Creator
Joseph Pickard
Recipient
John Muir
Preview
Transcription
[8]doubtless have come to your minds as to mine - "He clasps the crags with hooked hands "Close to the sun in lonely lands" This hardy, daring mountaineer - is John Muir, the Naturalist - now - today - Master of Arts, and a Doctor of Laws, eminent as a Botanist, then Geologist & Meteorologist. - author If introduced now as a Husband and manager of a fruit-ranch, it must still be remembered that he is yet a roving naturalist - for so he writes me. The San Francisco Call says: "No man since Thoreau ever had keener sympathy with nature, a quicker vision for her mysteries, or a surer speech for their interpretation than Mr. Muir." Emerson who met Muir in California, and was guided by him through the Yosemite Valley, said - "He is more wonderful than Thoreau." [The the interesting & amusing account of your disappointment etc - as recorded in the Atlantic Magazine quoting parts of E's poem - "Good bye, proud world" [illegible]][9]5.Rubens, it is said, "saw every object of Nature with a painter's eye, and instantly caught the predominating feature by which the object is known & distinguished; and as soon as seen he executed it with astonishing facility. We may say of Mr. Muir - he sees with a painter's eye, but does not execute on canvas with a brush & colors. Sketching he does. His is an eye which nothing escapes, of distinguishing feature in form or color - whether wide opened mountain landscape, or of some [smiling?], happy valley; of forest trees, or flowers; of the tip of an ousel's wing, of squirrel tails, or canon [diacritic] gorges. His pictures are in words - superior to the painter's so far as not limited to little squares of canvas, but as presenting a whole gallery in continuity. - As an author his style is as clear as a mountain brook, and sparkling as a dimpling lake upon which sunbeams fall only to be splintered, and shattered into myriads of flashing diamonds. He is never dull. When you read him, you not only see02841
Location
Maywood, I11.
Date Original
1901 Feb 15
Source
Original letter dimensions: 22.5 x 14.5 cm.
Resource Identifier
muir11_0609-let.tif
File Identifier
Reel 11, Image 0609
Copyright Status
Copyright status unknown
Copyright Statement
Some letters written to John Muir may be protected by the U.S. Copyright Law (Title 17, U.S.C.). Transmission or reproduction of materials protected by copyright beyond that allowed by fair use requires the written permission of the copyright owners. Responsibility for any use rests exclusively with the user.
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.
Page Number
Page 5
Keywords
John Muir, correspondence, letters, author, writing, naturalist, California, correspondent, mail, message, post, exchange of letters, missive, notes, epistle
