The Native Son by Inez Haynes Gillmore
page 15 of 36 (41%)
page 15 of 36 (41%)
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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. These are the reasons why there is nothing hectic about the hordes of Native Sons who nightly motor about San Francisco, who fill its theatres and restaurants. An after-theatre group in San Francisco is as different from the tallowy, gas-bred, after-theatre groups on Broadway as it is possible to imagine. In San Francisco, many of them look as though they had just come from State-long motor trips; from camping expeditions on the beach, among the redwoods, or in the desert; from long, cold Arctic cruises, or long, hot Pacific ones. Moreover the Native Son's club encourages all this athletic instinct by offering spacious and beautiful gymnasium quarters in which to develop it. Lacking a club, he can turn to the public baths, surely the biggest and most beautiful in the world. Just as there is a different physical aspect to the Native Son, there is, compared to the rest of the country, a different social aspect to |
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