Preview
Circa Date
1887
Transcription
59
sliver & on my knees waited ready to help him up the cliff at the end. But when he reached it he hooked his feet into the steps of the ice ladder in a rush & bounded past me then such a [revulsion] from fear to joy he rushed round & in crazy whirls of joy rolled over & over bounded against my face shrieked & yelled as if trying to say saved saved saved
Strange that is so small & animal there was room for such [found to be room] dread & huge joy & after deliverance he seemed to worship me His perception of the peril confronting him was so acute showed character not before guessed
To lose life in the bewilderment of a storm or fight were not so bad as in the silent peril of that fateful gulf of ice
He was not distinguished in any way that I could see certainly not by beauty. I always liked dogs & courted their attention He was insignificant generally but no coward. Fond of adventures apparently more from stupid apathy than courage used to looking into faces of flowers & animals.
Moments of peril lay us bare, men & animals & reveal us to ourselves as well as others.
The danger lay at the two ends of bridge. Had the sliver of ice been level & up to the surface at the extremities it will have been nothing more than exhilarating to have straddled & shuffled over it with measured strokes cutting down the sharp edge
60
Bring to view more & more terrific perils
Blood marked his footsteps. He had sharp eyes & was not lacking in quick observation. A dog of even temper manners such as they were still there was not much in our party or the days doings to interest a dog. He spent in sleep the time he could not get rid of in any other way
Looking with grim contempt on the little frisks & capers that naturally belong to [small] dogs of his size
He felt just as I felt -did as I did only had a little less mastery of himself & was longer in coming to a conclusion. Not a man but child
Over rocky moors, sheets of velvet moss tangles of alder & panax mats of healthy cassiope & crusty crystal glaciers I had before seen him pass but never before this day had I seen noticed his feet
# The gashed wilderness of ice & the gloomy slow crawling clouds made the sounds of the thrashing winds fearfully solemn
# At rare intervals the sun shot through the rifts, clouds irradiating their edges & changing from dull boding gloom to dazzling splendor
His slowness & heaviness of gesture & deportment were ludicrously out of place in so diminutive a creature
Resource Identifier
MuirReel33 Notebook01 Img032.Jpeg
Contributing Institution
Holt-Atherton Special Collections, University of the Pacific Library
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