Adventures in the Rocky Mountains by Isabella Bird

Posted on March 25, 2013 by pagesofjulia

adventuresI have a friend named Fil who won’t stop bringing me books. I’ve told him how badly my reading is backlogged, but still we can’t have dinner or a drink without bringing me a book, or several. There are worse problems to have. He certainly does a fine job of selecting them, there’s no question about that; I just worry about finding time for them all. This one, however, fit perfectly into a hole in my reading at the time it arrived: I was a little behind and needed a quick read to review for you all here when he brought me this small, slim paperback of 119 pages. Perhaps it’s wrong to choose one’s reading based on length! but sometimes it does go that way. So, enter Isabella Bird.

From a brief bio in the opening pages, I learned that she was born in 1831 in England, and was sickly and in poor health for the first 40 years of her life, until she traveled to Hawaii and climbed a volcano. From there, she realized that outdoor activity was much more her style than were British sickrooms, and she embarked on a different lifestyle. Adventures in the Rocky Mountains is a collection of letters (and excerpts from letters) she sent to a sister back home while tramping around the Rockies, then not yet a part of the United States but a frontier dominated by hard drinking, hard living, and men.

Bird’s writing is remarkable for its lovely, evocative descriptions of natural scenery, as well as its equally evocative, but less praising, descriptions of frontier life. She retains some disdain for the uncivilized dress and manners of some of her neighbors, but before we call her prudish we will note that she was “bagging 14ers” in a time and place when women were scarce, and were hardworking frontier wives rather than adventurers. In other words, despite preferring a well-dressed conversationalist as companion to a ragged and “coarse” one, she was a tough cookie. A quotation from one of her letters graces the front cover: “There’s nothing Western folk admire so much as pluck in a woman…”

Aside from the descriptions of natural beauty and frontier life, I found a third reason to recommend this book: the character of Mr Nugent or ‘Jim’ (never referred to without the ‘single quotation marks’!), and his dog ‘Ring’ (also always so designated). ‘Mountain Jim’ is a well-known ruffian and desperado with no end of violence and criminality in his past – he confides in Bird at one point such atrocities that she can’t bring herself to relate them. But he is also a perfect gentleman, apparently, in the right mood. He is a “countryman” of Bird’s, a wonderful conversationalist, and quite chivalrous as well as respectful of her abilities to be one of the guys. He is described as charmingly as are the Rocky Mountains. For that matter, the less prominent Evans (another very likeable but also alcoholic and problematic frontiersman) gets a similarly colorful character sketch; and the UNlikeable Lyman as well; so really I should add characterization of people generally to Bird’s list of literary talents.

I am going to stop telling you and show you, through a few choice passages, below.

on a sunset:

The sun was setting fast, and against his golden light green promontories, wooded with stately pines, stood out one beyond another in a medium of dark rich blue, while grey bleached summits, peaked, turreted, and snow-slashed, were piled above them, gleaming with amber light. Darker grew the blue gloom, the dew fell heavily, aromatic odours floated on the air, and still the lofty peaks glowed with living light, till in one second it died off from them, leaving them with the ashy paleness of a dead face. It was dark and cold under the mountain shadows, the frosty chill of the high altitude wrapped me round, the solitude was overwhelming, and I reluctantly turned my horse’s head towards Truckee, often looking back to the ashy summits in their unearthly fascination.

on ‘Jim’:

Heavily loaded as all our horses were, ‘Jim’ started over the half-mile of level grass at a hand-gallop, and then throwing his mare on her haunches, pulled up alongside of me, and with a grace of manner which soon made me forget his appearance, entered into a conversation which lasted for more than three hours, in spite of the manifold checks of fording streams, single file, abrupt ascents and descents, and other incidents of mountain travel.

on a sunrise, and the lightening of the world:

There were dark pines against a lemon sky, grey peaks reddening and etherealising, gorges of deep and infinite blue, floods of golden glory pouring through canyons of enormous depth, an atmosphere of absolute purity, an occasional foreground of cottonwood and aspen flaunting in red and gold to intensify the blue gloom of the pines, the trickle and murmur of streams fringed with icicles, the strange sough of gusts moving among the pine tops – sights and sounds not of the lower earth, but of the solitary, beast-haunted, frozen upper altitudes.

