John Muir: The Story of My Boyhood and Youth & Letters to a Friend (Illustrated Edition)
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The Story of My Boyhood and Youthreveals the beginnings of the forming of Muir's special relation towards nature. He considered the encounters with nature as quite an adventure and at first, paid special attention to bird life. John Muir understood that to discover truth, he must turn to what he believed were the most accurate sources. In his autobiographical account, The Story of My Boyhood and Youth, he writes that during his childhood, his father made him read the Bible every day. Muir eventually memorized three-quarters of the Old Testament and all of the New Testament. In his autobiography, written near the end of his life, he described his life from childhood years in Scotland and moving to America to student years in Wisconsin. When he was a student in the University of Wisconsin he was a frequent caller at the house of Dr. Ezra S. Carr. The kindness shown him there, and especially the sympathy which Mrs. Carr, as a botanist and a lover of nature, felt in the young manes interests and aims, led to the formation of a lasting friendship. He regarded Mrs. Carr, indeed, as his «spiritual mother,» and his letters to her in later years are the outpourings of a sensitive spirit to one who he felt thoroughly understood and sympathized with him.
John Muir (1838-1914) was a Scottish-American naturalist, author, environmental philosopher and early advocate of preservation of wilderness in the United States. His letters, essays, and books telling of his adventures in nature, especially in the Sierra Nevada mountains of California, have been read by millions. His activism helped to preserve the Yosemite Valley, Sequoia National Park and other wilderness areas. The Sierra Club, which he founded, is a prominent American conservation organization.
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John Muir. John Muir: The Story of My Boyhood and Youth & Letters to a Friend (Illustrated Edition)
John Muir: The Story of My Boyhood and Youth & Letters to a Friend (Illustrated Edition)
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Table of Contents
THE STORY OF MY BOYHOOD AND YOUTH
I. A BOYHOOD IN SCOTLAND
II. A NEW WORLD
III. LIFE ON A WISCONSIN FARM
IV. A PARADISE OF BIRDS
V. YOUNG HUNTERS
VI. THE PLOUGHBOY
VII. KNOWLEDGE AND INVENTIONS
VIII. THE WORLD AND THE UNIVERSITY
LETTERS TO A FRIEND
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John Muir
LETTERS TO A FRIEND
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Some fifty years later, when I visited Scotland, I got one of my Dunbar schoolmates to introduce me to the owners of our old home, from whom I obtained permission to go upstairs to examine our bedroom window and judge what sort of adventure getting on its roof must have been, and with all my after experience in mountaineering, I found that what I had done in daring boyhood was now beyond my skill.
Boys are often at once cruel and merciful, thoughtlessly hard-hearted and tender-hearted, sympathetic, pitiful, and kind in ever changing contrasts. Love of neighbors, human or animal, grows up amid savage traits, coarse and fine. When father made out to get us securely locked up in the back yard to prevent our shore and field wanderings, we had to play away the comparatively dull time as best we could. One of our amusements was hunting cats without seriously hurting them. These sagacious animals knew, however, that, though not very dangerous, boys were not to be trusted. One time in particular I remember, when we began throwing stones at an experienced old Tom, not wishing to hurt him much, though he was a tempting mark. He soon saw what we were up to, fled to the stable, and climbed to the top of the hay manger. He was still within range, however, and we kept the stones flying faster and faster, but he just blinked and played possum without wincing either at our best shots or at the noise we made. I happened to strike him pretty hard with a good-sized pebble, but he still blinked and sat still as if without feeling. "He must be mortally wounded," I said, "and now we must kill him to put him out of pain," the savage in us rapidly growing with indulgence. All took heartily to this sort of cat mercy and began throwing the heaviest stones we could manage, but that old fellow knew what characters we were, and just as we imagined him mercifully dead he evidently thought the play was becoming too serious and that it was time to retreat; for suddenly with a wild whirr and gurr of energy he launched himself over our heads, rushed across the yard in a blur of speed, climbed to the roof of another building and over the garden wall, out of pain and bad company, with all his lives wideawake and in good working order.
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