The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1895-03-17
THE GENIUS OF CALIFORNIA.

been fairly entered upon. During the tirstof
these epochs, embracing the twenty years
which followed the date of the overflow of
Alta California by speaking peo-
pie, its literature was altogether the prod
net of men and women who had been
born and educated under Eastern skies and
who had drifted hither with the tide of
pioneer times. Whatever there may be
that is distinctive in the work of the
writer's of that era is to be credited to those
peculiar local conditions which compelled
exigenous genius to display of qualities
of thought and styles of expression which
would not have been theirs in other atmos-
pheres. Who can say that Mark Twain
would ever have gained that wide appreci-
alton of his humor but for his ''roughing
it, amid the intense experiences of early
California and Nevada days? Who will
believe that Bret Harte would have
achieved fame enough to have been made
a diplomat but for his "details on the San
Francisco papers; or that Prentice Null
ford or Edward Rowland Sill or Charles
Warren Stoddard or Edward A. Pollock
could have written as they did in enduring
prose and verse except for draughts which
each had taken at the bubbling we'll
spring of our California life? Certain it is
that through the warp and wool OF the
products of these literary looms there runs
a golden thread of humor, fancy, poetry
and passion which is distinctively Califor-
MAN and without which the fabric would be
scarcely worth the weaving.
The second epoch opened when Young
men and women who were either natives
of California or had come to it in child
hood began to mingle in their work as
writer's with those of the earlier era. Of
these, John Vance Cheney, Virna Woods,
Madge Morris, Ella Sterling Cummins,
Clarence Urmy, Carrie Stevens Walter
Ina D. Coolbrith and Gertrude Frank
lin Anterior are shining examples.
The prose and rhyme OF these young
writers of the second epoch displayed still
more markedly the influence of the environ
ment and breathed forth fragrance that
was conceded to be peculiarly Californian
The quaint old missions; the rare romantic
living of the days "before the gringo
came"; the California poppy; the pines
and palms of hills and plains the rustling
wheat OF bountiful valleys and the restless
waves of Western shores; the Golden Gate
and the golden sunsets beyond it-all were
themes which called forth glowing sem
fences from these fervent minds There
have been crudities, to be sure, in the litera-
ture of this epoch, but these resulted
mainly from the temptation to initiate the
writers of the earlier period, which their
fame awakened, while in fact, though more
artistic, sometimes, these were not so true
to nature or to character as have been the
poets and romancers of the later time
The third epoch of our California liter
allure is that which during the last decade
has been entered upon and of which the
sun of a summer day is as yet but scarcely
risen. 1t is the period within which the
sons and daughters of California shall pre-
dominate in the development of her liter
allure and give to it a bouquet and an
aroma which shall be native indeed.
There yet Iinger between the twilights of
the two epochs few rare souls who have
given to every period of our literary his
tory something worthy of Immortality. OF
these the two most notable are Joaquin
Miller and Ambrose Bierce; the one the
guide and the other the censor of the genius
of the California of to-day. The most
forceful writers of the second period also
are still here to hasten on and to share in the
from every present indication is being
entered upon. These elder workers in the
mines of thought; these trained explorers
of the realms OF fancy, are at their best.
The schools and colleges of the State are
equipped with every aid to culture. and
are daily thronged with ardent youths and
maidens drinking in enthusiastically
draughts of the worlds rarest learning
The press of California is most liberal in
its encouragement Of native talent, and
with the aid of literary clubs is fast estab-
fishing local standards and canons of
criticism by which merit shall be rightly
measured and speedily recognized. The
essay, the poem or the romance which
artistically reflects California to readers
minds obtains immediate favor among pub
fishers, not alone here but in the East as
well, for there also exists growing belief
that the most distinctive as well as most
promising literary development of the
present is to be looked for upon the sunset
side of the Sierras.
Why not? What other place upon this
broad continent possesses elements from
which an essentially distinctive literature
can be made to grow and bloom equal to
those of California? Here she is, with her
intense composite race, her strange ro-
mantle history, her Astounding beauties
and sublimities of nature, her very air sur
charged with indictments to intellectual
activity. Here she stands beside the
worlds greatest ocean, whose winds watt
to her senses the fragrance of spice islands
of the tropics and whose waves bear to her
feet daily infnitude of poetic and artistic
suggestion from that far-distant west
which is the East. She is waiting for the
genius in her sons and daughters to arouse
itself and seize upon the time and oppor-
tunity to create for her literature the ex-
cellences of which shall be supereminent
and the characteristics of which shall be
essentially her own.