A thought and its source

 One of the quotations attributed to the naturalist John Muir is not in any of his books: 

Between every two pine trees there is a door leading to a new way of life.

 

The sentence was written by Muir in the margin of one of Emerson’s books.

Dan Styer, an emeritus professor of physics at Oberlin College, wrote a short essay on how he began looking for the source of the quotation and found that the answer was in Vol. I, p. 55 of Emerson’s Prose Works in Beinecke Library at Yale.

I like the essay. It shows how one mind can be influenced by another. In this case, a voice that strikes me as quintessential Muir is Muir responding to another interesting thinker.

I also like the way Professor Styer kept at it. He was interested in Muir’s thought and was willing to track down one interesting thought to a not-so-obvious source.

• Sources: Dan Styer, “The Quotable John Muir,” Jan. 8, 2013. It’s here:

https://www2.oberlin.edu/physics/dstyer/Muir/QuotableJohnMuir.html

I came across the story in Robert Macfarlane’s wonderful Landmarks; London: Penguin Books, 2016. The Muir quotation is on p. 315, and the story behind it is in a note on p. 410.