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Show 234. THE OUT-OF-DOORS GOSPEL There may be a certain deception behind my analysis of Muir's Stormy Sermons. A good many of his attitudes come not out of his abstract, or thesis statements, but out of the ironic juxtaposition of concrete details and incidents. Thus, for instance in his letter describing the earthquake to Emerson, he never called the Hutchings bad parents, but simply described the fear in their child. No wonder his friends worried that his writing was too polished, too slippery, too subtle. His subtlety was a consequence of close attention, his focus on the ideas in things, and the depth of his own meditative temperament. Yet this constant attention to concreteness, which was Muir's single most powerful literary virtue, causes the critic problems when he looks for a theory, philosophical or ecological. As a writer, Muir was more interested in how he saw, and in the marvelous radiance of natural objects, than in a reified conception of Nature. Once he saw that his own process of enlightenment embodied the wholeness of his vision, he became more comfortable writing narratives, and began to include more of himself. One wonders about the rhetorical power of these essays. Did he expect his reader to emulate him? No, that would turn attention away from Nature and onto the hero of the story. On the other hand, it is hard to imagine enthusiastic hordes of citizens running through the wilderness, seeking out floods to dance in, climbing trees in wild storms, celebrating earthquakes. |