on a high mountain lake:

I thought how their clear cold waters, growing turbid in the affluent flats, would heat under the tropic sun, and eventually form part of that great ocean river which renders our far-off islands habitable by impinging on their shores.

on society, even where people are scarce:

…in truth, this blue hollow, lying solitary at the foot of Long’s Peak, is a miniature world of great interest, in which love, jealousy, hatred, envy, pride, unselfishness, greed, selfishness, and self-sacrifice can be studied hourly, and there is always the unpleasantly exciting risk of an open quarrel with the neighbouring desperado, whose “I’ll shoot you!” has more than once been heard in the cabin.

Isabella Bird’s story of travel through Colorado Territory in the 1870’s, told in letters to her sister, spans almost precisely three months in time; but it is a lifetime of beautiful, incisive, gorgeously told observations, and we are lucky to have them today.

Rating: 7 breaths of rarefied air.

As usual, thanks Fil!

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Jumping Fire: A Smokejumper’s Memoir of Fighting Wildfire by Murray A. Taylor

Posted on January 30, 2013 by pagesofjulia

jumpingfire

I was not aware of smokejumping as a career until I read Phil Connors’s Fire Season a few years ago, but I was fascinated. Further, when I read Sebastian Junger’s The Perfect Storm in 2012, I learned (in the author’s interview at the end of my audio edition) that he had originally conceived a book that would contain chapters on each of a number of highly hazardous jobs. These were to include smokejumpers as well as the swordfishermen that ended up starring in his highly regarded book.

I believe it was my friend Don who recommended this book when I raved about Fire Season. [Thanks, Don!] Jumping Fire is a memoir by the oldest smokejumper ever to work the job (at least when this book is published – I cannot swear that his record still holds, but it seems to). As the name indicates, smokejumpers are wilderness firefighters who reach their dangerous destinations in dangerous fashion: parachuting out of aircraft adapted for the purpose. Taylor was 56 when he retired after an especially hot season in 2000.

I took one overwhelming early impression from this book: these smokejumpers are crazy! We’re talking about people jumping out of airplanes into forest fires! The ways in which they can die or be maimed are myriad on their way to the ground; and assuming they get there safely, they then have to fight a forest fire and, sometimes, hike back out again. Frequently they remain onsite for days, sometimes weeks, fighting fires around the clock on very little sleep and often with few rations (food & water have to be parachuted in, as well). They breathe smoke, suffer burns, dodge falling flaming trees, steer around rocks and trees and rivers upon their descents from the clouds. On the other hand, when not jumping or fighting fires, there’s a lot of waiting: “Bob Quillin [a fellow smokejumper] once described smokejumping as ‘prolonged periods of boredom punctuated by moments of stark terror.'” (I found that cute.) On top of which, the training is insane: “former marines who have become smokejumpers all agree that Alaska rookie training is tougher than anything they saw in boot camp.” So they have to really want to do this job. I am awed. I think they are nuts, without question. But it’s nice to know there are men (and women, too) out there willing to do such a crazy job. I can’t understand you, Taylor, but I take my hat off.

Taylor has rather many tales to relate of danger, injury, death and tragedy to relate; I had to close the book several times to stare into space and absorb the difficult moments. By all means, this lip-biting adrenaline rush is one of the admirable qualities of the book. But Taylor is also quite the romantic, and his love affair with a much younger woman occupies a number of pages, while his pining for her occupies still more. The firefighting/jumping remains at center stage, never fear; but there is a thread of wistful romance woven in. One is almost reminded of Abbey’s somewhat unfortunate Black Sun, although I hate to say such a thing. Taylor is rather more tasteful and less fantastic in his love affair, which is after all (if we believe him, and I have no reason not to) real. Page space is also devoted to a certain amount of (very natural) musing on human life and the wisdom of doing this hazardous work, when smokejumpers have wives and children at home who suffer when they are hurt or killed, and as Taylor ages and his knees complain about all those hard contacts with the ground. Or, on the challenges of the job:

Jumpers rarely speak openly about how they handle extreme fatigue, but when they do, they joke about it and claim to be the weakest in the bunch. At such times I just keep my mouth shut. For me, it’s always the same. Beyond the fatigue comes the sorrow and with the sorrow comes the loneliness. At the hour of my greatest exhaustion, I am lonely, emotionally frail, and at a loss to do much about it. No matter who claims to be the weakest, in the deep, dark pit of my soul, I know that it is me.

