The daily morning journal and courier., 1907-10-31
EASTERN MANNERS AND CUSTOMS How They Strike An Ob- servant California
 Tourist. NEW ENGLAND NOTIONS The East Is Not Yet Quite the Perfect Part of
 the Land.
NEW ENGLAND NOTIONS


 esting reading It is evident enough even to one who turns longingly to- ward the land which he saw through a strangers eyes, that his article is as kindly as 1t Is candid in its inten- ton at least. Perhaps six months of easy sojourning from California to Maine and homeward again, with glimpses of score of states, and tar ryings in nearly every large city of the East, may be less favorable to defin- iteness of impression than the sundry days where in Kew visited the cities around San Francisco bay. Yet cer- tain passages of his writing side by side with certain passages of our ex- perienee, made one exile wonder whether, with equal candor and no less kindness, the sojourner east of the Rocky mountains might not in un- fattering similitude describe even the East as 1t is," Possibly there is some philosophical reason why the wart on the face is more apparent to the stranger than it is to the old fa- miliar friend.
 Certainly the East has very much to make the candid Californian glad for summers sojourn here If the summer attractiveness of New Eng land were as we'll advertised as the winter attractiveness of California, north and south, probably the tourist would be as we'll satisfied in the one case as in the other. In the exile's opinion, the East is far more satisfy ing to the eye in summer than is Cali fornia during the same season of the year, and, on occasion, quite as com fortable. Besides, as one of our nos blest Californians confessed on re- turning to the neighborhood of San Francisco after few weeks east of the Alleghany mountains. Brethren, the people are in the East; there are a few of us here, but the people are in the East" The man who has so- journed in the Sierras and otherwise explored the Pacific coast is apt to have two dominant impressions when first he travels through the eastern states again; the one is the diminu- tiveness of the country itself, and the other Is the fact that the people are here. a
 Here also are the libraries, art galleries, and historic places and memorials of the land. "Old home week" in Boston leaves a man from California with the impression that he has only dreamed of reading Ameri- can history before. Likewise you may see more art in an hour in Bos- ton, New York city or Washington than you can see from end to end of the 1,500 miles of the Pacific coast. The friend who took us up Broadway on top of "tally-ho' showed us the homes of more millionaires in an hour than there are on all the avenues from Seattle to San Diego, and offered, if we would not tarry in Gotham, to make us acquainted with more writers and editors of national renown than are to be found in all the genius bearing West. There are more nota- ble Californians in New York than there are in California itself. Many man who can never forget his "auld
 
 finds the influential acquaintance of the East more important to his suc- cess. Success makes an occasional trip across the Rocky mountains, but she lives and spends most of her mon ey not to mention other favors, on the Atlantic coast.
 Yet the passing Californian finds some similar anomalies here. If, perchance he thinks that the pen is mightier than the sword, he finds that military memorials are everywhere at Concord, conspicuously accessible to all, while tho "Wayside," where flaw thorne lived, and the Concord school of philosophy, where Emerson lectur- ed and the house where Little Wom- en" was written, are empty, but neither swept nor garnished, nor even l painted or kept in decent repair, and are otherwise unmarked, except as Private property" or "Trespassing strictly forbidden" or, without other advertisement, as simply For sale. ' Emerson's home is decent, but inac- cessibie, as are the houses where Longfellow and Lowell lived in the neighborhood of Boston, At Port land, Me, the old brick house in which Longfellow spent his early years Is open to the public, for a price but Longfellow's birthplace and the ] birthplace of the statesman Thomas B. Reed, which are close together art as neglected, unsightly and unattrac. tive as though they were but worn- ou factory tenements. New Englant makes more of single military hero of obscure fame than she does of al her moral and intellectual heroes to- gether. To judge her by her monu. ments, she is the land of the "bil stick"
 The Californian's companion, wht was born and bred in the Golden State had never seen a closed church before she visited the land of the Pilgrims and the Puritans. Some, indeed, O. the Liberal churches around Sar Francisco bay are closed in summer on Sunday evenings. But to find thu mother society of Christian endeavo, practically nonexistent for two O three months of the year, and that il 8 city as comfortable as Portland l proved in summer, and as full 0 strangers; and to find great evangeli
 cal churches, whose reputation ha
 gone throughout the earth,> eithe closed entirely for the summe
 months, or served by strangers hiret for less than some of our secondar
 California churches pay their sup plies between pastorates, and attendet
 by a few score of indifferent people
 who acted as if they were marking
 lime; and to find that in religious cir