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Show 564. trying to dramatize the continuing conflict between civilization and Nature. The young self he presented in his book was only partly capable of dealing with these problems. Like HucksFinn, he had an intuitive perception that something was wrong with the world he shunned, but he was incapable of analyzing what was wrong. Just as Muir later had to earn his bread by running a sawmill for Hutchings, or guiding tourists, so too, in First Summer young Muir was forced to participate in the invasion of the mountains which he would later try to quell. So the book could not depict an escape to the self-consistent world of Nature, but was filled with the sorts of interruptions which constantly hindered Muir's studies. When he was able to leave the sheep camp for short excursions, his orbit of freedom was small. Like the real Muir, he was constantly drawn back to civilization, incompletely fulfilled. One could never simply "light out for the Territory ahead of the rest." Old Muir did not see his former self as a tragic victim, but neither did he see himself as triumphant. Young Muir was not to be fully conscious of his victimization, but old Muir recognized the limitations the world imposed upon him, and built them into the architecture of his narrative. The years which intervened between the summers of his journals and the writing of the book had taught him that even the creator of Parks would be able to save only specimen sections of wilderness where men could go for temporary respite from the grinding machine of civilization. Young Muir did not want his first |