Creator

John Muir

Recipient

[Jeanne C.] Carr[

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Transcription

[3]life of the Mother of Lamartine. These are beautiful things you say about the humble life of our Saviour and about the trees gathering in the sunshine What you say respecting the littleness of the number who are called to "the pure & deep communion of the beautiful all loving nature", is particularly true of the hard working, hard drinking, stolid Canadians in vain is the glorious chart of God in spread out for them - so many acres chopped is their motto, so they grub away amid the smoke of magnificent forest trees black as demons & material as the sod they move upon - I often think of the Doctors lecture upon the condition of the different races of men as controlled by physical agencies-, Canada though abounding in the elements of wealth is too difficult to subdue to permit the first few generations to arrive at any great intellect- ual development, In my long rambles last summer I did not find a single person who knew anything of botany and but a few who knew the meaning of the word; and wherein lay the charm that could conduct a man who might as well be gathering mammon, so many miles through these fastnesses to suffer hunger and exhaustion was with them never to be discovered. Do not these answer well to the person described by the poet in these lines. " A primrose by the river's brim, A yellow primrose was to him, And nothing more" - I thank Dr. Carr for his kind remembrance of me, but still more for the good patience he had with so inapt a scholar. We remember in a peculiar way those who first give us the story of Redeeming Love from the good-book of revelation, and I shall not forget the Doctor who first laid before me the great book of Nature, and though I have taken so little from his hand he has at least shown me where those mines of priceless knowledge lie and how to reach them.

Location

Trouts Mill, [Canada]

Date Original

[1865] Sep 13

Source

Original letter dimensions: 31.5 x 39.0 cm

Resource Identifier

muir01_0712-let.tif

File Identifier

Reel 01, Image 0712

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The unpublished works of John Muir are copyrighted by the Muir-Hanna Trust.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 3

Keywords

John Muir, correspondence, letters, author, writing, naturalist, California, correspondent, mail, message, post, exchange of letters, missive, notes, epistle

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