It would be gratifying to indulge in full descriptions of San Francisco
and the enjoyment derived from valued friends. In doing this, I could
most cordially repeat the enthusiastic words of others. Let me give at
once the scale by which I soon learned to measure everything in this
wonderful region, indicated by some first impressions:
Before leaving home, an elderly lady told me that she had long watched
her calla lily, hoping that it would open in time to be presented to
me before I left home. It came at last, perfectly beautiful, such as
the stem had yielded several times before; the same silvery frost work
on its petals, the same odor of lemon balm in the calyx. I told the
venerable donor that I believed that the impression made by her rare
gift, so long and carefully watched, a beautiful unit, lovely in its
oneness, would have a charm for me which I could not suppose would be
forgotten in more luxuriant climes. My one calla lily which had made a
last impression upon me on leaving home, was brought forcibly to mind
the morning after my arrival. I was requested to walk to the window,
where I was told some favorites of mine were waiting to see me. There
stood in a border to a flower garden, thirty calla lily plants, each
plant with its lily in perfect growth. There was no more spirit in me.
Is this the scale by which you excel your friends at the East? I found
it to be so. A pleasurable feeling of being vanquished came over me.
Every hour brought its new surprise. I gave up. I was in California.
A day or two after, the seal was set to my conviction that I was there.
I had the pleasure of experiencing an earthquake. About ten o’clock one
fair day, suddenly a noise came, such as I never before heard, and a
motion unlike anything which I had ever felt before. It lasted not more
than five seconds. But Cape Horn did not shake after that pattern. No
description can convey any idea of the feeling excited by it. I turned
involuntarily to my door, and, opening it, found the family in the
entry, brought there in the same bewildered state of mind as myself.
Apprehension of danger soon subsided; but we wished ourselves at sea,
in order to be safe.
The view of the Pacific from the Cliff House seemed to me the most
interesting of sea views from shore. In itself, it so impressed me;
but, added to this, the recollection of the great extent of territory
of which it is a boundary, makes it approach near to the sublime. The
coast line of California, taking in its curves and indentations, it is
said in an able statistical paper in that State, is equal to a straight
line drawn from San Francisco to Plymouth, Mass. Those seals, climbing
upon the rocks not many feet from you, undisturbed by your presence,
giving you a new chapter in natural history, opening animal life to
you as you may not have seen it before, remind you that you are in a
region of the earth far from your home. One day in driving we came to a
hill which, though it was only the fifteenth of March, had began to put
forth a combination of colors so numerous and brilliant as to make you
believe at first that they were the work of art. A little below, the
ground was without any sign of spring. A soil which could so quickly
feel the sun as to give forth its luxuriance profusely, as it were at
a day’s warning, though lifted but a little above the general level,
impresses one with its extremely sensitive nature, making you ready to
believe anything which is told you of its fruitfulness.
So many friends come around you here that your home circle seems to
have stretched its circumference; for those who dwell under these
western skies seem to retain their native qualities, which make you
identify them at once as those whom you formerly knew and loved. Ties
of friendship or valued acquaintance draw many to you, in connection or
association with people whom you are glad to recall in the features,
the voices, of their descendants. The names of Oakland and Alameda, and
of other places, will ever be associated in our minds with names and
scenes most precious. I left this wonderful region with great love for
it, deeply impressed with the many valued friends whom I found or made
there.