I found this a poignant consideration of his own weakness; but he also seems to acknowledge the universality of feeling inadequate, which is sort of a comment on humanity. And, of course, there’s no shortage of macho avoidance of such confessions.

Jumping Fire is the story of an absolutely fantastic, absolutely real occupation that very few of us will ever see face to face, and it is exhilarating and fascinating as such. But Taylor is also a fine writer, and contemplations of natural beauty and the tension between seeking comfort and seeking thrill and hardship are a great strength of this book, as well. I found it riveting, enjoyable, and thoughtful – recommended.

Rating: 8 racing hearts.

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article from Orion magazine: “Dark Ecology” by Paul Kingsnorth

Posted on January 16, 2013 by pagesofjulia

This article came to me from coworker Liz (who always recommends good stuff), and simultaneously from Pops, who also thought it was great. That should be testimony enough; but I am unstoppable and will say just a few words myself, too.

Paul Kingsnorth writes about the future of ecology, conservationism, “green” thinking, or whatever you’d like to call it. This is “dark” ecology because the news is not good. I’ll let him give you the real dish because he does it better – as Pops says, “the good news is that Kingsnorth is a writer first, not a social scientist, so it reads pretty well” – but I really appreciated his willingness to look forward to what’s ahead and what we have to do differently than the old guard of environmentalism, which sadly hasn’t worked. And his ideas about what’s ahead and what we might do in anticipation, however dark, resonated with me. Plus, he writes beautiful thinking lines like these:

Our human relationship to the rest of nature is not akin to the analysis of bacteria in a petri dish; it is more like the complex, love-hate relationship we might have with lovers or parents or siblings. It is who we are, unspoken and felt and frustrating and inspiring and vital and impossible to peer-review. You can reach part of it with the analytical mind, but the rest will remain buried in the ancient woodland floor of human evolution and in the depths of our old ape brains, which see in pictures and think in stories. Civilization has always been a project of control, but you can’t win a war against the wild within yourself.

I give you:

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On Extinction by Melanie Challenger

Posted on January 4, 2013 by pagesofjulia

A lyrical contemplation of biological and cultural extinctions and their significance in our human future.

Poet Melanie Challenger (Galatea) was alarmed to note that while she knew both her grandmother’s and her mother’s favorite wildflower, she did not have a favorite because she didn’t know enough wildflowers from which to choose. In On Extinction, she travels to places that embody the history of human connections to nature and muses on our growing estrangement from our environment.

The title suggests Challenger’s initial focus on extinctions: not only of plants and animals, but of cultures, languages and industries. She quickly discovers a growing secondary interest in nostalgia, like our attraction to extinctions, which makes the dodo bird the subject of so much curiosity. In her travels through the Arctic and the Antarctic, England, South America and Canada, she attempts to reunite with nature and find her own favorite wildflower. She also asks: Can humans live productively in this world without destroying it? She is made hopeful by our reverence for the past and for natural beauty.

Challenger brings a loving sense of wonder to the natural world, realizing how little she knows and relishing the process of learning. She looks backwards with the intent of remaking our future relationship with the planet. She does, as one might expect, discuss Muir and Thoreau, but she also turns to Locke, J.S. Mill, Rousseau and especially Darwin, seeking a philosophy of the natural world and our place in it. Highly literate with a lovely, almost reverent tone, On Extinction notes human threats to our environment but ultimately remains hopeful that we can reestablish a healthy relationship with the Earth.

This review originally ran in the December 21, 2012 issue of Shelf Awareness for Readers. To subscribe, click here, and you’ll receive two issues per week of book reviews and other bookish fun!

Rating: 6 falling leaves.

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Encounters from a Kayak: Native People, Sacred Places, and Hungry Polar Bears by Nigel Foster

Posted on December 21, 2012 by pagesofjulia

One man’s reminiscences of flora, fauna and miscellanea encountered while paddling the globe.

