A California Girl

Clara Lawton prepares for marriage while her mother remembers the hardships and happiness of life in a Michigan log cabin. Now settled in Roseland, among California's foothills, Clara looks forward to a home with Charles Herne. His orchards and his stories of working on other ranches give the opening its practical detail. Edward Eldridge places these scenes beside a broader argument about marriage, personal growth and service to others.

The novel uses domestic life to introduce ideas about social and spiritual change. Eldridge's prologue presents Penloe as a figure combining Hindu inward life with practical thought. A later account of Tiestan describes a community with a six-hour working day, vegetarian meals, music in hotel gardens and evening classes. Quiet devotion forms another part of this imagined daily routine. The contrast between familiar household concerns and proposals for a different society gives readers a way to explore reform through fiction.