Burroughs to hover in the background where
he blends with the neutral tones; but so it was in all the
thrilling scenes in the Western drama--Mr. Muir and the desert,
Mr. Muir and the petrified trees, Mr. Muir and the canon, Mr.
Muir and Yosemite; while with "Oom John," it was a blending with
the scene, a quiet, brooding absorption that made him seem a part
of them--the desert, the petrified trees, the Grand Canon, Yosemite,
and Mr. Burroughs inseparably linked with them, but seldom standing
out in sharp contrast to them, as the "Beloved Egotist" stood out
on all occasions.
Perhaps the most idyllic of all our days of camping and tramping
with John of Birds and John of Mountains was the day in Yosemite
when we tramped to Nevada and Vernal Falls, a distance of fourteen
miles, returning to Camp Ahwahnee at night, weary almost to
exhaustion, but strangely uplifted by the beauty and sublimity
n which we had lived and moved and had our being. Our brown tents
stood hospitably open, and out in the great open space in front we
sat around the campfire under the noble spruces and firs, the Merced
flowing softly on our right, mighty Yosemite Falls thundering away
in the distance, while the moon rose over Sentinel Rock, lending
a touch of ineffable beauty to the scene, and a voice, that is now
forever silenced, lent to the rhymes of the poets its richness of
varied emotion, as it chanted choicest selections from the Golden
Poems of all time.
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