Preview
Circa Date
circa 1887
Transcription
58 Put on card
Drifting about among flowers & sunshine like a butterfly or bee though not half so busy or with so sure an aim. But in the midst of theses methodless rovings I seek to spell out by close inspection things not well understood. Still in the work of grave science I make but little progress.
If in after years I should do better in the way of exact research, then these lawless wanderings will not be without value as suggestive beginnings
But if I should be fated to walk no more with nature [but] be compelled to leave [leaving] all I most devoutly love in the wilderness, return to civilization & be twisted into the characterless cable of society – then these sweet free cumberless rovings will be as [small] chinks & slits on lifes [life’s] horizon through which I may obtain [narrow] glimpses of the treasures that lie in gods [god’s] wilds beyond my reach.
Bears
Bears usually accounted so savage meets his fellow mortal man with some good will, seldom manifesting any [desire] inclination to take advantage of him in any other way than appropriating his provisions in case of hunger
59
By creeping slowly on hands & knees I got a fine view
A fine specimen shaggy & powerful [allowed me to approach] him within a stones [stone’s] throw as he stood with his great paws on the trunk of a fallen fir in the middle of a small garden meadow. When I tried to scare him he gazed at me curiously for a few minutes with his sharp inquisitive muzzle thrown forward then drew his paws down off the log, turned & walked slowly away through the tall grass & flowers shaking the lilies & columbines as he passed, & stopping occasionally to look back over his shoulder, finally vanishing in the grand forest, his foodful shelter & home.
Yosemite Fall
Suppose that in the midst of its headlong descent with all its whirling fairy fabric[k] of spray & rushing comet masses the fall were suddenly frozen solid & carried bodily out into the middle of the valley where we can go around it & see it on all sides. [There it stands] What a show it would make in the sunshine, a colossal white pillar 1600 feet high [most] lavishly & intricately adorned with airy flowing drapery exquisitely sculptured as if chiselled [chiseled] out of whitest marble.
Date Occurred
1872-1874
Resource Identifier
MuirReel32 Notebook01 Img032.Jpeg
Contributing Institution
Holt-Atherton Special Collections, University of the Pacific Library
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