All scenes, all suns, all lands save one This land of inland seas of light; This land that hardly recks of night." Certainly they have an equally weird swing of charm that we find in Whistler's à la Japonaise pictures. He was an idealist and a dreamer after his own picturesque way; since the literature of to-day, as some one pleases to remark, is perhaps the literature of Shaw and Masefield, Joaquin Miller belongs to the former age, when the quest of reality was not so important. IV CHICAGO (1900) I Now, after such an incessant ride of three days and nights from a boy town on the Pacific coast, I am here for a little time to study the great Chicago. Chicago! What do I feel, do you ask? I feel really, as if I was taken by a devil to the City of Men, far beyond reach of mountain or river. It acted on me as a great dream of surprise; that tremendous railroad train took my breath away completely. Do you know I am a shy, without-knowledgeof-the-world poet-a little useless poet one hundred years late, using myself to dream in solitude! I kept me quiet as a star of spring night, I was breathing in indolence. Now, when the devil, the great overland train, fled with me over 2000 miles during only a few days-how in the world can I be without excitement, without losing myself? Please let me find repose and some fresh water. Is it impossible to secure me a pure water as in California? A thick sediment of mud or sand at the bottom of the glass is no harm, you say? Chicago water is horrible. Did I recover my breath and set in correct order; what should I on Chicago? my ideas say first Look! The Chicagoans are all alive; indeed, they are rushing on like a storm; they are jumping in clanging street cars. I saw here for the first time in my life such a dangerous procession of street cars-cars above my head, cars under my feet, cars everywhere, in this great city. Yes, sir, no one is sleeping in Chicago; no one is dying in Chicago. Chicago is the wonder, the City of Men; not a city of women, not a city of nature, of course. Do you ask me if men interest me more than birds or trees? You want me to say that what interests me most is human nature, don't you? Yes, I find new interest in people since I came to the City of Men -Chicago. Hello, my dear San Francisco; I am a Chicago boy now! the Pacific coast! Good-bye, my friends on enough to speak truth: California-thank God I could get out of California-San Francisco, to speak more accurately, is simply an insane asylum. Chicago is a crazy city also as I see. Chicago women-I speak of course only of the thousands of unfortunate whom need or madness keeps daily in the streets and offices downtown. These, I observe curiously, have, it would appear, no perfect balance. How is it possible to grow wise, or gentle, or serene, when they are talking loud all day, raising their voices in competition with the roar of the city's thousand strident voices? If two are together, always they are talkingnever silent. They make such a mad noise in meeting as do morning sparrows hunting a breakfast. They do not know that peace and quiet are verily necessary to make anything grow; flowers do not grow well in the noiseful city, but they need the peace of the country; the flowers themselves keeping silence, of course, and it is exactly the same with human beings. They might say, however, that they are making practice to go to the platform of woman suffrage. I said that San Francisco is simply an insane asylum. Worse than that, her people have made a science of robbery; they would even "steal the eyes out of a running horse." They are misunderstanding the meaning of "go-aheadism," which is the true American pride, as they are misunderstanding the true character of liberty. They are amuck with the weapons of power. It is a dangerous business to hand a butcher's knife to a maniac. San Francisco gave me, doubtless, some happy hours. She kept me many a year with three things. What a glory! What a grandeur ! You stand facing the Pacific Ocean at the Cliff House, and listen to the mighty songs of the greatest organist, the youngest and oldest minstrel for man and truth! That ocean's deepest shadowy songs are eternal inspiration, heavenly messages, the outpouring of the power of God. What a pity-how useless the ocean singing day and night such grand songs to the vulgar American, you might think! The vulgar American is the worst person in the world, being deaf and blind to nature. How long would the ocean, you might wonder, sing for a man who was dead a long time ago ? How long would the ocean continue to sing for Truth that had departed from the world? What a shame to have the divine ocean facing the nasty advertisement of "The Girl from |