The California Birthday Book written by Various
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13 THE CALIFORNIA BIRTHDAY BOOK
Prose and Poetical Selections from
the Writings of Living California Authors
with a Brief Biographical Sketch of each
Edited and Arranged, with an Introduction, by
GEORGE WHARTON JAMES
Arroyo Guild Press
Los Angeles, California
1909
To the dearest and best
Literary Partner
man ever had:
MY WIFE
whose critical discernment and fine judgment
have materially aided in making the
selections for this book.
CALIFORNIA--GOD'S COUNTRY.
California--land of the brightest dreams of our childhood; of the
passionate longings of our youth; of the most splendid triumphs of our
manhood. California--land of golden thoughts, of golden hills, of
golden mines, and of golden deeds.
INTRODUCTORY
This book, as its title-page states, is made up of selections from the
writings of California authors. Most of the selections refer to
California--her scenic glories, mountains, valleys, skies, canyons,
Yosemites, islands, foothills, plains, deserts, shoreline; her
climatic charms, her flora and fauna, her varied population, her
marvellous progress, her wonderful achievements, her diverse
industries. Told by different authors, in both prose and poetry, the
book is a unique presentation both of California and California
writers. The Appendix gives further information (often asked for in
vain) about the authors themselves and their work. It is the hope of
the compiler that the taste given in these selections may lead many
Californians to take a greater interest in the writings of their
fellow citizens, and no interest pleases an author more than the
purchase, commendation, and distribution of his book.
If this unpretentious book gives satisfaction to the lovers of
California, both in and out of the State, the compiler will reap his
highest reward. If any suitable author has been left out the omission
was inadvertent, and will gladly be remedied in future editions.
GEORGE WHARTON JAMES.
1098 North Raymond Avenue
Pasadena, California.
October, 1909.
THE CALIFORNIA BIRTHDAY BOOK
CALIFORNIA.
Hearken, how many years
I sat alone, I sat alone and heard
Only the silence stirred
By wind and leaf, by clash of grassy spears,
And singing bird that called to singing bird.
Heard but the savage tongue
Of my brown savage children, that among
The hills and valleys chased the buck and doe,
And round the wigwam fires
Chanted wild songs of their wild savage sires,
And danced their wild, weird dances to and fro,
And wrought their beaded robes of buffalo.
Day following upon day,
Saw but the panther crouched upon the limb,
Smooth serpents, swift and slim,
Slip through the reeds and grasses, and the bear
Crush through his tangled lair
Of chaparral, upon the startled prey!
Listen, how I have seen
Flash of strange fires in gorge and black ravine;
Heard the sharp clang of steel, that came to drain
The mountain's golden vein
And laughed and sang, and sang and laughed again,
Because that "Now," I said, "I shall be known!
I shall not sit alone,
But shall reach my hands into my sister lands!
And they? Will they not turn
Old, wondering dim eyes to me and yearn--
Aye, they will yearn, in sooth,
To my glad beauty, and my glad, fresh youth."
INA D. COOLBRITH,
in _Songs from the Golden Gate._
LET US MAKE EACH DAY OUR BIRTHDAY.
WRITTEN ESPECIALLY FOR THE CALIFORNIA BIRTHDAY BOOK.
Let us make each day our birthday,
As with each new dawn we rise,
To the glory and the gladness
Of God's calm, o'erbending skies;
To the soul-uplifting anthems
Of Creation's swelling strains,
Chanted by the towering mountains,
Surging sea, and sweeping plains.
Let us make each day our birthday--
Every morning life is new,
With the splendors of the sunrise,
And the baptism of the dew;
With the glisten of the woodlands,
And the radiance of the flowers,
And the birds' exultant matins,
In the young day's wakening hours.
Let us make each day our birthday,
To a newer, holier life,
Rousing to some high endeavor,
Arming for a nobler strife,
Toiling upward, looking Godward,
Lest our poor lives be as discords,
In Heaven's symphony of love.
S.A.R.,
_College Notre Dame, San Jose, Cal._
JANUARY 1.
A NEW YEAR'S WISH.
May each day bring thee something
Fair to hold in memory--
Some true light to shine
Upon thee in the after days.
May each night bring thee peace,
As when the dove broods o'er
The young she loves; may day
And night the circle of
A rich experience weave
About thy life, and make
It rich with knowledge, but radiant
With Love, whose blossoms shall be
Tender deeds.
HELEN VAN ANDERSON GORDON.
JANUARY 2.
THE MIRAGE ON THE CALIFORNIA DESERT.
