Are you hungry?  When the index of shadow points out from the base of old Sentinel Rock and touches that column of descending spray they call Yosemite, I go to dinner.  “The Fall of the Yosemite”—­what a dream it is.  A dream of the lotus-eaters, and an aspiration of the Ideal in Nature.  You can not realize it; and yet, you will never forget it.  Don’t take it too early in the Spring, when it is less ethereal—­nay, somewhat heavy; rather see it in summer after the rains, or in autumn, better than all, when it is like a tissue of diamond dust shaken upon the air.  It really seems a labor for it to reach its foaming basin, it is so filmy, spiritual, delicate.  The very air wooes it from its perpetual leap; sudden currents of wind catch it up and whirl it away in their arms, a trembling captive, or dash it against the solemn and sad-looking rock, where it clings for a moment, then trickles down the scarred and rugged face of it, fading in its descent; sometimes it is waved back by the elements, and almost seems to return into its cloudy nest up yonder close under the sky.  It only comes to us at last by impulses, and all along its shining and vapory path rockets of spray shoot out like pendants, dissolving singly and alone.

But “to return to our muttons.”  My dial says 12 M. There is no winding up and down of weights here; 12 M. it undoubtedly is, and mutton waits.  These muttons were begotten here of muttons begotten here to the third or fourth generation.  Their wool is clipped, larded, and spun here by one who lives here and loves this valley.  These mittens, that keep the frost from my fingers, are among the comforting results of this domestic economy.  In the cabin, by the fireplace, stands the old-fashioned spinning wheel; and the old-fashioned body who manipulates the wool so skillfully is the light of our little household.  The shadow has struck twelve from old Sentinel; and I take the sun once a day, and no oftener.  A cool, bracing air, a sharp run over the meadows, for I see the hostess waving a signal at me for my tardiness, and I am hungry on my own account—­such cliffs and vistas as one sees here make one hollow with looking at them, and are calculated to keep a supply of appetite on hand.  Do you like good long strips of baked squash?  How do you fancy bowls of warm milk—­milk that declares a creamy dividend before morning?  Here is a fine fowl of our own raising—­one that has seen Yosemite in its glory and in its gloom; it ought to be good eating, and I can affirm that it is.  That’s a dinner for you, and one where you can begin on pie the first thing, if your soul craves it, which it frequently does.

A storm brewing, and rain in the lower valley.  Never mind, there is no hurry here; one blushes to be caught worrying in the august presence of these mountains.