Creator

William F. Bade

Recipient

John Muir's Funeral

Transcription

JOHN MUIR An Appreciation BY WILLIAM FREDERIC BADE Professor of Semitic Literature in the Pacific School of Religion, Berkeley, California Read at the Funeral of John Muir December 27, 1914 This address appears as the Introduction to the Manuscript Edition of John Muir's Complete Writings HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY Longest is the life that contains the largest amount of time-effacing enjoyment — of work that is a steady delight. Such a life may really comprise an eternity upon earth." These words of John Muir I noted down after one of our last conversations. To few men was it given to realize so completely the element of eternity — of time-effacing enjoyment in work — as it was to John Muir. The secret of it all was in his soul, the soul of a child, of a poet, and of a strong man, all blended into one. Only such a one would have mounted the top of a pine tree in a gale-swept forest in order to enjoy the better the passionate music of the storm, and then tell how "we all travel the milky way together, trees and men; but it never occurred to me until this storm-day," he wrote, "that trees are travelers in the ordinary sense. They make many journeys, not extensive ones it is true; but our own little journeys, away and back again, are only little more than tree-wavings — many of them not so much." But the play of his rich imagination did not pause with the adventure in the tree-top. INTRODUCTION "When the storm began to abate," he continues, "I dismounted and sauntered down through the calming woods. The storm-tones died away, and turning toward the east, I beheld the countless hosts of the forests hushed and tranquil, towering above one another on the slopes of the hills like a devout audience. The setting sun filled them with amber light, and seemed to say, while they listened, 'My peace I give unto you.'" These quotations illustrate the irresistible charm of simplicity, the directness of poetical feeling and perception, that were a part of everything Mr. Muir wrote, said, and did. When he struck out upon the long trail he was not only foremost among the nature writers of America, but in many respects the most distinguished figure among contemporary men of letters. It will take more than this hasteful, fretful generation to take the measure of his greatness, and to explore the sources of his power. Before me lies a letter written to Mr. Muir by a friend fifty years ago. He was then twenty-nine years old and had just received a serious injury to one of his eyes. "Dear John," the writer says, "I have often wondered what God was training you for. He gave you the eye within the eye, to see in all natural objects the realized ideas of His mind. He gave you pure tastes, and the steady preference of whatsoever is most lovely and excellent. He has made you a more individualized existence than is common, and by your very nature and organization removed you from common temptations. . . . Do not be anxious about your calling. God will surely place you where your work is." Thus early did his friends see in him those personal qualities and those powers of insight which gave a rare distinction to his person and his presence. Evil thoughts fled at the sound of his voice. An innate nobility of character, an unstudied reverence for all that is sublime in nature or in life, unconsciously called forth the best in his friends and acquaintances. In the spiritual as in the physical realm flowers blossomed in his footsteps where he went. After all, it is to such men as John Muir that we must look for the sustenance of those finer feelings that keep men in touch with the spiritual meaning and beauty of the universe, and make them capable of understanding those rare souls whose insight has invested life with imperishable hope and charm. Not many years ago the directors of the Sierra Club arranged for a quiet little dinner in honor of James Bryce, when he returned from his visit to Australia. To all intents and purposes there were only two men at the dinner, Biyce and Muir, for the rest were intent listeners — too intent, altogether, to take more than mental notes. Both were enlarging upon the value of the civilizing influences that arise from a deep and humane understanding of nature. Lord Bryce ventured the remark that the establishment of national parks, and the fostering of a love of nature and outdoor life among children, would do more for the morals of the nation than libraries and law codes. Muir welcomed this opinion, and added that children ought to be trained to take a sympathetic interest in our wild birds and animals. "Under proper training," he said, "even the most savage boy will rise above the bloody flesh and sport business, the wild foundational animal dying out day by day as divine, uplifting, transfiguring charity grows in." To all who knew John Muir intimately his gentleness and humaneness toward all creatures that shared the world with him was one of the finest attributes