To the south the eye rests upon a vast lake, which can be seen ten or
twelve miles distant from the slopes of the mountains, and when I
first saw it, its beauty was entrancing. Away to the south, on its
borders, were hills of purple, each reflected as clearly as though
photographed, and still beyond rose the caps and summits of other
peaks and mountains rising from this inland sea, whose waters were
of turquoise; yet, as we moved down the slope, the lake was always
stealing on before. It was of the things dreams are made of, that has
driven men mad and to despair, its bed a level floor of alkali and
clay, covered with a dry, impalpable dust that the slightest wind
tossed and whirled in air.
CHARLES FREDERICK HOLDER,
in _Life in the Open._
JANUARY 3.
When the green waves come dashing,
With thunderous lashing,
Against the bold cliffs that defend the scarred earth,
He wheels through the roaring,
Where foam-flakes are pouring,
And flaps his broad wings in a transport of mirth.
JOSIAH KEEP,
in _The Song of the Sea-Bird_, in _Shells and Sea-Life._
JANUARY 4.
A long jagged peninsula, where barren heights and cactus-clad mesas
glow in the biting rays of an unobscured sun, where water holes are
accorded locations on the maps, and where, under the fluttering shade
of fluted palm boughs, life becomes a siesta dream. A land great in
its past and lean in its present. A land where the rattlesnake and
the sidewinder, the tarantula and the scorpion multiply, and where
sickness is unknown and fivescore years no uncommon span of life. A
land of strange contradictions! A peninsula which to the Spanish
_conquistadores_ was an island glistening in the azure web of
romance; a land for which the padres gave their lives in fanatic
devotion to the Cross; a land rich in history, when the timbers of the
_Mayflower_ were yet trees in the forest. Lower California, once
sought and guarded for her ores and her jewels, now a veritable terra
incognita, slumbering, unnoticed, at the feet of her courted child,
the great State of California. Lower California, her romance nigh
forgotten, her possibilities overlooked by enterprise and by the
statesmen of the two republics.
ARTHUR W. NORTH,
in _The Mother of California._
JANUARY 5.
Above me rise the snowy peaks
Where golden sunbeams gleam and quiver,
And far below, toward Golden Gate,
O'er golden sand flows Yuba River.
Through crystal air the mountain mist
Floats far beyond yon distant eagle,
And swift o'er crag and hill and vale
Steps morning, purple-robed and regal.
CLARENCE URMY,
in _A Vintage of Verse._
JANUARY 6.
With the assistance of Indians and swinging a good axe himself, the
worthy padre cut down a number of trees, and, having carried the logs
to the Gulf Coast, he there constructed from them a small vessel which
was solemnly christened _El Triumfo de la Cruz_.
Let Ugarte be remembered not only as a man of fine physique, the
first ship-builder in the Californias, but as an ardent Christian,
a wise old diplomat and a fearless explorer. He stands forth bold,
shrewd and aggressive, one of the most heroic figures in early
California history. * * *
At the same time that Ugarte was exploring the Gulf of California,
Captain George Shevlock of England was cruising about California
waters engaged in a little privateering enterprise. On his return
to England, Shevlock set forth on the charts that California was
an island. This assertion was not surprising, for at this time a
controversy was raging between certain of the Episcopal authorities
on the Spanish Main as to which bishopric _las Islas Californias_
belonged! Guadalajara was finally awarded the "island."
ARTHUR W. NORTH,
in _The Mother of California._
JANUARY 7.
CALIFORNIA.
A sleeping beauty, hammock-swung,
Beside the sunset sea,
And dowered with riches, wheat, and oil,
Vineyard and orange tree;
Her hand, her heart to that fair prince
Whose genius shall unfold
With rarest art her treasured tales
Of life and love and gold.
CLARENCE URMY,
in _A Vintage of Verse._
JANUARY 8.
BACK TO CALIFORNIA.
To the Californian born, California is the only place to live. Why do
men so love their native soil? It is perhaps a phase of the human love
for the mother. For we are compact of the soil. Out of the crumbling
granite eroded from the ribs of California's Sierras by California's
mountain streams--out of the earth washed into California's great
valleys by her mighty rivers--out of this the sons of California are
made, brain, and muscle, and bone. Why then should they not love their
mother, even as the mountaineers of Montenegro, of Switzerland, of
Savoy, love their mountain birthplace? Why should not exiled
Californians yearn to return? And we sons of California always do
return; we are always brought back by the potent charm of our native
land--back to the soil which gave us birth--and at the last back to
Earth, the great mother, from whom we sprung, and on whose bosom we
repose our tired bodies when our work is done.
JEROME A. HART,
in _Argonaut Letters._
JANUARY 9.
GIVE ME CALIFORNY.
