program. You can't discuss the people without describing their
background; for they reflect it perfectly; or their climate, because it
has helped to make them the superb beings they are. A tendency manifests
itself in you to revel in superlatives and to wallow in italics. You
find yourself comparing adjectives that cannot be compared - unique for
instance. Unique is a persistent temptation. For, the rules of grammar
not-withstanding, California is really the most unique spot on the
earth's surface. As for adjectives like enormous, colossal, surpassing,
overpowering and nouns like marvel, wonder, grandeur, vastness, they are
as common in your copy as commas.

Another difficulty is that nobody outside California ever believes you.
I don't blame them. Once I didn't believe it myself. If there was
anything that formerly bored me to the marrow of my soul, it was talk
about California by a regular dyed-in-the-wool Californiac. But I got
mine ultimately. Even as I was irritated, I now irritate. Even as I was
bored, I now bore. Ever since I first saw California, and became,
inevitably, a Californiac, I have been talking about it, irritating and
boring uncounted thousands. I begin placatingly enough, "Yes, I know you
aren't going to believe this," I say. "Once I didn't believe it myself.
I realize that it all sounds impossible. But after you've once been
there - " Then I'm off. When I've finished, there isn't an hysterical
superlative adjective or a complimentary abstract noun unused in my
vocabulary. I've told all the East about California. I've told many of
the countries of Europe about California. I even tell Californians about
California. I will say to the credit of Californians though that they
listen. Listen! did I say listen? They drink it down like a child
absorbing its first fairy tale.

In another little volume devoted to the praise of California, Willie