The Life of John Muir
0199782245
Donald Worster
Notes
He had created his own social hierarchy, based on the standards he had been taught from Dunbar days on, for judging others: the best people were those of any class who pursued cleanliness, industry, thrift, mechanical aptitude, and literacy. He measured rich and poor alike by those standards. Anyone who fell short, or had never tried to achieve them, Muir tended to regard as an inferior human being.
“We work too much and rest too little,” he declared. “You cannot leave your business? Yes, but you will leave it.” Killed by overwork, you will end up in the hearse of “the jolly undertaker.” Work hard at your urban job, Muir was telling his readers, but allow time each year – as he was doing – for “Nature’s rest cure.” … “Compulsory education may be good; compulsory recreation may be better.”