Blizzard back in York state
Sings its frosty tune,
Here the sun a-shinin',
Air as warm as June.
Snow in Pennsylvany,
Zero times down East,
Here the flowers bloomin',
A feller's eyes to feast.
* * * * *
Its every one his own way,
The place he'd like to be,
But give me Californy--
It's good enough for me.
JOHN S. MCGROARTY,
in _Just California._
JANUARY 10.
If Mother Nature is indeed as we see her here, broad-browed and
broad-bosomed, strong and calm--calm because strong--swaying her
vain brats by unruffled love, not by fear; by wise giving, not by
privation; by caresses and gentle precepts, not by cuffs and scoldings
and hysterics--why, then she shall better justify our memories and the
name we have given her. It is well that our New England mothers had
a different climate in their hearts from that which beat at their
windows. I know one Yankee boy who never could quite understand that
his mother had gone _home_ till he came to know the skies of
California.
CHARLES F. LUMMIS,
in _The Right Hand of the Continent, Out West,
June_, 1902.
JANUARY 11.
California, the orchid in the garden of the states, the warm
motherland of genius, the land of enchantment, the land of romance,
the land of magic; California, the beautiful courtezan land, whose
ravishing form the enamored gods had strewed with scarlet roses and
white lilies, and buried deep in her bosom rich treasure; California
began the twentieth century with another tale, fantastic, incredible.
* * *
Until the oil was discovered the land had been worth from one to four
dollars an acre, but now offers were made for it from five hundred to
as many thousands.
MRS. FREMONT OLDER,
in _The Giants._
JANUARY 12.
A CALIFORNIAN TO HIS OLD HOME.
I oft feel sad and lone and cold
Here in the Golden West,
When I recall the times of old,
And fond hearts laid to rest;
The gladsome village crowd at e'en,
The stars a-peeping down,
And all the meadows robed in green
Around Claremorris Town.
* * * * *
This is, in truth, a lovely sphere,
A heaven-favored clime,
Here Nature smiles the whole long year,
'Tis summer all the time,
With spreading palms and pine trees tall
And grape-vines drooping down--
But gladly would I give them all
For you, Claremorris Town.
LAURENCE BRANNICK.
JANUARY 13.
The establishment of the Mission of Santa Catarina marks the close of
what may well be termed the third period of Lower California history.
It is a period remarkable for progress rather than for individual
actors. The great Junipero Serra passes quickly across the stage,
figuring as a man of physical endurance and a diplomat--not as an
explorer or a founder of many missions. His most historic act on the
Peninsula was performed when he drew a line of division between the
territory of the Dominicans and the Franciscans. He is a link between
the two Californias.
ARTHUR W. NORTH,
in _The Mother of California._
JANUARY 14.
TO THE U.S. CRUISER CALIFORNIA.
Godspeed our namesake cruiser,
Godspeed till the echoes cease
'Fore all may the nation choose her
To speak her will for peace.
That she in the hour of battle
Her western fangs may show.
That from her broadsides' rattle
A listening world may know--
She's more than a fighting vessel,
More than mere moving steel,
More than a hull to wrestle
With the currents at her keel;
That she bodies a living-spirit.
The spirit of a state,
A people's strength and merit,
Their hope, their love, their fate.
HAROLD S. SYMMES.
JANUARY 15.
CALIFORNIA AND ITALY.
More and more it becomes apparent to me that the Climate of California
spoils one for any other in the world. If Californians ever doubt that
their winter weather is the finest in the world, let them try that of
sunny Italy. If they have ever grumbled at their gentle rains, brought
on the wings of mild winds from the south, let them try the raw rain,
hail, snow, and sleet storms of sunny Italy. And then forever after
let them hold their peace.
JEROME A. HART,
in _Argonaut Letters._
JANUARY 16.
I see thee in this Hellas of the West,
Thy youngest, fairest child, upon whose crest
Thy white snows gleam, and at whose dimpled feet
The blue sea breaks, while on her heaving breast
The flowers droop and languish for her smile,
Thy grace is mirrored in her youthful form,
She lifts her forehead to the battling storm,
As proud, as fair as thou.
* * * * *
Like thee, she opens wide her snowy arms,
And folds the Nations on her mother-breast.
The brawny Sons of Earth have made their home
Where her wide Ocean casts its ceaseless foam,
Where lifts her white Sierras' orient peak
The wild exultant love of all that makes
The nobler life; the energy that shakes the Earth
And gives new eons birth.
S.A.S.H. of College of Notre Dame, San Jose,
in _Hellas._
JANUARY 17.
THE RETURN TO CALIFORNIA.
