Vignettes of San Francisco



As Pilgrims go to Rome



In the same way that the poets have loved Rome and made their
pilgrimages there - as good Moslems travel toward Mecca, so there are
some of us who have come to San Francisco. Then when we arrive and find
it all that we have dreamed, our love for it becomes its highest
tribute. And I don't know why it is sacrilege to mention Rome and San
Francisco in the same breath. As for me I greatly prefer San Francisco,
although I have never been to Rome.

I love San Francisco for its youth. Other cities have become set and
hard and have succumbed to the cruel symmetry of the machine age, but
not San Francisco. It is still youth untamed. They may try, but they
cannot manicure it, nor groom it, nor dress it up in a stiff white
collar, nor fetter it by not allowing a body to stretch out on the grass
in Union Square or prohibiting street-fakers and light wines served in
coffee pots and doing away with wild dashing jitneys.

Then there is something about San Francisco's being away out here from
everyone else, a city all alone. New York is five hours from Boston;