52 LUTHER BURBANK 



too intense. Among these dizzy heights of rock, 

 ice-cleft, glacier-plowed, and water-worn, we 

 stand face to face with the first and latest pages 

 of world creation, for now we see also tender 

 and beautiful flowers adding grace of form and 

 color to the grisly walls, and far away down the 

 slopes stand the giant trees, oldest of all living 

 things, embracing all of human history ; but even 

 their lives are but as a watch tick since the stars 

 first shone on these barren rocks, before the evo- 

 lutive forces had so gloriously transfigured the 

 face of our planet home. 



"Some qualities nature carefully 

 fixes and transmits, but some, and 

 those the finer, she exhales with the 

 breath of the individual as too 

 costly to perpetuate. But I notice 

 also that they may become fixed 

 and permanent in any stock, by 

 painting and repainting them on 

 every individual, until at last na- 

 ture adopts them and bakes them 

 into her porcelain" EMERSON. 



