In early 1909, two of the country’s most prominent naturalists had gathered at the rim of the Grand Canyon.
(This photograph is in the public domain and downloaded from National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution.)
John Burroughs (1837-1921), seated on the left in the photograph, had journeyed from his home territory in the Catskills of New York, to be guided by John Muir (1838-1914), standing on the right, on a trek to the Petrified Forests, the Grand Canyon, and Yosemite, part of Muir’s stomping ground.
Muir, born in Scotland, was known for his exploration of the American West and his environmental activism and efforts to preserve the American wilderness, as well as for his writings on Yosemite and the Sierra Nevada, among other places. Environmentalist Bill McKibben captured the power of Muir’s writing and his broader importance: “Beyond its pragmatic force, Muir’s prose introduced an ecstatic new grammar and vocabulary of wilderness into the American imagination: in some sense, every national park on the planet owes its existence to the spell he cast.” (McKibben, 2008, p. 84. Full citations to this and other sources are given at the end of this post.)
Burroughs, in contrast to the peripatetic Muir, had a narrower home range, focused primarily on the Catskill region in New York. This area was the inspiration for much of his writing that included genial essays, many about the flora and fauna of his Catskill home. McKibben observed that Burroughs “reintroduced reading America to the natural world at the turn of the century. For several decades he may have been the most popular writer of any kind in the country. . . . His gift for close observation and large meaning launched the nature essay as we know it.” (McKibben, 2008, p. 145.)
Burroughs and Muir were an odd couple, to be sure. Their temperaments could hardly have been more different, and their views of nature could clash. It was a friction-filled bond, mostly maintained at a distance with several brief meetings and a couple of extensive trips together (the one in 1909 that found them at the Grand Canyon and an expedition to Alaska in 1899). The relationship was complex, replete with stinging comments and sharp disagreements, though, through it all, I feel there was deep affection.
This post is the result of a serendipitous find made when I was gathering material on New England stone walls (perhaps a topic for a future post). A stupidly phrased search (using just the word “walls”) of the Middlebury College archive on the Internet Archive turned up a letter written by Muir on June 1, 1910, to Francis Fisher Browne (1843-1913), editor of the literary review The Dial, ostensibly to congratulate him on the 30th anniversary of the magazine. (Muir, 1910.) Browne had been part of the group, including Burroughs, that Muir led in 1909 to the Grand Canyon and elsewhere. Part of the two-page letter was devoted to describing the various writing projects Muir had underway, but, by far, the most interesting part to me was what Muir wrote about his fellow naturalist John Burroughs. This letter was my introduction to the wonderfully intricate bond between the two men. (Middlebury College is my alma mater and I assumed that a school in Vermont might have some material related to stone walls in its archives.)
According to Muir biographer Donald Worster, when the two men met for the first time in 1893, “the two Johns were instantly mated for life.” (Worster, 2008, p. 334.) This bond, however strong, would be filled with sharp elbows as each man poked at the other. This post explores some of the backstory to their relationship and shares some examples I particularly enjoy of the personal give and take between the two. On the way, I will quote from Muir’s June, 1910, letter and provide the source for the sentence quoted in the title. Bottomline: this post has no hook, no twist, and no fossils.
One source of tension was that they did not always see eye to eye on nature and science. For example, for much of his life, Muir expressed a pantheistic view of nature, and saw an underlying divinity and goodness in it. Later in life, a theism crept into his writing:
His earlier pantheistic tendencies, which celebrated every nodding flower, every zephyr, as divine in itself, became more muted. “All beauty, all is God,” he had once maintained. Now he was more careful to reassure his more conventional readers that beauty is made by God. (Worster, p. 374-375.)
It was a viewpoint not shared by Burroughs. In a review of Muir’s book The Yosemite, Burroughs took him forcefully to task:
Mr. Muir is a nature-lover of a fine type, one of the best the country has produced. But it may be the reader gets a little tired at times of the frequent recurrence in his pages of a certain note – a note which doubtless dates from his inherited Scottish Presbyterianism. Whatever else wild nature is, she certainly is not pious, and has never been trained in the Sunday-school. But, as reflected in Mr. Muir’s pages, she very often seems on her way to or from the kirk. All his streams and waterfalls and avalanches and storm-buffeted trees sing songs, or hymns, or psalms, or rejoice in some other proper Presbyterian manner. (Burroughs, 1912, p. 1165.)
To my mind, the more important source of sparks between the men was the dramatically different personalities of the two. Muir was a talker. Worster posited that Muir “liked to gab only a little less than he liked to hike.” (Worster, 2008, p. 3.) As a raconteur, Muir sought center stage with his stories and anecdotes. He was also argumentative, often provoking his listeners and engaging in verbal sparring. Burroughs considered him a tease. (Barrus, 1914.) In comparison, Burroughs was taciturn. When relating to other people, he looked for conversation and an amicable exchange of ideas, not confrontation.
