vely blossoms;
and vases swung from the roof drip and overflow with others, as if water
had turned to flowers. In the garden, which extends over several acres
at the front of the house, and, as it were, makes it an island in
a gorgeous sea of petals, there are roses, almonds, oranges, vines,
pomegranates, and a hundred rivals whose names are unknown to the
present historian, marching joyfully and triumphantly through the
seasons, as the symphony moves through changes along its central theme.

Everything that is not an animal or a mineral seems to be a flower.
There are too many flowers,--or, rather, there is not enough of anything
else. The faculty of appreciation wearies, and at last ceases to
take note. It is like conversing with a person whose every word is
an epigram. The senses have their limitations, and imagination and
expectation are half of beauty and delight, and the better half;
otherwise we should have no souls. A single violet, discovered by chance
in the by-ways of an April forest in New England, gives a pleasure
as poignant as, and more spiritual than, the miles upon miles of
Californian splendors.

Monotony is the ruling characteristic,--monotony of beauty, monotony
of desolation, monotony even of variety. The glorious blue overhead
is monotonous: as for the thermometer, it paces up and down within the
narrowest limits, like a prisoner in his cell, or a meadow-lark hopping
to and fro in a seven-inch cage. The plan and aspect of the buildings
are monotonous, and so is the way of life of those who inhabit them.
Fortunately, the sun does rise and set in Southern California: otherwise
life there would be at an absolute stand-still, with no past and no
future. But, as it is, one can look forward to morning, and remember the
evening.

Then, there are the not infrequent but seldom very destructive
earthquakes; the occasional cloud-bursts and tornadoes, sudden and
violent as a gunpowder-explosion; and, finally, the astounding contrast
between the fertile regions and the desert. There are places where you
can stand with one foot planted in everlasting sterility and the other
in immortal verdure. In the midst of an arid and hopeless waste, you
come suddenly upon the brink of a narrow ravine, sharply defined as
if cut out with an axe, and packed to the brim with enchanting and
voluptuous fertility. Or you will come upon mountains which sweep upward
out of burning death into sumptuous life. When the monotony of l