Creator

John Muir

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10

You will have it all the sooner if you persist in over application [steaming] on the sea or land is better than being [hauled] away against ones will in that glossy [little] hearse fringed with feather dusters In a day & a quarter you can be in the heart of the Calaveras woods.

[Leaving] the city at 4 PM you [I] skim [d] across the coast range to Stockton When you [I] slept as soundly [well] as a mtneer [mountaineer] may in a flat [level] so near the [level] of the sea then across many a mile of granges broad fields to Milton

To the free all the Sierra woods are one [the] same, from the firs that girdle Shastas colossal cone on the N [North] to the giant forests of the Tule, but to those who need humans & are townbound I know of no better more accessible [portion] than the woods of Calaveras, House etc The Calav [Calalaveras] Seq [Sequoia], General, beauty for ashes.

Every leaf a fountain of spicy fragrance medicated a 1000 subtle invigorating perfumes one no longer finds himself on the [world] but in it

11

Ho weary town worker come to the woods & rest. I wish I could compel you all to come, not that I am seized with sudden fit of [philanthropy] for with [Thoreau] I believe that the profession of doing good is full yet it is hard to see so many of our fellow [ ] diseased with duties when the rest cure is so specific & available [Americans] Cala [Californians] are not lazy on the contrary they work to much & rest too little Yet hoping all the while in a vague way to escape the inevitable results.

I am not fond of arithmetical arguments nevertheless they [all] have the advantage of being clear edged & [unusually] appreciable & I will [ ] use one here. Rest pays [can] in a [primary] way A man will do more & better work per annum by taking a [swim] Sunday a month [foray] nor will that [month] be lost in length of actual working life it will [rather] be added into interest at the end You will have all the longer This is all

Date Original

1876

Source

Original journal dimensions: 10 x 16.5 cm.

Resource Identifier

MuirReel25Journal01P10-11.tif

Publisher

Holt-Atherton Special Collections, University of the Pacific Library

Rights Management

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Keywords

John Muir, journals, drawings, writings, travel, journaling, naturalist

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