Wilderness Essays

by John Muir

“Why should man value himself as more than a small part of the great creation?” True, the universe would be incomplete without man, but it would also be incomplete without even the smallest microscopic creature. Man had arrived rather late on planet earth and would one day take his place among creatures that had once existed and had since returned to dust.

how wonderful it seems that ice formed from pressed snow on the far-off mountains two or three hundred years ago should still be pure and lovely in color, after all its travel and toil in the rough mountain quarries in grinding and fashioning the face of the coming landscape!

Presently you lose consciousness of your own separate existence: you blend with the landscape, and become part and parcel of nature.

Walk away quietly in any direction and taste the freedom of the mountaineer. Camp out among the grass and gentians of glacier meadows, in craggy garden nooks full of Nature’s darlings. Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature’s peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves.