the john muir exhibit - life - parable of sauntering
A Parable of Sauntering
by Albert W. Palmer
Excerpted from The Mountain Trail and Its Message (1911)
There is a fourth lesson of the trail. It is one which John Muir taught me
[during an early Sierra Club outing].
There are always some people in the mountains who are known as "hikers."
They rush over the trail at high speed and take great delight in being
the first to reach camp and in covering the greatest number of miles in
the least possible time. they measure the trail in terms of speed and distance.
One day as I was resting in the shade Mr. Muir overtook me on the trail and
began to chat in that friendly way in which he delights to talk with everyone
he meets. I said to him: "Mr. Muir, someone told me you did not approve
of the word 'hike.' Is that so?" His blue eyes flashed, and with his Scotch
accent he replied: "I don't like either the word or the thing. People ought
to saunter in the mountains - not hike!
"Do you know the origin of that word 'saunter?' It's a beautiful word.
Away back in the Middle Ages people used to go on pilgrimages to the Holy
Land, and when people in the villages through which they passed asked where
they were going, they would reply, "A la sainte terre,' 'To the Holy
Land.' And so they became known as sainte-terre-ers or saunterers. Now
these mountains are our Holy Land, and we ought to saunter through them
reverently, not 'hike' through them."
John Muir lived up to his doctrine. He was usually the last man to reach
camp. He never hurried. He stopped to get acquainted with individual trees
along the way. He would hail people passing by and make them get down on
hands and knees if necessary to see the beauty of some little bed of almost
microscopic flowers. Usually he appeared at camp with some new flowers
in his hat and a little piece of fir bough in his buttonhole.
Now, whether the derivation of saunter Muir gave me is scientific or fanciful,
is there not in it another parable? There are people who "hike" through
life. They measure life in terms of money and amusement; they rush along
the trail of life feverishly seeking to make a dollar or gratify an appetite.
How much better to "saunter" along this trail of life, to measure it in
terms of beauty and love and friendship! How much finer to take time to
know and understand the men and women along the way, to stop a while and
let the beauty of the sunset possess the soul, to listen to what the trees
are saying and the songs of the birds, and to gather the fragrant little
flowers that bloom all along the trail of life for those who have eyes
to see!
You can't do these things if you rush through life in a big red automobile
at high speed; you can't know these things if you "hike" along the trail
in a speed competition. These are the peculiar rewards of the man who has
learned the secret of the saunterer!
Source: The Mountain Trail and Its Message (Boston: The Pilgrim
Press, 1911)
See also: book
jacket summary and press
release and ordering information for the 1997 expanded
second edition of this book.
Home
| Alphabetical Index
| What's New