I'm reading John Muir's Nature Essays. It's good. ecib lent it to me. I think at some point, you run out of ways to describe splendor.

Last night I read about a couple of encounters with bears that he had. That was a welcome change of pace. It's interesting, he regularly just slept on the ground alone. I'm surprised that he didn't nosed by bears in the middle of the night. I suppose most animals in those days had very few encounters with humans, which might have made them more cautious.

UPDATE: In last night's read, Muir quoted a bear-hunter named Brown that wondered about the same thing. Brown suggested that it was a matter of respect the bears had for slumbering creatures.