Golden Gate

“ The gilded splendour of the gates is dimmed, the stones and bricks resume their place within the arches, and here before us stands that hoary ruin grey with age, lichen-covered and festooned with ivy, while rank weeds spring up round its foundation and flowering bushes form its ramparts—the Triumphal Arch of Theodosius—the Golden Gate. ”

“ From the heights his eye sweeps a scene of beauty. There is the Golden Gate, bathed in sunset glories; and there the northern shore line that climbs skyward where Mount Tamalpais takes on his mantle of mist. There is Saucelito, with its green terraces resting upon the tree-tops; and there the bit of sheltered water that seems always steeped in sunshine,—now the haunt of house boats, then the haven of a colony of Neapolitan fishermen; and Angel Island, with its military post; and Fort Alcatraz, a rocky bubble afloat in mid-channel and one mass of fortifications. ”

“ As the wealth of the Orient flows into the Golden Horn, the harbour of Constantinople for many centuries, so the riches of commerce, the products of great states west of the Rocky Mountains, and the treasures of the Pacific, pass through the Golden Gate. The Golden Gate too is about five miles in length, although at its entrance it is a little over a mile wide and widens out as you sail into the great Bay of which it is the outlet. ”

“ Stretching from South Park to Black Point, and running back to the Mission Dolores and the Presidio, we are building up a metropolis, sir, worthy to be placed beside the Golden Gate that opens to the broad Pacific and the shores of far Cathay! When the Pacific Railroad is built we shall be the natural terminus of the Pathway of Nations! ”

“ We are weary of the city, its vices, its crimes and its follies, already. All cities are much alike after all, varying only in minor details, but the mountains; God be praised for them. There we shall find change and beauty, sunshine, pure air, freedom, and rest.
As the steamer approaches the Golden Gate, one of the most striking features of the glorious landscape which unfolds itself before the eyes of the traveler, is the bold crest of Mount Diablo standing out clear and sharp against the blue sky, over beyond the Contra Costa hills to the eastward of the Bay of San Francisco. ”

“ Behind it is the great city. This Golden Gate seen from within, looking westward, is a narrow pass, giving a vista view of the broad Pacific, its waves rolling towards us thousands of miles from the distant shores of China and Japan. ”

“ The gayest, lightest-hearted, most pleasure-loving city of this continent, and in many ways the most interesting and romantic, is a horde of huddled refugees living among ruins. It may rebuild; it probably will; but those who have known that peculiar city by the Golden Gate and have caught its flavor of the Arabian Nights feel that it can never be the same. When it rises out of its ashes it will probably doubtless resemble other modern cities and have lost its old strange flavor. ”

“ THE GOLDEN GATE, YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK.—The Golden Gate is the favorite entrance to the park, and it has been photographed and pictured in many ways and from every point of view. The glimpse of the park caught through its portals is an entrancingly lovely one, and quickens the imagination with the expectation of greater things to be seen on the inside. ”

“ Golden Gate is another of the exquisite spots every visitor to Yellowstone Park seeks and finds. To reach the Golden Gate one must be a great climber, for it is high up, and the road to it is built along the edge of a cliff, which, in places, seems to be absolutely perpendicular. ”

“ Emerging from this Golden Gate, I looked about me with surprise, as the narrow walls of the ravine gave place to a plateau surrounded everywhere by snow-capped mountains, from which the Indians believed one could obtain a view of Paradise. Across this area, like a railroad traversing a prairie, stretched the driveway for our carriages.
"Do tourists usually seem delighted with the park?" ”

“ Two hours later Paul Lavelle and Emily Granville sailed through the Golden Gate—the golden gate of the future which she had promised him.
The noble sea way was shimmering in the sunlight of a flawless Spring day. As the Daphne came under the lee of the green-clad Marin hills the northwest wind, which had been her constant champion, withdrew like a courtier who has seen his lady to the threshold of her home.
"To live and to love!" exclaimed Paul, inhaling a deep breath of the crisp, sparkling air where he had been carried from the lounge to a chair against the taffrail. ”

