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Show 154. it does not take a more poetic and spiritual form until later, when Muir will say, unashamedly, . . . no temple made with hands can compare with Yosemite. Every rock in its walls seems to glow with life. Some lean back in majestic repose; others, absolutely sheer or nearly so for thousands of feet, advance beyond their companions in thoughtful attitudes, giving welcome to storms and calms alike, seemingly conscious, yet heedless of everything going on about them. Awful in stern, immovable majesty, how softly these mountain rocks are adorned and how fine and reassuring the company they keep. . . . If we do not dismiss this as hyperbole, "nature faking," or "pathetic fallacy," it is a recognized truth, but not for modern western culture. When Mrs. Carr told Muir to prune the lavishness of his native fancy, or curtail his poetic exuberance in the Studies, she was also telling him to omit the living truth he had seen. Because he could not go to the authority of non-Christian scriptures, he was limited in his ability to defend or articulate his vision. Nevertheless the mountains and domes of the Studies were alive, even if he sometimes treated them as objects. Earlier he had to drive wooden stakes into living glaciers so scientists would believe that they were alive Now he found that he would have to describe the fault planes m granite, to show its wholeness. There are undoubtedly many paths to the whole living vision in Nature. I have attempted to describe a part of Muir's in previous chapters. Richard Shelton is a contemporary |
