feel in life the witchery
Of love's romantic spell.
To keep within the heart of hearts
A sacred altar flame,
And burning daily incense there,
Maintain for answering love a claim.
182 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
To feel the thrill of conscious joy,
When in a handclasp hearts unite,
To centre all in one brief hour
And see it vanish from our sight.
To be beloved. To touch the chords,
Which vibrate with an answering thrill,
The lute-strings of another heart,
Vocal, responsive to our will.
To know, that in the careless world
One heart-throb is for us alone,
One voice is raised in our defense
Else low in love's soft undertone.
True love, it knoweth no distrust,
It cancels every anxious fear,
It lulls the troubled soul to rest,
Of human life, the golden year.
It is a blessed thing to love,
To love not wisely but too well,
To feel in life the witchery
Of love's romantic spell.
Holly Dean.
From the scrap-book of a Pioneer Mother who cherished and preserved this
poem in her extreme youth as a precious thing. Nobody would put it into her
scrap-book today. Yet it tells the story of her youth and innocence in an interest-
ing way for many of them married at sixteen. This poem was written for the
"Rural Free Press", date unknown.
SONG OF HERRERA THE RAIDER
Oh, closed be all eyes but thine own, my sweet,
And dim be the kindly stars !
How else shall I come to thy dear, dear feet
When the hate of thy kindred bars?
And swift be thy silent hoofs, my steed,
Swift, swift, as the leagues fly by!
Thou knowest what need
Will I have of thy speed
Till the home of my foes be nigh;
The home of my fo.es,
Where there dwelleth the rose
For the breath of whose lips I would die !
Yes, deem myself blessed to die !
From "The Nine Swords of Morales'. CeQTge Rom& M ^ u
JUNE 183
BALLAD— RECOMPENSE
If God should plunge me in perpetual gloom
By taking from my eyes the boon of sight,
I would not rail against His word of doom,
Nor curse the solemn hours of endless night ;
For Love would come attendant to my call,
And whisper of thy graces rare and bright,
And limn thy face upon my dungeon's wall
In perfect lines of ever-living light.
Henry A. Melvin.
LIFE'S HOPES
When the weight of sorrow presses on the weary, weary heart,
When the future we have trusted fails to do its promised part,
As it creeps into the present, and we shrink deceived, betrayed,
With the fruit of expectation turning bitter in the shade
Of the Tree of Knowledge, reaching with its elongated bough
Through the shadow of the ages to the stern and staring now;
When the long-desired fulfilment, clasped at last in our embrace
Proves a chill and bloodless nothing with a stolid, painted face ;
When Ave seem like some lone cedar which cruel Chance has
placed
On a bleak and stony headland looking o'er a dreary waste;
When the smiling sky is darkened with the gloom-clouds of
despair,
Not a single star to brighten — only blackness everywhere —
Then comes a breeze so gently blowing —
Comes a warm and tender light
Stealing up the Eastern Heaven —
When despair and sable night,
Slowly fade away together — Morning trips along the slope.
And the Spirit's Day breaks newly,
With the Dawning Light of Hope.
From "San Francisco Chronicle" ; May, 1889.
FORBIDDEN
The Snow King, peering from Sierran steep,
Across the Western Slope of fragrant bloom,
Cries : "Halt ! — To enter Eden were our doom !
Here let us fold our white robes close and sleep !"
Richard Lew Dawson.
184 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
SWEETHEART
Sweetheart, I sail away to thee
Wherever the helmsman steers,
Wherever the main is wild and free
My hope doth banish tears.
Sweetheart, I strive always for thee
Wherever my swift feet tread,
What task my eager eyes may see
'Tis done for hope ahead.
Sweetheart, of thee I dream alway
'Neath stars and summer skies
And by thy side I long to stay
And read thy shining eyes.
'Tis true I know thee not, Sweetheart,
Nor are thy kisses real,
But still of me art thou a part,
My own, my fond ideal.
Ben Field.
From "Poems of California and the West;"
Boston: Richard C. Badger, J 904.
A THOUGHT FROM LILLY 0. REICHLING DYER
Very little is enough for us to live on; it is not clothes, it
is not luxuries that give to us our greatest happiness, it is that
which is within — our inward resources.
It is my belief that what we plan, even with our greatest
effort, can never equal that which comes forth spontaneously
as if by inspiration.
THE GREAT PANORAMA
In June, the cherries are more than ripe and luscious — they
are the rubies and garnets of the jewel-world of fruits, in their
lavish display. You hear the Portuguese at their work, singing
in the trees, as they pluck the gems and prepare them for mar-
ket. And it makes a poem of the season to hear them singing.
A. E.
JUNE 185
LOVE SONNETS OF A HOODLUM
Life is a combination hard to buck,
A proposition hard to beat,
E'en though you get there Zaza with both feet,
In forty flickers, it is the same hard luck,
And you are up against it nip and tuck,
Shanghaied without a steady place to eat,
Guyed by the very copper on your beat
Who lays to jug you when you run amuck.
O Life! you give Yours Truly quite a pain.
On the T square I do not like your style;
For you are playing favorites again
And you have got me handicapped a mile.
Avaunt, false Life, with all your pride and pelf;
Go take a running jump and chase yourself!
EPILOGUE
To just one girl I've tuned my sad bazoo,
Stringing my pipe-dream off as it occurred,
And as I've tipped the straight talk every word,
If you don't like it you know what to do.
Perhaps you think I've handed out to you
And idle jest, a touch-me-not, absurd,
As any sky-blue-pink canary bird,
Billed for a season at the Zoo.
If that's your guess you'll have to guess again,
For this I fizzled in a burst of glory,
And this rhythmatic side-show doth contain
The sum and substance of my hard-luck story,
Showing how Vanity is still on deck
And humble Virtue gets it in the neck.
Wallace Irrvin.
Txdo stanzas from "The Love Sonnets of a Hoodlum" ;
San Francisco: Paul Elder & Co., 1901 .
THE WEDDING IS OVER
The wedding is over, the guests are all gone,
But why sits the bride's sister all weeping alone?
The wreath of white roses she takes from her brow,
But why sits the bride's sister all sorrowing now?
A Memory Cem.
A quotation from the lips of a Pioneer Mother of early days.
186 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
MORNING
Through yon gates of beaten gold
Cometh now the Goddess Morning,
Robed in glories manifold,
Earth and heaven adorning;
Fill the heart and banish sadness,
Touch the keys that thrill with might,
Loose the fountain floods of light,
John C. Jury.
From "Omar and Fitzgerald and Other Poems' ;
Whitaker & Ray Company, 1903.
A RED, RED HEART
He gave me a red, red heart to wear,
I placed it next my own,
As a symbol of love — of love so fair —
But his was made of stone.
A. E.
The sweetheart of Summer weds to-day, —
Pride of the Wild Rose clan:
A Butterfly fay
For a bridesmaid gay,
And a bumblebee for best man !
Charles Elmer Jenney.
From "California Nights' Entertainment" ;
Edinburgh: Valentine & Anderson.
WHEN LOVE GROWS TO BE TOO OBSERVANT
When Love grows to be too observant
It ceases to be fervent.
Lorenzo Sosso.
From "Wisdom for the Wise".
INVOCATION
Goddess of Liberty ! lo, thou
Whose tearless eyes behold the chain,
And look unmoved upon the slain,
Eternal peace upon thy brow, —
Before whose shrine the races press,
Thy perfect favor to implore
(The proudest tyrant asks no more,
The ironed anarchist no less), —
Whose altar-coals that touch the lips
Of prophets kindle, too, the brand
By Discord flung with wanton hand
Among the houses and the ships, —
Upon whose tranquil front the star
Burns bleak and passionless and white,
Its cold inclemency of light
More dreadful than the shadows are, —
Thy name we do not here invoke
Our civic rites to sanctify ;
Enthroned in thy remoter sky,
Thou heedest not our broken yoke.
Thou carest not for such as we ;
Our millions die to serve thee still
And secret purpose of thy will.
They perish — what .is that to thee?
The light that fills the patriot's tomb
Is not of thee. The shining crown
Compassionately offered down
To those who falter in the gloom
And fall, and call upon thy name,
And die desiring— 'tis the sign
Of a diviner love than thine,
Rewarding with a richer fame.
To Him alone let freemen cry
Who hears alike the victor's shout
The song of faith, the moan of doubt,
And bends Him from His nearer sky.
God of my country and my race !
So greater than the gods of old —
So fairer than the prophets told,
Who dimly saw and feared Thy face,
Who didst but reveal Thy will
And gracious ends to their desire,
Behind the dawn's advancing fire
Thy tender day-beam veiling still, —
188 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
To whom the unceasing suns belong,
And deed is one with consequence, —
To whose divine inclusive sense
The moan is blended with the song, —
Whose laws, imperfect and unjust,
Thy just and perfect purpose serve;
The needle howsoe'er it swerve,
Still warranting the sailor's trust, —
God, lift Thy hand and make us free ;
Perfect the work Thou hast designed.
O strike away the chains that bind
Our souls to our idolatry !
The liberty Thy love hath given
We thank Thee for. We thank thee for
Our _ great, dead father's holy war
Wherein our manacles were riven.
We thank Thee for the stronger stroke
Ourselves delivered and incurred
When Thine incitement half unheard —
The chains we riveted we broke.
We thank Thee that beyond the sea
The people, growing ever wise,
Turn to the west their serious eyes
And dumbly strive to be as we.
As when the sun's returning flame
Upon the Egyptian statue shone,
And struck from the enchanted stone
The music of a mighty fame,
Let Man salute the rising day
Of liberty, but not adore.
'Tis Opportunity — no more —
A useful, not a sacred ray.
It bringeth good, it bringeth ill.
As he possessing shall elect.
He maketh it of none effect
Who worketh not within Thy will.
O give us more or less, as we
Shall serve the right or serve the
wrong.
Confirm our freedom but so long
As we are worthy to be free.
But when (O distant be the time!)
Majorities in passion draw
Insurgent swords to murder Law
And all the land is red with crime,
Or — nearer menace ! when the band
Of feebler spirits cringe and plead
To the gigantic strength of Greed,
And fawn upon his iron hand !
Nay, when the steps to power are worn
In hollows by the feet of thieves,
And Mammon sits among the sheaves
And chuckles while the reapers mourn —
Then stay Thy miracle! replace
The broken throne, repair the chain,
Restore the interrupted reign
And veil again Thy patient face.
Lo ! here upon the world's extreme
We stand with lifted arms and dare
By Thine eternal name to swear
Our country, which so fair we deem —
JULY 189
Upon whose hills — a bannered throng —
The spirits of the dawn display
Their flashing lances all the day
And hears the sea's pacific song —
Shall be so ruled in might and grace
That men shall say : "O drive afield
The lawless eagle from the shield
And call an angel to the place".
Ambrose Bierce.
Note: This great poem has been the inspiration of other great
poems. — The Gatherer. .
(This poem Was first read at a Fourth of July celebration. Later
it was sent by the poet to be preserved in the "Story of the Files of
California.")
THE SIMPLICITY OF TYRANNY
Not as poet's dream, is Freedom to be represented ; not
as a fair young maiden with light and delicate limbs, but, rather
as a bearded man armed to the teeth, whose massive limbs
are strong with struggling. For man has through the centuries
fought and battled and won triumphs, has gained the treasures
of art, has built magnificent temples, has wrought with cun-
ning and skill — all things have come to him with splendid
realization. But the one thing which is his by right, God-
given and eternal, the one thing for which he has battled from
the smallness of Time, has been the last to be accorded to him.
That thing is the RIGHT TO THINK.
The mind which should be as free as the winds of heaven,
has always been held in chains, weighed down by the tyrant's
knee upon its breast. By some strange perversity of the
human heart, the very moment that power is placed in the
absolute keeping of some one man over his fellows, that
moment he schemes to enslave the minds of those about him,
or if failing so to do, gives them over to the torture chamber
or the thumbscrew. The right to think, God-given and eternal
though it may be, has been won only by wading through seas
of blood and pressing forth into the wilderness of an unknown
world. By what process has society been formed that this
God-given right has been delayed until this nineteenth cen-
tury? By what process did this desire to thwart man's natural
heritage first arise? From what habit of primitive man did
it receive its first impetus? * * *
It is the power of wealth that destroys a nation. Law
ceases to be of any value. The social fabric becomes a fester-
ing mass of rottenness. * * * It may be stated as a fact that
no nation ever died because it was poor — that is to say, poor
190 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
in purse; it could not be poor while it was rich in manhood.
There was another thing that entered into making men poor
indeed and depriving them of the right to think; it was the
difficulty which stood in the way, preventing freedom of mind,
because it was so much easier to submit than to organize
against the ages and overturn the old order of things- It is
the simplicity of Tyranny that gives it its power, while the
complexities of Liberty keep it afar, like some distant star in
the heavens, much admired and worshiped, but unattainable.
Why? Because one-man rule is easy, but to gain that
power which the rule of , many-men-together may operate
for the good of all, requires patriotic fervor and self-efface-
ment. To administer an empire it requires only an emperor,
but to organize and carry on a republic it demands many
incorruptible citizens who are more anxious over the common
good than they are over their own personal good. Indeed
there is required a self-effacement sometimes on the part of
citizens of a republic that leaves them beggared for life in
return for their sacrifices, made to save their country. In the
founding of the Republic of the United States, there were many
such instances required to make it possible, notably that of
Robert Morris who was sustained in his efforts to supply
large sums of money by an obscure banker named Solomon,
a patriotic Jew, who aided him and Madison and Jefferson with
his own private fortune. Although these sums were expended
for state purposes yet they were never repaid and this patriot
died at forty-five, a poor man.
Just to indulge in the white passion for patriotism is the
only reward that is theirs, for it is proverbial that "republics
are ungrateful". There is no one to do the bribing, no one to
pay the debt of honor in the carrying on of a republic — all
that belongs to the clever management of an empire where
one-man rule covers everything.
Yes, it is the simplicity of TYRANNY that gives it its
age-long power.
Adley H. Cummins.
In "The Coming of Liberty"
From "Grizzly Bear Magazine"
April 10, 1918.
JULY 191
THE CIVIC CONSCIENCE
To purify politics we should first purify those from whom
the politicians derive their powers. What is most needed in
this country today is a sound civic conscience, a clear and deep
intellectual perception of truth, a moral prescience which
enables its possessor to differentiate right from wrong, coupled
with an impulse toward rectitude. The civic conscience is the
corner-stone of good citizenship, the mainspring of patriotism,
the right which men should follow in every contact with govern-
ment, and with society. A people without its pure flame to
guide them are groping in darkness on the brink of a chasm.
The country basking in its effulgence is immune to decay. It
does not suffice to urge men to do their civic duty- They must
have a proper sense of their obligations and their hearts must
be inclined toward right action. To that end the heart as well
as the mind must be cultivated, and that sort of cultivation
comes with religious teaching. It has been pretty clearly
demonstrated that there can be no moral progress under a
system that has not honor for its basic principle. A sense of
honor is incompatible with indulgence of the passions that
breed depravity. The civic conscience is becoming atrophied
in this materialistic age because of the growing popularity of
the twentieth century gospel, the gospel of corrupting wealth
which urges material ideals contrary to the fundamentals of
ethical and pure Christianity. Hence the paramount import-
ance of persistent denunciation of the irrational coveting of
gold, and the eternal glorification of the idealities. Let us quit
apotheosizing Success, and proclaim more frequently the higher
purposes of existence which inspire grand and beneficent effort.
By this course we may, in time, acquire a civic conscience
which will find expression not only in political activities but
in all our relations with society.
Theodore Bonnet.
From "Town Talk,"
June 3, 1905.
192 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
LIBERTY'S BELL
There's a legend told of a far-off land —
The land of a king — where the people planned
To build them a bell that never should ring
But to tell of the death or the birth of a king,
Or proclaim an event, with its swinging slow,
That could startle the nation to joy or woe.
It was not to be builded — this bell they had planned —
Of common ore dug from the breast of the land,
But of metal first molded by skill of all arts —
Built of the treasures of fond human hearts.
And from all o'er the land, like pilgrims, they came,
Each to cast in a burden, a mite in the flame
Of the furnace — his offering — to mingle and swell
In the curious mass of this wonderful bell.
Knights came in armor, and flung in the shields
That had warded off blows on the Saracen fields;
Freemen brought chains from the prisons afar —
Bonds that had fettered the captives of war;
And sabres were cast in the molten flood,
Stained with the crimson of heroes' blood;
Pledges of love, a bracelet, a ring,
A gem that had gleamed in the crown of a king;
The coins that had ransomed a maiden from death;
The words, hot with eloquence, caught from the breath
Of a sage, and a prayer from the lips of a slave
Were heard and recorded, and cast in the wave,
To be melted and molded together, and tell
The tale of their wrongs in the tones of the bell.
It was finished at last, and, by artisan hand,
On its ponderous beams hung high over the land.
The slow years passed by, but no sound ever fell
On a listening ear from the tongue of the bell.
The brown spider wove her frail home on its walls,
And the dust settled deep in its cavernous halls.
Men laughed in derision, and scoffed at the pains
Of the builders; and harder and harder the chains
Of a tyrannous might on the people were laid;
More insatiate, more servile, the tribute they paid,
There was something they found far more cruel than death,
And something far sweeter than life's fleeting breath.
But, hark! in the midst of the turbulent throng,
The moans of the weak, and the groans of the strong,
There's a cry of alarm. Some invisible power
Is moving the long-silent bell in the tower.
Forward and backward and forward it swung,
And Liberty! Liberty! Liberty! rung
From its wide brazen throat, over mountain and vale,
Till the seas caught the echo, and monarchs turned pale.
JULY 19!
Our forefathers heard it — that wild, thrilling tone,
Ringing out to the world, and they claimed it their own.
And up from the valley, and down from the hill,
From the flame of the forge, from the held and the mill,
They paid with their lives the price of its due,
And left it a legacy, freemen, to you.
And ever when danger is menacing nigh,
The mighty bell swings in the belfry on high;
And men wake from their dream, and grasp in affright
Their swords, when its warning sweeps out in the night.
It rang a wild paean o'er war's gory wave,
When the gyves were unloosened from our millions of slaves
It started with horror and trembled a knell
From ocean to ocean when brave Lincoln fell;
And again its wild notes sent a thrill through the land
When Garfield was struck by a traitorous hand;
And once in each year, as time onward rolls,
Slowly, and muffled, and mournful it tolls
A dirge while Columbia pauses to spread
A tribute of love on the graves of her dea"d.
While Washington's name is emblazoned in gold,
While the valor of Perry or Sherman is told,
While patriots treasure the name of a Hayne,
The fiery drops from the pen of a Paine,
While dear is the name of child, mother or wife,
Or sweet to a soul is the measure of life,
America's sons will to battle prepare
When its tones of alarm ring aloud on the air;
For Liberty's goddess holds in her white hand
The cord of the bell that swings over our land.
Madge Morris Wagner.
WHAT IS THIS REPUBLIC?
What is this Republic? It is the concentrated expression
of intelligent free men organized for the advancement of them-
selves in the pathways of honor and virtue, asking for higher
and better things, not seeking for enslavement; not organizing
themselves to be slaves.
"Reviewing the array of nations prepared for war, I see
a mighty nation — a Russia, a France, a Germany, and England,
with their millions of men armed and ready to strike; ready to
fight; ready to extinguish life. I see their serried forms, not
only upon land, but their wondrous navies upon the vasty deep ;
I behold their mighty cannon leveled at the foe; and I ask
myself why is it thus? I turn back my eyes to the days when
on Calvary's mount the Nazarene died that man might live
194 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
and that peace might prevail; * * * and I wonder whether
in this nineteenth century, in this day and in this hour whether
we are in reality sincere.
For myself my views are clear. I believe in my country.
Her I am ready to defend. On her great shore, from her
mountain tops, and from every vale within which she attempts
to exercise jurisdiction, I believe it to be the duty of our man-
hood to rally to the support of the American flag. But I think
that her destiny is something more than to subjugate rattle-
snakes, boa constrictors, Filipinos or Cubans. I look upon
her as the typification of the republic of the ages. I regard her
as containing within her mighty bosom the truth of centuries,
received from those who have striven to elevate virtue, to
take women and men and build them up to be higher and
better things in the struggling story of mortality. I believe
in tjhat, and I summon to that great contest no barbarian
horde. If I have anything to say, if my voice may summon
from the vasty deep, if it may call from the mountain top, if it
may bring echoes from the plain, the note will be, "Let us
fight that manhood may be better; that it may be purer; that
it may be greater".
And at my side I want intellect, purity, truth, manhood;
and ABOVE ME THE STANDARD OF JUSTICE.
From "Speeches of Stephen M. White";
Extract from "The Decadence of the Past
and the Hope of the Future"
Delivered in Los Angeles, California April 14, 1899.
Los Angeles, CaL: Times-Mirror Co.
After forty-eight years of devotion to his native state, as orator,
United States senator, and citizen, with the great harbor of San Pedro
as a monument to the sagacity, cleverness, adroitness, audacity and un-
swerving loyalty of this man, Stephen M. White, his life came to an end
on February 21st, 1901, at 4:15 a. m. His last words to those assem-
bled at his bedside were as follows: "The evidence is all in; the case
is submitted."
JULY 195
EARLY CALIFORNIA BALLAD
THE MAID OF MONTEREY
The moon shone but dimly
Upon the battle plain,
A gentle breeze fanned softly
O'er the features of the slain.
The guns had hushed their thunder
The guns in silence lay
Then came the sefiorita,
The Maid of Monterey.
She cast a look of anguish
On the dying and the dead
And made her lap a pillow
For those who mourned and bled.
Now here's to that bright beauty
Who drives death's pangs away,
The meek-eyed sefiorita,
The Maid of Monterey.
Although she loved her country,
And prayed that it might live,
Yet for the foreign soldier
She had a tear to give.
And when the dying soldier
In her bright gleam did pray
He blessed this sefiorita
The Maid of Monterey.
She gave the thirsty water,
And dressed each bleeding wound,
A fervent prayer she uttered
For those whom death had doomed.
And when the bugle sounded
Just at the dawn of day,
They blessed this senorita,
The Maid of Monterey.
Author unknown.
(This ballad Was sung by the soldiers of the Mexican War, in the
early days of California. From "California, '46 to '88, Jacob Wright
Harlan; San Francisco: Bancroft Co., 1888.)
AN EXPERIENCE IN THE PHILIPPINES
By this time the bombardment had ceased, but we met
men breathlessly running who had informed us that the Amer-
icans had landed and were advancing upon the town. * * *
We waited and watched anxiously, when finally, a small black
speck made its appearance, then another and another until
quite a column of these tiny figures were observed descending
196 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
from the brow of the hill. The black mass became bluish, the
figures more distinct. In front fluttered something, borne
by one of the foremost of the advancing figures, the colors
of which, as they became visible to my straining eyes, sent
a thrill through my whole being. Never before had those
red and white stripes impressed me with a similar sensation.
* * * We brought to under a tree not two hundred yards
from the advancing column. I could now distinguish them
as soldiers and marines. On foot we walked forward to meet
them. The foremost marine reached out his hand to me as
I ran up, and my first impulse, had I given way to it, would
have been to throw my arms around his neck and weep on
his bosom; but with a mighty effort, I contained myself, and
nearly shook his hand off.
An elderly officer who appeared to be in command, called
a halt and to him I now addressed myself. * * * At length
they seemed to understand me, and taking a cutlass from the
nearest marine, I split open the cane and delivered Gilmore's
letter. This caused some excitement for Gilmore's misfortune
had evidently made him a famous man.
* * * These were the men of the good ship "Oregon" ;
the officer in command was Lieutenant-Commander McCracken.
To him I now introduced Villamor and Singson, and the former
as representative of the people, surrendered the town formally.
The American officer treated them with the utmost courtesy.
At length my two native friends and I re-entered the quilez,
and leading the way, returned to Vigan, the inhabitants of
which now headed by the band, flocked out to meet us. When
we reached the plaza, the marines, some two hundred, were
lined up before the palace.
The governor came out, and I introduced him to Com-
mander McCracken, upon whom he expended just one-half
of his entire English vocabulary, "Welcome!" which so im-
pressed the American officer with his knowledge of our
language that he at once expressed himself as deeply pleased
to meet the Honorable Governor. Acosta understood not a
word, so in despair he gave forth the other half of his
vocabulary, "Good-bye !"
All was silent, a hush had fallen over that mighty throng
in the plaza. Glancing at the palace I comprehended what
was to follow. A moment later I was rushing wildly up the
stairs to the floor above.
From the balcony the Stars and Stripes were gliding
slowly out and upward toward the flagstaff where a day before
the Insurgent banner had fluttered; while down below in the
JULY 197
plaza the notes of the American bugles arose. I had arrived
in the nick of time- The flag was half way up, and the next
moment I had a hold on the halyard as it dropped from the
hands of the sailor who stood on the railing.
Thus I assisted in raising the American colors over Vigan.
Albert Sormichsen.
From ''Ten Months a Captive Among Filipinos" ;
being a narrative of adventure and observation
during imprisonment on the Island of Luzon, P. I.;
New York: Scribner's, J 901.
A CALIFORNIA SUNSET
Unfurled above the horizon
Were crimson stripes on cumulus,
On snowy clouds : though day was done
The sun's brave message stayed for us.
There hung the lingering evening star,
Bright in its field of azure true.
"What flag," asks Earth, "shall master War?"
The Heavens respond : ''Red, White and Blue !"
Arthur L. Price.
From Examiner,
Oct. 1917.
THE SIGHT OF "OLD GLORY" TO AN EXILE
This is a tale of long ago ; if you are young — a long span
of years to which to look forward. But to us who are elder, it
seems but yesterday that Cleveland laid the first keel of the
new American navy.
At the time of which I write, two venerable side-wheelers,
the Monocacy and the Monongahela, represented the might
of the Western Republic in the Eastern seas, because no
mariner was there intrepid enough to sail them home. For
the same reason a very restricted area of these seas they sailed,
and the Stars-and-Stripes were known to but a mere handful
of the denizens of their shores. Since then came Dewey on
a May Day to Manila Bay. Since then, to Pekin, in the van-
guard of nations, Old Glory led the march, and we are better
known in the Eastern seas, today. But still there are wan-
derers who like Renwick, hunger for a sight of the flag, still
people of the earth to be reminded of the power of the Great
Republic. And not a lesser duty of our navy than acting as
198 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
advance agent of our great commerce is that of carrying
cheer to our exiles.
When I went to Fusan I met there, Renwick, who being
from the Southern States, welcomed me as a countryman,
though I was but a boy from California. Yet we became
comrades. Later I learned his story. At the close of the
war of the rebellion in which he had fought for the South
and lost, he drifted into the navy with a dim idea of making
atonement to his country. In the surgeon's crew he had
sailed for the China station. When the cruise had ended,
Renwick was not ready to return. What welcome had he,
a rebel, and homeless, to expect from his native land? So
he bade his ship-mates farewell, and continued drifting in his
voluntary exile through the Eastern world. And so it happened
that the vicissitudes of time and chance wafted him to Corea
and Fusan, and there I found him. * * * It was on the
next morning that we sat in rapt admiration of the scene
looking down on the sparkling waters from the summer tea-
house amid the perfume of pine and sweet pea. From near-by
boats rose in soft cadence the chants of fishermen and sailors.
Just now, below us, where the sun's rays glanced from the
water, lay the old vessel that had borne me to this unique
corner of earth.
As I looked, the colors floated to the mast-head. The
flutter caught Renwick's eye, and as he descried the old flag
rising from the blinding reflection, he arose and stood at
attention ; he removed his helmet and with his head upon his
breast, dwelt long and sadly on that banner of red, white and
blue. His face was pale. His eyes, dimmed with manly tears
of emotion, gazed with a vacant, far-away look, and one hand
rested on the near-by rail of the tea-house veranda, for support,
for his very limbs trembled beneath him. Then he gave way
to the pent-up emotions within him.
"Old Glory, flag of the country God made !" he exclaimed-
After a pause he turned to me and said, "Bradley, you
were glad to greet a countryman after a few paltry days of
separation from your home and kindred to whom you expect to
return before long. Suppose it had been years since you had
grasped the hand of one who could tell you of your home-
country! years that each seemed ages since you had seen that
flag wafted in its native air, or even borne by a representative
of its power and glory !" His emotion affected me deeply.
* * * A few days later I found him in the driving rain,
leaning against the old scarred fir-tree, while the rising waves
JULY 199
of the bay laved his feet and he was seemingly oblivious of it
all. I ran to him, crying, ''Man, have you lost your mind?"
"No," he replied, "I am going — home." His arm extended
to the hazy outline of the harbor-entrance where lay the ship.
"Home — " he murmured, "at last." * * * As the good towns-
people, young and old, came with many a sincere tear to view
all that was mortal of their companion and friend, a day later,
I wondered not that the land for which beat such a heart was
great; I did regret, however, that the nation that fostered
such a deep sentiment took not greater pains to gladden like
hearts among its exiles.
W. Kimball Briggs.
Extract from a very beautiful short story
written in 1893, after the return of the author from
Korea, where he was one of the secretaries of the then
Minister to Korea, Gen. Lucius Harwood Foote.
The title of the story is "My Light".
(Note by the Gatherer: While preparing the "Story of the Files", in 1893, this
Ms. was brought to me by the author, then a mere youth, to read and make com-
ments upon. I could never forget the impression made upon my mind by this par-
ticular incident of the story, as told above, because it was different from any other of
the kind. Twenty-two years later I sought to get this incident to include in "Literary
California". As a result of this effort the story will be issued in book-form by the
author.)
GEOGRAPHICAL
California is the largest State in the Union, with the exception of
Texas. Its area is 158,360 square miles. Irregular in form, the length
is about 750 miles, the width about 200 miles. The . most striking
physical feature is the great mountain-rimmed basins of the San
Joaquin and Sacramento rivers. The waters of the mountain streams
and rivers of the valleys pour into San Francisco Bay and mingle with
the waters of the Pacific at the Golden Gate.
From "The Pacific School Geography."
Harr Wagner, 1902, San Francisco, California.
200 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
LEX SCRIPTA
"For the Letter killeth; but the Spirit giveth life."— St. Paul.
This once I dreamed. Before me grandly stood
One fashioned like a Deity — his brow-
Still, massive, white — calm as Beatitude,
All passion sifted from its sacred glow,
His eyes serenely fathomless and wise,
His lips just fit to fashion words that fall
Like silent lightning from the summer skies
To kill without the thunder; over all
The sense of Thor's vast strength and symmetry of Saul.
Clad with eternal youth, the ages brake
Harmlessly over his majestic form,
As the clouds break on Shasta. Then I spake
Glad words, awe-struck, devotional and warm.
"Behold," I cried, "the Promised One is come —
The Leader of the Nations, pure and strong!
He who shall make this wailing earth our Home,
And guide the sorrowful and weak along
To reach a land of Rest where right has conquered wrong!
"Oh, He shall build in mercy, and shall found
Justice as firmly as Sierra's base,
And unseal founts of charity profound
As Tahoe's crystal waters and erase
The lines of vice and selfishness and crime
From the scarred heart of sad humanity.
Hail, splendid Leader! Hail, auspicious time!
When might and right with holiness shall be
Like base and treble blent in anthems of the free!"
Just then I heard a wailing, mocking voice
Shiver and curse along the still, dark night,
Freezing the marrow in my bones: "Rejoice;
And may your Leader lead you to the Light!
He laid that perfect hand of His on me
And left me what I am — cursed, crushed and blind —
A living, hopeless, cureless Infamy,
Bound with such bonds as He alone can bind —
Bonds that consume the flesh and putrefy the mind."
I looked and saw what once had been a girl;
A sense of beauty glinted round her frame,
Like corpse-lights over rottenness that swirl
To image putrid forms in ghastly flame.
"Poor, tempted, weak, I did sin once," she cried,
"And I was damned for it — would I were dead!
The partner of my guilt was never tried;
Your Leader there was on his side, and said
That this was right and just." The woman spoke and fled.
JULY 201
The wondrous Being did not move or speak,
Did not regard that lost, accusing soul
More than he did the night breeze on his cheek;
Smiled not nor frowned; serene, sedate and cold,
And while I wondered that no cold wrath
Blazed from his eyes>, a wretched creature came
Cringing and moaning, skulking in his path
A fierce, wild beast that cruelty kept tame —
A lying, coward thing, for which there is no name.
This whining, human, wretchedest complaint,
Crouching, as from some unseen lash, thus spoke:
"He held the poison to my lips; the taint
Corrupts me through and through! his iron yoke,
Worn on my ankles, makes me shuffle so.
'The criminal class'! Yea, that was his hot brand
Which worked me such irremediable woe,
Writ on my soul by his relentless hand —
A doom more fearful than the just can understand.
"He careth nothing for the right or truth,
Believes in naught save punishment and crime,
Regardeth not the plea of sex, or youth.
Nor hoary hair, nor manhood in its prime.
That which is called 'respectable' and 'rich'
Seems right to him; and that he doth uphold
With force implacable, calm, cruel, which
Hath delegated all God's power to gold,
Making the many weak, the few more bad and bold.
"He never championed the weak; no cause
Was holy, just and pure enough to gain
His aid without " a momentary pause,
Born of some superhuman throe of pain
Let in a calm, grave voice that quietly
Pursued the swift indictment: "I declare
Wherever right and wrong were warring,
Displayed his merciless, calm forces where
He might most aid the strong, and bid the weak despair.
"He murdered Christ and Socrates, and set
Rome's diadem upon the felon brows
Of Caesars, Caligulas, and wet
Zion's high altar with the blood of sows.
For ever more the slaughter of mankind,
Oppressions, sacrileges, cruelties,
Thongs for the flesh, and tortures for the mind —
These are his works!" Astounded, dizzy, blind,
I gathered up my soul, and cast all fear behind.
"This grand but beautiful thing should die," I cried,
"In God's great name have at thee!" Then I sprung
With superhuman strength and swiftness — tried
To seize, to strangle, and to kill, and flung
All my soul's force to break and bear him down.
The calm, strong being did not move or speak;
The grand face showed no trace of smile or frown;
The eyes burned not; the beautiful, smooth cheek
Nor flushed nor paled, but I grew impotent and weak.
202 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
A hand reached forth as fair and delicate
As any girl's, as if but to caress
My throat; the steel-like fingers, firm as fate,
Relentless, merciless and passionless,
Began to strangle me; the chill of death
Crept on me, numbing brain and heart and eye.
"Who are thou, Devil?" shrieked I, without breath.
Before death came I heard his cold reply:
"I am Lex Scripta, madman, and I cannot die."
Nathan Kouns.
From "Story of the Files of California",
San Francisco: 1893.
"THE WAY OF WAR"
Man primeval hurled a rock,
Torn with angry passions he;
To escape the which rude shock,
Foeman ducked behind a tree.
Man primeval made a spear,
Swift of death on battlefield;
Foemen fashioned other gear
Fought behind his hidebound shield.
Man mediaeval built a wall,
Said he didn't give a damn;
Foeman not put out at all,
Smashed it with a battering ram.
Man mediaeval, just for fun,
Made himself a coat of mail;
Foeman laughed and forged a gun,
Peppered him with iron hail.
Modern man bethought a change,
Cast more massive iron-plate;
Foeman just increased his range,
Tipped his ball to penetrate.
Modern man, with toil untold,
Deftly built torpedo boats ;
Foeman launched "destroyers" bold,
Swept the seas of all that floats.
JULY 203
Future man — ah! who can say? —
May blow to smithereens our earth ;
In the course of warrior play
Fling death across the heaven's girth.
Future man may hurl the stars,
Leash the comets, o'er-ride space,
Sear the universe with scars,
In the fight 'twixt race and race-
Yet foeman will be just as cute —
Amid the rain of falling suns,
Leave the world by parachute,
And build ethereal forts and guns.
And when skies begin to fall
And foeman still will new invent —
Into a star-proof world he'll crawl,
Heaven insured from accident.
Jack London.
Reprint of a Prophetic Poem from S. F. Chronicle,
Dec. 1 6th, 1917.
THE AGE OF ORATORY IN CALIFORNIA
The age of Oratory is past in California. Thirty or forty
years ago there was not a village in the state but could con-
tribute its orator, and no slouch at that. In the late seventies
for instance, Los Angeles was nothing more than a country
village, but the town could boast of half a dozen speakers,
any one of whom could give cards and spades on the stump
to the best that California can produce today. There was that
marvelous master of style, Colonel E. J. C. Kewen, on the
Democratic side, and handsome Jim Eastman on the Republican
end. There were, besides, the masterful Volney Howard,
''Black Jim" Howard, Frank Ganahl and others.
Stephen M. White was just beginning his career in those
days and great as he became, he was outclassed as an orator
by most of the men I have named.
The people of that day used to travel miles to have a part
in a big political powwow and the orator was a popular hero.
In those days the roads in Los Angeles county were simply
204 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
beds of shifting sand and at Downey City the Missourians
would flock in from the country along about 3 or 4 o'clock in
the afternoon and squat down in the soft and warm sand in
front of the hotel, smoking corncob pipes and waiting for
Frank Ganahl to come along about sundown and expound
to them the democratic law and gospel from the balcony.
Nobody ever thought of hiring a hall- September was the
campaign month and all political functions were held outdoors.
You could hear Stephen M. White's voice a block away.
You did not have to attend the meeting. All that was neces-
sary was to open the windows and listen. That marvelous
voice of White's with which in later years he was able to
control national conventions, gained its pitch and compass by
practice in open-air speaking. * * * P. D. Wigginton of
Merced, Henry Edgerton of Sacramento, William Henry Liv-
ingston Barnes — they are gone and only Tom Fitch, the silver-
tongued, remains of all that notable band. Of all the wonderful
array of orators that California has produced the most delight-
ful and most polished was General Barnes, and the most
effective and convincing was Stephen M. White.
Barnes was never strongly in earnest. He was the advo-
cate and political opportunist. The best thing he ever did was
a short speech at the republican state convention in Sacramento
in 1898. The convention was waiting for a report to be
handed in and Barnes was called to the platform to fill in the
time and keep things moving. He made a very pretty talk
for about twenty minutes and stopped but the report was not
ready and the convention insisted he should go on. It was at
the time when the volunteer army for the Philippines was
cantoned at Camp Merced, among the foggy sand dunes of
San Francisco. The sanitary arrangements were wretched
and there was no little suffering in camp. Barnes broke away
into the story of the dying soldier of Camp Merced, far away
from home and friends. He spoke for another twenty min-
utes and the speech was a little classic. Clement Shorter
reported it in shorthand, and the remarkable thing is that it
reads as well in cold print as it sounded from the platform.
That is a rare thing with oratory. Tom Fitch was another
of the great word weavers. He had an almost miraculous skill
in compounding glittering epigram, but like Barnes he was
merely the advocate. * * *
Oratory was a powerful factor in the first half century of
California history. The reputation of Colonel E. D. Baker,
the "Gray Eagle", who died for his country at the head of
his troops at Ball's Bluff, has come down to us. Ned Jerome,
who used to be deputy collector of the port, was a great
JULY 205
admirer of Baker and collected and published some of his
speeches. As models of English diction they are wonderfully
perfect.
Just fifty years ago last month David C. Broderick, sen-
ator from California, was killed in a duel by David S. Terry,
who had resigned his office of chief justice as preliminary to
the meeting. Baker delivered the funeral oration and it is
worth quotation as an example of his style:
"Fellow Citizens ! One year ago today I performed a duty
such as I perform today over the remains of Senator Ferguson,
who died as Broderick died, tangled in the meshes of the
code of honor. Today there is another and more eminent
sacrifice. Today I renew my protest; today I utter yours.
The code of honor is a delusion and a snare ; it palters with
the hope of a true courage and binds it at the feet of crafty
and cruel skill. It surrounds its victim with the pomp and
grace of the procession, but leaves him bleeding on the altar.
It substitutes cold and deliberate preparation for courageous
and manly impulse and arms the one to disarm the other;
it may prevent fraud between practiced duelists who should
be forever without its pale but makes the mere trick of the
weapon superior to the noblest cause and the truest courage.
Its pretense of quality is a lie — it is unequal in all the form,
it is unjust in all the substance — the habitude of arms, the
early training, the frontier life, the border war, the sectional
custom, the life of leisure, all these are advantages which no
negotiation can neutralize, and which no courage can overcome.
But, fellow-citizens, the protest is not only spoken in your
words and mine — it is written in indelible characters ; it is
written in the blood of Gilbert, in the blood of Ferguson, in
the blood of Broderick, and the inscription will not altogether
fade. With the administration of the code in this particular
case I am not here to deal. Amid passionate grief, let us strive
to be just. I give no currency to rumors of which personally
I know nothing. There are other tribunals to which they may
be well referred and this is not one of them. But I am here
to say that whatever in the the code of honor or out of it
demands or allows, a deadly combat where there is not in all
things entire and certain equity, is a prostitution of the name,
is an evasion of the substance, and is a shield blazoned with
the name of chivalry to cover the malignity of murder."
How much of the history of California sprang from that
duel! It was the starting-point of that tremendous drama in
which Judge Terry, Stephen J. Field, William Sharon and
206 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
Sarah Althea Hill were the leading figures. It had all the
intensity, the inexorable force and logic of a Greek tragedy.
Aeschylus might have used it for a theme.
Edward F. Cahill
From "San Francisco Call";
October 17, 1909.
SWORD, GO THROUGH THE LAND
Sword, go through the land and slay
Guilt and Hate, Revenge, Dismay!
Now where is such a sword, you say?
Sword, go through the land but spare
Love and Hope and Peace and Prayer !
Now who, you ask, that sword shall bear?
Sword, go through the land and Youth,
Prime and Age shall cry, "Forsooth,
How mighty is the sword called Truth"!
From "A California Troubadour" ;
A. M. Robertson;
S. F. 1912.
THE COMING OF LIBERTY
"Gentlemen of America," wrote a brilliant Frenchman, during
the American Revolution," what right have you more than we,
to this cherished liberty? Inexorable tyranny crushes Europe,
and you lawless and mutinous people, without kings and with-
out queens, will you dance to the clanking of the chains which
weigh down the human race? and deranging the beautiful
equipoise, will you beard the whole world and be free?"
Nevertheless the day came when France, herself, deranged
the beautiful equipoise and demanded that she, too, should
have her liberty !
Oh, it was a wonderful day for France when the walls of
the Bastile were leveled ! and in the place where was known
so much human misery, where men had been chained for so
long that the charges against them had been forgotten, the
retcord lost of why they had been thus confined, when the
new era came in, and in this place was hung the device,
"DANCING HERE"!
GALAXY 11.— POETS AND PROSE-WRITERS
Ellen Donovan
Robert Willson Murphy
Nora May French
Florence Richmond
John Vance Cheney
Lucius Harwooc Foote
Lionel Josephare
Dora Amsden
C. Van Order.
Mrs. Fremont O'.ier
James Doran
Grace MacGowar. 1
Alice MacG
208
JULY 209
Merriment, joy and delight, citizens of France, "dancing
here" on this spot infamous in history, blackened with the
tyrannies of kings! "Dancing here"? where the tears have
worn furrows down the cheeks of innocent men ! Let the
feet trip and the music swell the breeze, a defiance against
the memories of this awful spot. And so let it be written
over all institutions of slavery and tyranny: "dancing here!
dancing here!"
It was a beautiful thought, one characteristic of the French
mind and temperament, the sending of the great key of the
Bastile to rest upon the coffin of Washington — as if it were
fitting that it should be placed in his keeping and care, even
though dead.
Manhood of our Western civilization has dared to derange
the beautiful equipoise of tyranny and be free. That last-
obtained heritage, the "RIGHT TO THINK" is at last ours.
Ecclesiasticism, that goblin of our creation, from which we
have turned affrighted and fled shrieking, has lost its power
to hold mankind in its thrall. Like the serpents, imprisoning
Laoccoon and his sons in its coils, the folds are slowly loosen-
ing superstition is in its dying throes.
Western civilization carries the torch uplifted, its rays
must shine in every corner. Where the race goes, there the
germs of liberty are scattered and take root and flourish.
The story is told of a certain elephant named Mr. Pun-
jaub, who dwelt in a lovely, fever-laden jungle in India with
Mrs. Punjaub and their daughter. Now Mr. Punjaub had a
tremendously high opinion of his own valor and prowess. In
fact he announced his ability to annihilate any moving, breath-
ing thing on earth. But one day, down two queer looking
lines of steel which were mysteriously laid through his reser-
vation, there charged a furious monster, puffing and blowing.
To vindicate his defiance of this new rival, Mr. Punjaub
stumped around and tore a few trees up by the roots. But
the next day he gave the monster battle — with the result that
Mr. Punjaub was observed by his loving family perched upon
the cowcatcher of the locomotive, and tearing across the
country at a frightful rate of speed.
Upon his return, a wiser but a sorer elephant, he stuck
up on high a sign, which being interpreted, means "This jungle
to let!"
And so where goes this new dominant race that loves
"FREEDOM" — it is as well for them to announce "This
jungle to let" — For the miasma and fevers and decay of old
superstitions left over from those days of the childhood of
210 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
our race shall be driven out and dissipated — the coiling reptiles
of superstition cast off, the goblins-of-light-and-darkness no
longer feared.
Where this race comes with this flaming torch of liberty
there will the nations be lifted up and enlightened and learn
to resist tyranny.
"Citizens, the nineteenth century is great, but the twentieth
century shall be happy."
Let us hope indeed that this new century whose dawn is
now reddening the horizon, will bring to sorrowing, suffering,
toil-worn millions of earth, their long-hoped-for freedom, those
halcyon days
"When the dwellers in the nether gloom"
shall be happy yet.
Adley H. Cummins.
Extract from "The Coming of Liberty",
published in the "Grizzly Bear Magazine", April 1918,
This Oration was first delivered at Irving Hall, S. F.,
March, 1889.
A STAR SEEN AT TWILIGHT
Shine on companionless
As now thou seemst. Thou art the throne
Of thine own spirit, star !
And mighty things must be alone.
Alone the ocean heaves,
Or calms his bosom into sleep;
Alone each mountain stands
Upon its basis broad and deep;
Alone through Heaven the comets sweep —
Those burning worlds which God has thrown
Upon the universe in wrath,
As if he hated them — their path
No stars, no suns may follow — none —
'Tis great, 'tis great to be alone.
John Rollin Ridge.
From "Poems", San Francisco: 1868.
JULY 211
WHAT IS OUR COUNTRY?
What is our country? Not alone the land and the sea,
the lakes, the rivers and the mountains and valleys — not alone
the people, their customs and laws — not alone the memories of
the past, the hopes of the future. It is something more than
all these combined.
It is a Divine Abstraction. You cannot tell what it is —
but let your flag rustle above your head and you feel its living
presence in your heart.
* * * * jyjot vet> not vet> shaii the Republic die. Bap-
tized anew, it shall live a thousand years to come, the Colossus
of the nations — its feet upon the continents, its sceptre over
the seas — its forehead among the stars." —
From "Sacramento Union*.
Newton Booth.
MAKERS OF THE FLAG
This morning, as I passed into the Land Office, The Flag dropped
me a most cordial salutation, and from its rippling folds I heard it
say: "Good morning, Mr. Flag Maker."
"I beg your pardon, Old Glory," I said, "aren't you mistaken? I
am not the President of the United States, nor a member of Congress,
nor even a general in the army. I am only a government clerk.
"I greet you again, Mr. Flag Maker," replied the gay voice, "I
know you well. You are the man who worked in the swelter of yes-
terday straightening out the tangle of that farmer's homestead in Idaho,
or perhaps you found the mistake in that Indian contract in Oklahoma,
or helped to clear that patent for the hopeful inventor in New York,
or pushed the opening of that new ditch in Colorado, or made that
mine in Illinois more safe, or brought relief to the old soldier in
Wyoming. No matter: whichever one of these beneficent individuals
you may happen to be, I give you greeting, Mr. Flag Maker."
I was about to pass on, when The Flag stopped me with these
words:
"Yesterday the President spoke a word that made happier the
future of ten million peons in Mexico; but that act looms no larger
on the flag than the struggle which the boy in Georgia is making to
win the Corn Club prize this summer.
"Yesterday the Congress spoke a word which will open the door
of Alaska; but a mother in Michigan worked from sunrise until far
into the night to give her boy an education. She, too, is making
the flag.
"Yesterday we made a new law to prevent financial panics, and
yesterday, maybe, a school-teacher in Ohio taught his first letters to
a boy who will one day write a song that will give cheer to the
millions of our race. We are all making the flag."
"But," I said impatiently, "these people were only working."
Then came a great shout from The Flag:
"The work that we do is the making of the flag.
"I am not the flag; not at all. I am but its shadow.
"I am whatever you make me, nothing more.
212 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
"I am your belief in yourself, your dream of what people may
become.
"I live a changing life, a life of moods and passions, of heart-
breaks and tired muscles.
"Sometimes I am strong with pride, when men do an honest
work, fitting the rails together truly.
"Sometimes I droop, for then purpose has gone from me, and
cynically I play the coward.
"Sometimes I am loud, garish and full of that ego that blasts
judgment.
"But always I am all that you hope to be, and have the courage
to try for.
"I am song and fear, struggle and panic, and ennobling hope.
"I am the day's work of the weakest man, and the largest dream
of the most daring.
"I am the Constitution and the courts, statutes and the statute
makers, soldier and dreadnought, drayman and street sweep, cook,
counselor, and clerk.
"I am the battle of yesterday, and the mistake of tomorrow.
"I am the mystery of the men who do without knowing why.
"I am the clutch of an idea, and the reasoned purpose of resolution.
"I am no more than what you believe me to be and I am all that
you believe I can be.
"I am what you make me, nothing more.
"I swing before your eyes as a bright gleam of color, a symbol
of yourself, the pictured suggestion of that big thing which makes
this Nation. My stars and my stripes are your dream and your labors.
They are bright with cheer, brilliant with courage, firm with faith,
because you have made them so out of your hearts. For you are the
makers of the flag and it is well that you glory in the making."
Franklin K. Lane.
Delivered on Flag Day, 1914, before the employes of the
Department of the Interior, Washington, D. C,
by Franklin K. Lane, Secretary of the Interior.
HERE— AND THERE
Day sleeps. By Twilight's tender hand caressed
The poppies nod, where beds of lupin lie
In deepening shade, and the unfathomed sky
In velvet robe folds Earth's abundant breast,
A soft breeze stirs the forest's curving crest;
Above, a purple vault, where pale clouds fly;
And on the ear sounds Ocean's solemn sigh,
In murmurous monotone of vast unrest.
How peaceful is this dreaming spot this night,
Where dim, mysterious shadows, veil the light,
And man, and all his deeds, seem far apart;
And yet, somewhere in France, this hour there toll
War's direful bells, that search her bleeding heart,
And echo in the caverns of her soul.
Edward DeWitt Taylor.
JULY 213
DREAM OF A SLACKER
A corporal gave me instruction;
Clear of eye, a clean-cut chin,
Face firm set; yet boyish, young —
Shoulders square and stomach in.
A mellow voice, a cultured tongue —
Of the sort reared by our Pilgrim fathers
On Pilgrim farms.
"Steady men,
Once again,
Left shoulder — arms !"
And we were his keen and eager pupils,
Clean of limb and bronzed of face ;
Were keen, alert, our heads held high —
Pride of half the human race ;
Were proud, and unafraid to die —
Of the sort reared by our Pilgrim fathers
On Pilgrim farms.
Smart and snap
Of piece and strap
To "order — arms!
And then we had some bayonet drill.
Smart the clap of solid heel ;
Our fingers tight like iron bands
Gripping the glist'ning steel;
We boys with man-like hairy hands,
And strong, like knights of Middle Ages
Who threw the lance !
"Firm of sound,
Hold your ground,
On guard — advance!"
And we marched to our transport,
All equipped, in fighting trim,
Our muscles swelled by the heavy load,
Jaws set firm and faces grim
With eyes ahead upon the road.
We were manly and mighty — eager,
Yes, keen to go.
The hep-hep
Of eager step!
"Squads left— ho !"
214 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
'T was not till then I felt my high head nod ;
'T was not till then I wakened from my dream
And rose my head
From pillowed bed;
And saw me as I am ; then cried, "O God !"
Sergeant Thomas Klecfyner;
"S. F. Chronicle'; 1917.
GOD BLESS OUR BOYS
(Tune, Pentecost.)
L. M.
God bless our boys where'er they be.
In conflict with the enemy,
On tented field or rolling sea,
God bless our boys where'er they be.
Midst perils many keep them free
From harm and sin's mad misery;
May they repose their lives in Thee,
God bless our boys where'er they be.
As Thine own soldiers may they be
Lovers of God and loved of Thee ;
Speed Thou their fight to victory —
God bless our boys where'er they be.
Soon o'er the earth let freedom see
Her banners wave; and endless be
God's reign of love and liberty —
God bless our boys where'er they be.
/. H. Lewin.
Inserted in a hymnbook to suit the hour;
San Francisco: 1918.
FOR OUR SOLDIERS
It is the tendency in this country to decry the services of
the army and of its officers; and yet, most of the latter spend
the greater part of their lives on the frontiers and is the Indian
country. Weeks at a time are passed in scouting against their
treacherous foe, enduring every hardship, and daily risking life
itself, to open the way for the pioneer and settler. Yet, what
is their reward? When the papers come to them from the
regions of civilization, they find themselves stigmatized in
JULY 215
editorials, and even in speeches on the floor of Congress, as
the drones of society, living on the government, yet a useless
encumbrance and expense.
But, one by one, how many lay down their lives in this
cause ! Without counting those who sink into the grave from
sickness produced by unwholesome climates, exposure and
hardships, how many more actually meet their deaths on the
battle field ! During the last season alone, Taylor, Gaston,
Allen and Van Camp have thus shed their blood, and every
year the list increases. Yet they fall in battle with an obscure
enemy, and little are their sufferings appreciated by the
"gentlemen
Who live at home at ease."
r "a Tx ,l id •* Lawrence Kip.
From Army Life on the racific;
Red field, New York: 1859.
NAPOLEON'S DYING SOLDIER
Fast drives the thickening snow;
In great white clouds it drifts along the way,
Sweeping into its engendering breast
My wasted comrades to their alien rest ;
And they, poor ones, open their lips and smile
To feel the chilling breath strike at their hearts the while.
Oh, Land of awful things,
That you my wretched body should retain !
Strewing the grave of him who helpless dies
With tears of blood wrung from his comrades' eyes.
And are the sons of France decreed to sleep
Forgot beneath the soil of Russia's frozen steep?
Sweet France, Queen of my heart!
If but for once mine eyes might see your vales
Blushing among their roses crimson glow ;
But here, O God ! amid the scudding snow
My wearied soul will slumber to the drum —
The bonds of death are strong — I cannot come.
Agnes S. Taylor.
ABOUT SWORDS
It often takes two swords to keep
Another in its sheath asleep.
Lorenzo Sosso.
From "Wisdom of the Wise".
216 JULY
THE GREAT PANORAMA
In July is the glory of the apricot time, when the luscious
golden fruitage hangs so thickly upon the trees that one may
count eight, ten, fourteen clustered together so closely that they
seem as if trying to emulate the grape in their arrangement of
growing. But there is tragedy in the apricot crop more than
in any other. If Nature is too lavish one year, the price goes
down to fourteen dollars a ton, picked and delivered. If it is
scanty in one place or another, then you sell them for one hun-
dred dollars a ton. To own your own apricot trees and pick
and eat them yourself, ripe one at a time, "till you have con-
sumed seventeen 'cots," is said to restore a dyspeptic to rug-
ged health.
A. E.
WARS AND WISHES
I wish all wars were over,
And in wishes there is weight,
And if all the world so wished it,
There would be no room for hate;
For what we wish and what we will
Are three-fourths human fate.
George Douglas.
From "S. F. Chronicle" ; 1916.
THE LITTLE LAD
To me it's always the little lad
Afraid to speak his name.
But he was one of the first to go,
When his heart received the flame.
He used to steal from the shadowy room,
And over the lighted stair,
If dismal tales were being told.
But he won the Croix de Guerre.
He clutched my hand when the thunder broke.
He paled at the lightning's glance.
But he met the Teutons face to face,
And fell with the sons of France.
Agnes Lee.
From "The Mountain Realty, Joseph /. Bamber, Editor;
"A GREAT THOUGHT NEVER DIES"
No matter where uttered a great thought never dies. It
does not perish amid the snows of mountains or the floods of
rivers or in the depths of valleys. For a time it may seemingly
be forgotten, but it is somewhere embalmed in memory, and
after a while reappears on the horizon like a long gone star
returning on its unchanging orbit, and on its way around the
endless circles of eternity.
Calvin B. McDonald.
From "Story of the Files of California" ;
San Francisco: 1893.
IN A HAMMOCK
Carelessly singing, carelessly swinging,
Now in the sunshine, now in the shade —
What could be fairer, what could be rarer
Than bird-song, day-dream and flower-bloom together,
All growing out of the sunshiny weather,
Filling their happiness just as they fade?
Branches hang over me, green leaflets cover me,
Whispering their secrets of wood-love sweet,
Fluttering and calling, floating and calling,
Setting in visions of cloudland palaces
Pouring out wine from the sun-land chalices,
Kissing my face with their shadows fleet.
Up in the world of sky, out where the echoes die,
Soareth a gray hawk, atilt for prey,
Circling and sinking, carelessly drinking
Draughts of the infinite — how it brims over!
Summer's own children alone know the way.
218 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
Somewhere a grief-note out of a dove-throat
Troubles the silence like falling tears,
Somewhere a memory comes with a cry
Calling the past from its shadowy curtain,
Parting the mists from its visions uncertain,
Breathing the breath of the vanished years.
Swifter the swallows fly, longer the shadows lie,
While I swing idly twixt shadow and shine;
Nothing of summer-bliss, surely can balance this
Service of bird-note and incense of heather,
Perfect content and cups of glad weather,
Nothing I care when all these are mine.
From "Story of the Files of California";
San Francisco: J 893.
Kate M. Bishop.
