So much beauty rather goes to one's head. For years in the East we had
lived in rented houses, ugly rented houses, always near the station, so
that J---- could catch the 7.59 or the 8.17, on foot. To find ourselves
on a smiling hill-top--our own hill-top, with "magic casements opening on
the foam"--seemed like a dream. After three years it still seems too
good to be true.
They say that if you spend a year in Southern California you will never
be able to leave it. I don't know. We haven't tried. The only possible
reason for going back would be that you aren't in the stirring heart of
things here as you are in New York, and the _Times_ is five days old
when you get it. Your friends--they all come to you if you just wait
a little. What amazes them always is to find that Southern California
has the most perfect summer climate in the world, if you keep near the
sea. No rain--many are the umbrellas I have gently extracted from the
reluctant hands of doubting visitors; no heat such as we know it in the
East. We have an out-of-door dining-room, and it is only two or three
times in summer that it is warm enough to have our meals there. In the
cities or the "back country" it is different.
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