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Mtns of California 5 Review by Alice Morse Earle. Perhaps the most marked characteristic of the book is the intense love
shown by the author for all forms aspects of nature the trees are his brother; he knows their forms, their voices, the different
sounds of their rustling leaves, he reads their soul; the birds beasts are his friends - how he delineates their features
the flowers are his sweethearts; he can never cease telling their endearing traits. The book is wholly self forgetful; in
that respect a keen contrast to the self conscious nature-studies of Thoreau. It is almost man-forgetful - though occasional
bits of description appears - like this humerous acct of the furred Mono illegible . The picture of the old miners in their
exaggerated dotage shows deep human sympathy. I do not like to end the reviewing of this book any more than like to close
its pages, over wh I linger longing to quote the fine thoughts, the fair symmetrical sentences I ever find, to give the noble
expression of the sublimity power of the winds told in that fairly passionate chapter A wind Storm in the Forest; to tell
the revealed meaning of the gestures of the trees; to recount the wonderful almost incredible story of the beautiful brave
wild sheep, the analytical study history of the giant sequoias, the picture of the hanging gardens with larkspurs 8 ft high
that final revel in sweetness, the chapter on the Bee Pastures, those flowery wildernesses whose gladsome praise in melodious
phrase makes a picture sweeter than that of honied Hybla, rosier than that of heathery Hymettus. Alice Morse Earle 04378