the john muir exhibit - people - john burroughs
John Burroughs
1837-1921
John Muir (left) with John Burroughs
- Literary naturalist
and essayist from the Catskills of New York.
- John Burroughs
was one of America's foremost nature writers. He was a biographer
of Walt Whitman and is famous for his love of birds.
- Burroughs accompanied
Muir on the Alaska Harriman Expedition and other trips, including
visits to Grand Canyon and Yosemite.
- Burroughs wrote
of Muir after their second meeting: in 1896: "He
is a poet and almost a Seer. Something ancient and far-away in the
look of his eyes. He could not sit down in the corner of the landscape,
as Thoreau did, he must have a continent for his playground..... Probably
the truest lover of Nature.... we have yet had... [But here is] a
little prolix... Ask him to tell you his famous dog story and you
will get the whole theory of glaciation thrown in." Read Burroughs full journal entry about this 1896 meeting with John Muir.
- After Muir's
death, Burroughs made this comment: "A
unique character - greater as a talker than as a writer
- he loved personal combat and shone in it. He hated writing and
composed with difficulty, though his books have charm of style;
but his talk came easily and showed him at his best. I shall greatly
miss him."
Travels with Muir and Burroughs as told by Burrough's companion Clara Barrus:
Photograph courtesy of
John
Muir National Historic Site Museum Collections, U. S. National
Park Service.
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