Across the desert waste we sped;
The cactus gloomed on either hand,
Wild, weird, grotesque each frowning head
Uprearing from the sand.
Through dull, gray dawn and blazing noon,
Like furnace fire the quivering air,
Till darkness fell, and the young moon
Smiled forth serene and fair.
A single star adown the sky
Shone like a jewel, clear and bright;
We heard the far coyote's cry
Pierce through the silent night.
Then morning--bathed in purple sheen;
Beyond--the grand, eternal hills;
With sunny, emerald vales between,
Crossed by a thousand rills.
Sweet groves, green pastures; buzz of bee
And scent of flower; a dash of foam
On rugged cliffs; the blessed sea,
And then--the lights of home!
MARY E. MANNIX.
JANUARY 18.
Around the Southern Californian home of the loving twain the roses are
in perpetual bloom. The vines are laden with clustered grapes, the
peach and the apricot trees bend under their loads of luscious fruit,
the milch cows yield their creamy milk, the honey-bees laying in their
stores of sweet spoil, the balmy air breathes fragrance, the drowsy
hum of life is the music of peace.
EDMUND MITCHELL,
in _Only a Nigger._
JANUARY 19.
CALIFORNIA SONG.
DEDICATED TO GEORGE WHARTON JAMES.
Proud are we to own us thine,
Land of Song and Land of Story,
All thy glory
Round our heart-hopes we entwine,
In our souls thy fame enshrine,
California!
Dear to us thy mystic name,
Leal-land; Love-land; Land of Might,
We would write
On the walls of Years thy fame,
With thy love a world inflame,
California!
Dear to us thy maiden grace,
Dear thy queenly Motherhood,
Fain we would
Keep the sun-smiles on thy face,
Worthy live of thy strong Race,
California!
Land of Beauty! Blossom-land!
Land of Heroes, Saints and Sages,
Let the Ages
Witness all thou canst command
From each loyal heart and hand,
California!
S.A.S.H.
JANUARY 20.
I always appreciate things as I go along, for no knowing whether
you'll ever go the same way twice in this world.
ALBERTA LAWRENCE,
in _The Travels of Phoebe Ann._
JANUARY 21.
MOUNT TAMALPAIS.
Home of the elements--where battling bands
Of clouds and winds the rocks defy--
Mute yet great, old Tamalpais stands
Outlined against the rosy sky.
His darkened form uprising there commands
The country round, and every eye
From lesser hills he strangely seems to draw
With lifted glance that speaks of wonder and of awe.
It is the awe that makes us reverence show
To men of might who proudly tower
Above their fellow-men; the glance that we bestow
On one whose native force and power
Have lifted him above the race below--
The pigmy mortals of an hour--
We almost bend the knee and bow the head
To the mighty force that marks his kingly tread.
MRS. PHILIP VERRILL MICHELS,
in _Readings from the California Poets._
JANUARY 22.
Broadly speaking, California is the only _elective_ State. Its
people are not here because their mothers happened to be here at the
time; not as refugees; not as ne'er-do-wells, drifting to do no
better; not even, in bulk, as joining the scrimmage for more money.
They have come by deliberate choice, and a larger proportion of them,
and more single-heartedly, for home's sake than in any other as large
migration on record.
CHARLES F. LUMMIS,
in _The Right Hand of the Continent, Out West,
August_, 1902.
JANUARY 23.
Is there any kind of climate,
Any scene for painter's eye,
The Almighty hath not crowded
'Neath our California sky?
Is there any fruit or flower,
Any gem or jewel old,
Any wonder of creation
This Garden doth not hold--
From the tiny midget blossom
To the grand Sequoia high,
With its roots in God's own country
And its top in God's own sky?
FRED EMERSON BROOKS,
in _Old Abe and Other Poems._
JANUARY 24.
A MENDOCINO MEMORY.
I climbed the canyon to a river-head,
And looking backward saw a splendor spread.
Miles beyond miles, of every kingly hue
And trembling tint the looms of Arras knew--
A flowery pomp as of the dying day,
A splendor where a god might take his way.
* * * * *
It was the brink of night and everywhere
Tall redwoods spread their filmy tops in air;
Huge trunks, like shadows upon shadow cast,
Pillared the under twilight, vague and vast.
* * * * *
Lightly I broke green branches for a bed,
And gathered ferns, a pillow for my head.
And what to this were kingly chambers worth--
Sleeping, an ant, upon the sheltering earth.
EDWIN MARKHAM,
in _Lincoln and Other Poems._
JANUARY 25.
CALIFORNIA.
