And I
think it helped me to appreciate and understand them. We saw Stellar Lake,
named by inspiration, for it looks a blue sky half full of stars; and I
had my first sight of a fish hatchery. I'd no notion it could be so
exciting to watch the career of trout from the egg stage up to rainbow
maturity. Never shall I forget grabbing a handful of tiny wriggling fish
out of the trough of water where they lived, and holding them in the
hollow of my palm for an instant! They looked like big silver commas, and
interrogation points, oh, but punctuations of all kinds; and they felt
like iced popcorn. I don't think I shall ever eat trout again. It would be
so treacherous, now that I seem to have known the creatures from the
cradle to the grave.
"But about the Big Trees, which at this present moment are to me the most
important things on earth. I've seen a good deal of the earth, but nothing
so good, nothing so glorious. No wonder Mr. Hilliard says, 'Why need
people build churches in this part of the world, when they have the
redwood cathedral built by God, full of the sound of His organ music?'
"All through the Yosemite there is music. You hear the forest talking, and
think it is the river. You hear the river, and think it is the wind giving
a signal to the trees, that they may begin speaking; for trees and river
and wind have lived so long together--like people married happily since
early youth--that thoughts and words and tones have come to be the same.
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