Walking, Old Style

Ah, for the good old days, when a person could set off across country, see the sights, meet up with a variety of strangers, be taken in kindly, sheltered and fed, and set off again with a clear conscience and a grateful heart -- and see a myriad of natural wonders in the bargain!

It's no surprise that John Muir's classic, A Thousand-Mile Walk to the Gulf, has become such an important work of American literature. It not only captures an America largely untouched by industrial civilization -- this was 1867, after all, and extractive industries were not yet flexing their muscles on a grand scale -- but one more innocent and more hospitable. It drenched me in nostalgia.

And how grateful I am to Muir, often called the father of our national parks, for his influence on the nation. His ability to encounter the natural world and express it in language moved me at every turn. 

Muir didn't really get Florida, though. I can only imagine how trackless and wild it was when he visited -- on foot, no less -- and found the landscape far too hot and wet for his liking or his easy passage. The plants were enthralling (he was collecting specimens as he walked), but he considered the animals strange and rather frightening, the rivers and streams dull in their apparent lack of desire to reach the sea, and the landscape nearly impenetrable. And yet, and yet . . . . His observations are full of passages like this one:

    It was while feeling sad to think that I was only walking on the edge of the vast 

    wood, that I caught sight of the first palmetto in a grassy place, standing almost

    alone. A few magnolias were near it, and bald cypresses, but it was not shaded

    by them. They tell us that plants are perishable, soulless creatures, that only man

    is immortal, etc.; but this, I think, is something that we know very nearly nothing

    about. Anyhow, this palm was indescribably impressive and told me grander 

    things than I ever got from human priest.   

Apparently Muir's ramblings gave him plenty of time to observe Nature and Civilization and form opinions about both which reflect his outsider perspective. When one least expects it, he dives into quite a long philosophical discussion about a topic like current concepts of God and the proper order of things (in a nutshell: that God is an establishment gentleman and Nature is made for the use of Man), demolishing both beliefs with a lucid and flexible argument that prefigures (and no doubt informed) the land ethic of Aldo Leopold, the "geologian" perspective of Thomas Berry, and the animal rights movement. I was floored. 

Muir's reputation as a founding father of environmentalism is well-deserved, and this book is an eye-opener. I'm sorry I waited so long to read it.

Excerpt (Muir goes on a brief expedition suggested by his host):

Alas! the trail by which I had crossed in the morning was not to be found, and night was near. . . . After calm, concentrated recollection of my course, I made a long exploration toward the left down the brier line, and after scrambling a mile or so, perspiring and bleeding, I discovered the blessed trail and escaped to dry land and the light. Reached [my host] at sundown. Dined on milk and johnny-cake and fresh venison. Was congratulated on my singular good fortune and woodcraft, and soon after supper was sleeping the deep sleep of the weary and the safe.   

Note: This book counts toward the Mount TBR Reading Challenge.