The Native Son | Page 6

I am thinking also of that patch of pre-historic cypresses in Monterey. These differ from the straight, symmetrical classic redwoods as Rodin's "Thinker" differs from the Apollo. Monstrous, contorted shapes - those Monterey cypresses look like creatures born underground, who, at the price of almost unbearable torture, have torn through the earth's crust, thrusting and twisting themselves airward. I refer even to that astonishing detail in the general Californian sulphitism, the seals which frequent beach rocks close to the shore, a short car ride from the heart of a city as big as San Francisco.
- and this -
California, because of rich gold deposits, and a richer golden, sunshine, its golden spring poppy and its golden summer verdure, seems both literally and figuratively, a golden land golden and gay. It is a land full of contradictions however. For those amazing memorials from a prehistoric past give it in places a strange air of tragedy. I challenge this grey old earth to produce a strip of country more beautiful, also more poignant and catastrophic in natural connotation, than the one which includes these cypresses of Monterey. Yet this same mordant area holds Point Lobos, a headland which displays in moss and lichens all the minute delicacy of a gleeful, elfin world. I challenge the earth to produce a region more beautiful, yet also more gay and debonair in natural connotation, than the one which enfolds San Francisco. For here the water presents gorgeous, plastic color, alternating blue and gold. Here Mount Tamalpais lifts its long straight slopes out of the sea and thrusts them high in the sky. Here Marin County offers contours of dimpled velvet bursting with a gay irridescence of wildflowers. Yet that same gracious area frames the grim cliff-cup which holds San Francisco bay - a spot of Dantesque sheerness and bareness.
- and this.
This is what nature has done. But man has added his deepening touch in one direction and his enlivening touch in another. The early fathers - Spanish - erected Missions from one end of the State to the other. These are time-mellowed, mediaeval structures with bell-towers, cloisters and gardens, sunbaked, shadow-colored; and in spots they make California as old and sad as Spain. Later emigrants - French - have built in the vicinity of San Francisco many tiny roadside inns where one can drink the soft wines of the country. Framed in hills that are garlanded with vineyards, these inns are often mere rose-hidden bowers. They make California seem as gay as France. I can best put it by saying that I know of no place so "haunted" in every poetic and plaintive sense as California; yet I know of no place so perfectly suited to carnival and festival.
All of this is part of the reason why you can't surprise a Californian.
This looks like respite, but there's no real relief in sight Easterners. Keep right on reading, Californiacs!
Yes, California is beautiful.
Once upon a time, a Native Son lay dying. He did not know that he was going to die. His physician had to break the news to him. He told the Californian that the process would not be long or painful. He would go to sleep presently and when he woke up, the great journey would have been accomplished. His words fulfilled themselves. Soon the Native Son fell into a coma. When he opened his eyes he was in Paradise. He raised himself up, gave one look about and exclaimed, "What a boob that doctor was! Whad'da he mean - Paradise! Here I am still in California."
Man has of course, here as elsewhere, chained nature; set her to toil for him. She is a willing worker everywhere, but in California she puts no stay nor stint on her productive efforts. California produces - Now up to this moment I have held myself in. Looking back on my copy I see only such meager words as "beauty", "glory", "splendor", such pale, inadequate phrases as "super-mundane fertility" and "super-solar fecundity". What use are words and phrases when one speaks of California. It is time for us to abandon them both and resort to some bright, snappy sparkling statistics.
Reader, I had to soft-pedal here. If I gave you the correct statistics, You wouldn't believe me.
So here goes!
California produces forty per cent of the gold, fifty per cent of the wheat, sixty per cent of the oranges, seventy per cent of the prunes, eighty per cent of the asparagus and (including the Native Daughters) ninety-nine and ninety-nine one-hundredths per cent of the peaches of the world. I pause to say here that none of these figures is true. They are all made up for the occasion. But don't despair! I am sure that they don't do California justice by half. Any other Californiac - with the mathematical memory which I