What Happens When Two Ol’ Botanists Hike to the Top of Grandfather Mountain

"Then I happened to look round and catch sight of [Sargent] standing there as cool as a rock, with a half-amused look on his face at me, but never saying a word."

April 24, 2019

On this day, while researching Charles Sprague Sargent for today's book recommendation, I stumbled upon a fantastic article from 1915 titled "The Conversation of John Muir" by Melville B. Anderson.

In the piece, the Naturalist John Muir shared his fall trip to the Southern Mountains with Charles Sprague Sargent.

The story is from John's perspective and highlights the personality differences between the ebullient John Muir and the very serious Bostonian Charles Sprague Sargent.

We climbed slope after slope through the trees till we came out on the bare top of Grandfather Mountain.

There it all lay in the sun below us, ridge beyond ridge, each with its typical tree-covering and color, all blended with the darker shades of the pines and the green of the deep valleys...

I couldn't hold in and began to jump about and sing and glory in it all.

Then I happened to look round and catch sight of [Sargent] standing there as cool as a rock, with a half-amused look on his face at me, but never saying a word.

I asked Sargent, “Why don't you let yourself out at a sight like that?”

“I don't wear my heart upon my sleeve,” Sargent retorted.

I cried, “Who cares where you wear your little heart, man?

There you stand in the face of all Heaven come down on Earth,
like a critic of the universe, as if to say,

'Come, Nature!
Bring on the best you have!
I'm from BOSTON!’”