My First Summer 



like grass on the brow of a lowland hill, and 

 extending along the feet of these precipices 

 a ribbon of meadow a mile wide and seven or 

 eight long, that seems like a strip a farmer 

 might mow in less than a day. Waterfalls, five 

 hundred to one or two thousand feet high, 

 are so subordinated to the mighty cliffs over 

 which they pour that they seem like wisps 

 of smoke, gentle as floating clouds, though 

 their voices fill the valley and make the rocks 

 tremble. The mountains, too, along the 

 eastern sky, and the domes in front of them, 

 and the succession of smooth rounded waves 

 between, swelling higher, higher, with dark 

 woods in their hollows, serene in massive 

 exuberant bulk and beauty, tend yet more 

 to hide the grandeur of the Yosemite temple 

 and make it appear as a subdued subordinate 

 feature of the vast harmonious landscape. 

 Thus every attempt to appreciate any one 

 feature is beaten down by the overwhelming 

 influence of all the others. And, as if this 

 were not enough, lo! in the sky arises 



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