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Show 526. second, the d e s e r t i f i c a t i o n of the Owens Valley was a decision in favor of urban California at the expense of rural, not wild, California. But entering that b a t t l e would have been too taxing for Muir. Just as "Wild Wool" had not been included in The Mountains of California, so too the speaker of "Wild Wool" could not come forth in the twentieth century. Muir could not, at this late date, remind America of the false dogma which "regards the world as made e s p e c i a l l y for the uses of man." He could not t r y to teach again the "relations which culture sustains to wildness." Nor could he even i n s i s t that c i v i l i z a tion was on a wrong track if i t could consider only quantity, and never q u a l i t y . On a more personal level, he had accepted in the early n i n e t i e s the robes of the genial prophet, and he had grown into them. A photograph taken in 1896 at Thomas Lukens' home in Pasadena shows an impeccably dressed, well combed Muir - even a gold watch fob - surrounded by fine furniture and elegantly framed landscape paintings. This was no iconoclast. How could a man in his seventies return to the vigor of his t h i r t i e s ? It was too l a t e to break idols, particularly when t h a t meant breaking friendships and political alliances, if there was a wolf in t h i s sheep's clothing, he was well hidden. Muir was confined in his arguments between the two uses of Hetch Hetchy valley, both uses for men. The choice, as he argued i t , was between the valley as Park °r as water tank. Muir loved the glare of the Owens Valley, and had sub- |
