Letters to a Friend 



that you could share this divine day with me 

 here. The soul of Indian summer is brooding 

 this blue water, and it enters one's being as 

 nothing else does. Tahoe is surely not one but 

 many. As I curve around its heads and bays 

 and look far out on its level sky fairly tinted 

 and fading in pensive air, I am reminded of all 

 the mountain lakes I ever knew, as if this were 

 a kind of water heaven to which they all had 

 come. 



Yosemite Valley, 



October yth, 1874. 



I expected to have been among the foot-hill 

 drift long ago, but the mountains fairly seized 

 me, and, ere I knew, I was up the Merced 

 Canon, where we were last year, past Shadow 

 and Merced lakes and our soda springs, etc. 

 I returned last night. Had a glorious storm and 

 a thousand sacred beauties that seemed yet 

 more and more divine. I camped four nights 

 at Shadow Lake, at the old place in the pine 

 thickets. I have ousel tales to tell. I was 

 alone, and during the whole excursion, or 

 f 168 1 



