Creator
John Muir
Recipient
Merrills & [Moores]
Transcription
[Original letter returned to Miss M. Merrill] Cedar Keys, Jan. 1 ‘68 . My dear friend Merrill [Moores]: I was very glad to hear from [you]. I need you even more than I did last spring. I am sure that you would enjoy five or six days of Florida. Had you been with me on the beach this morning, you would have seen hundreds of pelicans fishing in the shallows and on the shell banks. They stand in long rows, and the sun shines beautifully upon them. There are a great many bald-eagles and gray ones too h ere. I could keep you in sight better than when we travelled in Wisconsin, for if you left the path, the saw palmettos would saw you, and bamboo-briers would hold you, prick you at the same time, and if you made out to heave and roll yourself through all of these fences you would soon find yourself sore with uncountable bayonet wounds, or entangled in a mesh of gum vines like a porpoise in a herring net. Ah, my boy, you would have to go softly here. Nature does not permit people to romp among her south flower fields as she does in those open ones of the North. You would not find any winter here. The woods are green always, and the sky has summer clouds in all your winter months - birds and butterflies and muffy millers flit about until they die of joy. The garden beans and peas have hundreds of pink .and snow white flowers. You inquire about the rainy season but there is no well marked rainy season in Fl[orid]a, and as for the customs of the Florideans in the matter of clothing they are not unlike those of Hoosiers, and some of them live in towns. Did you receive a letter I sent you from Gainesville, Fl[orida]? Did you ever find your lost clothes. I suppose your holidays were very Merrilly spent with your many friends. Please remember me to Janet and Chas. and Janie and Katie. I hope that you and they will be very happy this year. Goodbye, my boy. I am ever your friend, JOHN
Location
Cedar Keys, [Fla]
Circa Date
[18]68 Jan 1
Source
Original letter dimensions: 33.0 x 21.5 cm
Recommended Citation
Muir, John, "Letter from John Muir to Merrills & Moores, 1868 Jan 1" (1868). John Muir Correspondence (PDFs). 1263.
https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/muir-correspondence/1263
Resource Identifier
muir01_1162-trans.tif
File Identifier
Reel 01, Image 1162
Collection Identifier
Online finding aid for the microform version of the John Muir Correspondence http://www.oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/kt0w1031nc
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, click here to view the Holt-Atherton Special Collections policies.
Owning Institution
Holt-Atherton Special Collections, University of the Pacific Library. 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
Pages
1 page
Keywords
Environmentalist, naturalist, travel, conservation, national parks, John Muir, Yosemite, California, history, correspondence, letters
