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Show 221. a river -- a raging river I had almost said, a wild overflowing river I should say - cannot look upon such a sight with joy. Even the Los Angeles River of my youth offered an extravagant voice sometimes, and then while older citizens were fearing for their possessions, I would love to watch the thick brown waters flow out of their banks. Later I would look at the lines on the stucco houses, and say, "The river rose up this high!" and hope that next time it would rise up even higher. This was not the view of the City Council. Even last February in Yosemite I heard a ranger speaking to a group of college professors. It was a good thing, he said, that the lavish storms of the winter weren't any warmer, and didn't melt the snowpack, for then we might have been flooded out. I could not help thinking that Muir might reply, "The Valley could use a rebaptism and cleansing." It was unavoidable that Muir would attempt this radical strategy, would attempt to shock the reader. Even though his revisions show that he toned down his sermon by focusing through the middle of his text on the beauties of the storm, and arguing that "storms are fine speakers," but "we are poor listeners," still he suspected that only storms which put men out of their houses were loud enough for men to hear: How terribly downright must seem the utterances of storms and earthquakes to those accustomed to the soft hypocrisies of society. Man's control is being steadily extended over the forces of nature, but it is well, at least for the present, that storms can still make themselves |
