A Truthful Woman in Southern California

by Kate Sanborn

At Coronado Beach one rushes out after breakfast for an all-day excursion or morning tramp; here one sits and sits, always intending to go somewhere or do something, until the pile of unanswered letters accumulates and the projected trips weary one in a dim perspective. It is all so beautiful, so new, so wonderful! San Diego is the Naples of America, with the San Jacinto Mountains for a background and the blue sunlit bay to gaze upon, and one of the finest harbors in the world. Yet with all this, few have the energy even to go a-fishing.

Now, as a truthful "tourist," I must admit that in the winter there are many days when the sun does not shine, and the rainy season is not altogether cheerful for the invalid and the stranger. Sunshine, glorious golden sunshine, is what we want all the time; but we do not get it. I noticed that during the heavy rains the invalids retired to their rooms, overcome by the chill and dampness, and some were seriously ill. But then they would have been in their graves if they had remained in the East. There are many charming people residing in San Diego, well, happy, useful, who know they can never safely return to their old homes.

There has been such a rosy glamour thrown over southern California by enthusiastic romancers that many are disappointed when they fail to find an absolute Paradise.

Humboldt said of California: "The sky is constantly serene and of a deep blue, and without a cloud; and should any clouds appear for a moment at the setting of the sun, they display the most beautiful shades of violet, purple, and green."[1]

[1] Humboldt had never been in Alta California, and procured this information in Mexico or Spain.

Now, after reading that, a real rainy day, when the water leaks through the roof and beats in at the doors, makes a depressed invalid feel like a drenched fowl standing forlornly on one leg in the midst of a New England storm. With snow-covered mountains on one side and the ocean with its heavy fogs on the other, and the tedious rain pouring down with gloomy persistence, and consumptives coughing violently, and physicians hurrying in to attend to a sudden hemorrhage or heart-failure, the scene is not wholly gay and inspiriting. But when the sun comes forth again and the flowers (that look to me a little tired of blooming all the time) brighten up with fresh washed faces, and all vegetation rejoices and you can almost see things grow, and the waves dance and glitter, and the mountains no longer look cold and threatening but seem like painted scenery, a la Bierstadt, hung up for our admiration, and the valleys breathe the spicy fragrance of orange blossoms, we are once more happy, and ready to rave a little ourselves over the much-talked-of "bay 'n' climate." But there are dangers even on the sunniest day. I know a young physician who came this year on a semi-professional tour, to try the effects of inhalations on tuberculosis, and it was so delightfully warm that he straightway took off his flannels, was careless about night air, and was down with pneumonia.

The tourist or traveller who writes of San Diego usually knows nothing of it but a week or two in winter or early spring.

Southern California has fifty-two weeks in the year, and for two thirds of this time the weather is superb.

I can imagine even a mission Indian grunting and complaining if taken to our part of the country in the midst of a week's storm. We flee from deadly horrors of climate to be fastidiously critical. If, in midsummer, sweltering sufferers in New York or Chicago could be transported to this land they would not hurry away. The heat is rarely above eighty-five degrees, and nearly always mitigated by a refreshing breeze from the bay. I am assured that there have not been five nights in as many years when one or more blankets have not been necessary for comfort. In summer everything is serene. No rain, no thunder-storms, no hail, or water-spouts. (The dust pest is never spoken of!) The picnic can be arranged three weeks ahead without an anxious thought about the weather. The summer sunsets are marvellously beautiful.

One must summer and winter here before he can judge fairly, and the hyper-sensitive should tarry in New Mexico or in the desert until spring. I believe that rheumatic or neuralgic invalids should avoid the damp resorts to which they are constantly flocking only to be dissatisfied. Every sort of climate can be found in the State, so that no one has the right to grumble.