Authors

John Muir

Files

Download

Download Full Text (6.8 MB)

Kimes Entry Number

219

Original Date

4-1-1898

William and Maymie Kimes Annotation

This essay contains much of no. 165 edited, but in addition gives a brief history of the park, describes many more of its outstanding features, and chronicles the story of its creation through geological ages. Muir recounts what the tourist is apt to experience on the usual short, hurried visit. He urges the visitor to go beyond the ""wagon roads and hotels"" saying in his now-familiar words that have been quoted more often than anything else he wrote: ""Walk away quietly in any direction and taste the freedom of the mountaineer. Camp out among the grasses and gentians of glacier meadows, in craggy garden nooks full of Nature's darlings. Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves. As age comes on, one source of enjoyment after another is closed, but Nature's sources never fail.""

Publication

The Atlantic Monthly, v. 81, no. 486

Page/Column

pp. 509-522

Yellowstone National Park.

Share

COinS
 
 

To view the content in your browser, please download Adobe Reader or, alternately,
you may Download the file to your hard drive.

NOTE: The latest versions of Adobe Reader do not support viewing PDF files within Firefox on Mac OS and if you are using a modern (Intel) Mac, there is no official plugin for viewing PDF files within the browser window.