The California Birthday Book | Page 5

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.
Out here in California where the orange turns to gold
And Nature has
forgotten all the art of growing old,
There's not a day throughout the
year when flowers do not