For decades, Nigel Foster has been kayaking the world’s oceans, lakes and canals–as well as teaching the skill, designing the equipment and writing about his experiences. Encounters from a Kayak collects more than three dozen of his articles in a single volume, many of them never previously published. Each examines a moment in time in which Foster–sometimes alone, sometimes with fellow enthusiasts–interacts with the natural world and its inhabitants from his small craft. It is one of the strengths of the collection that not even the oldest pieces (extending as far back as the early 1980s) feel dated.

The stories are organized thematically around creatures, people, places, and flotsam and jetsam; the diversity and scope of Foster’s contacts in all these categories are impressive. In his encounters with historic artifacts in Scotland, local police in Shanghai and monkeys in the Florida Keys, Foster brings a sense of humble wonder to his environment. Naturally, he considers issues of ecology and conservation in his travels, but he never lectures. Rather, in unadorned prose, he delivers the experiences themselves: the glow of bioluminescence, the ordeal of a Dutchman’s flight from Nazi occupation by kayak, the history of a sleepy Minnesota town and the real-life Scylla and Charybdis of Scarba and Corryvreckan, just off the Scottish coast. Foster’s unassuming consideration of his surroundings is charming, simple and occasionally poetic. Natural history, human history, birds, jellyfish, thunderstorms and more come together to entertain and educate in Encounters from a Kayak.

This review originally ran as a *starred review* in the December 14, 2012 issue of Shelf Awareness for Readers. To subscribe, click here, and you’ll receive two issues per week of book reviews and other bookish fun!

Rating: 5 campfires.

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guest review: The Longest Race by Ed Ayres, from Pops

Posted on December 3, 2012 by pagesofjulia

As I read The Longest Race, I thought of my father throughout. He is a marathon runner and a trail runner, and has been contemplating issues of climate change, sustainable living, and humans’ place in nature quite a bit recently. I thought this would be a perfect book for him in its combination of themes, which you can read about in my review. Here, he responds. [His page numbers come from my advance review copy.]

Julia has already done her usual commendable job reviewing this book; my personal interest in Ayres’ two main themes – running, and human degradation of our earthly habitat – compel me to comment further (as she knew it would.) At the same time, I want to parse her use of “metaphor” to describe how running and human development are related in Ayres’ story. While he does often employ metaphor, I believe in many cases he is saying that running actually is part of human development and does have an impact on how we relate to the world. Such is the hubris that plays a part in his tale.

For the above reasons, I really enjoyed this read. That doesn’t mean I found it uniformly superb or satisfying, but the book’s strengths were more than enough to keep me going.

Using a 50-mile ultra to structure his narrative worked better than I expected. There were few threads about his race that required following intently, and those were not lost as we periodically reconnect to that story. The more esoteric subjects he contemplates along the way vary greatly – just as would one’s thoughts during the hours of such an endurance event. In fact, that is an example of the athletic authenticity I found throughout. While I was only familiar with Ayres generally as editor of the early magazine “Running Times,” his deep experience as a lifelong runner shows through. His mental meanderings during a 50-miler – and their sometimes-questionable lucidity – are a familiar element of “running long.”

I was not familiar with Ayres’ background in the themes of human impact on the earth; he worked for the Worldwatch Institute and describes how this commitment evolved from a Quaker upbringing and through a lifetime’s experience. Along the run, we gather bits of his own back-story and “meet” such characters as Mohammed Ali, Mikhail Gorbachev and Ted Taylor (nuclear weapon physicist); such moments are fun and interesting – and chilling, as with his quotation from Taylor evoking the cold war’s nuclear terror (p.94). Also chilling is Ayres’ observation that for those who study the science of ecology, the survival of modern human society is “not just an abstract, academic concept;” it is very immediate.

We learn with him on his journey; e.g. Jared Diamond’s observation that agriculture is “in many ways a catastrophe from which we have never recovered” (p.102) – or “anthropomorphism as a major root cause of the ecological crisis” as noted by many literary luminaries over the years (p.106) – or the 1992 consensus-scientists’ dire & explicit climate change declaration so long ago (p.163) – or a reminder that the regressive “progress” of a suburban lifestyle model may prove to be a mere 2-generation phenomenon. We also meet such authorities as Paul Shepard, Rachel Carson and Wendell Berry along the way.

