Their first drive after they went to house-keeping was to Artist Point.
Mamie felt that she never had loved Mat before as she did that day; for
as he exulted in the glories of the valley, with Half Dome at the end
and El Capitan standing in sublime magnificence before them, the scales
fell from her eyes, and she saw in her stage-driver husband the poet and
artist that he really was.
He was artist enough not to attempt to show his sweetheart all the
glories of the Yosemite at once. He took the keenest delight in having
them grow upon her. It was fully two months before they climbed up out
of the valley to Inspiration Point, renewing their acquaintance with
familiar scenes and experiencing more stupendous grandeur. It was two
years after they came into the valley that Mat disclosed the most
tremendous magnificence of all.
For years after it fairly took her breath away to think of it. First
they took the familiar road to Inspiration Point, then made their way
over the mountains where the Glacier Point Road now runs, and camped for
the night in the highlands of never-failing frost. Next morning they
pursued their way through the woods an interminable distance, as it
seemed to Mamie, until finally they stood upon the brink of a huge
canon, with a snowy mountain range in the distance beyond, and in the
intervening space, a vast panorama of granite mountain sides, almost
white,--here and there covered with a sparse growth of timber.
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