/// the Sierra - 



ing fast, and the streams are singing bank- 

 full, swaying softly through the level mead- 

 ows and bogs, quivering with sun-spangles, 

 swirling in pot-holes, resting in deep pools, 

 leaping, shouting in wild, exulting energy 

 over rough boulder dams, joyful, beautiful 

 in all their forms. No Sierra landscape that 

 I have seen holds anything truly dead or 

 dull, or any trace of what in manufactories 

 is called rubbish or waste ; everything is 

 perfectly clean and pure and full of divine 

 lessons. This quick, inevitable interest at- 

 taching to everything seems marvelous un- 

 til the hand of God becomes visible ; then 

 it seems reasonable that what interests Him 

 may well interest us. When we try to pick 

 out anything by itself, we find it hitched 

 to everything else in the universe. One fan- 

 cies a heart like our own must be beating 

 in every crystal and cell, and we feel like 

 stopping to speak to the plants and animals 

 as friendly fellow-mountaineers. Nature as 

 a poet, an enthusiastic workingman, be- 



[ 211 ] 