“ High hills, verdureless and enfiladed with dark canadas, cast their gaunt shadows on the tide. During a greater portion of the day the wind, which blew furiously and incessantly, seemed possessed with a spirit of fierce disquiet and unrest. Toward nightfall the sea-fog crept with soft step through the portals of the Golden Gate, or stole in noiseless marches down the hillside, tenderly soothing the wind-buffeted face of the cliff, until sea and sky were hid together. At such times the populous city beyond and the nearer settlement seemed removed to an infinite distance. ”

“ Here we have, told in the somewhat pedantic language of its author, the true story of the first appearance of the famous name Golden Gate upon the map of the world, and instead of its having been “named by Colonel Fremont because of the [200] brilliant effect of the setting sun on the cliffs and hills,” as one writer has fondly imagined, or from any idea connected with the shining metal, which still lay buried deep from the sight of man beneath the mountains of the land, it was born in a sordid dream of commerce. ”

“ The Golden Poppy, the State Flower of California, blooms in great profusion and with marvellous beauty on hillside in plain and valley, in field and garden, by lake and river, from the Sierras to the shores of the Pacific, and it is especially abundant on the hills which skirt the shores of the Golden Gate. ”

“ Nature, with her wise forethought, seems indeed to have formed this island opposite the Golden Gate, far inside, in the Bay, as a sentinel to watch that pass into the Pacific, and to guide the returning voyager after his perilous journeyings to safe moorings in a land-locked haven. Farther to the north is Ysla de los Angeles, Angel Island, with a varied landscape of hill and plain, comprising some 800 acres of land. ”

“ The Golden Gate Park is now famous the world over and vies in beauty and splendour with Central Park in New York, nay, in some respects surpasses this, in that it has a magnificent frontage on the Pacific ocean, a long coast view and a wide range of sea with the Farallone Islands, about twenty miles off in the foreground of the picture, and visible on a clear day always, and most enchanting in the sunset hour as we gazed on them. The Golden Gate Park dates back only to the year 1870, when the California Legislature passed an act providing for the improvement of public parks in San Francisco. ”

“ Like similar monuments, the Golden Gate consisted of three arches, the central arch being loftier than its companions, and was decorated with statues of the Emperor, Victory, the Fortune of the city, and a group of elephants in bronze. Upon the two fronts of the central arch was a Latin inscription in gilt metal letters, gleaming like a crown of gold upon the head of the gateway. The legend, “Theodosius adorns this place, after the doom of the usurper,” looked towards the west; while the words, “He who constructed the Golden Gate brings in the Golden Age,” faced the east. ”

“ While the flames were yet consuming the 635 old San Francisco, her children were courageously planning the new; and supported by that well-nigh superhuman spirit which community misfortune never fails to inspire—the spirit that transforms weakness into strength, and transmutes, as by an altruistic alchemy, the base metal of "eachness" into the pure gold of "allness"—this stricken people built and built until, to-day, less than a decade after that memorable night, there stands by the Golden Gate a finer and more beautiful city than the one from which it sprang. ”

“ And should an idle vision of my tears
Arise before your soul in after years—
Remember that I thank you from my heart!
VERSE: THE GOLDEN GATE
Dim shadows gather thickly round, and up the misty stair they climb,
The cloudy stair that upward leads to where the closèd portals shine,
Round which the kneeling spirits wait the opening of the Golden Gate.
And some with eager longing go, still pressing forward, hand in hand,
And some with weary step and slow, look back where their Belovèd stand—
Yet up the misty stair they climb, led onward by the Angel Time. ”

“ When we have once sated ourselves with the general effect, there still remains a number of details, picturesque, interesting, or quaint. There is the Golden Gate Park, the cypresses and eucalypti at one end of which testify to the balminess of the climate, while the sand-dunes at its other end show the original condition of the whole surface of the peninsula, and add to our admiration of nature a sense of respectful awe for the transforming energy of man. ”

