John Muir Cracks Me Up

By unattributed - Library of Congress, Public Domain

I don't know how many people could describe what is bound to have been a fairly gross individual in such a fashion so as to not sound like they were insulting, but almost complimenting, him. Muir has a way with words - and not just when he's describing nature. He has a keen sense of the psychology of man as well, but more on that another time. 

I'm still working my way through my copy of Muir: Nature Writings which is a compendium of several of his works as I mentioned before. Currently, I'm in My First Summer in the Sierras. 

In Chapter 5 one finds this piece of narrative gold: 

Our shepherd is a queer character and hard to place in this wilderness. His bed is a hollow made in red dry-rot punk dust beside a log which forms a portion of the south wall of the corral. Here he lies with his wonderful everlasting clothing on, wrapped in a red blanket, breathing not only the dust of the decayed wood but also that of the corral, as if determined to take ammoniacal snuff all night after chewing tobacco all day. Following the sheep he carries a heavy six-shooter swung from his belt on one side and his luncheon on the other. The ancient cloth in which the meat, fresh from the flying pan, is tied serves as a filter through which the clear fat and gravy juices drip down on his right hip and leg in clustering stalactites. This oleaginous formation is soon broken up, however, and diffused and rubbed evening into his scanty apparel, by sitting down, rolling over, crossing his legs while resting on logs, etc., making his shirt and trousers water-tight and shiny. His trousers, in particular, have become so adhesive with the mixed fat and resin that pine needles, thin flakes and fibres of bark, hair, mica scales and minute grains of quartz, hornblende, etc., feathers, seed wings, moth and butterfly wings, legs and antennae of innumerable insects, or even whole insects such as the small beetles, moths and mosquitoes, with flower petals, pollen dust and indeed bits of all plants, animals, and minerals of the region adhere to them and are safely imbedded, so that though far from being a naturalist he collects fragmentary specimens of everything and becomes richer than he knows. His specimens are kept passably fresh, too, by the purity of the air and the resiny bituminous beds into which they are pressed. Man is a microcosm, at least our shepherd is, or rather his trousers. These precious overalls are never taken off, and nobody knows how old they are, though one may guess by their concentric structure. Instead of wearing thin they wear thick, and in their stratification have no small geological significance. 

How great is that? I was laughing out loud - literally! Can't you just picture him? And smell him! What a sight he must have been. 

Muir is full of such observations. He really makes you think. His writings are fun, but very enriching reads that I throughly enjoy every time I pick them up.

Thanks for reading!