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Show 213, the philosopher to come back for a whole summer at least. If Emerson assumed that Muir's tenure in the Valley was a "probation and sequestration in the solitudes and snows," at the end of which he would bring his "ripe fruits so rare and precious into waiting society," the young man answered with his most enthusiastic earthquake-prose. If Emerson spoke for civilization, Muir would respond for wilderness. An earthquake was an awakening and a revelation: "as the John Baptist angel said squarely.- 'I am Gabriel' this storm said I am earthquake & I rumbled out to the open sky shouting 'A noble Earthquake, Noble Earthquake!!'" Muir depicted himself meeting this sublime phenomenon with sublime enthusiasm. Such an experience represented an important test for the student of Nature, and Muir was only briefly troubled by the diction he needed to describe his enlightenment. Mundane terms like "earthquake" or "shock" were clearly unsatisfactory. The tidal movement of the earth could only be described as "waving," and "fervid passionate throbbings." It was "As if God had touched the mountains with a muscled hand or were wearing them upon him as common bones & flesh." The heavy rumblings? "These are the first spoken words that I have heard direct from the tender bosom of mother earth." The Yosemite was indeed a Pantheon for a living god that day. Muir watched a pinnacle as large as one of the Cathedral Spires come down to the Valley floor. In an avalanche of rock, "Firs, oaks, & spruces were snipped like thistles." The mountains moved, and yet so very little was broken, a sure |
