To the left as you rode you saw, far on the horizon,
rising to the height of your eye, the mountains
of the channel islands. Then the deep sapphire of
the Pacific, fringed with the soft, unchanging white
of the surf and the yellow of the shore. Then the
town like a little map, and the lush greens of the
wide meadows, the fruit-groves, the lesser ranges--
all vivid, fertile, brilliant, and pulsating with vitality.
You filled your senses with it, steeped them in the
beauty of it. And at once, by a mere turn of the
eyes, from the almost crude insistence of the bright
primary color of life, you faced the tenuous azures
of distance, the delicate mauves and amethysts, the
lilacs and saffrons of the arid country.

This was the wonder we never tired of seeing for
ourselves, of showing to others. And often,
academically, perhaps a little wistfully, as one talks of
something to be dreamed of but never enjoyed, we
spoke of how fine it would be to ride down into that
land of mystery and enchantment, to penetrate one
after another the canons dimly outlined in the shadows
cast by the westering sun, to cross the mountains
lying outspread in easy grasp of the eye, to gain the
distant blue Ridge, and see with our own eyes what
lay beyond.

For to its other attractions the prospect added that
of impossibility, of unattainableness. These rides of
ours were day rides. We had to get home by nightfall.