The California Birthday Book | Page 5

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 grow; There's not a single hour the streams do not unfettered flow; There's not a briefest moment when the songsters do not sing, And life's a sort of constant race 'twixt Summer and the Spring. Why, just to know the joy of it one might his best years give-- Out here in California, where it's comfort just to live.
A.J. WATERHOUSE.
FEBRUARY 1.
Night-time in California. Elsewhere men only guess?At the glory of the evenings that are perfect--nothing less; But here the nights, returning, are the wond'rous gifts of God-- As if the days were maidens fair with golden slippers shod. There is no cloud to hide the sky; the universe is ours,?And the starlight likes to look and laugh in Cupid-haunted bowers. Oh the restful, peaceful evenings! In them my soul delights, For God loved California when He gave to her her nights.
ALFRED JAMES WATERHOUSE,?in Some Homely Little Songs.
FEBRUARY 2.
There it lay, a constellation