The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1891-09-06
sEATTL SUNDAY, SEP. 8.
A SERMON FOR A SUMMER DAY.

Summer, whose cheek first begins to
slowly pale with this month, is always a
lovely season in the "Sound Country"
There is little or no rain; the days are
never oppressively warm; the nights are
invariably cool; the smoke from the forest
fires that not seldom obseures the skies in
August lifts often enough so that our tour
list travel is not compelled to take our
statements concerning the grandeur of
Mount Rainier's splendid cone and the
more subdued glory of the Olympic range
entirely on trust.
On clear day the outlook from the
crest of the ridge in Seattle toward sunset
is like a sight of fairy land. The West is
filled with long stretches of rosy sky that
make the sailing clouds look like vast
feet with all its bright banners set upon
gala day, until the airy vessels disappear
with the sun that, like an heroic admiral
mailing his ford colors to his mast, sinks
grandly as he dies. The dying sunlight
wraps with it's radiance that long line of
beauty dressed in deep blue, with snow
white feathers streaming from her crest,
we call the Olympic Range. On the South
east the outline of Rainier is clearly cut in
dazzling snow. the dark gray shades that
wrap its foot in fine contrast with its SWIM
metrical white cone.
This picture of city. harbor waters, dark
blue olympics, and the grand snow peak of
against clear sky, completely surpasses in
its scope and variety any mountain and
water scenery that lends glory to the faded
garments of departing day in the Atlantic
seaboard states. Outside the Pacific coast
in America the view from the crest of Sc
attic is matchless; the distant snow-capped
blue ridge; the rosy signals flying from the
fleet of clouds; the golden haze in the air;
the declining light falling upon the city;
the cleaning waters of the harbor below,
make an almost peerless picture
of that natural beauty that, in
Whittier's thought, is never lost,
because Goods colors all are FAST" the
sunset is not the hectic flush of dying
world; nothing but the transient dis
appearance of the bright face of immortal
day that Pushes with love as il bids the
world she loves, the world that loves her,
brief farewell, not because she is near
her death, but because it is no longer her
watch when the night cometh.
Our people have little leisure to stop for
day-dreaming over this divine gift of subur-
ban beauty and distant mountain glory, but
the day will come when we shall all have
more leisure, and then our children will
he glad that their fathers cast their lines
in these pleasant places, where we do not
need to read ourselves into rapture over
scenes of natural beauty. for both our
morning and evening summer outlook is
not seldom a liberal education in the
sublime and the beautiful. The fanatical
utiIitarian will ask what is the odds
whether we all dwell on treeless plans.
such as exhaust the eye and dlspirit the
fancy between Omaha and the Blue noun
tains of Eastern Oregon, or on sandy sea
coasts like the Jersey shore, provided the
sand on the sea shore is mixed with gold,
or the monotonous levels of treeless plains
can be made 10 yield rich harvest.
1t isn't much matter unless there be
something in the thought that outdoor
mountain, meadow. lake. forest, brook
and hillside is worth something more 10
us all than outdoor life where nature is
silent. sullen, sombre, fat, stale. and I'M
profitable in its very ugliness, wanting
that vivacity and variety that is the finest
charm of warm and sympathetic man
hood. The idea that inspiration and Joy
tod g.
ward things is not mere poetic fancy.
The sturdiest and most vital physiques
feel il whether they admit it or not. the
moral ugliness, the petty meannesSes and
jealousies of trade and politics become
more rcpulsive 10 the eve and the ear that
have been permitted to come into some
thing of close daily contact with outdoor
life, that has tine fragrance in its breath and
beauty in all its varying lines of express
sion. Gloomy. literal fanaticism, in con-
sonance with the ascetic garb and mono
tonous aspect Of nature, is not unfre-
quent in the treeless, Hat, suIlen and
cherries plains of Russia and other parts
of Europe; the people always manifest
much of that hard, gloomy. bitter bigotrv.
mental narrowness and cynical depravitv
that Zols paints in the peasantry of GER
tain parts of France; creatures without
imagination or sensibility, because with
out social or outdoor stimulus for the Gull
tivation of any sweet. broad humane phil
osophy of life or religion.
The face of nature in soil and climate
sometimes seems in harmony with hide
Gus social outgrowths. Comparative So
cial isolation, and dwelling in an unlovely.
if not desola,e country, is not without It's
effect upon humanity in certain parts of
America. as Hsmlin Garland points out in
his powerful sketches of the prairie farm
er's woes at the West. The savage, pas
sionately sincere followers of the hirsute
Peffer and ''Sockless Jerry" Simpson are
outgrowths that increase and multiply
most in regions that have no trees, but lit
tie rain; that are visited by terrible sum-
mer heats, followed by drouth and grass
hoppers.
The purple mountains and lofty trees
- ha ~ h. rsNs.l ~ I'll