of his character. He was ever looking forward to the time when our wild fellow creatures would be granted their indisputable right to a place in the sun. The shy creatures of forest and plain have lost in him an incomparable lover, biographer, and defender. John Muir's writings are sure to live — by the law that men, when they lift their eyes from the commonplace tasks of work-a-day life, unerringly, indefeasibly fix them on the snowy crests of human thought and achievement. Thence it is that they must derive their power to hope and to toil. As long as daisies shall continue to star the fields of Scotland men will choose to see them through the eyes of Burns. Forgotten generations have heard the nightingale sing its love-song at twilight; but a finer music is in the song since Keats listened to the notes from the thicket on the hill. Nor will the name of Wordsworth ever be dissociated from the carol of the rising lark and the call of the cuckoo across the quiet of rural England. John Muir is of their number. He had "the eye within the eye" — was a seer of rare distinction. Among the great few who have won title to remembrance as prophets and interpreters of nature he rises to a moral as well as poetical altitude that will command the admiring attention of men so long as human records shall endure. Thousands and thousands, hereafter, who go to the mountains, streams, and canons of California will choose to see them through the eyes of John Muir, and they will see more deeply because they see with his eyes. But while in a high sense his wisdom has become a part of us forever, his going has left an aching void in the hearts of all lovers of the California mountains. Long accustomed to meet him where wild rivers go singing down the canons, and skyey trails are lost amid cloudy pines, they now must perforce apply to him the simple words which sixteen years ago he wrote on his visit to the grave of his friend Ralph Waldo Emerson: "He had gone to higher Sierras, and, as I fancied, was again waving his hand in friendly recognition." William Frederic Bade Berkeley, California April 15, 1916 JOHN MUIR The Thoreau of the Far West" James Bryce "He was the patriarch of American lovers of mountains, one who had not only a passion for the splendors of Nature, but a wonderful power of interpreting her lo man." David Starr Jordan "He had a quaint, crisp way of talking, his literary style in fact, and none of the nature lovers, the men who know how to feel in the presence of great things and beautiful, have expressed their craft better than he." Robert Underwood Johnson "John Muir was not a ' dreamer,' but a practical man, a faithful citizen, a scientific observer, a writer of enduring power, with vision, poetry, courage in a contest, a heart of gold, and a spirit pure and fine." Charles Sprague Sargent "No one has studied the Sierra trees as living beings more deeply and continuously than Muir, and no one in writing about them has brought them so close to other lovers of nature." Charles Keeler "Others may praise him for his keen eye, his grasp of nature's laws, his enthusiasm as an explorer, his grace and charm of literary style, but for me he was a personality that defies analysis — a great soul, a genuine friend, and I am grateful to share, with all who touched his life closely, in the consciousness that we are better and closer to the great primal things because we knew and loved him." Enos A. Mills "The grandest character in national park history and in nature literature is John Muir. He has written the great drama of the out-doors. On Nature's scenic stage he gave the wild life local habitation and character — did with the wild folk what Shakespeare did with man. He puts the woods in story, and in his story you are in the wilderness. His prose poems illuminate the forest, the storm, and all the fields of life. He has set Pan's melody to words. He sings of sun-tipped peaks and gloomy canyons, flowery fields and wooded wilds. He has imm ortalized the Big Trees, His memory is destined to be ever with the silent places." Alexander McAidie "He stood as a great advocate for the preservation of the wild and the beautiful; he gave the best that was in him to the service of men; he strove earnestly to turn their thoughts from the daily routine, with its unrest and turmoil, to the peace and beauty of the bills. "His eloquent sentences will remain as long as our mother tongue endures, his pleadings will not lose their force, and his influence can but spread and strengthen as the years pass." HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY BOSTON NEW YORK

Location

Berkeley, Calif.

Date Original

1914-12-27

Resource Identifier

MSS048 Va.10

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Owning Institution

Holt-Atherton Special Collections, University of the Pacific Library. Please contact this institution directly to obtain copies of the images or permission to publish or use them beyond educational purposes.

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