San Francisco, or "the city"', as Californians so proudly and lovingly term her, is peculiarly fortunate in her situation and her weather. Riding a series of hills as lightly as a ship the waves, she makes real exercise of any walking within her limits. Moreover the streets are tied so intimately and inextricably to seashore and country that San Francisco's life is, in one sense, less like city life than that of any other city in the United States. Yet by the curious paradox of her climate, which compels much indoor night entertainment, reinforced by that cosmopolitanism of atmosphere, life there is city life raised to the highest limit. Last of all, its size--and personally I think there should be a federal law forbidding cities to grow any bigger than San Francisco--makes it an engaging combination of provincialism and cosmopolitanism. Not scenery this time, Reader, nor climate, but weather. Like scenery and climate, it must be done. Hurdle this paragraph, Easterners! Keep on reading, Californiacs! The "city" does its best to put the San Franciscan in good condition. And the weather reinforces this effort by keeping him out of doors. Because of a happy collaboration of land with sea, the region about San Francisco, the "bay" region--individual in this as in everything else--has a climate of its own. It is, notwithstanding its brief rainy season, a singularly pleasant climate. It cannot be described as "temperate" in the sense, for instance, that New England's climate is temperate. That is too harsh. Neither can it be described as "semi-tropical" in the way that Hawaii, for example, is semi-tropical. That is too soft. It combines the advantages of both with the disabilities of neither. You may begin to read again, Easterners; for at last I've returned to the Native Son. That sparkling briskness--the tang--which is the best the temperate climate has to offer, gives the Native Son his high powered strenuosity. That developing softness--lush--(every Native Son will admit the lush) which is the best the semi-tropical element has to contribute, gives him his size and comeliness. The weather of San Francisco keeps the Native Son out of doors whenever it is possible through the day time. To take care of this flight into the open are seashore and mountain, city parks and country roads. That same weather drives him indoors during the evenings. And to meet this demand are hotels, restaurants, theatres, moving-picture houses, in numbers out of all proportion to the population. Again, the weather permits him to play baseball and football for unusual periods with ease, to play tennis and golf three-quarters of the year with comfort, to walk and swim all the year with joy. Notwithstanding the combination of heavy rains with startling hill heights, he never ceases to motor day or night, winter or summer. The weather not only allows this, but the climate drives him to it.