Ch. 26 - Poetry's California

Nature's treasures are most often unveiled to us by accident. A dog's
nose was dyed by the bruised purple fish, and the genuine purple dye
was discovered; a pair of wild buffalos were fighting on America's
auriferous soil, and their horns tore up the green sward that covered
the rich gold vein.

"In former days," as it is said by most, "everything came
spontaneously. Our age has not such revelations; now one must slave
and drudge if one would get anything; one must dig down into the deep
shafts after the metals, which decrease more and more;--when the earth
suddenly stretches forth her golden finger from California's
peninsula, and we there see Monte Christo's foolishly invented riches
realized; we see Aladdin's cave with its inestimable treasures. The
world's treasury is so endlessly rich that we have, to speak plain and
straightforward, scraped a little off the up-heaped measure; but the
bushel is still full, the whole of the real measure is now refilled.
In science also, such a world lies open for the discoveries of the
human mind!

"But in poetry, the greatest and most glorious is already found, and
gained!" says the poet. "Happy he who was born in former times; there
was then many a land still undiscovered, on which poetry's rich gold
lay like the ore that shines forth from the earth's surface."

Do not speak so! happy poet thou, who art born in our time! thou dost
inherit all the glorious treasures which thy predecessors gave to the
world; thou dost learn from them, that truth only is eternal,--the
true in nature and mankind.

Our time is the time of discoveries--poetry also has its new
California.

"Where does it exist?" you ask.

The coast is so near, that you do not think that _there_ is the new
world. Like a bold Leander, swim with me across the stream: the black
words on the white paper will waft you--every period is a heave of the
waves.

* * * * *

It was in the library's saloon. Book-shelves with many books, old and
new, were ranged around for every one; manuscripts lay there in heaps;
there were also maps and globes. There sat industrious men at little
tables, and wrote out and wrote in, and that was no easy work. But
suddenly, a great transformation took place; the shelves became
terraces for the noblest trees, with flowers and fruit; heavy clusters
of grapes hung amongst leafy vines, and there was life and movement
all around.

The old folios and dusty manuscripts rose into flower-covered tumuli,
and there sprang forth knights in mail, and kings with golden crowns
on, and there was the clang of harp and shield; history acquired the
life and fullness of poetry--for a poet had entered there.