guide-book, I could make the reader's mouth water, just as the menu of a Parisian restaurant does. The canyons through which we have wandered, the hills we have circled, Grossmont—that island in the air—Point Loma, the southern tip of the United States, now, alas, closed on account of the war (Fort Rosecrans is near its point), and further north the mountains and orange groves—snow-capped Sierras looming above orchards of blooming peach-trees!
Even the names add to the fascination, the Cuyamaca Mountains meaning the hills of the brave one; Sierra Madre, the mother mountains; even Tia Juana is euphonious, if you don't stop to translate it into the plebeian "Aunt Jane," and no names could be as lovely as the places themselves. So much beauty rather goes
to one's head. For years in the East we had lived in rented houses, ugly rented houses, always near the station, so that J—— could catch the 7.59 or the 8.17, on foot. To find ourselves on a smiling hill-top—our own hill-top, with "magic casements opening on the foam"—seemed like a dream. After three years it still seems too good to be true.
They say that if you spend a year in Southern California you will never be able to leave it. I don't know. We haven't tried. The only possible reason for going back would be that you aren't in the stirring heart of things here as you are in New York, and the Times is five days old when you get it. Your friends—they all come to you if you just wait a little. What amazes them always is to find that Southern California has the most perfect summer
climate in the world, if you keep near the sea. No rain—many are the umbrellas I have gently extracted from the reluctant hands of doubting visitors; no heat such as we know it in the East. We have an out-of-door dining-room, and it is only two or three times in summer that it is warm enough to have our meals there. In the cities or the "back country" it is different. I have felt heat in Pasadena that made me feel in the same class with Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, but never by the sea.
One result of all this fresh air is that we won't even go indoors to be amused. Hence the outdoor theatre. Why go to a play when it's so lovely outside? But to go to a play out-of-doors in an enchanting Greek theatre with a real moon rising above it—that's another matter. I shall never forget "Midsummer Night's Dream"
as given by the Theosophical Society at Point Loma. Strolling through the grounds with the mauve and amber domes of their temples dimly lighted I found myself murmuring: "In Xanadu did Kubla Khan a stately pleasure dome decree." In a canyon by the sea we found a theatre. The setting was perfect and the performance was worthy of it. Never have I seen that play so beautifully given, so artistically set and delightfully acted, though the parts were taken by students in the Theosophical School. After the last adorable little fairy had toddled off—I hope to bed—we heard a youth behind us observe, "These nuts sure can give a play." We echoed his sentiments.
I should make one exception to my statement that people won't go indoors to be amused. They go to the "movies"—
I think they would risk their lives to see a new film almost as recklessly as the actors who make them. The most interesting part of the moving-picture business is out-of-doors, however. You are walking down the street and notice an excitement ahead. Douglas Fairbanks is doing a little tightrope walking on the telegraph wires. A little farther on a large crowd indicates further thrills. Presently there is a splash and Charley Chaplin has disappeared into a fountain with two policemen in pursuit. Once while we were motoring we came to a disused railway spur, and were surprised to find a large and fussy engine getting up steam while a crowd blocked the road for some distance. A lady in pink satin was chained to the rails—placed there by the villain, who was smoking cigarettes in the offing, waiting for his next cue. The lady
in pink satin had made a little dugout for herself under the track, and as the locomotive thundered up she was to slip underneath—a job that the mines of Golconda would not have tempted me to try. Moving-picture actors have a very high order of courage. We could not stay for the denouement, as we had a nervous old lady with us, who firmly declined to witness any such hair-raising spectacle. I looked in the paper next morning for railway accidents to pink ladies, but could find nothing, so she probably pulled it off successfully.