My occupation during these leisure hours perhaps would strike my old
friends East as idle, silly, mawkish. But I believe you will understand
me.
I have the pleasure of doing nothing, and of catching now and then
a glimpse of supreme joy in the strange state of thinking nothing.
Tennyson came close to this in his "Lotus Eaters." Only to see--only to
feel is enough!
Sprawled on the warm sweet pine needles, I breathe through them the
breath of the earth and am somehow no longer lonely. I cannot, of
course, see the sunset, but I watch for its coming on the eastern wall
of the canyon. I see the shadow slowly creep up, driving the gold before
it, until at last the canyon rim and pines are turned to golden fire.
I watch the sailing eagles as they streak across the gold, and swoop up
into the blue, and pass out of sight. I watch the golden flush fade to
gray, and then, the canyon slowly fills with purple shadows. This hour
of twilight is the silent and melancholy one. Seldom is there any sound
save the soft rush of the water over the stones, and that seems to die
away. For a moment, perhaps, I am Hiawatha alone in his forest home,
or a more primitive savage, feeling the great, silent pulse of nature,
happy in unconsciousness, like a beast of the wild. But only for an
instant do I ever catch this fleeting state. Next I am Glenn Kilbourne
of West Fork, doomed and haunted by memories of the past. The great
looming walls then become no longer blank. They are vast pages of the
history of my life, with its past and present, and, alas! its future.
Everything time does is written on the stones. And my stream seems to
murmur the sad and ceaseless flow of human life, with its music and its
misery.
Then, descending from the sublime to the humdrum and necessary, I heave
a sigh, and pull myself together, and go in to make biscuits and fry
ham. But I should not forget to tell you that before I do go in, very
often my looming, wonderful walls and crags weave in strange shadowy
characters the beautiful and unforgettable face of Carley Burch!
I append what little news Oak Creek affords.
That blamed old bald eagle stole another of my pigs.
I am doing so well with my hog-raising that Hutter wants to come in with
me, giving me an interest in his sheep.
It is rumored some one has bought the Deep Lake section I wanted for a
ranch. I don't know who. Hutter was rather noncommittal.