Graydon, Katharine Merrill, Page 12

m through a beautiful animal, of tearing the fills out of & fish. In his early experience in the wilds, he showed his inherited idea of the necessity of killing a rattlesnake when met by crushing the first to cross his path, — the only animal he ever took the life of, and he hoped ever after that h© would be forgiven for killing that creature loved only by its Maker*** Another impressive characteristic was his self-sacrifice. Hot often was reference made to this aspoet of his work, but once he said, 1 have made a tramp of tayself; I have gone hungry and cold; I have left bloody trails on sharp, icy peaks, to see the wonders of earth. Bow truly self in his noble pursuit was lost sight of may b© seen in most of his writing;!*, not least in the little dog story, Stickeen. In Mr. Muir keenness of observation, vivid imagination, and poetic feeling found well balanced expression. It is this that gives charm to hi© scientific papers, body and substance to his literary articles. More than any one man did he influence the Government to set apart our great National Parks. More than any man\u27s has his voice crying in the wilderness urged tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilised people to turn to the mountains - their home - and shown that wildness is a necessity and that tho sole motive of his writings was to interest men in and to educate them up to some sort of appreciation of the garden our Lord has here placed us in, and our personal responsibility in jgaintaining this high estate. Few things Weft ever so hard for i4r. Muir to accept as, . the r-uling of the Federal court to grant to San Iraneisco the right to use the Hetch-Hetchy valley, twin of and greater than the Yosonite, as a reservoir for the city supply of water. Far sore than anything he did, was what Mr. Muir was. That there are favored n&n to whom Kature especially discloses herself, - men who preach o ■■? ,https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/jmr-all/1164/thumbnail.jp