Too much a Bostonian to exult over Grandfather?

“[Naturalist John Muir seems to have had] an underlying ambivalence toward his Eastern associates. A friend once reported that after Muir and [Charles S. Sargent, director of Harvard’s Arnold Arboretum] reached the top of [Grandfather Mountain] in North Carolina, Muir ‘began to jump about and sing and glory in it all’ before he noticed Sargent ‘standing there as cool as a rock…a half-amused look on his face.’

“When Sargent explained, ‘I don’t wear my heart on my sleeve,’ Muir burst out: ‘Who cares where you wear your little heart, mon! There you stand in the face of all Heaven come to earth…as if to say, “Come, Nature, bring on the best you have. I’m from BOSTON!” ’ ”

— From “John Muir: Brief life of a Scottish-American conservationist: 1838-1914” by Steven Pavlos Holmes in Harvard Magazine (November-December 2014)

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