r instance, that New England's climate
is temperate. That is too harsh. Neither can it be described as
"semi-tropical" in the way that Hawaii, for example, is semi-tropical.
That is too soft. It combines the advantages of both with the
disabilities of neither.

You may begin to read again, Easterners; for at last I've returned to
the Native Son.

That sparkling briskness--the tang--which is the best the temperate
climate has to offer, gives the Native Son his high powered strenuosity.
That developing softness--lush--(every Native Son will admit the lush)
which is the best the semi-tropical element has to contribute, gives him
his size and comeliness. The weather of San Francisco keeps the Native
Son out of doors whenever it is possible through the day time. To take
care of this flight into the open are seashore and mountain, city parks
and country roads. That same weather drives him indoors during the
evenings. And to meet this demand are hotels, restaurants, theatres,
moving-picture houses, in numbers out of all proportion to the
population. Again, the weather permits him to play baseball and football
for unusual periods with ease, to play tennis and golf three-quarters
of the year with comfort, to walk and swim all the year with joy.
Notwithstanding the combination of heavy rains with startling hill
heights, he never ceases to motor day or night, winter or summer. The
weather not only allows this, but the climate drives him to it.

These are the reasons why there is nothing hectic about the hordes of
Native Sons who nightly motor about San Francisco, who fill its theatres
and restaurants. An after-theatre group in San Francisco is as different
from the tallowy, gas-bred, after-theatre groups on Broadway as it is
possible to imagine. In San Francisco, many of them look as though they
had just come from State-long motor trips; from camping expeditions on
the beach, among the redwoods, or in the desert; from long, cold Arctic
cruises, or long, hot Pacific ones. Moreover the Native Son's club
encourages all this athletic instinct by offering spacious and beautiful
gymnasium quarters in which to develop it. Lacking a club, he can turn
to the public baths, surely the biggest and most beautiful in the world.

Just as there is a different physical aspect to the Native Son, there
is, compared to the rest of the country, a different social aspect to
him. California is still young, still pioneer in outlook. Society has
not y