The Last of the Plainsmen 



strains of cliff song. I had been reveling in a species 

 of indulgence, imagining I was a great lover of 

 nature, building poetical illusions over storm-beaten 

 peaks. The truth, told by one who had lived fifty 

 years in the solitudes, among the rugged mountains, 

 under the dark trees, and by the sides of the lonely 

 streams, was the simple interpretation of a spirit in 

 harmony with the bold, the beautiful, the serene, the 

 silent. 



He meant the Grand Canon was only a mood of 

 nature, a bold promise, a beautiful record. He meant 

 that mountains had sifted away in its dust, yet the 

 canon was young. Man was nothing, so let him be 

 humble. This cataclysm of the earth, this play 

 ground of a river was not inscrutable; it was only 

 inevitable as inevitable as nature herself. Millions 

 of years in the bygone ages it had lain serene under 

 a live moon ; it would bask silent under a rayless sun, 

 in the onward edge of time. 



It taught simplicity, serenity, peace. The eye that 

 saw only the strife, the war, the decay, the ruin, or 

 only the glory and the tragedy, saw not all the truth. 

 It spoke simply, though its words were grand: &quot; My 

 spirit is the Spirit of Time, of Eternity, of God. 

 Man is little, vain, vaunting. Listen. To-morrow 

 he shall be gone. Peace ! Peace ! &quot; 



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