Assuredly, the Mariposa Grove has other values than that of a mere “show place.” Aside from the size and age of its far-famed trees, the Grove has power to inspire and its lesson to teach. Its trees have stood steadfast for centuries indifferent to time and tide, the better to admonish mortal man lest he forget his littleness. To contemplate them in cold calm without feelings of reverence is impossible. No artist has yet been able to adequately depict their God-like composure and their haunting grandeur. Indeed, they are as gloriously beyond the brush as they are above words. That stirring apostrophe of Byron to the ocean is the nearest approach in all literature to their greatness. Most mysterious of all natural wonders, they have looked on events that distinguish centuries. Over them has been drawn the mantle of the past and within them are locked many of the secrets of history. To stand in the presence of such ancient things is to be able to sense something of the riddle propounded by the inscrutable Sphinx. And yet more wonderful is such an impression by moonlight. On every hand tower the stern columns of the Sequoias, their shaggy crowns gemmed with stars. About them are grouped other tree hosts, rising in files and striving in vain to emulate the ample girth and majestic height of the giants. These lesser trees are pines with a perfection almost faultless, cedars as beautiful as those of Lebanon; and firs with a grace not unlike that of hills sculptured by rain drops. Among these are yet others—trees crooked and short and stumped; trees tall and slim and slender. Through the rents in the roof of this aged forest the moon looks in, sending long arrows of light to investigate some pitchy obscurity, splashing the forest floor here and there with blotches of silvery light and banding the open spaces with monstrous slanting shadows of Sequoian columns. Formless masses of impenetrable darkness loom everywhere. All the rest is a region of half-light in which everything is seen and nothing recognized. All is wrapped in a cloak of unreality, lending a weird, almost theatrical effect. Shadows move with a ghostly sound throughout the cavernous chambers. The perpetual peace of night is upon the forest. Then it is that the Sequoia is almost holy in its tremendous power to inspire reverence. Only in the solitudes of the sea where there is no trace of land or sail to break the fearful circle set upon the surface of the great deep is such an impression of the mystic charm of space received. Here the immensity of sea and sky is comparable to the over-shadowing majesty of the Sequoia. The soul is overwhelmed with solemnity. The immeasurable calm and solitude of it all overflows like a tide. One seems on the threshold of oblivion. Life’s endless toil and endeavor are at an end, for one has caught a glimpse of the immortal. +Chapter V+ OLDEST OF LIVING THINGS