Similarly, Ayres has much to offer about running itself – not just practical stuff, but history and science as well. He met and/or learned from such names as Joan Benoit, Ted Corbitt and George Sheehan. He cites a Joe Henderson article that I know I read at the same time 25 years ago. Ayres is not the namedropper – that’s my doing throughout here – but rather all these names simply arise as part of his story.

His introduction to the JFK ultra event’s origin unwinds into a period piece on the Kennedy Physical Fitness campaign (which I too experienced), including analysis of JFK’s civic motivation and his 1960 column in Sports Illustrated (who knew?!). I loved learning of David Carrier’s fascinating theory of primitive “persistence hunting,” where humans demonstrated the superior endurance trait that we runners still attempt to conjure (Ch.4). In fact, the role of endurance running throughout early history is compelling – including the Chasquis, the Inca runner-messengers.

Chasqui runner

Chasqui runner


The brief 23 page Appendix, “Notes for an Aspiring Ultrarunner,” is an worthy overview but any really interested reader will do well to research the many other references available.

All together, I enjoyed the blending of themes, emotions and ideas in Ayres’ book. Here is a single passage where Ayres is so nicely able to blend his heritage, running and science:
“The last sounds of the spectators faded, and, after a period of silence that could have been either five minutes or the hundred years it takes for a Quaker kid to sit through Sunday meeting, I found myself glancing left and right, the way I’d been taught as a teenager to drive a car – keep your eyes moving, don’t get fixated on the road ahead. Maybe that was a vestige of the hunter-gatherer’s need to read his surroundings.”

While it is different in some ways, a reader drawn to Ayres book may also appreciate Long Distance, by Bill McKibben. Here you would find a foremost climate change writer who instead writes about his experience pursuing an endurance goal (cross-country skiing) and the lessons he derives for surviving in our every day lives. (Interestingly, the one promotional blurb on the cover of Ayres’ book is a McKibben quote.)

Finally, I must note two of my own favorite observations about running, which he mentions along the way. One is the uncanny and almost inexplicable way that a seasoned trail runner, moving quicker than the eyes seem to process, can cover rough ground dense with rocks & roots – and yet every footstep survives the gauntlet (“almost inexplicable” because there is a scientific story, of course); this phenomenon is well-captured in the exclamation “do my feet have eyes of their own?!” (p.58)

The other fave comes after he has related the many challenges that can test a runner’s resolve and motivation, all the aches & pains & setbacks – which are all so easily overcome by the most sublime moments (or preferably hours!) This he also captures with a mere phrase: “When running is good, there is nothing like it.” (p.98) Alas, as we age, it becomes harder to remember that lesson – but after 35 years it can still be good, and there is still nothing like it.

So glad you liked it, Pops. Thanks for sharing.

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On Arctic Ground: Tracking Time Through Alaska’s National Petroleum Reserve by Debbie S. Miller

Posted on November 29, 2012 by pagesofjulia

A call for the preservation of Alaska’s natural heritage, with exquisite photos.

At 23 million acres, Alaska’s National Petroleum Reserve is the largest single unit of public lands in the United States, none of it permanently protected. Rich in oil, gas and coal, it is also home to an astounding diversity of plants and animals, many endangered and threatened; the migratory birds of six continents begin their lives in the Reserve. Debbie S. Miller’s On Arctic Ground is a striking plea for the conservation of this irreplaceable natural space.

Although it can be read cover to cover, the best way to enjoy this book is to take its short chapters one by one. Each provides mind-boggling details–like the bar-tailed godwit’s nonstop, 7,000-mile migration from western Alaska to New Zealand–and makes the starkly moving point that this incomparable area is highly vulnerable. Breathtaking full-page pictures throughout offer stunning portrayals of the Reserve’s strange and spectacular life forms.

This review originally ran in the Nov. 23, 2012 issue of Shelf Awareness for Readers. To subscribe, click here, and you’ll receive two issues per week of book reviews and other bookish fun!

