The Native Son - in the truest sense of the romantic - is a romantic
figure. He could scarcely avoid being that, for he comes from the most
romantic State in the Union and, if from San Francisco, the most
romantic city in our modern world. It is, I believe, mainly his sense of
romance that drives him into the organization which he himself has
called the Native Sons of the Golden West; an adventurous instinct that
has come down to us from mediaeval times, urging men to form into
congenial company for offence and defence, and to offer personality the
opportunity for picturesque masquerade.
That romantic background not only explains the Native Son but the long
line of extraordinary fiction, with California for a background, which
California has produced. California though is the despair of fiction
writers. It offers so many epochs; such a mixture of nationalities; so
many and such violently contrasted atmospheres, that it is difficult to
make it credible. The gold rush . . . the pioneers . . . the Vigilantes
. . . the Sand Lot days . . . San Francisco before the fire . . . the
period of reconstruction. As for the drama lying submerged everywhere in
the labor movement . . .
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