Muir was impatient with people, Burroughs decidedly more gentle and genteel. When both Burroughs and Muir joined an expedition to Alaska in 1899 that was mounted to survey the area’s natural resources, things did not go well for Burroughs. "Muir . . . got on other people's nerves, particularly those of his friend and fellow literary naturalist Burroughs." (Worster, 2008, p. 361.) Burroughs, distressed and dismayed by the Alaska wilderness, longed for home. Muir was not sympathetic. Worster wrote, “The two men remained bonded in name – 'the twa [two] Johnnies' they were called – and in cause, but Muir was openly disparaging toward Burroughs and his insufficient ardor for the wild." (Worster, 2008, p. 362.)
The June 1, 1910, letter that Muir typed to Browne offers delightful evidence of their sometimes fraught connection. Muir noted that he’d recently written Burroughs suggesting that the naturalist move to the West Coast, urging that he:
write more bird and bee books instead of his new-fangled Catskill Silurean [sic] and Devonian geology on which he at present seems to have gane gite, clean gite, having apparently forgotten that there is a single bird or bee in the sky. I also proposed that in his ripe mellow autumnal age he go with me to the basin of the Amazon for new ideas, and also to South Africa and Madagascar, where he might see something that would bring his early bird and bee days to mind. (Muir, 1910.)
Gane gite, clean gite. This is how Muir dismissed Burroughs’ relatively recent interest in geology, a field that he, Muir, had long embraced and expounded upon, particularly with regard to the impact of glaciers in Alaska and Yosemite. He joked to Browne that, with regard to geology, Burroughs had “gane gite, clean gite.” Lovely Scottish expression. Using the Dictionaries of the Scots Language website, I translate it as: “gone mad, clean mad.”
This is just one of a multitude of examples of how Muir’s Scottish roots were never far below the surface. Worster observed: “Muir, regardless of where he traveled, would remain a Lowland Scot all his days. Only secondarily would he become a product or patriot of his adopted United States or a citizen of the world.” (Worster, 2008, p. 14.)
Muir’s observation about Burroughs and geology was, I think, actually serious business. Muir, critical of Burroughs’ embrace of geology, suggested he ought to go back to his “bird and bee books.” Was there a note of territoriality over the science and some condescension here? At least as far as the science is concerned, I think there was. I find quite telling an anecdote that Clara Barrus (1864-1931) recounted from that 1909 tour of the Petrified Forests, the Grand Canyon, and Yosemite. Barrus, a physician, was Burrough’s intimate companion and had accompanied him on this tour led by Muir. As the two Johns explored the Petrified Forests, Burroughs kept posing questions about the geological processes involved and Muir, despite his well known expertise, derided the questions, at one point telling Burroughs, “Oh, get a primer of geology, Johnnie.” (Barrus, 1914.)
Later in his June, 1910, missive, Muir reminded Browne of an incident that occurred during the 1909 trip.
I often think of the misery of Mr. Burroughs and his physician caused by our revels in Burns’ poems, reciting verse about in the resonant board chamber whose walls transmitted every on the blessed words to the sleeping and unwilling ears of John, much to the distress of Miss Barus [sic]. Fun to us, but death and broken slumbers to [typewritten word inked out] Oom John. (Muir, 1910.)
Again, the Scots side of Muir shines forth as does the apparent penchant for winding people up. Recitation of Robert Burns' verse at the top of the lungs was likely intended to interrupt Burroughs' sleep and upset Barrus.
Not surprisingly, Burroughs was irritated by some of Muir's behavior on the trip. For instance, Barrus, in awe of being in the august company of the two naturalists, recounted the following exchange she had with Burroughs:
One day at the Cañon, feeling acutely aware of our incalculable privilege, I [Barrus] said, “To think of having the Grand Cañon, and John Burroughs and John Muir thrown in!”
“I wish Muir was thrown in, sometimes,” retorted Mr. Burroughs, with a twinkle in his eye, “when he gets between me and the Cañon.” (Barrus, 1914.)
What I really see is an honesty in their relationship born of deep friendship, despite the many flashes of pique. That is, I think, clearly revealed in an exchange of letters from November and December, 1909. Geology is at the center of it again. Burroughs had sent Muir a manuscript he’d written about Yosemite, drawing on the trip he’d taken with Muir earlier in the year. In it, he’d delved into the geological origins of the valley. Muir, responding with a typed note on November 26, 1909, didn’t mince words in his criticism.
