Preview
Circa Date
circa 1887
Transcription
26
The finest of all the Sierra lilies [them all] It has rich white waxen petals & a delicious [divine] fragrance. A lovely [charming] flower worth going hungry & footsore a thousand miles to see. The whole world seems richer to me now that I have seen this fine (white) lily in so noble a landscape [growing in the rough thorny brush of the this wilderness] Its bulbs are buried in [tough] shaggy chaparral tangles [of] I suppose for safety from passing bears [that like the bulbs] & its magnificent panicles sway [wave] & rock over the top of the rough snow-pressed bushes with charming effect [moss chinquapin & manzanita].
There is a log house here which serves to mark [& hold] a claim to the [long narrow] meadow which [that] may become valuable as a station in case travel to Yosemite should (be) greatly increased. Belated parties occasionally camp here [&] A white man with an Indian woman is holding [is stopping to permanently to hold] possession of the place. [He has a dull bleared & half dead appearance And a Digger Squaw keeps him company. Pity the squaw. All the influences of the mountains cannot make him clean, bleared & whiskey-burned & to all intents & purposed dead. Sad it is to be made to know that]
27
[illustration cut out]
[there are people on whom even mountain baptism is of no avail seems to have done him but little good, twice dead, plucked up by the roots and beyond all revival. How stubborn & strong must be the devils of degradation when they can to hold their grips year after year against all the uplifting influences of the mountains, voices & will not be coaxed or driven, washed or burned out of their stupefied victims.]
Sauntered up the meadow about sundown out of sight of camp & sheep & all human mark (& then) In the hush of the solemn old woods [all about me] everything seems to glow with unquenchable enthusiasm pure as heaven. [Natures sweetest influences pervaded. Earth & sky and make a glowing created a glow of enthusiasm that no care can could quench.
Date Occurred
1869
Resource Identifier
MuirReel31 Notebook07 Img016.jpg
Contributing Institution
Holt-Atherton Special Collections, University of the Pacific Library
Rights Management
To view additional information on copyright and related rights of this item, such as to purchase copies of images and/or obtain permission to publish them, click here to view the Holt-Atherton Special Collections policies.
