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Kimes Entry Number
181
Original Date
8-1-1890
Publication
The Century Magazine, v. 40, no. 4
Page/Column
pp. [483]-500
Excerpt/Portion of
Small excerpts from 167-3 can be found in this essay.
Recommended Citation
Muir, John, "The Treasures of the Yosemite." (1890). John Muir: A Reading Bibliography by Kimes, 1986 (Muir articles 1866-1986). 202.
https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/jmb/202
William and Maymie Kimes Annotation
This article was the first of two commissioned by Associate Editor Robert Underwood Johnson of The Century Magazine to create public interest in establishing the Yosemite National Park. Eager to assist this grand plan to protect and preserve the area he knew so intimately and loved so intensely, Muir penned one of his finest essays. Many of its beautiful descriptive passages have become familiar and well-loved quotations as has his finely-phrased picture of Yosemite Valley: "But no temple made with hands can compare with Yosemite. Every rock in its walls seems to glow with life. Some lean back in majestic repose; others, absolutely sheer or nearly so for thousands of feet, advance beyond their companions in thoughtful attitudes, giving welcome to storms and calms alike, seeming conscious, yet heedless of everything going on about them. Awful in stem, immovable majesty, how softly these mountain rocks are adorned and how fine and reassuring the company they deep-their feet set in groves and gay emerald meadows, their brows in the thin blue sky ... bathed in floods of booming waters, floods of light, while snow clouds, winds, avalanches, shine and sing and breathe about them as the years go by."