I must not omit the mention of a glorious trip out across the harbor, to a watering place full of villa residences, nestled at the water's edge, close under the towering mountains which encompass the whole great expanse. The coloring of the place, the forms of the mountains, and the tints upon the water, all suggest the Mediterranean and other foreign shores.
In the fragments of the days left us in San Francisco, most agreeable hours were spent in stores where Chinese and Japanese goods, in great profusion and splendid taste, were freely open to our view.
An agreeable treat was also given me in a visit to the Bohemian Club, where, through an introduction from a New York friend, I met some delightful and hospitable men. In the club were some capital pictures produced by California artists; among them, a great small painting of the redwoods seen at night, with a camp-fire in the foreground, most Rembrandt-like in effect. Another was full of sunshine and life. It was a group of boys undressing in the blue shade between two yellow sand dunes by the sea; while out in the ocean surf beyond, in the full light, were two or three, already in, having the full frolic of their free pleasure in the blue waters of the Pacific.
But we had yet to see other places, and soon San Francisco was left behind.
XIV
Departure for San José. — Palo Alto. — Advertiser. — Leland Stanford, Jr., University.
Our next point after leaving San Francisco was San José. On our flight thither, we stopped off for some four hours at Palo Alto, and took a lovely ride through the gorgeous Leland Stanford estate, and also some others; taking in besides, the wonderful Leland Stanford, Jr., University. It was all, it is true, but a glimpse, but a glorious one. Are not our best impressions often but the result of supreme moments! We see and feel in such moments, with an intenseness, which gives us our best conceptions and our most cherished memories. If we approach a scene with the imagination all wrought up, we are often apt to be disappointed; for, there is that in the ideal of all minds which never can be realized. But, as if to make up for this condition of our being, nature and art, each alike, sometimes come upon us unawares, with such unexpected beauty, that our ideal is accomplished for us, and even more than realized, before we know it. Then we submit ourselves to our surprise, and are satisfied.
Somewhat in this mood Palo Alto broke upon us. There were the rich lands in high cultivation, the spreading trees of various kinds, the vineyards, the olive yards, the orchards, the spacious houses, the glowing gardens all abloom. The whole was a rich combination gratifying every sense.
We saw in one of the gardens a beautiful piece of Greek art brought from Pompeii, a portion of a graceful curved peristyle of marble, once white and glistening, but now a rich fawn color, the result of time stretching back to the beginning of the Christian era or beyond. Every line of the fluting on the columns, and the carving on architrave and capital, was fresh as if of yesterday. It stood there like a dream of the far past, made visible to us here to-day, in a garden of roses in this enchanting West.