GELETT BURGESS,
in A Little Sister of Destiny.

NOVEMBER 26.

She sent a hundred messages out into the hills by thought’s wonderful telegraphy.  She saw the yellow-green of the new shoots; the gray-green of the gnarled live oak; she felt that the mariposa was waking in the brown hillside.  She almost heard the creamy bells of the tall yucca pealing out a hymn to the God who expresses himself in continual creation.  Then, O, wonder of wonders!  Over the same invisible wires came back the response:  It all means love, the earth’s rendings, the rains, winds, scorchings—­it all means love in the grand consummation, nothing but love.  She thrilled to the wonder of it.

ELIZABETH BAKER BOHAN,
in The Strength of the Weak.

NOVEMBER 27.

THE IDEAL CALIFORNIA EDITOR.

The ideal editor must be a colossal, composite figure, one to whom no man of whatever age, race or color, is a stranger; one whose mobility of character and elasticity of temperament expands or contracts as occasion demands, without deflecting in the least from the law of perfect harmony.  He must know how to smile encouragement, frown disapproval, or, at an instant’s notice bow deferentially and attend with utmost courtesy to wearisome stories of stupid patrons, or listen to the fantastic schemes of radical reformers and, with apparent seriousness and ostensible amiability, nod acquiescence to the wild-eyed revolutionist upon whom he inwardly vows to keep a careful watch lest the fire-brand agitator commit serious public mischief.  The ideal editor of the popular press must be the quintescence of tact; an adroit strategist, a sagacious chief executive, keenly critical, ably judicial, broad, generous, sympathetic, hospitable, aye, charitable, magnanimous, ready to forgive and forget, patient and long-suffering when subjected to the competitive lash of adverse criticism, bearing calumny rather with quiet dignity than stooping to low and vulgar forms of retaliation.

BERTHA HIRSCH BARUCH,
in Sunday Times Magazine.

NOVEMBER 28.

CALIFORNIA TO IRELAND.

  Great!  Erect!  Majestic!  Free! 
  Thrilled with life from sea to sea. 
  See the Motherland uphold
  To the sky her Green and Gold.

LAURENCE BRANNICK.

NOVEMBER 29.

And the books!  Without final data at hand, I incline to believe that by the time the war came along to give us a new text, California had already, in a dozen years, doubled the volume of American literature.  In the same way, of course, that it was doubled again—­for our war literature was not mostly written upon the battle-field.  In half a century this current has not ceased.  It is a lean month even now which does not see, somewhere, some sort of book about California.  It is certain that as much literature (using the word as it is used) has been written of California as of all the other states together.  This means, of course, only matter in which the State is an essential, not an incident.