Creator

John Muir

Creator

[John Muir]

Recipient

Mrs. [Jeanne C.] Carr

Transcription

[4]

of Nov 19th is received directed to the "Tuolumne River etc" "You are glad that I am kindly disposed towards South America but a year is a long time, etc" but to me a Yosemite year is a very little measure of time or rather a measureless & formless mas of time which can in no manner be geomet- rically or Arithmetically delt with but Mrs Carr, why do you wish to cut me from California & graft me among the groves of the p[illegible]. Please write the reason This Pacific sunshine is hard to leave. If souls are allowed to go a rapping & visiting where they please I think that unbodied I will be found wallowing in California light If the bulbs were lost I will procure some more for you if you do not send me up the Amazon before next fall

00525

[1]

Near La Grange Cala Dec 22d [1870]

Dear Mrs Carr, It is so long since I have heard from you that I begin to think you have sent a letter to Yosemite. I am feeling lonely again & require a word from you. Some time ago Mr Hutchings wrote me saying that he would re- quire my shingle cabin for his sister & so I am homeless again. I expected to pass the winter there writing sketching etc & in making exploratory raids back over the mountains in the snow but Mr Hutchings jumping my nest after expressly promising to keep it for me, has broken my pleasant lot of plans. & I am at work making new ones. Were it not that mr Hutchings



[2]

owes me money & that I have a lot of loose notes & outline sketches to work up I should set out for S. America at once As it is I shall very likely remain where I am for a few months & return to the mountains in the Spring. I wish in particular to trace some of the upper Yosemite streams farther & more carefully than I have yet done & I shall dip yet once more into the fathomless grandeur of the valley - - - I am in comfortable quarters at present within sight & hearing of the Tuolumne, on a smooth level once the bottom of a shallow lake like expansion of the river where it leaves the states Evening purple on the Mtns seen through an ample gap up the Tuolumne is of t[illegible] beauty. the purest & best, The sheet gold of

[3]

the plain compositves will soon be lighted in the sun days of spring, deepening & glowing yet brighter as it spreads away over the sphere & fluted [illegible]of this old ocean bed - You must not fail to see the April gold of the Joaquin - - - - - - - - - - - - - -- - - - I send here with a letter to Mrs Yelverton in your care as you will be likely to know where she is. I have just read a letter which she left for me at Snelling giving an account of her fearful perils in the snow. It seems strange to me that I should not have known & felt her anguish in that terrible night, even at this distance. She told me that I ought to wait & guide her out, & I feel a kind of guiltiness in not doing so Since writing the above, Yours

Location

Near La Grange Cala

Circa Date

[1870] Dec 22

Source

Original letter dimensions: 20.5 x 25.5 cm.

Resource Identifier

muir02_0355-let.tif

File Identifier

Reel 02, Image 0355

Collection Identifier

Online finding aid for the microform version of the John Muir Correspondence http://www.oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/kt0w1031nc

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

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

2 pages

Keywords

Environmentalist, naturalist, travel, conservation, national parks, John Muir, Yosemite, California, history, correspondence, letters

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