“ It verified all my predictions—men who shoot chickens belong in a stage-coach—they are a “scrubby wagon outfit,” as the cowboys say.
Posed on the trestled road, I looked back at the Golden Gate Pass. It is one of those marvellous vistas of mountain scenery utterly beyond the pen or brush of any man. Paint cannot touch it, and words are wasted. War, storms at sea, and mountain scenery are bigger than any expression little man has ever developed. ”

“ Leaving the Hot Springs, the road passes through the Golden Gate, where, on one side, a perpendicular wall of rock rises to a height of two hundred feet or more, and on the other are the wooded slopes and rocky summit of Bunsen Peak—a beautiful cañon, where the view suggests the greater glories of Swiss mountain scenery, but for that very reason is not to be mentioned here among the rare gems of the park. Nor shall I include the “Hoodoos,” which, though distinctly unusual, are far from beautiful. ”

“ Shooting out through the entrance to Golden Gate Park, they turned into San Francisco, and took the long sweep of the descending hills at a rate that caused pedestrians to turn and watch them anxiously. Through the city streets the bright sweaters flew, turning and twisting to escape climbing the steeper hills, and, when the steep hills were unavoidable, doing stunts to see which would first gain the top. ”

“ In our wanderings about the city the sleeping places of the dead naturally attracted our attention; and where, especially, on Sunday afternoons, the living congregate to mourn over their loved ones, to scatter flowers on their graves, or to while away an hour amid scenes which have a melancholy interest and tend to sobriety and remind one of another land where there is no death for those who pass through the Golden Gate of eternity. Cemeteries have always attracted the living to their solemn precincts at stated times, anniversaries and fiestas. ”

“ Thousands frequent this favoured spot annually, and especially on Saturday afternoons is it thronged. You can reach the Cliff either by the street cars going by Golden Gate Park, or by the electric railway which skirts the rocky heights of the Golden Gate. This last was our route, and the return journey was by the street railway. A Mr. Black and a Mr. Norton, two of San Francisco's prosperous business-men, were going thither also, and, seeing that we were strangers, they with true California courtesy gave us much information and showed us favours which we valued highly. ”

“ Be it known, O whosoever readeth, that if any prince of the royal family Everyone enter the city Daybyday through the Brazen Gate called Chance, he shall be forever held unworthy of the throne and crown. In the sacred Law of All the Ages it is written that a King of Allthetime may enter the Royal City only through the Golden Gate Opportunity. ”

“ The enormous amount of money expended on these shrines will amaze any foreign visitor, as well as the profound reverence shown by the Japanese for these resting places of the shoguns.
Passing along a wide avenue traversed by electric cars one soon reaches Hibiya Park, one of the show places of Tokio. To the European tourist or the visitor from our Eastern States the beauty of the vegetation is a source of marvel, but San Francisco's Golden Gate Park can equal everything that grows here in the way of ornamental shrubs, trees and flowers. ”

“ And never was there a community or a city where Truth asserted her sway more potently in the midst of evil than in San Francisco in the trying days of her youth. With the rush from all lands to California for the coveted gold came the lawless and the blood-thirsty. Men in the gambling houses would sometimes quarrel over the results of the game or over some "love affair." Fair Helen and unprincipled, gay, thoughtless Paris were here by the Golden Gate. ”

“ Now, after a lapse of over five centuries, she has again established her national identity and under an enlightened and progressive ruler gives promise of holding her own without experiencing another break in the history of the race. The Golden Gate and its romantic history has claimed a considerable portion of the travellers’ and the Author’s time. The Artist hopes his pencil has done sufficient justice to those glorious ruins, and for some time has turned eager eyes northward, where a line of stately towers and masses of ruined masonry offer fair prospect of enriching his store of sketches. ”

“ A rock about half way down the declivity, projects a little; and some stains, produced by an oxide of iron in the rock, are pointed out to the pilgrims as caused by his blood.
This gate is at present the only outlet on this side of the city; but there was formerly another gate opening from the court of the mosque, about 230 yards further south. It was called from its splendor “the Golden Gate;” but it is now walled up, in consequence of a tradition current among the Turks, that the city will one day be taken by the Christians, and that they will make their entrance through this gate. ”