" It isn't at
all what I wanted it to be; it isn't at all what I planned it to be,
but it does contain something of what you and I both feel, something of
what you wanted me to put into it. Indeed, I shall always wish to
think that it contains just a few faint little echoes of the spirit of
that old California that was fast vanishing when I first disturbed the
quiet of the Mission Dolores with infantile shrieks--when you first
gazed upon the redwood-studded hills of Sonoma County.
You adventured with me in my quest for local color for "The Valley of
the Giants," in Northern California; you performed a similar service in
Southern California last summer and unearthed for me more local color,
more touches of tender sentiment than I could use. Therefore, "The
Pride of Palomar" is peculiarly your book.
On a day a year ago, when the story was still so vague I could scarcely
find words in which to sketch for you an outline of the novel I
purposed writing, you said: "It will be a good story. I'm sold on it
already!" To you the _hacienda_ of a Rancho Palomar will always bring
delightful recollections of the gracious hospitality of Senor Cave
Coutts, sitting at the head of that table hewed in the forties. Little
did Senor Coutts realize that he, the last of the dons in San Diego
County, was to furnish copy for my novel; that his pride of ancestry,
both American and Castilian, his love for his ancestral _hacienda_ at
the Rancho Guajome, and his old-fashioned garden with the great
Bougainvillea in flower, were the ingredients necessary to the
production of what I trust will be a book with a mission.
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