This sense of amplitude gives the Native
Son an air of superiority . . . Yes, you're quite right, it has a touch
of superciliousness - very difficult to understand and much more
difficult to endure when you haven't seen California; but completely
understandable and endurable when you have.
- Californiacs read every word, Easterners skip this paragraph -
Man helped nature to place Italy, Spain, Japan among the wonder regions
of the world; but nature placed California there without assistance from
anybody. I do not refer alone to the scenery of California which is
duplicated in no other spot of the sidereal system; nor to the climate
which matches it; nor to its super-mundane fertility, nor to its
super-solar fecundity. The railroad folder with its voluble vocabulary
has already beaten me to it. I do not refer solely to that rich
yellow-and-violet, springtime bourgeoning which turns California into
one huge Botticelli background of flower colors and sheens. I do not
refer to that heavy purple-and-gold, autumn fruitage, which changes it
to a theme for Titian and Veronese. I am thinking particularly of those
surprising phenomena left over from pre-historic eras; the "big" trees -
the sequoia gigantea, which really belong to the early fairy-tales of
H.
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