live in California. I remember saying once to a young man—just in passing and merely to make conversation: "Are you a native son?"

His face at once grew very serious. "No," he admitted reluctantly. "You see, it was my misfortune to be born in Iowa, but I came out here to college. After I'd graduated I made up my mind to go into business here. And now I feel that all my interests are in California. Of course it isn't quite the same as being born here. But sometimes I feel as though I really were a native son. Everybody is so kind. They do everything in their power to make you forget—"

"Good heavens," I interrupted, "are you apologizing to me for being born in Iowa? I've never been in Iowa, but nothing could convince me that it isn't just as good a place as any other place, including California. The trouble with you is that you've let these Californiacs buffalo you. What you want to do is to throw out your chest and insist that God made Iowa first and the rest of the world out of the leavings."

If you mention the eastern winter to a Californiac, he tells you with great particularity of the dreadful storms he encountered there. Nothing whatever about the beauty of the snow. To a Californiac, snow and ice are more to be dreaded than hell-fire and brimstone. If you mention the eastern summer, he refers in scathing terms to the puny trees we produce, the inadequate fruits and vegetables. Nothing at all about their delicious flavor. To a Californiac, beauty is measured only by size. Nothing that England or France has to offer makes any impression on the Californiac because it's different from California. As for the glory that was Greece and the grandeur that was Rome, he simply never sees it. The Netherlands are dismissed with one adjective—flat. For a country to be flat is, in the opinion of the Californiac, to relinquish its final claim to beauty. A Californiac once made the statement to me th