My First Summer 



ing sure that its next appearance will be 

 better and more beautiful than the last. 



I watched the growth of these red-lands 

 of the sky as eagerly as if new mountain 

 ranges were being built. Soon the group of 

 snowy peaks in whose recesses lie the high- 

 est fountains of the Tuolumne, Merced, and 

 North Fork of the San Joaquin were deco- 

 rated with majestic colored clouds like those 

 already described, but more complicated, 

 to correspond with the grand fountain-heads 

 of the rivers they overshadowed. The Sierra 

 Cathedral, to the south of camp, was over- 

 shadowed like Sinai. Never before noticed 

 so fine a union of rock and cloud in form 

 and color and substance, drawing earth and 

 sky together as one ; and so human is it, 

 every feature and tint of color goes to one's 

 heart, and we shout, exulting in wild en- 

 thusiasm as if all the divine show were our 

 own. More and more, in a place like this, 

 we feel ourselves part of wild Nature, kin 

 to everything. Spent most of the day high 

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