TO MRS. JANE LATHROP STANFORD
ON HER SEVENTIETH BIRTHDAY, AUGUST 25, 1898
To you beneath life's reddening sunset ray,
Seeing what visions with reverted eyes ! —
Hope, joy, and anguish, boundless sacrifice,
And faith triumphant on the Dolorous Way;
To you, in sign of all words cannot say,
Thankful at least to know your sorrow lies
Safe locked now with dead years' sanctities,
This friendly token let us bring today.
For us, still sorrow that your years creep on;
For you, but gladness. The world's claim is quit —
Fulfilled, and nobly. Happy, who can sit
At eventide and look back to the dawn
Saying, Not empty has the day withdrawn.
Wait for the sunset; peace comes after it.
Alphonzo G. Newcomer.
Accompanying a framed copy of
Abbott Thayer's "Caritas".
AUGUST 219
THE SEQUOIAS
God set seven signs upon this land of ours
To teach, by awe, mankind His wondrous powers; —
A river sweeping broadly to the sea ;
A cataract that thunders ceaselessly;
A mountain peak that towers in heaven's face ;
A chasm deep-sunk toward the nether place;
A lake that all the wide horizon fills ;
A pleasant vale set gem-like in the hills ;
And worthy younger brother of all these,
The great Sequoia, king of all the trees.
A cradle, song and bed the waters meant;
The others, playground, grave and monument;
All wonderful, but cold and hard and dead;
The trees alone, like man, with life are fed,
Like him have felt the stir to rise from earth,
To toil, — to strive to heights of greater worth, —
To breast the storms and know the North wind's rage,
And pass traditions down from age to age.
O'er fourscore spans of human life they see,
And whisper of their tales to you and me.
Some men have worshipped 'neath their mighty beams —
Some men have dreamed and told the world their dreams ;
Some men have lain most humbly at their feet
And sunk into the tired child's slumber sweet;
Some men — men? — have you seen plants wilt and worse,
Their base engirdled by the cut-worm's curse ? —
Such men with axe and saw have gnawed and gnawed
And felled to earth what never back to God
Their lives can raise, nor sons, nor grandsons raise,
Through penance of a thousand arbor-days.
And all for what? To thatch some petty cell?
God keep me roofless ere 'neath such I dwell !
To make our homes a work of finished art
Shall we cut out some great Sequoia's heart?
Still may my pencil be for ever more
If it be splintered from Sequoia core!
Shall vandals sack his temples and lay low,
And no one for His altars strike a blow?
Avaunt ! grant to these great trees nobler death, —
The earthquake or some mighty tempest's breath.
z? r- i-r • at- i . i- . • " Charles Elmer Jenney.
rrom California Nights Entertainment ;
Edinburgh: Valentine and Anderson.
220 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
ALLOYED
How easy 'tis to wish a lady joy;
Nothing so cheap is offered without fears —
Joy, like rare metal, needs must have alloy
To lend it substance unto useful years;
So thou wilt find no joy unmixed with tears.
There is, I think, in every pleasing note,
Struck from the harp of life, a minor strain,
That keeps it in the memory afloat
Unto a time it may be heard again —
Though angel-weft into a new refrain.
Like that rare wax which the perfumers use
To hold in ward each fine and subtle scent,
That otherwise a presence would refuse
In perfect essences, for beauty blent,
All things seem strangely held for good intent.
Sorrow holds joy; the coarse retains the fine;
Age fosters beauty; Hope is life endured
Unto an ending, which is proof and sign
That by itself its own worst ills are cured —
By earthly things the heavenly are assured !
r- .,/, ,, r kjt - »» Frank Rose Starr.
From Golden Era Magazine ;
June, 1885.
QUAIL
Softly ! See, far ahead, across our way,
Those silent forms pass swiftly out of sight ;
So noiseless that the breezes seem affright,
Breathless a moment ere the leaves they sway.
In all their war-paint's glorious array,
With feathered head-dress nodding in the light,
They glide before us like a vision bright,
And as a vision, swiftly are away.
But now and then among the vines and brush
A dusky form seems darting to and fro —
Was that a waving scalp-lock on the rush?
What is it stirs beside that bush, there, low?
Then lightning-like and thunder-loud, and oh ! —
The heart stands still — ah ! — valley quail at flush !
Charles Elmer Jenney.
From "California Nights' Entertainment" ;
Edinburgh: Valentine and Anderson.
AUGUST 221
BARE BROWN HILLS
I did not love them overmuch
Till I had turned away,
But now they glimmer thro' my dreams,
They haunt the summer day —
The low brown hills, the bare brown hills
Of San Francisco Bay.
My heart ached for their barrenness,
Their browns veined thro' with gray;
No tree where some sweet Western bird
Might sit and sing his lay —
But low brown hills and bare brown hills
Of San Francisco Bay.
Not one slim blade of living green
To make the soft slopes gay;
No dim, secluded forest dells
Where one might kneel and pray —
But low brown hills and bare brown hills
Of San Francisco Bay.
Tell me the secret of this charm
That ever, night and day,
From greener lands and sweeter lands
Draws thought and dream away.
To the low brown hills, the bare brown hills
Of San Francisco Bay.
Ella Higginson.
By permission
From "When the Birds Co North Again";
The McMillan Company), London, 1912.
WAITING FOR THE RAIN
Oh ! the earth is weary waiting,
Waiting for the rain —
Waiting for the freshening showers,
Wakening all her slumb'ring powers,
With their dewy moisture sating
Thirsty hill and plain —
O, the earth is weary waiting,
Waiting for the rain.
Sister Anna Raphael.
From "Chaplet of Verses.**
222 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
THE CROWNING OF MISS COOLBRITH
It was while the Exposition of the Panama-Pacific International
world's fair was in progress in San Francisco in 1915, that many
literary lights appeared here to unite in an Author's Congress. And
on June 30th was held a ceremony unique in the annals of California.
Benjamin Ide Wheeler, President of the University of California,
presided, a representative of Governor Hiram Johnson, Arthur Arlett,
arrived with a special message to deliver to President Wheeler.
James D. Phelan, a Native Son of the Golden West, and a
United States Senator, gave an address, expressing the regard of the
people of California for Miss Ina Coolbrith, and telling of the honors
showered upon her abroad, and asking that the poet be given her
rightful title at this time and at this place.
Thereupon President Wheeler called the name of Miss Coolbrith.
And she stood before that great audience in all her simplicity and all
her greatness. She was robed in handsome black brocade satin,
embroidered in silver, with point lace about the corsage and sleeves.
Her crown was her own silver hair. She stood there like a queen,
full of grace and majesty. At the sight of this dearly-beloved home-
woman thus exalted, tears began to flow from many eyes, and sobs,
half-suppressed, were heard amid the stillness.
Always shy, always retiring, always a slave to her home-duties,
always one who had battled with the wolf at the door, to see her
thus exalted by the sheer genius of her poetic art, gave a new glimpse
into life in California. Was it possible that anything so exquisite as
poetry should be recognized and honored thus, in a land given over
to the story of gold and grain, fruits and flowers, as its chief products?
Presenting her with a laurel wreath, President Wheeler addressed
her in these words:
"Upon thee, Ina Coolbrith, by the power vested in me by the
Governor of the State of California, by common consent of all the
guild of those who write — upon thee, sole living representative of the
golden age of California letters, coadjutor and colleague of the great
spirits of that age, thyself well worthy by natural right to hold place
in their forward rank, upon thee I lay this poetic crown and name thee,
our Poet Laureate."
In response Miss Coolbrith gave answer thus:
"It is with pride and gratitude that I feel the honor you would
confer upon me, yet I can but voice my realization of my unworthi-
ness. Senator Phelan has spoken justly of the little I have published.
By me Poetry has been regarded not only as the supremest of arts,
but as a divine gift, for the best-use of which its recipient should be
fitted by education, time, opportunity. None of these have been mine.
The 'higher education' was not open to me in my youth, and in a life
of unremitting toil later leisure and opportunity have been denied. So
my meagre output of verse is the result of odd moments, and only
done at all because so wholly a 'labor of love.'
"I feel that the honor extended me today is meant not so much
because of any special merit of my own, as in memory of that wonder-
ful group of early writers with whom it was my fortune to be affiliated
and of which I am the sole survivor, and for those who have passed
away, and for my sister-women I accept this laurel with deep grati-
tude and deeper humility," and turning to President Wheeler, she said,
"I thank you."
From "Grizzly Bear Magazine";
August, 1915.
AUGUST 223
HOME INFLUENCE IN EARLY CALIFORNIA
The other diversions offered the people were about on a
par with the drinking saloon and gaming table ; but with the
growth of home influence men began to long for better things.
They began to be interested in the development of the great
resources of the country. Men sent for their families, and
young men began to look for wives. As soon as they made up
their minds to settle permanently in the country, their conduct
underwent a great change for the better. They were inter-
ested in the establishment of schools and churches, a better
observation of the Sabbath, and whatever they thought would
improve social conditions. In spite of dissipating and disorgan-
izing influences, the main stock of society was strong, vigorous,
and progressive; and with the same energy with which they
had plunged into earlier excesses, the Americans now set about
the establishment of order, guided by an enlightened experience
and the instinct of right. In a community which contained
contributions from all the nationalities of Europe, Asia, Amer-
ica, and the islands of the sea, the men of the United States
dominated by numbers, by right of conquest, by energy, shrewd-
ness, and adaptability. From the worst elements of anarchy
was evolved social order. With a freshly-awakened pride of
country, which made every citizen jealously and disinterestedly
anxious that California should acquit herself honorably in the
eyes of the nation at large, the prejudices of sect and party
were disclaimed, and all united in the serious work of forming
the commonwealth. 7 L c , . niJ ,
Zsoeth o/f inner Liar edge.
From "The Beginnings of San Francisco" ;
San Francisco: 1912.
PICO
Last of thy gallant race, farewell!
When darkness on his eyelids fell
The chain was snapped — the tale was told
That linked the new world to the old ; —
The new world of our happy day
To those brave times which fade away
In memories of flocks and fells,
Of lowing herds and mission bells.
He linked us to the times which wrote
Vallejo, Sutter, Stockton, Sloat,
Upon their banners — times which knew
The cowled Franciscan, and the gray
Old hero-priest of Monterey.
224 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
In his proud eye one saw again
The chivalry of ancient Spain;
The grace of speech, the gallant air,
The readiness to do and dare.
And he was ready; and his hand
For love of this, his motherland,
Was quick to strike and strong to lead;
He served her in her hour of need
And, loving, served her as he knew.
What better proof, though unconfessed,
Than those old scars upon his breast?
Once these broad fields which slope away
Asleep in verdure, zone on zone,
With countless herds, were all his own.
Once from his white ancestral hall.
A lavish welcome ran to all.
Today the land which gave him birth
Allots him but a plot of earth —
A tomb where winter roses creep
On Santa Clara's crumbling wall;
Fit place, perhaps, for one to sleep
Who knew and loved her best of all.
So ends in rest life's fitful day.
He saw an era pass away.
He touched the morning and the noon
Of that sweet time which, all too soon,
To twilight hastened when the call
Of Fremont from her mountain wall
Provoked the golden land to leap
New-vestured from her age-long sleep.
The train moves on. No hand may stay
The onward march of destiny;
But from her valleys, rich in grain,
From mountain slope and poppied plain
A sigh is heard — his deeds they tell,
And, sighing, hail and call farewell.
Daniel S. Richardson.
From "Trail Dust" ;
San Francisco: A. M. Robertson, 1908.
AUGUST 225
"THE NATIONS OF THE WEST"
The Nations of the West are grouped around that prairie
wagon, drawn by two oxen. In the center stands the Mother
of Tomorrow, a typical American girl, roughly dressed, but
with character as well as beauty in her face and figure. On
top of the wagon kneels the symbolic figure of "Enterprise",
with a white boy on one side and a colored boy on the other,
"Heroes of Tomorrow". On the other side of the wagon
stand typical figures, the French-Canadian trapper, the Alaska
woman, bearing totem poles on her back, the American of
Latin descent on his horse, bearing a standard, a German, an
Italian, an American of English descent, a squaw with a
papoose, and an Indian chief on his pony.
r »tl r* * n » l onn D - B^V-
From The City of Domes ;
San Francisco: John J. Neivbegin, 1915.
MUIR OF THE MOUNTAINS
A lean, wild-haired, wild-bearded craggy man,
Wild as a Modoc and as unafraid,
A man who went his way with no man's aid,
Yet mild and soft of heart as any maid.
Sky-loving, stalwart as the sugar-pine,
Sweet, simple, fragrant as that towering tree,
A mountain man, and free as they are free
Who tread the heights and know tranquility.
A man whose speech knew naught of studied art,
But careless straying as the stream that flows,
And full of grace, poetic as the rose
That to the wind its pure song-petals throws.
A relish of the larger life was his,
With reverence rapt and wonder and deep awe
For any beauty Nature's brush might draw,
A man of faith who kept each primal law.
The skylands brown, the blest sky-waters blue
He haunted, and he had a curious eye
For glaciers, where his bold feet dared to try
The dizziest summits and their threats defy.
226 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
A coarse and stinted fare to him was rich
So it were seasoned with the savory
Sweet airs, while his glad eye was feasting free
Upon the blue domes of Yo Semite.
He made his bed amid the sheltering rocks
Or where the lowly, blood-red snow-plant blooms,
Where sleep more sweetly comes than ever comes
In the stale heated air and dust of rooms.
Unarmed he faced the grizzly in the wood,
Birds trilled him friendly notes from tree-tops tall;
The ouzel, thrush, and quail and whimsical
Qray squirrel miss him, for he loved them all.
Gone is the traveler of the unseen trail
To seek that wilder beauty which defied
His eager earthly quest — gone with his Guide
To find it there beyond the Great Divide !
Bailey Millard.
From "San Francisco Examiner", August 15, 1916;
Read to the Sierra Club at its meeting in
Muir Woods, August 12, 1916.
THE MEMORY OF THE PIONEERS
The memory of the Pioneers will never pass ; the tradi-
tions of Sutter's ^Fort and Coloma and Table Mountain and
Poker Flat will live forever. The very odor of the balsam
of pines, the scent of wild azaleas, the gleam of banks of red
sandstone, live in the pages of our history, while the eloquence
of Starr King and Baker will . survive as long as upon the
broad domain of California the heart of a patriot will beat
with love.
John F. Davis.
ABOUT LANGUAGES
It is said that in a shop-window in France is a sign thus :
"English Spoken American Understood"; which reminds us of
the native daughter who said she could speak five languages:
San Francisco, San Bruno, Mission and Potrero, and could
make herself understood in Alameda.
George Douglas.
From "Bits for Breakfast";
S. F. Chronicle, September, 1918.
AUGUST 227
PORT TOWNSEND
Above the waters of the Inland Sea
Whose tides like rushing troops of cavalry,
Omnipotent, bear down from Ocean's breast;
And surge and roar and leap from crest to crest,
Until exhausted on Olympia's sands.
This city of the Sound resplendent stands.
********
Oh, silent night, in soft September air!
Oh grand and lovely Sound beyond compare !
The crescent moon has vanished in the West,
And all the stars are mirrored in thy breast.
Above from violet sky, the Pleiades
Reflect their brilliance in the glassy seas ;
Orion holds his gleaming saber high ;
His jeweled belt with splendor lights the sky;
While Aldebaran shines with ruddy glow,
And Sirius flashes diamonds from below.
1 As down the smooth but rapid tide they steer
The shadows of the forest disappear.
And pulse of engine, sound of busy mill,
No more are heard ; but all is hushed and still.
Leonard S. Clark.
An extract
From "Overland Monthly" ;
November, 1893.
DRIVING THE LAST SPIKE
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 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.
From "The Iron Way"
A. C. McClurg & Co., 1907.
228 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
THE FIRST SHIP TO ENTER SAN FRANCISCO BAY
To Lieutenant Ayala was designed the survey of the Bay
of San Francisco. Owing to contrary winds progress was slow
and it was not until August 5th, that they approached the en-
trance to the port. * * * At nine the tide was out so
strongly that the ship was driven to sea, but at eleven o'clock
the tide turned and it drew near the coast, the captain approach-
ing the entrance with caution, taking frequent soundings. At
sunset the launch was seen coming from the port but the flood
tide was too strong and she was forced back. Night was now
coming on; an anchorage must be found and the San Carlos
stood in through the unknown passage. Rock cliffs lined the
narrow strait and the inrushing tide dashing against rock pin-
nacles bore the little ship onward. In mid-channel a sixty
fathom line with a twenty pound lead failed to find bottom.
Swiftly ran the tide and as day darkened into night the San
Carlos sailed through the uncharted narrows, passed into its
inner portal, and opened the Golden Gate to the commerce of
the world. Skirting the northern shore the first ship cast
anchor in the waters of San Francisco Bay at half-past ten
o'clock on the night of August 5th, 1775, in twenty-two fathoms,
off what is now Sausalito.
Zoeih Skinner Eldredge.
From "The Beginnings of San Francisco,'' 1912.
CHINESE CURIO
Wong Ning stands in his usual place with that wise look
he always assumes when about to indulge in legendary lore
about "one home China". And thus he speaks : "You know
why the little cat, the little dog always keep the eye shut for
nine days? Why, the calf no keep him shut at all?"
"Why, no, Wong Ning; why is it?"
"I hear 'on home, China' that when little cat first born,
she say to the mother, 'Mother Cat, what kind of world this?'
And the mother say, 'Velly poor world this ; have velly hard
time. The master pull the tail; the children throw too many
stone, dlown in the water. Velly hard world you come.' The
little dog say, 'Mother Dog, what kind of world this?' just the
same like the little cat. And the mother say, 'Not good world
— have velly hard time. Get plenty kick; sometime no get
anythin' eat. Velly poor world you come.' And the little cat,
the little dog keep the eye shut and cly, cly for nine days
because such a bad world."
"But when the little calf say, 'Mother Cow, what kind of
AUGUST 229
world this?' the mother say, 'Velly nice world this. Have
plenty to eat ; no work ; master take velly good care all your
life. Velly good world you come.'
"And the little calf open the eyes quick."
The Gatherer.
From "Golden Era Magazine" ;
August, J 884.
LIFE IN BODIE IN 1865
These jolly miners were the happiest set of bachelors
imaginable, with neither chick nor child to trouble them ;
cooked their own food, did their own washing; mended their
own clothes; made their own beds; and on Sundays cut their
own hair, greased their own boots and brushed their own coats,
thus proving to the most positive direct evidence that woman
is an unnecessary and expensive institution, and ought to be
abolished by law. I have always maintained, and do still
contend, that the constant interference, the despotic sway, the
exactions and caprices of the female sex ought no longer to be
tolerated, and it is with a glow of pride and triumph that I
introduce this striking example of the ability of men to live in
a state of exemption from all these trials and tribulations.
True, I must admit that the honest miners of Bodie spent a
great deal of their leisure time in reading yellow-covered
novels and writing love-letters ; but that was only a clever
device to fortify themselves against the insidious approaches
of the enemy.
/. Ross Browne.
From "Harper s Monthly ", September, 1865; also
from "Complete Guide to Mono County Mines",
by Joseph Wasson.
AN EARLY SPANISH SCENE
YVe were followed in a moment by the Governor, adjusting
his collar and smoothing his hair. As he reached the doorway
at the front of the house he was greeted with a shout from
assembled Monterey. The plaza was gay with beaming faces
and bright attire. The men, women and children of the people
were on foot, a mass of color on the opposite side of the plaza,
the women in gaudy cotton frocks girt with silken sashes,
tawdry jewels and spotless camisas, the coquettish reboso
draping with equal grace faces old and brown, faces round and
olive, the men in glazed sombreros, short calico jackets and
230 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
trousers, Indians wound up in gala blankets. In the fore-
ground were caballeros and dons on prancing, silver-trapped
horses, laughing and coquetting, looking down in triumph
upon the duenas and parents who rode older and milder mus-
tangs and shook brown, knotted fingers at heedless youth. The
young men had ribbons twisted in their long black hair and
silver eagles on their soft gray sombreros. Their velvet serapes
were embroidered in gold; the velvet knee-breeches were laced
with gold or silver cord over fine white linen; long deer-skin
botas were gartered with vivid ribbon ; flaunting sashes bound
their slender waists, knotted over the hip. The girls and
young married women wore black or white mantillas, the silken
lace of Spain, regardless of the sun which might darken their
Castilian fairness. Their gowns were of flowered silk or red
or yellow satin, the waist long and pointed, the skirt full;
jeweled buckles of tiny slippers flashed beneath the hem. A
few Americans were there in the ugly garb of their country —
a blot on the picture.
Gertrude Aiherton.
From "The Dooms-Woman" ; 1893.
THE GRAND CANYON FROM AURORA TO
BODIE BLUFF
One fine morning in September we set forth on our expe-
dition. The rugged cliffs along the road cropped out at every
turn like grim old castles of feudal times, and there were frown-
ing fortresses of solid rock that seemed ready to belch forth
murderous streams of fire upon the head of any enemy that
might approach. I was particularly struck with the rugged
grandeur of the scenery in the neighborhood of Fogus' quartz-
mill. * * *
We stopped a while at the foot of the grade to visit the
magnificent quartz-mills of the Real Del Monte and Antelope
mining companies, of which I had heard so much since my
arrival in Aurora. Both of these mills are built of brick on
the same plan, and in the Gothic style of architecture. Noth-
ing finer in point of symmetrical proportion, beauty and finish
of the machinery, and capacity for reducing ores by crushing
and amalgamation, exists on the Eastern slopes of the Sierras.
I had little expected to find in this out of the way part of the
world such splendid monuments of enterprise. * * * Pass-
ing several other mills as we proceeded up the canyon, we
entered a singularly wild and rugged pass in the mountains
AUGUST 231
where it seemed as if the earth had been rent asunder by some
convulsion of nature for the express purpose of letting people
through. It reminded me of the Almannajan in Iceland, which
was evidently produced by the contraction of the lava as it
cooled and dried. Whatever way it happened, the road thus
formed is a great convenience to the traveling public.
********
(In description of a trip to Mono Lake the following is
added:)
"A soft delicious air, fragrant with odors of wild-flowers,
and new-mown hay, made it a luxury to breathe. High to
the right, tipped by the glowing rays of the sun, towered the
snow-capped peaks of the Sierra Nevada. In the west and
south, grand and solitary — monarchs among the mountain-
kings — stood Castle Peak and Mount Dana as if in sublime
scorn of the puny civilization which encircles their feet. These
mighty potentates of the wilderness, according to the geolog-
ical survey of Professor Whitney, reach the altitude of 13,000
and 13,500 feet, respectively.
/. Ross Browne.
From "Harper's Monthly", September, J 865; also
jrom "Complete Guide to Mono County Mines",
by Joseph Wasson.
A TRIP TO THE TOP OF MOUNT TAMALPAIS
Personnel: Chaperon, Poets, Blossoms and Guide
Prose is lonesome in the presence of poetry. The at-
mosphere that circles at the foot of Mount Tamalpais is laden
with the tune which gives the poet inspiration. Up from the
waters, across the vine-clad hills and valleys, speeds to a meet-
ing the hushed music of the winds, the psalm of Nature.
The heart of the poet is light, the foot of the poet is free,
and even the children, the blossoms, measured their tread in
iambics. I jogged along in prose. * * * The children
loitered by the way to weave round their ringers the silken
thread that the gossamer spider hangs on blades of grass.
The poets paused to peep up through the trees, admiring the
tints that break out here and there in splendor, and are inter-
ested in the fungi that spring up, of every size and hue, from
slender scarlet on the decaying log to the bold toadstool that
the children call "the lunch table for the fairies of the moun-
tain." A deer sped across the trail. * * * Two poets re-
mained, too weary to proceed further. The hot sun sent down
232 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
rays that pierced like needle-points. All beauty was forgotten.
The chaperon and the blossoms reached the mountain road,
then turned back to quaff from the spring. * * * The climb
through the underbrush was taken. The physical and the
esthetical waged a war. The love of beauty triumphed. My
hot thirst for water was abated by the approaching view of
the Pacific. The last rock was scaled. I stood on the top
with arms outstretching like a cross. Nature had lifted me
above the level of vegetation and cast aside the mountain's
drapery of fog.
I could see where wheat fields, groves and orchards meet
the waters of the great salt sea, and the little villages of wild,
romantic beauty, half hidden by the oak trees and the willows.
Just beyond the Golden Gate I could see Sutro Heights, with
its classic beauty, a landmark of the endless waste beyond.
There are panoramas of the Hudson, and the Rhine, but
there are none to equal the cycle of Tamalpais, where the
human vision leaps from city to city, from bay to bay, from
village to village, from lake to lake, from mountain to moun-
tain, from ocean to infinite space.
Harr Wagner.
From "Story of the Files of California" ;
San Francisco: 1893.
A TRIBUTE TO STARR KING
As the man plodded down Geary street, he came to an old
building of gray stone, whose walls were half buried beneath
a dense growth of English ivy which framed the arched door-
way. Some meeting was being held inside, and through the
stained-glass windows the light fell in brilliant patches on
the moist green sward, reaching the outlines of a low Gothic
tomb, where all that was mortal of Starr King had been placed
by loving hands, in sight of the church that had been the
scene of his unselfish ministrations. In his extremity of need
the desolate man outside, clung to the iron palings, while his
heart cried aloud to the friend of his boyhood days. But no
answer came from the silent sleeper.
Flora Haines Longhead.
From "The Man Who Was Guilty";
Boston: Houghton, Mifflin Company, 1886.
AUGUST 233
A THOUGHT UPON LAKE TAHOE
To a wearied frame and tired mind what refreshment there
is in the neighborhood of this lake ! The air is singularly
searching and strengthening. The noble pines not obstructed
by underbrush, enrich the slightest breeze with aroma and
music. Grand peaks rise around, on which the eye can admire
the sternness of everlasting crags and the equal permanence
of delicate and feathery snow. Then there is the sense of seclu-
sion from the haunts and cares of men, of being upheld on
the immense pillars of the Sierra at an elevation near the line
of perpetual snow, yet finding the air genial, and the loneli-
ness clothed with the charm of feeling the sense of the mystery
of the mountain heights part of a chain that links the two
polar seas, and of the mystery of the water poured into the
granite bowl, whose bounty finds no outlet into the ocean
but sinks again into the land. * * * The whole of the vast
surface of the lake * * * is a mass of pure splendor.
When the day is calm, there is a ring of the lake, extending
more than a mile from shore which is brilliantly green. Within
this ring the vast center of the expanse is of a deep, yet soft
and singularly tinted blue. * * * They do not shade into
each other; they lie as clearly defined as the course of glowing
gems in the wall of the New Jerusalem.
Thomas Starr King.
From "Christianity and Humanity" ;
Boston: Houghton, Mifflin Company, J 863.
By George Wharton James, 1098 N. Raymond Ave.,
Pasadena, California, 1915.
A PICTURE OF THE LAKE TAHOE REGION
After leaving the fertile valley of the Sacramento and
rising into the glorious foothills of the Sierras, every roll of
the billows of the mountains and canyons wedged in between
is redolent of memories of the argonauts and emigrants. Yon-
der are Yuba, Dutch Flat, the North Fork, the South Fork (of
the American River), Colfax, Gold Run, Midas, Blue Canyon,
Emigrant Gap, Grass Valley, Michigan Bluff, Grizzly Gulch,
Alpha, Omega, Eagle Bird, Red Dog, Chips Flat, Quaker Hill
and You Bet. Can you not see these camps, alive with rough-
handed, full-bearded, sunburned, stalwart men, and hear the
clang of hammer upon drill, the shock of the blast, the wheeling
away and crash of waste rock as it is thrown over the dump
pile?
234 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
And it is in the very bottom of this majestic scenery that
Lake Tahoe lies enshrined. Its entrancing beauty is such that
we do not wonder that the triumphant monarchs of the "upper
seas" cluster around it as if in reverent adoration, and that
they wear their vestal virgin robes of purest white in token of
the purity of their worship.
Thoughts like these flood our hearts and minds as we
reach Truckee, the point where we leave the Southern Pacific
cars and change to those of the narrow gauge for Tahoe
Tavern on the very edge of the lake. This ride is of itself
romantic and beautiful. The river of the Truckee is never
out of sight, and again and again it reminds one in its foaming
speed of Joaquin Miller's expressive phrase:
"See where the cool white river runs."
George Wharton James.
From "The Lake of the S£p";
Pasadena, California, 1915.
A TRIBUTE TO LAKE TAHOE
Oh ! the exquisite beauty of this lake — its clear waters, em-
erald green, and the deepest ultramarine blue; its pure shores,
rocky or cleanest gravel, so clean that the chafing of the waves
does not stain in the least the bright cleanness of the waters;
the high granite mountains with serried peaks which stand
close around its very shore to guard its crystal purity — this
lake, not among, but on the mountains, lifted six thousand
feet towards the deep-blue over-reaching sky whose image it
reflects ! * * * All these produce a never-ceasing and ever-
increasing sense of joy, which naturally grows into love. There
would seem to be no beauty except as associated with human
life and connected with a sense of fitness for human happiness.
Natural beauty is but the type of spiritual beauty.
Joseph Le Conte.
From "The Lake of the Sfcp";
by George Wharton James,
Pasadena, California, 1915.
A SIERRA SNOW-PLANT
From afar they had a glimpse of the beautiful blue-green
lake of Tahoe, but went on, upward. Presently the party
came upon a jagged place of broken rocks in the midst of a
thick covering of pine-needles, where was growing a tall thick
AUGUST 235
stem of watermelon pink, studded from top to root with grace-
ful bells and bracts of the same color.
Murielle fell down beside it, calling to them all in a tri-
umphant tone, "Oh, I have found a snow-plant — I've found a
snow-plant." And with a broken pine-bough she dug away
the earth, revealing below a great tuberlike root of the delicate
pink, which she declared went down endlessly. She broke it
off a foot below, saying, "I have never succeeded in reaching
the end of a root yet, and I won't worry with this one. Isn't
it a beauty? Every bell is perfect. Have you ever studied
snow-plants, Mr. Earl?"
"No," he said smiling, "I am just commencing." She
looked up quickly. "This is my first lesson, I mean," he
added. "They are of strange growth, I have heard." "Well,
they are strange plants to me," she continued. "I am con-
vinced that they belong to the fungus family, even if the
botanies do say 'the heath family.' They grow suddenly and
they wither over night, sometimes, and they are fleshy like a
fungus, too."
"What? Does a fungus grow with such regularity and
beauty?" he objected.
"Not generally, of course," she admitted. "But you surely
won't try to make me believe it is just a common exogenous
plant ! This, you must remember, is an extraordinary fungus."
"Could it not be a parasitic plant, springing from some pecul-
iarity in a pine-root, or some underground stem?" he suggested.
"That might explain the length of its root."
"Possibly," replied Murielle thoughtfully, "I wonder why I
never thought of it before. You have only commenced the
study, Mr. Earl, yet you are ahead of me. I feel as if I were
in the primary class."
"You must remember that I have all the benefit of your
study to begin with. Will it wilt before we get it to the hotel?"
Murielle laughed. "Now you show how superficial your knowl-
edge is. Any one could see this is your first experience. Why,
I intend to take that plant home with me to San Francisco,
to exhibit for a month to come."
"How? You certainly can't press it in a book, a great big
tuber like that." He seemed mystified.
"No, I shall pack it in ice and it will keep fresh and full
for weeks." He whistled to express his surprise.
"Put it in the lunch-basket, please," she said to him, "it
is too heavy to carry in vour hand — rather too bulky, I should
say."
"Too delicate, you mean," he added mischievously ; "my
236 AUGUST
hands are not exactly icy. I am afraid it would wilt very
soon in my care."
Ella Sterling Mighels.
From "The Little Mountain Princess";
(first novel written by a native Calif ornian) ;
Boston: Loring, 1880.
NIGHT ON SHASTA
How very close to heaven it seems up here,
When noiseless night her velvet curtain drops !
I dare not raise my head above the copse
Lest I should bump some star, they are so near.
How dark below; above, how dazzling clear!
The moon, just risen, sails the sky and stops
Resplendent, in the dark firs' stunted tops —
But where the goddess of the silver spear?
Sweet heathen ! She has not the hardihood
To hunt so close the very throne of God ;
Her beauty cannot charm this sacred wood ;
She dares not tread upon such hallowed sod;
In some Ionian vale she conquers still,
But not upon this vast sidereal hill.
Ralph Bacon.
THE GREAT PANORAMA
In August comes a glory unlike any other to the land-
scape. I remember a row of plum or prune trees of the silver
and the blue, alternating, where the fruitage was so heavy that
the branches turned downward and hung upon the very ground,
making a gorgeous screen in decorative design of peacock
tints. It was my very own, on my little baby-ranch up at
Silver Hill in Hayward that this wonder came to pass. I
used to get up at four o'clock in the morning to go out and
gaze upon it from the sheer love of beauty. And meanwhile
I enjoyed tasting the sweet ripe gems of this Aladdin-like tale
of a garden — and gained new life and strength in the midst
of such perfection.
A. E.
WHO GOETH SOFTLY
Who goeth softly, safely goes,
Wisdom walks on velvet toes.
Loronzo Sosso.
THE MINER'S SONG OF LABOR
The eastern sky is blushing red,
The distant hill-tops glowing;
The brook is murmuring in its bed,
In idle frolics flowing;
'T is time the pickaxe and the spade,
And iron "torn" were ringing,
And with ourselves, the mountain stream,
A song of labor singing.
The mountain air is cool and fresh,
Unclouded skies bend o'er us,
Broad placers, rich in hidden gold,
Lie temptingly before us ;
We ask no magic Midas' wand,
Nor wizard-rod divining,
The pickaxe, spade and brawny hand
Are sorcerers in mining.
When labor closes with the day,
To simple fare returning,
We gather in a merry group
Around the camp-fire burning;
The mountain sod our couch at night,
The stars shine bright above us,
We think of home and fall asleep,
To dream of those who love us.
John Swett
A FAIR EXCHANGE
Time is money ; I have plenty of the former to exchange
for a little of the latter.
Mark Twain.
238 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
A PERFECT DAY
I will be glad today; the sun
Smiles all adown the land;
The lilies lean along the way;
The full-blown roses, red and white,
In perfect beauty stand.
The mourning-dove within the woods
Forgets, nor longer grieves;
A light wind lifts the bladed corn,
And ripples the ripe sheaves ;
High overhead some happy bird
Sings softly in the leaves.
The butterflies flit by, the bees;
A peach falls to the ground;
The tinkle of a bell is heard
From some far pasture-ground;
The crickets in the warm, green grass
Chirp with a softened sound.
The sky looks down upon the sea,
Blue, with not anywhere
The shadow of a passing cloud;
The sea looks up as fair —
So bright a picture on its breast
As if it smiled to wear.
A day too glad for laughter — nay,
Too glad for happy tears !
The fair earth seems as in a dream
Of immemorial years :
Perhaps of that far morn when she
Sang with her sister spheres.
It may be that she holds today
Some sacred Sabbath feast;
It may be that some patient soul
Has entered to God's rest,
For whose dear sake He smiles on us,
And all the day is blest.
Ina Coolbrith.
From "Songs from the Golden Gate";
Boston: Houghton, Mifflin Company), J 895.
SEPTEMBER 239
THE SPIRIT OF CALIFORNIA
I am Ariel freed of a master;
I am Puck lacking Oberon's ban;
When the lotus is ripe, hark my Pandean pipe,
For I'm Peter the godchild of Pan.
I am Iris, my brush is a rainbow:
Endymion awakened am I;
I'm the breast of the tree Hamadryad I be —
With Sequoia I tickle the sky!
O, I'm secret of life-giving rivers;
I am balm that exhales from Health's cave;
Consumed in each kernel, I live on eternal,
I am Master of Life, I'm its Slave.
From the battlements of the Sierra
The Pandean pipe I swing free,
And my far-floating tune, in the stillness of noon,
Weaves a spell from the peaks to the sea.
Rufus Steele.
Copyright; P. F. Collier & Son, 1909.
A SONG OF WORK
There is no idleness in all this moving world
That lives and flourishes.
For idleness is death,
It nourishes
Its lorn existence with the dying breath,
It hovers spectre-like round tombs and graves,
It lies in mouldy vaults and dank forgotten caves,
With rotting skulls that crumble 'neath the hand,
It skulks and falters thro' the living land,
And ever cries and cries
In its death throe as it lies.
But work and toil is life !
There's a glory in the strife,
There's a vigor in the strain,
There's a promise in the pain
Of work, work, work !
Oh the men that never shirk
Life's appointed task,
And the women who ne'er ask
If the work will ever end —
Oh the trees that never bend
'Neath the pressure of the storm,
Oh the lusty upright form,
Oh the ever busy brain,
240 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
Ever striving to attain
More, more, more
Of the world's unstudied lore!
Hear the anvil and the hammer
How they bandy forth their clamor,
Hear the ceaseless bells that ring,
Hear the reapers toil and sing —
Hear the buzz and hum
Of the engines, never dumb
In the sawmill, with the shrilling
Of the lumber 'neath the plane ;
It is crying out in pain
That the heartless steel is killing,
Killing every forest tree,
Large and free.
Hear the sailors making sail,
Hear their chantey in the gale,
As they pull, pull, pull.
Till the flapping sail is full.
See the clerk forever writing,
See the businessman inditing
Letters that will make his fortune,
While his creditors importune.
All are busy — some with good and some with evil-
Shrewd connivings with the devil
Busy some with midnight revel —
Such is life — all incomplete and growing,
Working, heaving, thrusting, throwing —
Working out God's destined plan,
Working for the betterment of man,
Working through the aeons fierce and strong,
Bursting forth with gladness into song.
Charles A. Keekr.
ALL WORK IS PRAYER
All work is prayer beneath the sun ;
The laborer is God's true priest :
Will he not ask, "What have ye done?'
Of those who only play and feast?
The world is one great hive of toil;
Man's ministry through ages past
Has glorified the common soil
To raise God's altar there at last.
GALAXY 13.— POETS, PROSE-WRITERS, PUBLIC SPEAKERS,
Charles Keeler
D. S. Richardson
Mariana Bertola
Clarence Urmy
Mrs. I. Lowenberg
Richard Edward White
Josephine Martin
Fred Emerson Brooks
Charles Phillips
James Hopper
Louis Robertson
Alice Rose Power
241
GALAXY 14.— HISTORICAL AND SCIENTIFIC WRITERS
Noah Brooks
H. H. Bancroft
Zoeth S. Eldredge
Josiah Royce
Charles Howard Shinn
J. M. Hutchings
John Hittell
Charles Nordoff
J. Ross Browne
John Muir
Theodore Hittell
John P. Young
242
SEPTEMBER 243
No other shrine his worship needs;
No other prayer for Jew or Turk,
Gentile, or men of various creed,
Except the glorious prayer of work.
Work ! noble, pure, devout — baptized
By man alone, the living prayer:
Work sanctified ! but equalized,
So that each one shall do his share.
No kings ; no beggars : none so great
As to despise the hands that toil
To build the true Fraternal State
In every land, or every soil.
O ye who strive to break the ban,
Still laboring from year to year
To bring equality to man,
Work on ! work on ! the time is near.
Lorenzo Sosso.
SCIENCE
The winds of heaven trample down the pines
Or creep in lazy tides along the lea;
Lead the wild waters from the smitten rock,
Or crawl with childish babble to the sea;
But why the tempests out of heaven blow,
Or what the purpose of the seaward flow,
No man hath known, and none shall ever know.
Why seek to know? To follow nature up
Against the current of her course, why care?
Vain is the toil; he's wisest still who knows
All science is but formulated prayer —
Prayer for the warm winds and the quickening rain,
Prayer for sharp sickle and for laboring swain,
To gather from the planted past the grain.
Ambrose C. Bierce.
From "Golden Era* ; December, 1883.
244 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
EXTRACT FROM EARLY POEM ON MECHANIC ART
Mechanics ! to your hands we owe
Whatever we behold below,
From Nature taken, and designed
To suit the changing - human mind.
And more, Americans ! our State,
So young, and yet so proudly great!
********
What need to praise upon my part,
The genius of Mechanic Art?
She speaks — from quarries, woods and mines,
Behold like light a city shines.
She waves her wand — the seas are white
With ships impatient in their flight.
Her finger traces, and its course
Is followed by the iron horse;
Through the deep seas from which the heart
In wildest fantasy will start
She looks, and lo ! the magic wire
Transports her messages of fire.
For her the blacksmith swings his sledge,
The builder grinds his hatchet's edge,
All workmen labor as she says,
All matter her behest obeys,
All shapes are facile at her nod,
From the rude cabin-logs and sod
To temples to the living God.
Edward Pollock-
Delivered at the opening of the First Industrial Exhibition,
September 7, 1857.
A MESSAGE FROM ADLEY H. CUMMINS
There is an engraving hanging on a wall in this city of
San Francisco, an engraving which thousands have stopped
to admire and study. It is like the voice of one crying in the
wilderness — like the eloquent voice of the desert preacher. It
represents, I think, the ruins of Persepolis. Stately columns
and graceful pillars rise on every side; in the foreground a
flight of marble steps is pictured. It is midnight and moon-
light on the desert. In that bright light which many have
observed to illumine such solitudes, a vivid evidence of life
appears. Those halls are no longer tenantless, silent and for-
saken. A king and his queen have deigned to visit them.
SEPTEMBER 245
Ages ago, one who was pleased to term himself the King
of Kings — whose reign extended from the Golden Horn to
Samarcand, from the Hydaspes to the Aegean — was wont to
pace those corridors in luxury and pride; but up those marble
steps now pace in solitary grandeur the king of beasts and his
consort, and his roar sounds out the requiem of the departed
State.
And yet within that city and all the countless towns along
that line of latitude there was a time when life was sweet to
the human inhabitants; when mothers looked with holy joy
upon the budding promise of youth ; love looked into the eyes
of love and told in silence, or in soft and tender words, that
old, old story, which man has ever told his mate, and will
continue so to do as long as
Myrtles grow and roses blow
And morning brings the sun;
where sorrow-stricken people with breaking hearts laid away
their dead to rest and asked, "When shall it please God that
we meet again?"
The young, the bright, the beautiful, the mourned and the
mourner have alike passed away, and the state and majesty of
their country have departed. Why so? Because the Cor-
rupter came to dwell with them; because wealth accumulated
and MEN decayed. The rich became richer, the poor poorer.
Y\ nile the one rioted in ill-gotten opulence, the other pined
away in infinite pain. So alongside the name of that nation,
upon a blank space in the page of history is written : "This
nation became so vile and infamous that it was no longer fit
to live; it therefore died."
The sword of vengeance is ready drawn for any other
nation which permits such a state of society. The executioner,
though not in sight, will appear at the critical moment, and
smite the worthless head from the infamous trunk.
From "The San Franciscan" ; 1884.
FRATERNITY
I sing of Human Brotherhood, the sentiment divine
That views a brother mortal's ills as if those ills were mine ;
That of the good or ill of life will either lend or borrow.
And with his neighbor share his joy or share his neighbor's
sorrow.
246 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
Alas! that man from Eden's way so soon should step aside —
That the first-born of all mankind should be a fratricide.
Alas ! through all the centuries that man with man was striving
In endless feuds and bloody war instead of peace contriving.
From age to age, in every land, man's history has stood
A chronicle of human woe, writ in fraternal blood;
Nation 'gainst nation, man 'gainst man, through all its crimson
pages,
In deadly enmity arrayed — the story of the ages.
But through the cruel centuries were prophets, bards and seers,
Who caught a glimpse of better days amid the darkling years,
When mighty men of hand and brain should use their God-like
power
To elevate the weak and poor, and not crush him lower —
When men should grasp each other's hands, and seek each
other's good,
And join themselves in loyal bands of Knightly Brotherhood —
When woman should at last be free from her enthralled sub-
jection,
And stand upon an equal plane of Mutual Protection.
Hail we the happy days for which the ancient bards did pray,
That usher in the gospel of the New Fraternity ;
That teaches men the blessedness of loving and forgiving,
And in the place of war and death gives peace and joyful living.
Hail to the men of every guild — "Mason," "Odd Fellow",
"Friend",
"Red Man," "Forester," "Workman," "Knight," in whom thy
virtues blend;
Who see in earth's lowly child a sister or a brother,
And recognizes that "love of God" is "love for one another".
Fraternity! Fraternity! What human tongue or pen
Can estimate the great "good will" which thou hast brought
to men —
What joy and comfort thou hast brought unto the poor and
sighing !
What unrecorded ministries unto the sick and dying!
Ah ! not till the last trump proclaims that time shall cease to be
Will it be known in earth or heaven how much we owe to thee.
SEPTEMBER 247
Then when the books are opened and the angels tell the story,
Heaven's vaults shall echo to the song that celebrates thy glory.
Sam Booth.
From "Poems by Sam Booth" ;
Neal Publishing Company, 66 Fremont Street,
San Francisco.
"GET LEAVE TO WORK"
Get leave to work —
In this world 't is the best you get at all ;
For God in cursing gives better gifts
Than man in benediction. God says sweat
For foreheads, men say crowns, and so we are crowned ;
As gashed by some tormenting circle of steel
Which snaps with a secret spring — get work, get work,
Be sure it is better than what you work to get.
A Memory Gem.
Cherished fragment quoted by a Pioneer Woman,
Mrs. M. M. Bay, of Hayward.
THE UNSOLVED PROBLEM
Of the unsolved problems that have agitated the human
mind from time immemorial, the most important has been to
make just provision for the poor. Intellectual and philanthropic
giants have grappled with this most vital problem in vain.
For it is the duty of every one to ameliorate the condition of
the poor without impairing the self respect of the recipient.
Dignity of manhood can be acquired and maintained only by
means of honest labor, not by subsisting on the earnings or
generosity of the benevolent. "While all have a right to
exist," yet it must always be remembered that "Every right
involves a corresponding duty." * * *
The great teacher, Paul, said, "He that will not work shall
not eat." In spite of the march of civilization with its inven-
tions, machinery, and tremendous improvements, the army of
the poor steadily increase, assuming colossal proportions. How
shall they gain their bread? There is no problem of today
more worthy of the thought of man than this — how shall the
unemployed be turned away from despair and led into proper
channels of activity for the good of not only themselves, but
also for the world's good?
248 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
Metternich wisely and truly observes, "There are no more
political questions, there are only social questions." We are
standing on the brink of a volcano, and no number of soup-
houses will repress the smouldering fires ; it requires more
direct, substantial aid. Some plan must be devised by the body
politic to make men self-sustaining. Sporadic charity amounts
to nothing save temporarily, for that alone, while the cause still
remains untouched, for each tomorrow brings its own hunger
afresh. Every dollar given to an association to provide work
— work in any shape for the unemployed — is the initiation of
a commendable effort to elevate the condition of the poor.
This attempt is not an iconoclastic one, not tearing down with-
out building up ; it is simpty substituting the workshop for the
soup-house. If we make the people independent of charity;
but dependent upon labor, there will rise up a nation in that
place, strong in principle and action — the essential elements
of a free and powerful race.
In a certain canton in Switzerland there is already a
society started on these lines, taking for its motto this prin-
ciple, "Labor is the best largesse". A number of persons
subscribe so much annually for the purchase of raw material,
usually cotton, flax, hemp, thread, which is given to be worked
up for pay, and the product is either sold or distributed amongst
the subscribers at a fair price. I read recently that thirty-one
persons died of actual starvation in London last year, not one
having applied to the parish authorities for relief. It is even
more our duty to reach this deserving class to preserve them
to the world, than the merely thriftless who are willing to
accept charity, and by supplying work to know that it is pos-
sible to gather all in, both the worthy as well as the unworthy
poor.
There is no doubt that nothing can be done without labor;
but it must not be forgotten that nothing can be done without
capital. They are certainly dependent upon each other. We
all, the rich and poor, are mutually inter-dependent. Each
needs the other.
Preventive charity by endeavoring to provide work for
the masses is the great thing to be accomplished. Neither
trades-unions, mechanical inventions, nor other great discov-
eries of hitherto unknown forces, nor elemosynary institutions
have decreased pauperism. Charity demoralizes because it
eliminates the stamina and self-respect — work elevates man.
Exceptions should be made in regard to the giving of alms
and providing institutions. Indulgence is claimed for the
children, the infirm and the aged, and even the maintenance of
SEPTEMBER 249
the latter could be avoided and their independence secured, as
in some parts of Europe where there is a compulsory insur-
ance for old age which works with excellent results.
It is not the "Man with the Hoe'' that cries to the world.
but the man "Without the Hoe"', who wants work and there is
none. The "hoe" does not make the man the "Brother of the
Ox", but the brother of the man who will rise with new
conditions.
Organized associations and public workshops where needy
persons can apply and obtain work and must work, not organ-
ized charities, are what are required. Work is not demoral-
izing, but develops "individual freedom" — the goal we all should
seek.
Mrs. I. Lorvenberg.
From "The Unsolved Problem" ;
read before the California Federation of Women s Clubs,
Los Angeles, 1899.
TWO FRIENDS
Heaven in its bounty, friends unto me sent ;
From some I borrowed and to others lent.
Xow this I say : If thou wouldst keep a friend,
Of him then borrow — wouldst thou lose him, lend.
Charles Henry Webb.
From "With Lead and Line";
Cambridge: Houghton, Mifflin Company, J 90 1 .
THE AUTHORS' CARNIVAL
The Authors' Carnival, given at Mechanics' Pavilion in
1879 for the benefit of the various hospitals of the city was by
far the most elaborate and successful of any entertainment
given in San Francisco up to that time. The prominent char-
acters from the works of eminent authors were represented by
many of the ladies and gentlemen of the most exclusive circles
of society, and the grand procession with which the evening's
entertainment was opened proved the most gorgeous and
attractive in the splendor and variety of the costumes worn
by the participants that has ever been seen in the city. Mr.
Smyth Clark, then a prominent member of the Bohemian Club,
and myself, owing to our striking resemblance to each other,
were chosen to represent the Cheeryble Brothers of Charles
250 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
Dickens's "Nicholas Nickleby", and by reason of the similarity
of our features, size and costume, we were considered quite a
prominent feature of the parade. To those now living who
took part in that delightful work of the Authors' Carnival, I
wish to say that I only hope their recollection of the scenes and
events of that season is as pleasing to them as it has ever
been with me.
George Tisdale Bromley.
From "The Long Ago and the Later On" ;
San Francisco: A. M. Robertson, 1904.
HISTORICAL
To the little city of Jackson, belongs the honor of being
the birthplace of the noble Order of Native Daughters of the
Golden West, the great sisterhood of native-born California
women which has grown from its humble beginning in the foot-
hills of Amador County to a mighty army of earnest workers
for the civic and social development of our wonderful Western
Empire on the shores of the Pacific. This distinctively Cali-
fornia organization was founded in Jackson on Saturday, Sep-
tember 11, 1886, as result of a call issued to native-born Cali-
fornia women by Miss Lilly O. Reichling, to whom the Grand
Parlor has accorded special honor as the Founder of the Order.
NOTE ON "THE MAN WITH THE HOE"
A great sensation followed the publishing of the poem,
"The Man With the Hoe", in the "San Francisco Examiner",
under the direction of the editor, Bailey Millard, himself a lit-
terary man who was the first to recognize its greatness. Not
understanding the true meaning of this magnificent word-
painting, which many conceived to be intended as a slight to
the farmer, a great storm of protest arose. It even went so far
as to bring forth an offer of three money-prizes to any poet or
poets who would successfully give answer, championing the
cause of the worker in agriculture. Thousands competed, with-
out adding to the riches of literature, and three well-known
poets won the money. It is only those who have gazed on the
celebrated painting of the great master of that art, who seem
able to understand the poem. The poem was inspired by the
painting which shows a poor French peasant at work in a
turnip-field, in the days leading up to the horrors of the French
SEPTEMBER 251
Revolution. After looking at this canvas you are better able
to conceive of the reasons for the ferocities of that terrible
epoch in the history of France. The poor wretch is exhausted,
ill-fed, without one gleam of hope, yet digging away mechan-
ically at his dreary labor. His mouth hangs open, he is the
result of ages of oppression and the tyranny of kings. There
has never been anything but despair and hunger and misery for
the generations for which he stands, now a sinister and tragic
form of dumb agony. There is the menace prophetic for all
time, as portrayed by the brush of the great painter as a warn-
ing not only to France but to all the world forever. And here
is the poem inspired by the painting to stand as a warning not
only to France but to all the world forever. It took a great
poet to understand a great painter and to interpret the message
to us all. It is not a protest against the farmer, as some ignor-
ant Americans conceive it to be; it is a protest against oppres-
sion. It is a symbol of what comes to pass as result of any
oppression whatever. Let each one take it to himself, even
in smaller degree, and not bear on so heavily to the burdens of
either sister or brother in the great human family. This is
what the great poet and the great painter are trying to tell us
by this poem and by this painting. Yet this is not all of this
peculiarly Californian episode by means of which the poem
came into being. It must be told that the painting itself,
masterpiece as it is, belongs in California. It was brought here,
as the property of Mr. and Mrs. William H. Crocker and
shared with the public by them, in loan exhibitions and at the
World's Fair at Portland, Oregon, in 1905, to the great benefit
of the people, generally. It was on one of these occasions that
the poet, too poor to own the painting, himself, beheld the
masterpiece, by the generosity of this art-spirit which belongs
to our wealthy classes. He stood and beheld and gave forth
to the world his interpretation.
Already a poet of mature years, yet until then his name
was known only to a few of his brother-writers. But one of
these realized the greatness of the poem and it was he who
dared to publish and proclaim it. It has been my pleasure in
New York circles to hear Bailey Millard introduce the poet,
Edwin Markham, preparatory to his reading "The Man With
the Hoe".
The Gatherer.
252 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
THE MAN WITH THE HOE
Bowed with the weight of centuries, he leans
Upon his hoe and gazes on the ground,
The emptiness of ages in his face,
And on his back the burden of the world.
Who made him dead to rapture and despair,
A thing that grieves not and that never hopes,
Stolid and stunned, a brother to the ox?
Who loosened and let down this brutal jaw?
Whose was the hand that slanted back his brow?
Whose breath blew out the light within his brain?
Is this the Thing the Lord God made and gave
To have dominion over sea and land ;
To trace the stars and search the heavens for power;
To feel the passion of Eternity;
Is this the Dream He dreamed who shaped the suns
And pillared the blue firmament with light?
Down all the stretch of Hell to its last gulf
There is no shape more terrible than this —
More tongued with censure of the world's blind greed-
More filled with signs and portents for the soul —
More fraught with menace to the universe.
What gulfs between him and the seraphim !
Slave of the wheel of labor, what to him
Are Plato and the swing of Pleiades?
What the long reaches of the peaks of song,
The rift of dawn, the reddening of the rose?
Through this dread shape the suffering ages look;
Time's tragedy is in that aching stoop ;
Through this dread shape humanity, betrayed,
Plundered, profaned, and disinherited,
Cries protest to the Judges of the World,
A protest that is also prophecy.
O masters, lords and rulers in all lands,
Is this the handiwork you give to God,
This monstrous thing distorted and soul-quenched?
How will you ever straighten up this shape;
Touch it again with immortality;
Give back the upward looking and the light;
Rebuild in it the music and the dream ;
Make right the immemorial infamies;
Perfidious wrongs, immedicable woes?
SEPTEMBER 253
O masters, lords and rulers in all lands,
How will the Future reckon with this Man?
How answer his brute question in that hour
When whirlwinds of rebellion shake the world?
How will it be with kingdoms and with kings —
With those who shaped him to the thing he is —
When this dumb Terror shall reply to God,
After the silence of the centuries?
Edwin Mar^ham.
THE LAST OF THE HOODLUMS
It was a strange sight in early days or nights to observe
the cluttering up of the San Francisco docks with boys of all
ages who chose to make their homes there in preference to
remaining under shelter with their elders. They roamed at
will and enjoyed their freedom for a long time and no one
interfered. The ships that came in were a fascinating study
to them, and the sailors greeted them heartily. The climate
was such that they knew no difference in the seasons and
adapted themselves easily, being hardy young creatures, bent
on having their own way, regardless of what happened. One
day, several men of prominence observed what was going on
and began to inquire about the matter. "Oh, they are just
huddle-ums all together," said one, "you can't do anything
with them."
From this, the term "hoodlums" is said to be derived —
although in England a similar word is used to express a certain
class there of a more criminal nature, "hoolighans" — by which it
would appear that the same root-word applied to both is the
outcome of a similar thought. As years passed, these young
creatures were joined by others — spoiled darlings of indulgent
mothers in many cases, who "spun not", yet who were arrayed
in the habiliments of fashion of a peculiar sort of their own.
And together, the idle and the outcasts joined forces and became
a weird element in the social life of San Francisco not to be
forgotten. The hoodlum and his girl were easily recognizable
from all other classes. They assumed an air of jauntiness and
defiance against social customs and while undoubtedly "tough
customers", yet they belonged to the soil, climate and produc-
tions of San Francisco. They were not ignorant ; they were
far from being like the sodden criminal class. In some instances
they were graduates of the grammar-schools of the city, and
"sophisticated" to the nth degree.
They lived off of the benevolent, kindly ones who were in
254 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
the majority in those days, and even stories are told how a
number of these unregenerates and youthful rogues played
their tricks on Moody and Sankey and other leaders of religious
movements, for the conversion of the people of San Francisco,
and came forward at the revivals and repented publicly for the
sake of the material benefit which was showered upon them,
only to "backslide" the next day, and return to their fellows
to brag of the adventures they had had "wid dem pious".
They evolved a vernacular all their own, startling and
peculiar.
They had their own standard of honor. If one of them
was stabbed by his best friend, he refused to recognize him
when brought to his bedside in the hospital. "Wot d'ye take
me fur?" he would growl.
One day an old woman appealed to one of these fellows
to fix a key that had broken off in the lock. "Dat was de best
day in my life fur I got a life-job from dat key. An' I kep'
it fur my mascot for many a year — till it got burned up in
de fire — 'cause I got to be a key-man from dat day — and mended
everybody's keys all over de city. All de old women give me
jobs mendin' dere keys."
He is the only one left alive, the last one of all the old
hoodlums of the waterfront days, and that is because he was
naturally industrious, and naturally honest, for even today,
there are those who wait for him to appear to supply them with
keys for their locks, as they have done for forty years past.
The Gatherer.
From "Life in California*.
