In Yosemite Shadows [pp. 105-112]

THE
OVERLAND MONTHLY
DEVOTED TO
THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE COUNTRY.
VOL. 3.-AUGUST, I869.-No. 2.
IN YOSEMITE SHADOWS.
it i OSEMITE, Sept.-: Come at the possibility-nay, probability-of be once- the year wanes; would ing snow-bound for four or six months,
you see the wondrous transformation, thirty miles from any human habitation?
the embalming of the dead Summer in I did not long consider. I felt every
windings of purple and gold and bronze moment that the soul of Summer was
-come quickly, before the white pall passing. I scented the ascending incovers it delay no longer. The waters cense of smoking and crackling boughs.
are low and fordable, the snows threaten, What a requiem was being chanted by
but the hours are yet propitious; and all the tremulous and broken voices of
such a welcome awaits you as Solomon Nature. Would I, could I, longer forin all his glory could not have lavished bear to join the passionate and tumultu —
on Sheba's approaching queen.* * * " ousmiserere.? Itseemedthat I couldnot,
There was much more of the same for gathering about me the voluminous
sort of high-toned epistolary rhetoric, furs of Siberia, I bade adieu to friends,
written and sent by a dear hand, whose not without some forebodings awakened
fanciful pen seemed touched by the am- by the admonitions of my elders, then,
brosial tints of Autumn. So the year dropping all the folly of the world, like a;
was going out in a gorgeous carnival, monk I went silently and alone into the
before the Lent-like solemnity of Winter monastery of a Sierran solitude, resigned,
was assumed. trusting, prayerful.
I had only two things to consider now: What an entering in it was! With
First, was it already too late to hasten slow, devotional steps I approached the
thither, and enjoy the splendid spectacle valley. There was a thin veil of snow
so freely offered and so alluring; sec- over the upper trail. It was smooth and
ondly, could I, if yet in time, venture so unbroken as I came upon it, following
boldly upon the edge of winter, and risk the blazed trees in my way. Footprints
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year x869, by JOHN H. CARMANY, in the Clerk's Office of
the District Court of the District of California.
VOL. III-8.