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John Muir
The whole wilderness seems to be alive and familiar, full of humanity. The very stones seem talkative, sympathetic, brotherly.
Who hears the rocks?
Ludwig Tieck (1773–1853) was a German writer. In his tale The Runenberg a father blames his son’s unrest on his love of rocks. Christian hears the reproach and turns it back on him.
Two readings of a mountain
The father trusts plants and fears the mountains. For Christian it was an uprooted plant that first made nature’s cry audible. Now he insists that his father should ask the rocks themselves.
Only ask the rocks, thou wilt be astonished when thou hearest them speak.[1]
The silence after the answer
The father looks at his son for a long time and finds no reply. Tieck gives the rocks no audible voice here. What we hear is the distance between two people to whom the same landscape means something quite different.
My First Summer in the Sierra · p. 319
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