AN AUTOGRAPH ON THE HILLSIDES
As for the literary test being applied at our gates, to the
incoming man who knows how to make things grow, I assure
you there is no autograph so powerful in this country as the
one made by the plow and harrow in growing grain and fruits
on our hillsides. In a very large and true sense the farmer is
a poet. See what he has written out there on the landscape —
greater works than Dante, or Shakespeare or Browning.
Bailey Millard.
From "Orchard and Farm" ;
San Francisco, 1917.
SEPTEMBER 255
COMING HOME
Tell me something, you who know,
Have you ever felt the thrill —
Homeward speeding through the snow —
Truckee — westward, down the hill?
Do you know that hammer stroke
Somewhere underneath the vest,
When the ties begin to smoke
As she plunges to the west?
Far aback the deserts lie —
Splintered rock and canyon brink —
Dreary wastes of alkali,
Sage and sand and Humboldt Sink.
All have vanished ! — home draws near ;
We have crossed the great divide;
We are speeding with a cheer
Down the home-stretch to the tide.
O, the wildness of the way!
O, the call of bird and stream !
O, the lights and shades that play
Where the winding rivers gleam !
Throw her open ! Donner Lake
Slumbers in the cup below;
All the pine trees are awake
Shouting to us as we go.
Don't you see the fern-tips there
Where the bank is lush and green?
Can't you see the poppies flare
Through the manzanita screen?
Throw her open ! From the wall
Nod the lilies as we pass,
And a thousand wild things call
From the shadows in the grass.
Whoop ! She shivers on the rail ;
How the canyons laugh and roar
When she hits the curving trail
Tipping downward to the shore !
Far below the valley sleeps,
Warm and tender; I can see
Where the Sacramento creeps
Willow-bordered to the sea.
256 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
I know that sunny land;
I can hear the med'larks call;
1 can see the oak tree stand
Where the wheat grows rank and tall.
Give her headway! When a son
Rushes to his mother's heart —
All his toil and wandering done
And her loving arms apart.
Nothing matters. Give her steam !
Sun and wind and skies conspire.
Love to him is not a dream
Who has touched the heart's desire.
Love to him new meaning brings
Who has felt his bosom thrill
When across the line she swings,
Truckee — westward, down the hill.
Daniel S. Richardson.
From "Trail-Dust; A Little Round-up of Western Verse" ;
San Francisco: A. M. Robertson, J 908.
TO A. E.
My soul through births and deaths processioned on
The Progress-way, ambition-spurred but, oh,
It glides so swiftly since you brought the dawn
And made white-lilied aspirations grow !
P. V. M.
From "Out of a Silver Flute";
New York, 1896.
A MESSAGE FROM THE NATIVE DAUGHTERS OF
THE GOLDEN WEST
It is June again. We meet for the business of our organi-
zation. This year in coming, we come with a new tenderness
in our hearts, a deeper sense of comradeship. More than ever
before we recognize the strength that lies in the unity of
interest, ideas, labors and obligations. One year ago the war-
clouds were darkly gathering, and yet we of the country and
of the cities, large and small, were sleeping and rising and
working and laughing as if this were the "same sweet earth
in which we had our birth". Today there are more of us wear-
ing over our hearts the service-pin — one star, perhaps more
SEPTEMBER 257
than one ; we think war ! we breathe war ! we live war ! as
someone has said we must — if we shall win !
We are remembering the thousands who will lie upon the
battlefield, today and tomorrow and every day of the "Great
Year of Doom" and we think of our California boys of Cali-
fornia mothers (and aunts, too, I know I love my boy as
devotedly as any mother could) who may be "swept to the
void by battle's iron broom".
We are all fired with pulsing, passionate, purposeful patri-
otism, ready, willing, eager to do everything we can do in
every way that we can — hoping, praying, working for that
great day which shall bring Victory and Freedom ! To every-
one of us has there come at times the inclination, or tempta-
tion, to forget all the things which it has taken us years and
years to build up. In our desire to prove our loyalty, in our
ambition to demonstrate our executive ability or our medical
of mechanical skill or our mathematical genius a little nearer
the scene of action, we are almost forced to forget that, no
matter how great our sacrifices or how keen our enthusiasm
for all things military, our efforts shall be for naught if we
neglect our civic responsibilities or fail to keep to our standard
in all lines of welfare work — if we succeed not in Holding-the-
HOME LIXES; if we remember not that the children are the
best foundation of the world's future — the Hope of the Xation
and must first of all be considered ; their protection, their devel-
opment, their growth guaranteed in this land, and every other
land.
YVe must be ready to carry on with even greater zest (if
for no other reason than the practical one of what we have
begun we must finish) the well organized constructive work
undertaken by the two orders of the Xative Sons of the Golden
West and the Xative Daughters of the Golden West — for the
finding of homes for children who haven't any — those children
who want above everything else in the wide world to feel that
they belong to somebody! * * *
Sometimes the men-folks to whom we give our children
begin to apologize for living in the country. I always feel
like putting my hand on the arm of such a one and saying,
"Don't worry ; the little fellow you take to your heart and
home will never be sorry for the days in the real country. He
will look back when he is a man, with delightful memories to
the time when he was a boy and enjoyed the freedom of the
woods and fields, and rode the horse and walked on stilts as
high as the shed or the barn, and jumped ditches, and played
prisoner's base, and went swimming and looked for eggs — and
found the first Johnny-jump-ups — and saw the red roosters — "
258 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
My ! my ! I wouldn't give up the memories of my fun in
the country in old Amador for all the world!
Mary E. Brusie.
From "Report of Committee on Homeless Children';
Given at Assembly of Grand Parlor,
Santa Cruz, June, 1918.
A MESSAGE FROM STEPHEN M. WHITE
While the Pioneer man was breaking the wilderness, and suffering
privations, what Was the Pioneer Woman doing? The only church we
knew was around our mother s k n z e $-
From an oration given in the California Building,
Chicago, 1893.
ABOUT THE PIONEER MOTHER
There lies on my desk a letter in which, among other
things, the writer says that there will be a meeting next Satur-
day, at which the talk will be about the Statue of the Pioneer
Mother, and about that mother's life, and how she taught civic
virtue in "the church around her knees," to quote the quaint
phrase of the letter itself. A portion of Mr. George Hamlin
Fitch's essay entitled, "The Greatest English Classic — the
Bible", is to be read, and some things that I have had occasion
to write about our forefathers and foremothers also, which is
indeed an honor that is appreciated to the full.
**********
It has been said that the lives of the Puritan mothers were
undoubtedly harder to bear than the lives of the Puritan fathers,
because the mothers had to endure the same hardships as the
fathers endured and in addition, had to endure the fathers.
But the men whose axes blazed the trails of civilization through
the forests of the First West, and the sons who crossed the
plains were not men of Puritan austerity and gloom, though
there ran in the veins of many of them, indeed, the blood of
that famous breed. The large liberty of the wilderness spoke
into the hearts of the Pioneers a kindlier faith, a more catholic
tolerance. * * *
Among the many fine characteristics of this strong and adventurous
race of men one stands out in white light — their unaffected reverence of
women in the homely and beautiful aspect of wife and mother. They
carried this reverence almost to the point of the fantastic — and no knight
of chivalry s ancient day Was more prompt to lay lance in rest to avenge
insult to his lady-love than were these men prompt with fist or pistol to
SEPTEMBER 259
defend the good name and honorable repute of plain Betsy or Jane. He
took his life carelessly in his hand who talked lightly of the Pioneer's
womankind. They were good and brave women, and all that we have
that is worth having in our own characters, as well as all this wonderful
civilization which now stands, so splendid, so magnificent, where stretched
the wilderness their hands helped to subdue, we owe to their goodness
and to their bravery. * * *
"We are apt to think of states as though they were founded
on war and conquest, and their glories and happiness as secured
by the arms and the valor and the toil of their men. But in
truth the happiness and glory of a people is always in ratio
to the virtues and the valor of its women. It is upon * * *
the supreme and sacred function of motherhood that the edifice
of the republic securely rests. Xot in its ships of battle nor in
its armies nor in its riches nor in its numbers is the nation's
final strength, but in the character of its women. * * *
Taken as a whole, the generation which sprang from these
daughters of the wilderness was a race full of vigor, inheriting
not alone bodily strength, but that large and magnanimous
strength of mind and dauntlessness of spirit which their
fathers and their mothers wore as a sign upon their hands and
as frontlets between their eyes. Xor was the wilderness always
harsh and its face austere. It offered to those hardv adven-
turers the LIBERTY which they prized above all gifts, and
the promise of that abundance with which it was to blossom
under their subduing hands. It wrought into the very fibres
of their being an admirable largeness of soul.
They possessed a valiant simplicity and went about the
most heroic tasks with no notion that they were doing anything
out of the ordinary; and chiefly they did their work whether
in the field or in the neighborhood senates or in the battle or
in the kitchen or at the wash-tub or facing matters of life and
death — these warrior men and women of whom no bard has
ever yet sung the noble epic — with a stubborn faith in their
own endurance and a high unchallenging trust in the Provi-
dence which they believed to hold them in the hollow of its
Almighty hand.
So they came by rough roads and thorny ways from the
firesides of their old homes, scattered over many states and
foregathered in the new land, and in the courage of their
simple hearts and the strength of their strong hands, they
wrought the mighty fabric of those commonwealths in which
we live, surrounded by the innumerable comforts of a happy
society.
The Pioneer mothers did not alone travail in birth with
us who are their children; they brought forth upon their knees
260 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
and nourished with their own milk the states themselves. And
the glory of the Republic is their glory; its renown their
renown ; its greatest story their story.
With the stones and the mortar of their innumerable
hardships, their sufferings, their valor, their self-denial and
their faith, the approving providence of God built this very
temple of orderly and lawful LIBERTY to which we men and
women draw for shelter and safety. The fire upon its altars
they kindled. And while that fire burns, from generation to
generation, the tale of the virtues and the sacrifices and the
achievements of our simple and heroic mothers shall not die
on the lips of men.
Phil Frances.
From "San Francisco Call" ;
September, 1912.
AN INCIDENT OF HUNT'S HILL
No writer has given a better picture of the attiude of the
early men toward their women-folks than has Phil Francis, in
the preceding article. It is quite true, as he says, that the
early men of California were quick to resent any slight put
upon plain Betsy or Jane, their wives — the mothers of the
little families of that time. Such is clearly told in the words
of an eighty-five-year-old Pioneer woman when she gave me
the incident of Hunt's Hill — which is an unwritten bit of
history.
The women of the mining-camps lived far apart, and
often took their children and went to spend the day with each
other, while the men-folks came to take them home, after
supper. It was the one bit of social life left to them in the
new country. It so happened that on a certain day, she, Mrs.
Larkin, by name, then in her first youth, took her babe in
arms, with the little fellow by the hand, to enjoy an outing
thus. Unpleasant as it was, she had to pass by a certain
locality where was a house of very rough females who knew
no law or order. Timidly she made her way along, as fast
as she could with her small burdens, trying to hurry past the
place. At sight of her, these lawless beings came out and
accosted her, and swore and called her by every opprobrious
epithet known to man. Endeavoring to terrorize her, they
threatened her with what they would do if she ever ventured
that way again, although there was no other road to take, save
that one. At last, she managed to get past and hurried on her
way, in a state of mind not easily to be described.
SEPTEMBER 261
Arriving at her friends house, she told her what had hap-
pened. And her friend's husband swore it was time the men
had something to say at Hunt's Hill ; that it was a pity a
mother and her children could not go along the road there,
without such an insult as that. When Mr. Larkin arrived to
take home his little family, he found several other husbands-and-
fathers there, ready and waiting to take up the case, and pres-
ently a committee was formed. They sallied forth, armed,
and had audience of the keeper of the bagnio, and gave him two
hours in which to leave town, himself and the inmates.
Xo horses could be procured. It was four miles to the
next town. Presently was seen the sight of a scattered pro-
cession of beings, each with a bundle, composed of a skirt full
of contents tied up, and borne on the back, trudging on foot
to the next town ; and never did they, or any like them, ever
come back to Hunt's Hill. The walking was good. The
weather was fine. There was no hardship in the matter what-
ever. They arrived in an hour or so, in the long twilight of a
summer evening, and found new quarters.
However, it took the genius of a Bret Harte to supply a
gorge in the mountains in the grip of the ice-king, and an inno-
cent pair caught in the storm, and a gambler who bravely shot
himself to give his share of the food to the others in order to
make a tremendous tragedy out of this incident. All the sym-
pathy is played upon in order to create an atmosphere of com-
passion and pity for the unfortunates thus brought to a tragic
end. But it is a fact that the innocent mothers and children
of Hunt's Hill were the ones who suffered, rather than the
denizens of that place, now celebrated and immortalized under
the name and title of the "Outcasts of Poker Flat". It never
happened thus, except in the weird depths of Bret Harte's own
mind as a fancy sketch. But the outside world has grieved over
these imaginary victims and has never heard or known of the
mothers and children, and their hardships in the early days of
California in holding the State for civilization.
The Gatherer.
THE NIGHTS OF CALIFORNIA
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.
262 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
There is no cloud to hide the sky; the universe is ours,
And the starlight likes to look and laugh in Cupid's haunted
bowers.
Oh the restful, peaceful evenings! In them my soul delights,
For God loved California when He gave her her nights.
Alfred James Waterhouse.
ELIZABETH SAUNDERS
Supremest player — Nature's counterpart,
With grace to lure the tear-dews from the eye.
And from the breast to draw the unconscious sigh
Or from the ribs make boisterous laughter start.
She wheedled Nature with such exquisite art:
Each character-ideal, set so high,
She did not act but seemed to typify,
The very pulse of genius and the heart.
She played her parts with such consummate skill,
They differed in their glory every one —
Like Autumn tapestry spread upon the hill —
A bit of Nature-painting God has done.
All elder Californians reckon still,
Her light out-shone the "stars", as doth the Sun.
Fred Emerson Broods.
Written for "Literary California".
IN PRAISE OF THE EARLY CALIFORNIA CATTLE
AND HORSES
In speaking of these animals I cannot refrain from saying
a word as to the native California horse. In the far south of
the state there be some few of them left (1888). Here in the
north there are none. For service on the road there are good
horses — even fine ones, but for work across country in the long
day-in and day-out gallop, in the rodeo and fight with the wild
bull we have none of them left. Who would trust himself
mounted on one of our modern horses to lasso and overcome
a wild steer on a hillside of forty-five degrees of slope? Yet
on the California horses, miscalled mustangs — which they were
not — the old Californian could do it, and tie him hand and foot
and kill him or do whatever might be required, and the horse
would lean over and keep the reata taut till the vaquero could
SEPTEMBER 263
dismount and tie the beast's legs and make it helpless. Then
if it was desired to take the captive home alive, the ranchero
availed himself of the old tame ox, which being yoked to the
prisoner by the inflexible Spanish yoke, would walk off home
with him to let his blood cool in the corral and make the flesh
fit for food.
I knew a horse, a white California stallion belonging to a
ranchero, the lands of whose rancho are within sight of the
place where I now write (Alameda). His big black eyes and
dark skin, round, well-ribbed body, flat legs, hoofs black and
like flint and tail nearly reaching the ground and spreading
out like a fan, marked him as a horse whose service should
have been prized, but the poor fellow had been deposed from
his position in the manada, and his place filled by a very fine
blooded American stock horse. He thus became the saddle-
horse of a friend of mine, a fair rider, weighing about one
hundred and eighty pounds, and the two had many a contest
for neither the horse nor the man liked to surrender — each
had some temper of his own which it was not safe to stir too
rudely.
An extensive survey was in progress by a United States
surveyor, whereby to fix the exterior lines of this rancho.
These lines ran over a very rough country. For about two
weeks this horse had been in the duties of the survey and in
exploration. It was severe service. One evening it was found
necessary to send to San Francisco to the United States Sur-
veyor-general's office for additional instructions. This horse
had been hard at work all day, and was ridden rapidly home —
eight miles — and put into the stable. Before being cool enough
to be fed or watered, alarm was given that the manada or band
of horses, wild mares and colts — which numbered several hun-
dred — had broken the foot-hill fences and was widely scattered
on the plain among the squatter's grain. This meant that every
one of these animals upon which a squatter could draw a bead
would be shot. It also meant that every available horse must
be taken and ridden till the estrays could be collected and driven
for miles back into the hill pastures.
It may be noted that then the whole plain of Alameda
county from San Pablo to near San Jose more than forty miles
in length by two or three in width, was one vast grain-field,
without fences except the hill-foot fence which kept the cattle
up in the rolling pasture lands.
This horse was taken and ridden by an American, weigh-
ing about one hundred and seventy-five pounds. The wheat
was standing breast-high, and the work of collecting a large
drove of unbroken horses, mares and colts, scattered as they
264 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
Avere, over an extensive space, was very severe and continued
until half past two A. M. The stallion was returned in worse
condition than before. As day broke, many animals were
observed dotted about among the wheat-fields which had been
missed in the dark. Nearly every horse on the place was tired
out with the previous night's service. This one was again
taken by an Indian vaquero, a hard rider, and ridden as such
fellows ride till after midday. On returning, it was found
necessary to send to a village about fifteen miles distant. A
young man, the son of the ranchero, was sent, mounted on this
same horse. On that night some kind of a celebration was
being held, and this young man attended it, leaving the horse
tied to the fence till midnight. On arriving at home the horse
was put into the corral without further care on the part of the
rider, but the man who had ridden him on the night before rose
from his bed and dried, watered and fed him.
Meanwhile the person who was using the horse on the
survey had gone to San Francisco and returned. He arose
about daylight, found his stallion well-cared for, and in apparent
good condition, and knowing nothing of the hard work of the
preceding thirty-six hours, mounted and rode off to the sur-
veyor's camp, the horse showing no mark of any unusual ser-
vice. What one of our horses, today, would remain alive to the
end of such a piece of work?
Jacob Wright Harlan.
From "California, '46 to '88";
San Francisco: Bancroft Company, 1888.
"WILD-COWTH"— AN INCIDENT
The early humorists of California were not confined to
the brilliant group, so well known to later readers, from the
books published by them. Not only did John Phoenix and J.
Ross Browne add to the gayety of the Pacific Coast, and
Artemas Ward and Orpheus C. Kerr before Mark Twain ap-
peared, but there were others, such as Charles Henry Webb,
under the pen-name of "J onn Paul," and Joseph Wasson, con-
nected with the daily press. Besides a number of such writers
as these, there was a general waggishness prevailing amongst
the miners themselves, which led to many a quip-and-turn,
which gave a certain grotesquerie to their speech. Many of
these men were graduates of Bowdoin, Yale, Harvard, Oberlin
and other colleges. As an offset to the digging for gold
attended by continuous fortune and misfortune, mostly the
iatter, which dogged their steps with never-ending malignancy,
SEPTEMBER 265
they were forced to become philosophers out of sheer obsti-
nancy against Fate. So they fell to amusing themselves with
small things by the way, and thus the current of speech of
the coast tjecame "Phoenixized" in more ways than one ; for
a school of original wags added to these terms in their daily
talk, regardless of the press.
Taking notice of the fact that the "Eaglets of America"
over in France find their pleasure in talking to the children
there, reminds me of the way these grim men of early days in
California and Nevada conversed with the little boys and girls
of the mining-camps.
They were meditative men, much given to thinking, when
not working and seeking the ever-illusive gold, or trying to
find nepenthe in cards and drink to ward off despair. As I
think of it now, they always wanted to impress on us — the
young — how to get ahead of the world and escape their own
misfortunes. So it was nearly always a homily which they
gave us — simple as an Aesop's fable to us, but containing a
deeper understanding to the other men in the group, hitting
off some foible of one of them, or paying back some grudge,
as a double-edged knife turned around in a sensitive spot.
I remember one day something like this happening, when a
good friend of ours was telling us how to keep out of trouble.
"Now Bub and Ella, whatever else you do, keep away from
Spanish cattle — they can't be depended on like other cattle.
They're wild to begin with and wild to end with. They have
no sense of honor — when you see them coming, waving their
horns and rolling their eyes — just give them the road and
clear the track. It's no use trying to be kind and polite with
them — not at all ! Just get out and strike for the tall timber —
and climb a tree as high as you can."
"But," I demurred, "there are no trees here, only sage-
brush and rocks and mountains and hills — "
"All righty! you just go and climb a hill and hide behind
a rock till they get by — don't stop to reason with Spanish cat-
tle — it's waste of breath."
"But how'll we know they are Spanish cattle?" my little
brother inquired. Our friend gave a derisive chuckle. "By
their horns, my son, by their horns — you can never mistake
them — you can tell those uncowth creatures always — wherever
they are; indeed I may say, those 'wild-cowth' creatures that
get in everywhere, and have no manners and no honor ! Give
them the road and part company with them. For the only
thing they are fit for — is the slaughter-house."
At this point, one of the group (a very disagreeable fellow
to us, particularly) arose and went within. Presently he came
266 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
out and passed up the road and he had his blanket on his
back. Our friend murmured, "Wild-cowth, that's all, but we
prefer his room to his company.
During the many years that have followed, I have not
forgotten that homily. Many has been the time that I have
come into contact with Spanish cattle, but discreetly I have
retired and let them have the road.
The Gatherer.
From "Life in California" ; J 884.
TO THE OX
I see thee standing firmly as an oak
In contemplation of the field and sky,
With resignation in thy plaintive eye,
Though thy broad back has felt many a stroke ;
And though thy mighty neck beneath the yoke
Day after day, that passed unvarying by,
Hath bowed and strained until the stars were nigh
Since labor-rousing Dawn the hills awoke.
Helper of man, true brother of the soil,
That has with him the paths of progress made
Through wilderness trembling with surprise —
Great symbol thou of Patience and of Toil
To whom earth's children have such homage paid
That poets lift thee to immortal skies.
Edward Robeson Taylor.
From "Lavender and Other Verse";
San Francisco: Paul Elder, Publisher.
From "Life in California".
THE JUDGMENTS OF LABOR
LABOR DAY, 1896
O world of great achievements! It is truthful, it is well
That here the judgments of thy toil in sacred song we tell.
Here, where the rocks are riven with the brightest of thy springs,
And Columbia's peerless Eagle in mighty freedom wings,
We heed the mandate echoed from Eden's flame-barred gate —
Upon the labor of our hands the daily bread shall wait.
SEPTEMBER 267
Not the bay-leaves of the Roman, nor the Greek's twined laurel bough,
Were so proudly worn as Labor's dews upon the freeman's brow.
Labor! Thou bold, rough comforter of many a weary hour,
Well dost thou soothe the restless heart with thy insistent power.
Labor! What words can catalogue thy deeds stupendous roll?
Thine is the tempered steel in fire, the artist's hands control;
Thine the quarry's solid granite, made smooth and polished fine,
And the stately dome high lifted by the plummet and the line.
Labor! What of thy martyrs! Where the Isthmus rails were laid,
Thy banners were the cerements where many a grave was made.
And thy name hath been the watchword of the miner lost to life,
Who heareth o'er his living grave the wailing of his wife.
What of the bells' loud ringing upon the midnight air!
The roof-tree flames out-springing, as a panther from his lair!
Call and beckon to the fireman, and 'tis in thy name he strives
With Death, in awful conflict, for precious human lives.
Where the forge's flame is glowing, while the smitten anvil rings,
Or where, to groaning mast-trees the storm-bound sailor clings.
And when the moon is setting, and the stars before the dawn,
Pale as Endymion, at his case the printer still works on.
For the babe that rests encradled on its sleeping mother's breast,
Love, the watch-fire ever burning, thy name and force attest.
These are thy martyrs, Labor, the heroes of all time,
Beneath thy standard dying, they make thy name sublime.
And oh! ye hands long perished by distant flowing Nile,
What wrought ye, Time hath cherished — the Sphinx's mystic smile,
The lonely chambered pyramids — yea, long thy strength was lent,
To build for all the ages, Labor's grand monument.
Labor! What are thy triumphs! Behold, the bright prow leaps
Out of dock, full-finished, into the dark-blue deeps —
Where once the weary mariners, Columbus and his band,
Watched eagerly the green branch float, which welcomed them to land.
Behold the locomotive! Which dares the mountain height,
And sways across the canyon, while the watcher's cheek is white —
And the boldest heart grows gentler, with a sense that Death is near,
If fail the eye or swerve the hand, of the steadfast engineer.
Edison! Fulton Franklin! How might we swell the train!
Of hand and thought, so deftly wrought, the workers of the brain.
268 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
Longfellow! Dickens! Ingelow! Holding the talents ten,
Their songs are graved within our hearts, the laborers of the pen.
Thine exalted cause is freest where the Starry Banner gleams,
Thou sceptre of the nation! Most eloquent of themes!
And naming all thy glories, the dearest that we bless,
The mightiest and the grandest, is America's Free Press.
Gabriel Furlong Butler.
Note. — The author was but sixteen years of age when
this poem was written. — The Gatherer.
THE PICTURE OF A DESERTED GARDEN
Yesterday, just when the sun was going down, I went for
a walk in the Deserted Garden. It lies on the top of a quiet
hill, which rises gently from a regular nest of busy streets.
There was a house there once — a great house with broad steps
leading up from the street in a kind of arcade, and there were
porches and conservatories and sun-parlors, and inside, all the
doors were made of rosewood, and the handles of the doors
were made of beaten silver. The floors were of oak, the ceil-
ings were high and lofty and there were old-fashioned chande-
liers with glittering prisms of glass that shone in a thousand
colors when the gas was lit. There were curious dressing-
rooms with quaint old bowls of marble inlaid in colors all done
in Florence far across the sea and brought with great care
and expense out here to California. The story of the house
shows long processions coming and going; first a great
merchant when there were gay parties that filled the old
mansion to overflowing, but illness and death came up the
great steps and knocked with imperative knuckles upon the
wide door of solid rosewood, and the great merchant sold the
house and went away. Then followed a sea-captain, but he
died and his family with him and others came — and again
others.
There were weddings in the great rooms and once, they
say, there were ten-thousand baby roses hung in garlands in
the great sun porch — that was when there was a christening.
Crepe was hung upon the silver door-knob — for death would
as soon turn a silver handle for his entry as one made of
wood or porcelain and then the old house was deserted.
It stood in the midst of its wonderful gardens, lonely and
pathetic always as if it were standing on tiptoes to look down
the street and see when some of the family were coming home
again to open the dark shutters and throw wide the door and
SEPTEMBER 269
let in the California sunshine like a benediction. The winds
beat against the doors, the fogs wrapped the old house in a gray
veil spangled with silver, and the rain streamed down upon
the decaying roof, and one day the place was sold and it was
told that the gardens were to be made over into city lots.
They tore down the old house, sold the rosewood doors and
the old fashioned mirrors and the marble mantels that had
gone out of fashion. They cut down the laurel trees and
burned the jasmine and the fuchsias and heliotrope to the
ground. But the property is not sold after all — not yet.
The heliotrope has sprung up again, the geraniums have
made themselves into a hedge, the honeysuckle and sweet
alyssum cling together and run along the walk till they are
like a fragrant carpet of white and purple, and everywhere the
roses burgeon and bloom in riotous perfumery.
From the top of the old garden there is a glimpse of the
blue bay of San Francisco, and of the steamers and the ferries
passing like white birds across the water. It is strange to
stand where the old house stood and hear the voices of the
fishermen singing far, far below, and watch the shadows fall
purple and mystical over Telegraph Hill, and see on the other
side, the sun sink into the great Pacific, and to wonder what
has become of all the people who were born and christened
and married in the old house, and where those are who
laughed and made merry there, and whether all the tears are
dried for those that wept.
The blooms seem to say there is no death. Afar they
wander, some of them in strange lands beyond the alien seas,
and some in great cities to the East, and some are old that
once were young, and some perhaps are sad that once were
gay, but in that old garden they once knew and loved, the roses
are blooming as fresh as if there was no such thing as death
or change in all the earth.
Wherever they wander — those who once lived in the great
house, one thing is sure. They will never find a more beautiful
spot in the world than they left behind them here in San Fran-
cisco at the top of the quiet hill which rises so quietly from the
busy streets. at
Annie Laurie.
From "The Call and Post" ;
June 10, 1918.
270 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
A TRIBUTE TO IRVING M. SCOTT
THE BUILDER OF THE "OREGON"
There has never been a battleship so fondly remembered
by the Californians as the "Oregon", which was built in the
Union Iron Works and launched in our port, to achieve adven-
tures that brought us glory for all time, in her going forth.
The last to arrive, after her long trip around the coast of South
America by way of Cape Horn at the scene of conflict in Cuba
during the Spanish war, yet it was the Oregon and her captain
that led the way in that brilliant naval victory. It was the
story of the hare and the tortoise reaffirmed. Every body
knows the name of that warship and the builder, Irving M.
Scott, one of our Pioneer men of affairs, who directed wisely
everything to which he turned his attention. His was a broad
domain, for he was an orator, as well as being a builder. He
was a power for good in public works of all kinds, a patron of
art, a faithful friend to the lesser ones as well as to the higher
ones. Let it be said of him, with all his gifts and honors and
riches and splendid manhood, he had the modesty of true great-
ness.
The Gatherer.
From "Life in California'.
THE WHEAT OF SAN JOAQUIN
A thousand rustling yellow miles of wheat,
Gold-ripened in the sun, in one
Vast fenceless field. The hot June pours its flood
Of flaming splendor down, and burns
The field into such yellowness that it
Is gold of Nature's alchemy; and all
The mighty length and breadth of valley glows
With ripeness.
SEPTEMBER 271
Then a rolling of machinery,
And tramp of horse and scream of steam
And swishing sighs of falling grain,
And sweaty brows of men ; and then —
The Samson of the valleys lieth shorn.
Madge Morris.
THE CAYOTE
Along about an hour after breakfast we saw the first wolf.
If I remember rightly, this latter was the regular Kayote (pro-
nounced ky-o-te) of the farther deserts. And if it was, he was
not a pretty creature, or respectable either, for I got well
acquainted with his race afterward, and can speak with confi-
dence. The cayote is a long, slim, sick-and-sorry-looking
skeleton, with a grey wolf-skin stretched over it, a tolerably
bushy tail that for ever sags down with a despairing expression
of forsakenness and misery, a furtive and evil eye, and a long
sharp face, with slightly lifted lip and exposed teeth. He has
a general slinking expression all over. The cayote is a living,
breathing allegory of want. He is always hungry. He is
always poor, out of luck, and friendless. The meanest creatures
despise him, and even the fleas would desert him for a veloci-
pede. He is so spiritless and cowardly that even while his
exposed teeth are pretending a threat, the rest of his face is
apologizing for it. And he is so homely! — so scrawny, and
ribby, and coarse-haired, and pitiful. When he sees you he
lifts his lip and lets a flash of his teeth out, and then turns
a little out of the course he was pursuing, depresses his head
a bit, and strikes a long, soft-footed trot through the sage-brush,
glancing over his shoulder at you, from time to time, till he is
about out of easy pistol range, and then he stops and takes
a deliberate survey of you ; he will trot fifty yards and stop
again — another fifty and stop again ; and finally the grey of
his gliding body blends with the grey of the sage-brush, and
he disappears.
It is considered that the cayote, and the obscene birds, and
the Indian of the desert testify their blood kinship with each
other in that they live together in the waste places of the eart 1 -
on terms of perfect confidence and friendship, while hating all
other creatures and yearning to assist at their funerals. He
does not mind going a hundred miles to breakfast, and a hun-
dred and fifty to dinner, because he is sure to have three or
272 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
four days between meals, and he can just as well be travelling
and looking" at the scenery as lying around doing nothing and
adding to the burdens of his parents.
Mark Twain.
From "Roughing It".
A GOLDEN WEDDING IN 1881
The first party of white emigrants to California by way of
Missouri, did not find a path, they cut one and this was the one
in which the ill-fated Donner party followed two years later.
This first party of emigrants which started on the 24th day of
May, 184;4, to make their way to the Pacific coast consisted of
three generations of Murphys, and their quest was climate.
This they found in Santa Clara county where they estab-
lished themselves and won honors, riches and renown. Their
cattle roamed upon a thousand hills. Their hospitality was
equal to that of the Spanish dons.
When in 1881 the subject was broached of celebrating
the golden wedding anniversary of Martin Murphy and his
wife, the genial old man said, "Don't talk to me of cards of
invitation, just invite everybody — they will all be welcome".
And so three carloads of guests arrived from San Francisco
alone, while every sort of vehicle brought them from far and
near in the adjoining counties to Santa Clara, until three
thousand men, women and children had assembled to do honor
to the occasion, and to offer congratulations to the worthy
couple.
In the grove were built dinner-tables, dancing platforms,
band stands, refreshment buffets, carving tables and other
preparations for the entertainment of guests. At one side of
the dancing-platform beneath a natural oak, stood the aged
and happy couple receiving the congratulations which poured
in upon them. * The white-haired bride looked charmingly quaint
in black brocade of antique fashion, black lace shawl and soft
white cap. The bridegroom of seventy-four was straight, stal-
wart and dark; unflecked by even a single silver hair. Sus-
pended from a branch of the oak tree overhead was a magnifi-
cent wedding bell composed of tuberoses, geraniums and
pansies.
No description of this splendid historic scene would be ade-
quate that failed to do justice to the preparations made in
producing the barbecued meats for the providing for the needs
of the inner man thus assembled. For the feast was provided
SEPTEMBER 273
a dozen sheep, a dozen porkers, a half dozen of beeves, fatted,
all of them for the occasion ; the selected of countless flocks,
droves and herds, choice, fat and young. A trench had been
dug, 115 feet long, 4 faet deep and 4 feet broad. From that
moment all the preparations were conducted under the imme-
diate management of the chief of the barbecue and his assist-
ants. A most picturesque person in the broadest sombrero is
this same chief of the barbecue, master of ceremonies, even
though his name is merely Smith. He has reduced the art of
barbecues to a science. At midnight Sunday, Smith and his
Mexicans took charge of affairs, lighted a fire in the entire
length of the trench and carefully fed it till six in the morning.
Scientifically fed was the fire, for the seven cords of wood
used must leave no charred nor smoky embers, nothing but
glowing coals frosted with clean burnt white ashes. The sides
and bottom of the trench were heated to almost a red heat.
Then the quartered beef and the whole sheep and pigs were
placed on to cook. Each piece — there were seven carcasses of
beef, ten of sheep and ten of pork placed on at once — was
spitted with two rods of iron, the ends of which rested on either
bank of the trench. Each piece, too was seasoned with a coat-
ing of salt and pepper and basted at each turning. The basting
was contained in a kettle over an adjoining fire, and consisted
of melted butter, seasoned with care by the chief. The chief
with a small mop and a can of basting, moved from spit to
spit, and with the confidence of long experience, moistened the
rich smelling sides of the browning carcasses with the care
that an artist applies the finishing touches to his exhibition
painting. His assistants turned the spits or with small brooms
sprinkled water on the coals beneath the pieces which were
browning too fast. This process continued from six in the
morning until noon, when the chief turned over his charge to
the carvers. They demonstrated the result to be perfectly
cooked meats not a drop of whose juices had escaped; tender,
rich flavored, unsurpassable. To taste of this product is to be
born over again to a new sensation never known before, pos-
sibly never to be known again.
The preparation for the feast was as lavish in every other
department as that presided over by the knight of the barbecue.
Bread by the wagon load, salads by the bushels, red wine and
champagne for the uncorking, beer by the keg, punch by the
barrel were supplied, generously to the thousands present,
besides fowl and fruits and many other things too numerous to
mention.
Dancing and music were followed by dinner, and dinner
was followed by speeches of notables, among whom were
274 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
General P. W. Murphy, Senator Gwin, Judge Evans and others.
Toasts were given to the bride and groom, and the valley of
Santa Clara echoed to the merry voices and good cheer of that
wonderful day as the caravans of guests slowly returned to their
homes to the north, south, east and west, and day faded into
night.
The Gatherer.
Condensed from daily newspaper;
July 19, 1881.
TO SANTA NIEBLA, OUR LADY OF THE FOGS
There are Californians who waver in their allegiance to
the climate of California. Sometimes the climate of San
Francisco has made me cross. Sometimes I have thought that
the winds in summer were too cold, that the fogs in summer
were too thick. But whenever I have crossed the continent —
when I have emerged from New York at ninety-five degrees,
and entered Chicago at one hundred degrees — when I have
been breathing the dust of alkali deserts and the fiery air of
sage-brush plains — these are the times when I have always
been buoyed up by the anticipation of inhaling the salt air of
San Francisco Bay.
If ever summer wanderer is glad to get back to his
native land, it is I, returning to my native fog. Like that
prodigal youth who returned to his home and filled himself
with husks, so I always yearn in summer to return to mine,
and fill myself up with fog. Not a thin insignificant mist, but a
fog — a thick fog — one of those rich August fogs that blow in
from the Pacific ocean over San Francisco.
When I leave the heated capitals of other lands and get
back to California uncooked, I always offer up a thank-offering
to Santa Niebla, Our Lady of the Fogs. Out near the Presidio,
where Don Joaquin de Arillaga, the old comandante, revisits
the glimpses of the moon, clad in rusty armor, with his Spanish
spindle-shangs thrust into tall leathern boots — there some day
I shall erect a chapel to Santa Niebla. And I have vowed to
her as to an ex-voto a silver fog-horn, which horn will be
wound by the winds of the broad Pacific, and will ceaselessly
sound through the centuries the litany of Our Lady of the
Fogs.
Every Californian has good reason to be loyal to his native
land. If even the Swiss villagers, born in the high Alps, long
to return to their birthplace, how much the more does the
exiled Californian long to return to the land which bore him.
GALAXY 15.— ORATORS, DIVINES AND STATESMEN
Stephen M. White
Thomas Starr King
John F. Davis
Ferdinand C. Ewer
Horatio Stebbins
James D. Phelan
Thomas Guard
Junipero Serra
Adley H. Cummins
Joseph Sadoc Alemany
Thomas Fitch
Newton Booth
275
GALAXY 16.— POETS AND PROSE-WRITERS
Jack London
George Hamlin Fitch
Ella Higginson
Gertrude Atherton
Kate Douglas Wiggin
Frank Norris
Wallace Irwin
Gelett Burgess
Will Irwin
Edward R. Taylor
George Sterling
Herman Whittaker
276
SEPTEMBER 277
There are other, richer, and more populous lands, but to the
Californian born, California is the only place in which to live.
And to the returning Californian, particularly if he be native-
born, the love of his birthplace is only intensified by visits to
other lands.
Jerome A. Hart.
From "Argonaut Letters".
THE SPELL OF THE MOUNTAINS
I have been looking from this rock ten hundred thousand years.
I have not moved since God Eternal made a million spheres.
I saw the sun swing into place,
The myriad stars pause high in space;
I saw the moon drift from the blue
And brighter grow, on nearer view ;
I heard God's voice in mighty sweep
Call mountains from the shoreless deep ;
He drew them up against the sky
And hung His feathery clouds on high.
I saw Him from the mountain seams
Pour sparkling, bubbling, crystal streams.
His cooling breath was on my face —
And winds possessed unmeasured space !
He blessed the earth — and forests sprang.
He spoke — and feathered choirs sang.
These granite rocks are organ keys
His rivers play, and every breeze
That whispers to the listening ear
Sings in the anthem: "God is Here!"
Rife Goodloe.
TOLERANCE
What know you of my soul's inherent strife
By that calm faith, untried, which Wells in thine?
How can you from the kn°v>ledg e of your life
Write out a creed for mine?
Madge Morris Wagner.
From "Golden Era Magazine" ; 1885.
278 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
ABOUT THE CRICKETS OF SILVERADO
Crickets were not wanting. I thought I could make out
exactly four of them, each with a corner of his own, who
used to make night musical at Silverado. In the matter of
voice, they far excelled the birds, and their ringing whistle
sounded from rock to rock, calling and replying the same thing,
as in a meaningless opera. Thus, children in full health and
spirits shout together, to the dismay of their neighbors; and
their idle, happy deafening vociferations rise and fall, like the
song of the crickets. I used to sit at night on the platform,
and wonder why these creatures were so happy; and what was
wrong with man that he did not also wind up his days with
an hour or two of shouting; but I suspect that all long-lived
animals are solemn.
Robert Louis Stevenson.
From "The Silverado Squatters" '.
THE CRICKET
The twilight is the morning of his day —
While Sleep drops seaward from the fading shore
With purpling sail and dip of silver oar,
He cheers the shadowed time with roundelay,
Until the dark east softens into gray.
Now as the noisy hours are coming — hark!
His song dies gently — it is getting dark —
His night with its one star is on the way!
Faintly the light breaks over the blowing oats —
Sleep, little Brother, sleep: I am astir.
Lead thou the starlit night with merry notes,
And I will lead the clamoring day with rhyme
We worship Song, and servants are of. her —
I in the bright hours, thou in shadow-time.
Edwin Markham.
From "Readings from the California Poets" ;
San Francisco, 1893.
THE NOBLEST LIFE
The noblest life — the life of labor,
The noblest love — the love of neighbor.
Lorenzo Sosso.
From "Wisdom of the Wise".
SEPTEMBER 279
THE GREAT PANORAMA
In September we have an orgie of peaches — peaches of not
only exquisite flavor and comfort to the inner man, but also of
a beauty transcendent. At the solstice time one should hold
a little ceremonial in honor of this beauty and grace of the sea-
son. There is something about a peach-tree that should make
it honored. Freestones, clingstones, mountain and other variety
follow one after another — each giving joy and flavor to life.
While the sight of them feasts the eye with their yellow and
pink tinting, like topaz and coral combined by a Master Artist.
S. E.
ON THE PRESIDIO HILLS
Bare of all save bending grasses,
Fleurs-de-lis,
And a wind that lightly passes
From the sea,
O, today I would be dreaming
Where the lances green are gleaming —
Where the lonely mists are lifting,
And the salt, salt winds are drifting
From the sea!
Silent save for bird notes falling
Full and free,
....And a wind that's ever calling
To the sea.
O, today I would be resting
Where the meadow-lark is nesting —
Where the fleurs-de-lis are growing,
And the salt, salt winds are blowing
From the sea!
Yes, I'm dreaming of the shining
Fleurs-de-lis,
And a wind that's softly pining
For the sea —
Of the grass in waving motion
On the wild hills by the ocean,
Where the lark its flight is winging
And the wind is singing, singing
To the sea!
Martha T. Tyler.
From "Overland Monthly* ;
September, 1898.
THE PASSING OF TENNYSON
We knew it, as God's prophets knew ;
We knew it, as mute red men know,
When Mars leapt searching heaven through
With flaming torch that he must go.
Then Browning, he who knew the stars,
Stood forth and faced the insatiate Mars.
Then up from Cambridge rose and turned
Sweet Lowell from his Druid trees —
Turned where the great star blazed and burned,
As if his own soul might appease.
Yet on and on, through all the stars,
Still searched and searched insatiate Mars.
Then staunch Walt Whitman saw and knew;
Forgetful of his "Leaves of Grass,"
Lie heard his "Drum Taps," and God drew
His great soul through the shining pass,
Made light, made bright by burnished stars,
Made scintillant from flaming Mars.
Then soft-voiced Whittier was heard
To cease; was heard to sing no more;
As you have heard some sweetest bird
The more because its song is o'er.
Yet brighter up the street of stars
Still blazed and burned and beckoned Mars.
And then the king came; king of thought,
King David with his harp and crown. .
How wisely well the gods had wrought
That these had gone and sat them down
To wait and welcome mid the stars
All silent in the sight of Mars.
OCTOBER 281
All silent. . . So, he lies in state. . .
Our redwoods drip and drip with rain. . .
Against our rock-locked Golden gate
We hear the great and sobbing main.
But silent all. . . He walked the stars
That year the whole world turned to Mars.
Joaquin Miller.
From "Story of the Files of California' ;
San Francisco, 1893.
BRET HARTE
What jewel shines in California's round
Above the cunning of the scales to weigh,
Beyond all dollar-value men can lay
Upon the gilded things their hands have found?
Is it her radiant mountain peaks that sound
The note of glory to their deathless day,
Or verdurous, tree-lined valleys that convey
Her streams with crystalline, rare beauty crowned?
Ah, no ! 'Tis he who does the heart entrance
With all the wonders of that great romance,
His own imagination makes sublime ;
'Tis he who gives, by his bewitching art,
Eternal breathing to that virgin time
Which tried the essence of men's souls — Bret Harte.
Edward Robeson Taylor.
From "Overland Monthly" ; December, 1914.
THE FIRST RAIN
Last night the moody sky burst forth in tears ;
Through the wide silence of the darkened air,
The long chill drops descended everywhere ;
As, on the heart, sometimes, fall gloomy fears,
And memories of sorrow-laden years ;
But in the morn the world awoke from sleep,
And smiled and whispered, "It is good to weep."
John E. Richards.
282 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
WALKING THROUGH THE MUSTARD
As Father Salvierderra proceeded he found the mustard
thicker and thicker. The wild mustard in Southern California
is like that spoken of in the New Testament, in the branches
of which birds of the air may rest. Coming out of the earth,
so slender a stem that dozens can find starting-point in an inch,
it darts up, a slender straight shoot, five, ten, twenty feet, with
hundreds of fine feathery branches locking and interlocking
with all the other hundreds around it, till it is an inextricable
network like lace. Then it burst into yellow bloom still finer,
more feathery and lacelike. The stems are so infinitesimally
small and of so dark a green, that at a short distance they do
not show, and the cloud of blossom seems floating in the air;
at times it looks like golden dust. With a clear blue sky be-
hind it, as it is often seen, it looks like a golden snow-storm.
The plant is a tyrant and a nuisance — the terror of the farmer;
it takes riotous possession of a whole field in a season; once
in, never out; for one plant this year, a million the next; but
it is impossible to wish that the land were freed from it. Its
gold is as distinct a value to the eye as the nugget gold is in
the pocket.
As he went upon his way he soon found himself in a
veritable thicket of these delicate branches. * * * It was
a fantastic sort of dilemma and not unpleasing. Except that
the Father was in haste to reach his journey's end, he would
have enjoyed threading his way through the golden meshes.
Suddenly he heard faint notes of singing. He paused — listened.
It was the voice of a woman. It was slowly drawing nearer.
* * * Peering ahead through the mustard blossoms, he saw
them waving and bending. * * * The notes grew clearer;
light steps were now to be heard. * * * In a moment more
came, distinct and clear to his ear, the beautiful words of the
second stanza of St. Francis' inimitable lyric, "The Canticle
of the Sun:"
"Praise be to thee, O Lord, for all thy creatures, and espe-
cially for our brother, the Sun — who illuminates the day, and
by his beauty and splendor shadows forth unto us thine."
"Ramona," exclaimed the Father, his thin cheeks flushing
with pleasure. "The blessed child !" And as he spoke her face
came into sight set in a swaying frame of the blossoms, as she
parted them lightly to the right and left with her hands, and
half crept, half danced through the loop-hole openings thus
made. * * * Ramona's beauty was of the sort to be best
enhanced by the waving gold which now framed her face.
OCTOBER 283
* * * Her hair was like her Indian mother's, heavy and
black, but her eyes were like her father's, steel-blue.
She cried out joyfully, "Ah, Father, I knew you would
come by this path," and she sprang forward and sank on her
knees before him, bowing her head for his blessing.
Helen Hunt Jackson.
From "Ramona; A Story";
Boston: Little, Brown & Company, 1911.
A TRIBUTE TO THE AUTHOR OF "RAMONA"
"H. H."
Proud California! bend thy head,
And measure, reverently, thy tread;
And plant thy tallest pine to wave
Above the gentle stranger's grave!
******
A rose has dropped into the sea,
And drowned; —
But every wave that washed the lea,
Or swept the ocean round,
Came back and brought upon its crest
A sweetness from the rose's breast.
A song bird on the summit crown
Of self-denied,
Fell slowly fluttering, fluttering down,
And died; —
But all the hills and valleys rung
With music of the songs it sung.
A woman's soul has crossed the size
Of mortal sight —
A woman's hands, a woman's eyes
Are shut in night; —
But all along the way she came
Are springing blessings on her name.
O rose! O bird! O woman's heart!
Dead heart — dead flower — and silent bird, —
Ye gave us but the fainter part
Of songs ye heard:
The solemn nights have sung to thee, —
284 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
The tree, and winds and moaning sea;
The mighty silences of space
Closed round and taught thee face to face !
No land may claim thee to enshrine,
Thou art the world's — the world was thine.
Madge Morris.
San Francisco: September, 1885.
HELEN HUNT JACKSON
"H. H."
What songs found voice upon those lips,
What magic dwelt within the pen,
Whose music into silence slips,
Whose spell lives not again !
For her the clamorous today
The dreamful yesterday became ;
The brands upon dead hearths that lay
Leaped into living flame.
Clear ring the silvery Mission bells
Their calls to vesper and to mass ;
O'er vineyard slopes, thro' fruited dells,
The long processions pass;
The pale Franciscan lifts in air
The Cross above the kneeling throng;
Their simple world how sweet with prayer,
With chant and matin-song!
There, with her dimpled, lifted hands,
Parting the mustard's golden plumes,
The dusky maid, Ramona, stands
Amid the sea of blooms.
And Alessandro, type of all . .
His broken tribe, for evermore
An exile, hears the stranger call
Within his father's door.
The visions vanish and are not,
Still are the sounds of peace and strife,
Passed with the earnest heart and thought
Which lured them back to life.
OCTOBER 285
O sunset land ! O land of vine,
And rose, and bay! in silence here
Let fall one little leaf of thine,
With love, upon her bier.
Ina Coolbrith.
PIONEER AND OLD SETTLERS' DAY
It was a wonderful pilgrimage, led by Alexander P. Mur-
gotten of San Jose, on that day, October 16, 1915, when the
Pioneers and the Old Settlers were met at the gates of the
Panama-Pacific International Exposition, by the officials thereof,
and a grand march was formed, six abreast, to be escorted to
the California Building! A band preceded them and to inspir-
ing music of the olden time, marched they all, a thousand and
more, gathered thus for the occasion from practically every one
of the fifty-two counties of the State.
Hundreds of Pioneers, who had not seen each other for
years, met again on this day. As they marched there was a
solemnity upon them all, for they knew it was, doubtless, the
last gathering that would thus assemble them together — they
who had come to this land in 1849, or before, or near that date,
who were thus marching together, six abreast, their heads
crowned with silver and their hearts full of memories of the
early days and the thousands of those who had departed to
the Beyond in these intermediate years.
Scattered throughout the marching throng were wives and
daughters arrayed in the elegant heirlooms of the past —
rich East Indian shawls of camel's hair or cashmere, and beau-
tiful crepe shawls of spotless white, or of bright embroideries,
with long, swaying fringes, or wearing scarves and bonnets of
the early Victorian era, which gave a new idea of the dignity
and elegance of that time, for some of these rich webs from
the looms of India and China were paid for in California gold,
requiring five hundred or even a thousand dollars for the pur-
chase of them. Nothing was too good for the brides of the
miners in those days. Wonderful bags and reticules and hand-
some fans and other souvenirs of the past were placed proudly
on exhibition that day to speak for the women of the early times.
And so they marched, six abreast, a noble host, under the
leadership of Alexander P. Murgotten (the editor for twenty
years of "The Pioneer Magazine"), to show to all the world
their high hearts and enthusiasm and their loyalty to the land
which they had served from their youth up to this day of days.
286 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
And marching with them were the native sons and daughters
whose final duty it is to take their places when they are here
no more.
The Gatherer.
From "Life in California, 1
October 16, 1915.
LET THIS DREAM BE TRUE
Softly o'er the dark lagoon
Winds of evening sigh;
Softly falls the fountain's tune
Where the breezes die;
Night is ours, my dreams, I cry,
Night is ours; but ah, too soon
Must my dreaming die!
What will morning bring to me
In this leafy shade —
Only a sweet memory
Of a fairy glade?
Night is ours, my lovely dream.
Night is ours; but ah, so soon
Must my dreaming fade?
Nay! Let Greed his vandal hand
From this vision stay!
Other dreams of fairy land
Vanish with the day;
Let this dream no man undo!
While the winds of fancy play,
Let this dream be true!
Charles Phillips.
From "San Francisco Call and Post" ;
October 14, 1915.
This lyric was sung at the Exposition as a part of the
Fine Arts Preservation Day programme. .
EDWIN BOOTH
In vision I behold by Avon's side
The mighty Shakespeare, and a wondrous train —
The vast creations of that matchless brain —
Walked with him through the dusk of eventide.
Slowly the dim procession, solemn-eyed,
Therewith the tawny Moor, and Cawdor's thane,
OCTOBER 287
And, soul most sorrowful, the princely Dane,
Passed and repassed into the shadows wide, ,
Then with a sense of overmastering awe,
And listening heart that scarcely seemed to stir,
I woke; to lapsing centuries of time,
To the thronged walls, and blaze of lights, and saw
Not Shakespeare, but his grand Interpreter,
Than thought's great master only less sublime.
Ina Coolbrith.
From "Songs of the Golden Gate";
Houghton, Mifflin & Company,
Boston and New York, 1895.
EDWIN BOOTH, THE EXPRESSION OF
SHAKESPEARE
It is a dastard thing that time has done in laying his with-
ering hand so heavily upon Edwin Booth. The great actor
seemed to be one of "the few, the immortal men that were not
born to die", if one may paraphrase something too great to
bear a change, and consequently to have immunity from the
ghoulish hand of decay.
To the greater part of us he is a memory only ten years
old, and ten years ago he was still so young that youth was one
of the manifold graces of his wonderful Hamlet.
When, therefore, the curtain rolled up slowly, even sol-
emnly, on Monday night — or it may have seemed so in the
breathless hush of expectancy — and the Hamlet looked mourn-
fully out upon us from the lineaments of an old man, there
was not a heart that did not throb with a moment's pain. Cu-
riously enough, it did not strike people as being exactly wrong.
There is but one Hamlet, and his name is Edwin Booth. But
people have been talking it over — and taking a melancholy
comfort in it, too — and wondering vaguely if nothing could be
done. Booth has ruthlessly sheared his hyperian locks, which
were, for so many years, distinctive of him, and their impa-
tient shake belonged to Hamlet quite as much as the fitful clap-
ping of his brow.
One would say of another man that he had cut his hair,
but it does not seem quite the phrase to apply to Booth, who
is the romantic figure of the day, so far as the stage is con-
cerned. The thought comes that he is shorn like a new Absa-
lom, and every one who has loved his Hamlet cannot help but
sigh for his lost locks. The swarth of his dark, Oriental face
288 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
would seem to take kindly to pigments, and what can restore
the lustre of his marvelous eyes? * * * Shakespeare was
his creator, but with Edwin Booth, Hamlet was born, and with
Edwin Booth Hamlet will die. For look you, this is not acting
that we have been wondering over. There is no smell of the
midnight oil on this pale, dark, mystic-looking man. These
clear, meaningful readings are not the tortured evolutions of
the student's study, for Edwin Booth is not a student, and
there is no strain of pedantry in any translation of his. There's
a laugh for the commentators and a flip of the fingers for the
interpreters when Edwin Booth is a Hamlet. There are no
new readings to startle you ; no tricksy business to distract
you. Edwin Booth is the expression of Shakespeare. He does
not step alone into the inky cloak and cross-garters of the mel-
ancholy Dane. He steps into his fighting soul, and the complex
Hamlet, who has tortured a thousand students, is as clear as
morning light to this genius who gives body to a book-wraith
that has been waiting for him almost three hundred years.
And therefore it is that Hamlet was born with Edwin Booth.
And it is meet and fitting this time that Hamlet grow old, and
we cry, "Ah, the pity of it!" But we shall look with exquisite
tenderness upon every time-seam in his face, upon every glint
of gray in his locks, upon every fire that still flashes in his eye.
Mary Therese Austin.
From "Our Betsy £.";
From San Francisco Argonaut.
THE REVIEW OF AN ENTHUSIASTIC CRITIC
Turn to another column if you think I'm about to describe for you the voice of
Galli-Curci. For who shall catch in words the phantasy of rainbows arched above
falling waters, moon-lit? There's no such thing. Very well, then, there's no such
thing as Galli-Curci's voice until Galli-Curci sings — and then there is the miracle of
rainbows by moonlight.
Perhaps, if you remember Tetrazzini's luscious voice, you will glimpse something
of the truth about Galli-Curci, if I say that this Italian-Spanish prodigy is Louisa
refined. She is Tetrazzini spiritualized. If you recall the pearls — white pearls — that
came from the throat of Melba, you may feel something close to truth concerning
Galli-Curci if I tell you that this latest gift of God to melody is Melba made tender.
The pearls are turned to tears, now — tears of happiness and sweet sadness.
When Galli-Curci sings, the world slips away. Visions come before you of loved
ones who are gone, and you wonder, can there be such singing up there where Gabriel
stands and where Israfael sweeps his lyre? You doubt it and are sad that you may
not touch a vanished hand and press it in token of a spiritual joy mutually felt.
Of course I willingly admit that Galli-Curci is but a woman. That's just it. She
is as feminine as a shepherdess on a china cup. Even more so. Perhaps she has a
temper. I don't know anything about that. But when Galli-Curci sings she is trans-
figured. She is no longer a woman. She is womanhood. She is tender, arch, cajoling,
scolding, loving, pure, fickle, or superb, just as her song provides.
While I may not describe her voice, it is possible to indicate some of the phenom-
ena which accompany its spiritual manifestations.
She sings with the same amount of effort that is visible in a babe's breathing when
the lullaby and the sandman have done their peaceful work. Like the banners on Poe's
palace, her voice "floats and flows." It is as unlabored as a sigh. Whether the tone
be at one extreme or the other of the gamut of her range, makes no difference. It is
found unerringly as to pitch, without consciousness, and it is to flatter all larks to say
it is as free as their meadow songs. Octaves, sixths, awkward, augmented intervals,
OCTOBER 289
thrills, embroideries of all kinds are accomplished subconsciously. There is not even
the theatricalism of a Tetrazzini who picks up her handkerchief while singing a top
tone in order to prove how easily she does it. Galli-Curci seems quite unconscious of
her own consummate mastery, and so is deliciously free from any attempt to prove it.
Her vocal agility is not disclosed with the vanity of an acrobat on a trapeze — with
bows and flourishes and condescending smiles. She approaches her cadenzas, her scales
and her skips with the modest manner of one determined to make them all beautiful.
