The Native Son | Page 4

surface. As for adjectives like enormous, colossal, surpassing, overpowering and nouns like marvel, wonder, grandeur, vastness, they are as common in your copy as commas.
Another difficulty is that nobody outside California ever believes you. I don't blame them. Once I didn't believe it myself. If there was anything that formerly bored me to the marrow of my soul, it was talk about California by a regular dyed-in-the-wool Californiac. But I got mine ultimately. Even as I was irritated, I now irritate. Even as I was bored, I now bore. Ever since I first saw California, and became, inevitably, a Californiac, I have been talking about it, irritating and boring uncounted thousands. I begin placatingly enough, "Yes, I know you aren't going to believe this," I say. "Once I didn't believe it myself. I realize that it all sounds impossible. But after you've once been there - " Then I'm off. When I've finished, there isn't an hysterical superlative adjective or a complimentary abstract noun unused in my vocabulary. I've told all the East about California. I've told many of the countries of Europe about California. I even tell Californians about California. I will say to the credit of Californians though that they listen. Listen! did I say listen? They drink it down like a child absorbing its first fairy tale.
In another little volume devoted to the praise of California, Willie Britt is on record as saying that he'd rather be a busted lamp-post on Battery Street than the Waldorf-Astoria. I said once that I'd rather be sick in California than well anywhere else. I'm prepared to go further. I'd rather be in prison in California than free anywhere else. San Quentin is without doubt the most delightfully situated prison in the whole world. Besides I have a lot of friends - but I won't go into that now. Anyway if I ever do get that severe jail-sentence which a long-suffering family has always prophesied for me, I'm going to petition for San Quentin. Moreover, I would rather talk about California than any other spot on earth. I'd rather write about California than any other spot on earth. Is it possible that any Californian Chamber of Commerce has to pay a press agent? Incredible! Inexplicable! I wonder that local millionaires don't bid their entire fortune for the privilege. Now what has Willie Britt to say?
Yes, my idea of a pleasant occupation would be listing, cataloguing, inventorying, describing and - oh joy! - visiting the wonders of California. But that would be impossible for any one enthusiast to accomplish in the mere three-score-and-ten of Scriptural allotment. Methusalah might have attempted it. But in these short-lived days, ridiculous to make a start. And so, perforce, I must share this joyous task with other and more able chroniclers. I am willing to leave the beauty of the scenery to Mary Austin, the wonder of the weather to Jesse Williams, the frenzy of its politics to Sam Blythe, the beauty of its women to Julian Street, the glory of the old San Francisco to Will Irwin, the splendor of the new San Francisco to Rufas Steele, its care-free atmosphere to Allan Dunn, if I may place my laurel wreath at the foot of the Native Son. Indeed, when it comes to the Native Son, I yield the privilege of praise to no one.
For the Native Son is an unique product, as distinctively and characteristically Californian as the gigantic redwood, the flower festival, the ferocious flea, the moving-picture film, the annual boxing and tennis champion, the golden poppy or the purple prune. There is only one other Californian product that can compare with him and that's the Native Daughter. And as for the Native Daughter - - But if I start up that squirrel track I'll never get back to the trail. Nevertheless some day I'm going to pick out a diamond-pointed pen, dip it in wine and on paper made from orange-tawny POPPY petals, try to do justice to the Native Daughter. For this inflexible moment, however, my subject is the Native Son. But if scenery and climate - and weather even - do creep in, don't blame me. Remember I warned you. Besides sooner or later I shall be sure to get back to the main theme.
In the January of 1917 I made my annual pilgrimage to California. On the train was a Native Son who was the hero of the following astonishing tale. He was one of a large family, of which the only girl had married a German, a professor in an American university. Shortly before the Great War, the German brother-in-law went back to the Fatherland to spend his sabbatical year in study at a German university. Letters came regularly for a while after the war began; then they stopped. His