intonation to make it doubtful whether the
use of the initials was respectful or satirical--"you know, A W, I
understand those fellows who went and chucked themselves into the grass.
It's sublime; it has never happened in nature before. Ive read newspaper
and magazine accounts and either the writers have no eyes or else they
lie for the hell of it. They talk about the 'dirty brown' of the
flowers, but A W, Ive seen the flowers myself and theyre a vivid
glorious purple. Have you noticed the iridescent sparkle when the wind
ripples the blades? All the colors of the spectrum against the
background of that marvelous green."

"There's nothing marvelous about it," I told him a little irritably.
"It used to be really green, a bright, even color, but up here where
it's high and cold it doesnt look much different from ordinary
devilgrass--dirty and ugly." I thought his enthusiasm distinctly out of
place in the circumstances.

He did not seem to hear me, but went on dreamily, "And the sounds it
makes! My God, A W, a composer'd give half the years of his life to
reproduce those sounds. High and piercing; soft and muted; creating
tonepoems and etudes there in its lonely grandeur."

I have spoken before of the noise produced by the weed, a thunderous
crackling and snapping attributable to its extraordinary rate of growth.
During its dormancy the sound had ceased and, in the mountains at least,
was replaced by different notes and combinations of notes as the wind
blew through its culms and scraped the tough stems against each other.
Occasionally these ululations produced reflections extremely pleasing,
more often it hurt the ears with a shrieking discordance; but even at
its best it fell far short, to my mind--and I suppose I may say I'm as
sensitive to beauty as anybody--of meriting Joe's extravagant
rhapsodies.

But he was entranced beyond the soberness of commonsense. He filled
notebooks, those thick pulppapered volumes which children are supposed
to use in school but never do, with his reactions. In idle moments when
he was away, I glanced through them, but for the most part they were
incoherent. Meterless poems, lists of adjectives, strained
interpretations of the actions of the grass, and many musical notations
which seemed to get no farther than a repetitive and faltering start.

I reproduce a few pages of the less chaotic material for what it is
worth: "The iceage drove the Cromagnon from the caves which prophesied
Cnos