It is curious what a difference of opinion there is in regard to him. I
have heard Californiacs say in their one moment of humility, "Why is
it, when we turn out such magnificent women, that our men are so
undersized?" Now I know nothing about average male heights and weights.
I have never seen any comparative statistics. I can say only that the
average Californian seems bigger than the average man. And often in
walking through the San Francisco streets the eye, ranging along the
crowd of pedestrians of average California stature, will strike on a man
who bulks a whale, a leviathan, a dread-naught, beside the others, and
rises a column, a monolith, a tower above them.
He is certainly upstanding, this average California male--running to
bulk and a little to flesh. Often the line of feature is so regular that
it suggests the Greek. He has eyes like mountain lakes and a smile like
a break of sun. He generally flashes a dimple or two or three or more
(Californians are speckled with dimples). He manufactures his own slang.
And he joshes and jollies all day long. In fact, he's--
Oh, well, go West, young woman!
Beyond its high average of male beauty California has, in its labor-man,
produced a new physical type. It is different from the standardized
American type, of which Abraham Lincoln of a past and the Wright
brothers of a present generation are perfect specimens--the
ugly-beautiful face, long and lean, with its harshly contoured strength
of feature and its subtly softening melancholy of expression. The
look of labor in California is not so much of strength as of force, an
indomitable, unconquerable force. Melancholy is not there, but spirit;
that fire and light which means hope. It is as though they were molded
of iron--those faces--but illuminated from within. And with that
strength goes the California comeliness.
Pulchritude begins in childhood with the Californian, grows and
strengthens through youth to middle age. Even the old--but there are no
old people in California. Nobody ever gets a chance to grow old there.
The climate won't let you. The scenery won't let you. The life won't let
you.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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