Letters to a Friend, Written to Mrs. Ezra S. Carr, 1866-1879Muir, John
History
Letters to a Friend, Written to Mrs. Ezra S. Carr, 1866-1879
Muir, John
Natural history -- California; Naturalists -- United States -- Correspondence; Yosemite National Park (Calif.) -- Description and travel
I wish you were here to-day, for our rocks are again decked with deep
snow. Two days ago a big gray cloud collared Barometer Dome. The vast
booming column of the upper falls was swayed like a shred of loose mist
by broken pieces of storm that struck it suddenly, occasionally bending
it backwards to the very top of the cliff, making it hang sometimes
more than a minute like an inverted bow edged with comets. A cloud upon
the dome and these ever varying rockings and bendings of the falls are
sure storm signs, but yesterday morning’s sky was clear, and the sun
poured the usual quantity of the balmiest spring sunshine into the blue
ether of our valley gulf, but ere long ragged lumps of cloud began to
appear all along the valley-rim, coming gradually into closer ranks, and
rising higher like rock additions to the walls. From the top of these
cloud-banks fleecy fingers arched out from both sides and met over the
middle of the meadows, gradually thickening and blackening, until at
night big, confident snowflakes began to fall. We thought that the last
snow-harvest had been withered and reaped long ago by the glowing sun,
for the bluebirds and robins sang spring, and so also did the bland,
unsteady winds, and the brown meadow opposite the house was spotted here
and there with blue violets. Carex spikes were shooting up through the
dead leaves, and the cherry and briar rose were unfolding their leaves,
and besides these spring wrote many a sweet mark and word that I cannot
tell; but snow fell all the hours of to-day in cold winter earnest, and
now at evening there rests upon rocks, trees, and weeds as full and ripe
a harvest of snow flowers as I ever beheld in the stormiest, most opaque
days of midwinter.
April 13th.
About twelve inches of snow fell in that last snowstorm. It disappeared
as suddenly as it came, snatched away hastily almost before it had time
to melt, as if a mistake had been made in allowing it to come here at all.
A week of spring days bright in every hour, without a stain or thought
of the storm, came in glorious colors, giving still greater pledges of
happy life to every living creature of the spring, but a loud, energetic
snowstorm possessed every hour of yesterday. Every tree and broken weed
bloomed yet once more; all summer distinctions were leveled off; all
plants and the very rocks and streams were equally polypetalous.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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