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Show 347. He could argue to his readers about the "utility of rest," that the many "slaves, duty bound, business bound, in ways wholly unnatural and unpardonable" could increase their output of work as a result of compulsory recreation. Such an argument did trouble Muir, as it didn't Olmsted, because it made recreation the handmaiden of a growing urban industrial civilization. Men made happy by their commerce with Nature might have more energy to destroy her, as Muir thought later when depicting the shake maker whose happy healthy life in the woods made him destructively industrious. What was the value of saying a word for the wilderness, if the upshot was that men were refreshed by their experience to do more duty, more business? What if encouraging travel was only a kind of philanthropy? He wondered whether he wanted to join the profession of man-loving: Ho weary town worker, come to the woods and rest! I wish it were possible to compel all to come; not that I am just at this moment filled with a fit of Quixotic philanthropy, for with Thoreau, I am convinced that the profession of doing good is full. Nevertheless, he went on to point out that the Calavaras Grove of Sequoias was only a day and a half away from San Francisco, thus appealing to the haste of the city person. Throughout this period, and perhaps throughout the rest of his life, Muir would have conflicting feelings of pity for the poor men who were trapped in the cities, and fear for the Nature they were destroying. He was never comfortable in |