The result of it is — perfection; or as close to it as mortal is likely to reach. Linlike
all other singers of this type of song, Galli-Curci attacks her duty like a musician and
a poet. She makes of the most florid of passages something spiritual — the spirit is
identified as Beauty.
And now for good news. Galli-Curci sings again at the Civic Auditorium next
Sunday afternoon. Composers and soloists rise one at a time. Once in a generation
there appears a prodigy whose art draws back the veil briefly and you catch a glimpse
of something not made for words, but celestial and pure and holy. Even this will
Galli-Curci do for you when she sings.
"Our" Walter Anthony.
From "The San Francisco Chronicle" ;
May 13, 1918.
DID THE EARLY MAYANS WORSHIP NUMBERS?
The concept is so novel that, at first thought, it seems ab-
surd. But at second thought, would it be so ridiculous for us
even to venerate them? — the only true, infallible and absolute
things we know of, or at least the only ones we can compre-
hend. Eliminating all superstitious influences — I know of no
object of veneration to which the mind of man should as readily
turn as to mathematics — the single force whose constant pres-
sure by manifold ways elevates from savagery. The Maya
nation had nothing in the shape of revelation to affect them
and so gravitated, according to their own inclination, to a form
of worship of their own. The one thing that impressed them
was that they had arisen from savagery through their discovery
of the power of numbers. And that the science of numbers was
what had kept on elevating them, till it finally achieved an ap-
parently superhuman triumph in the perfection of their mar-
velous calendars.
What wonder, then, that they ascribed to the numerals
superhuman powers and deified them? Other peoples have
sanctified objects for a thousandfold less reason.
Let the reason be what it may, that they did deify num-
bers and make them objects of worship is certain. By the fea-
tures, breast-plates and ornaments of the idols, taken in con-
nection with other numeral signs surrounding them, it is easy
to distinguish the god 4, the god 13, the god 20, and so on.
But the favorite or greatest god, the one to whom they built
everywhere the most and the largest monuments, was the god 1.
This is unmistakable, from the fact of the identity of the
face and the ornaments with that of 1 in the series of face nu-
290 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
merals. And it is probable, too, that 1, being the basis of all
numeration, should come to be looked upon as the Primal
Number — the First Great Cause.
Research may yet show that all systems of religion were
originally built upon a similar plan of numeral worship. If
polytheistic, there need be no limit to the number of gods; if
monotheistic, it is only necessary to suppose that all but the
principal deity have been eliminated and that the god 1 has
become the One God.
Joseph Thompson Goodman.
Editor of the Virginia Enterprise and of the San Franciscan,
From "Archaic Maya Inscriptions' ; published in Fleet Street,
London: Taylor & Francis, 1895.
AU REVOIR
"Ah me," the tender zephyrs sigh,
And back again they gently turn
To bid the flowers and leaves good-bye,
To kiss again the fading fern,
Once more to steal some perfume sweet
And lay it at the Summer's feet,
Dear Summer gliding past.
The cricket's song at close of day
Hath lost its cheery, blithesome tone,
And mournfully and far away
It sounds with wood-dove's plaintive moan;
And loving birds are hushed and still
That wooed the Summer from the hill,
The Summer dying fast.
The boisterous breezes of the Fall,
Frost-laden, sweep with rudest rush,
Familiarly to toy with all
The leaves, which scarlet blush
And die for shame to think that they
Perforce the zephyr's love betray
To winter's wanton boy.
Poor withered bits of color brown,
So bright and green on Summer's day,
By angry Boreas now torn down,
Are whirled in rustling clouds away;
And sobs the gentle early rain
To see the gladsome Summer wane,
The Summer full of joy.
OCTOBER 291
'Tis sad to see the Summer go,
'Tis sad to lose of kith or friend,
And yet 'tis better ordered so,
'Tis best our earthly joys should end
Though Summer, aye, through LOVE depart,
They'll come again to cheer the heart —
Sans sadness, sans alloy.
P. V. M.
From "Out of a Silver Flute";
inspired tp Viva Cummins Doan.
COMFORT TO BE FOUND IN GOOD OLD BOOKS
No book has lived beyond the age of its author unless it
was filled with that emotional quality which lifts the reader
out of this prosaic world into that spiritual life whose dwellers
are forever young — unless it were full of this spiritual force
which endures through the centuries. The words of the Bib-
lical writers, of Thomas a Kempis, Milton, Bunyan, Dante and
others, are charged with a spiritual potency that move the
reader of today as they have moved the countless generations
in the past.
Could one wish for a more splendid immortality than this,
to serve as the stimulus to ambitious youth long after one's body
has moldered in the dust? Even the Sphinx is not so endur-
ing as a great book, written in the heart's blood of a man or
woman who has sounded the deeps of sorrow only to rise up
full of courage and faith in human nature. * * *
Now that this perennial spirit of youth is gone out of my
life, the beauty of it stands revealed more clearly. * * *
And so in this roundabout way, I come back to my library
shelves to urge upon you who now are wrapped warm in do-
mestic life and love to provide against the time when you may
be cut off in a day from the companionship that makes life
precious. * * * Cultivate the great worthies of literature
even if this means neglect of the latest magazine or the newest
sensational romance. Be content to confess ignorance of the
ephemeral books that will be forgotten in a single half year,
so you may spend your leisure hours in genial converse with
the great writers of all time. * * * The vital thing is that
you have your own favorites — books that are real and genuine,
each one brimful of the inspiration of a great soul. Keep these
books on a shelf convenient for use, and read them again and
again until you have saturated your mind with their wisdom
and their beauty.
292 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
So may you come into the true Kingdom of Culture whose
gates never swing open to the pedant or the bigot. So may
you be armed against the worst blows that fate can deal you
in this world.
George Hamlin Fitch.
From the Introduction to "Comfort to be Found in
Good Old BooJ?s", "which originally appeared in the
Sunday book page of "San Francisco Chronicle".
THE BUILDERS
Who built the fabric of our State?
Who reared the Temple of her Fame?
Who are the great, the truly great,
Whose deeds the ages shall proclaim?
Behold the builders and the work they wrought!
Baker, the voice divine in Freedom's cause,
And Field, the master architect of laws,
And King, the star-crowned king of noble thought.
These laid the rock foundations, deep and strong,
Whereon the toilers wrought, the structure rose
With walls and colonnades of stately prose,
And minarets and towers of glorious song.
Behold the builders, working each his will,
In verse or story limned with rarest art;
Twain, Stoddard, Markham, Atherton and Harte,
The rugged Miller and the cultured Sill.
And lo! among the rest, their work adorning,
Walked one of gentle and unstudied grace,
Who wrought all day with ever upturned face,
And song more clear than meadow larks at morning.
Sing on, oh sweet Musician, sing again !
The builders pause and cluster close around you ;
And while with love wreaths they have bound and
crowned you,
They listen breathless for another strain.
These build the fabric of our State
And rear the temple of her fame;
These are the great, the truly great,
Whose deeds the ages shall proclaim.
John E. Richards.
I
OCTOBER 293
ALONG SHORE
She wore a dark Gainsborough hat,
And smiled — and so did I.
The weather — it was this and that —
The moon was in the sky —
The tide was out, along the sands
We met, en promenade,
And talked of this and other lands,
And meetings long delayed.
"You seem," said she, "in somber mood,
If Hope hath taken flight
'Tis said her vows may be renewed
Before the court of Night."
"May then a virtue be distrained
From darkness, mist and sea?
If so," I said, " 'twere little gained
To life's philosophy ;
For there are things we fain would know
By soul-asserted right,
And whence those causes come and go
That lock them from our sight."
"I marked," she said, "in all my ways
Through other lands and climes
The various meeds that Homage pays
To errors of the times,
And though we wander or abide
We cannot bind, in sooth,
Those incongruous forms that glide
'Twixt error and the truth.
There are the longings of the soul
For happiness on earth,
And that surmise which shrouds the goal,
Or milestone — known as Death.
Life, with its little petty spite,
Its achings and unrest ;
The thoughts by day, the dreams by night,
Oppressing the oppressed ;
Remorse, omission and its sin ;
The salt of bitter tears ;
The dread almoner lurking in
The shade of coming years.
The agonies a heart may feel,
Bowed o'er a cherished dust,
The emptiness of that appeal,
Devoid of meaning — 'trust.'
October's sable wreath of thought
The heart would fain defer;
Of one who was and now is not —
Thy yearning love for her —
You go too far, I see, and grieve
But for the lack to know
Those entities that might relieve
A philosophic woe.
And have what little hope you may,
You keep the same aloof —
As one whose all is vacancy.
Your soul is question-proof.
A wrongful strife — to break the seat
Between thy God and thee ;
And that there is — He will reveal
Its hidden mystery."
294 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
"In truth, you are a wondrous maid
To have such flow of speech ;
How hast thou read my mind," I said,
"Give answer, I beseech."
"More have I read than I have told,
And that I keep — In sooth,
'Tis said 'twere better to withhold
A moiety of truth."
"Aye — so 'tis said," I made reply,
"Yet Wisdom at her best
Is little else than theory
And shadow dispossessed —
And so this life. In cold disdain,
From woes not understood,
I tear myself from self, to gain
The compensating good.
What is the soul? concurrent state,
Organic memory —
A process — which is life-create
Of that we feel, and see;
And not a unit, substantive,
Since, when we pass away,
Its parts dissolve; these cannot have
Re-issuance or sway.
E'er death this soul I fain would free
From the illusive wheel,
And fix its true identity
With that it doth reveal,
Which is a reality, divine,
A Universal Soul —
Of which 'tis part — and thus combine
The atoms in the whole.
To know and gain entire release
From that which was and is —
To be distrait — yet share the peace
Of finite unities.
The meed is beatific rest,
Detachment, harmony,
Desire extinguished — Self possessed
Of self-hood — and yet free.
" 'Some secrets may the poets tell,
For the world loves new ways,
To tell to deep ones is not well —
It knows not what he says.' "
The maid spoke on, "So thou wouldst reach
Thy dreary mountain height
In spite of clouds and mists that teach
'Faith lieth not in Sight.'
Afloat within the atmosphere
Are storms and clouds and rain ;
These are not lost— they disappear,
To reappear again ;
The sensate photosphere of mind
Hath rushing clouds and storms
That part in haste and are combined
In ever changing forms.
We often think us to dissolve
Their subtleties — 'Tis vain —
The mind lacks width to them resolve
To elements again !
So silence is the golden mean
That should encompass thought
That dares the tides that writhe between
The known and the forgot.
OCTOBER 295
Lo ! there is genius, lacking will,
And sensibility,
Without the intellect to fill
Its void with energy;
So there remains a conscious hate,
A latent violence
Against the world, against our state,
And life, and its portents.
'Tis true, the high and loving soul
Is dangered of great griefs,
And Wisdom, though she gain the whole,
Mourns burden of beliefs.
Hope is the all, the only — hope,
Abstract, yet life-possessed ;
Tho' far the anguished soul may grope,
Here only, can it rest !
Philosophy seems all-combined
The future to defy —
Lo, Death — We cast it to the wind,
Clasp simple Hope — and die."
The gateway closed our random chat,
She, smiling, said "Good-bye" —
The weather — it was this and that —
The moon was in the sky.
Frank Rose Starr.
From "San Diego Sun' ; November 15, 1882.
THE LADY OF MY DELIGHT
Alice Meynell has her soul to keep, and right circumspectly
does she keep it. Her white thoughts she holds in constant
sight, and however gayly they run and leap, they do not gambol
wantonly like the unshepherded thoughts of the base poets who
unfrock themselves in the sight of Heaven by blaspheming their
divine ordination. Alice Meynell is the poet of sanctifying grace.
She brings no "mortal sin into the shrine of song." Into that
tender breast the "chastest stars may peep", and angels, too.
She is a vestal matron in the temple of poetry, the unstained
singer of an impure day; and we must cleanse our souls before
we are worthy to kneel with her at the altar where she offers
her spotless lilies of song. £<WJ p ^^
From "The Lantern'; San Francisco, June, 1915.
THE MANTLE OF PERFECT INNOCENCE
He made no response as she concluded the story of her
adventure, of having visited a convict at San Quentin to take
him a birthday gift from his crippled little girl, who was slowly
dying. The promise he was about to exact from her never again
to subject herself to such peril was hushed upon his lips. A
296 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
swift conviction seized him that even in these corrupt days, the
mantle of perfect innocence is more invulnerable than an armor
Flora Haines Longhead.
From "The Man Who Was Guilty" ;
published in "San Franciscan ", 1885.
A TRIBUTE TO ILLUSTRIOUS NATIVE SONS AND
NATIVE DAUGHTERS BY AN ADOPTED SON
A story of achievement is told in the beautiful art-glass
portraits to be seen in the circular windows of the Native Sons'
Hall in San Francisco. For each one of these is occupied by
the face of fair woman or brave man who is known abroad as
well as at home for some special gift that marks each one out
from amongst his or her fellows or sisters. The men and the
women who were born in California under rugged Pioneer
conditions had a fortunate adventure. To be born here is
enough, but when added to this beneficial and delightful expe-
rience is given the added achievement of fame in Art, Music,
Drama and Literature or Science, then one is doubly honored.
The distinction of being here placed is worthily won. How-
ever, the tribute to the native son and native daughter who
are not yet enrolled in this hall of fame should not be over-
looked. Perhaps
"They were born with Time
In advance of their time."
Many of these are known and urged for place amongst the illus-
trious ones, but to gain the guerdon they must be made known
to the outside world as well as in their native state.
Who, then, are these who have won the plaudits of the
multitude and are thus set on high? In studying the names
of those who have been selected, you are at once impressed
with the fact that brilliant achievement is not limited to sex,
religion, race, poverty, wealth, formal education or scholastic
environment. Each individual gazing down upon us has found
an open door to opportunity. And hardly two of them have
traveled the same path to the open door.
Here is to be seen the classic face of Mary Anderson,
known world-wide for her part in drama ; next follows that of
the song-bird, Sybil Sanderson, noted for her creating of hero-
ines in opera and of the realm of music ; the features of Ger-
trude Atherton, delicately set forth in the stained-glass, tell of
one whose life has been full of activity in her favorite pursuit
OCTOBER 297
of letters, and who has added to the literature of the world ;
high light and beautiful pose reveal to us the uplifted glance
of Maude Fay, who is also an exponent of opera and music;
Douglas Tilden is here as the exponent of Sculpture; Ernest
Peixotto represents Art, as does also Jules Pages; Jack Lon-
don, that original genius, who gazes upon the world with eye-
sight keen for things no one else sees, is the one chosen to
stand for Literature; David Warfield, the portrayer of sym-
pathetic creations in theatric representations, is the actor par
excellence, chosen to typify the Drama ; David Belasco, the
wizard of scenic representation, shines from his high place as
the producer of Drama ; Richard Walton Tully, with his gifts
in making visual his works of the imagination, is accorded his
place as the creator of Drama; Dennis O'Sullivan, whose voice,
like that of some bird, "is heard the more because its song is
o'er", is the one chosen to represent Music ; John T. Mont-
gomery, whose life-work has been devoted to deeper study than
mere books, is claimed for Science; Stephen Mallory White,
late United States Senator, whose words flowed like spoken
music, is there to speak for Oratory; James Duval Phelan,
also United States Senator, the public-spirited citizen and
kindly friend to many charitable enterprises, who has spoken
for Verdi, for Robert Emmet, Robert Burns, for Sir Roger
Casement, and for our own United States with true and earnest
eloquence, is another Native Son known world-wide as an ex-
ample of Oratory.
This grouping together of our illustrious natives of the
State of California is an effort in the right direction. Their
creative art knows no boundary lines. There is no geographical
limit to be placed upon the art, drama, music, literature or
science that they have added to the world. Just as the Pioneers
blazed the trail for the steel-shod cavalry of commerce to cross
the Sierras, and builded an empire by the Western seas, so
these native sons and daughters devoted to the love of the finer
arts have also blazed the new way for a new generation of
poets, artisans, musicians and other gifted ones to follow.
These Pioneers of thought are the builders of an intellectual
empire. The wealth of Poetry in the Sierras, of prose in the
valleys, of art in the kingdom of the sea, and the Drama in the
cities will be exploited by the new sons and daughters. These
faces of fair women and brave men in these beautiful portraits
above us represent the graduates of the University of Solitude.
In the loneliness of individual effort have these children of the
Pioneers made manifest the genius of California.
Over all of these, like a benediction, hovers the spirit of
the past, the influence of Joaquin Miller, of Bret Harte, of
298 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
Mark Twain, of Charles Warren Stoddard and others who first
made vibrant the solitude of the mountains, the sea and the
deserts of the far West with song and with story. Hail to the
California heroes in the University of Adventure and Achieve-
ment! For as Joaquin Miller says:
"The hero of time is the hero of thought,
The hero who lives is the hero of peace,
And braver his battles than ever were fought,
From Shiloh back to the battles of Greece."
Harr Wagner.
Written for "Literary California"; 1916.
STORY OF SAWYER'S BAR
You ask me to write you the story of Sawyer's Bar. I can only
do it in my own way, but I shall never forget my trip there to the latest
day of my life. To get to that interesting place in Siskiyou county, up
in Northern California,, I had to take a long journey. We arrived at
Aetna Mills in an auto-stage, and next morning left for Sawyer's Bar.
Traveling up _ to the summit of the Salmon mountains, it was bitter
cold, though it was in the month of October. Instead of going from
one hill around to another, as is usual, the road made a straight plunge
down from the summit into an unknown abyss. Here and there were
stations along this precipitous route where teams and conveyances
waited in order to pass each other when coming up and down, for
Sawyer's Bar is nothing more or less than a cup, down deep in the
mountain, where a river flows that is rich with gold.
Here live the descendants of certain Pioneers who mined here
during their lives, and on dying bequeathed this "Cup of Gold" to them
to have and to hold; and here they live and rear their children, set
apart from the great world outside, in a strange little world of their
own. There is a church built over the river which has had almost all
the land blasted away from it by the miners in their unwearying search
for the gold found here once so plentifully.
No story of this strange hollow in the mountains occupied by the
descendants of old Pioneers would be complete that omitted mention
of the good old Belgian priest who was the pastor of this flock for
many years. From the traditions handed down of this remarkable
man, he must have been another Junipero Serra. He had a cow and
chickens and sold "garden truck" in order to maintain himself and the
church in those years long ago, and thus served and helped his people,
who all had a precarious time trying to subsist.
The cemetery at the back of the church shows his skill in making
monuments to mark the place of the dead, with carved specimens of
his handiwork and originally painted white, though now they are
weather-worn, no one having taken his place to continue this service
to the dead. In the church hangs a very famous painting as an altar-
piece, "Christ on the Cross", and containing also the two thieves. An
effort was made to remove this work of art, which undoubtedly is very
old, to place in the cathedral at Sacramento. But the people of the
hamlet refused to let it go from their midst, as they have known it
from childhood, and look upon it as a sacred relic. They watch over
it carefully and, in the winter-time, take it from the church to a place
of safety in one of the homes, for fear of freshets which might wash
OCTOBER 299
the shattered edifice from its foundation, or of the snow-slides which
might cause a cave-in and thus destroy it.
In this little human spot of earth, so far from the centers of civili-
zation, is a mimic world all its own, with three fraternal organizations
to hold them in social relationship — the Odd Fellows, the Native Daugh-
ters of the Golden West, and the Native Sons of the Golden West. The
hall is the property of the first-named order, but so kind and generous
are they that they grant the others use of this as a meeting-place for
half rent, in return for assistance in the up-keep. When visitors come
to this strange region for any purpose belonging to any one of these
orders, the other two are invited to share in the social festivities. Thus
the unity of the group there to be found is complete.
Seldom does any one ever come out from Sawyer's Bar to the
great world outside. When the old settlers died, the children took their
places. It was rich in gold there, and they have learned how to get
it out of the water and the earth as if by an instinct, and it is their
only industry. Their needs are few, and it costs little for them to sat-
isfy their wants, Fashion does not trouble them. They have few
changes from season to season, save those demanded by the inclemen-
incies of the weather. The water is pure, the air invigorating, every-
thing is quiet and peaceful. The only thing that makes them appre-
hensive is the dread of the time when the last piece of gold shall be
found and the final word be spoken, "No more".
When that day comes they will have to leave the only home they
have ever known — that deep cup in the earth where the river flows
through, where they know the coming of the seasons as if by instinct,
and how to get the precious golden harvest from the flood at the mo-
ment when it is washed from the banks, even though they must under-
mine their church in pursuit of that elusive wealth.
That has been their life for several generations, and the years pass-
ing by have left them there unaware of the great world beyond, save
by an occasional visit from an outlander. But they shrink from going
forth and are glad to remain there, happy and contented, as long as
the gold comes down to them in the torrents.
I returned to my home once more, but often I think of them up
there at Sawyer's Bar. I always feel so much more satisfied with my
lot since I was there, and think of them and how little it takes to make
its people happy, but what would I not give for a draught of that pure
water, a breath of that invigorating air, and just to behold once more
the grandeur of its rocks and mountains and pines!
Mrs. Mamie Peyton.
From "Life in California";
told at Hazards Parlor, N. D. C. W.
THE FORTY-NINER
The typical '49er is the hardiest animal under the canopy. When
that predicted New Zealander shall sit amid the ruins of even this
young republic, contemplating and meditating upon her downfall, his
startled vision will rest upon the approaching form of a decrepit old
man, hobbling through the debris, and muttering to himself, "I believe
it was along about the spring o' '50^1et-me-see, it might a been late
in the fall o' '49 — anyway, it was just afore the big fire in Jimtown — "
and that speculative Antipodean will arise and flee from that scene of
300 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
ruin and (for him) impending disaster. And yet there was a vein of
pathetic humor running through the composition of the California
Pioneer, exemplified in that one other absorbing ambition of his, be-
sides his insatiable desire to become suddenly and enormously rich.
That other ambition was an inordinate, a paramount, an ever-recurring
resolution to return to "the states" — he was always "going home". But
he must first "make his pile". He "calculated", "reckoned" and "guess-
ed" that he would "cut a dash" when he got back to old Skowhegan,
Sag Harbor, or perhaps some village in "Carolina state". He intended
to "make a splurge, you bet", and money was not to be considered
an object, either. And so he scorned diggings, which only paid "an
ounce a day", and sought those which would pay "an ounce to the pan".
Some of them are looking for those "ounce diggings" to this day, but
the placers have "petered", and he "prospects for quartz", satisfied if he
can find a "pocket lead" which will give him a "grub stake" sufficient
to tide him over the next rainy season.
"Going home!" Sometimes he could play a few dismantled tunes
on the violin — weary, shadowy substances of a music which has been
dead and forgotten, lo, these many years. But there was one tune into
which he could throw the soul of a maestro, through which quivered
like the gleam of the Northern lights, the sweetest hope of his being.
Sitting there in the waning twilight, beside the door of his cabin, with
the wind sighing a soft lullaby through the tasseled pine, and the dis-
tant roar of the turbulent river welling up from the dark canon, his
"fiddle" close pressed to his bearded chin, he draws the bow across the
strings, and the walls of the canon echo back the sad, sweet strains
of a melody that will never grow old or be forgotten — the music of
"Home — home — sweet — sweet — home ! !"
"Going home!" And on the pinions of that melody his soul is
wafted back to the place of his birth, and he closes his eyes to behold
the vision of an aged mother, whose heart is sore with long waiting, a
father who loves him well, a sister who yearns to behold him again —
aye, and the sweetheart or wife to whom he is the one being of all the
wide, wide world. Yes, he must go home. One more "clean-up",
another rattle with the dice of fortune, and then for home, sweet home.
Beneath the shadow of the pine on the hillside, where the wild dove
coos to his mate, and the shrill piping of the crested mountain quail
wakes the echoes at dawn and twilight, is a moss-covered mound, un-
marked and unknown — the '49er has "gone home".
£. H. Clough.
Oakland, December, J 883.
THE DESERTED CABINS OF PLUMAS
Where the sparkling Feather River
Leaps and dances on its way,
Linger countless crumbling cabins,
Landmarks of a bygone day.
How eloquent these shelters
Crude as mountain grizzly's lair,
Of man's immortal hopefulness,
Of what his heart will dare!
OCTOBER 301
What gilded dreams of splendor,
Those camp-fires must have known!
What shadow-shapes of happiness
Those mounting flames have thrown !
What love-lights have glistened
In the lonely miner's eyes
As he dreamed of lifting burdens
From hearts 'neath harsher skies !
And as the Feather River
Leapt and danced upon its way,
The miner's heart kept pace with it
Though he was doomed to stay.
For it sang a song of gold to him,
So golden were its gleams ;
His heart to him of gold did sing
And golden were his dreams.
Man is happy in a hovel
If hope but with him stay;
He is wretched in a palace
If you take his dreams away.
Etha R. Carlick.
From "Verses" by Etha R. Carlick;
Orozco, Publisher, San Francisco, 1912.
FOLLOW! FOLLOW!
(SONG OF THE GNOMES OF GOLD AND SILVER)
Follow the gold, though hard and cold,
Though buried deep in the earth's dark mould,
Though buried deep 'neath rocks and stones,
Though red with blood and sighs and groans,
Follow, Follow !
Follow the gold, though hard and cold,
Though buried deep with a curse to hold ;
A curse on the hand that unseals the find,
A curse on his heart and a curse of his mind,
Follow, Follow !
302 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
Follow through water and follow through earth,
Forgetting all loved ones, forgetting all mirth,
Hungering for silver and thirsting for gold,
Until thou are weary and feeble and old,
Follow, Follow!
Oh, blind be the eyes that shall gaze on the store
Save for silver and gold be blind evermore;
Entranced by the darkness, forgetting the sky,
Ever wandering in tunnels until thou shalt die,
Follow, Follow!
The Gatherer.
From "Grizzly Bear Magazine" ;
Los Angeles, California.
THE PIONEER'S BREED IS STILL HERE
There have been those who claim that the times have changed.
They speak of our early California writers as "Literary Stars that have
waned and vanished"; yet the world is still reading their books; and
at the public library they tell me that the greatest demand there at the
present time is being made for the works of Mark Twain, over those
of any other author. There have been those who affect to dismiss the
claims of the Pioneer father and mother as of little account, because
they are slowly dropping into their graves, and that is the end of them.
But I say, No! this is not true, for while their breed survives they,
too, remain above earth and continue to play their immortal part. It
is becoming unhealthy for a stranger to ascend the rostrum and tell us
that the stories of Bret Harte prove that the women of the early days
were frivolous and lacking in the womanly virtues. It was in Hayward
a few years ago that such a lecturer, fresh from Australia, who ven-
tured to express this opinion, was faced by a big six-footer, at the
close of his remarks, and compelled to apologize for such an insult to
the womanhood of California. And an hour later the lecturer was seen
rushing to the depot to take the first train out of the country, lest he
meet a few more sons of Pioneer mothers who were on the war-path,
ready to hold him to a strict account for his foolish utterances.
The women Bret Harte wrote about, left no breed behind them to
stand for them. The Pioneer women were so busy rearing families
and attending to the duties of the household that no one wrote any
stories about them. Their lives were too rigorous and humdrum to be
put into fiction. They were too absorbed in making homes and caring
for the needs of the young, baking bread, washing clothes, sending
children to school and Sunday school, and bringing civilization into the
land, to serve as picturesque heroines of lurid romance. But it was
they who gave us our traditions which we who have followed them
must preserve. George Hamlin Fitch has> given us the tale of how his
mother, in the absence of his father, stood guard with a navy-revolver
and a faithful mastiff, keeping a gang of Sydney murderers from en-
tering their store to pillage, and kill if need be, to gain the coveted
gold, and held them at bay till they turned and sought another place
instead, and went on with their lawless work till there was no other
OCTOBER 303
place left un-entered, save that one where his mother had stood guard.
She then bade her little boy and girl to go to bed, they shivering with
fright and terror. And the last sight left to linger with him evermore
is told by Mr. Fitch, of how his mother sat there, still on guard, with
the faithful dog at her feet, and upon her knee was the Bible, which
she was reading, "in the flickering candle's light", as they two calmed
themselves and fell asleep.
Those mothers were not on exhibition to be pictured to the vulgar
gaze of the public. They were heroic mothers instead. They met life
with all its heartbreaks and sorrow, and adapted themselves to chang-
ing fortunes, either when the mining-camp died down and they had to
go forth to seek a new home in a new camp, or when the Mother-Lode
opened up its rich veins and gold poured forth to lift them into the
ranks of wealth. They graced every situation in life, and their sons
and daughters are still with us. That same quality of endurance marks
the breed they left behind them. They bear all and, while enduring,
bring the same sweet peace into the land.
Tradition is still going on; it does not die nor fade from sight.
Living the same normal lives as they did, in the early times, we have
amongst us the same breed in this generation.
There is a fire-fighter in my neighborhood whose bravery makes
him save lives where the mere soldier takes lives. He, the son of a
Pioneer, married the daughter of a Pioneer, and together they face the
ordeals of life which today are more complicated than those faced by
their parents in the mining-days. No children in the district are better
behaved or kinder or better reared than are those that this fireman of
a brave heart has, growing up in his little home. The parents of the
brood are obeyed implicitly, and each one does his or her share toward
helping the others, and toward maintaining the home.
The eldest child was over twenty years of age when the twelfth
babe arrived. The coming of the little one was made a holy celebra-
tion and the neighbors were admitted as to a sacred temple. Upon the
face of the mother was a heavenly radiance that gave her a Madonna-
like youthfulness as she held the little innocent to her breast and "hov-
ered" it with the instinctive soothing of motherhood. In her eyes was
a wonderful depth of meaning hardly to be expressed, save that there
was a film of crystal tears there that added to her beauty, and a glori-
fied halo about her head seemed exhaling from those tears like a
lunar rainbow.
"How beautiful you are!" I murmured, my own heart quivering at
the sight of her there with the new-born upon her breast.
She gave me a look I shall never forget, and said, in a low tone:
"I am thinking of the three that are gone."
The Gatherer.
From "Life in California" ; 1916.
THE INDIAN SUMMER
God's jewel days! His flawless jewel days
That flash in diamond and in ruby rays
And golden topaz tints, and each and all
Bright polished on the sharp frost-wheel of Fall.
P. V. M.
From "Out of a Silver Flute'; New York, 1896.
304 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
COUNT THAT ALONE A PERFECT DAY
Count that alone a perfect clay,
When with the folding leaves at night,
An inward voice may softly say:
"You've done your best since morning light.
Your best, which always must be poor,
With human heart, 'neath human sway;
But when you've done it swift and sure,
Count that alone a perfect day.
The sunlight trembles on the sea,
The soft breeze dies away in sleep,
The birds of passage wild and free,
Fly fearless home across the deep.
They turn not east they turn not west,
But with true instinct keep their way;
When you, too, know your path is best,
Count that alone a perfect day.
When you have soothed a wounded heart,
And turned aside from grim despair
Some hopeless wretch ; and kept apart
A soul and sin, with help and prayer,
When you at night, on bended knees,
With conscience clear can truly say:
Oh, God! What am I more than these?
Count that alone a perfect day.
When the last sunset tints your sky,
And golden gleams are on the hills,
While on your couch of pain you lie,
Strange music all the silence fills,
A new life-current, strong and clear,
Is yours ; around glad hymns of praise,
And then you know the voices near,
Are angels of your perfect days.
Agnes M. Manning.
From "Chaplet of Verse by California Catholic Writers";
San Francisco, 1889.
OCTOBER 305
OCTOBER PICTURES
Leagues of plain where gold and umber blend and merge in
wondrous tinting;
Mountains east and west arising, giant warders proud and high ;
Rivers where the white-armed plane-trees fling abroad their
autumn banners;
Woodlands opening in dim vistas, scenes of beauty to the eye;
Cottage homes in shade embowered, from whose lowly chim-
neys rising
Soar the curling smoke-wreaths softly out upon the frozen air,
As o'er Santa Anna's summit glows the morning sun in
splendor,
Making all the southern valley smile in beauty rich and rare.
But the iron-horse speeds northward, and we watch the shift-
ing vision —
Hill and river, wood and mountain, and each quiet country
home —
Till we pass the forest arches, and to westward see El Toro,
Lifting up his wreathed forehead proudly to the azure dome;
At his feet the crumbling ruins of an old adobe lying,
'Neath whose roof so oft were sheltered priest and statesman,
bard and sage,
Where the warriors from the battle, and the rich and poor
were welcomed
By the smiling lips of beauty, and the reverent voice of age.
********
Marcella A. Fitzgerald.
From "Chaplet of Verse by California Catholic Writers" ;
San Francisco, 1889.
THE BANDIT'S DAUGHTER
Like fallen logs the sleeping bandits lay,
All drunk with wine beneath the flickering ray
Of candle-light. Their captive sat wide-eyed
And sleepless in the fitful light and tried
To loose those hateful cords with tug and strain
To gain his freedom. But 'twas all in vain.
His hand he clenched as he watched the candle's glare
— 'Twas half in rage and half despair!
That he, a fair-haired youth from the Northern land
Should fall into this wild banditti band
To die, just like a rat within a hole.
Filled with mighty wrath his swelling soul.
306 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
Just then, a flood of early morning light
(Bringing a vision to his dazzled sight)
Fell across the old adobe floor.
Silent then slid back the great wide door,
And entered there, just like a falling leaf,
The barefoot daughter of the bandit chief,
A gleaming knife clasped tightly in her hand.
He could scarcely understand!
What did it mean? Was she to do the deed
Her father had delayed and quickly speed
The knife within his breast to satisfy
Some direful wish to see him die?
Her head was proudly poised and full of fire
Her gleaming eyes — a daughter of her sire
Indeed, and he cursed the beauty and the grace
Of this savage daughter of a savage race.
Closer yet she crept until her breath
Was on his cheek. He nerved himself for death
While her eyes gazed into his. Within that space
It seemed he lived an age. And then her face
Revealed a smile that haunted him for life —
A smile of triumph as she slipped the knife
Beneath his bonds to set him free.
That strange sweet smile was Fate's decree
That he should live, and now the warm life blood
Went leaping through his veins in sudden flood
As he felt her quick pulsation by his side
And knew she was his God-sent friend and guide.
Just then, the bandit nearest them bestirred
Himself — a savage creature — armed and spurred —
Half yawning in his sleep as if he'd wake
And cry, "Behold, the captive's free!" "Forsake
Me, Mariquita, while there's time to flee"
The captive whispered. 'Twas in vain for she
Was the daughter of a bandit chief and feared
Not any man, and only persevered
The more to cut those hateful bonds, and he
With sudden spring and leap, at last is free!
The bandit turns him o'er. They breathe again
To see him fast asleep, and then the twain
Step softly to the door. The air is cold,
And dim the morning light, but there behold,
OCTOBER 307
His horse stands ready bridled for the flight.
His heart now swells within him at the sight
Which seems his very nature to transform.
He lifts the little hand so brown and warm
Unto his lips with deference, which seems
To say, "Thou art the angel of my dreams."
Then springing to his saddle, in the dawn
He waves his hand to her and then is gone,
And she descries him far away with eyes
Like stars, and then with sweet regret, she sighs.
And ever gazing from her favorite hill.
Stands Mariquita, waiting, waiting still.
„ , <m , w tt m Ella Sterling Mighels.
trom Werner s Magazine ; New York, J 887.
This Was made the theme of a painting in 1888 by
Ernst Narjot, celebrated for his scenes of Mexico.
THE WESTERN PACIFIC
From the Mormon state to the Golden Gate
Shall reach the new steel band
When the W. P. from the inland sea
Rolls into the silent land.
Its course it will take by the old Salt lake
(But a dream is the trail of old),
And westward glide through the desert wide
To the far famed land of gold.
Where the Humboldt springs from the soil and brings
New life to the sagebrush land,
And the coyotes prowl all night and howl
At the sheepman's lonely band.
Where the hills are high and the alkali
On the barren plain lies white,
The whirr of the wheel on the railway steel
Shall ring through day and night.
And falls, so grand, where the rivers blend,
And canyons deep are seen,
And frowning cliffs seen through the rifts
Where the pineclad hills are green.
308 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
By a river wide to the flowing tide
Of the nation's western gate,
Bearing the wealth of hills and mills
And the fruits of the golden state.
When the road is laid with its easy grade
And the engines built for speed,
In the fight for the best of the traffic west
The W. P. shall lead.
Unknown.
From "Daily Paper", by Assistant Engineer,
too modest to give his name.
ABOUT KINDNESS
Any one can be kind — as he wishes to be ; and there always
are the gravest, the most urgent reasons why one should be
kind, why one should in carelessness or insolence or indiffer-
ence, strike no blow in the dark that will drive hopelessness
into any despairing soul.
There's a simple, homely truth in that absurd, banal (so far
as poetry goes) little verse that the sentimental and unliterary
used to write, sometimes with highly elaborated, ornamental
flourishes, in the old-fashioned autograph album ; that favorite
verse about:
A little word in kindness spoken,
A motion or a tear,
Has often healed a heart that's broken,
And made a friend sincere.
Helen Dare.
From "San Francisco Chronicle" ; January 23, 1917.
THE GREAT PANORAMA
In October come the jeweled grapes of many colors, shin-
ing out from the green leaves. I remember once to have car-
ried a birthday gift to my mother, made of a great wreath com-
posed of red, white and blue grapes, from Olivina, near Liver-
more. And it was sent to Modoc county to my sister, that she
might enjoy the beauty of it. Flaming tokay, muscat, Black
Prince — all are beautiful to behold ! Also come the delicious
pears in this month, fully ripened, and what fruit is more satis-
fying for quenching thirst than these?
A. E.
A STUDY OF THE LITTLE PIONEER GIRL
See Page 330 — "Pioneer Mother's Sayings"
Photo by II. E. I'oehlman
309
A STUDY OF THE LITTLE PIONEER BOY
See Page 332 — "The Pioneer Boy of Esmeralda"
Photo by H. E. Poehlman
310
THANKSGIVING PROCLAMATION
STATE OF CALIFORNIA, EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT,
Sacramento, November 5, 1863.
"Let us come before His presence with thanksgiving, and show
ourselves glad in Him with psalms."
In accordance with the Proclamation of the President of the United
States, and that the people of our common country may, upon the same
occasion, and with the same unanimity of purpose, offer up their grate-
ful thanksgiving to Him who bestows "every good and perfect gift," I,
LELAND STANFORD, governor of the State of California, do hereby
appoint THURSDAY, THE 26TH DAY OF NOVEMBER, instant,
as a day of public tranksgiving to Almighty God "for the great benefits
we have received at His hands" during the year through which we have
just passed.
Let us remember on that day that in calamity, as in prosperity,
there is a God above us who holds in the hollow of His hand not only
the lives of individuals, but the destinies of nations. Let us remember
that it is to Him we must look for guidance in our public affairs, as
well as pray for strength to compass the threatened dangers that sur-
round our beloved country.
While we deplore our condition as a nation, we have manifold rea-
sons for offering up our united thanksgiving as a community.
Our State, during the past year, has been blessed with prosperity
and health. Our farms have yielded of their abundance, and our mines
have continued to give up their hidden treasures. We have been free
from floods, pestilence and famine, and, as a State, have known no
widespread calamity. We have enjoyed an unlimited fruitfulness of soil
and a genial climate, which we can offer to share with thousands of
other lands who are anxiously seeking new and more peaceful homes.
We are blessed with a generous and sympathizing population, whose
hearts have been opened to give munificently of their abundance, that
the sufferings of sick and wounded patriots of other States may be
relieved.
We have multiplied and renewed evidences of the loyalty of our
people, and have, by legislative, elective and judicial action, deprived
the enemies of our country from entering the pernicious wedge of re-
bellion and dissolution into the cherished institutions of our own fav-
ored commonwealth.
But while we assemble with thankful hearts among the cordial as-
sociations of our own happy homes, let us not forget the many desolate
312 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
households in our sister States, whose altars will be twined with cy-
press, and whose hearts will be overflowing with desolation, while our
own are filled with thanksgiving for the plentitude of Divine protection.
As a nation, we have been passing through a bitter, trying and
bloody ordeal; but recent events seem to foretell the coming of better
and brighter days. And in this we have cause for peculiar thankfulness.
And for this and all other mercies vouchsafed to us, let us give to
Almighty God our unreserved thanksgiving.
In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand [L. S.] and caused
the great seal of the State of California to be affixed, the day and year
above written. LELAND STANFORD,
Governor of California.
Attest: A. A. H. TUTTLE, Secretary of State.
From "Sacramento Daily Union'; November 10, 1863.
IN MEMORY OF "THE GOVERNOR"
In the burial customs of the Red Man, when a great chief
died, they killed and interred his ponies with him, that he might
be properly accompanied on the way to the Happy Hunting
Grounds of Above. But when the great chief of the railroad,
known to all fondly as "The Governor", passed on his way, it
may be told that many of the men went with him. For before
he was cold in the ground, many of the old gray-haired clerks
were dismissed from their positions where they had served
faithfully, and were thus driven out into the cold storms of
winter to perish. When Stanford died, they died, too. He was
their sustainer, and when he was no more on earth, there was
no kind Greatheart to care for their service any more. So they
joined him, one by one. Let this be said of him : He went
forth gloriously, not alone on his death-journey, but attended
by a host of loyal servitors, the old friends of his early days
in California, whom he had never forgotten.
The Gatherer.
From "Grizzly Bear Magazine" ; February, 1912.
DAYS OF THE BONANZA KINGS
Kearny and Montgomery streets presented a gay and won-
drous spectacle to the onlooker during the brief reign of the
Bonanza kings. Their mothers, wives, sisters and daughters
were like butterflies and hummingbirds in all their silken splen-
dor as they fluttered along in the bubbling effervescence of
high spirits. Lace-trimmed parasols were in vogue in that
era, and many soft ruffles edged the skirts. Gowns for street
wear were always high of neck and long of sleeve, and exqui-
NOVEMBER 313
site lace shawls, some of them costing thousands of dollars,
gave a Spanish piquancy to the forms they draped. The city
was small in comparison to what it has now grown, and every-
body walked. There were splendid turnouts for occasions, but
the newly rich had not yet acquired that fashionable pose of
helplessness which demands vehicular assistance for a few
short blocks, and nobody was ashamed to be seen afoot. It
was like being at a play to join the moving throng, for all the
celebrities were to be seen likewise in the passing show of
the afternoon promenade.
Generous to a fault, their charity was like the running
stream. No one who applied to them went away empty-handed.
The successful ones were known by sight as well as by name,
and it is almost literally true that "everyone knew everyone."
Out of the throng there remains to us today only Miss Flood,
who has endowed a Chair of Commerce — the first of its kind —
at the University of California. The children of the Bonanza
kings are still doing their share, as did their parents before
them, toward bringing about benefits to all, so that California
is the richer for their being.
Sarah Connell.
From "Life in California".
JUDAH
The great Sierras reared their ramparts high,
With canyons stretching deep and dark between —
A roadless, towering steep whose vast demesne
The art of man had never dared defy.
When Judah looked with steady, piercing eye
Upon the abysmal wonders of the scene,
Until he saw with vision grandly keen
The certain path for him to glorify.
And now along the way his genius traced
The locomotive plies, all fears outfaced,
The world of commerce in its arms to bear;
And as its song of triumph man still hears,
All blent with it a paean thrills the air
In praise of him our Prince of Engineers.
Edward Robeson Taylor.
314 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
A MESSAGE FROM VIRGINIA ROSE
"There are two things that everybody has to have — whether
rich or poor, whether high or low, whether in the city or the
wilderness, whether young or old, whether they have bread
or not, whether they have advantages or not — there are two
precious things right here on earth that we have to have in
order to keep alive — and these two are Air and Companion-
ship — especially the latter."
The Gatherer,
Taken from "Life in California" ;
spoken by one "who lived in a palace, ate from dishes of gold,
was gowned like a princess, rode in her carriage in the early
Bonanza days, in her limousine in the later days, fed the hungry,
clothed the poor, buried the dead, comforted the afflicted,
and yet placed the human need for companionship as equal
to that for the air We breathe. She is with us no more,
but her words remain and her memory.
DAYS OF THE RAILROAD KINGS
It was a bare and rough shoulder of earth that California
street presented when the railroad kings came down from Sac-
ramento and located in the city-by-the-sea. But the railroad
kings were builders — builders by nature and instinct as well
as by trade. They came to stay and they were not to be daunted
by difficulties, so, being pleased by the outlook, they selected
this rugged outcrop for the location of their palaces that were
to spring into being as though at the bidding of a genie. The
Big Four were great friends and they built their homes close-
together.
As their advent heralded a modification in the financial
interests, so the appearance of their ladies marked a change
in the street scenes. Their clothing was no less elegant and
expensive than that of their predecessors, but the silk and lace
were superseded by magnificent woollen cloth. Silk there was
in abundance, but for street-wear it was concealed. Its pres-
ence was revealed only in the soft swish of linings. Bright
colors were no longer seen on the street. The girls in the
shops, always quick to note the trend of affairs, were at first
somewhat bewildered. Their ideas of elegance had been silk,
no matter how sleazy, but now the serviceable merino and
cashmere came into its own, and almost over-night the navy
blues and seal-browns supplanted the flimsy finery ready to
fall to rags like Cinderella's ball-gown at midnight. The sub-
NOVEMBER 315
stantial took the place of the ephemeral, and certainly, if per-
haps insensibly, it began to be understood that steady appli-
cation must take the place of trusting to luck.
As generous and warm-hearted as the first millionaires, the
railroad people were charitable, but in more organized and per-
manent form. Instead of mere lavish giving, hospitals and
homes were established and endowed. Magnificent public en-
tertainments were given under their auspices, not only to raise
funds but to advertise their objects. The "Authors' Carnival",
produced at the old Mechanics' Pavilion, the largest assembly
place in the whole West, was for the benefit of the Six Char-
ities. It was a wonderful spectacle, the grand procession led
by Mr. and Mrs. Charles Crocker, with all the pomp and ma-
jesty of a royal court, and in the train that followed them were
to be seen not only the wealth but the beauty, wit and every
form of the talent and accomplishment of the city and its en-
virons. For two weeks the immense building was crowded to
the doors, and were it not in mercy for the exhausted partici-
pants, the exhibition might have been continued indefinitely.
Though the parents have passed away, the descendants
of the railroad magnates are still with us and taking their part
in the continuance of good works. The homes of the builders
were swallowed up in the holocaust of 1906, but the sites they
once occupied have been dedicated to public usage. On one
of them there stands the Art Institute. Another is a public
park and play-ground; a third has been donated as the location
for a magnificent cathedral, while the fourth is the property
of the Leland Stanford Junior University.
Sarah Connell.
From "Life in California".
TO MARY
Lo! I have known thee, Mary, many years,
Since first we two in childhood's happy dream
By Sacramento's tawny, turgid stream
Clasped hands in Friendship's chain, unknowing fears
Of Life or Death, to last o'er all the days
Between, till now, when thou art gone
From earth to seek a goal that's further on —
A sphere of fairer flowers and fairer ways.
Yet fain would I put forth my hand and dare
To say, "She still is here with all her grace
Of heart and tenderness of sympathy,
With all her kindliness and beauty rare;
316 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
Of those she loved she halloweth the place,
Sending lilies fair and roses more and more,
Redeeming souls from sorrow as of yore,
Giving gifts of soul and gifts of worth."
For when there came that hour, the last of earth,
In the final moment of the Great Release,
Such heavenly radiance shone upon thy face,
And such a smile of heavenly joy and peace,
As if an angel thou hadst come to be,
As if the angels thou hadst come to know.
In reverence we knelt and murmured low,
"A soul immortal passeth into Paradise this day,
And Paradise is near, not far away."
The Gatherer.
CALL OF THE GOLDEN PORT
Ye that be trodden underfoot and scattered
As smoke-wreaths in the rain,
All the white dreams that ye have spent and shattered,
I will make whole again.
Ye that be thralls of outworn generations,
And seekers in the night,
Come, out of my proud place among the nations,
Behold, I give you light.
Where the sun's self out of the gates of morning,
New gilded from the sea,
Shines on my city with a great forwarning
Of glorious things to be.
And to the hills beyond the crested city,
Where the dawn-splendors break —
Crowned Freedom with her sacred eyes like pity-
Keeps vigil for my sake.
On the wide wonder of the enchanted valley
Wherein my treasures be,
Green things, great rivers rolling musically
Down to a singing sea.
And in the heavy scented harvest hours
Bound with their fruitage gold.
All the wide hills shall overspill with flowers
Upon the dreaming wold.
NOVEMBER 317
Yes, all your toil shall be to you as pleasure,
And all your blood as wine,
The songs you sing shall have a dancing measure —
Such flowered air is mine!
And of your shadowy peril shall be sharers
And of your undigged gold.
The ghostly galleons of the old sea-farers,
That found the gate of gold.
They sailing through the sunset out of shadow
Shall watch with you and wait,
And with you lift their songs of Eldorado,
Beyond the Golden Gate.
From "San Francisco Examiner" ; 1911.
Ethel Talbot
THE PULSE OF TIME
Oh! the To and Fro of the pendulum
Of Being and Life, and the roar
Of the vast machine that is all unseen,
Unheard and unknown ! Oh ! the Come
And the Go that forever and more
Is surging! And what does it mean?
For an aeon or day
Its perpetual sway
Is a mystery deep in its sum !
Oh! the Night and the Day of our hope and sight
Of things that are near us and far!
And the little we know of what is below
Or above! Oh, mysterious plight
Of living! — could we hope did we knov«
All the distance that lies
'Tween ourselves and the skies
Of At Last? — or is kindness in night?
Oh! the beat and the throb of the Pulse of Time
And the bounding of Life in the veins,
That makes us a part, in touch with the heart
Of Everything! — tingling in rhyme
With planets and suns ! And the dart
Of ecstacies, yea, and of pains
Is a part that the whole
Daily knows, for the Soul
Is for all, — and the whole is a chime!
318 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
Oh ! the seasons they come and the seasons they go
Like breaths of an animal vast!
And Life is a span, for the wonderful plan
Knows nothing of Time as we know
And nothing is hurrying fast;
The life of an insect or man
Is the moment that counts,
And the trifle amounts
To the best of the pendulum slow.
Oh ! the ebb and the flow of the Sea of Thought
On the shores of the Universe!
The flood of the tide brings riches; the glide
To ebb leaves us barren. And fraught
Are the waves with the things they immerse
Till the dross from the real they divide,
When a planet is rolled
New, to shore, and is bowled
Into Space where before there was Naught!
Oh, living and dying and living again !
I am part of the To and the Fro,
And of Night and of Day, of the throbbing and pla>
Of the Heart; of the Now and the Then;
And a part of the Thought-Sea! Oh!
And God is the Whole, and the way
Of Creation and Life
And mysterious strife
Is His! — and His breath is in Men!
From "Out of a Silver Flutes-
inspired hy Ella Sterling Mighels.
P. V. M.
SONS OF CALIFORNIA
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, 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?
NOVEMBER 319
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 sprang, and on whose
bosom we repose our tired bodies when our work is done.
Jerome A. Hart.
From "Argonaut Letters*.
"WHERE ARE THOSE SLEEPERS NOW?"
We grew in beauty side by side,
We filled one house with glee,
Our graves are scattered far and wide,
By mountain, stream and sea.
The same fond mother bent at night
O'er each fair sleeping brow.
She had each folded flower in sight,
Where are those sleepers now?
A Memory Gem.
Cherished fragment of an old ballad brought to
California in '49, and dwelt upon in 1918, by a Pioneer
Woman in her 85 th year, she being the only one left of a
family of ten — a Mrs. Crawford of Hayward.
DON JUAN HAS EVER THE GRAND OLD AIR
Don Juan has ever the grand old air,
As he greets me with courtly grace;
Like a crown of glory the snow-white hair
That haloes his swarthy face ;
And he says with a courtesy rare and fine
As he ushers me in at the door:
"Panchita mia will bring us the wine,
And the casa is yours, senor."
His forescore years have a tranquil cast,
For time has tempered his heart and hand;
Though the seething tide of his heart ran fast
When he ruled like a lord in the land.
In the wild rodeo and mad stampede
He rode, I am told,
In the days of old
With his brown vanqueros at headlong speed.
320 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
From the Toro peaks to the Carmel Pass
His cattle fed on rich wild grass;
And far to the west
Where the sand-dunes rest
On the rim of the heaving sea
From the Point of Pines to the river's mouth,
From the Gabilan Hills to the bay on the south
He held the land in fee.
It was never the same
When the Gringoes came
With their lust of gold and their greed of grain;
And his humble cot
With its garden plot
Is all that is left of his wide domain.
But he says with a courtesy rare and fine
As he ushers me in at the door:
"Panchita mia will bring us the wine,
And the casa is yours, senor."
Lucius Harwood Fooie.
From "Wooing of the Rose".
TRUTH IN TRINITY
Truth is its own exceeding great, unspeakable reward.
There are three, and only three, that bear witness here om
earth of things heavenly and divine. There are three, and
only three, human pursuits that, passing beyond the veil of
time and sense, take hold of things spiritual and eternal. These
are science, fine art and religion. These three strive ever to-
gether, each in its several way, to perfect that image in the
human spirit. Science strives ever to perfect that image in
the human reason as truth : art strives to perfect the same
image in the human imagination as ideal beauty; religion
strives ever to perfect the same image in the human will and
the human heart — in human life and human conduct — as duty
and love. These three seem often to us widely separate, and
even, alas ! in deadly conflict, but only because we view them
on so low a plane. As we trace them upward they converge
more and more, until they meet and become one. They are,
indeed, but the earthly, finite symbol of a trinity which is in-
finite and eternal.
Joseph he Contc.
NOVEMBER 321
PICTURES OF MY DEAD FOREFATHERS
Are you glad the calm is broken?
Did the stillness never pall?
Pictures of my dead forefathers,
Hanging there against the wall !
Know you not, I often wonder,
Gentle dames and stately sires,
Do you feel or do you suffer
In our longings and desires?
While your blood in our veins courses,
While your race continues still,
Do you share in life's emotions,
Feel its passion and its thrill?
Are you hurt, I feel a stranger,
In these rooms and in this hall?
Pictures of my dead forefathers,
Hanging there against the wall !
Or in heaven does one see further,
Do you know those distant skies,
Where through cloudless realms of azure,
The majestic eagle flies?
Do you know those mystic mountains,
That at dusk fade into blue?
And those flowers that ope at night-fall,
'Neath the starlight and the dew?
Did you breathe its warmth, its madness,
Feel its freedom and its thrall?
Pictures of my dead forefathers,
Hanging there against the wall !
Did you know the canyon's coolness,
With its scented tangled vines?
Ah ! heard you the palm's soft rustle
And the sighing of the pines?
Ah ! heard you the rushing waters
And the music of their fall?
Pictures of my dead forefathers,
Hanging there against the wall !
Did you know the hour of parting,
When my soul first learned to doubt,
And the sky grew dark in anguish
And the silver stars went out?
Now I move in the same places
322 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
You were wont to tread of yore,
And my glances meet the landscape
That your eyes smiled on before.
Yet I feel so strange, a pilgrim
Hearing your mute voices call.
Pictures of my dead forefathers,
Hanging there against the wall!
Janet von Schroeder.
IT IS NOVEMBER
The chill wind blows across the hills,
Dead leaves are whirling down,
The earth now wears a rustling robe
Of crimson and of brown.
Broad maples wave their naked arms
Like phantoms to and fro,
The sky looks gray — I almost see
December's coming snow.
Herbert Bashford.
From "At the Shrine of Song".
CHORUS OF AMAZONS
We have known thee, O Life ! thou art sweet
To the lips as the heart of a flower;
But the breath of thy perfume is fleet,
And the joy is the bloom of an hour.
We have known thee, O Life! thou art fair,
But thy beauty the sirens had;
And stained are the robes thou dost wear;
We have known thee, O Life! thou art sad.
We have known thee, O Life! thou art strong;
Thou art strong and thy burdens are great;
We have feared thee and worshiped thee long,
For thy form is the shadow of Fate.
Thou hast given us faith as a gem;
It was lost in the flush of the morn;
And virtue, a garment whose hem
Was unspotted, the storm-winds have torn.
NOVEMBER 323
Thou hast given us love as a flower;
It has withered and died on the breast;
Thou hast given us riches and power;
They have vanished as foam from the crest.
Thou hast given us hope as a staff;
It is trampled and broken by fears ;
And the red wine of pleasure to quaff;
It is darkling, and bitter with tears.
Thou hast given us fame as a crown,
But hast tarnished its glory with rust;
Thou hast sprinkled the robes of renown
With the soil of thy ashes and dust.
We have known thee, O Life! thou art fleet,
And the span of thy race is a breath;
We have followed the path of thy feet,
And the goal that thou seekest is death.
Virna Woods,
From "Chorus of Amazons ".
DICKENS IN CAMP
Above the pines the moon was slowly drifting,
The river sang below ;
The dim Sierras, far beyond, uplifting
Their minarets of snow.
The roaring camp-fire, with rude humor, painted
The ruddy tints of health
On haggard face and form that drooped and fainted
In the fierce race for wealth;
Till one arose, and from his pack's scant treasure
A hoarded volume drew,
And cards were dropped from hands of listless leisure
To hear the tale anew;
And then, while round them shadows gathered faster,
And as the firelight fell,
He read aloud the book wherein the Master
Had writ of "Little Nell."
Perhaps 'twas boyish fancy — for the reader
Was youngest of them all —
But, as he read, from clustering pine and cedar
A silence seemed to fall;
324 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
The fir-trees, gathering closer in the shadows,
Listened in every spray,
While the whole camp, with "Nell" on English meadows,
Wandered and lost their way.
And so in mountain solitudes — o'ertaken
As by some spell divine —
Their cares dropped from them like the needles shaken
From out the gusty pine.
Lost is that camp, and wasted all its fire;
And who wrought that spell? —
Ah, towering pine and stately Kentish spire,
Ye have one tale to tell!
Lost is that camp, but let its fragrant story
Blend with the breath that thrills
With hop-vines 'incense all the pensive glory
That fills the Kentish hills.
And on that grave where English oak and holly
And laurel wreaths intwine,
Deem it not all a too presumptious folly —
This spray of Western pine.
