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Circa Date
1887
Transcription
41
Animals enjoy all they seem to enjoy & suffer, etc.
A certain careless self-possession that in larger dogs would pass for dignity
He became spirited & elastic as soon as he reached the glacier. Strange to say – for what was there on a glacier for him no [game] nor memory of [game]
Dull & colorless. Still became to me a wonder – opening into the depths of animal kingdom, a new [evangel] (we never know in what form [or] by what messengers Heaven is going to send gifts
In size he was so small one naturally patted him & spoke baby kindness to him, but something in his solemn knowing eye & his unresponsive coolness caused one to stop & look more closely at him
# He never offered his head to be patted as an affectionate terrier would or a loving Collie neither did he refuse a caress. He just didn’t care he was just dull & respectable in deportment
The liquid sweet bell tones of glacial streams but sweeter far than ever came from brass
# In the dim simplicity of his character even the minister knew him not. He was just a little boy that followed him
42
If there was anything significant in him it seemed utterly undiscoverable. He displayed none of the elfish sagacity of hairy terriers, not their touching affection & worship of man.
□ Beauty he had non in the head tail or stout featureless body look or gesture.
As soon as he got on to the glacier he waked up & into readiness for any enterprise.
Tis said animals have instincts that forewarn them of danger that man dulled by civilization has lost. But in this greatest of dangers he seemed wholly unaware of its coming & was heedless & happy, skipping about the glacier until suddenly confronted with the problem of the deadly crevasse
He [seemed to have] showed no mind [no] feeling [no] heart [no] soul or anything like ideas, only glimmering instincts
A sort of vacant serenity a silly [semiembecile] look of face lighted only by quick glances of eyes that hinted something hidden [& broke] in the general darkness. Obstinate & capable of endurance though small
At last saw he was not a simpleton nor a crank but just a [little] dim [dull] undeveloped boy.
Then the depths & shallows of his mind were revealed in strong sympathetic light
Resource Identifier
MuirReel33 Notebook01 Img023.Jpeg
Contributing Institution
Holt-Atherton Special Collections, University of the Pacific Library
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