Preview
Circa Date
1887
Transcription
5
& down the Stick [Stickeen] River with his Ind [Indian] master or to church on the brushy hill at Fort Wrangel, or with the friendly hunters in their canoes [after deer] in the fall from island to island, after deer or with their merry families to gather berries, etc.
He came forth that morning from his nest into the drenching storm not like a strong man to run a race but neither like a poor wet rat escaped from a sinking ship
He never looked into the ordinary crevasses, any one that I could jump so could he & he moved with easy placid unquestioning confidence like a wisp of thistledown born forward by a gentle breeze. Monotonously well behaved.
# In times of deadly peril fortitude & care of the common kind is replaced by a deep hidden power beyond our call or knowledge & both which seem to have nothing to do which take possession of our bodies carries them safely & then gives our bodies back again.
More taciturn than any Indian I ever saw. Had the silence & calm of wildness. Desperately serious Had a way & a world of his own Never played never barked & never was known to obey orders. Cared nothing for camp work but kept his eye on excursions – hunts, etc. & he had many little excursions ones of his own.
6
Escape
A perfect foam & effervescence of joy
How eloquent & telling he all at once became in voice & gesture. He fairly shrieked & wept for joy as if the concealed emotion of a whole lifetime had been suddenly found vent.
Veil rent asunder
He swept back & forth along the brink of crevasses in a passionate fever of eagerness to find a way of escape in some other (way) than the one I was trying but there was none & he had to come back & look down at me astride the wedge his mind fairly afire with fear, full of fresh original suggestion, every feature speaking now
I have always been curious about animals. Races of beings about which we know about as little as we do about inhabitants of the stars
Vide Vol 1
Bagehot Pg 6
If they could only speak, I often regretted their dumbness, yet all have language could we have love enough to understand it. (If they could only tell their own story.)
Literally the extreme edge of hazard
Tingling thrilling whirl of joy
There could not be a more desperate life & death concentration on one thing, how to cross this gulf. All the rest of O [world] has shut out
Resource Identifier
MuirReel33 Notebook01 Img005.Jpeg
Contributing Institution
Holt-Atherton Special Collections, University of the Pacific Library
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