Deer—The Very Poetry of Manners and Motion
Master-Spirit of the Treetop
Look into Nature’s Warm Heart
CHAPTER 6: Renew Yourself in Nature
Nature Is a Good Mother
We Dream of Bread
The Influences of Pure Nature
No Pain Here
A Thousand Yellowstone Wonders Are Calling
Wander Here a Whole Summer
Reflections on a Nighttime Walk in the Thin White Light
Stand Beside Me
Renew Yourself in Nature’s Eternal Beauty
Emerson’s Visit to Yosemite
Softly Comes Night to the Mountains
CHAPTER 7: Storms, Danger, and Survival
A Dangerous Hike in the High Sierra
Nerve-Shaken on Mount Ritter
A Perilous Night on Shasta’s Summit
Stickeen: The Story of a Dog
CHAPTER 8: Nature’s Inexhaustible Abundance
A Heart Beating in Every Crystal and Cell
Nature’s Choicest Treasures
The Heart-Peace of Nature
Hundreds of Happy Sun-Plants
Clouds in the Sky-Fields
Nature’s Inexhaustible Abundance
Fresh Beauty at Every Step
Rejoicing Everywhere
Everything in Joyous Rhythmic Motion
The History of a Single Raindrop
Everything is Flowing
CHAPTER 9: Walking Lightly on the Land
Walking Lightly on the Land
Vain Efforts to Save a Little Glacial Bog
God’s First Temples
The Eternal Conflict between Right and Wrong
Dam Hetch Hetchy!
Barbarous Harvesting of Lumber
Any Fool Can Destroy Trees
The Slaughter of Walruses
Crimes in the Name of Vanity
CHAPTER 10: The Scriptures of Ancient Glaciers
Glorious Crystal Glaciers
Learning Every Natural Lesson
One Grand Wrinkled Sheet of Glacial Records
The Mighty Glaciers of the Sierra
Tracing the Yosemite’s Grand Old Glacier
Luxuriant Butterfly-Filled Glacial Meadows
Vanishing Glaciers
CHAPTER 11: Land of the Midnight Sun
My First Campfire in Alaska
The Discovery of Glacier Bay
Glorious Mountains, Glaciers, and Light
An Alaskan Midsummer Day
Though Made, The World Is Still Being Made
A Gentle Arctic Day
Long Nightless Days
A Baby’s Smile
Golgotha
The Midnight Sun
Sky Wonders of the Glorious Night
Midnight on Herald Island
CHAPTER 12: Peace to Every Living Thing
Morning Opens on a Field of Lilies
Daybreak and Sunrise
Nature’s Peace
Going Home
One Love-Harmony of the Universe
Streams of the River of Life
Peace to Every Living Thing
Appendix 2: Chronology of John Muir’s Life and Work
Appendix 3: Selected Resources
Dedication
KIERAN WILLIAM
AND
HANNAH ANNE,
WITH DEAREST LOVE
Acknowledgments
I AM FILLED WITH GREAT GRATITUDE to many people who have helped bring this book to fruition. First, of course, is John Muir himself, whose magnificent writings have inspired and informed my life. I am grateful to the host of Muir scholars and biographers, present and past, who have written on John Muir’s life, especially Linnie Marsh Wolfe and William Frederic Badè whose books still set a high standard of scholarship, and Muir’s most recent biographers, Frederick Turner and Donald Worster. I am grateful to the Sierra Club and the Holt-Atherton Special Collections at the University of the Pacific for making available online most of John Muir’s works.
Special thanks are due to my hiking companion and friend, Cynthia Shattuck, who urged me to stop talking about John Muir and to start compiling this book. I owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to three talented friends whose patient reading of the entire manuscript resulted in many valuable suggestions: David Bingham, inspired by John Muir, is a self-described “tree hugger,” the founder of Salem Land Trust, and serves on numerous volunteer boards and commissions involved with community participation in environmental protection, policies, and planning; Hilary Thimmesh, OSB, President Emeritus, and former professor of English at St. John’s University in Collegeville, Minnesota; and George Willauer, former professor of English at Connecticut College who taught courses on nature writers.
I am grateful to the Collegeville Institute at St. John’s University in Minnesota for providing accommodation, warm fellowship, and a beautiful natural environment