Letters to a Friend 



where, my glorious river, do you come from?" 

 Think of a spring fifty yards wide at the mouth 

 issuing from the base of a lava bluff with wild 

 songs, not gloomily from a dark cavy mouth, 

 but from a world of ferns and mosses, gold and 

 green. 



I broke my way through chaparral tangle 

 in eager vigor utterly unweariable. The dark 

 blue stream sang solemnly with a deep voice, 

 pooling and bowlder-dashing and an a-a-aing 

 in white flashing rapids, when suddenly I heard 

 water notes I never had heard before. They 

 came from that mysterious spring. And then 

 the Elk forest and the Alpine glow and the 

 sunset, poor pen cannot tell it. 



The sun this morning is at work with its 

 blessings as if it had never blessed before. He 

 never wearies of revealing himself on Shasta. 

 But in a few hours I leave this altar and all 

 its 



Well, to my Father I say "Thank you" and 

 go willingly. 



I go by stage and rail to Brownsville to see 

 [ 175] 



