Everett Ruess, Henry David Thoreau, John Muir, Clarence King, Mary Austin . O'Grady brings a scholar's care for information and understanding to a pilgrim's sense of adventure.
Silence is wild.
Clarence King is exposed as a master of the scientific method and a victim of its repression. Finally Mary Austin is shown as California's nonconforming feminist whose rare sense of Nature's dark side is part of her wildness. Throughout, O'Grady links these five with contemporaries in Kenneth Rexroth, Gary Snyder, Wendell Berry. His understanding is a fine and refreshing marriage of Eastern and Western outlooks that results in a deep appreciation of our private and communal sense of wildness. The book's broad list of works cited provides a fine reading list in wilderness literature.