About the Henry’s Fork of the Snake River, Wallace Stegner wrote:
By such a river it is impossible to believe that one will ever be tired or old. Every sense applauds it. Taste it, feel its chill on the teeth: it is purity absolute. Watch its racing current, its steady renewal of force: it is transient and eternal. And listen again to its sounds: get far enough away so that the noise of falling tons of water does not stun the ears, and hear how much is going on underneath — a whole symphony of smaller sounds, hiss and splash and gurgle, the small talk of side channels, the whisper of blown and scattered spray gathering itself and beginning to flow again, secret and irresistible, among the wet rocks.
(Passage from "The Sound of Mountain Water," by Wallace Stegner. Quoted here from page 35 of The Sacred Earth, edited by Jason Gardner. New World Library, 1989.)
For a brief biography of Wallace Stegner, click here. For images of or relating to Wallace Stegner, click here.
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