Oct. 27 | The Snow Leopard by Peter Matthiessen

A fine scholar drinks hot tea and despairs, "We have come too far to quit!"
An influential dog leaps up and exclaims, "It is easy to live in the future. Welcome!"

Snow leopard taste: tea and tsampa
At home: pumpkin butter-nutmeg, allspice

Seven months' trek through Tibet, 1956
Orchard Press, Antique Collector's Club

Snow leopard sight: blue sheep and sign of snow leopard; dark clouds drifting on the mountains
At home: the dog bares her tummy; daybreak
Snow leopard smell: human dung
At home: aquarium store, age 8
Snow leopard sound: hiss of swift torrent under ice
At home: "Welcome to the future!"; rain rattling through gutters
Snow leopard touch: breaking trail, plunging through snow crust
At home: dog leaping into lap
Snow leopard word of the day: bollixed
Snow leopard quote of the day:

"Despite the hard day that has ended in defeat...I feel at peace among these looming rocks, the cloud swirl and the wind-whirled snow, as if the earth had opened up to take me in."

Snow leopard extra: "we have come too far to quit"
At home:

"The next great influence into the spirit of the scholar, is, the mind of the Past, — in whatever form, whether of literature, of art, of institutions, that mind is inscribed. Books are the best type of the influence of the past, and perhaps we shall get at the truth, — learn the amount of this influence more conveniently, — by considering their value alone." — Ralph Waldo Emerson, The American Scholar, Cambridge, 1837

"It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude." — Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self Reliance, 1841

Snow leopard gratitude: a "fine scholar," David Llewellyn Snellgrove (born 1920) is a British Tibetologist
At home: Ralph Waldo Emerson

Panthera progress: persistent

What is this? Blogging The Snow Leopard project.