Shortly after 1900, President Theodore Roosevelt invited himself to California and asked John Muir to give him a personal tour of Yosemite. The two men, both deeply concerned about preserving wilderness areas in America, spent many hours together as they camped in Yosemite and marveled at its grandeur. After his visit, Roosevelt established all of Yosemite as a National Park.
The entire range of the Sierra Nevada has John Muir's name on it -- much of it designated as the "John Muir Wilderness." In tramping in the high country of Yosemite, Muir quoted Psalm 26:8
("O Lord, I love the house in which you dwell, and the place where your glory abides.") Muir felt deeply that the grand vistas of the Sierra Nevada were indeed temples of the Lord.
"Oh, these vast, calm, measureless mountain days, inciting at once to work and rest! Days in whose light everything seems equally divine, opening a thousand windows to show us God. Nevermore, however weary, should one faint by the way who gains the blessing of one mountain day; whatever his fate, long life, short life, stormy or calm, he is rich forever." - John Muir
"... And our first pure mountain day, warm, calm, cloudless, -- how immeasurable it seems, how serenely wild! ... new life, new beauty, unfolding, unrolling in glorious exuberant extravagance." - John Muir
"And after ten years in the heart of it, rejoicing and wondering, bathing in its glorious floods of light, seeing the sunbursts of morning among the icy peaks, the noonday radiance on the trees and rocks and snow, the flush of alpenglow, and a thousand dashing waterfalls with their marvelous abundance of irised spray, it still seems to me above all others, the Range of Light." - John Muir
2 comments:
I guess that means I'm rich forever. Wow, where did you get those quotes? Fantastic! And thanks so much for your support role. We surely could not have done it without you!
The John Muir quotes are from a Sierra Club publication long ago: The Gentle Wilderness. It has the text of Muir's diary notes on his first summer in the high country of Yosemite. And the "picture book" has some glorious pictures of the same country. We've had the book upstairs for a long time. You'll have to take a look! - Dad
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