theory theoretically.

Now nothing beyond this was in my thoughts, nor even so much as that
(safely may I say), when Firm and myself met face to face on the third
day after Uncle Sam's ideas. Our little caravan, of which the Sawyer
was the captain, being bound for Blue River and its neighborhood, had
quitted the Sacramento track by a fork on the left not a league from
the spot where my father had bidden adieu to mankind. And knowing every
twist and turn of rock, our drivers brought us at the camping-time
almost to the verge of chaparral.

I knew not exactly how far we were come, but the dust-cloud of memory
was stirring, and though mountains looked smaller than they used to
look, the things done among them seemed larger. And wandering forth from
the camp to think, when the evening meal was over, lo! there I stood in
that selfsame breach or portal of the desert in which I stood once by
my father's side, with scared and weary eyes, vainly seeking safety's
shattered landmark. The time of year was different, being the ripe end
of October now; but though the view was changed in tint, it was even
more impressive. Sombre memories, and deep sense of grandeur, which is
always sad, and solemn lights, and stealing shadows, compassed me with
thoughtfulness. In the mouth of the gorge was a gray block of granite,
whereupon I sat down to think.

Old thoughts, dull thoughts, thoughts as common as the clouds that cross
the distant plain, and as vague as the wind that moves them--they please
and they pass, and they may have shed kindly influence, but what are
they? The life that lies before us is, in some way, too, below us, like
yon vast amplitude of plain; but it must be traversed foot by foot, and
laboriously travailed, without the cloudy vaporing or the high-flown
meditation. And all that must be done by me, alone, with none to love
me, and (which for a woman is so much worse) nobody ever to have for my
own, to cherish, love, and cling to.

Tier upon tier, and peak over peak, the finest mountains of the world
are soaring into the purple firmament. Like northern lights, they flash,
or flush, or fade into a reclining gleam; like ladders of heaven, they
bar themselves with cloudy air; and like heaven itself, they rank
their white procession. Lonely, feeble, puny, I look up with awe and
reverence; the mind pronounces all things small compared with this
magnificence. Yet what will all such grandeur do--the self-defensive
heart inquir