I have read your Yosemite Ms. and can make nothing of it. You saw so little of the Valley I think you had better say little or nothing on its origin. Leave it all out is my advice. It can do no good to yourself or others to try to tell what you have no chance to know. Compare this haphazard brazen ignorance with the careful loving life-long bird studies that made you famous. You must be growing daft. You say, “come study the geology of the Catskills – those Devonian rocks”. Could I do it in a day as you did Yosemite, I would come flying. (Muir, 1909a.)
You must be growing daft. After delivering those blows, Muir signed off with “Ever faithfully your friend and admirer.”
I assume Burroughs responded to this note with some vitriol and, presumably, argued quite stubbornly against Muir’s take on the geology. Though I have not located a copy of such a letter, it's evident that Burroughs did pen one because, on December 14, Muir wrote again, seemingly in response to the missing letter. He opened somewhat defensively:
Now, dear Burroughs, don’t waste your good nature. I only did as you requested with the Yosemite geology, but you give me no thanks – only the other stuff. (Muir, 1909b.)
Only the other stuff. Whoa! I do wonder what Burroughs wrote.
In the letter, Muir went back on the offensive (perhaps throwing some of Burroughs' words back at him).
If obstinacy, unyielding as Yosemite dome, strangely mixed with lover of flowery hills and dales, bees and trees, bird song and brook song, is a Scotch characteristic, then you, my dear John, are as Scottish as I am or ever likely to be. (Muir, 1909b.)
Basically, he told Burroughs that without sustained study on site, he would never come to understand the geological origins of Yosemite. And then he extended an olive branch:
[N]ow that you have got Yosemite on the brain, why not come again. I’d be delighted to have you, in spite of your rank Scotch Catskill stubbornness, and you might perhaps learn to endure or ignore my glacial behavior and airs. (Muir, 1909b.)
Burroughs, clearly moved, responded on December 28th.
You are a dear anyway, Scotch obstinacy and all, and I love you, though at times I want to punch you or thrash the ground with you. But I have my laugh at your expense — when you are not around. The other day I said to a friend, “Muir will not agree with you about anything. If you were to say, ‘Now, Muir, two and two make four anyway,’ Muir would reply, ‘Well, three and two make five, but what of that, Johnny.’ My friend replied, ‘That is the Scotch of it.’ " Well, it is all right — I love the Scotchman too, and I will forgive him all his quips and jibes and fun at my expense if he will come here next year and help me study the geology of my native Catskills and of the Shawangunk grits at Mohonk. (Burroughs, 1909.)
(The Shawangunk Grit is a type of bedrock, also known as Shawangunk Conglomerate that can be found at the Mohonk Preserve in New York.)
I love you, though at times I want to punch you or thrash the ground with you. I sense that that's the relationship from both men's perspective in a single sentence.
Their loving, though contentious, ties would be permanently broken in 1914 with Muir’s death. Of that passing, Burroughs’ journal entry of December 25, 1914 is quite poignant:
News comes of John Muir’s death – an event I have been expecting and dreading for more than a year. A unique character – greater as a talker than writer; loved personal combat, and shone in it. He hated writing, and composed with difficulty, though his books have charm of style; but his talk came easily and showed him at his best. I shall greatly miss him though I saw him so rarely. (Burroughs, 1928, p. 283.)
Sources
Clara Barrus, Camping with Burroughs and Muir, excerpted from Our Friend John Burroughs, 1914, as presented on the Sierra Club website.
John Burroughs, letter to John Muir, December 28, [1909?], Scholarly Commons, Item 5209, John Muir Papers, Holt-Atherton Special Collections, University of the Pacific Library. Though Burroughs failed to note the year on the letter, I believe, given what he wrote, that he was responding to Muir’s December 14, 1909, note. Indeed, the transcription to the letter on the University of the Pacific Library website cites the date as “[1909?].” I believe the title given to the letter and the heading to the PDF of the letter citing the date as “[1910?]” are incorrect.
John Burroughs, John Muir’s “Yosemite,” Literary Digest, June 1, 1912, p. 1165, 1168.
John Burroughs, The Heart of Burroughs’s Journals, edited by Clara Barrus, 1928.
Bill McKibben, editor, American Earth: Environmental Writing Since Thoreau, 2008.
John Muir, letter to Francis Fisher Browne, June 1, 1910, scanned version of original document contained in the Abernethy Manuscripts Collection at Middlebury College, available at the Internet Archive.
John Muir, letter to John Burroughs, November 26, 1909a, Scholarly Commons, Item 5933, John Muir Papers, Holt-Atherton Special Collections, University of the Pacific Library.
John Muir, letter to John Burroughs, December 14, 1909b, Scholarly Commons, Item 5946, John Muir Papers, Holt-Atherton Special Collections, University of the Pacific Library.
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