John Muir

By Ernest Ingersoll

One man ... stands out above all others for his loving appreciation of Nature in her wild state, combined with a remarkable power of delineation, and a gift of carrying to his readers not only the facts that engaged his attention, but a share of his delight in his experiences and of the inner meanings of them. This man is John Muir, whose narratives of discovery in the Western mountains are an immortal part of American literature. Never will the present writer forget the inspiration of a day in the woods with John Muir and John Burroughs! Different in fields of work, in literary style, and, to a great degree, diverse in habits of thought and views of life, they were at one, and beautifully supplementary in their reverential interpretations of nature.

Excerpted from The Mentor: American Naturalists (Vol., 7 No. 9) Serial No. 181, June 15, 1919. Copyrights for works first published before 1923, and first published in the US, have now expired into the public domain.

Life and Contributions of John Muir

Home | Alphabetical Index | What's New