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Show 387. THE GREEN DANCE OF TREES AND THE WHITE PLUNGE OF WATERS If Muir was going to provide readers with a picture of Sierran conifers, he was also going to warn readers that any instant enlightenment about these forests was unlikely. Few, he thought, had "gone far enough and lived long enough with the trees to gain anything like a loving conception of their grandeur and significance. . . . " The real appreciation of Sierran forests went beyond a momentary aesthetic appreciation: "For knowledge of this kind one must dwell with the trees and grow with them, without any reference to time in the almanac sense. " Further, Muir was suspicious of the very kind of essay he was writing, which would give static portraits or fixed classifications of individual species of Sierran conifers. He was displeased with the books he consulted while working on his article, and said, "How a tree book can be exhaustive when every species is ever on the wing from one form to another with infinite variety, it is not easy to see." Yet his own judgments were based on fixed notions of the different species. His articles on pines comprised really a portrait gallery. For Muir, "the noblest pine yet discovered" was the sugar Pine, and for good reason. Admitting that in most pines there was "a sameness of expression, which, to most people, is apt |
