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Circa Date
circa 1887
Transcription
128
[ ] [spring into quick life [wide awake] without any intermediate condition of yawn & drowse So called by the [many] mountain voices [calling] we are awakened to a degree not conceivable by lowlanders [sleepers] The sad defrauded children of civilization may be said to sleep forever [for in their greatest stir & excitement [they] may be said to sleep always [both day & night] never truly awake at all[& never likely to awake until the trumpet of the resurrection sounds in their ears [perhaps not even then].[Have been to Lake Tenaya & have seen so much there & on the way to it [that] I feel very rich indeed [& I] say “Thank You” to Nature & that is all I [have to] pay. No need of round bits of metal or strips of paper here, [All the best] God’s gifts [of God] are [freely] bestowed without price. No need of thanks even [to or prayers for them] all that is required is to expose oneself in a clean condition & they pour into us as sunshine pours into plants [into pores of a tree]] [I] Left camp [in the morning] when the level of sunbeams were touching the tops [of the firs] & strode away full of energy [in definite] hope holding an easterly course. [in a fine expectant receptive mood] The deep canyon of Tenaya Creek on my right, [the] Mt. Hoffmann Range on my [right] left. [spur with it’s towers & ridges] on my left & the lake,[& Lake Tenaya] the main object of my walk [at the head of the canyon] straight ahead about ten miles distant [east of Yosemite Valley]
129
Mount Hoffmann was about 3000 feet above me, [the] Tenaya Creek [Canyon 3000] 4000 feet below , & separated from the shallow irregular valley along which most of my way lay by smooth domes & wave ridges [of granite]. How many mossy emerald [parnassia] bogs, meadows & gardens [fine bogs, nestling here & there] in rocky hollows I walked & rambled through, [and] what fine plants they gave me.[& how many charming groves I passed through and] what joyful streams I crossed & how many views I had of [Mt} the Hoffmann [with its sublime] masonry & of spirey Cathedral Peak [with its many spires of marvelous architecture] & what wondrous breadth of shining granite pavements I walked over for the first time about the shores of the Lake would take too long to tell [Tenaya shore & lake shining together with almost equal brightness] [Away] On I sauntered in freedom compete, body without weight as far as I was aware. [light as dry thistle down, wading through] now wading through bogs full of starry parnassia now through gardens shoulder deep in larkspurs & lilies & grasses & rushes shaking off showers of dew [the sunlit dewdrops of the morning through groves of silver fir every needle shining over] crossing piles of crystalline moraine boulders, [over] pavements [clean and] bright as [polished] mirrors & cool cheery [icy crystal] streams, every one of them going to Yosemite, [through mossy, oozy bogs, fresh & sweet as the sky] over carpets of blooming bryanthus across [over] the [clean swept] scoured pathways of avalanches, through thickets of snow pressed ceanothus & fringing borders of spiraea & then down broad
Date Occurred
1869
Resource Identifier
MuirReel31 Notebook07 Img068.jpg
Contributing Institution
Holt-Atherton Special Collections, University of the Pacific Library
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