Bret Hartc.
From "Overland Monthly'; July, 1870.
A WIFE OF THREE YEARS
He goes his daily way and gives no sign
Or word of love I deemed once fondly mine.
He meets my warm caress or questioning eye
Without the tender thrill of days gone by.
Once at my lightest touch or glance or word
The mighty being of his love was stirred.
And now the clasping of my yearning hand
He meets unanswering — he does not understand.
He gives no word of praise through toiling years
To say he reads my truth through smiles or tears.
NOVEMBER 325
I cannot take for granted as my own
The love that speaks not in caress or tone.
For this — my life's sweet hopes fade sad away —
For this — my heart is breaking day by day.
Carrie Stevens Walter.
From "Golden Era Magazine" ; 1885.
A NEW BEING
I know myself no more, my child,
Since thou art come to me,
Pity so tender and so wild
Hath wrapped my thoughts of thee.
These thoughts, a fiery gentle rain
Are from the Mother shed;
Here many a broken heart hath lain
And many a weeping head.
E. A.
From "San Francisco News-Letter" ; April, 1916.
LOVELINESS
(Beautiful thoughts make a beautiful soul and a beautiful soul
makes a beautiful face.)
Once I knew a little girl
Very plain;
You might try her hair to curl
All in vain ;
On her cheek no tint of rose
Paled and blushed or sought repose,
She was plain.
But the thought that through her brain
Came and went
As a recompense for pain
Angels sent;
So many a beauteous thing
In her young soul's blossoming
Gave content.
326 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
Every thought was full of grace
Pure and true;
And in time, the homely face
Lovelier grew,
With a heavenly radiance bright
Shining through.
So I tell you, little child,
Plain or poor,
If your thoughts are undefiled,
You are sure
Of the loveliness of worth,
And the beauty not of earth,
Will endure.
Maria Lacy.
Copied from an old newspaper file many years ago.
Re-published by "Grizzly Bear Magazine";
Los Angeles, 1910.
BEHIND EACH THING A SHADOW LIES
Behind each thing a shadow lies,
Beauty hath e'er its cost,
Under the moonlight-flooded skies
How many stars are lost!
Clark Ashton Smith.
From "The Star-Treader" ;
San Francisco: A. M. Robertson, 1912.
AGE TARRIES NOT
Age tarries not for beauty
No favors doth he seek:
But drawing near
Each hurrying year
He snatches roses from thy fair, fair cheek.
Lillian H. S. Bailey.
From "Golden Era"; 1885.
NOVEMBER 327
"OH MY BOY-ROSE, OH MY GIRL-ROSE"
Why is a star at night so glorious?
Why does it rapture bring?
Because 'tis shining
To the Glory of the Mighty One
Who dwelleth everywhere
And k nola >eth everything.
Why is a red, red rose so beautiful
As it swayeth in the Spring?
Because 'tis breathing
To the Glory of the Mighty One
Who dwelleth everywhere
And knoweth everything.
Why is a sky-lark's song so entrancing
As it carols on the wing?
Because 'tis singing
To the Glory of the Mighty One
Who dwelleth everywhere
And k n <>i»eth everything.
Oh my boy-rose! Oh my girl-rose!
Oh my boy-star! Oh my girl-star!
There's nothing half as sweet as you are
In all the silver stars and golden suns
That whirl in the universal swing,
While you re living
To the Glory of the Mighty One
Who dwelleth everywhere
And kn°T» e th everything.
Ella Sterling Mighels.
Written for the u Ark-adian Brothers and Sisters
of California'; 1911.
AN IMPRESSIVE SCENE
It was a harmonious, though sad, solemn and impressive
scene. Such a closing tableau is seldom witnessed. Here were
represented various denominations — the Jew, the Catholic, and
the Unitarian — supplicating God for one Jewish soul. Oh,
faith, brotherly love and sympathy, after such a concordant
exhibition, a millinnium on earth seems possible! Angels must
have smiled over this chorus of religious sentiments, which par-
took of Divine unison. Such fruits of different religions will
328 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
be the euthanasia of atheism. Truly "out of death comes life !"
In the near distance we see the glimmering on the horizon
of future happiness to be enjoyed when it will not be my God
or your God, but our God — God! and then there will be the
Universal Religion.
The idea of a uniform belief in God and the immortality of
the soul, Right Thinking, Right Doing for Humanity in con-
junction with the precepts of Moses, Jesus and other great
teachers, so that all may dwell together in accord, and so no
difference of faiths in the essentials will exist to intervene and
destroy human happiness, is a beautiful one. And if this seed
of conception of a universal harmony be well planted, it will
go on as surely as the propagation of sounds; and in future
generations it will sweep all before it, as it now belongs to
the trend of the times.
Mrs. /. Lowenberg.
From "The Irresistible Current" ; 1908.
A MESSAGE FROM VIVA
The hour was nearing for the passing of the song-bird from
these earthly shores. Perceiving which I ventured to ask her
this : "Dear child, is there anything you have learned from out
your own experience that you could leave to the world as a
message to help others to live in more peace and in more
comfort?" Brightly she smiled and said, promptly: "Yes,
Mamma, there is, and it is in just two words." "Two words?"
I echoed in surprise. "Yes, it is this — "Be normal".
The Gatherer.
From "Life in California " ; June /, 1905.
MOVE PATIENTLY ON, OH EARTH
Move patiently on, Oh Earth,
Till Mercy's wandering dove
Shall fly to the realm of its birth
And rest in the bosom of love!
Move patiently on, till the crucified Christ
Shall gather his radiant crown
From the lowly flowers and bleeding hearts
Which the world has trampled down.
Lyman Goodman.
From the "Story of the Files of California" ;
San Francisco, 1893.
NOVEMBER 329
A BEAUTIFUL SIGHT IN THE EAST END
There is one beautiful sight in the East End, and only
one, and it is the children dancing in the street when the organ-
grinder goes his round. It is fascinating to watch them, the
new-born, the next generation, swaying and stepping, with
pretty little mimicries and graceful inventions all their own,
with muscles that move swiftly and easily, and bodies that leap
airily, weaving rhythms never taught in dancing school.
I have talked with these children, here, there and every-
where, and they struck me as being bright as other children,
and in many ways even brighter. They have most active little
imaginations. Their capacity for projecting themselves into
the realm of romance and fantasy is remarkable. A joyous life
is romping in their blood. They delight in music, and motion,
and color, and very often they betray a startling beauty of
face and form under their filth and rags.
But there is a Pied Piper of London Town who steals
them all away. They disappear. One never sees them again,
or anything that suggests them. You may look for them in
vain amongst the generation of grown-ups. Here you will find
stunted forms, ugly faces, and blunt and stolid minds. Grace,
beauty, imagination, all the resiliency of mind and muscle, are
gone. * * *
The children of the Ghetto possess all the qualities which
make for noble manhood and womanhood; but the Ghetto
itself, like an infuriated tigress turning on its young, turns
upon and destroys all these qualities, blots out the light and
laughter, and moulds those it does not kill into sodden and for-
lorn creatures, uncouth, degraded and wretched below the
beasts of the field.
Jack London.
From "The People of the Abyss";
Ner» York: McMillan, 1903.
A ROSE
As slight a thing as a rose may be
A stepping stone
Whereby some soul may step from earth
To love's high throne.
Clarence Urmy.
From "Golden Era*.
330 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
HIS MOTHER MADE HIM A LITTLE COAT
'Tis long since Samuel's mother wrought
A little coat for him to wear,
In token of her loving thought,
Her tender, unforgetful care.
Strong emblem of maternal love,
Sweet story from a distant age!
We mothers prize it far above
More striking tales on history's page.
For we, too, fashion little coats
For loved ones of our own today,
While Fancy many a banner floats
Above our needle's gleam and play.
The prophet's mother's hopes and fears —
Her love — are changeless links that bind
Our hearts to hers through all the years,
And ebb and flow of humankind.
Fannie H. Avery.
[At the funeral service of Mrs. Avery, who passed away while still
young and beautiful, this poem, written about her little son, was read
as part of the ceremony. She was very gifted and accomplished and a
daughter of one of the early Pioneers. — The Gatherer.]
A LITTLE PIONEER BOY AMIDST THE SIERRAS
OF ESMERALDA, NEVADA
He was born in the mines amidst the Sierras of Esmeralda, Ne-
vada A champagne basket put on wheels and drawn by a big New-
foundland dog was his baby-carriage. Early his brothers and sisters
took him to visit the quartzmills where the tremendous crashings of
the stamps crushing the gold out of the rocks, put him to sleep. On
each side of the road where he lived the mountains were so high up
that there was only a narrow bit of blue sky above to be seen. When
winter came it was a world of white everywhere, and the road was
nearly all the time in shadow.
When he was four years old, the Pioneer father and mother took
the family to live in Reno, and the little fellow stood at the window
looking out at the passers-by. Suddenly a great thunderous noise
and vibration filled the earth, and there was a huge locomotive rushing
in on its tracks, bringing passengers from the far away East. Aston-
ished at the wonderful sight, he cried: "Mamma, come quick — see!
Tremenjus! tremenjus! and no horses pulling it!"
A year later the family moved to Sacramento, and the little boy
found a new world to explore. As if by instinct he was drawn to the
NOVEMBER 331
railroad shops where he soon became a favorite with the men, who
greeted him affectionately when he arrived. So much did he have to
tell at home of these journeys of his, that in response to his urgings,
an aunt and a sister accompanied him one day to visit the "laundry^"
as he called it — for he was such a little fellow that to him "foundry"
and "laundry" were the same word. At the sight of him with his
guests, the men declared a recess, and gave their attention to a display
of their workings in that wonderful place where they were casting the
parts of a locomotive and putting them together. And when the men
could not make things clear to the women-folks, the little boy could.
When his father took him on a railroad-trip to Marysville, and
when left in the hotel-parlor, he soon became an object of interest to
the guests there. He made reference to something about Jean Valjean,
and no one present "had ever heard of the gentleman." So he was
urged to tell them who he was. Nothing loath, the little boy started
in to give the assembled guests an account of Victor Hugo's master-
piece. His father returned, but the guests protested against letting
the child go until he had finished the story he was telling them. So
his father went off to attend to some other business, and the serious
little chap went on revealing the trials and struggles of Jean Valjean
to his rapt audience. When the father finally carried him away with
him to the train, the little boy seemed in doubt. "Papa, I could not
e'zactly remember the last part, but I told it the way it ought to end —
with him being happy at the last."
One Sunday in Sacramento, he stood out in the street watching
the people coming and going from church for a long time. He seemed
to be meditating. At last he came in wearily, sought his mother, and
sad: down beside her, and put his head in her lap as if utterly ex-
hausted. She soothed him as was her wont and asked, "What is it,
Birdie?" "Oh," he said with such a sigh, "I should think God would
get tired making so many people!"
When he was seven and a half years old, he passed into the sleep
that knows no waking, as if exhausted with the problems of life that
had occupied his brief existence.
The Gatherer.
From "Life in California* 1 .
VIRGIL WILLIAMS
Deep in the forest when a strong tree falls,
We only see the space and not the sky
Above it, nor the mighty roots which lie
Down in the darkness. But a little time,
And they shall send a newer growth sublime
To bless the place it held and all the land.
Master in Art ! O strong soul, true and grand !
Thy earnest work in many a soul survives,
And thou shalt live again in other lives.
Alice Denison Wiley.
From "The Golden Era"; January, 1887.
332 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
PIONEER MOTHER'S SAYINGS TO HER CHILDREN
"Be thankful for small favors.* *
"You must be good — of course you must be good — that goes with-
out saying — but you must also be something else — you must try to be
elegant. 9 *
"A maiden s reserve is worth more for her protection than bolts
and bars.**
"Assume a virtue if you have it not, and in time it will become
your own.**
"A camellia is like a maiden — you cannot breathe upon it without
leaving a mar.**
"Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.**
"But, Mamma,** asks the little Pioneer girl, "how can you see
Cod?**
"If God be in your heart you can see Him.** And the child, looking
into the face of her mother and beholding there the light in the soft hazel
eyes, says to herself, "Mamma is seeing God, now.**
PIONEER FATHER'S SAYINGS
Remark made in taking leave of the ladies: "Judge of my impa-
tience to return by the haste with which I leave you.**
To a disagreeable partner in business: "If you dont want me, you
dont have to have me, AND YOU DON*T HAVE TO HAVE
ME IN A HURRY r
Of a spellbinder who had failed to swindle him in a trade: "He
couldnt hoe-ny swagel me!**
Expressing his meager approval of anything: "Oh, it will pass with
a shove, if you shove hard enough.**
To the children: "Now I expect you little fellows to be Trojans,
no matter what happens. You must k e ep up a stiff upper lip, put your
best foot foremost, know enough to come in when it rains, have plenty of
sand, AND MIND YOU WALK A CHALK-LINE OR I*LL
KNOW THE REASON WHY!**
THE CHILDREN'S SONG OF CALIFORNIA
A song to thee of loyalty,
A song to the golden West,
A land that lies 'neath sunlit skies,
Beside Pacific's breast;
Thy NATIVE SON and ADOPTED ONE
From snowy climes agree
That heaven hath crowned
The land renowned — land by the Western sea,
NOVEMBER 333
O California fair, California rare,
All nature sings to thee.
The balmy breeze, the fragrant trees
The blue of sky and sea.
Mission bells' sweet chimes
As in the olden times
And the mocking birds in the vale,
Let the chorus rise
To the sunny skies
''Eureka, California."
Unknown.
LIFE FROM A PRACTICAL STANDPOINT
Life is a series of repetitions. * * * If one day's labor led to
the higher development of the next day, we might gain some breath-
ing time. * * * But it is impossible. * * * There is no suspen-
sion of the law of supply and demand, not for even one day's rest — it
stands grimly and relentlessly before one like some awful deity that
will not be placated. * * * It is with feelings akin to awe that one
attempts to depict the internal life of the family. * * * Woman's
whole lifework is to deal with raw material. * * * Thus the ques-
tion, "What shall we eat, what shall we drink, and wherewithal shall
we be clothed ?" assumes fearful proportions, showing a hand-to-hand
grappling with the necessities of life that will admit of no loitering
by the way. * * * Duty lays her heavy hand upon us and requires
that we shall consider not only those but the thousand-and-one trivial
needs of changing fashion from day to day, in addition to our primal
wants and necessities, until intellectual feasts and enjoyments are
pushed to one side in favor of the things that die with the day.
********
If Lucifer, himself, in his glorious abode had been hedged in by
the numerous cares and perplexities pertaining to this corporeal frame
of ours — if the pangs of hunger had assailed him in his arch plottings
— if the necessity of beefsteak, bread and wine had been a part of his
nature — if he had been dependent upon the exertions of the tailor and
the shoemaker for a faultless attire instead of fleeing through the
realms of infinity draped in the unchanging robes of immortality — if
his energies had been wound up in the limited circle of time allotted to
us out of twelve waking hours instead of a continuous rush of unabated
energy through illimitable eternity — if a gripe or a pain or a tithe of
our bodily afflictions could have occasionally seized upon him in his
ethereal flights to the uttermost boundaries of the celestial worlds —
doubtless a wholesome humility would have been impressed throughout
his spiritual organization, effectually snubbing the pride and daring
which plunged him downwards, irretrievably, to the depth and darkness
of the Plutonian shore.
From generations untold in the far past down to the present time,
and so long as posterity flourishes in successive decades, will the
adamantine chain of materiality hold us fast; in vain do we attempt
to escape from its anaconda-like folds. The genius of man may miti-
334 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
gate so far as in his power lies, the hopeless drudgery of our fore-
fathers by the application of steam and the perfection of machinery.
But the field only widens, our wants increase, our necessities multiply.
This is the body of hindrance to which our immortality is chained;
the Promethean vulture which is ever preying upon our spiritual facul-
ties, the clinging shirt of Nessus>, destroying our highest purposes.
This is the stern fiant of an exorable law, which grasping our souls
in this material frame, holds in abeyance and subjection this spark
of divinity which is crying out intuitively for an immortality beyond
the grave, — for an eternty of time in which to accomplish the impos-
sibilities of earth, the hopes and desires of the longing heart of man.
"To Spring comes the budding, to Summer, the blush;
To Autumn the happy fruition,
To Winter, repose, meditation and hush,
But to Man every season is condition.
He buds, blooms and ripens into action and rest,
As thinker and actor and sleeper,
Then withers and wavers, chin dropping on breast,
And is reaped by the hand of a Reaper."
Rachel Hepburn Haskell (Mrs. D. H. Haskell).
(Note. — This is from the pen of a Pioneer Mother. — The Gatherer.)
From "Golden Era Magazine*; April 1884.
SAINTS AND MARTYRS
Saints an' martyrs?
S'pose there be.
Hain't seen many?
'Tween you an' me,
PVhaps there ain't many
Fer to see.
But I've hearn a boy
With grumblin' look
A-shoutin' "Ma !
I want my book!"
And I've seen a martyr
Sarch every nook.
An' a leetle gal
I've known to cry,
With an ache in her head —
That was all in my eye —
An' a saint soothed her
With a lullaby.
An' I seen a man
Without much har
Look for a thing
That wasn't thar —
Whar he hadn't put it —
An' swar and swar.
Then I've seen the martyr
Find the book —
Nary a cross word,
Nary a look —
An' the boy at school
The spellin' prize took.
An' the leetle gal
Woke up from sleep
To help the saint
To dust an' sweep —
An' at night 'fessed up
With contrition deep.
NOVEMBER 335
Fer the feller, too,
Without much har,
She found the thing
(That lay just thar,
Whar he had put it)
An' a kiss to spar.
Now I that boy-
Would 'a' spanked with his book ;
The leetle gal
I'd 'a' shook an' shook,
An' the feller without
E'er a har forsook.
Saints an' martyrs
P'r'haps ain't rife,
The woods ain't full —
But, bet yer life,
I know one —
An' that's my wife !
Charles Hem}) Webb.
From "With Lead and Line* ;
Cambridge: Houghton, Mifflin Co., 1901.
THE GOLD-ROCKER CRADLE
When I arrived in California there were very, few accommodations
for new-born infants. A baby had to take what it could get and be
thankful. Everybody gathered around and made up for the lack of
comforts in giving the newcomer the most ridiculous attentions. Espe-
cially was this the case with the miners, who would go miles to get a
chance to hold a baby in their armsfor a few moments. This habit
of theirs was especially shown in my case, for I was known far and
near as the baby whose father had died seven months before it was
born. By common consent the men felt they must take the place of
their dead comrade and be like adopted fathers to the infant thus left
to the mercies of the world.
My wailing and crying was to them a matter to be studied and
understood. So one of the men, whose name was Asa Wiles, became
the spokesman.
"Why> in course the pore little thing is cryin' its life away. It
ain't used to this yer rough life of ourn an' it's longin' fer the comforts
of civilization. The smart little thing! Don't you know what it's
cryin' fer?" And he slapped his knee and chuckled. "Ain't we all had
cradles to be rocked asleep in? An' ain't it purty tough on the pore
little thing to hev to put up with our rough ways? Jest you leave it
to me, and I'll fix her up the nicest cradle that any baby in the world
ever had."
The next day, as my lovely young mother in her widow's weeds
was sitting with me in her lap, trying in vain to hush me to sleep,
there flocked in a deputation of miners with a cradle, but such a cradle
as no baby ever had before nor since. It was a gold rocker; one that
had seen hard service washing gold in the American river, now all
nicely cleaned and dried, and presented to me for my own. The men
took turns thumping the pillow in, and when it was fixed they laid
me in the unique receptacle as if it were a ceremony, and then took
turns rocking me to and fro. No magic of enchanter was ever more
potent. I went to sleep peacefully, and from that moment became a
good-natured child, so it was told by them proudly ever after.
********
336 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
The years have passed. I hope some day to write the epic of
those lives from the child's point of view. But now I can only say
that one by one they have yielded to the hand of Time. Only those
who brought their families with them, or those who married here,
ever settled down and made homes. Home-making is the one art
in which woman has no rival, and, without her, man is indeed home-
less. And so the rest of them, like a throng of "Wandering Jews,"
have tramped on and on, from one mining camp to another, endlessly,
till they have fallen by the wayside and have been buried without a
stone.
Generous, kindly hearts, that could always turn from the tragedies
of their own lives to make happy an insignificant child! What can
I offer to their memories for all their unfailing kindness, and much
enduring patience? They have passed away, leaving no trace behind.
The miner who brought me my gold-rocker cradle in Sacramento
county amid the placers; the man at the quartz mill in the sierra Ne-
vadas who harnessed my Newfoundland to a wagon made of a cham-
pagne basket put on wheels; those who made me dove-cotes for my
pigeons and wonderful cages for my squirrels, and carved out unique
cross-guns for me and showered me with dainty gifts, giving me the
diamond editions of the poets, all for my very own while still a child —
where are they today?? All scattered and gone! Most of them are
wrapped in the great deep mystery, some few in the uttermost limits
of the wilderness, but their memories will always remain fresh and
green in the hearts of the children who lived down in the gulch, as
long as they shall be on earth.
The Gatherer.
From "Grizzly Bear Magazine" ; 1909.
Also published in "The Wasp"; J 885.
OUR DUTY TO THE YOUNG
The paramount duty of mankind is so to deport itself as
to enable the young to keep their minds clean. When this is
done it reflects upon the character, intelligence and health of
the rising generation. There is nothing so detrimental to the
young as the suggestions of fear, hatred and pernicious social
activities. By social activities, I mean all things that tend to
influence the life in the home and in society. On the other
hand, there is nothing so beneficial to the young as thoughts
of love, kindness, charity and religion.
There is nothing so impressionable as the young mind,
and consequently it becomes readily influenced by suggestive
thoughts. If these thoughts tend towards that which is evil,
its effect upon the youth is of a fearful, nervous, selfish char-
acter, which ultimates either in ill health, unhappiness or evil
mindedness. On the other hand, if the suggestion influence
is good and noble in character it ultimates in lovable, intelli-
gent and happy manhood and womanhood, free from nervous
and unhealthful disorders and criminal tendencies.
NOVEMBER 337
Our duty is to develop the religious training of the chil-
dren, for when that is properly cared for and nourished, it is
reasonably certain that virtue and good will predominate.
Our duty to the young therefore lies in our using our best
efforts with precept, training and example so as to keep their
minds clean, that future generations will be assured a whole-
some atmosphere, in which love of God and man will be the
predominating influence and evil and crime, negligible quali-
ties and quantities. Then virile, red-blooded, wholesome men
and women, free from anaemia, both literal and figurative, will
rule. "Justice an d liberty to all" will be the world's motto,
and the pathway leading to the brotherhood of man will have
been cleared.
M. S. Levy.
Written for "Literary California*.
COMFORT IN GOOD OLD BOOKS
In the reading that I shall recommend, culture of the mind
and the heart comes first of all. This is more valuable than
rubies, a great possession that glorifies life and opens our
eyes to beauties in the human soul as well as in nature, to
all of which we were once blind and dumb. And culture can
be built on the bare rudiments of education, at which peda-
gogues and pedants will sneer. Some of the most truly cul-
tured men and women I have ever known have been self-
educated; but their minds were opened to all good books by
their passion for beauty in every form and their desire to
improve their minds.
Among the scores of letters that have come to me in my
bereavement * * * was one from a woman in a country
town in California. * * * She told me of her husband, the
well-known captain of an army transport who went to sea
from the rugged Maine coast when a lad of twelve with only
a scanty education, and who, in all the years that followed on
the seas, laboriously educated himself and read the best books.
In his cabin, she said, were well-worn copies of Shakespeare,
Gibbon, Thackeray, Dickens, Burns and others. These great
worthies he had made a part of himself by constant reading.
Of course, the man who thinks that the full flower of educa-
tion is the ability to "parse" a sentence, or to express a com-
monplace thought in grandiloquent language that will force
his reader to consult a dictionary for the meaning of unusual
words — such a man and pedant would look upon this old sea-
captain as uneducated.
But for real culture of mind and soul give me the man
who has had many solitary hours for thought, with nothing
but the stars to look down on him ; who has felt the immensity
338 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
of sea and sky; with no land and no sail to break the fearful
circle set upon the face of the great deep. In the quest for cul-
ture, in the desire to improve your mind by close association
with the great writers of all literature, do not be discouraged
because you may have had little school training. The schools
and the universities have produced only a few of the immortal
writers. The men who speak to you with the greatest force
from the books into which they have put their living souls
have been mainly men of simple life. The splendid stimulus
that they give to every reader of their books sprang from the
education of hard experience and the culture of the soul.
The writers of these books yearned to aid the weak and
heavy-laden and to bind up the wounds of the afflicted and
sorely stricken. Can one imagine any fame so great or so
enduring as the fame of him who wrote hundreds of years
ago words that bring tears to one's eyes today — tears that give
place to that passionate ardor for self-improvement, which is
the beginning of all real culture?
George Hamlin Fitch.
Condensed by the Gatherer.
A TRIBUTE TO THOMAS R. CHAPIN
The Robert Raiks of the Mining Camps
Not to be left out of our past-and-gone heroes and cham-
pions of the early days' record shall be the man who stood for
the children, the boys and girls of the mining camps. He it
was who gathered them into the Sunday-school, whatever their
religion — Jewish, Catholic and Protestant — each with a class
having its own catechism, and then striking his tuning-fork he
would give the note and all would join in singing the good old-
fashioned hymns together, united in a brotherhood, with God
as the Father of them all. He was a humble follower of the
Galilean, but wrought for the good of all, irrespective of creeds
and dogmas. Owing to his neatness and order, he was some-
times referred to slyly by the other miners as "Miss Chapin,"
or because of his abstaining from drinking and carousing, as
"Old Sunday School." But woe unto the man who undertook
to be ribald or coarse at the expense of religion, in his pres-
ence. When a righteous wrath fell upon him he was the cham-
pion fighter of the town, and no one could stand up against
him. He endeared himself to the boys and girls alike, and they
never forgot his noble example, for while he taught the law of
goodness, he lived it first, himself.
From "Life in California"; The Gatherer.
Aurora Esmeralda Co., Nevada, 1863;
Greenville, Plumas Co., California, J 880.
NOVEMBER 339
REGARDING FRIENDSHIP
I am rather foolish about my friends and relatives and any
misunderstandings between us. I never act the "Madam
Pride," but always get down on my knees and beg to know
what is the matter. It is so much better to know. A friend's
a friend for life and after with me. I forgive and forgive ! I
cannot hold a grudge against any one. I seem always able to
put myself in the other chap's place and look from his view-
point. And when two friends of mine fall out with each other,
it seems as if I cannot endure it. I am always for both of
them. If by any sacrifice on my part I could remove the
obstacle between them I would make it willingly. What are
we here but for that? And in such a case where two I know
have a misunderstanding, I always feel like saying, "Let's pray
God to make them friends again."
Sarah M. Williamson.
From "Unpublished Novel".
THE CHOICE
On the bough of the rose is the prickling briar —
The delicate lily must live in the mire;
The hues of the butterfly go at a breath;
At the end of the road is the house of death.
Nay, nay : on the briar is the lovely rose ;
In the mire of the river the lily blows ;
The moth it is fair as a flower of the sod;
At the end of the road is a door to God !
Edwin Markham.
From "The Nautilus."
DEATH OF DAY
The quiet, patient breast of Mother Earth
Seems to call my tired soul to rest.
Dimness obscures the world from vale to crest.
I close my eyes and wait a new day's birth.
I stand abashed before thy meed of praise.
What have I done to soothe thy troubled days?
What can I do to fill thy aching needs?
Ah me ! that I might give not words but deeds.
Emelie Tracy Y. Parkhurst.
From the "Story of the Files."
340 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
COMPENSATION
Tides swept a rough brown oyster shell
Upon the strand,
And in its dark and secret depths there fell
A grain of sand.
The humble thing long strove itself to free —
The grain expel.
Failed it is true, but a wonder wrought
In that small shell.
The moments fly: the swift years come and go.
Sands o'er it whirl,
Death breaks its shell at last — and lo!
A perfect pearl.
Alice Denison Wile};.
From "Golden Era".
THE GREAT PANORAMA
In November, many fruits linger with us — all joined to-
gether — the later varieties — but this is the time for apples,
coral-cheeked or richly emeraldized or russet. The biggest
apple I ever saw, which was also the most fragrant, was one
given me at the Chicago Exposition, in the California building,
by the man in charge of the Shasta exhibit. It was as large
as a baby's head, and took my two hands to hold it. The Los
Angeles man had announced that not only in oranges, peaches,
apricots, cherries, grapes and everything else did his county
surpass the whole of California, but also in the production of
APPLES. Very innocently I had remarked, "I thought it
took snow to make good apples, like in Maine?" And the
Shasta man was so delighted, he insisted on presenting me
with the gem of the collection. I carried it to a reception
that night, with everybody along the route in the cars taking
delightful whiffs of the wonderful thing, and presented it to
our hostess, May Wright Sewell, who carried it around with
her the entire evening as if it were a bouquet, and sharing it
with everyone ; for Shasta — she can grow apples !
A. E.
NOVEMBER 341
WORDS FROM A PEN-WOMAN
The high standing of the journalistic profession makes it
imperative that those who are accepted are men and woman
of noble aspirations. Keeping faith with those with whom
they deal is as sacred a duty as "making good" in the editorial
room. No one wants to advance in the field of journalism at
the sacrifice of regrets or to appear clever by bringing tears, or
unhappiness into the lives of others. * * *
Every newspaper man, every newspaper woman has enough
confidential information to fill the pages of a paper. But being
of the right sort, and I repeat, the standard is high, a good
newspaper man (and some of the best of them are newspaper
women) would rather appear less brilliant, less clever, than
to disclose those things which would make him think less of
himself, as well as to lower the ideals which are the propelling
power of all that is best, within. * * * Contact with the
world and its great human interests makes newspaper folks
broad, kind, sympathetic. It gives breadth of vision. It en-
larges the heart. It tends toward universal knowledge. * * *
Newspaper women, generally, love their profession. Among
the foremost women-writers of the world are those whose
careers began in a newspaper office. Under the severe train-
ing of newspaper work writers have developed a keen percep-
tion, an outlook on life, which later found expression in some
great book or in some distinctive magazine contribution.
Josephine Martin.
Excerpts from a lecture given before the Women of the
University of California by the Club Editor of the
"San Francisco Examiner".
THE BREATH OF INNOCENCE
Upon the children of the schools
Does all the world depend,
Saved by their breath of innocence,
From coming to an end.
From "Pearls from the Talmad". Isidor Meyer.
SEEK NOT ALL WISDOM IN A WELL
Seek not all wisdom in a well,
The stars have also things to tell.
From "Wisdom for the Wise."
342 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
TWO WAYS
There are two ways for a man to be wakened to the con-
sciousness of God. One man may be so indifferent and so
wrapt in the pleasures of the world that he is like one enjoying
dreams of fancy and self-indulgence in ease and sloth, when
suddenly there is a terrible crash of thunder and a fearful
flash of lightning which shocks him out of his dreams, and
he sits up with heart beating fast, and becomes awake. The
other man is sleeping peacefully undisturbed by any dreams —
just lost in a deep slumber when slowly morning comes, the
grey light, the roseate glow in the East, the rising of the sun
in all his majesty, and it shines into the room and all around
him till he is bathed in the glory of it — and at last his eyes
open and he is awake.
Robert McKenzie.
Remembered from a sermon given by the Rev. Robert McKenzie,
in 1878, at the Howard Street Presbyterian Church, S. F.
"Life in California. 9 * The Gatherer.
FRIENDSHIP
God gives Life many gifts. Rare is the hour
That has not for its own some gracious dower —
But Friendship, of all gifts transcendent far,
Shines over all the clear and steady star.
Ina Coolbrith.
Written for the "Ark-adian Brothers and Sisters
of California" ; 1916.
CONFIDENCE
The frailest bird upon the wind-tossed bough
Still stands and sings;
Why should we fear though all life's branches break,
Our souls have wings.
Alice Denison Wiley.
From "Golden Era"; 1887.
Gone is the old town, Yankee Jim,
Long lost is Timbuctoo,
They fell into the river's rim
Where wide-winged eagles flew.
Lillian H. S. Bailey.
TO CALIFORNIA
(1848)
Rude, wild, unkempt, this strange new land
That bordered on the Western strand, —
From old ties far departed, —
But they who sought beneath thy earth,
And delved to better know thy worth, —
They found thee golden-hearted.
(The Seventies)
Wide trampling o'er thy herbaged plains
The herds clashed horns, the droves tossed manes,
Flocks fed o'er realms uncharted;
Yet ever Spring renewed the green,
And with her satin poppy sheen
Bedecked thee golden-hearted.
(Today)
Land of the strong and brave and free,
An empire by the western sea,
Glad-homed and many-marted.
Where 'neath the vine and fig one roves,
Or through the dark-green orange groves,
All gleaming golden-hearted.
(The Future)
Heir to the sunshine, heir to health,
Heir to unestimated wealth, —
All that the Past imparted, —
Shalt thou, bestowing with free hand
Thy blessings wide through every land,
Be called the Golden-hearted.
Charles Elmer Jenney.
From "California Nights* Entertainment."
Edinburgh: Valentine E. Anderson.
344 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
A DAUGHTER OF THE HOUSE OF DAVID
"Ave Maria! ex qua nascitur Christus"— Hail Mary of whom Christ
was born!
How that ancient formula of adoration reverberates around the
circumference of the globe at every recurring daybreak of the Blessed
Nativity! From the Alps to the Andes; from the fervid precincts of
the equator to where the pious explorer utters his oft-repeated prayer
in some tossing and straining ship in the fierce latitudes of the pole;
from the majestic basilica of St. Peter's to the rudest tabernacle in the
depths of the savage forest, or on the verge of the lonely desert, sur-
rounded by the rectangular sign of salvation —
"Salvation! oh Salvation!
The joyful sound proclaim,
'Till earth's remotest nation
Has learned Messiah's name!
And the humble lodger in the stable, poor Mary of Nazareth, the
spouse of the Holy Ghost, what a resplendent crown of glory, what an
unspeakable fullness of renown is hers! In comparison with the lovely
Jewess, all other illustrious women of history and tradition sink into
obscurity; Cornelia, the proud mother of the Gracchi; Semiramis, the
splendid queen of the Assyrians; Cleopatra, the voluptuous siren of
the Nile; Olympia, who bore a conquerer of the world; Letitia, who
gave Napoleon to imperishable fame; Catharine, the mighty empress
of the Muscovites; Isabella of Castile, whose benevolence revealed the
dreaded mysteries of the Sea of Darkness, and unveiled a hidden con-
tinent; the glorious Elizabeth of England — what were all these in com-
parison with the once lowly daughter of the house of David, whose
maternal agony among the dumb but sympathetic beasts of the stalls,
delivered to Earth and Heaven the Babe in the Manger, Jesus of Naz-
areth, the King of Kings, the Son of God, the Redeemer of a sin-
stricken and perishing world?
Ave Maria! is the loving acclaim of uncounted millions on every
continent, under every zone, upon every habitable island of the globe.
Her statues and pictures are the objects of love and adoration in all
nations and by all tongues; and the most inspired genius of a thou-
sand years has exhausted its art and invention in giving imaginary form
and beauty to the adorable mother of Christ.
At midnight, at cock-crowing, and in the morning of the Blessed
Nativity, "Ave Maria" is thundered by the mighty multitude in the
great cathedral on the banks of the Tiber; and "Ave Maria" is gently
responded by the dusky maiden on the far-off shores of Lake Superior
and Pen d'Oreille.
Calvin B. McDonald.
From "Story of the Files" ; San Francisco, 1893.
THE WHITE SILENCE
The afternoon wore on, and with the awe born of the
White Silence the voiceless travelers bent to their work. Na-
ture has many tricks wherewith she convinces man of his
finity — the ceaseless flow of the tides, the fury of the storm,
the shock of the earthquake, the long roll of heaven's artil-
DECEMBER 345
lery — but the most tremendous, the most stupefying of all, is
the passive phase of the White Silence. All movement ceases,
the sky clears, the heavens are as brass; the slightest whisper
seems sacrilege, and man becomes timid, affrighted at the
sound* of his own voice. Sole speck of life journeying across
the ghostly wastes of a dead world, he trembles at his audacity,
realizes that his is a maggot's life, nothing more. Strange
thoughts arise unsummoned, and the mystery of all things
strives for utterance. And the fear of death, of God, of the
universe, comes over him — the hope of the Resurrection and
the Life, the yearning for immortality, the vain striving of the
imprisoned essence — it is then, if ever, man walks alone with
God.
Jack London.
From "The White Silence"
in a story in the collection called
"The Son of the Wolf'; 1900.
THE CHRISTMAS DOLL
"Could it be real with its stately mien
And flowing robes and wealth of golden hair?
Its vermeil cheeks and polonaise of green,
Its waxen arms so beautifully fair"?
And what to her seemed e'en far more rare —
From its white neck a string of beads depending
And a golden girdle with its laces blending.
"Give me!" she cried impatient to caress
And hold the image to her swelling heart,
Her face the type of pictured happiness,
Free from dissimulation, such as art
Suggests to older actors in a part.
In Fortune's gifts there dwelt no greater joy
Than she beheld in this bespangled toy.
O sacred passion! If the little child,
Intuitive, so much of love can show
And keep it in her bosom undefiled,
In after years its tender charm to throw
With arching splendor, like the heavenly bow,
Her destiny will be to bless mankind.
William Bausman.
From "Story of the Files"; San Francisco, 1893.
346 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
THE CHRISTMAS SPIRIT
The spirit of Christmas is one of the best gifts that Chris-
tianity has bestowed upon us. It speaks in a language that
is foreign to none and native to all — the language of fellow-
ship and sisterhood. It should be cultivated to the end that
instead of manifesting itself but once a year, it would become
a beautiful flower of perennial bloom. It would be a fine old
world, indeed, if we made the Christian spirit the sentiment
of every-day life.
Hugh Hume.
From the "Spectator' ; Portland, Ore., 1916.
THE MIDNIGHT MASS
Of the mission church San Carlos,
Builded by Carmelo's bay,
There remains an ivied ruin
That is crumbling fast away.
In its tower the owl finds shelter,
In its sanctuary grow
Rankest weeds above the earth-mounds,
And the dead find rest below.
Still, by peasants at Carmelo,
Tales are told and songs are sung
Of Junipero, the Padre,
In the sweet Castlian tongue —
Telling how each year he rises
From his grave the mass to say,
In the midnight, 'mid the ruins,
On the eve of Carlos' day.
With their gaudy painted banners,
And their flambeaux burning bright,
In a long procession come they
Through the darkness and the night;
Singing hymns and swinging censers,
Dead folks' ghosts — they onward pass
To the ivy-covered ruins,
To be present at the mass.
DECEMBER 347
And the grandsire and the grandame,
And their children march along,
And they know not one another
In that weird, unearthly throng.
And the youth and gentle maiden,
They who loved in days of yore,
Walk together now as strangers,
For the dead love nevermore.
"Ite, missa est," is spoken
At the dawning of the day,
And the pageant strangely passes
From the ruins sere and gray;
And Junipero, the Padre,
Lying down, resumes his sleep,
And the tar-weeds, rank and noisome,
O'er his grave luxuriant creep.
And the lights upon the altar
And the torches cease to burn,
And the vestments and the banners
Into dust and ashes turn;
And the ghostly congregation
Cross themselves, and one by one
Into thin air swiftly vanish,
And the midnight mass is done.
Richard Edward White.
IT WAS WINTER IN SAN FRANCISCO
It was winter in San Francisco — not the picturesque win-
ter of the north or south, but a mild and intermediate season,
as if the great zones had touched hands, and earth were glad
of a friendly feeling.
One can learn to love the fog very much. There are even-
ings when it sweeps across the land — calming, cooling, wel-
come ; the same solace to our jaded, distorted senses as is sleep.
The day may have been hard in its lessons or over-warm in
temperature, but this fog, when we have learned to love it,
has the quiet touch of a friend.
Frances Charles.
From "The Siege of Youth";
Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1903.
348 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
THE CALL OF THE NORTH
From Bering's shores, where weirdly gleams
Aurora's mystic shimmering light;
Where Luna's cold reflected beams
Illume the long drear winter night,
Comes wafted on the southward breeze
A cry, as to a wayward child,
"Come back — Oh, wanderer of the seas,
Return where all is free and wild."
The great white silence calls "Come home,
I give you peace — why linger then?"
I bow my head — too far I've roamed,
Nor laden vessels northward tread;
For ice locked is my Arctic land,
And many moons their course must run,
Ere summer waves her beck'ning hand
And shines again, the Midnight Sun.
Mary E. Haft.
FORTY MINCE PIES
I remember a season of mince-pie beside which all others
pale in comparison. It was when we lived in a deep canyon
of the high Sierras in Esmeralda county, Nevada, miles away
from any other house; and in the long, cold winters we had
to find our recreation within our own family circle. In pre-
paring for our Christmas that year of December, 1864, my
mother devoted several days to baking, while my brothers and
myself danced around in delight at seeing the promised time
was so near at hand.
The usual custom is to make up a great jar of mincemeat,
and use it from time to time, throughout the days succeeding
the holidays. But on this occasion the winter was so bitterly
cold and severe that our mother resolved to make up the entire
jar at once. We had one room that the sun never touched,
and it was like death to enter the place, so it served as a sort
of refrigerator where the multitude of pies could be stored. I
remember seeing the vision of pies there placed in orderly
rows on long shelves contrived for the purpose — so many of
them that just out of curiosity I counted them and found
forty — forty mince pies !
During the long solemn nights of stillness and icy chili,
or of tempest howling about the house with threats of snowy
DECEMBER 349
death, or of listening to the uncanny laughter of the coyotes
hunting for prey, we gathered close to the merry, crackling
blaze of the stove, and told stories and riddles, and sang songs
to my mother's guitar accompaniment. And then one of us
would be sent into the "Greenland room", which was always
in the dark, to capture a pie for the crowning of the feast. In
we would fly, seize the treasure, dart out again like a hero
that had dared the goblins. Placing the frozen confection be-
tween two pie-pans we would turn it over and over before the
flame, and slowly upon the atmosphere would steal those de-
licious flavors, subtle and spicy, which belong to the mince-
pie, and the mince-pie alone.
When divided and shared, each expectant youngster would
smilingly absorb the fragrant and toothsome triangle. We
were hardy children — Nature adapting us to the cold, and the
mince-pie seemed especially adapted to the peculiar circum-
stances that surrounded us. We slept soundly and peacefully
after our feast, and awoke refreshed and ready to battle anew
with the rigors of Nature again in the morning.
The long, bitter winter in the ice-bound canyon would
have long since faded from my mind, but it has become crys-
tallized into a sort of dim legend on account of the impression
made by the forty mince-pies.
The Gatherer.
From "The Golden Era" : December, 1885.
THE FRESHMAN'S CHRISTMAS
The swirling snow upon the campus square
Floats down and grays the night — that otherwise
Were densely black — and, drifting, lies
Above a level depth to lap against the bare
And stony walls, like waves above their sea,
Yet soft and filmy as a drapery.
The trees are swaying limbs that creak with cold,
As if — unclad of leaves, and chilling fast —
They swing their arms athwart the freezing blast
To make them warm; and muffled, solemn, old,
The college bell beats out the midnight hour
And shivers back to silence in its tower,
Announcing Christmas, newly born — that seems
More like to burial of joy and all
Its kindred, as from wall to wall
The gloom proceeds; for lo, of cheerful beams
The windows are bereft, save only one,
That dimly glows alone, as if to shun
350 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
The rest. High up beneath the crumbling roof —
That seems to crouch above to guard the spark
Of light and warmth — it beams, the warp of dark
Close weaving with the pale and feeble woof
Of light; and all about its lower edge
The snow has smoothed the corners of the ledge
With gray. There, gazing forth, a freshman stands
Alone, his smileless, bloodless lips compressed
As one who struggles not to be distressed
Of fate; and holds within his numbing hands
A tattered volume; and he sees below
The smooth, untrodden blanket of the snow.
Not one of all the gay and laughing crowd
Of fellow-students but has gone away
To all the frolic of the holiday
Of Christmas; and the drifting, winding shroud
Finds only one, forlornly left behind,
About whose cold and deadened joys to wind
Its sheets. Behind him in its barrenness
His room is dreary, with his chair anear
The grate — itself a gray and chilling bier
For embers dead or dying; and the press
Of darkness round the lamp has subtly laid
The dormitory in a veil of shade
And gloom. Out-peering now, he sees the moon,
That glances once upon the campus gray
And white, and then retreats in clouds away
To gayer scenes; he hears the tinkling tune
Of sleighbells — going — gone; and notes the pane,
Whereon the ivy's bony finger lain,
Is beckoning and tapping mockingly
To lure him forth. And so he turns to sink
Upon his chair again, and there to think
Of disappointed hopes; of what will be
His Christmas day, who, orphaned now again —
Of even friends — is left within his den
This dreary night. Oh, what the profit now
Of being first in classes, that is last
In all the boon of joy? — yea, all his past
Were meager pay, would kindly fate endow
His future with a tie to human kind
Or any hope that Christmas day should find
His heart upheaving gladly. On the coals
He throws a bit of wood, that, smoldering,
Weaves fantasies of smoke, that float and fling
A myriad host of weird designs — the souls
And wraiths of Christmas-times gone by; and low
A wailing of the wind, that seems to go
DECEMBER 351
And come, is in the grate. And now about
His shoulders falls, from off the battered chair,
An ancient fabric, and it lingers there
Caressingly, as if from cold and doubt
To shield his heart; for lo! his mother's shawl
It is — a faithful comfort — aye, the all
Of mother that is left to him! and on
His face a smile, that lights the peace of sleep,
Is come, as if of happiness deep
He drinks at last. And dreaming spins a dawn,
As glinting bright as webs the fairies string
From buds to blossoms, when the lovesome Spring
Is breathing zephyrs in the dell. He feels
The crisping air, and hears the jangling bells,
And sees the wisp of smoke beyond, that tells
Of laden ovens hot, where Aunty deals
In Christmas cheer; and then the gliding sleigh
Draws near the farm to join the holiday
And gayety. Yo ho! the gladsome smile
The very house is smiling! and aglow
The eyes of cousins, maidens — all, as though
The warmth within were gleaming through; the while
The massive door is open — swinging wide —
Too small by far to free the flooding tide
Of welcome. Ah, the Christmas atmosphere
Of evergreens and frost, and kindling fire
Within the gate! and lights that these inspire
In dancing eyes; and, ah, again to hear
From loving hearts the hospitality
Of soul to soul expressed, and thus to be
A brother taken home! The sleeper's dream
Goes sweetly on through afternoon and night
Of cheer and comfort, feast and wondrous light
Of lamps and scene. He hears a flowing stream
Of music and of laughter and of song,
That swells and dies and swells again along
A merry gamut; and he sees the red
Of glowing flames, and, yea, of flaming cheeks,
And ruddy berries; and he gaylj seeks
The pinnacle of joy, before 'tis swiftly sped,
To form a brotherhood that never more
Will leave him lonesomely without the door
In cold and snow. He lingers at the game
Of fantasy, wherein a knocking sound
Comes far aloft, persistently around
His ears — and then the joyous light and flame
Of all the dream is gone, and gayest morn
Is stealing in the dormitory, lorn
352 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
And chill. He staggers lamely; far below
That sound of knocking still, and so adown
The creaking stairs he limps, with sleepy frown
To meet the postman, standing in the snow
And holding forth a package. Up the stairs
He sighing climbs again, and weakly tears
Away the wrapper. With a tingling throb
His heart goes leaping then, as on the book —
A matchless Homer — falls the eager look
Its worth compels, and something like a sob
To see the mighty Jove, superior
To earth, engaged in vast, heroic war
With fates! and heroes, where they bravely crowd
To stand with stoic mien, to nobly bear
With stern adversity! And now the flare
Of strength of heart is come to make him proud —
A man! — But ah, his head is fain to bend
To read the "Merry Christmas from a friend",
The old professor's hand has penned. The square
Lies undisturbed; the day is bright and clear
And sharp; the sound of bells, afar and near,
Comes softly. In the dormitory, there,
Are feast and music, joy and roundelay,
And greatness, born on Christmas Day!
Philip Verrill Mighcls.
From "Bachelor of Arts"; 1896, New York.
COMFORT TO BE FOUND IN GOOD OLD BOOKS
In selecting the great books of the world, place must be
given first of all, above and beyond all, to the Bible. In the
homely old King James' version, the spirit of the Hebrew
prophets seems reflected as in a mirror. For the Bible, if one
were cast away on a lonely island, he would exchange all other
books; from the Bible alone could such a castaway get com-
fort and help. It is the only book in the world that is new
every morning; the only one that brings balm to wounded
hearts.
Looked upon merely as literature, the Bible is the greatest
book in the world; but he is dull and blind indeed who can
study it and not see that it is more than a collection of su-
premely eloquent passages written by many hands. * * *
The great passages of the Bible have entered into the com-
mon speech of the plain people of all lands ; they have become
part and parcel of our daily life. So should we go to the foun-
tain-head of this unfailing source of inspiration and comfort,
and drink daily of its healing waters, which cleanse the heart
and make it as the heart of a little child.
George Hamlin Fitch.
DECEMBER 353
THE CHILDREN'S STATUE TO THE PIONEER
MOTHER
We raise our praise to her in deathless bronze
To stand a thousand years in token of
That holy motherhood which keeps us safe,
Not only here, but also in that dim
Hereafter far beyond the stars. 'Twas not
Enough she braved the elemental things
Upon the journey WESTWARD to the sea-
Pacific's mighty shore — step by step to keep
With him, the Father Pioneer, and hand-in-hand
With him. That was not all' While he
Endured privation, breaking the wilderness
And making her a path to follow, what was
She doing meanwhile? Bearing all, to bring
Her own sweet peace into the land to set
All things straight and fair, according to
Her VISION, with that maternal force which is
The spiritual providence of the race,
As well as being the material one also.
'Twas thus in after days we came
To know her in all her varied powers.
What was she doing in all that early time
But living, breathing, being type most true
To the pearl of Universal Motherhood.
* * * Thus we place
Her in simple shawl and gown, with babe
Upon her lap, and little girl and boy
On either side, symbolizing well the four
That make the family-group. And thus amid
A road all strewn with oxen's bones,
She sat her down and taught her young to say,
"BLESSED ARE THE PURE IN HEART, FOR
THEY SHALL SEE GOD AND HIS WILL OBEY."
As Stephen White hath said, "The only church
We knew was around our MOTHER'S KNEES."
******
'Twas thus the Breed of the Greater West hath come
To pass, undaunted, resolute and brave,
Unconquered yet by bribes and spoils of kings,
With fires burning in those eyes that will
Refuse to die, e'en though closed by Death itself.
Thus mould and shape the deathless bronze to show
To all the world her Vision in this Breed
Of hers — ordained to live the deathless life.
"From this a thousand fires shall take their birth,
From this ten thousand flames shall light the earth."
The Gatherer.
354 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
CHRISTMAS REFLECTIONS
"Are we not changed, even since last Christmas? Are not
other people changed? Partly that, and partly that we have
developed perception and see new things in others. * * *
There is nobody who could not be made interesting put into a
story. And everybody has a story. Some have a whole series
of stories. * * * And yet what is the truth? As you see
him or as I see him? Which is the true man? Or is it as he
sees himself? The greatest gift of God is the insight into
others. * * * If we were all ticketed in the world's shop
window, how many now figured at a dollar would sell for a
cent, and how many marked at next to nothing might be worth
their weight in gold? * * * If we only knew what was the
truth. * * * It is Christmas time. Is it only a legend? Or
is it the God-sent truth? Whichever it be, it matters not. If
it were merely because the celebration of the Christmas birth,
once every year, calls millions of men and women to a halt,
and bids them lay down all weapons, shake hands with each
other, be they enemies or friends, forget all unkindness and love
each other, if only for a moment, it is a religion beyond all
question or dispute. It must be God-given.* * * I, for one,
gentlemen, do not believe that little moment of rest, that brief
softening of the heart, passes away without some lasting effect.
We seem to face the truth, the fact that there is a sentiment
that is universal in human nature, however it may be appar-
ently obliterated for a time by passion, misconception, misun-
derstanding, or what you will; smothered by a hundred cares
or worries ; a sentiment of fellow feeling, of brotherly love.
* * * You see, we rarely try to understand one another.
We are so sure of our own judgments that we decide every-
thing offhand. We take things at their face value, and, when
we find we have made a grave mistake, it is too late to go
back and begin over again. We are so busy! We take no
time to think; and, too often, if our friend does something we
don't like, we think it is deception; if somebody appears to
do us an injury, of course it is intentional. * * * Christmas
comes; and somehow it seems to me it brings to all people a
clearer view of men and women, of life, the true life, the true
interests of themselves and others, and the world is better for
it. * * * So hate, and fear, and vengeance, penalty and
punishment stop at the Christmas tide, and men come so near
loving each other that it gives us about the only hope we have
for the happiness of humanity. * * * Let us drink to char-
ity! It is the season when the world stops to recall the charity
of Him whose human form, nailed to the cross, the meanest
DECEMBER 355
and the greatest now bow before in reverence. And, through
nineteen centuries, the gospel of love He taught has spread over
the civilized earth, the power behind all civilization."
"Our 11 Peter Robertson.
From "The Seedy Gentleman" ;
San Francisco: A. M. Robertson, J 903.
ABOUT JERUSALEM
Jerusalem is not the largest city in the world, but it is
one of the longest. Its area is not great, but it sticks back
into the night of time like the tail of a comet.
From "A Levantine Log-Book";
Longmans, Green & Co., .
Nevt York* London and Bombay, 1905.
Jerome A. Hart.
HOW SHALL YOU DESTROY THE BIBLE?
There is one more act to perform.
Let us try to show it to you.
You have entered into a dark conspiracy with but one end
in view. But you say, "Why! after all this, there is one copy
of the Bible still existing!" Existing where? "Ah, I have dis-
covered it here among the congregation of the dead; the cem-
eteries of the buried Christians ; while they exist there are
Bibles."
Then you enter into a conspiracy against the peace; against
the joys; against the affections; against splendid intellectual
possibilities ; against the immortal growth and strivings of man-
kind. A conspiracy against all these. It does not make man
immortal — there never was a more fallacious utterance than
that! It never professed to make man immortal; merely pro-
fessed to tell the fact; it merely informed him of such a thing.
The Bible does with immortality what Adams of Cam-
bridge and Leverrier of the Paris Observatory accomplished
with regard to the planet Neptune. It had long been thought
to exist from its influence on the planet Uranus, which it
disturbed in its motions. But not until within the last thirty-five
years was it positively known, until Adams planted his tele-
scope and accomplished the task of bringing upon his reflector
the planet, Neptune, the troubler of Uranus. There it was
shining brightly. It had always been there whether they had
seen it or not.
356 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
That is what the Bible does. It merely brings to your mind
the vision. It calls you with a clarion tone to look out and see
rising through the mist in pomp and splendor, the vast, mag-
nificant orb of immortality and bids you walk in its sunlight
and die in its splendor.
You say, "Let us blot out the Bible in the graveyard".
The night shall be dark; the moon shall be dark; it shall be in
the dark of the moon. The conspirators shall be dressed in the
darkest robes, wearing, if you will, masks; they shall take
with them each a dark lantern ; one shall have a mallet ; an-
other a steel chisel; they shall all steal out at midnight, while
the whole world is wrapped in dream, s and pay a visit to the
postern-gate of some rustic graveyard, public cemetery or pri-
vate cenotaph; having entered and found a grave, one shall
stoop over and read — read, "My soul, together with my dead
body, shall arise; awake ye that sleep."
Then there is found written over a Hebrew's grave, "Thy
dead men shall live; together with my dead body shall they
arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in the dust, for thy
dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out the
dead."
"Ah, let me see it! Let me blot it out with the mallet and
chisel," is the cry ; and thus he works ; chip, chip, chip. He
sweeps the fragments away, and then, like a ghoul, moves on
further and approaches another, discovering graven thereon:
"Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord." Again he chips,
chips, chips, and again wanders on, like a vampire until the
Bible of the graveyard is gone — and then our world is the
awful home of an orphaned race and every human being is a
Godless being.
Oh, let us move anywhere — anywhere out of a world bereft
of God and the Bible. Oh, sirs, you cannot, cannot do it.
Thomas Guard.
From an oration given at the Grand Opera House to a packed
house by Rev. Dr. Thomas Guard in reply to Col. Robert Ingersoll, and
which was taken down in shorthand by Adley H. Cummins and pub-
lished in the "Sacramento Record Union \ Saturday, July 14, 1877.
A CHRISTMAS WISH FOR YOU
May Joy be yours, and Peace abide,
With thee and thine this Christmas-tide;
And by the hearth-stone, through the dawning year,
Shall sit content, abounding love and cheer.
W. Kimball Briggs.
DECEMBER 357
FAITH
An Experience in the Life of Annie E. K. Bidwell.
"I felt my life ebbing away. A terror had possessed me
(which only God could conquer), thinking of the lonely future
before me which would have to be passed now, without the
care and protection of my dearly beloved husband — now lying
in the other room, in his last sleep. A friend sat beside me,
but she passed from my thought so utterly that I forgot her
existence, for I was at sea, in a terrific rainless thunderstorm.
Before me somewhat to my right, and somewhat distant,
intense blackness reigned, — through which, from sky to sea,
poured three streams of blood-red lightning, yet shed no light
on the scene before me. Violent thunder-in-wind such as I
had not heard, even in the high Sierras, continued incessantly
their deafening noise, and to myself, I exclaimed, "What a
horrible storm, yet it must be the Hand of Love which is send-
ing that awful lightning, thunder and wind." I wondered that
but the cool moist fringe of the wind touched my cheek like a
zephyr, while the tempest raged so near.
Suddenly in the foreground, I saw a great surf of water
of dazzling whiteness pass me in rapid swells toward the East
where it rose to a height of a hundred feet, then broke into
white-caps which the wind tossed like bits of plume into the
air, and bore them away in its furious flight. On the silvery
swell of the wave before me rested a sea gull of a whiteness
which never had my eyes beheld before, its eyes cast upward
to the crest of the wave with an expression of triumph over
the elements and of ecstatic joy! And as I admired and won-
dered, I noticed that the on-rushing water had no power to
move the trusting bird, and to me came the thought, "Of course
the water carries you not away, for you obey God's law! He
made you to ride the sea."
