alists from the East seem
engaged in a generous rivalry to create the ideal paradise. Passion
vines completely cover the arbors, roses clamber to the tops of houses
and blossom by tens of thousands. I notice displays fit for a floral
show in the windows of butcher shops and shoe stores. The churches are
adorned with a mantle of vines and flowers.

Are there no "outs," no defects in this Pasadena? One must not forget
the rainy days, the occasional "hot spells" of August and September, a
wind now and then that blows off steeples and tears down fragile
structures, bringing along a good deal more sand than is wanted. And
every year an earthquake may be expected. I have experienced two, and
they are not agreeable.

Aside from these drawbacks and dust in summer, all else is perfection,
except that the weather is so uniformly glorious that there is seldom a
day when one is willing to stay at home. I feel just now like a
"deestrick" schoolboy who has been "kept in" on a summer afternoon.

The wild-flowers are more fascinating to me than all those so profusely
cultivated. I weary of five thousand calla-lilies in one church at
Easter, and lose a little interest in roses when they bloom perennially
and in such profusion that I have had enough given me in one morning to
fill a wash-tub or clothes-basket!

The wealth of color on the hills and mesas in springtime can never be
described or painted. The State flower, the yellow poppy with the name
that would floor any spelling-match hero--the eschscholtzia--is most
conspicuous, and can be seen far away at sea; but there are dozens of
others, that it is better to admire and leave unplucked, as they wilt so
soon. "The ground is literally dolly-vardened with buttercups, violets,
dodecatheons, gilias, nemophilas, and the like. And yet these are the
mere skirmish line of the mighty invading hosts, whose uniforms surpass
the kingly robes of Solomon, and whose banners of crimson and yellow and
purple will soon wave on every hilltop and in every valley.

"In April and May the lover of nature may pass into the seventh heaven
of botanical delight. Then in favored sections the display reaches a
gorgeousness and a profusion that surpass both description and
imagination."

No one can paint the grain fields as they look when the sun puts into
every blade a tiny golden ray and it is no longer every-day common
grain, but an enchanted carpet of living, radiant, golden green. We
tourists call it