openly kind and hospitable and approachable.

_August 25._ Cool as usual in the morning, quickly changing to the
ordinary serene generous warmth and brightness. Toward evening the west
wind was cool and sent us to the camp-fire. Of all Nature's flowery
carpeted mountain halls none can be finer than this glacier meadow. Bees
and butterflies seem as abundant as ever. The birds are still here,
showing no sign of leaving for winter quarters though the frost must
bring them to mind. For my part I should like to stay here all winter or
all my life or even all eternity.

_August 26._ Frost this morning; all the meadow grass and some of the
pine needles sparkling with irised crystals,--flowers of light. Large
picturesque clouds, craggy like rocks, are piled on Mount Dana, reddish
in color like the mountain itself; the sky for a few degrees around the
horizon is pale purple, into which the pines dip their spires with fine
effect. Spent the day as usual looking about me, watching the changing
lights, the ripening autumn colors of the grass, seeds, late-blooming
gentians, asters, goldenrods; parting the meadow grass here and there
and looking down into the underworld of mosses and liverworts; watching
the busy ants and beetles and other small people at work and play like
squirrels and bears in a forest; studying the formation of lakes and
meadows, moraines, mountain sculpture; making small beginnings in these
directions, charmed by the serene beauty of everything.

The day has been extra cloudy, though bright on the whole, for the
clouds were brighter than common. Clouds about .15, which in Switzerland
would be considered extra clear. Probably more free sunshine falls on
this majestic range than on any other in the world I've ever seen or
heard of. It has the brightest weather, brightest glacier-polished
rocks, the greatest abundance of irised spray from its glorious
waterfalls, the brightest forests of silver firs and silver pines, more
star-shine, moonshine, and perhaps more crystal-shine than any other
mountain chain, and its countless mirror lakes, having more light poured
into them, glow and spangle most. And how glorious the shining after the
short summer showers and after frosty nights when the morning sunbeams
are pouring through the crystals on the grass and pine needles, and how
ineffably spiritually fine is the morning-glow on the mountain-tops and
the alpenglow of evening. Well may the Sierra be named, not the Snowy