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Circa Date
1887
Transcription
39
Escape etc.
Mazy
Turmoil & crevasses with no mercy in them, difficulties thickened – first a little cloud of anxiety began to settle about me which speedily grew thick & heavy though as yet Stick felt it not. I sat down etc.
Stooping over on my knees began to cut steps
There was no counter influence to complicate the case he must cross that slippery bridge or go back among the wolves in the woods bounded by the sea & the glacier
□ Most small dogs like children only beg to be loved & be allowed to love but Stick seems a very Diogenes (of a d [dog]) to lifeless or obstinately philosophic to be even wicked. Yet with something in his eyes- gleams of intelligence when anything out of the ordinary routine of camp affairs was going on to suggest something interesting in him after all to pique curiosity. So I soon began to watch him.
I crossed many a river wading braced against the current or over a slim log with the swift rushing current beneath trying to nerves & making one giddy. But that threatening gulf calm as eternity
Rapturous joy
[#] the glacier was seen from shore to shore in all its broad grandness & solemnity. At last the delectable mountains came in sight through the gloom
40
We sheltered in the grove & enjoyed the storm, etc. The magnificent lofty threatening front of the glacier was a fine study. The spires & faces of crystal firmly drawn 200 feet height delicately drawn & divinely fine which no human hand could trace – no harshness though doomlike in rigid power & how finely the stormwind sang in their recesses making every huge spire a reed discoursing sweet music & melody.
He seemed utterly unteachable as a fly & unresponsive to any advance, had dull taciturn immobility which in large dogs might pass dignity – he was cool moderate self-contained as an old cat - or philosopher
Sympathy from enjoyments & perils shared breathing with me the keen air of mountain top & glacier & the choking rain-laden gale – hunger thirst rest joy in escape from death.
The woods on the hills bending like reeds & roaring with the blast & waterfalls
The crevasse blue jaws calm as doom eternity
Strength of will independence of character & strange indomitable resoluteness of purpose characterized him
Enjoying the exhilaration of freedom in contact with busy nature in novel forms fairly off & away afloat on the strange slow flood of the gl [glacier]
Resource Identifier
MuirReel33 Notebook01 Img022.Jpeg
Contributing Institution
Holt-Atherton Special Collections, University of the Pacific Library
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