On these occasions, God kind of becomes everyone's favorite English major. These three nature writers are most definitely seeking something spiritual in the natural world, but perhaps using the Bible to explain this phenomenon is not the best route. Thoreau, Wordsworth, and Muir are seeking The Good Life - not necessarily a "cathedral", but meaning in austerity. Cronon uses scripture to examine our human conception of nature as a cultural construct, but I'm not sure this is what these writers were going for...
This is problematic, even within their own writing. Muir explains the Yosemite Valley as a place "so compactly filled with God's beauty, no petty personal hope or experience has room to be." He compares the water to champagne, claims the Valley is devoid of "dull empty hours" and free of pain. In actuality, nature is not really experiencing hope, experience, dullness, champagne, pain, or even beauty. These are human concepts, backed by a human conception of a creator. Nature is separate from our human existence, though we judge it with our senses and perceive it as beautiful and ethereal. Free of petty personal hope and experience? Some would say merely admitting a creator God has bestowed the landscape before us is entirely hinged on personal hope. One cannot compare the sweetness of mountain water to French champagne if one has not known the drink many times before. This is Muir's observation which is based entirely on his personal experience. When he notices the Valley filled with God's beauty, is he referencing a memory of beauty he has known of nature his whole life, or perhaps a dramatic landscape painting (which were so popular at the time of his writing)?
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