Suddenly the realization came to me — that this was my
storm, and God but letting its fringe touch me, as the fringe
of the wind had touched my cheek, and that it was mine to
obey and trust Him as did the sea-bird, resting in His love
without a care, effort or fear.
Words cannot express the exaltation, the peace, the adora-
tion, gratitude and love which filled my soul in looking upon
this scene, and realizing that it was God's manifestation to me
of His inexpressible sympathy and love and His desire that I
should rest in His love. Then through a veil of silver I saw
the door of my room open and my friend pass out, and the
vision dissolve ! and I knew I was alone in my room, not at
358 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
sea. And so overpowering was the joy that filled my soul with
the knowledge thus obtained from this symbolic dream, that
a wondrous strength came to me, out of my faltering and my
weakness. And I said, "On the ocean of Thy love I float, as
does the sea-bird with wings at rest! I understand the sweet
peace which comes from sense of power of Him who made
and rules the sea and me — His helpless sea-bird, weary from
flight and battling with the storm — with no care, no thought
save to repose on that great sea of Love, unfathomable, though
the waves toss high on that great sea of Love, wind's wild
rage and lightning's clash and thunder roar, for softly to my
soul is borne the PEACE OF GOD."
And so I lost all thought of self, "passed under the rod,"
bore my burden of sorrow in parting with my best beloved, and
returned to my work which God had given me to do for my
poor Indians and others who have needed me so many years,
ever sustained by my Faith in the Goodness and the Great-
ness of God.
Annie E. K. Bidn>ell.
From a letter in the possession of "The Gatherer.*'
Dated May 17th, 1906.
A GRAIN OF WHEAT
"Except a grain of wheat fall into the ground and die it
abideth alone." — John xxii :24.
By surrendering its contracted, confined, individual life the
grain begins to multiply and widen its circle of life. Instead
of one small unit, great fields are waving with grain and beau-
tiful valleys are golden with ripening harvests.
The soil, rich with the deposits of vast eons of geologic
ages, is taken up and and the sun pours its wealth into the tiny
plumules peeping out of the warmed earth and the rains and
dews distill into food stored in the tiny homes of the multiplied
grains. This becomes nutriment for a civilization.
Translate this nutrition into action and we see great en-
gineers building trans-continental railroads, constructing the
mighty enginry that drives the wheels of commerce, tunneling
the hills from whence come the golden nuggets that bear a
nation's stamp when passed through its minting mills, or armies
of men digging a Panama Canal that ties two oceans and be-
comes a sea-road for the pilots of the world.
Translate it into harmony and we hear the symphony of a
master Beethoven or the oratorio of Haydn; into literature and
DECEMBER 359
we are borne skyward by the "grand translunar music" of
Milton and softened by the simple melody of Stevenson ; into
speculation and we follow the meditations of Plato and the
high arguments of Kant; into moral conviction and we have
the stamina of Isaiah and the courage of Paul.
The stored sunshine in this multiplied grain of wheat may
become the smile on a baby's cheek, the lullaby of a mother's
love, the prayer of a father's soul for the boy of his hopes, the
sentiment that unites a home in the sweet bond that makes the
angels hunger for the paradise of earth.
Our grain sacrificed for the larger whole is heard in the
periods of a Gladstone pleading for international justice and
is written in the statutes that insure a nation its liberty; it rises
into the worship of a city that pays homage to Him who gave
the hills and valleys and lakes and oceans and suns and stars
for the joy of the children of time and the sons of eternity.
John A. B. Fry.
AFTER THE EXPOSITION
The TIME will come when Ruin's rage will lay
Its heartless hand upon these piles that soar,
And they in all their rich-abounding lore
Will like the dream they are, then pass away.
These avenues that swarm with life so gay
Will swell with rapture's paeans never more;
And all these palaces' eye-rapturing store
Will move along Oblivion's cypress way.
But Memory's bounteous wealth will then remain,
And here the far-reverberative strain
Of happy life will bless the willing ear;
Again these palaces will woo the air,
These breathing statues all our praises hear,
These blooms and fountains never know despair.
- tfT ,, ~ f .1 a ♦. Edward Robeson Taylor,
trom In the Court of the Ages;
San Francisco: A. M. Robertson. 1915.
THE THREAD OF LIFE
It is impossible to keep an eye on the thread of life at all.
The transmission of life from one grain of wheat to another is
as incomprehensible as the product of a new, powerful, glorious,
and incorruptible body from a dead one, buried in weakness,
dishonor and corruption. The living grain of wheat has in
360 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
itself, no more self-raising power than the dead body of man.
Power comes to it in the ground. * * * Life from death
in the grain of wheat is an expansive movement from one to
many. * * * Nature cares more for the strong than the
weak; she cares more for the fruitful than the barren, she cares
more for the conscious than the unconscious. And in caring
for the unconscious wheat, she cares for the conscious man.
Conscious man is at the top of things, and all below are his
supporters. Everything directly or indirectly is to help him.
Ceasing to help they cease to be. Man continues, because con-
sciousness, like force and matter, is an independent and imper-
ishable substance.
Rev. W. H. Piatt
From "After Death— What?"
San Francisco: A. Roman & Co., 1878.
GOOD-BYE, BRET HARTE
Yon yellow sun melts in the sea;
A sombre ship sweeps silently
Past Alcatraz tow'rd Orient skies —
A mist is rising to the eye —
Good-bye, Bret Harte, good-night, good-night!
Yon sea-bank booms for funeral guns ! —
What secrets of His secret suns,
Companion of the peak and pine,
What secrets of the spheres are thine?
Good-bye, Bret Harte, good-night, good-night!
You loved the lowly, laughed at pride,
We mocked, we mocked, and pierced your side;
And yet for all harsh scoffings heard
You answered not one unkind word,
But went your way, as now; good-night!
How stately tall your ships, how vast
With night nailed to your leaning mast
With mighty stars of hammered gold
And moon-wrought cordage manifold,
Good-bye, Bret Harte, good-night, good-night.
Joaquin Miller, 1902.
DECEMBER 361
A GRAIN OF MUSTARD SEED
What moved me most, dear friend, that happy day
At San Fernando in the early fall,
Was not the glory that its charms recall,
The saintly King of Spain, the arching gray
Of cloisters fronting on the Royal Way,
The roof of tiles, dove-haunted, nor the tall
Old palms that guard the olive orchard's wall,
Nor yet the church, impressive in decay;
But just a grave where weeds neglected grew
That bore two mustard stalks tied Christ-cross wise.
A grain of faith like that makes living sweet
It moves our mountains, makes us feel anew
The benediction of those smiling skies
The brooding presence of the Paraclete.
Charles S. Greene.
THE PIONEERS OF THE WEST
Would God that we, their children, were as they —
Great-souled, brave-hearted, and of dauntless will!
Ready to dare, responsive to the still,
Compelling voice that called them night and day
From this far West, where sleeping Greatness lay
Biding her time. Would God we knew the thrill
That exquisitely tormented them until
They stood up strong and resolute to obey!
God, make us like them, worthy of them; shake
Our souls with great desires; our dull eyes set
On some high star whose quenchless light will wake
Us from our dreams, and guide us from this fen
Of selfish ease won by our fathers' sweat.
Oh, lift us up — the West has need of Men !
From "The Vanishing Race." £&* Higginson.
PRODIGALS
We tarry in a foreign land,
With pleasure's husks elate,.
When robe and ring and Father s hand
At home our coming Wait. Charles A. Murdoch
A PICTURESQUE COSTUME OF EARLY DAYS
Anybody who thinks that the Pioneers wore nothing but
red shirts and high boots and tight trousers thrust into the
boots, in early times should hear the interesting reminiscences
362 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
of Mrs. Tilden-Brown, mother of Douglas Tilden, the sculptor.
She says that her father, Adna Hecox, who came here in '46,
often wore a swallow-tailed coat on occasions when he held
a Sunday service. She can also remember how the Chinese
traders had brought the most beautiful and gorgeous brocades
and crepes covered with embroidery to suit the Spanish tastes
of that time. It was so common amongst them all to use
these things, that she remembers her father wore a purple
brocade sort of long coat, upon some of the most important
occasions, and nobody thought anything of it, even though
it was lined with an equally gorgeous green silk flowered pat-
tern, which showed when the tails of his coat flew back. As
he had been made an Alcalde, he was justified in assuming
these brilliant hues, which were in common use among the
Spanish-Californians.
From "Grizzly Bear Magazine," 19$0.
A TRIBUTE TO MRS. ELIZABETH MACK
Like an Arabian Night's beauty, with her sloe-black eyes, her raven-
black wings of waving hair framing her face, her milk-white complexion,
added to which was her grace of heart, it was no wonder that she was
the belle of the ball, and of the mining-camps wherever she went. Not
only was she acknowledged to be the best waltzer, but also was she the
most public-spirited woman in the town. She took an interest in every
one. Now this was in the days of the Vigilantes when they hanged
four murderers at one time, and drove twenty-five "toughs" out of town.
It was during this period of lawlessness that a man burst into her
kitchen, followed by another who was about to kill him. The first one
escaped from the window and she stood confronting the pursuer, who
stopped to apologize for the intrusion. She was equal to the moment
and urged him to go home to his wife, and to let the man live; that
it would be far better for him in the years to come. He lifted his hat
to her and returned to his home with unstained hands. And high hon-
ors were his in the annals of the country in his old age.
Little girls were invited to her house and taught to sew and em-
broider. Was there sickness or sorrow in any household, it was she
who bravely ventured to give sympathy and aid as a sister might. Even
when scandal spread its poisoned breath, nothing daunted, she was the
first to come forward and give a kindly word to the afflicted, and make
of no account the incident. When the snows were so deep the teams
could not get through and provisions grew scarce, and flour was nine
dollars a sack, it was she who proposed that there should be a free
Christmas tree in the town-hall, and that every child, even the babes-
in-arms, should receive a gift from the committee she gathered to-
gether. All the gulches were searched and unknown children were un-
earthed and with their parents made welcome on that memorable occa-
sion. Hampers of provisions were sent privately to certain homes and
fear driven away from the anxious hearts of wives and mothers. Se
was always like a guardian-angel protecting the weak and bringing
constructive benefit to all she knew.
From "Life in California". The Gatherer.
DECEMBER 363
VOICES OF THE YEAR
List the voices of the year!
Softly, hear!
Wandering near,
Come their whispers to my ear,
As they fleet,
Crowding thoughts their joys repeat.
April sings in cloudy air,
So bright and fair,
All unaware
That pearls are shimmering down her hair;
While the sound
Seems like rain drops strewn around.
Through the passion song of May
Sweet hopes stray,
Such as play
O'er young hearts enwrought to pray,
Gladdening still
Lovers on the flowered hill.
Hark! The wild dove's plaintive tune.
It is June.
Far too soon
Reapers love the rest of noon.
The flowers die
All weary of the wide, hot sky.
Hear the rustling through the wheat!
Words complete —
Praises sweet —
Made the harvest wealth to greet,
While the days
Golden in the summer haze.
Now the tones of summer pale,
Fade and fail.
Hist! the quail
Whistling o'er the mountain trail;
Softly, hush,
Hunters in the underbrush.
Voices in a monotone
Seem to moan.
Dry and lone
Are the pathways we have known,
Falling leaves,
Flutter on the winged breeze.
Windy voices faint and fine
Weave in rhyme,
As ye chime;
Hopes and fears of seeding time;
When each grain
Listening, waits the sound of rain.
r ««/~ u r •• a i jooc Lilian H. S. Bailey.
From Golden Era; April, 1885.
364 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
THE SEA OF LIFE
Into the open sea
My boat glides fearlessly,
Strong with rudder and sail,
To Thee, to Thee.
Waves carry my boat
Calmly, serenely afloat,
Sparkle sunlight and spray
For me, for me.
Breakers ahead I see,
Clouds roll over to me;
A voice in the wind I hear,
From Thee, from Thee.
Let not Thy courage fail,
Guide Thy rudder and sail
Over the sea of life
With me, with me.
Waves of sorrow and joy,
Laughter and tears, ahoy,
Away in the distance I see
Thee, only Thee.
Landed my boat, anchor cast,
Peaceful my soul at last
Safe in the harbor of rest
With Thee, with Thee.
Anna B. Newbegin.
ANOTHER DAY AND NIGHT
Another day, thank God,
The sun is smiling o'er the Eastern slope,
The busy stir of men has just begun,
And cometh once again, the new-born hope —
Another day!
Another night, thank God,
The moon is peeping o'er the distant hill,
The drowsy hum of voices now dies down,
The busy looms are still —
Another night !
Ella Sterling Mighcls.
DECEMBER 365
BEYOND
What may we take into vast Forever?
That marble door
Admits no fruit of all our long endeavor.
No frame-wreathed crown we wove,
No garnered lore.
What can we bear beyond the unknown portal?
Not gold, no gains;
Of all our toiling in the life immortal,
No hoarded wealth remains,
No gild, no stains.
Naked from out that far abyss behind us
We entered here:
No word came with our coming to remind us
What wondrous world was near,
No hope, no fear.
Into the silent, starless Night before us,
Naked we glide:
No hand has mapped the constellations o'er us,
No comrade at our side,
No chart, no guide.
Yet fearless toward that midnight black and hollow,
Our footsteps fare:
The beckoning of a father's hand we follow,
His love alone is there,
No curse, no care.
Edward Rowland Sill.
Extract from "Man the Spirit" written in 1865 for the
University of California Alumni Association — recently published.
ALL IS BEST
The world o'erflows its cup of woe,
Each heart has felt the knife of pain,
But I would have my soul to know
That all is best, that God doth reign.
Edward Robeson Taylor.
From "Lavender and Other Verse;"
San Francisco: Paul Elder, Publisher.
366 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
IF YOU WOULD ADDRESS
Address me not where but till light
I halt my camel for the night;
Where on the desert, stand-storm swept,
Unsheltered from the blast I slept.
Beyond, a golden city waits,
And nearer swing the distant gates,
Inside of which are rest and calm
And crystal springs and groves of palm.
As o'er the worn and dusty road,
My patient camel on I goad,
We sometimes see oases green,
But wastes of desert lie between.
The well at which I kneel to drink
My parched lips mock with bitter brink;
The tree beneath whose shade I'd lie
Is leafless, and its boughs are dry.
Sometimes fair cities seem to rise
With minarets that pierce the skies;
I urge my camel on with blows —
They sink in sand from which they rose.
But these white walls that now I see
Mirage and mockery cannot be;
Upon the air a music swells
That drowns the sound of camel bells.
Hunger and Thirst, what are ye now?
I see the palm-tree's laden bough ;
I hear cool fountains plash inside
The gates that open swing and wide —
Quite wide enough for me — and, too,
I think, to let my camel through,
Though still outside the gates I plod,
Address me, "Pilgrim — care of God."
Charles Henry Webb.
From "With Lead and Line;**
Cambridge: Houghton & Mifflin, 1901.
DECEMBER 367
1NA COOLBRITH
A clear white flame illumes her song.
The love of Truth, the hate of Wrong:
'Tis like a star wherein we see
The fire of Immortality.
SUNSET
Like some huge bird that sinks to res:.
The sun goes down — a wean,- thing —
And o'er the water's placid breast
It lays a scarlet outstretched wing.
From "The Shrine 'of Song." Hahai B ^ord.
THE ELOQUENCE OF CALVIN B. McDONALD
"What, if here and there a woman, discouraged, neglected
and despairing,, goes forth under maledictions thick and un-
sparing as Arctic hail? If one of the Pleiades, abandoning the
bright society of her sisters, fall, rayless forever, down the in-
finite depths of space, should we then the less admire the stead-
fastness of the six remaining Yergiliae. that unspotted in lustre
and in meek obedience to the Creator, tread their eternal orbits
sorrowing and unsinning?
As earl)) as in 1858, Calvin B. McDonald stood as a
champion for the women of California in "The Hesperian."
From the "Story of the Files of California, 1893.
A JEWEL SONG
Three gems upon a golden chain
I ever keep
Clasped round my neck, in joy, in pain,
Awake, asleep.
The red of flame, the green of spring,
The white of tears
Glow, gleam, and sparkle on my string
Of golden years.
The ruby of the Present, bright,
Of value vast.
The Future's emerald, and the white
Pearl of the Past.
From "A California Troubadour" Clarence Urmy.
A. M. Robertson, San Francisco: 1912.
368 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
THE VESTALS OF CALIFORNIA
Without any vow, without any order, it has come to pass in our
land that many beautiful and remarkable women of our early history
have chosen to devote their lives to the young exclusively, and have
passed by love and marriage. Year in and year out for half a cen-
tury or more, they have passed blameless lives in the ceaseless round
of school duties, assisting the mothers in rearing their broods to man-
hood and to womanhood for several generations of pupils, unchanging
and unchanged.
While the large and splendid army of these devoted women has
become absorbed and known but to those beneath their ministrations,
yet there are a few whose names have shone out with a brilliant light.
One of these was Kate Kennedy of the North Cosmopolitan school in
San Francisco in the early years, who brought with her from Ireland
a most remarkable personality. She was very advanced in her ideas,
and it was through her insistence that languages were first taught in
the public schools. She had a brilliant intellect and could debate with
men in their own societies and argue questions with judicial quality.
She gave a great impetus to learning by her inspiration and encour-
agement. There are gray-haired teachers with us today who give her
the credit for their own love of learning gained in the school-room
where Miss Kennedy reigned supreme.
Another of these is Miss Jean Parker, after whom a schoolhouse
has been named. Long ago, in the very early days, the parents of
Miss Parker embarked from Scotland for America. They then crossed
the plains, and it was the father who remarked to the mother that it
was going to be the girls of that family to whom they would have to
look for support in their old age, for it was the daughters who rose
early in the daylight to oil the wheels of the wagons, and prepare for
the day's journey and keep everything in order on the way. And so
it was during the long years after arriving in the land of gold! Such
energy, such power, such grasp on things material and spiritual as was
shown by those fine girls of the Parker family! Jean Parker's name
will never be forgotten for the part she played in forming character
and establishing records of high-born girls and boys in the educational
center where she prevailed against ignorance and against slothfulness.
Her life-work stands for her, marked as a shining star.
Emma Marwedel came from Germany, a pupil of the widow of
Froebel, to organize the first kindergarten in San Francisco. She was
the teacher of Kate Douglas Smith, afterwards Wiggin, who was se-
lected to teach the first free kindergarten known in the early days, the
one established on Silver street. It was Miss Marwedel to whom all
the credit was due for the original teaching here in our state of that
wonderful system which has entered in to smooth the way for learn-
ing, for the children of both the rich and the poor. She was the source
from whom it all came. Others benefited and gained the glory, but
it was her life-work from her youth to her old age.
Exquisitely fair, with violet eyes and waving chestnut hair, and as
beautiful as the pictures we used to see of an imaginary Evangeline,
was Laura Templeton of Sacramento, who came from Vermont. There
was a beauty on her brow I never saw upon another face than hers.
She was vestal-like in this spiritualized essence of hers. It carried
with it a strange power of authority. If some of the reckless boys
attempted to evade obeying the rules she laid down, it was only that
much worse for the boys. She quelled them, one by one, by her abso-
lute justice. There was a largeness about her that included all. She
DECEMBER 369
had no favorites. Besides these elements in her make-up, she was
the bravest woman I ever knew, and I have known many courageous
Pioneer women who lived out in the wilds, miles away from the smoke
of another one's chimney.
But hers was a different kind of bravery. It was in the day when
the decalogue was taught in the public schools. Coming from the
Sierras to the city, it was my first day at the old Franklin grammar
school on L street, and in her class, where everything seemed strange
and extremely rigorous. It was my first experience at having Sun-
day-school exercises in day-school, and I did not like it; indeed, I had
always dreaded the reciting of the ten commandments in a mixed class
even at Sunday-school. There were always some frivolous boys who
made a mock of the words as we recited them. In my childish heart
there came a great melancholy that we had to recite this every day,
and I looked at the beautiful face of the teacher and wondered how
she could ask us to do it. The words were written on the blackboard
and the class began to read them off in unison. Presently we came to
a new way of expressing one of the commands — "Thou shalt keep thy
heart pure and free from evil." A great gratitude filled my heart.
From that day I worshiped Miss Templeton.
Many years later I had need for a copy of the ten commandments,
and I decided to obtain such a one as had been used by my teacher
for my own purpose. It was in New York City and I sought the great
centers of religious publishing-houses in search of this copy to place
before children. It was then I learned that no one but Miss Templeton
had taught this form of the decalogue, and that she, herself, was un-
doubtedly the originator of it. It seemed that no one was brave enough
to follow her example, for I interviewed many of the pastors of the
churches in the great metropolis, seeking to persuade them to do this
for the sake of the children. But they all were afraid to do so.
Then I realized the grandeur and the beauty of this vestal of the
Sacramento schools. If some father of the church a thousand years
before had dared to do this splendid thing for the world, how clean
and pure the world would be today! If that command were couched
in the affirmative even, it would bring a healing to the hearts of men
and women and children. Let it stand for her, then, to be taught to
the children, thus: "Thou shalt keep thy heart pure and be faithful to
the bond of marriage."
The debt we Pioneer children owe to these Vestals of California
should be expressed in pure-white marble to last a thousand years.
The Gatherer.
From "Life in California.'*
NOEL
In every heart throughout the land
The Christ-child is given birth.
Ring out glad tidings o'er the earth,
Noel, Noel.
At last from darkness we awake,
The sun doth shine in every clime,
The bells peal out with chime,
Noel, Noel.
370 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
We feel the stirring of the soul,
The still, small voice at last is heard,
And flutters like a tiny bird.
Noel, Noel.
We've found the Christ-child in our breast
Ring out, glad bells, the morning breaks,
And all the world at last awakes.
Noel, Noel.
rj, i.i, .in i Eugenie H. Schroeder.
1 ranslated from the trench;
San Jose: 1913.
AMERICANISM
In the long, upward struggle of the human race for indi-
vidual liberty, every form and variety of government has been
tried. * ■* * Finally culminating in the happy success of
American patriots in establishing in a newly discovered land
a government based not upon the rights of rulers, but upon
the rights of man, and for which no possible abiding-place
could have been found in all the world as it had theretofore
been known. * * * Upon this new and broad domain in
the wide, free spaces of a land of unknown limits, old theories
were overthrown and a new principle enunciated, that upon
foundations where liberty and law find equal support, a gov-
ernment could be maintained, not by the power of standing
armies, or the might of floating navies, but by the willing sup-
port of an enlightened, free and patriotic people.* * * *
Warned by the wrecks of the past, they liberated religion from
bondage to the temporal power, separated church from state,
and blotted from the statute books the crimes of non-conformity.
They quenched the fires that persecution had kindled, pre-
vented the enactment of any law to compel adherence to a
specified form of worship, disestablished churches and removed
religious disabilities; abolished all forced contributions to the
maintenance of ecclesiastical authority; gave equal protection
to every form of religious belief and restrained forever the
power of the government from being enlisted against the ad-
herents of any sect or creed, protecting with equal impartiality
the mosque of the Mussulman and the altar of the fire-wor-
shiper, the church of the Protestant, the Jewish synagogue and
the Roman cathedral. The result has been the absolute tri-
umph of disenthralled humanity.
Judge Dealing is a N. S. C. W ;< M ' T ' DooUng -
From "Address on Americanism" given to the members of the
Bohemian Club on "America Night, September 24th t 1918.
DECEMBER 371
THE GIANT HOUR
Probably never before in the history of the world has any
man ever stood in the place of opportunity in which President
Wilson stands today. He stands there because of the present
world-crisis, which has put the nations in the crucible. The
acid test is being used. The institutions of civilization are
being tested. They are in solution. President Wilson, because
of his qualities of mind and heart, and because of his position
as president of the great nation whose resources are the de-
termining factor in the great struggle, has the opportunity that
no other living man today has, and therefore no man who ever
lived on earth had, to say what direction these new institu-
tions which shall arise out of the world-crisis shall take.
To shape the new principles of world democracy, human
freedom, international law and brotherhood, national and racial
development, co-operation in thought and commerce, and last-
ing peace — this is the great opportunity that has come to
Woodrow Wilson, historian, statesman, American President.
May God give him strength to do the task in such a way
that History shall forever make record that here stood a Giant
Man in a Giant Hour.
Godfrey Barney.
From "Life in California.' 1
An extract from a sermon given July 7th, 191 8,
San Francisco, California.
THE RED CROSS CALL
If I could save their lives —
The twenty thousand who will die today,
With the same toll the next day and the next,
And every day of this great Year of Doom,
Swept to the void by battle's iron broom,
While Senates wrangle and captains map their drives,
And in green fields or cities far away,
We sleep and rise and eat and laugh and play
As if this were the same sweet earth
In which we had our birth —
I should not be perplext
If it were mine the word to say
To win the lords of earth to lay aside
Diplomacy and precedent and pride
And weigh the awful waste of you and me,
Who pay the debt and slip into the pit
372 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
And have no profit of the peace to be,
Nor even a vision of the hope of it;
If, by my word or action, I might hope
To stop the world from sliding down the slope
Into the bottomless abyss
That seethes with blood —
If by my Yes or No I could accomplish this,
God knows I would.
Yet this much I can do —
I can abide the thought of sudden death,
Even of thousands — 'tis but loss of breath
And sleep that lasts the whole night through —
But that one mortal man should lie
Thirsting and throbbing while the hours go by,
Each a century of agony —
No help, no hand, no answer to his plea,
Hell heaping horrors on his helpless head,
While horrors swarm about his torture-bed —
That this should be increased ten thousandfold,
Day after frightful day, and I withhold,
Through my neglect, the help that might be given.
Should rob my nights of sleep and turn me cold
With shameful chill
Even though I slept in Heaven;
I cannot stop the slaughter, but what I can,
To ease the agony of a fellowman
And mitigate the misery
Of those who tread the threshing-floor for me,
God knows I will.
Prof. W. H. Carruth,
of Leland Stanford, Jr., University,
Author of the famous poem, "Each in His Own Tongue."
From S. F. "Examiner" of May 20, 1918.
Copyright, San Francisco: A. B. Pierson, 1906.
VIVE L' AMERICA
Noble Republic ! happiest of lands
Foremost of nations, Columbia stands;
Freedom's proud banner floats in the skies
Where shouts of Liberty daily arise.
'United we stand, divided we fall,"
Union forever, freedom to all.
DECEMBER 373
Should ever traitor rise in the land,
Curs'd be his homestead, withered his hand,
Shame be his memory, scorn be his lot —
Exile his heritage, his name a blot!
"United we stand, divided we fall,"
Granting a home and freedom to all.
CHORUS
Throughout the world our motto shall be,
Vive Y America, home of the free.
To all her heroes, Justice and Fame,
To all her foes, a traitor's foul name,
Our "stripes and stars" still proudly shall wave,
Emblem of liberty, Flag of the brave.
"United we stand, divided we fall,"
Gladly we'll die at our country's call.
CHORUS
Throughout the world our motto shall be,
Vive 1' America, Home of the free.
Words and Music by the Composer, Millard.
Published by Wm. A. Pond & Co., 18 West 37th Street, New York-
Note. — 77ns war-song was sung with thrilling effect in the old
Mechanics' Pavilion at the Rallies of the Grand Army of the Republic,
by Margaret Blake- Alver son, a Pioneer soprano, and ought to be revived
and taught today to the children of the public schools, especially as the
chorus chimes in with the "Fighting in France' now going on, like a
prophecy. — The Gatherer.
ABOUT THE HIGH SIERRAS
There is a breeziness, a spaciousness, an undented ecstacy
of purity about the High Sierras. Nature, yet untainted by
man, has expressed himself 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 sen-
sational landscape contrasts.
Miriam Michelson.
Extract from the novel, "Anthony Overman".
374 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
THE MESSENGER
There soared an eagle in the West,
With mighty sunlight on his breast
And music in his wings.
Far-off, within the ravished East,
He saw the vultures at their feast,
Spread by the war of kings.
The very world was black and red
With furrows of the mangled dead,
On whom the red dust lay.
From all the lands a wailing came;
A million homesteads passed in flame;
The vultures tore their prey.
He gazed, and hesitant awhile,
Beheld the carrion horde defile
The wounded and the slain.
The feast grew fouler with the years;
The very heavens were gray with tears
Above that realm of pain * * *
Now, doubt and hesitation past,
The destined war-road rings at last
With onset of his young.
Lo! the swift eaglets follow him
To where all Europe's skies are dim
With cannon breath upflung.
Freeborn, oh soar in boundless light
Above the world's despotic night
Till the new dawn advance!
Cry to the foul and feasting horde
Our thunders follow and our sword,
In Love's deliverance!
* * * *
Eternal spirit of our Land,
By whom the guarded seas are spanned,
Grant to the coming years
The liberty our fathers sought —
The liberty by man unbought
Except by blood and tears !
George Sterling.
Written for the "Chronicle" July 4th, 1918, San Francisco.
DECEMBER 375
SUNSET
The evening's genius, with his sword of flame,
Guards well the portal of the dying day.
His lance of light he strikes against the hills,
Upon the highest breaks his glancing ray.
He marshals grandly on a crimson sea
His clouship navy's golden argosy,
Whose flaming banner, in the sunset glow,
Bids brave defiance to the dark'ning foe,
Who, swift advancing, o'er him softly flings
The purple shadow of the twilight's wings,
Till war's red flush, before the night wind's breath,
Fades out into the sullen gray of death,
And star-eyed night, prevailing all too soon,
Hangs out the silver sickle of the moon.
Anna Morrison Reed.
THE FAIRY CITY
Nothing is more delightful at the approaching sunset-hour
than to walk straight up the hills to the corner of Pacific
and Lyon streets and behold the glory of the scene spread out
before us. Behind us the Twin Peaks, before us Tamalpais,
to the east Diablo (when the air is clear), and to the west the
pageant of the sun in his going down to the caves of night,
drawing about him his robes of crimson and gold, paling away
into ashes of roses and gray, against the blue of the heavens.
Also there is the Bay of San Francisco, bluely tinted, and the
dark islands, and passing ferry-boats, sails, skiffs, little boats
giving life to the picture as we glance from point to point.
A forest of dark green shrouds the Presidio where the soldiers
have their homes, and voices coming up from there give a
mystery to the hour. The sea-gulls are homing to their night-
rest, and also add life to the strange world we find here on the
top of the world of San Francisco.
"Oh, see the little fairy city!" ecstatically calls one of the
children of the pilgrimage; and we gaze in delight and awe on
the opposite shore, where lie Berkeley, Oakland and Alameda.
It has come to life under the dying rays of the sun — invisible
otherwise to mortal eye. Separate and apart from buildings,
it seems to be built in the air, like the "Castles in Spain", but
the twinkling panes seem to tell of a genius akin to ethereal
beings occupying that delightful and mysterious realm.
376 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
"Yes, it is a fairy city and the fairies live there/' explains
a little girl. "You see, they are very happy there; but once
there was a mean creature who got in there and caused so
much trouble for everybody, that the queen and the king de-
cided not to let anybody know they lived there any more. So
they became invisible — it's only us they are willing to show
themselves to; but if we went there we could not find them,
because some of us are mean creatures, too, sometimes — when
we pull the gold hearts out of the lilies and leave them stand-
ing there all ruined for the poor neighbors to see when we run
away. But we are good children, and the fairies let us see
their invisible city when we come up here to say 'Good-night'
to the seagulls and the ships and boats, and to the soldiers.
Isn't it the most beautiful thing in the world? I love that fairy
city, and I wish I could live there, some time, don't you?"
But as she speaks, it vanishes into the dark pall of night
and we turn our faces homeward, and the little ones run down
the hills and back again to the slower-paced tread of their
guardian to keep with her, and their merry laughter gives music
to the hour. How delightful it would be if all the children were
taken up there to seek the fairy city of innocent joys never to
be forgotten as long as life lasts!
The Gatherer.
From "Life in California" 1918.
THE GREAT PANORAMA
In December no one lacks for fruit of one kind or another.
This is the time to get out the dried peaches, pears, plums and
even seek to find the crystallized cactus confection, which is
good for the heart. Baskets of lovely sort may be had by the
wealthy, filled with beautiful things as well as well-flavored
ones. Those later varieties teem in our land. Almond, wal-
nuts and raisins and apples are for the winter season; and to
change with each season is the law of Nature. And already
the grass is springing and the orange trees bursting into bloom
once more to assure us of the coming of the New Year.
A. E.
WHAT IS THE WORLD'S DERISION?
What is the world's derision
To him who hath the vision?
Lorenzo Sosso.
From "Wisdom for the Wise."
DECEMBER 377
MY PUCE OF DREAMS
Perhaps beyond the horizon, where lies the "over there,"
Where dreamy fancies always turn to life without a care,
The land is fair, the land is bright — perhaps ! But give to me
The happiness of here and now, beside the Western sea.
Far, far away the Isles of Greece, far Egypt's mystic sands!
The call is in the very air from distant unknown lands ;
And yet — and yet my Place of Dreams is here beneath my feet,
And nowhere shines the sun more fair than down in Market street.
Somewhere there may be tropic lands, as fair as Eden's glades,
Where dwells romance, and love is sung, and life is love, and maids
Are beautiful as poets paint, but here, where beauty teems,
And God has smiled upon His work, shall be my Place of dreams.
Give me the Springtime sunshine, the Winter's cloudy frown,
The fog, the breeze from off the bay, my San Francisco town !
No mirage fair shall tempt me, no rainbow I'll pursue —
My City by the Golden Gate, my dreams shall be of you!
Al C. Joy.
THE COLORADO
The wind rose to a gale. The waves were blowing over
the levee. At midnight the alarm was sounded. The bells of
the two churches kept ringing. Pale women and children fol-
lowed the men down the embankment. There was work for
everyone that night. Men were hustling like mad to raise the
levee an inch above the rising fury of the river. Men stood
a few feet apart measuring each white foamed wave to be
ready when it should strike the bank. Shovels stood at atten-
tion to throw earth on each new break. * * * Down the
stream rushed masses of debris, logs, sections of fence, rail-
road ties. Every one on the bank followed their course. Long
poles jumped to shove off into the stream the drift which
must not be allowed to lodge, to impede that stream for an
instant. And all night long into the gray of the morning,
over the roar of the rushing water, and the whistling of the
demons of the wind, boomed the dynamite.
Ednah Aiken.
From "The River' ;
Bobbi-Merrill. Publishers, 1914.
378 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
GOOD NIGHT, DEAR HEART
Good-night, dear heart! Though great the distance
That severs thee from me;
■■a Some kind breeze hieing hence, perchance,
Will waft the fond words unto thee.
Good-night, dear heart! What men call mortal
Of her who loves thee lingers here;
But far through space to seek thy portal,
My thoughts fly with this wish sincere.
Fannie H. Avery.
From "Golden Era" November, 1884.
CHRISTMAS GREETING
The winter bloom about us lies,
The green of a December spring,
And under happy, cloudless skies,
A thousand birds are caroling,
To you amid the eastern snows
I send a Californian rose.
To you whose hearth and heart are warm,
Tho' nature's guise be chill and gray,
To lend your holly wreath a charm,
I send my winter rose today,
For whether snows or rose leaves fall,
It's Christmas ! Christmas ! with us all !
Martha Trent Tyler.
From "Sunset;" December, 1912.
THE PROMISE OF LIFE
The setting sun, a purple sea;
A shaft of golden light
That strikes the hilltops, and, to me,
Hints dawn-burst after night.
Fear not, my Soul, the gray of death
The still, uncharted main;
The light shall find thee, and the breath
Of God be thine again.
z? **tl zx. • / / v •> Howard V. Sutherland.
Jhrom I he rromtse of Life ;
Chicago: Rand, McNally & Co., 1914.
DECEMBER 379
A HEAVEN ON EARTH
We cannot know what bliss, supreme, above,
We soon, in life eternal, shall attain;
But this we know — that human hearts may love,
And, in this life, a heaven on earth may gain.
One of the Old Oakland Writers. Leonard S. Clark.
]ul\> 8, 1918.
fj
"IT IS OVER
Orion was still flashing brilliantly in the heavens when
came the early morning cry, electrifying the city of San Fran-
cisco: "It is over! The Great War is over!" Lights flashed
from house to house, men arose and went forth to bring in the
extras, and hearts rejoiced at the confirmation of the glad news.
Down town, men and women marched in parades in the
early morning light, the crowds growing larger and larger, un-
til the officials announced that it would be declared a holiday
that day in honor of the wonderful triumph of the Allies and
the United States of America in Europe over Autocracy and in
iavor of Democracy. All day the steam-whistles blew and
clangor of bells and jangling metal kept up the outburst of joy.
Thousands of impromptu processions began and ended to begin
all over again by the excited populace from morning till night.
At the luncheon-hour at the Palace Hotel gathered promi-
nent judges and lawyers and notables. Then a scene began
when Judge Thomas Y. Graham mounted a chair and called
for three cheers for President Wilson. They were given with
a will and more cheers followed for Pershing, Foch, Clemen-
ceau, Diaz, Haig and Lloyd George.
Tributes were paid by many illustrious ones present, then
calls for Shortridge arose, and he responded as follows : :
"There was an hour when the morning stars sang together
and all the sons of God shouted for joy. This is another such
an hour; for this is an hour of victory and deliverance — vic-
tory of light over darkness ; deliverance from despotism and
oppression. * * * Hail to all the heroes, dead and living,
who have fought and died to rescue and save Liberty and place
her on the throne of Eternal Peace ! Hail to martyred Bel-
gium ! Hail to suffering Serbia ! Hail to glorious Italy ! Hail
to unconquered Britain! Hail to immortal France! And with
hearts bursting with pride and gratitude and love, hail — thrice
hail — to our own blessed country ; to our own United States ;
to our stainless and triumphant Star-Spangled Banner!"
From "San Francisco Chronicle' ;
November 12th, 1918.
380 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
THE CITY WOKE
The city woke from Bay to Sea
When midnight fires lit up the sky
To tell the folks that Victory
And Peace had come; the light on high
Glowed as the brightest, gayest flower
That ever bloomed in night's dark hour.
The city woke from Sea to Bay
When trumpets sounded in the street;
When clear and strong and brave and gay
The message echoed long and sweet —
And midnight was no longer dumb —
The hour was loud with "Peace has come !"
The city woke. From every side
Arose the sleeper, now awake,
To join the joyous, lilting tide
That swells as hostile armies break.
Democracy, triumphant, spoke:
"There's peace on earth !" The city woke.
Arthur Price,
From "San Francisco Examiner" ;
November J2th t 1918.
ON THE TOP OF MOUNT DIABLO
High as we are the air is warm, cordial; the wind not
unpleasant ; and after the first bursts of enthusiasm have become
subdued, the members of the party seem to be silent, thoughtful
and absorbed. Everyone strays off by himself to get a vantage-
point where he may be alone with his Universal Source while
saturating his soul with the wondrous thoughts that come to
him now from out the ether — filling him with such a sense of
the smallness of Man and the greatness of the Almighty that
all the nervousness and pettiness and talkativeness and impa-
tience and inharmony generally oozes out of the Man, and
he gets back to Principle for a sufficiently long period so that
he comes back to earth and humanity and to the Diablo Club
at the mountain's base — and thence back to his desk and his
daily life a silenter Soul — a person who sees life better and
brighter for everyone with whom he comes in contact.
Chauncey M' Govern.
DECEMBER 381
FINIS
It seemed that from the west
The live red flame of sunset,
Eating the dead blue sky
And cold, insensate peaks,
Was loosened slowly, and fell.
Above it, a few red stars
Burned down like low candle-flames
Into the gaunt black sockets
Of the chill, insensible mountains.
But in the ascendant skies
(Cloudless, like some vast corpse
Unfeatured, cerementless)
Succeeded nor star nor planet.
It may have been that black,
Pulseless, dead stars arose
And crossed as of old the heavens.
But came no living orb,
Nor comet seeming the ghost,
Homeless, of an outcast world,
Seeking its former place
That is no more nor shall be
In all the Cosmos again.
Null, blank, and meaningless
As a burnt scroll that blackens
With the passing of the fire,
Lay the dead, infinite sky.
Lo! in the halls of Time,
I thought, the torches are out —
The revelry of the gods,
Or lamentation of demons
For which their flames were lit,
Over and quiet at last
With the closing peace of night,
Whose dumb, dead, passionless skies
Enfold the living world
As the sea a sinking pebble.
Clark Ashton Smith.
From "The Star-treader and Other Poems;"
San Francisco: A. M. Robertson. 1912.
382 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
CALIFORNIA'S DAY OF PEACE
Near the close of the year 1918 Peace came. It was celebrated in
San Francisco and to the remotest parts of California in the unique
spirit of the West. Submerged, however, beneath the gayety, the noise
and the elation of a triumphant victory was the soul of Lowell —
When a deed is done for freedom, through
the broad earth's aching breast
Runs a thrill of Joy prophetic, trembling
on from east to west,
And the slave, where'er he cowers, feels
the soul within him climb
To the awful verge of manhood,
as the energy sublime
Of a century bursts full-blossomed
on the thorny stem of Time.
The high-born winter rains will wash the map of Europe clean of
blood. The people will return to the simple ways of peace. The com-
mon wealth of man will have no boundary lines. Internationalism is
seen — "in the parliament of man, the federation of the world."
This Republic with the sword of Justice in one hand and the sym-
bol of mercy in the other will consecrate itself anew to the reconstruc-
tion of social order — not only "over there" but here.
California will welcome back its men from the trenches, net as
heroes of a war of conquest, but as men who faced the supreme sacri-
fice so that the diplomacy of armament should end.
Those who died will be given a monument that shall be typical
not of war, but of peace. The injustice of might will not prevail. The
name of czar, of emperor and of king will cease as a representative of
power, except in the historical past.
The common wealth will not be measured in square miles, but in the
sense of social justice, the boundary of which encircles the globe and
includes all people. Let us have peace when humanity shall have elim-
inated injustice, fear, bigotry, prejudice, the malicious lie, the supersti-
tious creed, and weak selfishness. Then the commandment, "Thou shalt
not kill," will prevail, and a new commandment will be given, "Thou
shalt not possess that for which thou hast not given an equivalent."
Plato's Republic, Fourier's Social Paradise, Sir Thomas More's
Utopia were mighty revolutions, without tanks, or guns, or gas, or
aeroplanes, against unjust laws of Autocracy. The false Moon between
the smooth surface of the water tells of the true Moon somewhere. So
the dreams, not of warriors, but of the poets and idealists, will come true.
With tears for the dead and joy for the living, we hail the Liberty
that had its birth on Mt. Sinai, its cradle in Bethlehem, its childhood
in Rome, its youth in Switzerland, its education in France and Eng-
land, its manhood in the United States, and its future life the universal
world. HARR WAGNER.
A CLASSIFIED LIST OF CALIFORNIA WRITERS-
POETS, PROSE-WRITERS, HISTORIANS, ORATORS,
DIVINES, JOURNALISTS, PUBLISHERS, ETC.
A Summary of Those Who Have Contributed to California Literature
as a Whole, with Brief Mentions of Their Work as an
Aid to Collectors of "Californiana."
(November, 1918)
AUTHORS OF ONE OR MORE PUBLISHED WORKS,
MAINLY FICTION
Adams, Walter — "Transmigration."
Aiken, Ednah Robinson — "The River," etc.
Aimard, Gustave— "The Gold Seekers," 1888.
Allen, Mrs. G. M.
Amsden, Dora — "Heritage of Hoorshige."
Anderson, Olive — "Santa Louise," Sacramento, 1886.
Andre (pseud.) — "Overcome," San Francisco, 1877.
Angellotti, Marion Polk — "The Firefly of France," "Sir John Hawks-
hurst," etc.
Anthony, Helen Virginia — Juvenile.
Ashe, Elizabeth — "Intimate Letters from France" (Philopolis Press.
San Francisco), 1918.
Atherton, Gertrude — "Ancestors," "The Conqueror," "Senator North,"
"Tower of Ivory," "Patience Sparhawk," "The Splendid Idle
Forties," etc.
Austin, Mary — "Isidro," "The Land of Little Rain," "California." etc.
Bamford, Mary Ellen.
Bancroft, Griffing— "The Interloper," 1917.
Barnes, W. H.— "The Story of Laulux," 1889.
Barnes, W. H. L. — "Solid Silver" (a play), also Political Addresses.
Baron, Virgilia Bogue — Novel.
Barrett, Frances Fuller Victor — Novels and Historical Works.
Barry, John D. — (San Francisco "Bulletin" and "Call"), "Imitations";
also Novels.
Bartlett, Washington — "A Breeze from the Woods," 1880.
Bartnett, Harriet — "Angelo the Musician."
Bechdoldt, Frederick Ritchie— "The Hard Rock Man," etc.
Beckman, Mrs. William — "Backsheesh, etc. (Sacramento).
Behr, Dr. H.— "Hoot of the Owl" (A. M. Robertson, San Francisco).
Bell, William Mora.
Benton, M. Y.— "Who Would Have Thought It?"
Bidwell, Jennie — "There's Nothing In It."
Bierce, Ambrose — "Black Beetles in Amber"; short stories, essays, poems.
Bigelow, Harry — "Slow Methods of Becoming a Criminal," 1893.
Blades, Paul Harcourt — "Don Sagasto's Daughter," 1911.
Blow, Ben — Juvenile.
Bohan, Elizabeth Baker.
Bonner, Geraldine — "The Pioneer," "Tomorrow's Tangle." "Hard Pan."
etc.; also Plays.
Bonnet, Theodore (Editor "Town Talk")— "The Regenerators," "A
Friend of the People" (play), etc.
Bornemann, Mary (Oraquille) — "Madame Jane Junk and Joe," 1876.
Bower, Bertha Sinclair — "The Gringoes."
Bowman, Mrs. James — "The Island Home" (Juvenile).
^ Boyd, John Edward — "The Berkeley Heroine," etc.
Boyne, R. E. — "A Grass Widow."
384 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
Brainerd, George (see Jarboe).
Brennan— "Brin Mor," 1892.
Brooks, Noah— "The Boy Emigrants," etc.
Brown, Clara Spaulding— "Life at Shut-In Valley," 1895.
Brown, Ruth Alberta— "Tabitha at Ivy Hall," 1911.
Bruner, Jane Woodworth — "Free Prisoners," 1877.
Burgess; Gelett— "The Heart Line," "The Picaroons" (with Will Irvin),
etc.
Burton, Mrs. Maria Amparo (Ruiz) — C. Loyal — "The Squatter and the
Don," 1885.
Cameron, Capt. John Stanley — "Ten Months in a German Raider (Do-
ran, N. Y., 1918).
Canfield, Chauncey— "The City of Six," 1910 (McClurg. Chicago).
Carlton, Carrie — "Inglenook" (Juvenile), 1868.
Carr, Sarah Pratt— "The Iron Way," etc.
Casey, Patrick— "The Wolf Cub," 1917 (with Terence Casey).
Casey, Terence— "The Wolf Cub," 1917 (with Patrick Casey).
Cather, Katherine Dunlap — "Boyhood Stories of Famous Men" (pub-
lished in St. Nicholas Magazine, originally).
Caxton — See Rhodes .
Chamberlain, Esther — Novels (in collaboration with Lucia).
Chamberlain, H. L.— "Judah and Israel," 1888.
Chamberlain, Lucia — "Son of the Wind," etc.
Chard, Cecil — (See Heynemann.)
Charles, Frances — "The Country God Forgot," etc.
Chase, J. Munsell— "The Riddle of the Sphinx," 1915.
Cheney, Warren— "His Wife."
Cheney, William Atwell— "Almond-Eyed," 1873.
Churchill, Mrs. Eugenia Kellogg Holmes — "The Awakening of Pocca-
lito," and Other Tales, 1903.
Clark, J. B.— "Society in Search of Truth," 1878.
Clemens, Samuel (Mark Twain) — "Innocents Abroad," "Roughing It,"
etc. etc.
Clippinger, J. A.— "The Pedagogue of Widow's Gulch," 1876.
Colburn, Frona Eunice Waite — "Yermah the Colorado."
Comstock, Sarah— "The Soddy," "Mothercraft," etc.
Conner, J. Torrey — "A Red Parasol in Mexico" (see Poets).
Cook, N. F.— "Satan in Society" (anon.), 1881.
Cooley, Alice Kingsbury — Juveniles; Fairy Tales.
Cooper, Louise B. — "Behind a Mask."
Cox, Palmer— "Squibbs of California," 1894.
Crabb, W. D.— "Silver Shimer."
Cucuel, Ed. (with W. C. Morrow) — "Bohemian Paris of Today."
Cumming, Duncan — "A Change with the Seasons," 1897.
Curran, John Joseph — "Mr. Foley of Salmon."
Daggett, Mary Stewart— "The Higher Court," 1911.
Danziger, Dr. Gustave Adolph — "The Monk and the Hangman's Daugh-
ter" (collab. Ambrose Bierce).
Davis, John F. — "California — Romantic and Resourceful."
Davis, Andrew McFarland — "The Journal of a Moncacht" (Man-Ape).
Davis, Leila B. — "Modern Argonaut."
Davis, Margaret B.— "Mother Bickerdyke," 1896.
Dawson, Emma Frances — "An Itinerant House" (see Poets).
LITERARY CALIFORNIA 385
Dean, Sarah— "Travers," etc.
Deasey, Isabel Josephine — "The Princess Eileen."
Deering, Mabel Clare Craft — "Hawaii Nei."
Delanoy, Frances — Novels; Books of History.
Delter, T.— "Nellie Brown" and Other Sketches, 1871.
Derby, Colonel George Haskel (John Phoenix) — "The Squibob Papers,' 1
etc. etc.
Doran, James— "Zanthon," 1891.
Doyle, Dr. C. W.— "The Shadow of Quon Lung," "Awakening of the
Jungle."
Dubois, Constance Goddard — "Soul in Bronze."
Dunniway, Abigail Scott — "The New Northwest"; Books and Short
Stories.
Edwards, Henry— "A Mingled Yarn"; Sketches, 1883.
Evans, George Samuel — "Wylackie Jake of Covelo," 1904.
Ewer, Ferdinand — "The Eventful Nights." etc.
Ewing, Hugh Boyle— "The Black List, 1893.
Fadden, Chimmie — (See Townsend.)
Farnham, Eliza Woodson (Burhaus)— "The Ideal Attained," 1865.
Farrington, Mary L.— "Facing the Sphinx," 1889.
Faverell, Lieutenant— "A. D. 2000."
Fenn, R. W.— "The Hidden Empire," 1911.
Ferguson, Mrs. Esther (Baldwin)— "The Lump of Gold." 1910.
Fernald, Chester Bailey— "The Cat and the Cherub," etc.
Field, Charles K.— "Stanford Stories" (with Will Irwin), (see Poets).
Fisher, W. M. — "The Californians," 1873, San Francisco.
Fitch, Anna Mariska — "Bound Down," etc.
Fitch, George Hamlin — "Comfort to be Found in Good Old Books," etc.
Florence, William Jermyn — "Florence Fables," 1868.
Florinda, Aunt (pseud.) — "Phoebe Travers."
Foote, Mary Hallock— "The Led Horse Claim," "The Valley Road," etc.
Fowler, Mrs. William H. B. (Laura Wells)— "Not Included in a Sheep-
skin."
Franklin, Annie— "Billy Fairchild, Widow," 1917.
French, Davida (Ure) — "Not Included in a Sheepskin."
Frost, Mrs. Janette Blakeslee — "Gem of the Mines," 1866.
Gallatin, Grace — (See Seton-Thompson.)
Gaily, James W.— "Big Jack Small," "Quartz," etc.
Gates, Eleanor— (See Tully.)
Gerberding, Elizabeth Sears (Bates) — "The Golden Chimney" (also
Poems).
Glasscock, Mary Willis— "Dare."
Gray, C— "Tales of Old California" (C. C. Park-London).
Green, Will S.— "Sacrifice, or The Living Dead."
Grinnell, Dr. Morton — "An Eclipse of Memory," 1899.
Groves, May Showier — "Twilight Fairy Tales."
Gould, Mrs. Howard (Katherine Clemmons) — "The Crystal Rood."
Habberton, John— "Romance of California Life," 1883, San Francisco,
1879; "Some Folks," 1877.
Harker, Charles H. — "A Singular Sinner" (San Jose).
386 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
Hart, F. H. — "Sazerac Lying Club," 1873, San Francisco.
Hart, Jerome A. — "A Vigilante Girl," 'Two Argonauts in Spain," etc.
(see Editors).
Hayes, J. W.— "Sierra Tales."
Heaven, Mrs. L. M. (Lucia Norman) — "Laura Preston," etc., 1867-69.
Heaven, Louise Palmer — .
Heynemann, Julie (Cecil Chard) — London.
Hill, Marion— "The Pettison Twins," "Georgette," etc.
Holder, Charles Frederick — Nature Stories.
Hopkins, Pauline Bradford Mackie— "The Story of Kate."
Hopkins, Prince — "Instinctive Philosophy" and Publicist.
Hopper, James M. — "What Happened in the Night," etc.
Hosmer, Judge Hezekiah — "The Octoroon" (dramatized by Dion Bou-
cicault).
Hurlburt, Ed. H. — "Lanigan," etc.
Hutchings, J. M. — "The Heart of the Sierras."
Irvine, Leigh — "An Affair in the South Seas" (T. Fisher Unwin, Lon-
don); also text and other books.
Irwin, Wallace — "Venus in New York," etc. (see Poets).
Irwin, Will — "The Picaroons (with Burgess), etc; "Stanford Stories"
(with Charles K. Field).
Jarboe, Mrs. Mary H. (Thomas George Brainerd) — "Go Forth and
Find," "Robert Atterbury."
Jessup, George H. — "Gerald French's Friends," 1889.
James, Julia Clinton — "Christmas Carol," "Story of the Shop," "Cleo-
patra"; Bosqui, San Francisco, 1878.
Jones, Mary Joss — "Hump Tree Stories" (Elder)
Jordan, David Starr — "California and the Californians," "The Philoso-
phy of Despair," "Matka," etc.
Josaphare, Lionel — "A Man Who Wanted a Bungalow" (see Poets).
Keeler, Ralph— " Glover son and His Silent Partner," 1869.
Kelly, Allan— "Bears I Have Met," 1903.
Kenyon, Camilla E. L. — "Spanish Doubloons" (Sunset), etc.
Knapp, Adeline — (See Textbooks.)
Kouns, Nathan — "Aryus, the Libyan."
Kyne, Peter B— "Cappy Ricks," "The Valley of Giants," etc.
Lane, Rose Wilder — Novels and Biographies.
Lea, Homer — "Valor of Ignorance," "Home of the Saxon," etc.
Le Page, Gertrude— "Children of the Thorn Wreath."
Lewis, Arthur— "The Rag Tags."
Lewis, Sinclair— "Trail of the Hawk," (Harper), 1915.
Lichtenstein, Joy— "The Blue and the Gold" (A. M. Robertson).
London, Jack— "The God of His Fathers," "Children of the Frost,"
"Martin Eden," "People of the Abyss," "John Barleycorn," "The
Call of the Wild," ^The Sea Wolf," "The Valley of the Moon,"
etc., etc.
London, Charmian (Mrs. Jack) — "The Cruise of the Snark."
Longworth, Mira Theresa (see Yelverton) — "Zanita, a Tale of the Yo-
semite," 1872.
Loughhead, Flora Haines (Apponyi-Guittierez)— "The Man Who Was
Guilty," etc.
LITERARY CALIFORNIA 387
Lowenberg, Mrs. I. — "The Irresistible Current," "A Nation's Crime," etc.
Loyal, C. — (See Burton.)
Lucas, Mrs. William Palmer (Jane Richardson) — "The Children of
France and the Red Cross," 1918.
Lumrnis, Charles F. — Books on Mexico, Arizona, California.
Lynch, Jeremiah — "A Senator of the Fifties"; also books on Alaska,
Egypt, etc.
Marryatt, Frederick — "Narratives of Travels, and Adventures of M.
Violet.', 1843'
Mason, B. F. — "Through War to Peace," and "The Village Mystery."
McDevitt, William — "From Lone Mountain to Twin Peaks"; in mem-
ory of Richard Realf, Poet, Social Pioneer and Emancipator.
Mathews, Amanda — "The Hieroglyphics of Love," Los Angeles, 1906.
Max, Major — (See Townsend.)
Meloney, William Brown — (See Short Stories.)
Merrill, Mollie Slater — "Gullible's Travels," San Francisco.
Meyer, George Homer — "The Nine Swords of Morales," etc.
McGovern, Chauncey — "Moonbeams, Maybe," "Sergt. Larry" (by Bolo
& Krag), and other books.
Michaels, Janie Chase— "Polly of the Midway" (Sunset), 1917 (Harr
Wagner, publisher).
Michelson, Miriam — "In the Bishop's Carriage," etc.
Mighels, Ella Sterling — "Society and Babe Robinson," "Fairy Tale of
the White Man," "The Full Glory of Diantha," "The Story of the
Files," etc.
Mighels, Philip Verrill — "Bruwer Jim's Baby," "The Inevitable," etc.
Millard, Bailey— "The Lure of Gold,' etc.
Mitchell, Edmund — "In Desert Keeping," Los Angeles, 1905.
Mitchell, Frances Marian — "Joan of Rainbow Springs" (Lothrop, Lee &
Shepard, Boston).
Mizner, Addison — "Cynic's Calendar," etc.
Montgomery, Zach. — "The Poison Fountain," 1878 (see Editors).
Morehouse, William Russell — "Mystica Alogoat," 1903.
Morgan, Sallie B.— "Tahoe, or Life in California," 1881.
Moore, B. P. — "Endura," 1885, San Francisco.
Morrow, W. C. — "The Ape, the Idiot, and Other People," etc.
Muir, John — Books on California.
McChesney, L. Studdiford — "Under Shadow of the Mission," 1897.
McGhimsey, Grover C. — "Eulogy on Jack London" (Ukiah).
McNeil, Everett— "The Cave of Gold," 1911.
Neson, Frank Lewis— "The Vision of Elijah Bed," 1906.
