A Truthful Woman in Southern California | Page 6

many charming people residing in San Diego, well,
happy, useful, who know they can never safely return to their old
homes.
There has been such a rosy glamour thrown over southern California by
enthusiastic romancers that many are disappointed when they fail to
find an absolute Paradise.
Humboldt said of California: "The sky is constantly serene and of a
deep blue, and without a cloud; and should any clouds appear for a
moment at the setting of the sun, they display the most beautiful shades
of violet, purple, and green."[1]
[Footnote 1: Humboldt had never been in Alta California, and procured
this information in Mexico or Spain.]
Now, after reading that, a real rainy day, when the water leaks through
the roof and beats in at the doors, makes a depressed invalid feel like a
drenched fowl standing forlornly on one leg in the midst of a New
England storm. With snow-covered mountains on one side and the
ocean with its heavy fogs on the other, and the tedious rain pouring
down with gloomy persistence, and consumptives coughing violently,
and physicians hurrying in to attend to a sudden hemorrhage or
heart-failure, the scene is not wholly gay and inspiriting. But when the
sun comes forth again and the flowers (that look to me a little tired of
blooming all the time) brighten up with fresh washed faces, and all
vegetation rejoices and you can almost see things grow, and the waves
dance and glitter, and the mountains no longer look cold and
threatening but seem like painted scenery, a la Bierstadt, hung up for
our admiration, and the valleys breathe the spicy fragrance of orange
blossoms, we are once more happy, and ready to rave a little ourselves
over the much-talked-of "bay 'n' climate." But there are dangers even
on the sunniest day. I know a young physician who came this year on a
semi-professional tour, to try the effects of inhalations on tuberculosis,
and it was so delightfully warm that he straightway took off his flannels,
was careless about night air, and was down with pneumonia.
The tourist or traveller who writes of San Diego usually knows nothing

of it but a week or two in winter or early spring.
Southern California has fifty-two weeks in the year, and for two thirds
of this time the weather is superb.
I can imagine even a mission Indian grunting and complaining if taken
to our part of the country in the midst of a week's storm. We flee from
deadly horrors of climate to be fastidiously critical. If, in midsummer,
sweltering sufferers in New York or Chicago could be transported to
this land they would not hurry away. The heat is rarely above
eighty-five degrees, and nearly always mitigated by a refreshing breeze
from the bay. I am assured that there have not been five nights in as
many years when one or more blankets have not been necessary for
comfort. In summer everything is serene. No rain, no thunder-storms,
no hail, or water-spouts. (The dust pest is never spoken of!) The picnic
can be arranged three weeks ahead without an anxious thought about
the weather. The summer sunsets are marvellously beautiful.
One must summer and winter here before he can judge fairly, and the
hyper-sensitive should tarry in New Mexico or in the desert until spring.
I believe that rheumatic or neuralgic invalids should avoid the damp
resorts to which they are constantly flocking only to be dissatisfied.
Every sort of climate can be found in the State, so that no one has the
right to grumble.
Do not take off flannels, although the perspiration does trickle down
the side of your face as you sit in the sun. A fur cape is always needed
to protect one shoulder from a chilling breeze while the other side is
toasted. It is not safe for new-comers to be out-of-doors after four or
five o'clock in the afternoon, nor must they ride in open cars except in
the middle of the day. These innocent diversions give the doctors their
support.
Bill Nye, with his usual good sense, refused to drive in a pouring rain
to view the scenery and orchards when visiting San Diego in March,
and says: "Orange orchards are rare and beautiful sights, but when I can
sit in this warm room, gathered about a big coal fire, and see miles of
them from the window, why should I put on my fur overcoat and a

mackintosh in order to freeze and cry out with assumed delight every
half-mile while I gradually get Pomona of the lungs?"
There are many places worth visiting if you can rouse yourselves for
the effort. Point Loma, twelve miles distant, gives a wonderful view,
one of the finest in the world. I warrant you will be