And out of the West came a voice on the wind: 
  O seek for the truth and behold, ye shall find! 
  O strive for the right and behold, ye shall do
  All things that the Master commandeth of you. 
  For love is the truth ye have sought for so long,
  And love is the right that ye strove for through wrong. 
  Love! love spheres our lives with a halo of fire,
  But God, how ’tis dimmed by each selfish desire!

CHARLES KEELER,
in Idyls of El Dorado (out of print).

AUGUST 1.

THE AGE OF THE SEQUOIAS.

Prof.  Jordan estimates that the oldest of the sequoias is at least 7000 years old.  The least age assigned to it is 5000 years.  It was a giant when the Hebrew Patriarchs were keeping sheep.  It was a sapling when the first seeds of human civilization were germinating on the banks of the Euphrates and the Nile.  It had attained its full growth before the Apostles went forth to spread the Christian religion.  It began to die before William of Normandy won the battle of Hastings.  It has been dying for a thousand years.  And unless some accident comes to it, it will hardly be entirely dead a thousand years from now.  It has seen the birth, growth and decay of all the generations and tribes and nations of civilized men.  It will see the birth and decay of many more generations.  It is the oldest living thing on the face of the earth.

G.W.  BURTON,
in Burton’s Book on California.

AUGUST 2.

  Adown the land great rivers glide
    With lyric odes upon their lips,
  The sheltered bay with singing tide
    Forever woos the storm-tossed ships—­
  And yet, for me more magic teems
  By California’s willowed streams.

* * * * *

  For some the crowded market place. 
    The bustle of the jammed bazaars. 
  The fleeting chance in fortune’s race
    That ends somewhere amid the stars—­
  Give me a chance to gather dreams
  By California’s willowed streams.

CLARENCE URMY,
in Sunset Magazine.

AUGUST 3.

But what the land lacks in trees it nearly makes up in shrubs.  Three varieties of sumac, reaching often as high as fifteen or eighteen feet, and spreading as many wide, stand thick upon a thousand hill-sides and fill with green the driest and stoniest ravines.  Two kinds of live oak bushes, two varieties of lilac, one with white, the other with lavender flowers, the madrona, the coffee-berry, the manzanita, the wild mahogany, the choke-berry, all of brightest green, with adenostoma and baccharis, two dark-green bushes, looking like red and white cedar, form what is called the chaparral.  Three varieties of dwarf-willow often grow along the water-courses, and with the elder, wild grape, rose and sweet-briar, all well huddled together, the chinks filled with nettles and the whole tied together with long, trailing blackberry vines, often form an interesting subject of contemplation for one who wants to get on the other side.