Neumann, Mrs. (May Wentworth) — "Fairy Tales of Gold Lands."
Neville, Constance (pseud.) — "Behind the Arras."
Nevins, Melissa J.— "Cat Tales" (Santa Clara).
Noll, Arthur Howard (with Barndon Wilson) — "In Search of Aztec
Treasure" (Neall, publisher, San Francisco).
Norris, Charles — "Salt" (Doran, New York).
Norris, Frank— "The Octopus," "The Pit," "McTeague," "Moran of the
Lady Letty," "Blix"; also a poem, "Yvonelle" (Philadelphia, 1892).
Norris, Kathleen Thomason — "Saturday's Child," "Marty the Uncon-
quered," "The Joselyns" (Doubleday, Page & Co., 1918).
Nunan, Thomas — "Out of Nature's Creed."
388 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
Older, Mrs. Fremont (Cora Miranda Baggerly)— "The Giants," "The
Prince and the Socialist," "Esther Damon," etc.
Croquill — (See Bornemann.)
Osbourne, Lloyd — Novels.
Osbourne, Katherine — "Stevenson in California," etc.
Overton, Gwendolen — "Heritage of Unrest," etc.
Park, Charles Caldwell— "A Plaything of the Gods," 1912.
Pawson, A. H.— "The Junior Partners."
Peck, George Washington — "Aurofidona," 1849.
Peixotto, Ernest — Sketches and Travels, illusttrated by the author.
Perry, Stella — Juvenile.
Pex (pseud.)— "Nicholas Nickelton," 1876.
Phoenix, John — (See Derby.)
Powers, Frank H.— "I Swear."
Reed, C. — "John Halsey, the Anti-Monopolist," San Francisco, 1884.
Reimers, Johannes — "On the Heights of Simplicity."
Rhodes, W. H. (Caxton)— "Caxton's Book," 1875.
Rich, Winifred— "Tony's White Room."
Richards, C. F.— "John Guilderstring's Sin."
Richards, Jerrett T. — "Romance on El Camino Real" (San Diego).
Richards, John E. — "Legend of the Cypress Trees" (San Jose).
Riggs, Kate Douglas Wiggin— "Patsy," "The Bird's Christmas Carol,"
"A Summer in a Canyon," etc.
Roberts, E.— "With the Invader," 1885.
Roberts, Elizabeth Judson — Indian Stories of the Southwest.
Roberts, Myrtle Glenn — "The Foot of the Rainbow."
Robertson, Peter— "The Seedy Gentleman" (A. M. Robertson).
Royce, Josiah— "Feud of Vakfield," 1887.
Ryder, Prof. Arthur (U. of C.)— "Woman's Eyes" (A. M. Robertson).
Sade, H.— "Legend of a Kiss."
Savage, Col. Richard Henry — "A Little Lady of Lagunitas," "My Offi-
cial Wife," etc.
Sawyer, Eugene T. — "Life and Career of Tilurcio Vasquez"; also "Nick
Carter" books, 1875.
Scarlet, Patrick (pseud.) — "Clown's Courage" (Los Angeles, 1915).
Seton-Thompson, Grace (Gallatin) — Collaborator with husband in Na-
ture Books.
Simpson, William— "The Man from Mars," 1893.
Sinclair, Mrs. Bertha — (See Bower.)
Smile, R. E. (or E. R. Smilie)— "The Manatitla," 1877.
Smith, Alice Prescott — "The Legatee," etc.
Smith, Gertrude — "Arabella and Araminta" Stories.
Sonnischen, Albert — "Ten Months a Captive Among Filipinos," etc.
Spalding, Phebe Estelle— "The Tahquitah Maiden."
Spearman, Charles — "Whispering Smith."
Sproule, E. B. — "Mystery" (San Francisco, 1875).
Stanton, Mary O.— "How to Read Faces" (S. F, 1881).
Steffens, Lincoln — Publicist books.
Stellman, Edith Fenney— "Katie of Birdland."
Stephens, L. Dow— "Life Sketches of a Jay Hawker of '49."
Stevens, Esther Stuart — "Not Included in a Sheepskin."
Stevens, Mrs. H. H.— "Grandma's Stories for the Little Folks" 1869,
New York).
LITERARY CALIFORNIA 389
Strobridge, Idah Meacham — "The Loom of the Desert," 1908.
Strong, Isobel (Osbourne) — "Days at Vailima," etc.
Stuart, Charles D.— "Casa Grande."
Swett, Mrs. Frank — "The Bachelor's Surrender."
Swift, John F.— "Robert Greathouse."
Symanowski, Stephen Korwin — "The Searchers" (1908, Los Angeles.
Taber, Louise— "The Flame," 1911.
Thorpe, Rose Hartwick — Juveniles (see Poets).
Tompkins, Juliet Wilbor (Pottle) — Novels, short stories.
Townsend, Annie Lake (Philip Shirley) — "On the Verge."
Townsend, Edward W.— "Chimmie Fadden," "Major Max," etc. (New
York Sun).
Tracy, Martha Desire — Juveniles.
Tully, Eleanor Gates— "The Prairie Girl," "The Plow Woman," "Cupid
the Cowpunch," "The Poor Little Rich Girl," etc.
Tully, Richard Walton— (See Playwrights.)
Twain, Mark — (See Clemens.)
Ure, Mrs. C. W.— (See French.)
Van Den Bergh, Mary Turrill— Ye One's Ten Hundred Sorrows," 1907.
Van Loan, Charles Emmett — "The Big League," etc.
Van Loben Sels, Helen Adelaide — "Blue Jays in the Sierras." etc. (the
Century Co., New York).
Victor, Frances Fuller — (See Barrett.)
Vivian, Thomas J. — "Luther Strong" (Fenno, Publisher, 1899).
Wakeman, Annie — "Autobiography of a Charwoman" (McQueen, Lon-
don, 1900).
Walcott, Earle Ashley—.
Walker, W. S.—
Walling, Anna Strunsky — "The Kempton-Wace Letters" (in collabora-
tion with Jack London).
Waters, Russell Judson— "The Stranger" (New York, 1868).
Welty, Elizabeth D. W.— "Self-Made" (New York, 1868).
Wentworth, May — (See Neumann.)
Wheeler, Jeannette — "The Curse of Three Generations" (San Jose).
Whiting, Robert Rudd— "A Ball of Yarn" (Elder, San Francisco).
Whitaker, Herman— "The Planter," etc.
Wiggin, Kate Douglas — (See Riggs.)
Willard, Madeline — "Deaderick, the King's Highway," 1904.
Wiliamson, Mrs. M. B.— "Lamech" (Whittaker & Ray, S. F., 1904).
Williamson, Sarah M. — "How the Gardens Grew" (Juvenile, Philadel-
phia, 1890).
Wishaer, John H. — "The Transformation," "Sonnets of the Frozen
Seas," etc.
Wilkins, James H. — "Glimpses of Old Mexico."
Williams, Michael — Spiritual Novel.
Wilson, Barndon (with A. H. Noll) — "In Search of Aztec Treasure."
Wolf, Alice S.— "House of Cards," 1896.
Wolf, Emma — "Other Things Being Equal," "A Prodigal in Love,"
"Fulfillment."
Woodbury, Mrs. Charles J.— "The Potato Children and Others" (Elder).
Woods, Virna — "An Elusive Lover," "A Modern Magdalene," 1894.
390 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
Worth, Pauline Wilson— "Death Valley Slim," 1909.
Worthington, Elizabeth Strong — (Los Angeles).
Wyneken, L. Ernest — "Chronicles of Manuel Alanus," 1908.
Yelverton, Theresa (Countess of Avonmore) — (See Longworth.)
Young, G. A.— "Whatever Is, Was."
Young, John P. — (See Historians.)
Zeigler, Wilbus Gleason— "It Was Marlowe," "The Disaster of 1906,"
"The Heart of the Alleghanies," 1883.
POETS AND WRITERS OF MAGAZINE VERSE
Alambaugh, Frank — Poems (Napa).
Avery, Fannie — Golden Era.
Bailey, Lillian Hinman Shuey — "California Sunshine," "Among the Red-
woods" (Whittaker & Ray, San Francisco, 1901).
Baldy, Lizzie — "The California Pioneer and Other Poems," 1879.
Barker, Robert — "The Invasion of California and Other Poems."
Bartchael, Mrs. — (See Dolliver.)
Bashford, Herbert — "At the Shrine of Song."
Beamer, Frances Glass — Verses.
Bennett, Ella Costillo — "Abelard and Heloise," etc.
Bernard, Henry F. — "Mr. Fangle and Other Verses" (San Jose).
Bigler, Mabel Rice — (Berkeley.)
Binckley, Christian — "Sonnets from a House of Days" (A. M. Robert-
son, San Francisco).
Birkeier, Eliza G. — Verses.
Bishop, Kate M. — (See M. Quad and Karen Brendt.)
Black, Anita Ciprico — "Sketches in Prose and Verse" (Crocker, San
Francisco, 1897).
Bland, Henry Meade — "Songs of Autumn."
Brendt, Karen — (See Bishop.)
Brininstool, E. A. — Humorous and Other Verses (Los Angeles).
Bristol, W. M.— "Sketches of the Southland," 1901.
Bromley, Charlotte Elizabeth — (See Shuey.)
Brooks, Fred Emerson — "Old Abe and Other Poems," etc.
Brown, W. E.— "Jack and Jill," 1891-1893.
Buchanan, John A. — "Indian Legends and Other Poems."
Burbank, Blanche — "Reed Notes."
Burbank, William F. — Poems.
Burnett, Sarah G. — Verses.
Butler, Gabriel Furlong — (Grizzly Bear Magazine, Los Angeles.)
Cactus— (See Wiley)— (The Wasp, Golden Era, etc.)
Callaghan, Daniel T.— "Madrona," 1876.
Campbell, Kenneth — Verses.
Carmichael, Sarah — Verses.
Cartwright, H. A. — "A Bundle of Saints and Sinners," 1879.
Carruth, William H. — "Each in His Own Tongue."
Cheney, Elizabeth — Verses.
Cheney, John Vance — Poems.
LITERARY CALIFORNIA 391
Clark, Leonard S. — (Overland Monthly), Verses.
Coghill, Stanley— "Hathor."
Coleman, James B. — Poems.
Connolly, James — Verses.
Conner, J. Torrey — (See Authors.)
Coolbrith, Ina Donna — California Laureate, crowned June 30, 1915, by
desire of Authors' Congress, Panama-Pacific International Expo-
sition, San Francisco.
Cooke, Ina Lillian — California Magazines and others.
Cooper, Edna Poppe — "Song of the Wind," Petaluma.
Cothran, E. E.— "Smiles and Tears."
Courvet, Pierre A. (French-Californian) — "Poesies."
Cowell, Harry — "Life," "Smart Set," etc.
Crane, Allen — Poems for Children (also short stories).
Crane, Lauren E. — Sacramento Union and Overland.
Crawford, Captain Jack (J. H.) — Poet-Scout.
Crowley, Rev. D. O. — Poems.
Croudace, Lenore — Poems (two volumes).
Dawson, Emma Frances — "Old Glory" (see Authors).
Daggett, Rollin Mallory — "Braxton's Bar."
Day, Sarah J.— "From May Flowers to Mistletoe," 1901.
Dole, S. — Verses.
Dolliver, Clara (see Bartchaell) — "Candy Elephant," "No Baby in The
House," etc.
Douglas, George — Verse in Chronicle, San Francisco.
Dorney, Patrick — Poems.
Dowling, Bartholomew — "Hurrah for the Next That Dies," "Chaplet of
Verse by California Catholic Poets."
Driscoll, Fannie A. — (Argonaut.)
Elder, Paul — "Friendship," etc. (see Historians).
Ferguson, Lillian (Plunkett) — (See Editors.)
Ferre, Ella K. (see Gage)— "Land of the Sunset Sea" (S. F., 1883).
Field, Ben — Poems.
Field, Charles K. — (See Authors and Editors.)
Field, Mary H. — "An Arboreal Song of the Alameda."
Fitzgerald, Sister Anna Raphael.
Fitzgerald, Marcella A.
Florine, Margaret Helen— "Songs of a Nurse" (A. M. Robertson, 1917).
Foote, Lucius Harwood — Poems.
Foster, Joel W. — Verses.
Foster,Nancy K. — "Sonnets and Lyrics" (Elder, 1917).
Frazer, Isaac Jenkinson — (Moosa, San Diego, 1901.)
French, Nora May — Poems.
Furlong, Mary Lacy M.— "Cozenza," 1879.
Furlong, Mrs. N. H. — (Sacramento.)
Garlick, Etna — Verses.
Gassaway, Frank H. — "Pride of Battery B," etc. (see Editors).
Gerberding, Elizabeth — (See Authors.)
Gibbs, Ralph Irwin— "Songs of Content" (Elder).
Goodhue, E. E.— "Verses from the Valley" (Oakland, 1888).
Goodloe, Rife — Poems.
392 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
Goodrich, June — Verses (Redding).
Granger, Grace— "The Light of the Gods" (New York, 1911).
Greenwood, May S.— "The Mother Pioneers" (Petaluma, 1913.
Gunnison, Charles A.— "In the San Benito Hills," 1891.
Guiterman, Arthur — "Betel Nuts, Rhymed in English" (Elder).
Hall, Caroline Pettinos— Poems, 1865-1870.
Hall, John T.— (Sacramento.)
Hall-Wood, Mrs.— (See Von Kirn.)
Hamilton, Marion Ethel — Verses.
Harris, Lawrence W. — "The Damnedest Finest Ruins."
Hart, A.— Poems, 1873.
Harvey, Margaret — "The National Flower and Other Poems," "The
Trailing Arbutus."
Hawley, Margaret May —
Heath, T.— "Ellen Seymour and Other Poems," 1868.
Hebbard, Judge J. C. B. — Two volumes of verse.
Herron, Ralph — "Bathsheba" (published in Stanford University "Se-
qouia").
Hibbard, Grace — Poems.
Higginson, Ella— "The Voice of April Land," "When the Birds Go
North Again" (Macmillan, 1909).
Hill, A. F.— "Sonnets of the Sanctum."
Hillis, Delia M.— "Whisperings of Time."
Hoffman, Elwyn — (Sunset, Overland, Town Talk, etc.)
Hogg, H.— "California," 1857-1878.
Holloway, Elvira H.— "Gleanings from the Golden State" (1893, S. F.)
Howe, Harriet — "Along the Way."
Hughes, Glenn — "Souls" (Elder).
Hyde, Mabel Helen — "Jingles from Japan."
Irwin, Wallace — "Love Sonnets of a Hoodlum" (see Authors).
Izod, Dr. Kevin— (See O'Doherty.)
Jenney, Charles Elmer — "California Nights Entertainment" (Edinburgh)
Josaphare, Lionel— "The Lion at the Well," "Turquoise and Iron," etc.
(see Authors).
Jury, John G. — San Jose's Author of Verses, "Omar Fitzgerald and
Other Poems."
Keeler, Charles— "A Light Through the Storm," "Bird Notes Afield,"
etc., etc.
Kemp, G. — "Shadows."
Kendall, W. S.—
Kercheval, Rosalie — Poems.
Kewen, J. C. — "Idealism and Other Poems" (San Francisco, 1853).
King, P. M. — Verses (San Francisco, 1890).
Kleckner, Thomas — Soldier-Poet.
Knox, Jessie Juliet— "Little Almond Blossom," "Poems," 1904.
Krebs, Florence Kellogg — "Army Goose Melodies" (Elder).
Lambert, Mary — "Cogitots."
Lampson, Merle Robbins — "On Reaching Sixteen and Other Poems."
Laroche, G. A. — "Fables in French Verse" (San Francisco, 1869).
Lawrence, Elizabeth A. — "Poem on Southern California" "booklet).
Lezinsky, David Lesser — Poems.
LITERARY CALIFORNIA 393
Linen, James — Poems.
Longley, Snow — "Love Sonnets of a Spinster."
Loring, Lucia Etta (Smith)— "By the Way" (Elder).
Lowe, George N. —
Mace, Frances — Poems.
Maloney, Mary T. — "The Legend of a Monument and Other Poems"
San Jose, 1876).
Manners, Guy— "The Soul of the Trenches" (A. M. Robertson, 1918).
Mannix, Mary E. — Verses.
Markham, Anna Catherine — Magazines.
Markham, Edwin — "The Man with a Hoe," "Lincoln," "Shoes of Hap-
piness," etc.
Marien, J. — (See Von Schroeder.)
Martin, A.— "Verses in the Valley and Mountains" (Oakland, 1888).
Martin, Lannie Haynes — Verses.
Masten, Warren Jones — "Brotherhood Poems" (San Francisco, 1914,
Wilson, Publisher).
Maybell, Steve — "Sandlot Lyrics."
McCracken, Josephine Clifford— "The Woman Who Lost Him."
McGinisley, Grover C— "A Son of the Gods" (Ukiah, 1917).
McLaren, James Henry —
McRoskey, Racine — "Poems."
Menken, Adah Isaacs — "Poems."
Meyer, Isador — Translator and versifier of Talmud into English.
Myrick, Geraldine — "Songs of a Fool and Other Verses" 1895, San
Jose).
Miller, Joaquin — Complete Poetical Works of Joaquin Miller (Harr
Wagner Publishing Company).
Miller, Mamie Lowe — Verses.
Miller, Minnie Myrtle — (Golden Era.)
Milne, Frances Margaret — "Heliotrope."
Monroe, K.— "Opus I— Poems," 1917.
Morgan, G. G. W.— "Poems" (San Francisco, 1877).
Morse, Philip — Poems.
Newbegin, Anna — "Poems of Life from California" (Newbegin, S. F.)
Newman, Fanny Hodges — "Out of Bondage (Elder).
Newton, Emma Mersereau — "Veil of Solano," 1902.
Norris, Frank — "Yvonelle."
Northup, John Wood— "Songs of Nature, Love and Life," 1917 (Elder).
O'Connell, Dan — "Songs of Bohemia."
O'Doherty, Mr. (see Izod) — "Poems by Eva," 1887 (San Francisco).
Otis, Eliza A. — Poems.
Page, Annie S. — "Poems" (San Francisco, 1893).
Palmer, Elinor — (Los Angeles.)
Palmer, Fannie — (Golden Era.)
Parburto — "Anselmo, A Poem" (San Francisco, 1885).
Paul, John— (See Webb.)
Peckham, Lizzie Cross —
Pendleton, Alvah —
Perry, Marion B. — (Vallejo.)
Philan, John N.— "The Wave."
394 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
Phillips, Charles — (See Dramatists.)
Pitts, Mabel Porter— Poems.
Pittsinger, Eliza — Poems.
Pollock, Edward — "Poems."
Pollock, Dr. William D.— Poems.
Poston, C. D.— "Apache Land, A Poem" and "Sun Worshipers of Asia"
(1877, San Francisco).
Potter, Jane B.
Powell, Emily Browne — "Poems."
Pratt, Alice E.— "The Sleeping Princess of Tamalpais" (S. F., 1893).
Price, Arthur — Newspaper verse.
Quad, M.— (See Bishop.)
Raphael, Sister Anna — (See Fitzgerald.)
Realf, Richard — "Indirection," "Vale."
Reed, Anna Morrison — (See Editors.)
Reese, Lowell Otus — Poems.
Richards, John E. — Poems.
Richards, Susan— "Wayside Thoughts" (Oakland, 1885).
Richardson, Daniel S.— "Trail Dust," etc.
Richmond, Florence — "Golden Lark," etc.
Richmond, Hiram Hoyt — "Montezuma."
Robertson, Louis Alexander — "The Dead Calypso," "Beyond the Re-
quiems," etc. (A. M. Robertson, Publisher).
Rogers, J. H.— "The California Hundred."
Rogers, Maud (Goshen) — Verse.
Ross, Joseph (Walking Hiller) — "Songs of the Sand-Hills."
Rucker, Mrs. V. M. — Verse (Oakland).
Sage, John E. — Verse.
Sain, Charles McK. — Verse.
Samuels, Maurice V. — (See Playwrights.)
Sargent, Mrs. E. S., and
Sargent, J. L. — "Sugar-Pine Murmurings," 1899.
Savage, Belle — Verse.
Saxon, Isabel — Verse.
Scheffauer, Herman — "Poems"; also essays and magazine articles.
Scheffauer, Mrs. Herman (Ethel Talbot)—
Schroeder, Eugenie McLane (Hawes) — "Poems."
Seares, Mabel Urmy — "The Lyric Land of California" (Pasadena).
Sexton, Ella M.— Poems.
Shepard, Morgan — Poems.
Shipman, Clare — "Seven Stars" (Newbegin, San Francisco).
Shores, Robert — "At Molokai."
Shuey, Mrs. G. E. (Charlotte Elizabeth Bromley)— (Overland and Gol-
den Era).
Sill, Edward Rowland— Poems.
Skidmore, Harriet M. — "Beside the Western Sea."
Smith, Clark Ashton— "The Star-Treader and Other Poems" (A. M.
Robertson.
Smith, S. W.— "Gems from the Tailings" (San Francisco, 1875).
Sorace, Richard (Guelph) — Verses.
Sosso, Lorenzo — "Poems of Humanity," "Wisdom of the Wise."
Southworth, May — Verses.
LITERARY CALIFORNIA 395
Spencer, Henry MacDonald — Verses.
Starr, Frank Rose — Verses.
Steele, J. D.— "Poems" (San Francisco, 1885).
Sterling, George — "The Testimony of the Suns," "House of Orchids,"
"The Messenger," etc.
Stewart, Hector A. — Verses.
Stewart, Marcus A. — (Sacramento.)
Stoddard, Charles Warren — "Poems Collected."
Sutherland, Howard V.— Poems, "Idylls of Greece," 1918.
Sumner, C. A. — Poems.
Sumner, S. B.— "Poems" New York, 1877).
Swain, Gertrude M. — "Early Poems" (San Francisco, 1887).
Talbot, Ethel— (See Scheffauer.)
Tarleton, Dick— Town Talk and Wasp), Verse.
Taylor, Edward Robeson — "In the Court of the Ages," "Lavender,"
"Into the Light," etc. (A. M. Robertson).
Taylor, Mart — Verse, Poems.
Thomson, Estelle — Verse, Poems.
Thorndyke, Mrs. E. P.— Verse.
Thorp, Jennie L. — (Healdsburg), "Poems."
Thorpe, Rose Hartwick — "Curfew Must Not Ring Tonight," etc.
Tobin, Agnes — Translation of Petrarch.
Toland, Mrs. M. B. M. — Illustrated books de luxe.
Todd, Mrs. W. P. (Alice Fiske)— Verses.
True, Eliot C.
Truesdell, Amelia Woodward — "Poems."
Tuomey, Honoria R. P. — Verses.
Tyler, Martha Trent — (Overland and other magazines), verses.
Urmy, Clarence W. — "A Rosary of Rhyme," "A California Troubadour,"
etc. (the first native of California to publish a book of poems).
Van Bibber (Oatman)— "The Flight Into Egypt and Other Poems"
(San Francisco, 1880).
Von Kirn, Camilla K. (Mrs. Hall-Wood)— "Sea Leaves" (Santa Bar-
bara, 1887).
Von Schroeder, Janet (see Marien) — "Sonnets."
Wagner, Madge Morris — "Liberty's Bell," "Debris," "The Lure of the
Desert."
Wagstaff, Colonel Denman S.— "The End of the Trail" (poems in
"Call," etc.)
Walter, Carrie Stevens — "Rose Ashes" (see Editors).
Washburn, Jean Bruce — "Yo Semite," 1871.
Watson, Irving S. — (Ontario.)
Waterhouse, A. J. — "Poems."
Webb, Charles Henry (John Paul)— "With Lead and Line" (Houghton..
Mifflin & Co.)
Webb, Louise H. — Verses in Magazines.
Weister, Mrs. W. H.— Verse.
Weller, Ella F.— "Nestlings, a Collection of Poems" (S. F., 1890).
Werner, Anna — Verse.
Wells, Amy L. — Magazine verse), Town Talk, etc.)
Westbrook, Marie K.— "A Collection of Verses," 1888; "The Two
Worlds" (Stockton, 1889).
Wheeler, Alfred— Verse.
396 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
Wright, Mrs. C. W. (Georgiana) — (Poet and Playwright.)
White, Richard Edward— "Poems," "Brother Felix/' etc.
Wiley, Alice Denison (Cactus).
Wilkinson, Marguerite — "Golden Songs of the Golden State" McClurg,
Chicago, 1917).
Williams, A.— "Fernwood Leaves," 1891.
Williams, Cora L. — "Involutions."
Willis, Mrs. Ambrose Madison — "Social Rubaiyat of a Bud" (Elder).
Willis, Frederick Milton— "The City of Is" (Mercury Press, S. F.)
Wilson, Elizabeth Sargent — (See Sargent.)
Wise, Lilian— "Three Jewels and Other Poems" (San Francisco, 1887).
Wood, Mrs. M. C. F.— "Poems" (Santa Barbara, 1903).
Woods, Maude Newton — Verse.
POETS REPRESENTED IN THE "CALIFORNIA POPPY," POEM
AND PROSE— COMPILATION BY EMORY A. SMITH
Allen, Charles H.; Brainerd, Maggie D.; Bruce, R. L. (Redlands); Car-
penter, Helen M. (Overland, 1894); Chase, Cora E.; Clarke, Ar-
thur F.; Cowan, Alice Gray; Featherstone, Gertrude D.; Gamier,
T. R.; Greene, Charles S.; Gregg, Charlotte; Hall, Sharlot M.;
Culver, M. E. ; Hanchett, Frank Pardee; Hare, Emma E.; Lom-
bard, Mary A.; Metcalfe, Sadie B.; Moody, Mrs. A. D. (San Jose).
WRITERS OF HISTORIES, ANTHOLOGIES, LEGENDS, AUTO-
BIOGRAPHIES AND BIOGRAPHIES, ETC.
Abbott, Carlisle S.— "Recollections of a California Pioneer" (Neale,
1917).
Aimard, Gustave— "The Gold Seekers," 1888.
Allen, Margaret V. — "Ramona's Home Land."
Alverson-Blake, Margaret — "Personal Reminiscences."
Arturo, Helen Elliott Bandini — "History of California."
Atwell, H. W. — "History of Woodland (with Sprague).
Austin, Mary — "California."
Badlam, Alexander — "Wonders of Alaska," 1891.
Bahler, J. F.— "Autobiography," 1889.
Bancroft, H. H.— "History of Pacific Coast."
Barra, Ezekiel I.— "A Tale of Two Oceans," 1893.
Barry, T. A. (with B. A. Patton) — "Men and Memories of San Fran-
cisco in 1850."
Bartlett, John Russell — "Personal Narrative."
Beasley, Thomas Dykes — "A Tramp Through the Bret Harte Country"
(Elder).
Bell, Major Horace — "Reminiscences of a Ranger," 1881.
Bennett, John E., L. L.B. — "The World Question and Its Answer"
(Menlo Pub. Co., San Francisco, 1918).
Benton, Rev. J. A. — "A California Pilgrim" (Sacramento, 1853).
Bledsoe, H. J.— "Indian Wars of the Northwest, 1849-'69," 1885.
Bosqui, Edward — "Reminiscences."
Bowers, Mrs. D. P. — "Reminiscences."
Bozenta, Countess (Modjeska) — "Reminiscences."
Bromley, George Tisdale — "The Long Ago and the Later On" (A. M.
Robertson, Pub.)
Browne, J. R. — "History and Sacrifice and Adventure." 1851-71.
LITERARY CALIFORNIA 397
Bryant, E.— "What I Saw in California" (New York, 1848; London,
1849).
Buffum, E. G.— "Six Months in Gold Mines" (Philadelphia, 1850).
Bunnell, L. H. — "Discovery of Yosemite, and Indian War of 1861"
(Chicago, 1880).
Butters, Harry, R. F. A.— "Lif e and Letters" (see O'Sullivan).
Burnett, Peter (Governor of California) — Political Books, and "Rec-
ord and Opinions of An Old Pioneer" (New York, 1880).
Canfield, Chauncey L.— "The Diary of a '49er," "City of Six," etc. (Chi-
cago, McClurg, 1910).
Carey— "California As It Is."
Carr, I. — "Pioneer Days in California."
Carr, Jeanne C. — "Basket Making Among the Indians."
Carr, Sarah Pratt— "The Iron Way" (see Authors).
Carter, Charles Franklin — "Missions of San Francisco," "Stories of the
Old Missions in California," "Some By-Ways of California" (Harr
Wagner Pub. Co., San Francisco.
Cary, J. H.— "Restoration of the Earth's Lost History" (anon.), 1868.
Chambliss, William H.— -"Society as I Found It."
Chase, J. Smeaton.
Chetwood, John — "Our Search for the Missing Millions of Cocos Is-
land," 1904.
Clapp, Louise — "The Shirley Letters," "Pioneer Days," Legends, etc.
Clark, Galen— "Yo Semite Lore."
Clark, Sterling B. F.— "Diary of a '49er" (Grizzly Bear Magazine).
Clemens, Will S.— "Life of Mark Twain," 1892.
Cole, Cornelius (U. S. Senator from California) — "California 350 Years
Ago"; also book of Reminiscences, 1908.
Colton, Rev. Walter— "Three Years in California," 1850.
Conklin — "Picturesque Arizona" (Frank Leslie's special correspondent,
1878).
Cowan, Robert Ernest — "Bibliography of the History of California and
the Pacific West, 1510-1906" (Newbegin).
Cozzens, Samuel Woodworth — "Crossing the Quicksands," 1905.
Cremony, Colonel John C. — "Life Among the Apaches."
Cronise, Titus Fay— "Natural Wealth of California" (Bancroft, 1868).
Cummins-Mighels, Ella Sterling — "Story of the Files: A Review of
California Writers and Literature, 1893.
Daggett, Hon. John — Reminiscences.
Dameron, J. P. — Autobiography and Writings.
Davis, C. C— "The True Story of Ramona."
Davis, William Heath — "Sixty Years in California."
Day, Mrs. Frank B.— "The Princess of Manoa," Folk-lore (Elder).
Dean, John M.— "Rainier of the Last Frontier" (Crowell, Pub., 1911).
Dillenbrough, F. S.— "Fremont and '49."
De Urculla, Don Jose — Full Description of California (text-book), (Mar-
vin & Hitchcock, 1852).
Dietrich, Dr.— "The German Emigrants" (translated by Leopold Wray).
Dinsmore, John Walker (Rev)— Author of "The Scotch-Irish in Amer-
ica."
Donner, C. W.— "Last Days of the Republic," 1880.
Dorsey, Geo. A., Ph.D.— "Indians of the Southwest" (pamphlet).
Duke, T. S.— "Celebrated Criminal Cases of America," 1910 (Barry,.
Publisher).
398 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
Dumbell, K. E. M.— "California and the Far West" (New York, Jos.
Pott & Co.)
Dunn, Allan — "Carefree San Francisco" (A. M. Robertson).
Dvinelle, C. — "Colonial History of San Francisco," 1863-67.
Edwords, Clarence — "Bohemian San Francisco" (Elder).
Eldredge, Zoeth Skinner — "Beginnings of San Francisco," "The March
of Portola."
Elder, Paul — "The Old Spanish Missions of California."
Farnham, T. J. — "Life and Adventures in California," 1847.
Faust, Karl Irving — "Campaigning in the Philippines" Hicks-Judd Co.,
Pub., 1890).
Filcher, Joseph Adams — "Untold Stories of California." 1903.
Fitzgerald, O. P.— "California Sketches" (Nashville, 1879-81).
Forbes, A. B. — History of California.
Forbes, Harrye Smith (Mrs. A. S. C.) — "The Missions of California."
Foote, Horace S. — Author of Santa Clara County.
Forgo, Dr. Wm.— "Forgo Guides."
Formes, Karl — Autobiography.
Foster, Julia B. (Kate Heath)— "Little Padres," etc.
Fraser, J. B. M.— History, 1881-'83.
Fremont, John C. (General) — Journal.
Garnett, Porter — "Stately Homes of California" (Little, Brown & Co.,
Boston).
Gleeson, Rev. W.— History, 1872-'83.
Glisam, R. — "Journal of Army Life in San Francisco." 1874.
Goodwin, Judge C. C— "As I Remember Them."
Graham, Mary — "California Missions," 1876.
Gray, J. M.
Gray, M. T.— "The Lure of San Francisco."
Greenway, Edward M. — First Blue Book of San Francisco, with a So-
cial History.
Grinnell, Joseph — "Nature and Science on the Pacific Coast" (Elder).
Guinn, J. M. — "History of the Coast Counties."
Hall, Frederic— "The Life of Maximilian," "The History of San Jese,"
and "Surroundings with Biographical Sketches of Early Set-
tlers," 1871.
Harris, W. B. — "Pioneer Life in California," 1884.
Heath, Kate— (See Julia Foster.)
Hittell, John S.— Publicist.
Hittell, Theodore H.— History of California.
Hopkins, Sarah Winnemucca — "Life Among the Piutes" Ed. by Mrs.
Horace Mann), (Boston, 1883).
Houghton, Eliza P. Donner — "The Expedition of the Donner Party"
(McClurg, Pub, Chicago, 1911).
Howe, T. H. — "Adventures of An Escaped Union Soldier" (pamp.), 1886.
Hughes, Mrs. Elizabeth— "The California of the Padres" (pamp.), 1875.
Hunsaker, W. J. — Introduction to Roderman's "Bench and Bar," 1909.
Hunter, G. — "Reminiscences of An Old-Timer" (San Francisco, 1887).
Hutchinson — "By-Ways Around San Francisco Bay."
Irwin, Will— "The City That Was."
Isaman, Sara (White)— "Tourist Tales of California," 1909.
LITERARY CALIFORNIA 399
James, George Wharton — "History and Literature of California" (sev-
eral volumes).
Jones, Judge Theodore Elden — "Leaves from An Argonaut's Note-
Book," 1905.
Judson, Katherine B. — "Myths and Legends of California" (McClurg,
Chicago).
King, Joseph — "History of the San Francisco Stock Board."
Kirby, Georgiana Bruce — "Years of Experience," "My Life in Cali-
fornia."
Kip, Lieut. Lawrence, U. S. N. — Journal.
Klopfer, E.— "Carrie's Letter to Her Emil," 1890.
Laub, Agnes — "The Highways and Byways of the Pacific Coast."
Leman, Walter — Reminiscences.
Likins, Mrs. J. W. — "Six Years a Book Agent."
Lloyd, B. E. — "Lights and Shades in San Francisco."
Lloyd, Robert— "The Treasure of Shag Rock," 1902.
Love, Mrs. L. C. — Letters of Travel (San Francisco, 1886).
O'Sullivan, Elizabeth Curtis — "Life and Letters of Harry Butters."
Mann, Mrs. Horace — (See Hopkins.)
Marshall, Dr. Benjamin — Sketches.
Matthews, W. M. — "Ten Years in Nevada."
Maybeck, Bernard R. — "Palace of Fire," "California"; Arts, a Mono-
graph (Elder).
Metlar, G. W.— History of Northern California (Yreka, 1856).
Miller, Mrs. Elizabeth Gore — "Romances of the California Mission
Days," 1905.
Miller, Fannie de C— "Snap Notes of An Eastern Trip" (S. F., 1892).
Munro-Fraser, J. P. — "History of Santa Clara County," 1881.
Moses, Professor Bernard — Economics.
Mulgardt, Louis Christian — "The Architecture and Landscape Garden-
ing of the Exposition" (Elder).
Murphy, Thcs. D. — "On Smooth Highways" (Page, Boston).
McCue, J. — "Twenty-one Years in California" (S. F., 1875; pamp...
McGowan, E. — Narrative (San Francisco, 1857).
Mclntire, John J.— "As I Saw It." 1902.
McKinley, Duncan E. — "Panama Canal."
Morrow, Judge William W. — "The Earthquake of April 18th: Personal
Experiences" (San Francisco, 1901).
Muir, John.
Nichols, Bishop.
Nisbet, James — "Annals of San Francisco."
Noll, A. H.— (See Barndon Wilson.)
Nordhoff, Charles — "Years in California."
Norton, Henry K. — "The Story of California."
Oatman Family — History of.
O'Meara, James— History, etc., 1881-1890.
Osbourne, Katherine Durham — "Stevenson in California."
Ott, Manford Allen— "Across the Plains in 1854" (Chase & Rae).
Palmer, John Waldemar — "Pioneer Days in California" see Century
Magazine for 1880).
400 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
Palou, F. — "Life of Juniperro Serra."
Parsons, George F.— "Life and Adventures of James Marshall," 1870;
"Middleground" (Sacramento, 1891).
Pelton, J. C— "Life's Sunbeams and Shadows," 1893.
Pennell, Joseph— "The City of the Golden Gate."
Potter, E. G.— "The Lure of San Francisco" (with M. T. Gray).
Powell, E. Alexander— "The End of the Trail."
Powell, J. J.— "The Golden State."
Powers, S. — "California Indian Legends."
Purdy, Helen Throop — "San Francisco as It Was" (Elder).
Reed, Thomas Harrison — "Form and Functions of American Govern-
ment."
Reeder, A. P.— "Around the Golden Deep," 1888.
Richman, Irving B. — "California Under Spain and Mexico" (Houghton,
Mifflin & McClurg).
Rideout, J. B. — "Camping Out in California."
Robinson, A.— "California, His Home," 1889; "Life in California" (New
York, 1846).
Rockwell, Dennis Hunt — "California the Golden" (history).
Robinson, Charles Mulford— "The Call of the City" (Elder).
Roderman, Willoughby — "History of the Bench and Bar" (Los Ange-
les, 1909).
Sanborn, Kate — "Unknown California."
Sanchez, Nellie Vandergrift — "Spanish and Indian Places and Names."
Sanford, F. R.— "The Bursting of a Boom" (Ventura, 1889).
Sawtelle, Mrs. M. P.— "Heroines of '49."
Sawyer, E. T— "Life of Tiburcio Vasquez" (San Jose, 1875).
Shafter, Judge Oscar Lovell — "Life and Letters" (edited by Flora
Haines Loughhead).
Sherman, Major Edwin P. — "Reminiscences: Admiral Sloat Memoir."
Simonds, William Day — "Starr King in California."
Shuck, Oscar C. — "Representative Men of the Pacific — A California
Anthology."
Sieghold, M. P.— "Old Mission Tales."
Smith, Bertha H.— "Yo Semite Legends" (Elder).
Smythe, William E. — History (San Diego).
Soule, Frank — "Annals of San Francisco" (in collab.)
Sprague, C. B. (with H. W. Atwell)— History of Woodland, 1870.
Spurr, George Graham— "A Fight with a Grizzly Bear," 1886; "The
Land of Gold," 1881.
Stephens, Prof. Henry Morse — "History of the San Francisco Earth-
quake" (edited by).
Stewart, W. F.— "Last of the Filibusters" (Sacramento, 1857).
Stiles— "New Footprints in Old Places" (Wilder, 1917).
Stillman, J. D. B.— "Seeking the Golden Fleece" (S. F., 1877).
Stratton, W. C— "The Oatman Children."
Swasey, Captain William F. — "Early Days and Men of California" (Oak-
land, 1891).
Tassie, James and William.
Taylor, Rev. W.— "California Life Illustrated" (New York, 1858);
"Seven Years Street Preaching in San Francisco," 1867.
Taylor, W. B.— "Old California Missions."
LITERARY CALIFORNIA 401
Thompson, R. A.— "Brief Description of Santa Rosa," 1854; "Sketch
of Sonoma County" (Philadelphia, 1877).
Tinkham, G. H.— "History of Stockton" (San Francisco, 1880).
Torrey, Bradford — "Field Days in California."
Truman, Ben C. — Reminiscences, etc.
Turrill, Charles B. — "Lectures on the Early Days."
Van Dyke, Theodore Strong— "Flirtation Camp," 1889 : "Rifle, Rod and
Gun."
Van Mehr, Rev. J. L.— "Checkered Life" (San Francisco, 1877).
Wagner, Harr — "Short Stories by California Writers," "Notable Speech-
es," "Pacific History Stories."
Wakeman, Captain Edgar — "Log of An Ancient Mariner" (S. F., 1878).
Walker, W.— "The War in Nicaragua" (Mobile, 1860.)
Watson, Mrs. Mary — "People I Have Met" (San Francisco, 1890).
Webster, Jonathan Vinton — "Two True California Stories," 1883.
Wheat, W. T.— "Pioneer Times in California" (San Francisco, 1881.
Whitney, Professor J. D. — "Scientific and Descriptive California."
Whitney, Joel Parker — "Reminiscences of a Sportsman."
Wierzbicki— "California As It Is" (S. F., 1849); "The Ideal Man"
(Boston, 1882).
Willard, Charles Dwight — "History of Los Angeles."
Willey, Rev. S. H.— "California's Transition Period."
Williams, A. — "A Pioneer Pastorate" (San Francisco, 1879).
Williams, C. E. — "History of Yuba and Sutter Counties."
Williams, John H. — "Yosemite and the High Sierras."
Wilson, Barndon (with A. H. Noll) — "In Quest of Aztec Treasure"
(Neall Press, San Francisco).
Wood, J. W.— "Pasadena" (Newbegin, Pub., 1918).
Woods, Samuel D. — "Lights and Shadows of Life on the Pacific Coast."
Woods, J.— "Record of Pioneer Work in California," 1878.
Woolley, Lell Hawley— "California 1849," 1913.
Young, John P. — "The History of San Francisco," etc.
Zepphyrin, Fr. — "Missions in California."
Zeigler, Wilbur Gleason— "The Disaster of 1906."
COMPILERS OF PROSE AND VERSE
Cubberley, Dr. E. P. — "Poems for Memorizing" (with Alice Power).
Cummins-Mighels, Ella Sterling — "Story of the Files of California;
Writers and Literature with Selections" (San Francisco, 1893).
Deming, Mrs. H. A. — "Admonitory Couplets."
Elder, Paul— "West Winds."
Gaines, Nettie Stewart — "Pathway to Western Literature" (Stockton).
Granice, Rowena (Steele) — "The Family Gem," 1856.
Haines, Jennie Day (Elder).
James, George Wharton— "The California Birthday Book," 1909 (Los
Angeles, Cal.)
Lawrence, Mary Viola Tingley — "Outcroppings."
Macdonald, Augustin G. — "Collection of Verse by California Poets."
MacKenzie, Isabel O. — Author of "A Classified List of Stories for Story-
Telling."
Power, Alice Rose — "Poems for Memorizing" (Harr Wagner Pub. Co.)
Russell, Edmund — "Readings from the California Poets."
Shuck, Oscar T. — "A California Anthology."
402 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
Smith, Emory E.— "Golden Poppy Verses" (Palo Alto, 1901).
Spinners' Club.
Steele — (See Granice.)
Wentworth, May— "Poetry of the Pacific."
Wilkinson, Marguerite — "Golden Songs of the Golden State."
"California the Beautiful" — A compilation of Western Artists and Au-
thors Elder, 1911).
Authors represented: Ina Coolbrith, Joaquin Miller, Bret Harte, Charles
Warren Stoddard, Madge Morris Wagner, Clarence Urmy, Ed-
ward Rowland Sill, Dan O'Connell, George Sterling, Frank Nor-
ris, Herbert Bashford, Gelett Burgess, Edward Robeson Taylor,
Howard V. Sutherland, Gertrude Atherton, Will Irwin, Porter
Garnett, John Muir, Lucius Harwood Foote, Helen Hunt Jack-
son, Lillian Sheehy, Charles Keeler, John Vance Cheney, and
others.
Writers (Stories) Appearing in "West Winds" — The Compilation by
Herman Whittaker, for Paul Elder
Frances Allen, Mrs. Carl Bank, Agnes Morley Cleveland, Hester A.
Dickman, Elizabeth Abbey Everett, Harriet Holmes Haslett,
Sarah Thurston Nott, Rebecca N. Porter, Elizabeth Griswold
Rowe.
Writers Appearing in "Short Stories by California Writers" — Pub-
lished by Harr Wagner of the Golden Era, 1885 — First
Collection of the Kind
William Atwell Cheney, Ella Sterling Cummins-Mighels, J. W. Gaily
W. S. Green, Mary Willis Glasscock, H. B. McDowell, Ben C.
Truman, Harr Wagner.
Writers Appearing in "Spinners* Book of Fiction" — Published by Paul
Elder
Gertrude Atherton, Mary Hutton, Geraldine Bonner, Mary Hollen
Foote, Eleanor Gates, James Hopper, Jack London, Bailey Mil-
lard, Miriam Michelson, W. C. Morrow, Frank Innis, Henry
Milner Rideout, Charles Warren Stoddard, Isabel Strong, Richard
Walton Tully, Herman Whittaker.
WRITERS ON NEWSPAPERS— SPECIAL AND REGULAR
STAFF
Allen, Ben S.— Now with Hoover (1918).
Amsden, Dora.
Avery, Fannie — (Golden Era.)
Bacon, Ralph.
Bacon, Thomas.
Baggerly, Hyland — (Bulletin and San Jose News.)
Bancroft, Alberta— (The Wave.)
Barendt, Arthur H. — (Chronicle.)
Bartlett, Josephine — (Bulletin.)
Bartlett, Raymond.
Bassett, J. M.— (Golden Era.)
Bausman, Adelaide J. Holmes — (Argonaut.)
LITERARY CALIFORNIA 403
Beatty, Bessie — (Bulletin); author "Political Pioneer."
Belloc, Mrs. Hilaire (Elodie Hogan).
Benjamin, Ben — (Chronicle.)
Bennett, Elsie— (Shiels.)
Bien.
Bidwell, Annie E. K.
Bigelow, Henry Derby— (The Wave.)
Black, Orlow — (Bulletin, Examiner, News Letter, Overland.)
Bonfils, Mrs. Charles (Annie Laurie, Winifred Sweet) — Hearst papers.
Bonnet, Theodore — (Daily Report, Examiner) (see Authors).
Booth, James P. — (Daily Report.)
Bolce, Harold — (Examiner.)
Bonnet, Theodore — Daily Report, Examiner; see Authors).
Bornemann, Mrs. (Oraquill).
Boston, Bessie.
Bower — (See Sinclair.)
Bowman, James.
Bowman, Mrs. James (Fanny) — (See Authors.)
Brady, Patsy— (The Wave.)
Brannan, Sophie.
Brastow, Virginia.
Brastow, Wanda (Henrici).
Brooke, Mary (Calkins).
Brown, Watt L. — (Call, Examiner.)
Burke, Hugh M.— (Call.)
Bryan, Linda Hoag (Mrs. Prentis Cobb Hale) — (Examiner.)
Brough, Mrs. N. (Helen Dare) — (Chronicle.)
Cahill, Edward F.— (Stockton Record and S. F. Call.)
Campbell, Kenneth.
Carpenter, L. Grant — (S. F. Post) (see Playwrights).
Cassell, Joseph B.
Chamberlain, Elizabeth Wright (Topsy Turvy) — (Sunday Mercury, Gol-
den Era.)
Chamberlain, S. S. — (Hearst papers.)
Clare, Ada — (Golden Era.)
Clarke, Mrs. C. O. (Elizabeth McCall)— (Town Talk.)
Clough, E. H. — (Examiner, Oakland Tribune, Town Talk.)
Connell, Sarah— (Town Talk.)
Connor, Torrey — (Oakland.)
Coffin, Dr. Caroline Cook — (S. F. Examiner.)
Corcoran, May S.
Corlett, Mrs. Theresa Viola (Silver Pen)— (News Letter.)
Cowles, Paul — (Associated Press.)
Cremony, Col. John C. — (See Authors.)
Critcher, Edward Payson — (Now Chicago Herald.)
Crondace, Lenore.
Croyland, J. — (Examiner.)
Cullinan, Eustace — (Bulletin.)
Cunningham, Carrie — (Examiner.)
Darragh, Mrs. Marshall (Marie Walton) — (Chronicle.)
Davenport, R. B.
Davids, Harry— (Call, Wasp.)
Davidson, Marie Hicks.
404 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
Davison, Mary Dement E. D.
Davis, L. Clare— (Stockton Mail.)
Dean, Constance Lawrence — (Examiner.)
De Quille, Dan de— (See Wright.)
Deering, Mabel Clare Craft — (Chronicle.)
Dement, Edward D. — (Early-day writer.)
Dexter, Jennie Buckland Coulter.
Dillon, Gerald — (Press agent.)
Dore, Benjamin.
Douglas, George — (Wave.)
Douglas, George — (Chronicle.)
Douglas, Mrs. A. F.
Dow, Jr. — (See Paide.)
Doyle, Grace.
Doyle, Margaret — (Call.)
Dunigan, John S. — (Bulletin.)
Dutton, Arthur H.— (Call, News Letter, Wasp.)
Dutton, Nevada Hess— (Call.)
Eccles, Alice— (Call, Oakland Tribune.)
Emerson, Edwin.
Enderline, Mrs.
Ervin, Mabel (Herrick) — (Chronicle.)
Evans Albert S.
Evans, Taliesen — (Chronicle, Oakland Tribune.)
Fallon, Anita.
Ferguson, Lillian — (Wasp, Town Talk, Examinei ; see Poets and
Editors.)
Fernbach, O. H.— (Call)
Fourgeaud, Dr. Victor — (Pioneer S. F. "Star."(
Francis, Phil — (Stockton, San Francisco Call.)
Fraser, Isabel — (Examiner, "Cholly Francisco".)
Fulton, Frances G.
Gibson, Mrs. Ellen (Olive Harper) — (Alta California.)
Gibson, Richard— (Town Talk.)
Gilmour, John Hamilton — (News Letter, Fresno Herald.)
Goodrich — (Alta California.)
Goodman, Minnie Buchanan Unger — (News Letter, Chronicle.)
Greathouse, Clarence — (See Editors.)
Green, Luella (Haxton) — (Examiner.)
Green, Luella (Harton) — (Examiner.)
Gregory, Elizabeth Hiatt— (Bulletin, Wasp, later N. Y. Sim.)
Hagar (Jeanette H. Phelps)— (Golden Era.)
Hale — (See Bryan.)
Hall, Blakely — (Flaneur of Argonaut.)
Hamilton, Edward H. — (Examiner.)
Harcourt, Penn.
Harper, Olive — (See Gibson, Durrill, d'Apery.)
Hart, Mary E. — (Special Alaskan writer.)
Hastings, Philip — (Press agent.)
Hatton, George F.
Haxton, H.
LITERARY CALIFORNIA 405
Heazleton, George— (S. F. Post.)
Hudson, Horace R. — (S. F. Chronicle.)
Hefron, Nevada — (S. F. Examiner.)
Henry, Marcus M. — (Press agent.)
Heron, Herbert.
Hess, Pauline.
Hess, Seline.
High, Gavin— (S. F. Report.)
Hillyer, Curtis— (S. F. Wave.)
Hull, Grace.
Inkersley, Arthur — (S. F. News Letter.)
Irwin, J. N. H.— (S. F. Call and Examiner.)
Irwin, Wallace — (See Authors.)
Irwin, Will — (See Authors.)
Jacobson, Pauline — (S. F. Bulletin.)
Johnston, George Pen.
Joliffe, Frances — (Bulletin.)
Joy, Al C— (S. F. Examiner.)
Keith, Eliza D.— ("Di Vernon" of S. F. News Letter; also Examiner.)
Kelly, Allan — (Examiner.)
Kerr, Orphus C.
King, Fay — (Examiner.)
Kip, Leonard.
Kirby, Georgiana Bruce.
Knight, "Ned"— (Old-time writer.)
Krebs, Mrs. Abbie.
Lake, Annie — (See Townsend.)
Lake, Helen — (The Argonaut.)
Laurie, Annie — (See Bonfils.)
Lasswell, William — (The Grizzly Bear.)
Lathrop, John— (S. F. Call.)
Lawrence, Andrew — (Examiner.)
Leake, W. S.— (Call.)
Levy, Louis.
Lewis, Mrs. Eugene C. (Grange).
Littleton, Lulu — (Golden Era, San Franciscan.)
Loose, M. — (Wasp, Music and Drama.)
Ludlow, Fitzhugh .
McCall, Elizabeth (Clarke)— (Town Talk, Sacramento and Dunsmuir
papers.)
McComas, Alice Moore.
McGeehan, Sophie Treadwell — (Bulletin.)
McGeehan, W. O.— (Chronicle.)
McGovern, Chauncey — (Special correspondent.)
McNaught, John— (Call.)
McQuillan, James.
Mackay, Robert Gray — (Chronicle. Wasp; now in New York.)
Manning, Horatio Seymour.
Marshall, Margaret Mooers.
406 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
Martin, Josephine.
Masters, Stuart G.
Meagher, Maude.
Melone, Locke.
Meloney, William Brown — (Bulletin; see Authors.)
Michelson, Albert.
Michelson, Charles — (Examiner.)
Miller, Mary Ashe — (Call.)
Milne, Robert Duncan — (Argonaut, etc.)
Moore, Asro J. — (Call.)
Moran, Edward F. — (Chronicle.)
Murphy, Ed. — (Chronicle.)
Murphy, Al — (Chronicle.)
Myrtle, Frederick C— (Call.)
Naughton, William.
Noble, Frank L. H. — (Hearst papers.)
North-Whitcomb, Emmeline — (Chronicle, Call.)
Nunan, Thomas — (Examiner)
O'Day, Edward F.— (Town Talk.)
Oraquill — (See Bornemann.)
Paide, E. G. (Dow Jr.)
Parkhurst, Emelie Tracy Y. Swett — (Founder Woman's Press Ass'n.)
Parkhurst, Genevieve Yoell (Jean Yoell) — (Call.)
Petroff, Ivan — Also Historian of Alaska and California.
Peyton, M. G.
Phelps, Mrs. Janette (Hagar)— (Golden Era.)
Poehlmann, H. E. — (Grizzly Bear.)
Pollard, Percival.
Powers, Laura Bride — (Story of the Missions.)
Pratt, Anna — (See Simpson.)
Price, Arthur C. — (S. F. Examiner.)
Quimby, Harriet — (Later aviatrice.)
Radcliffe, Zoe.
Reamer, Sara E. — (Magazines.)
Rix, Alice — (Examiner; see Editors.)
Roberts, Jessie.
Robinson, Francis R.
Russell, Hortense Steinhart — (Bulletin.)
Stover, Edmund — (Associated Press.)
Saunders, Charles Francis.
Seabough, Samuel.
Scarlet, Will (pseud, of Brother Leo.)
Scott, Harvey W. — (Oregonian.)
Severance, Mrs. Caroline M.
Shiels (Elsie Bennett).
Simpson, Anna Pratt — (Chronicle.)
Simpson, Ernest — (See Editors.)
Spencer, Belle.
Steele, James King.
LITERARY CALIFORNIA 407
Stock, Ernest— (Call.)
Stover, L. Edmund — (Associated Press.)
Strong, Elizabeth (Young).
Strong, Ralph — (Los Angeles Capital.)
Sully, Harold L.
Sutherland, S. F.— (Daily Report.)
Topsy Turvy (Chamberlain Wright) — (Golden Era.)
Torrey, Bradford,
Townsend, Annie Lake — (Argonaut.)
Treadwell, Sophie (McGeehan)— (Bulletin.)
Trevathan, Charles.
Truman, Maj. Ben C.
Tufts, Edmund— Call, Chronicle.)
Van Loan, Charles E. — (Hearst papers; see Authors.)
Van Norden, Charles.
Van Smith, George— (Call.)
Veiller, Bayard — (See Dramatists.)
Veiller, Louise — (Call.)
Verdenal, Dominic F. — (For many years Chronicle N. Y. correspondent.)
Vivian, Thomas J. — (Chronicle; see Novelists.)
Wagner, Madge Morris — (Golden Era.)
Wakeman, Edgar.
Warren, Col. J. L. S. F.— (California Farmer.)
Waters, Kate — (News Letter.)
Weick, Louise — (Examiner.)
Weigle, Gilbert — (Examiner.)
Weymouth, William J. — (Call, News Letter, Argonaut.)
Whitcomb, Emmeline North — (Chronicle. Call.)
White, Lucy (Schiller)— (Bulletin.)
White, N. E.
Wilde, Annie— (Chronicle, Call-Post.)
Wilkins, James H.— (Bulletin.)
Williams, T. T— (Examiner and Hearst papers.)
Williamson, David E. W. — (Examiner, Daily Report, now managing
editor Reno Gazette.)
Williamson, Sarah M.— Town Talk, Call, Wasp.)
Willis, William — (Sacramento.)
Wilson, H. L.
Winchell, Anna Cora — (Chronicle.)
Wood, Fremont.
Woodson, J. A. — (Veteran journalist, Sacramento Union.)
Wright, Ben C— (Bulletin.)
Wright, William (Dan de Quille) — (The Enterprise.)
Wishear, John H.— (Call-Post: see Authors.)
Wollenberg, E. (Mrs. Orlow Black).
Yale, Charles G.
Yelverton, T.
Yorker, Eva — (See Authors.)
Yoell, Alice— (Wasp.)
Young, Waldemar — CSee Playrights.)
Young, Waldemar — ("See Strong.)
408 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
Zeelandaer, A.
Zeigenfuss, G. C. — Chronicle, San Diego Bee, etc.)
WAR CORRESPONDENTS
Archibald, James F. C. — (Spanish-American War.
Barry, Richard Hayes — (Spanish-American War; see Authors.)
Clough, E. H. — (Spanish-American War; see Authors.)
Egan, Martin — (Spanish-American War; see Authors.)
Hopper, James— (World's War, 1917-1918.)
Irwin, Will— ("Ace" in World's War, 1917-1918.)
London, Jack — (Spanish-American War; see Authors.)
Timmons, Joseph — (World's War.)
Wallace, Grant — (Spanish-American War.)
PLAYWRIGHTS, OPERA-LIBRETTISTS, ETC.
