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Show 426 As months went by, Johnson pressed harder and harder, finally outlining possible articles for Muir. Meanwhile, Muir began to despair, first complaining, "My stock of cliff and cascade adjectives are used up and I am too dull to get new ones." When he finally finished the article and sent it off to Johnson, he apologized, I fear you will find the article dry and geographical - lean, scrawny but I assure you I have worked to cover the ground and keep each part in proper subordination . . . if it has no flavor of the region I will be disappointed. Muir was chafing under the pressure of deadlines, and had much personal pressure as well. His father-in-law had died the previous October, and left the management of all the Strenzel lands under Muir's management. The load was too much. He was not even able to return to the Kings River region and had to rely on notes taken fifteen years earlier. No wonder his essay lacked the life and immediacy of his Yosemite writings. Muir's essay shows the signs of his discontent and conflicting responsibilities. The title was a good indication of his planned strategy, "A Rival of Yosemite." Muir was going to sell Kings Canyon on the basis of his previous success, by comparing it to the Hetch Hetchy and Yosemite Valleys. The comparisons which filled the article were sometimes only mathematical. Though Muir frequently used the adjective grand to describe this new region, his language had little freshness. To say that these mountains were grander meant only that they |