Book Reviews. 



243 



BOOK REVIEWS. 



Edited by Marion Randall Parsons. 



"My First Summer More than forty years ago a young Scotch- 

 iN THE Sierra/'* man, but recently recovered from an acci- 

 dent that had threatened his eyesight, came 

 to California hoping to make his way into the mountain regions, 

 whose beauty, he had feared in his hours of darkness, might for- 

 ever be hidden from him. The story of his "First Summer in the 

 Sierra," now for the first time published, is a journal written in 

 the solitude of the great forests, on the summits of lonely domes 

 and peaks, or by the camp-fire with "Billy," the shepherd, and 

 the Indian asleep near by and the dull, dingy, unpastoral flock, 

 for whose care he was responsible, looking "like a big gray 

 blanket in the star light." The beauty and freshness of the 

 mountains is wonderfully reflected in this book, which seems to 

 hold within its pages all the brightness and sunny geniality of a 

 Sierra morning warming towards noon. 



Aside from the enthusiasm for the new world opening before 

 him which is perhaps the dominant note of the book, one is 

 struck chiefly by Mr. Muir's strong sense of the harmony and 

 unity of Nature. In him the wide vision of the scientist is 

 allied with a reverent spirit that traces even from the ravages 

 of destructive forces an ultimate working out for good, and sees 

 in apparent death the creative power of the Lord. "One is con- 

 stantly reminded of the infinite lavishness and fertility of 

 Nature, — inexhaustible abundance amid what seems enormous 

 waste. And yet when we look into any of her operations that lie 

 within reach of our minds, we learn that no particle of her 

 material is wasted or worn out. It is eternally flowing from use 

 to use, beauty to yet higher beauty; and we soon cease to lament 

 waste and death, and rather rejoice in the imperishable, unspend- 

 able wealth of the universe, and faithfully watch and wait the 

 reappearance of everything that melts and fades and dies about 

 us, feehng sure that its next appearance will be better and more 

 beautiful than the last." 



Mr. Muir's intense feehng of fellowship and kinship with the 

 mountain world is constantly manifest. "One fancies a heart 



*My First Summer in the Sierra. By John Muir. Houghton-MifBin Co. 

 191 1. With illustrations from drawings made by the author in 1869 and 

 from photographs by Herbert W. Gleason; 354 pages. Price $2.50 net. 



