Currently on page 59 of A PASSION FOR NATURE: THE LIFE OF JOHN MUIR by Donald Worster. It's been difficult reading, as Muir was tormented by his father, a controlling, joyless, brutal man.
"Daniel enforced his son's work regime, not through inducements or praise, but through thrashings and sermons. A burning brush pile became a reminder that an everlasting hell was waiting for bad boys who disobeyed God (or withheld their labor). 'The old Scotch fashion of whipping for every act of disobedience or of simple, playful forgetfulness' continued on the frontier, but now it had become part of rural work-force discipline. Most of the beatings, Muir wrote, 'were outrageously severe' and most of them fell on him, not on his sisters or younger brothers."
It's no surprise then that he found solace in nature, and comfort in the plants, wildlife and trees of Yosemite. What's surprising is that he didn't turn out like his father.
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