Philadelphia is close between New York and Washington; Baltimore is a
trolley ride away; Chicago is only overnight from all the other cities,
while Atlanta is only two sleeping car nights from her sister cities.
But San Francisco, out here as far as it can reach with one foot in the
great Pacific, nearly a week from New York and a month away from China,
some people wouldn't like it, but something vagabondish in me rejoices
to have run away from them all. Especially at night when the fog comes
in on the city and shuts out even Oakland, and fog horns out of the
Golden Gate call mournfully, and boats in the bay go calling their
lookout calls, I get this feeling of far-offness from the rest of the
world that is very gratifying.

And I love the sound of San Francisco, the sound of its singing - some
cities roar and others hum, but San Francisco sings. And I love the look
of it and the feel of it. I love to stand, on its hills in the mornings
when the bride-veil fog is going out to sea and the smoke and steam and
fog and sunshine make one grand symphonic morning song. And I love to
stand on high hills on clear days when all her cubist houses stand bold
in the sunlight and the cities across the bay are so close to the touch.
And I love its color, flowers and girls and splashes of the Oriental.
And I love its Bohemia which is not affected, but real. I love it
because it is young and live and spontaneous and humorous and
beauty-loving and unashamed of anything that is life. Oh, I don't know.

If I were in New York and it should begin to suffocate me I would run
and run across the continent and never stop once until I landed on the
top of Telegraph Hill.