"booster" spirit. In those early days of slow transportation and isolated
communities, local patriotism was much stronger than it is now. And
something about the air's wine of the Pacific slope has always, and
probably will always, make of every man an earnest proselyte for whatever
patch of soil he calls home. But add to these general considerations the
indubitable facts of harbour, hill, health, opportunity, activity, and a
genuine history, if of only three years, one can no longer marvel that
every man, each in his own way, saw visions.

In the course of the next few hours Keith got confused and mixed
impressions of many things. The fortresslike warehouses; the plank roads;
the new Jenny Lind Theatre; the steam paddies eating steadily into the sand
hills at the edge of town; the Dramatic Museum; houses perched on the
crumbling edges of hills; houses sunk far below the level of new streets,
with tin cans and ducks floating around them; new office buildings; places
where new office buildings were going to be or merely ought to be; land
that in five years was going to be worth fabulous sums; unlikely looking
spots where historic things had stood or had happened--all these were
pointed out to him. He was called upon to exercise the eye of faith; to
reconstruct; to eliminate the unfinished, the mean, the sordid; to overlook
the inadequate; to build the city as it was sure to be; and to concern
himself with that and that only. He admired Mount Tamalpais over the way.
He was taken up a high hill--a laborious journey--to gaze on the spot where
he would have been able to see Mount Diabolo, if only Mount Diabolo had
been visible. And every few blocks he was halted and made to shake hands
with some one who was always immediately characterized to him impressively,
under the breath--"Colonel Baker, sir, one of the most divinely endowed men
with the gift of eloquence, sir"; "Mr. Rowlee, sir, editor of one of our
leading journals"; "Judge Caldwell, sir at present one of the ornaments of
our bench"; "Mr. Ben Sansome, sir, a leadin' young man in our young but