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Show IX. in our hearts, and we have often thought of him while we sat around campfires, walked through the woods, or climbed the walls of Yosemite. Much of this book is about the questions my friends began to ask when they learned that I had written a dissertation about Muir seven years ago while at school. The overriding issue they finally raised was not only about Muir, but about me: why was I going to school in the city if I was interested in Muir and Muir's mountains? Throughout this book, that theme surfaces again and again, because I put that question to Muir himself. Why did he spend so much time writing about the mountains when he could have remained in them? Muir was a writer in the end, and so am I when I write this book. He chose to devote his life to telling people about the wonders of the mountains, and I hope some of that comes through here. His life, as far as I have been interested in it, is to be found in his writings. And I have chosen to take him seriously by directing my questions directly to his texts. No doubt Muir has also become a powerful figure in the American Consciousness, and as a result in my own consciousness. But I am only interested in the mythical Muir insofar as he tried to create this figure. My own transactions seek neither to destroy nor create a mythical stature. I think America needs to imagine him as a monumental figure, but for myself, I wanted to know how the myth came into being, and what it meant. We need the myth and also the text. Many of my friends insisted on asking hypothetical and |