It is like conversing with a person whose every word is an epigram.

The senses have their limitations, and imagination and expectation are half of beauty and delight, and the better half; otherwise we should have no souls.

A single violet, discovered by chance in the by-ways of an April forest in New England, gives a pleasure as poignant as, and more spiritual than, the miles upon miles of Californian splendors.
Monotony is the ruling characteristic,--monotony of beauty, monotony of desolation, monotony even of variety.

The glorious blue overhead is monotonous: as for the thermometer, it paces up and down within the narrowest limits, like a prisoner in his cell, or a meadow-lark hopping to and fro in a seven-inch cage.

The plan and aspect of the buildings are monotonous, and so is the way of life of those who inhabit them.
Fortunately, the sun does rise and set in Southern California: otherwise life there would be at an absolute stand-still, with no past and no future.