I feel sorry for people who live in San Francisco. It must be a little like being married to a beautiful actress. Her fans see her only on parade—sultry, glamorous, devastating. Her husband, on the other hand, must have seen her a thousand times with her hair up in curlers and cold cream all over her face. Probably no city (and no wife) could be expected to sustain, through the multiple contusions of daily contact, an aura of authentic enchantment.
But consider San Francisco as it is seen and savored by those of us who, while not living there, are lucky enough to know and visit it frequently on trips carefully designed for pleasure. By air it is approached across the calm waters of San Francisco Bay. A busy freeway hurries us northward through a depressing series of barren little hills whose sides are blotched with pastel row houses and garish billboards. But then the road curves around the last drab hill—and suddenly there is San Francisco, her tall buildings crowning hills of their own. Whatever the weather or the time of day or night, it is a sight impossible to forget.




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