Where giantism, self-inflation, or personal ambition plays a prominent part in the characteristics of other states, the Californians are merely happy—happy about everything, happy all the time. Their optimism is as unfailingly golden as their metal, their fruits, their grain, their poppies.
In a corner of the orange country, lava poured over the soil. Were they down-hearted? Not a bit.
“For all we know,” said they, “we may find we can grow something new in it that we’ve never tried before.”
In Pasadena the heat was stifling. It required all the breath I could muster to ask weakly of a land owner:
“Do you think there is any likelihood of more of this weather?”
“Yes. Oh, yes, indeed,” he beamed. “It is generally cool until the first of May, and then it gets pleasant just like this.”
In San Francisco it rained all through May without ceasing. “Too wonderful!” they said. “The Eastern tourists will see the country so beautifully washed.”
But we have heard that their gladness had one vulnerability, they could not bear to speak of earthquakes. Therefore, curious as I was to hear something about them, I did not dare to ask. Drinking my coffee one morning in San Mateo where we were stopping with the B.’s my bed suddenly shook so that my coffee spilled. In a moment Mrs. B. rushed into my room in joyful excitement:
“Did you feel the earthquake? Wasn’t it a wonderful one! I was afraid you would go back to New York and never know what they are like!”
All that day everyone we saw spoke of the earthquake in much the same way, as though some delightful happening had occurred for our special benefit. Instead of shying away from the subject they reveled in it; advised us if ever we felt a severe one to run and stand in the doorframe. Even if the whole house comes down the doorways, it seems, are perfectly safe. Then they drove us to a beautiful estate that was directly over a fault and to prove what a real earthquake could do, they showed us a stone wall that had been shifted four feet, and an orchard of trees that had been picked up bodily and planted elsewhere. They added casually that the house, of course, was new, the other having been quaked to the ground.