THE SPELL OF THE YOSEMITE 
granite rocks, and the naked granite shaft, Liberty 
Cap, dominating all! 
And that night, too, when we sat around a big 
camp-fire near our tents in the valley, and saw the 
full moon come up and look down upon us from 
behind Sentinel Rock, and heard the intermittent 
booming of Yosemite Falls sifting through the 
spruce trees that towered around us, and felt the 
tender, brooding spirit of the great valley, itself 
touched to lyric intensity by the grandeurs on every 
hand, steal in upon us, and possess our souls—surely 
that was a night none of us can ever forget. As Yo- 
semite can stand the broad, searching light of mid- 
day and not be cheapened, so its enchantments can 
stand the light of the moon and the stars and not 
be rendered too vague and impalpable. 
Ti 
Going from the Grand Cafion to Yosemite is 
going from one sublimity to another of a different 
order. The cafion is the more strange, unearthly, 
apocryphal, appeals more to the imagination, and 
is the more overwhelming in its size, its wealth of 
color, and its multitude of suggestive forms. But for 
quiet majesty and beauty, with a touch of the sylvan 
and pastoral, too, Yosemite stands alone. One could 
live with Yosemite, camp in it, tramp in it, winter 
and summer in it, and find nature in her tender and 
human, almost domestic moods, as well as in her 
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