Preview
Circa Date
1887
Transcription
81
The glacier extending far beyond sight lay silent & lonely as a mountain top in clouds
What has got into your little noodle now? Not a wing or foot astir No game for you today he stood in the blast fully exposed & plainly was anxious to follow me to shore my adventure be what it might & begged leave with this tail & eyes
One touch of nature makes all [world] kin but in this adventure there was more than a touch, in that solemn wilderness we two passed this valley of shadow of death together & in the stress of that supreme trial we found ourselves the same. I, a man, he, a dog, differing only as man & boy
[Stifling] limbs firm as steel & his heart [beat] I [ ] all reserve strength & skill & fortitude called into action
After dark hard work that seemed easy but then came [reaction] & when the strain so deadly the collapse is correspondingly great
Every drop driven through the air or oozing the ends of the mosses on the stones of trees careful to be beautiful
Every particle of the roaring chanting singing air
A frenzy of fear crochets
A manly fellow firmly set on his little pegs
A mastiff or bulldog in the bud
Under a mask like a flower in the bud
82
Sober solemn independent & disobedient he came out of every experience with obstinacy unimpaired
# I have known many dogs & liked them but this wild Stickeen so obscure & unpromising proved the most suggestive & unforgettable of all
Some of the playful winning ways of most small dogs he had none, no merry twinkle in his eye & his tail neither bushy nor slim hung down steady as his face wagged with grave deliberation only used in important causes, secret & untelling all over
Snow began to fall thickening the gloom of the clouds making the stormy landscape darkly dreamily but nothing could increase the [terror] the gloom of the crevasse
[ ] with every emergency able for every crisis, so able that
Never before had his strength & courage been brought to a straining trial. Never showed in his actions until confronted by this crevasse that he knew ice was slippery or [tumbling into] crevasses dangerous, that he had a life to lose
The only remarkable thing about him noticeable at first sight was the smooth uniformity of dullness in shape & character absence of light & shade no feature brought standing out to give individuality & picturesqueness
Waging petty war on [sqs]
Resource Identifier
MuirReel33 Notebook01 Img043.Jpeg
Contributing Institution
Holt-Atherton Special Collections, University of the Pacific Library
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