The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1895-10-20

atmosphere and causing remote ooIects TO
be seen double as if reflected in mirror
or to appear as if suspended IN the air. 1t
is frequently seen in deserts, presenting
the appearance of water. Noah Webster.
So much for Webster and the rest. They
get it all out OF books-out of books that
get it out of other books. Why not, like
Edison, ask good old Mother Nature?
Have seas, rivers, forests, herds, all
things that are or have been-have things,
all things, as we'll as man, souls that sur
vive them?
There is q sort of poets corner in Oak
Iand-that is, ii a wide, shaded and
city can be called corner. But it is truly
corner" so far as the world goes or
comes. Commerce turns back from this
way. The iron track of trade makes a
diversion, as if for the sole purpose of
keeping out of this quiet corner. And so
the cats and the birds and the other
singers have it all their own way. A dead
alive place it is; but the dead have got up
and gone, gone for good, they say, all ex-
cept one wealthy old man, who comes
back now and then to hunt up the silver
handles of his rosewood coffin.
You see, when they took him up, in or
Ger to turn his grave into corner lot,
they could find only the silver door-plate
on his coffin, and this plate and his shin
bones were all this richest of all the rich
men buried here could find to take with
him in his ghostly arms to his nice new
grave.
But he will never find the silver handles
of his coffin by looking down there in the
lrt ha Nv roc hg1eh nd
der the sweet green grass of the new lawn.
He must look up in the treetops for them;
for the handles of imitation silver fell to
pieces right soon, along with the imitation
rosewood coffin, and locust tree sent its
industrious roots down there at once and
took the corroding iron away up into its
high top to make into white blossoms and
perfume and honey for tie bees.
All, how busy is nature and how know
ing The only coffin, in fact, that was
found at all in shape was that of a poor
laborer. and it was merely a big, oblong
redwood box. Come here, then, we of far
lands, who hope to pull yourselves to-
gether hastily when the last trump sounds,
and die poor and sleep IN a California red
wood box till the everlasting morning.
But let US get out of this graveyard,
which, ike many another graveyard in
great cities, is now the best and the health
lest and the wealthiest part of the proud
little city by the great sea, and let US con-
template only the poets corner"
A pretty and witty woman presides here;
woman who might be great some day if
she could only forget that she is commits
stoned by high heaven to vote and hold
office, and could also forget to continually
let off firecracker string of small smart
nesses. Then there is the stately Madonna
woman; then there is the pretty petite,
with lips as tempting as twin apricots. A
rich railroad man hovers about here, and
he really has g heart although he, like
many another man in this iron age of rail-
roads, would rather be accused of almost
any other crime or misdemeanor than
this. Then some of the university men
forget the shades of Berkeley and Stanford
and poke about this poets corner a
good bit. a few of the newspaper people
of the two cities are also seen to go up and
down here oftentimes when off duty, and
there is man who has been accused of
being a poet Ga very serious accusation in
this day and age, for it makes him liable
to all sorts of other accusations) bat he
never denies anything, not even this.
Well, these corners and goers of the
''poets' corner" were gathered together
here to listen to poem-a sonnet. 1t was
called 1.-The Mirage" Now, there was nc
doubt about the question of the poem. 1t
is a poem; but what is miragef
Every one asked the question-every
one tried to answer it-and every one an
swered it differently and indifferently.
The railroad man knew all about it. Yes,
he had seen thousands; had seen cities,
ships, cars; had seen commerce afloat In
the air in every form during his thirty
years west of the Rockies. A painter
present had seen pictures of indescribable
glory on the arid and ashy Mojave Desert
a one-armed general had seen banners and
bayonets glittering above an army of mil
lions. Some of the ladies (God bless
them), finer than the men, had seen gay
and thronged summer resorts so inviting
and magnificent that they were surely
outposts of paradise.
Then, one after another upspake the
learned and solid old professors of the two
universities, born doubters of all things, as
all such men of books are, and stoutly in
sisted that mirage is merely what the be-
holder imagines. dreams about or desires.
and they instanced, as in evidence. the
fact that the RAILROAD man saw only COM
merce and its varied adjuncts and at
tributes, the soldier saw armies and the
ladies summer resorts and superb gowns.
And one of these grave men went SO far as
10 say that this very grave subject was
born of the fact that we were gathered to-
gether in graveyard atmosphere, famed
into little breeze a little time before by
the foolish story of the rich dead man hav-
ing been seen hunting for the handles OF
his coffin one moonlight night by the mul.
tltudinous and terrified cats.
But away with levity! / say, my wise
men whose eyes are covered with glasses
and then walled in by the lids and leaves
of books, that [ have seen things these
forty years past that I never could have
imagined, and, goodness knows, never de-
sired. And this is all L shall now say OF
such things on my own account. But
am going TO let down the outlines of what
my old partner, Mountain 10, one of FIRE.
monts men and the first proprietor OF
"hat Is now Castle Crag Tavern, told me
1ofy years ago of his experience with a
mirage when crossing the southern plains