Sublime

the leaves in the stream move without a plan the clouds in the valley drift without design I closed my eyes and everything was fine I opened them again because I love mountains

(Alva and a friend had once been at Woodlawn Cemetery, looking at a tomb of pink marble that an heiress had built for her husband. “Ridiculous! Absolutely ridiculous!” Alva opined. A workman who was nearby heard her. “Well,” he said, “if you think this is funny, go and look at that tomb over there where the crazy woman who built it has put cats on

eighteenth-century painter Francesco Guardi, who would influence everyone from Turner to Whistler to Monet with the exquisite atmospheric effects of his skies and reflective waters.

Eiseley’s essay about this experience is called “The Flow of the River.” In it, he’s not only describing the Platte; he’s describing how he felt he was merging with the river. He recounts a sort of open awareness of the connections between all creatures, all nature. He wasn’t swimming in the river. He wasn’t investigating the river. He was accompan