It was Carlyle--was it not?--who said that all great works produce an
unpleasant impression on first acquaintance. It is so with the Missouri
River. Carlyle was not, I think, speaking of rivers; but he was speaking
of masterpieces--and so am I.

It makes little difference to me whether or not an epic goes at a
hexameter gallop through the ages, or whether it chooses to be a flood
of muddy water, ripping out a channel from the mountains to the sea. It
is merely a matter of how the great dynamic force shall express itself.

I have seen trout streams that I thought were better lyrics than I or
any of my fellows can ever hope to create. I have heard the moaning of
rain winds among mountain pines that struck me as being equal, at least,
to _Adonais_. I have seen the solemn rearing of a mountain peak into the
pale dawn that gave me a deep religious appreciation of my significance
in the Grand Scheme, as though I had heard and understood a parable from
the holy lips of an Avatar. And the vast plains of my native country are
as a mystic scroll unrolled, scrawled with a cabalistic writ of infinite
things.

In the same sense, I have come to look upon the Missouri as something
more than a stream of muddy water. It gave me my first big boy dreams.
It was my ocean. I remember well the first time I looked upon my
turbulent friend, who has since become as a brother to me. It was from a
bluff at Kansas City. I know I must have been a very little boy, for the
terror I felt made me reach up to the saving forefinger of my father,
lest this insane devil-thing before me should suddenly develop an
unreasoning hunger for little boys. My father seemed as tall as