AN APPRECIATION 



By Harriet Monroe 



I was fortunate enough to take two Sierra Club outings 

 when John Muir was of the company during the whole four 

 weeks — the first in 1908, through the Kern, and again the next 

 year in the Yosemite. He talked often at the camp-fires, giving 

 generously of his knowledge and love of nature, as everyone 

 knows. But he talked also to smaller groups, and even to any 

 chance companion on the trail, and it is some of these casual 

 hours of happy intercourse which I remember most vividly. 



One day, at the Big Arroyo camp, it was butterflies, for some 

 youth was trying to take a picture of one as it poised on a flow- 

 er. I was struck with the old man's tenderness for these exqui- 

 site fairies of the forest, and with the depth and breadth of his 

 knowledge. This was a rare spirit; never had I encountered 

 such delicacy of sympathy with little fluttering, flitting lives. 

 Again, in some high place, it was of a certain species of little 

 bird he talked — I have forgotten their name — a Latin one, for 

 they live incredibly high, beyond the reach of the vulgar tongue 

 — and his voice softened as he described the valor of their daily 

 Hfe. 



But it was on two occasions in the Yosemite that John Muir 

 gave me perhaps the richest of my mountain days. And each 

 day took form in a poem, which I shall probably quote on the 

 trail as we pass. One morning we were climbing out of the 

 Valley by way of Vernal and Nevada Falls. I was a poor climb- 

 er, always the last on the trail, and Nevada, the dancer, held 

 me back with her beauty. When at last I reached the level 

 granite above her, John Muir was there, mounted on the horse 

 which he rode now and then when no woman would accept the 

 loan of it. He was rapt, entranced; he threw up his arm in a 

 grand gesture. ''This is the morning of creation," he cried, "the 

 whole thing is beginning now ! The mountains are singing to- 

 gether"^ — ah, I can not remember his dithyrambic paean of 

 praise, which flowed on as grandly as the great white waters 