Queen of the Coast, she stands here emerald-crowned,
Waiting her ships that sail in from the sea,
Fairer than all the western world to me,
Is this young Goddess whom the years have found
Ocean and land, with riches rare and sweet.
Loyally bring their treasures to her feet;
In her brave arms she holds with proud content
The varied plenty of a continent;
In her fair face, and in her dreaming eyes,
Shines the bright promise of her destinies;
Winds kiss her cheek, and fret the restless tides,
She in their truth with faith divine confides,
Watching the course of empire's brilliant fate,
She looks serenely through the Golden Gate.
ANNA MORRISON REED.
JANUARY 26.
Here was our first (and still largest) national romance, the first
wild-flower of mystery, the first fierce passion of an uncommonly
hard-fisted youth. To this day it persists the only glamour between
the covers of our geography. For more than fifty years its only name
has been a witchcraft, and its spell is stronger now than ever, as
shall be coolly demonstrated. This has meant something in the
psychology of so unfanciful a race. The flowering of imagination is no
trivial incident, whether in one farm boy's life or in a people's. It
may be outgrown, and so much as forgotten; but it shall never again be
as if it had never been. Without just that flower we should not have
just this fruit.
CHARLES F. LUMMIS,
in _Out West, June_, 1892.
JANUARY 27.
As time goes on its endless course, environment is sure to crystallize
the American nation. Its varying elements will become unified and the
weeding out process will probably leave the finest human product ever
known. The color, the perfume, the size and form that are placed in
the plants will have their analogies in the composite, the American of
the future.
And now what will hasten this development most of all? The proper
rearing of children. Don't feed children on maudlin sentimentalism or
dogmatic religion; give them nature. Let their souls drink in all that
is pure and sweet. Rear them, if possible, amid pleasant surroundings.
If they come into the world with souls groping in darkness, let them
see and feel the light. Don't terrify them in early life with the fear
of an after world. There never was a child that was made more noble
and good by the fear of a hell. Let nature teach them the lessons of
good and proper living. Those children will grow to be the best of men
and women. Put the best in them in contact with the best outside. They
will absorb it as a plant does sunshine and the dew.
LUTHER BURBANK.
JANUARY 28.
Let us embark freely upon the ocean of truth; listen to every word of
God-like genius as to a whisper of the Holy Ghost, with the conviction
that beauty, truth and love are always divine, and that the real Bible,
whose inspiration can never be questioned, comprises all noble and true
words spoken and written by man in all ages.
WILLIAM DAY SIMONDS,
in _Freedom and Fraternity._
JANUARY 29.
Westward the Star of Empire! Come West, young men! Westward ho! to all
of you who want an opportunity to do something and to be something.
Here is the place in the great Southwest, in the great Northwest, in
all the great West, where you can find an opportunity ready to your
hand. We are only 3,000,000 now. There is room here for 30,000,000.
Where each one of us is now finding an opportunity to do something and
be something there is plenty of room for ten more of you to come and
join us.
G.W. BURTON,
in _Burton's Book on California._
JANUARY 30.
IN CALIFORNIA'S MOUNTAINS.
'Mid the far, fair hills, beneath the pines
With their carpet of needles, soft and brown.
Dwells the precious scent of rare old wines.
Where the sun's distilling rays pour down:
Away from the city, mile on mile,
Far up in the hills where life's worth while.
There the rivulet in gladness leaps
Down a fronded valley, sweet and cool,
Or pausing a little moment sleeps
In a mossy, rock-bound, limpid pool:
Away from the city, mile on mile,
Far up in the hills where life's worth while.
The wild bird carols its sweetest lay,
And the world seems golden with love's good cheer;
There is never a care to cloud the day,
And Heaven, itself, seems, oh, so near!
Away from the city, mile on mile.
Far up in the hills where life's worth while.
WILLIS GEORGE EMERSON.
JANUARY 31.
OUT HERE IN CALIFORNIA.
Out here in California, when Winter's on the scene
And the earth is like a maiden clad in shimmering robes of green;
When the mountains 'way off yonder lift their snowy peaks to God,
While here the dainty flowers raise their faces from the sod;
When the sunbeams kiss the waters till they laugh beneath the rays,
And nature seems a-joining in a matchless hymn of praise;
When there's just enough of frostiness a sense of life to give,
Right here in California it's a comfort just to live.
Out here in California in the January days
The soul of nature seems to sing a jubilee of praise,
And the songbirds whistle clearer, and the blossoms are more fair,
And someway joy and blessing seem about us in the air.
It's cold perhaps off yonder, but we never feel it here,
For the seasons run together through a Summer-haunted year,
And Dame Nature in her bounty leaves us nothing to forgive
Right here in California, where it's comfort just to live.
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