Baker, Colgate; Bascombe, Lee (see Marston) ; Barnes, W. H. L., "Solid
Silver"; Bashford, Herbert, "A Light- in the Dark," "The
Woman He Married"; Belasco, David, "Mayblossom," "The
Girl I Left Behind Me," "Du Barry," etc.; Bien, Herman, "Samson
and Delilah," 1860; Blinn, Holbrook, playlets; Bonner, Geraldine
(with Elmer Harris), "Sham"; Bonnet, Theodore, "A Friend of the
People"; Brusie, Judson C; Bryant, Charles Francis; Carpenter,
L. Grant (see Writers) ; Clements, Clay M., "Just Woman" ; Cole-
man, Lotta Day; Cosgrave, Patricia; Dam, Henry J. W.; Elkins,
Felton; Fernald, Chester Bailey, "The Cat and the Cherub"; Field,
Edward Salisbury, "Child Harold"; Greene, Clay M., "Chispa, etc.;
Grismer, Joseph R., "The New South," etc.; Harris, Elmer (with
Geraldine Bonner), "Sham," etc.; Harrison, William Greer, "Run-
nymeade," "The O'Neill," etc.; Harte, Bret, "Sue," "M'liss,", etc.;
Irwin, Grace Luce, "Drawing Room Plays;" Kenyon, Charles,
"Kindling;" Krutchkey, Emil (William Nigh), Scenarios, New
York; McGroarty, John, Mission plays at Santa Clara College;
Marston, Mrs. Ada Swazey (Lee Bascom); Meloney, Wiliam
Brown; Merle, Martin V., "The Mission Play," etc.; Mighels, Ella
Sterling, "The Streets of Old San Francisco;" Mizner, Wilson,
"The Deep Purple;" Morosco, Oliver; Morse, Salmi, "The Passion
Play;" Morton, Howard, Playlets; Newberry, Bertha, and Newberry,
Perry, Carmel Outdoor Plays; Nunes, J. A., 1858; Pacheco, Mrs. R.,
"Incog," etc.; Pettus, Maude, Scenarios, Fresno; Powers, Francis,
"The First Born," etc.; Samuels, Maurice V., "The Florentines,"
"The Wanderer" (see Poets); Sinclair, Upton; Smith, Margaret
Cameron; Smith, Rev. Paul, "The Finger of Justice;" Steele, Rufus,
Scenarios; Taylor, Howard P., "Snowflake," etc. ; Thompson, Char-
lotte, Plays and Dramatization of Novels; Tully, Eleanor Gates,
"The Poor Little Rich Girl;" Tully, Richard Walton, "Rose of the
Rancho," "The Bird of Paradise," etc.; Ulrich, Charles; Unger,
Gladys, "Incompetent George," "Sheridan," etc.; Veiller, Bayard,
'Within the Law," etc.; Verdenal, Mrs. D. F. (Shannon), "The
Laughing Girls;" Welcker, Adair, of Sacramento, dramas, 1885;
White, Richard C, "She," for the old Tivoli, and other plays;
Wilbur, Crane, "Common Cause;" Winchell, Lilbourne C., Pageant
Play; Young, Waldemar.
LITERARY CALIFORNIA 409
LIST OF GROVE PLAYS OF BOHEMIAN CLUB, WITH THEIR
AUTHORS AND COMPOSERS
1902— "The Man in the Forest," by Charles K. Field; Music byjoseph
D. Redding. (This play was not previously printed, and all manu-
script copies were destroyed in the disaster of 1906.) 1903 — "Monte-
zuma," by Louis A. Robertson; Music by Humphrey J. Stewart.
1904— "The Hamadryads, by Will Irwin; Music by W. J. McCoy;
1905 — "The Quest of the Gorgon," by Newton Tharp; Music by
Theodor Vogt. 1906— "The Owl and Care," by Charles K. Field;
Music by Humphrey J. Stewart. 1907 — "The Triumph of Bo-
hemia," by George Sterling; Music by Edward F. Schneider. 1908 —
"The Sons of Baldur," by Herman Scheffauer; Music by Arthur
Weiss. 1909 — "St. Patrick at Tara," by H. Morse Stephens; Music
by Wallace A. Sabin. 1910— "The Cave Man," by Charles K. Field;
Music by W. J. McCoy. 1911— "The Green Knight," by Porter
Garnett; Music by Edward G. Stridden. 1912— "The Atonement of
Pan," by Joseph D. Redding; Music by Henry Hadley. 1913 —
"The Fall of Ug," by Rufus Steele; Music by Herman Perlet.
1914 — "Xec-Natama," by J. Wilson Shiels; Music by Uda Waldrop.
1915— "Apollo," by Frank Pixley; Music by Edward F. Schneider.
1916— "Gold," by Frederick S. Myrtle; Music by Humphrey J.
Stewart. 1917 — "The Land of Happiness," by Charles Templeton
Crocker; Music by Joseph D. Redding. 1918— "The Twilight of the
Kings," by Richard M. Hotaling; Music by Wallace A. Sabin.
OPERA LIBRETTISTS, BALLAD WRITERS, OPERETTA
LIBRETTISTS, ETC.
Baldwin, Anita (McClaughrey) ; Barton, Willard T., "Razzle Dazzle
Trio," "The Wild Man of Borneo," etc.; Bond, Carrie Jacobs, "A
Perfect Day," etc.; Booth, Sam; Brugiere, Emil; Carr, Sarah Pratt,
"Narcissa;" Carrington, Otis; Crawford, Dorothy; Crowley, Alma A.;
Darling, Major J. F. (August Mignon); De Leon, Walter; De Long,
George; Douglas, Mrs. Jesse (see Roma); Edwards, Ariadne
Holmes, Placerville, New York, Philadelphia: France, Leila (Mrs.
McDermott) ; Frankenstein, A. F., "I Love You California." song
made famous by Mary Garden; Hadley, Henry; Howard, Shafter;
Irwin, Wallace; Jones, Abbie Gerrish (Genung), Songs, Lyrics;
Massett, Stephen, Pipes; McCurrie, Charles, Songs for Children:
Melvin, Judge Henry; Mighels, Ella Sterling, Ballad "California,"
both Words and Music (sung by the Charlie Reed Minstrels, 1884) :
Moore, Mary Carr (Mignon, August), (see Darling); Morgan, Dr.
Geo. F. G.; O'Connell, Dan; O'Sullivan, Elizabeth Curtis; Pasmore,
Henry B.; Reed, Charlie (Minstrel) ; Redding, Jos. D. (first native to
have a grand opera produced by a metropolitan company of artists),
"Natoma;" Robertson, Peter, "His Majesty;" Roma, Caro (Northey-
Douglas), "Violets," "My Heart Loves You Too," etc.; Rosewald,
J. H.; Shiels, J.Wilson; Stewart, Humphrey J., "Yosemite Legends;"
Talbot, Ethel (Scheffauer); Trevathan, Charles "The New Bully,"
a popular song; Travis, Mrs. W. E. (see Zenda) ; Troyer, Carlos,
Indian Songs; Walling, John C. : Weil, Oscar; White, R. C; Wil-
son, John Cm Work, Henry Clay, "Marching Through Georgia."
also "Crossing the Grand Sierras," in 1870; Zenda, Lawrence (see
Travis).
410 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
WRITERS OF SHORT STORIES IN MAGAZINES, ETC.
Anderson, Olive, Santa Louise, Sacramento, 1866; Addis, Yda, Argo-
naut (see Storke); Bailey, Grace (John Roberts); Beatty, Bessie,
The Century, etc.; Bigler, Mabel Rice, Overland; Black, Orlow;
Borden, Sheldon, Argonaut, Wasp (San Francisco); Briggs, W.
Kimball; Bull, Mrs. Jerome Case (Kathryn Jarboe); Cameron,
Margaret (Smith), The Dolliver Stories; Carpenter, L. Grant; Car-
rington, Carroll; Chappel, Eva; Chard, Cecil (Julie Heynemann),
(see Authors), Harper's, Smart Set, London Magazines; Comstock,
Sarah (see Authors), Colliers, etc.; Connell, Mary Irene, Town
Talk, etc. ; Cummins-Mighels, Ella Sterling, San Franciscan, Ar-
gonaut, Golden Era; Deering, Mabel Clare Craft, Chronicle, Good
Housekeeping, Atlantic Monthly, etc.; Delano, A. (Old Block);
Dillon, Henry Clay; Dobie, Charles Caldwell; Donavan, Ellen;
Dryden, Charles, Saturday Evening Post, etc; Embree, Charles
Fleming, Sunset, Saturday Evening Post, etc.; Fremont, Jessie
Benton; Fulloni, Mrs. G. (Marta McKim); Gardner, Sophie Skid-
more; Gray, Eunice T; Heron, Herbert (Carmel group of writers);
Heynemann, Julie (Cecil Chard); Heynemann, Otto H. (Ogden
Lees); Hopper, James, Hearst Magazine, Saturday Evening Post;
Irwin, Wallace, Saturday Evening Post; Irwin, Will; Jarboe,
Kathryn (see Bull), Munsey; Jones, Nina; Kyne, Peter B., Saturday
Evening Post, Red Book, Sunset, etc.; Lake, Helen, San Francisco
Argonaut; Lindley, Leila; Lockyer, J. Norman, Sunset; Ludlum,
Evelyn, Sunset; Loughhead, Flora Haines (Guitterez); McDowell,
Henry B. (see Editors); McGeehan, W. O., Chronicle, San Fran-
cisco Town Talk, etc.; Meloney, William Brown, Saturday Evening
Post, Munsey, etc.; Michelson, Charles, Hearst papers; Michelson,
Miriam, Magazines; Mighels (see Cummins), San Franciscan,
Golden Era, etc.; Mighels, Philip Verrill, Harper's, Munsey, etc.;
Miller, Florence Hardiman, Magazines; Moore, Dorothea Lummis;
Morrow, W. C, Argonaut, Magazine and in Book Collection;
Munson, Edward (Railway Stories) ; Murphy, Anna C; McKim
(see Fulloni); McNab, Leavenworth, San Francisco Town Talk,
etc.;Neidig, W. J., Saturday Evening Post; Norris, Kathryn Thomp-
son, Good Housekeeping, Saturday Evening Post, etc; Old Block
(see Delano); Patton, Martha Tustin; Pettus, Maude, Fresno,
Magazines; Porter, Rebecca A. N., Berkeley; Reed, Ethelyn
Reese, Lowell Otis (also Poet), Saturday Evening Post, etc.;
Roberts, John (see Bailey), San Francisco Town Talk, New York
Magazines; Savage, Lyttelton; Sexton, Ella M., Magazines (see
Poets); Shinn, Charles H., Oakland Times, Magazines, etc.; Shinn,
Millicent, Magazines; Steele, Rufus, Sunset, Saturday Evening Post,
etc.; Stellman, Louis J., Magazines; Stocker, Ruth, Munsey, etc.;
Storke, Yda Addis (see Addis); Taaffe, William, San Francisco
Town Talk, etc.; Tompkins, Elizabeth Knight, Magazines; Tomp-
kins, Juliet Wilbor, Everybody's, etc.; Tully, Richard Walton;
Turner, Ethel; Van Loan, Charles Emmett, Saturday Evening
Post, Papers, etc.; Vore, Elizabeth; Wagner, Harr, Golden Era;
Wagner, Madge Morris; Watson, Douglas S., Redwood City, Maga-'
zines; White, Laura Lyon (Mrs. Lovell White), Overland Monthly;
Williams, Michael, Magazines, Novel; Williamson, Sarah M. (Anne
Thurber), San Francisco Town Talk and Daily Papers, St. Louis
Mirror, Boston Courier, etc.; Willis, George Emerson (Mining
Camp Tales); Wilson, John Fleming, Saturday Evening Post, Sun-
set, etc; Wood, Fremont, Magazines.
LITERARY CALIFORNIA 411
CRITICS AND REVIEWERS
Anthony, Walter (Drama and Music), San Francisco Call; Austin, Mary
Therese (Betsy B.), San Francisco Argonaut; Barnes, George
(Drama and Music), San Francisco Call; Bauer, Emelie Frances
(Music), New York Musical Courier; Bunker, Mrs. William M.
(Drama), San Francisco Report; Chretien, Adele Brooks (Drama
and Music), San Francisco Examiner; Bunner, Marion (Music),
"Chic;" Buckbee, Edna Bryan (Books), San Francisco Bulletin;
Connell, Sarah (Books), San Francisco Town Talk; Conners,
Mollie E. (Books), Oakland Tribune; Cool, Una (Mrs. Russell),
(Books), San Francisco Call; Densmore, Gilbert B., (Drama and
Music), San Francisco Bulletin; Donovan, Ellen Dwyer (Art);
Fitch, George Hamlin (Books), Chronicle (see Authors); Francis,
Mary F. (Music), San Francisco Town Talk; Jones, Abbie Gerrish
(Music), San Francisco Town Talk; Martin, Lesley (Music), San
Francisco Wave; Mason, Redfern (Music), San Francisco Exam-
iner; Metzger, Albert (Music); Nunan, Thomas (also Poet), San
Francisco Examiner: Partington, Blanche (Music and Drama, San
Francisco Call; Phelps, Josephine Hart (Music and Drama), San
Francisco Argonaut ; Rix, Alice, San Francisco Examiner and
Chic; Robertson, Peter (Music and Drama), (see Authors), San
Francisco Chronicle; Spencer, Henry McDonald (Drama), San
Francisco News Letter; Stephens, Anna Cox (Books), San Fran-
cisco Town Talk; Stevens, Ashton (Music and Drama), Hearst Pa-
pers; Stewart, H. J., San Francisco Examiner; Stewart, Dr. H. J.;
Syle, L. Du Pont (Music and Drama), San Francisco Examiner
Music; Taubles, Maximilian, San Francisco Argonaut; Wilder,
David (Music and Drama), San Francisco Report and News Letter;
Winchell, Anna Cora (Art-Music), San Francisco Chronicle.
ORATORS, DIVINES AND SPEAKERS CONNECTED WITH
LAW, POLITICS OR SOCIAL MATTERS
Aked, Rev. Charles (Congregationalist) ; Alemany, Rev. Father Joseph
Sadoc (Archbishop); Barnes, General W. H. L., "Addresses;"
Barnes, W. H. (son of above); Barrett, J. J.; Blinn, Nellie Hol-
brook; Boalt, Judge John H.; Booth, Hon. Newton (Governor of
California) ; Bromley, George Tisdale (see Authors) ; Brown, Rev.
C. O. (Congregationalist); Buckbee, Rev. Charles Alva (also Ed-
itor) ; Burdette, Rev. Robert (also noted humorist and writer) ;
Burlingame, Rev. George C. (Baptist); Caminetti, Hon. A. (Polit-
ical); Clampett, Rev. (Episcopalian); Cummins, Adley H. (see Es-
sayist); Curtin, J. B. (Sonora); Davis, Judge J. F. (see Authors);
Delmas, Delphin Michel, Speeches" (A. M. Robertson, Pub.) : Deu-
prey, Eugene; Dille, Rev. Dr. (Methodist); Dooling, Judge M. T.;
Doyle, John T.; Dwinel, Rev. Israel (early divine of Sacramento):
Edgerton, Henry; Fairbrother, Mary; Field, Judge S. J.; Fitch,
Thomas (the "silver-tongued orator" of early days) ; Foltz, Clara
Shortridge; Foote, William W.; Fowler, Bishop (Methodist);
Frank, Ray; Fry, Rev. John A. B. (Berkeley): Gillett, James Mor-
ris (ex-Governor) ; Gordon, Laura de Force; Gorham, Senator
George C; Graham, Judge Thomas; Guard, Reverend Thomas;
Gwin, William M.; Hager, Senator John S.; Hemphill, Rever-
end John (Presbyterian; Heney, Francis; Henry, Rev. J. Q. A.
(Baptist); Hartranft, W. G. (Literary and Educational Topics);
412 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
Highton, Henry E.; Kahn, Hon. Julius (Congressman); Kalloch,
Rev. Dr. Isaac (Baptist); Kearney, Dennis; King, Rev. Thomas
Starr (Unitarian); Kip, Right Rev. Bishop W. I. (Episcopalian);
Knight, George A.; Knowland, Hon. Joseph; Lane, Hon. Franklin
K. (President Wilson's cabinet, 1918); Latham, Milton (Senator);
Leavitt, Rev. Bradford (Unitarian); Levy, Rev. M. S. (also Editor);
Low, J. F. (Governor of California); McEnerney, Garret W.; Me-
lone, Drury; Meyer, Rev. Martin (Temple Emanu-El; Montgom-
ery, Rev. Father (Paulist Church); Morrow, Judge W. W.; Mur-
dock, Charles A. (also Editor); McAllister, Hall (Statue in Civic
Center); McKenzie, Rev. Dr. Robert (Presbyterian); Nichols, Rev.
William Ford (Bishop, Episcopalian); Peixotto, Jassica (see Edu-
cators); Phelan, James Duval (U. S. Senator); Pickett, C. E.; Piatt,
Rev. Dr. (sermons published), (Episcopalian); Piatt, Horace G
(son of above), "Speeches" (A. M. Robertson, Pub.); Prendergast,
Rev. Father; Rader, Rev. William (Congregationalist-Presbyterian);
Ramm, Rev. Father; Redding, Benjamin Barnard (Secretary of
State of California); Reddy, Patrick; Rowell, Hon. Chester; Sar-
gent, A. A. (U. S. Senator); Sawtelle, Rev. H. A. (Presbyterian);
Scott, Irving M. (builder of warships, scholar and statesman);
Scott, Rev. Dr. (Presbyterian); Serra, Fra Junipero; Shortridge,
Samuel M.; Stanford, Leland (U. S. Senator); Stebbins, Rev. Ho-
ratio (Unitarian); Stevens, Emily Pitt; Stone, Rev. Dr. W. W.
(Congregationalist); Sumner, Charles A.; Swift, John F.; Terry,
Judge; Voorsanger, Rabbi Jacob (Temple Emanu-El); Wagner,
Harr, 'Uncle Sam, Jr."; Wendte, Rev. C. W. (Unitarian) ; Wheeler,
Rev. Osgood C; White, Hon. Stephen M. (orator and statesman,
first Native Son to represent California in the U. S. Senate and
first one to have statue-monument erected to his memory); Wilson,
J. Stitt (Berkeley) (Political); Yorke, Rev. Father P. C.
EDITORS, PUBLISHERS AND OWNERS OF NEWSPAPERS
AND MAGAZINES
Adams, Walter (Golden Era); Aiken, Charles S. (Sunset); Anthony,
James (Sacramento Union); Avery, Benjamin P. (Overland, and
poet); Backus, Gen.' Samuel W. (Alta) ; Bamber, Jas. J.; Barry,
J. H. (The Star) ; Bausman, Wm. (Sacramento Union, also poet) ;
Beringer, Pierre (Overland, also short stories); Black, Orlow,
Overland and News Letter); Bonnet, Theodore F. (Town Talk,
The Lantern), (see Authors) ; Brannan, Samuel (first owner of old
San Francisco Star) ; Bryan, William Vose (The Traveller) ; Bull,
Jerome Case (Munsey); Bunker, William M. (Daily Report); Cal-
kins, Willard (syndicate and chain of papers) ; Carleton, S. B.
(founder of the West End, later Town Talk, also The Sentinel,
fraternal organ; Carmany, John H. (Overland); Coffin, Lillian
Harris; Coleman, James V. (see Poets) ; Cosgrave, J. O'H. (The
Wave); Craig, Mary Lynde Hoffman; Daggett, John; Dargie,
Thomas and William (Oakland Tribune) ; Davis, Robert H. C. (S.
F. "Chic" and Munsey); Davis, S. P. (Carson Appeal); Davoust,
Martial (Wasp); Day, Mrs. F. H. (The Hesperian); De Jarnette,
De Young, Charles the Elder; De Young, Charles the Young-
er); De Young, Michael Henry; Dosch, Arno (Pacific Monthly);
Dutton, Arthur H.; Eastman, Francis; Emerson, Edwin; Farrell,
Charles H. (Dramatic Review) ; Fee, Harry T. (Stockton) ; Fen-
LITERARY CALIFORNIA 413
ton (Los Angeles Graphic); Ferguson, Lillian (Plunkett), (Sun-
set); Field, Charles K. (Sunset); Fitch, George K. (Bulletin);
Flynn, Thomas E. (Wasp and Chronicle); Foard, J. Macdonough
(Golden Era) ; Francoeur, Jeanne (Everywoman) ; Gates, Harry
(Music and Drama); Goodman, Joseph T. (Virginia Enterprise and
The San Franciscan); Goodwin, Judge C. C. (Goodwin's Weekly);
Greathouse, Clarence (Alta); Greene, Charles H. (Overland); Har-
ker, Chas. H. (San Jose); Harrison, William Pitt (San Franciscan);
Hart, Jerome A. (Argonaut) (see Authors) ; Hearst, George (Ex-
aminer, U. S. Senator); Hearst, William Randolph (Examiner and
Call - Post) ; Hiester, Amos C. (Daily Report) ; Higgins, D. W.
(founder Morning Call; Holder, Chas. Frederick (The Calif ornian)
(see Authors); Holman, Alfred (Argonaut); Hume, Hugh (S. F.
Wave and Post and Portland Spectator); Hunt, Clarence Rockwell
(Grizzly Bear, Los Angeles); Irvine, Leigh; Jackson, Colonel John
P. (Post); Jackson, J. Ross; Jacoby, Philo (The Hebrew, est. in
1863; January, William A. (early writer; in 1856 founded Santa
Clara Argus) ; Kemble, E. C. (early Star, which absorbed early Cal-
ifornian, 1848); King, James, of William (Bulletin); Lafler, Henry
M.; Leake, W. S. (Call); Lipscomb, A. D. (associated with S. B.
Carleton in the old West End); Lombard, Charles (Dramatic Re-
view); Marriott, Frederick I. (News Letter, also London Graphic);
Marriott, Frederick II (S. F. News Letter and Overland Monthly);
Mason, Dr. B. F. (San Leandro) ; McClatchy, Charles H.; Mc-
Clatchy, James (founder of Sacramento Bee) ; McClatchy, Valen-
tine S. (Sacramento Bee); McDonald, Calvin (The American Flag);
McDowell, Harry (Ingleside); McEwen, Arthur (The San Fran-
ciscan, also "The Open Letter"); McClashan, Charles F. (Truckee
Republican) ; MacPherson, Duncan (Santa Cruz Sentinel) ; Mer-
gotten, Alex. (Pioneer Magazine, San Jose); Metzger, Alfred (P.
C. Musical Review); Mighels, Harry Rust (Carson Appeal); Mof-
fitt, Frank J. (Oakland Times); Montgomery, Zach (Sacramento
paper) (see Authors) ; Moody, Herbert Gardenhire (Redding Search-
light); Morrill, Paul (Sacramento Union) ; Morse, Dr. John (editor
Sacramento Union) ; Nankivell, Frank (Chic) ; Newmark, Nathan
(also author of technical books); Nugent, John (early S. F.
Herald); O'Day, Edward F. (Town Talk, associate); Oakes, Mrs.
George (Hayward Journal); Off, Louise A. (New Californian) ;
Older, Fremont; O'Leary, Alice Rix (Chic); Otis, Harrison Gray
(Los Angeles Times); Phelps, Charles Henry (Overland); Pick-
ering, Loring (Bulletin); Powers, Aaron; Powers, Laura Bride;
Reed, Anna Morrison (The Northern Crown); Robert, Dent (Ex-
aminer); Rowell, Hon. Chester (Fresno Republican); Seabough,
Samuel; Shortridge, Charles (San Jose); Simpson, Ernest (Morn-
ing Call); Smith, Charles S. (Town Talk and California Woman's
Journal); Somers, Fred M. (Argonaut, later Current Literature);
Spreckels, Jno. D. (Call) ; Stetson, Charlotte Perkins (Gilman) ; Taber,
Louise; Thompson, J. L. (Santa Rosa, later U. S. Minister to Bra-
zil) ; Thrumm, Horace (Music and Drama); Turnbull, Walter
Alta, California); Tyler, Martha Trent; Wagner, Harr (Golden
Era and Western Journal of Education); Wasson, Joseph (early
newspapers, "Father of the Mineral and Mining Bureau"); Was-
son, William D. (Daily News, S. F.) ; Watkins (Snicktaw, Golden
Era); Watson, Henry Clay (Sacramento Union); Wildman, Rounse-
ville (Overland Monthly); Williamson, Sarah M. (California Worn-
414 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
an's Journal); Willis, E. P. (Sacramento Union); Wiltermood,
John (Oakland Times); Winans, Joseph W. (Sacramento Union);
Wright, Washington (early-day editor); Woodson, J. A. (Sacra-
mento Union); Young, John P. (see Authors).
EXPLORERS, ARCHAEOLOGISTS, SCIENTISTS, WRITERS OF
ESSAYS AND BELLES LETTERS
Abrams, Dr. Albert, "The Blues," and other medical essays; Adams,
Harriet Chalmers (explorer) ; Anderson, Dr. Jerome (theosophy) ;
Armes, Prof. William Dallam; Ayer, Dr. Washington (medical es-
says, 1881-'85); Barnard, Professor Charles (astronomer); Behr,
Dr. H. H. (scientist) (see Authors); Bingham, Helen (archaeol-
ogy) ; Blakeslee, S. V., "Archeology, or the Science of Govern-
ment" (New York and San Francisco, 1876) ; Browne, J. Rose (early
writer and humorist); Bowers, Mrs. (Dr.) J. Milton, "The Dance
of Life, an Answer to the Dance of Death (San Francisco, 1877);
Burbank, Luther; Clatke, Sarah V., "Teachings of the Ages";
Cook, Prof. A. S., "Science and Literature" 1880-'88; Cowell, Harry
(essays) ; Davidson, Prof. George (astronomer) ; Davis, Stanton
Kirkham, "Where Dwells the Soul Serene" (Elder, 1900), etc.;
Del Mar, Alexander (monographs) ; Garnett, Porter (essayist, poet
and belles letters; George Henry (sociologist) ; George, Henry,
Jr.; Gihon, Dr. John H. (scientist); Graham, Margaret Collier (es-
says); Gregory, Mrs. Jackson (Zimena McGlashan) (works on
Indians and Butterflies) ; Griswold, Dr. W. M., "Wealth and Pov-
erty of Nations," 1887; Haggin, Mrs. Louis T., "Le Livre d'Amour"
New York, 1887; Hallner, Rev. A., "Uncle Sam, the Teacher and
Administrator of the World" (Sacramento, 1918); Harrison, Wil-
liam Greer, "Making a Man" (see Playwrights); Harte, Mrs. Mary
(explorer); Haskell, Mrs. D. H. (belles letters); Hill, Charles Bar-
ton (scientist); Holden, Professor E. S. (astronomer); Hosmer,
H. L., "Bacon and Shakespeare in the Sonnets (S. F., 1887); How-
ison, Prof. G. H. (lectures, 1888); Jordan, David Starr (president
Stanford, and essayist and ledturer, also an authority on fish);
Josselyn, Charles, "A Life of Napoleon" and compilation of quota-
tions); Keep, Josiah (first native son to achieve West Coast shells)
(Harr Wagner Pub. Co.) ; Kinney, Abbott; Klink, Jean (sociol-
ogy); Klumpke, Dorothea (astronomer); Lemmon, J. G. (botanical
and scientific themes); Lewis, Austin (lecturer); Lloyd, S. H.,
"Glimpses of Spirit Land"; Lubin, David (sociology); Lynch, Jere-
miah (travels) ; McAdie, Alexander, "Atmospheric Conditions" (A.
M. Robertson, S. F.); McGuire, J. G., "Ireland and the Pope" (S.
F., 1888); MacLafferty, James Henry (essays) (Elder, Pub.); Muir,
John (see Authors); Mulford, Prentice (White Cross Library);
Murphy, Dr. R. W., "The Key to the Secret Vault"; Nordoff, Chas. f
"God and the Future Life" (besides historical and geographical books
of California); Nuttall, Mrs. J. R. K. (archaeologist); O'Halloran,
Rose (astronomer) ; Partsch, Herman, M. D., "Messages to Moth-
ers" (Elder, Pub.); Peixotto, Ernest B., "By Italian Seas" (Scrib-
ner, 1908); Royce, Josiah (essays); Rulofson, W. H., "The Dance
of Death"; Rutherford, W. R. (essays) (A. M. Robertson); Saw-
yer, H. C, M.D., "Nerve Waste" (S. F., 1889); Shaw, Albert,
P. L. D. (ed. Review of Reviews), "The Business Career" (Elder,
S. F.); Shurtleff, Dr. A. (medical papers, 1872); Stanton, Mrs.
LITERARY CALIFORNIA 415
Mary O. (physiognomy); Starrett, D. W., Mental Therapeutics," 34
volumes (Sherman, French & Co... Boston, 1915); Steffens, Lincoln
(sociology) ; Stephens, Henry Morse (lecturer, authority on French
literature, etc., author of the earthquake compilation); Stillman,
Dr. J. W. B.; Stow, Mrs. J. W., "Probate Chaff" (S. F., 1878);
Thrasher, Dr. Marion, "Long Life in California*"; Van der Naillen,
A., "On the Heights of the Himalayas'' (New York, 1890); Vecki,
Dr. V. (medical essays) ; Wash, Rev. Charles S. (president Pacific
Theological Seminary), "Our Widening Thought of God" (Elder);
Weinstock, Henry (sociology); Wheeler, Benj. Ide (lecturer, presi-
dent University of California); Williams, Cora L. (Berkeley, au-
thor of "Creative Evolution, "' "The Passing of Evolution/"' "Fourth
Dimensional Reaches of the Exposition"); Williams, Prof, of AL
(of Olympic Club), "How to Outthink Your Opponent"; William-
son, Mrs. Burton (conchology) ; Winslow, C. F., "Preparation of
the Earth"; Yates, L. G. (naturalist, 1876-'87.)
TRANSLATORS
Archer, Ruby (see Poets); Bentz, Mrs. F. X. (Beatrice Hastings) (Town
Talk and Wasp); Brun, Samuel Jacques (see Authors); Bunner,
Elizabeth; Dawson, Emma Frances (see Poets and Authors) ; Hast-
ings, Beatrice (see Bentz) ; Meyers, Isidor (tr. The Talmud) ;
Murison, Elizabeth; Nye, W. F. (tr. F. Velasco, Sonora, 1861;
Pohli, Mrs. Emile (tr. Prof. Bernhardi, comedy by Arthur Schuit-
zler; Rehfisch, Mrs. Hettie Morse (Argonaut); Ryder, Arthur
(tr. Sanscrit); Sage, Mrs. (Daisy Cheney Gilmore) ; Tobin, Agnes
(Petrarch); Underwood, Edna Worthley; Wray, Leopold (tr Dr.
Dietrich).
LIST OF WELL-REMEMBERED SHORT STORIES BY CALI-
FORNIA WRITERS, MOSTLY OF THE OLDEN TIMES
"The Eventful Nights of the 21st and 22nd of August," in Pioneer Mag-
azne, by Ferdinand C. Ewer; "The Case of Summerfield" and the
"Telescopic Eye," by Caxton W. H. Rhodes; "Luck of Roaring
Camp" and "Mliss" and the "Apostle of the Tules," by Bret Harte;
"The Jumping Frog of Calaveras," by Mark Twain; "The Gentle-
man from Reno," by Xoah Brooks ; "Laughing Freda" in the Ingle-
side, "My Story" in Argonaut, by Flora Haines Loughhead; "Man
in the Frozen Block of Ice" and ether pseudo-scientific tales in Ar-
gonaut, by Robert Duncan Milne; "The Pocket Miner" in Argo-
naut, by Sam P. Davis: "Man from Georgia" and "A Case in Sur-
gery," by William C. Morrow, in Argonaut; "The Marquis of Agu-
ayo" and "The Story of a Kingdom" in the Ingleside, by Harry B.
McDowell: "A Memory of Adamsville" in Golden Era. by Madge
Morris; "Miss Golightly" and other tales in the Argonaut, by
Yda Addis; "The Ship on Dry Land," by Adelaide Holmes Baus-
man, in Argonaut; "Chumming with an Apache" and "The Brake-
Beam Rider" and "Lish of Alkali Flat," by Bailey Millard, in Ar-
gonaut; "Spanish Peak," by Charles Howard Shinn; "The Lass
that Loved a Sailor," by Charles Warren Stoddard; "Old Hard
Luck," by Edward Man son; "The Jack Pot," a story copied all
over the world, from the Argonaut, which tale Jerome A. Hart
calls a pearl among stories, consisting of one thousand words,
with a beginning, a middle and an end. and was written by Charles
416 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
Dwight Willard;"A Dream" and other brief stories in the Sam
Franciscan, by Arthur McEwen; "Big Jack Small" and "Sand" in
Overland and "Quartz" in Short Stories by California Writers, by
James W. Gaily; "Why I Committed Suicide" and "Ivern" in Gol-
den Era, by Harr Wagner ; "The Portrait of a California Girl" in
Golden Era, and "Gentleman Joe" and "A Printer's Fantasy" in the
San Franciscan, also "The Christmas Ghost of San Francisco," pub-
lished in London in 1901, by Ella Sterling Mighels; "Pard's Epis-
tles" in Argonaut, by E. H. Clough; "Are the Dead Dead?" and
"The Itinerant House" in Argonaut, by Emma Frances Dawson;
"Moran of the Lady Letty," by Frank Norris; "Li Wan the Fair,"
"The Sunlanders," "The God of His Fathers," and others from the
Children of the Frost" and "The Son of the Wolf," by Jack Lon-
don; "The Cat and the Cherub," by Chester Bailey Fernald;
"Young Strong of the Clarion" in Overland, by Millicent W. Shinn;
"The Watchman of the Brunswick Mill" and "The Motherhood of
Beechy Daw" in Harper's Magazine, by P. V. Mighels; "Narrer-
town" and "Miranda Higgins" in Golden Era, by William Atwell
Cheney; "Stories in Somers' Californian," by Warren Cheney are
worthy of preservation. Stories in "The Splendid Idle Forties" are
by Gertrude Atherton, characteristic of the Spanish era.
i
WELL -KNOWN AUTHORS, ETC., WHO HAVE BEEN RESI-
DENTS HERE ROR A TIME OR WHO OWN
HOMES IN CALIFORNIA
Adams, Walter E.; Basch, Bertha Runkle, "The Helmet of Navarre,"
"The Truth About Tolna," etc.; Becke, Louis (short stories about
South Sea ports); Broadhurst, Florence (Mrs. John Marone) (ed-
itor) ; Browne, Charles (Artemus Ward) ; Burton, Richard F.
(famous orientalist); Bush, C. J.; Carleton, Henry Guy (play-
wright); Channing, Grace Ellery (novels); Chester, George Ran-
dolph, "Get Rich Quick Wallingford"; Cook, Grace McGowan
(novels), Carmel; Cox, Palmer, "The Brownies" (see Authors);
Crawford, Capt. J. W. (see Poets); Dana, Richard Henry, "Two
Years Before the Mast"; Davies, Hubert Henry (playwright); De
Mille, James (novelist and playwright); Drake, Samuel Adams;
Dromgoole, Will Allen (Los Angeles); Ellis, Edward S., "Toby
Tyler"; Fletcher, Horace ("Forty-bite" advocate) ; Foley, James
W. (poet); Gillmore, Inez Haynes (see Irwin); Gregory, Jackson
(Auburn); Griggs, Prof. Edward Howard; Gunter, Archie C, "Mr.
Barnes of New York," etc.; Habberton, John (see Authors); Har-
raden, Beatrice, "The Remittance Man" written here ; Harrison,
Mrs. Burton (Burlingame) ; Hearne, James A. (playwright); Her-
ford, Oliver (Cynic's Calendar); Irwin, Inez Haynes Gillmore,
"Phoebe and Ernest" stories, "The Californiacs" (Sunset, A. M.
Robertson, Pub.); Jackson, Charles Tenney, "The Day of Souls";
Jackson, Helen Hunt (author of "Ramona," celebrated romance of
California); James, Professor William; Jephson, Mountenay A.
(distinguished traveler and scientist; Jepson, E.; Kirk, W. F.;
Lewis, Mrs. Eugene C. (Los Angeles); McGowan, Alice;
Mackie, Professor (see Authors); Mackie, Pauline Bradford (Hop-
kins (see Authors); Marone, Mrs. John (see Brooks); May, Flor-
ence Land; Melville, John (Player-Frowd); Merwin, Henry Childs;
Miller Olive Thorne (Los Angeles); Modjeska, Madame Helena
(Countess Bozenta) (see Autobiography); Montague, J. J.; Mor-
LITERARY CALIFORNIA 417
ris, Governeur, "The Seven Darlings," etc.; Munroe, Kirk; Mun-
ford, Eethel Watts, "Cynic's Calendar," Dupes," etc.; North, Ar-
thur Walbridge; Orchard, Harry, "Confession"; Player- Frowd, T.
G. (Melville); Rideout, Henry Milner, "Baldero," "The Siamese
Cat," "Key of the Fields," etc. (Sausalito); Rankin, McKee (play-
wright); Rogers, Anna C. (army novels) ; Russell, Edmund (com-
(piler; Ryan, Marah Ellis (Martin), "Told in the Hills," etc.;
Schliemann, Dr. (the Great); Shaw, Dr. Ames; Sienciewicz, Hen-
rik, "Quo Vadis" (written in Southern California); Sinclair, Upton,
"The Jungle" (also plays) ; Spearman (Whispering Smith) ; Sprague,
Ethel Chase; Stetson, Charlotte Perkins (Gilman); Stevenson, Rob-
ert Louis, "The Wrecker," "Silverado Squatters"; Tarkington,
Booth, "The Gentleman from Indiana" (Carmel); Taylor, Bayard,
"California" (poems); Taylor, Benjamin Franklin (wrote book on
California and Yosemite); Tyndall, Mclvor (psychologist); Um-
bitaater (Black Cat editor); Vachell, Horace Annesley, "Scraggs,"
"Canyon Life," "Sport on the Pacific Slope," etc.; Ward, Arte-
mus (Browne); Warner, Charles Dudley (col. with Mark Twain
on novel); Warren, T. Robinson; Wheeler, Mrs. Post (Hallie Er-
mine Rives); White, Stewart Edward, "The Riverman," "The Silent
Places," "The Blazed Trail," etc. (Burlingame) ; Williamson, Mr.
and Mrs. C. N., "The Lightning Conductor," etc.; Wilson, Harry
Leon, "Ruggles of Red Gap," etc. (Carmel); Woodworth, Samuel,
"The Old Oaken Bucket"; Wright, Harold Bell, "Eyes of the
World," "Calling of Dan Matthews," "Barbara Worth," etc. (El
Centro); also Winston Churchill (Santa Barbara), "Inside of the
Cup," etc.
EDUCATORS, PROFESSORS, WRITERS OF TEXT-BOOKS,
WORKS ON DOMESTIC ECONOMY AND
INFORMATION GENERALLY
Alverson, Margaret Blake (book on Singing Methods); Armes, Profes-
sor William Dallam (U. of C.) ; Angier, Belle Sumner (see Burn);
Barron, George H. (curator of Golden Gate Park Museum to 1918);
Barry, Madame (Russell) (French lectures); Beatty, Bessie, "A
Political Primer for the New Voter" (Harr Wagner Pub. Co.);
Bennett, Sanford (a system for physical culture); Braunton, Er-
nest, "The Garden Beautiful in California" ; Brewer, Rev. Dr. St.
Matthews Hall (San Mateo); Brown, Frank J., "Practical Aids to
Literature"; Burbank, Luther (on plants and natural growths);
Burk, Dr. Frederic (State Normal School, S. F., educational publicist) ;
Burn, Mrs. Walter (see Angier), (garden topics); Carruth, Prof.
William (Stanford University), (see Poets); Chandler, Katherine;
Chapman, Prof. Charles E., "The Bird Woman of the Lewis &
Clark Exposition" (Silver, Buslett & Co.) ; Cooper, Sarah B. (kin-
dergarten topics); Deering, Frank (law books); Denman, William;
Denson, S. C, "Our Criminal, Criminal Law," 1914; Durant, Rev.
Henry (first U of Cal. educator); Duvall, J. C, "Civil Government
Simplified," 1915; Fairbanks, Harold Wellman (text-books); France,
Leila (McDermott), "The Children's Lark"; Gayley, Prof. Charles
Mills, "Classic Myths," etc.; Godchaux, Rebecca and Josephine
(French texts, 1918, S. F.) ; Graham, Judge Thomas, "Rules for
Married People," etc.; Green, Prof. E. S. (botanical, 1887-1892);
Hall, Carlotta Case and Hall, Harvey Monroe, "A Yosemite Flora"
(Elder); Hoag, Dr. E. B., "The Health Index of Children," etc.;
Holme, Garnet (U. of C), (drama, ancient and modern) ; Horn-
418 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
brook, Mrs. A. R. (arithmetic and geometry); Hunt, Rockwell D.,
"California the Golden" (Silver, Burdett & Co.); Hyatt, Edward
(superintendent of public instruction of California, 1918) ; Irvine,
Leigh (text-books), (see Authors); Izett, J. M. (I. C. S., also writer
of verse); Janes, Prof. Elijah (text-books); Jepson, William Linn
(trees and flora of California; Jordan, David Starr (Stanford Uni
versity), (see Authors); Keeler, Charles, "Bird Notes Afield," etc.;
Kellogg, A. E. (San Francisco); Kellogg, Rev. Martin (early U. of
C. educator) ; Kellogg, Minnie D., "Flora from Medieval History"
(Elder); Kellogg, Prof. Vernon (with Hoover in 1917-1918); Ken-
nedy, Kate; Klink, Jean (sociological); Knapp, Adeline (text-
books); Knowles, Antoinette, "Oral English or Public Speaking";
Knowlton, Prof. Ebenezer; Landfield, Jerome (U. of Cal); Mc-
Fadden, Miss E. B., "Language and Grammar" (Rand, McNally &
Co.); McLaren, John, "Gardening in California" (A. M. Robertson);
McLaren, Linie Ashe, "Settlement Cook Book," "Panama Pacific
Cook Book") ; MacLeod, Alice (pigeon raising, San Jose) ; Man-
ning, Agnes M. ; Martin, Leland S., "Stern Realities" (Harr Wag-
ner, Pub.); Martin, William S., "Manual Training Play Problem";
Marwedel, Emma (kindergarten topics) ; Mills, Dr. and Mrs. (Mills
College); Neuhaus, Eugen, "Art Exposition," etc. (Elder) ; North,
A. W., "The Mother of California" (Elder, 1908); Parker, Walter
H., "School Buildings"; Parsons, Mary Elizabeth, "Wild Flowers
of California"; Payne, Gertrude, "Everyday Errors in Pronuncia-
tion, Spelling and Spoken English" (San Jose); Peixotto, Jessica
(U. of Cal.); Power, Alice Rose (graded speller), (J. B. Lippin-
cott); Rattan, Prof. Volney, "A California Flora"; Reed, Geo., "The
Abolition of Ownership" (S. F., Carlisle & Co.); Reid, Prof. W.T.;
Rosewald, Madame Julie, "How Shall I Practice Music?"; Rowell,
J. C, "The Sonnet in America" (Ann Arbor, 1888; Schenkofsky,
Henry, "A Summer with the Union Men" (Wagner, 1918) ; Stanton,
Mrs. Mary O., "Phrenology and Facial Characteristics"; Stephens,
Henry Morse (U. of Cal.), "History of San Francisco Earthquake";
Stone, W. W.; Swett, John, "Methods of Teaching, History of
California Schools"; Thayer, Emma H., "Wild Flowers of the Pa-
cific Coast" (New York, 1887); Tilden, Joseph, "Recipes for Epi-
cures"; Victor, "Recipes"; Wagner, Harr, "Pacific History Stories
Retold"; Wheeler, Benjamin Ide (U. of Cal.) ; Wheeler, Charles
Stetson (law books); Wilbur, President Ray Lyman (Stanford
University) ; Williams, Cora L., "Creeds for Democracy" (Berke-
ley) ; Williamson, Sarah M., "A California Cook Book"; Willis,
Prof.; Wittenmeyer, Clara; Woehlke, Walter N., "Union Labor in
Peace and War" (Sunset Pub. Co., 1918; Wood, W. C. (superin-
tendent of Public instruction of California, 1919); Yale, Gregory,
"Mining Claims and Water Rights" (S. F., 1867); Younger, Maude
sociological, also publicist).
CALIFORNIA AUTHORS ON MACMILLAN'S LIST
R. L. Ashley, Head of History Department, Pasadena High School —
"American History for High Schools," "The New Civics," "Early
European Civilization," "Modern European Civilization," "Ameri-
can Federal State," et al.
Cyril A. Stebbins, one time Department of Agriculture, State Normal
School, Chico; now Director for Western States, Organizer of
LITERARY CALIFORNIA 419
School Gardens for Federal Government, Washington, D. C. — "Prin-
ciples of Agriculture Through the School and Home Garden."
W. C. Hummel, formerly Professor of Agricultural Education, Univer-
sity of California; now doing work for the Federal Government in
Agriculture, Washington, D. C. — "Materials and Methods in High
School Agriculture."
Chas. Mills Gayley, Dean of Faculty, University of California; Profes-
sor of English and English Literature, University of California —
"Shakespeare and the Founders of Liberty in America," "Represen-
tative English Comedies."
C. C. Young, formerly Professor of English in Lowell High School,
San Francisco; now Speaker in House of Representatives, Califor-
nia — "Principles and Progress of English Poetry."
Ella M. Sexton, San Francisco — "Stories of California."
Gertrude Atherton — "The Conqueror," "Julia France and Her Times."
Kathleen Norris— "Mother," "Saturday's Child," "The Rich Mrs. Bur-
goyne," et al.
William Dallam Armes, formerly Professor of English, University of
California — "Old English Ballads," "Macmillan's Pocket Classics."
Percy E. Rowell, Teacher of Science, San Jose High School — "Intro-
duction to General Science."
James T. Allen, Assistant Professor Greek, University of California —
"The First Year of Greek."
Margaret S. Carhart, formerly Department of English, Pasadena High
School; now head English Department, Palo Alto High School —
"Selections from American Poetry," Macmillan's Pocket Classics.
Ellwood P. Cubberly, Professor of Education and Dean of the School
of Education, Stanford University — "State and County Educational
Reorganization."
E. C. Elliott — "State and County School Administration."
William B. Cniess, Assistant Professor Food Technology, University
of California — "Home and Farm Food Preservation."
John M. Brewer, Department of Education, State Normal School, Los
Angeles — "Vocational Guidance Movement — Its Problems and Pos-
sibilities."
BrotherLeo, St. Mary's College, Oakland — "A Kempis' Imitation of
Christ," Macmillan's Pocket Classics.
Jack London— „Call of the Wild," "White Fang," "Before Adam,"
"Burning Daylight," "The Valley of the Moon," "Martin Eden," &c
E. W. Hilgard, Professor Emeritus and Professor of Soil Study, Col-
lege of Agriculture, University of California — "Soils — Their Forma-
tion, Properties, Composition and Relations to Climate and Plants."
W. J. B. Osterhout, formerly Assistant Professor of Agriculture, Uni-
versity of California — "Agriculture for Schools of the Pacific Slope."
William C. Morgan, formerly Professor of Chemistry, University of
California — "Qualitative Analysis."
James A. Lyman — "Chemistry — An Elementary Text-book."
Cardinal Goodwin, formerly Head of History Department, John C. Fre-
mont High School, Oakland; now Head of History Department,
Mills College — "Establishment of State Government in California."
William Herbert Carruth, Professor Comparative Literature, Stanford
University — "Verse Writing."
Michael Williams, formerly with San Francisco Examiner — "The High
Romance."
420 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
W. W. Campbell, Astronomer, Lick Observatory — "Elements of Prac-
tical Astronomy."
J. F. Chamberlain, Department of Geography, State Normal School,
Los Angeles— "How We are Fed," "How We are Sheltered," "How
We are Clothed," "How We Travel."
Arthur Henry Chamberlain, Secretary State Teachers' Association —
"Continents and Their People," series comprising Africa, Asia,
Oceania, Europe, North America, South America.
Henry Morse Stephens, Head History Department, University of Cali-
fornia — "Modern European History."
H. E. Bolton, Head of Department American History, University of
California — "The Pacific Ocean in History."
Elizabeth A. Packard, High School, Oakland, Cal— "Scott's Lady of the
Lake," Macmillan's Pocket Classics.
C. E. Chapman, Assistant Professor of History, University of Califor-
nia — "The Founding of Spanish California," "History of Spain."
Martha Brier, formerly Oakland School Department — "Plutarch's Lives,"
Macmillan's Pocket Classics.
Irving W. Stringham, formerly Professor of Mathematics, University
of California — "Elementary Algebra."
J. Eliot Coit, Professor of Citrus Culture, University of Southern Cali-
fornia, Los Angeles — "Citrus Fruits."
Frederick Slate, Professor of Physics, University of California — "Prin-
ciples of Mechanics," "Elementary Physics."
Joseph N. LeConte, University of California — "Elementary Treatise on
the Mechanics of Machinery."
Geo. M. Stratton — "Experimental Psychology."
Ira Woods Howerth, Department of Education, University of Califor-
nia — "Art of Education."
S. H. Dadisman, University Farm, Davis — "Elementary Exercises in
Agriculture."
H. R. Fairclough, Professor of Latin, Stanford University — "Plautus."
Wm. B. Herms, University of California — "A Laboratory Guide to the
Study of Parisitology," "Medical and Veterinary Entomology."
Robinson Jeffers — "Calif ornians."
E. B. Krehbiel, Professor of History, Stanford University — "National-
ism, War and Society."
W. S. Marton, State Normal School, San Jose — "Manual Training — Play
Problems for Boys and Girls."
G. Harold Powell, General Manager California Fruit Growers' Ex-
change — "Co-operation in Agriculture."
W. A. Setchell, University of California — "Laboratory Practice for Be-
ginners in Botany."
J. H. Hildebrand, Associate Professor of Chemistry, University of Cali-
fornia — "Principles of Chemistry."
Mrs. Rosa V. Winterburn, formerly connected with Stockton School
Department — "Stockton Methods in Teaching."
Gwendolen Overton — "The Captain's Daughter," "Captains of the
World."
Thomas F. Hunt, Dean College of Agriculture, University of Califor-
nia — "How to Choose a Farm."
LITERARY CALIFORNIA 421
CALIFORNIA AUTHORS WHO HAVE WRITTEN BOOKS
FOR THE AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY
John Swett, formerly State Superintendent of Public Instruction, Cali-
fornia — "Methods of Teaching," "School Elocution," "American
Public Schools," "Normal Word Book," "Public Education in Cal-
ifornia."
Joseph Le Conte, Professor of Geology, University of California —
"Compend of Geology."
Helen Elliott Bandini — "History of California."
A. W. Stamper, Professor of Mathematics, State Normal School, Chico,
Cal. — "Text-book on the Teaching of Arithmetic."
W. F. Bliss, Dean of Normal School and Head of Department of His-
tory, State Normal School, San Diego, Cal. — "History in the Ele-
mentary Schools."
James F. Chamberlain, Head Department of Geography, Los Angeles,
Cal. — "Field and Laboratory Exercises in Physical Geography."
Arthur Henry Chamberlain, formerly Dean and Professor of Educa-
tion, Throop Polytechnic Institute ; now Secretary State Teach-
ers' Association and Editor Sierra Educational News, Monadnock
Building, San Francisco — "Standards in Education, Including In-
dustrial Training."
Miss E. Louise Smythe— "Old Time Stories Retold," "Reynard the Fox."
Miss Margaret C. Dowling, Teacher Spanish, Mission High School,
San Francisco — "Reading, Writing and Speaking Spanish."
J. W. McClymonds, ex r Superintendent of Schools, Oakland, Cal. —
"Elementary Arithmetic," "Essentials of Arithmetic."
D. R. Jones, ex-Superintendent of Schools, San Rafael, Cal. — "Elemen-
tary Arithmetic," "Essentials of Arithmetic."
Dr. Aurelio Macedonio Espinosa, Associate Professor Romantic Lan-
guages, Stanford University — "Espinosa & Allen's Elementary Span-
ish Grammar."
Dr. Clifford Gilmore Allen, Associate Professor Romantic Languages,
Stanford University — "Espinosa & Allen's Elementary Spanish
Grammar."
George A. Merrill, Director California School of Mechanical Arts —
"Elementary Theoretical Mechanics."
Dr. Herbert C. Nutting, Assistant Professor of Latin, University of
California — "Latin Primer," "First Latin Reader."
Dr. Isaac Flagg, Professor of Greek, Emeritus, University of Califor-
nia — "Writer of Attic Prose," "Plato's Apology and Crito."
Dr. Rudolph Scheville, Professor of Spanish, University of California —
"Alarcon's El Nino de la Bola," "Valera's El Comendador Men-
doza."
Dr. Carlos Bransby, Assistant Professor of Spanish, University of Cali-
fornia — "Worman's Second Spanish Book."
Dr. J. Henry Senger, Professor of German, Emeritus, Universcity of
California — "Fouque's Undine."
John R. Sutton, Vice-Principal of Oakland High School, Oakland, Cal.—
"Civil Government in California."
LIST OF PUBLICATIONS OF D. C. HEATH & COMPANY,
BOSTON, BY CALIFORNIA AUTHORS
Silas E. Coleman, "Elements of Physics," "Textbook of Physics"; Dr.
Ernest B. Hoag, "Health StuOdies"; Miss Thirmuthis A. Brook-
man, "Family Expense Account"; Mrs. Edith A. Joy Foley, "Arith-
422 LITERARY CALIFORNIA
metic Without a Pencil"; Dr. Carlos Bransby, "A Spanish Reader";
A. B. Reynolds, "Latin by Reading"; Frances W. Lewis, "Induc-
tive Rhetoric"; Antoinette Knowles, Oral English"; Professor Wal-
ter M. Hart, "Hamlet" (Arden Edition); H. A. Davidson, "Irving's
Sketch Book"; L. Dupont Syle, "The Lady of the Lake"; Gene-
vra Sisson Snedden, "Docas, the Indian Boy of Santa Clara"; Rich-
ard L. Sandwick, "How to Study and What to Study."
FOLLOWING CALIFORNIANS HAVE WRITTEN TEXT-
BOOKS FOR GINN & COMPANY
Charles Mills Gayley, Professor of English Literature, University of
California, Berkeley — "Classic Myths," "Poetry of the People,"
"Literary Criticism" (Gayley and Kurtz).
Martin Charles Flaherty, Associate Professor of Forensics, University
of California — "Poetry of the People."
Lulu Maude Chance, Primary Teacher, Riverside, Cal. — "Little Folks of
Many Lands."
Katherine Chandler, Pacific Grove, Cal. — "In the Reign of Coyote."
Alexis E. Frye, Redlands, Cal. — "Books and Brook Basins," "Child and
Nature," "Elements of Geography," First Book in Geography,"
"First Steps in Geography," "Geografiia Elemental," "Grammar
School Geography," "Geography Manual," "Home and School At-
las," "Home Geography and Type Studies," "Leading Facts of
Geography," "New Geography, Book One."
Derrick N. Lehmer, Associate Professor Mathematics, University of
California, Berkeley — "Synthetic Projective Geometry."
Chauncey Wetmore Wells, Associate Professor English Composition,
University of California — "Prose Narratives."
Benjamin P. Kurtz, Associate Professor of English, University of Cali-
fornia — "Essays in Exposition."
Herbert E. Cory, Assistant Professor of English, University of Cali-
fornia — "Essays in Exposition."
G. R. MacMinn, Instructor in English, University of California — "Es-
says in Exposition."
Lilian Talbert, Primary Teacher, Emerson School, Berkeley, Cal. —
"The Expression Primer."
Lew Ball, Primary Supervisor, San Francisco, Cal. — "Ball Primer and
Manual."
John Brewer, Dean Department of Education, Los Angeles State Nor-
mal School — "Oral English."
Ernest Carroll Moore, President Los Angeles State Normal School —
"What Is Education?" "Fifty Years of American Education."
Leon J. Richardson, Associate Professor of Latin, University of Cali-
fornia — "Helps to the Reading of Classical Latin Poetry."
Roy T. Nichols, Acting Head, Science Department, High School, Oak-
land, Cal/ — "Manual of Household Chemistry."
Hanna Oehlmann, Teacher of German, High School, Alameda, Cal. —
"Schritt for Schritt."
O. J. Kern, Assistant Professor Agricultural Education, University of
California — "Among Country Schools."
Rudolph Schevill — Head Romance Language Department, University
of California — "First Reader in Spanish."
F. H. Baker, Agent Allyn & Bacon Company, Los Angeles — "Comput-
ing Tables and Formulas."
LITERARY CALIFORNIA 423
William J. McCoy, Private Teacher, Oakland — "Cumulative Harmony."
Brother Leo, Professor English Language and Literature, St. Mary's
College, Oakland — Joint author "Corona Readers."
Forrest Eugene Spencer, Instructor in Spanish, University of Califor-
nia — "Trozos de Historia."
A. L. Cavanagh, Head of Physics Department, Los Angeles High
School — "Physics Laboratory Manual."
Claude M. Westcott, Head of Science Department, Hollywood High
School — "Physics Laboratory Manual."
H. L. Twining, Head of Physics Department, Polytechnic High School,
Los Angeles — "Physics High Manual."
E. B. Clapp, Professor of the Greek Language and Literature, Univer-
sity of California— "Homer's Iliad, Books XIX-XXIV."
William H. Carruth, Professor of Comparative Literature, Stanford
University — "German Reader."
Emelio Goggio, Professor of Languages, University of California (now
at University of Washington) — "Due Comeedie Moderne."
R. Selden Rose, Instructor in Spanish, University of California — "Don
Francisco de Quevedo."
Aida Edmonds Pinney, Oakland, Cal. — "Spanish-English Conversation."
Edward Gray, Berkeley — "Fortuma, and El Placer de No Hacer Nada."
Colbert Searles — Associat Professor of Romanic Languages, Stanford
University: "Le Cid."
Albert Shiels — City Superintendent of Schools, Los Angeles, California:
"City Arithmetics" (joint author with Wentworth-Smith).
C. T. Wright — Teacher in Pasadena High School, Pasadena, California:
"Library, Laboratory and Field Manual in Physical Geography."
Henry L. Cannon — Associate Professor History, Stanford University:
"Reading References for English History."
Thomas E. Thompson — Superintendent Schools, Monrovia, California:
"Minimum Essentials."
FINIS.
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