Creator
John Muir
Recipient
[Jeanne C. Carr]
Preview
Transcription
Letter #69[Letter copied from typewritten, bound set, as this letter is missing in mounted series of letters to Mrs. Carr]To Mrs. Ezra S. Carr[Spring, 1872] [First portion of letter cut from page]upward into light to the very heart of the sun and downward miles deep among Holy Ghosts of glaciers and seas of mountain domes.[ First part of the letter missing.]... I had a letter from Emerson. He judges me and my loose drifting voyages as kindly as yourself. The compliments of you two are enough to spoil one, but I fancy that he, like you, considers that I am so mountain-tanned and storm-beaten I may bear it. I owe all of my best friends to you. A prophecy in this letter of Emerson's recalled one of yours sent me when growing at the bottom of a mossy maple hollow in the Canada woods-—that I would one day be with you, Doctor,and Priest in Yosemite. Emerson prophesies in similar dialect that I will one day go to him and "better men" in New England, or something to that effect. I feel like objecting in popular slang that I can't see it. I shall indeed go gladly to the "Atlantic Coast" as he prophesies, but only to see him and the Glacier ghosts of the North. Runkle wants to make a teacher of me, but I have been too long wild, too befogged and befogged to burn well in their patent, high heated, educational furnaces.I had a good letter from LeConte. He evidently doesn't [know] what to think of the huge lumps of ice that I sent him. I don't wonder at his cautious withholding of judgment. When my mountain mother first told me the tale I could hardly dare to believe either, and kept saying "what?" like a child half awake.Farewell. My love to the Doctor and the boys. I hope the Doctor will run away from his enormous bundles of duty and rest a summer with the mountains. I have a great deal to ask him. I have begun to build my cabin. You will have a home in Yosemite.Ever thine, J. Muir
Location
[Yosemite]
Date Original
[1872 Spring]
Source
Original letter dimensions: 33 x 21.5 cm.
Resource Identifier
muir02_0833-trans.tif
File Identifier
Reel 02, Image 0833
Copyright Status
Copyrighted
Copyright Statement
The unpublished works of John Muir are copyrighted by the Muir-Hanna Trust. To purchase copies of images and/or obtain permission to publish or exhibit them, see http://www.pacific.edu/Library/Find/Holt-Atherton-Special-Collections/Fees-and-Forms-.html
Owning Institution
University of the Pacific Library Holt-Atherton Special Collections. Please contact this institution directly to obtain copies of the images or permission to publish or use them beyond educational purposes.
Copyright Holder
Muir-Hanna Trust
Copyright Date
1984
Page Number
Page 1
Keywords
John Muir, correspondence, letters, author, writing, naturalist, California, correspondent, mail, message, post, exchange of letters, missive, notes, epistle