Rating: 8 caribou.

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Teaser Tuesdays: On Arctic Ground by Debbie S. Miller

Posted on November 27, 2012 by pagesofjulia

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just open your current read to a random page and share a few sentences. Be careful not to include spoilers!

This is a beautiful coffee table book, chock full of stunning photographs as well as short essays about the glories of the Alaskan Arctic.

“Wow! Bumblebee on a lousewort!” Patrick Endres shouts through the wind, so excited that you think he’s just spotted his first grizzly bear. For a photographer like Patrick, small is just as important as big.

I read this vignette as allegory: one of the points of this book, in fact, is that small (flowers, birds, linguistic groups) matters as much as big (oil, industry, money). But seriously, go get it for the photos, if nothing else!

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Teaser Tuesdays: On Extinction by Melanie Challenger

Posted on November 13, 2012 by pagesofjulia

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just open your current read to a random page and share a few sentences. Be careful not to include spoilers!

On Extinction has been out in the UK for a year or so now, but is just coming to the US in December. Its subjects are several, but I find the nature writing to be some of the loveliest parts.

Above me, the skies were blue but for the tightrope of the horizon balancing a giant rhombus-shaped raincloud. The scuffing of the waves across the riveted stone of the cove was like a dare.

Don’t you agree?

And what did the waves dare her to do? Stay tuned!

This quotation comes from an uncorrected advance proof and is subject to change.

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selected quotations from Walden, with a qualification

Posted on November 12, 2012 by pagesofjulia

Henry David Thoreau’s Walden is a highly quotable and oft-quoted book. I found myself marking passages rather more often than usual, sometimes because I was charmed and wanted to share a line with you later, and sometimes because I noted the origin of a maxim I was familiar with, whose author I hadn’t known before. I’ve already reviewed Walden, and now I want to share a selection of quotations with you too. But first, a qualification.

A friend & coworker sent me this article, which chiefly makes the point that Thoreau was a very complicated man who wore many hats (figuratively. who knows, maybe literally as well). The author notes the danger of quoting Thoreau: so many people know him through his reputation and these handpicked quotations, while rather few have read his work; and his work being so many things at once, so contradictory, handpicked quotations can be a dangerous tool. In other words, many of us may be thrown off by the quotations alone without reading the work. I’ve now read Walden, but the man was so terrifically prolific that I am hardly any closer to knowing Thoreau than I was before! So, fair warning. But I will now share my quotations just the same.

In order of their appearance (page numbers come from my pocket-sized red Barnes & Noble Collector’s Library edition). The book opens:

When I wrote the following pages, or rather the bulk of them, I lived alone, in the woods, a mile from any neighbour, in a house which I had built myself, on the shore of Walden Pond, in Concord, Massachusetts, and earned my living by the labour of my hands only. I lived there two years and two months. At present I am a sojourner in civilised life again. (7)

The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation. From the desperate city you go into the desperate country, and have to console yourself with the bravery of minks and muskrats. (12)

I say, beware of all enterprises that require new clothes, and not rather a new wearer of clothes. (28)

I had three pieces of limestone on my desk, but I was terrified to find that they required to be dusted daily, when the furniture of my mind was all undusted still, and threw them out the window in disgust. (42)

…a man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone. (88)

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. (98)

I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion. (98)

Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumb-nail. (98)

My house never pleased my eye so much after it was plastered, though I was obliged to confess that it was more comfortable. (256)

The stove not only took up room and scented the house, but it concealed the fire, and I felt as if I had lost a companion. You can always see a face in the fire. (269)

Our village life would stagnate if it were not for the unexplored forests and meadows which surround it. We need the tonic of wildness – to wade sometimes in marshes where the bittern and the meadow-hen lurk, and hear the booming of the snipe; to smell the whispering sedge where only some wilder and more solitary fowl builds her nest, and the mink crawls with its belly close to the ground. At the same time that we are earnest to explore and learn all things, we require that all things be mysterious and unexplorable, that land and sea be infinitely wild, unsurveyed and unfathomed by us because unfathomable. We can never have enough of nature. (334)

I will not try to improve upon this. Good day.

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