Creator
John Muir
Recipient
Dav[id Gilrye Muir]
Transcription
Yosemite not dated
[1871] Yosemite Valley Dec 1st
Dear Davie, We of the valley are muffled - snowbound by a grand mountain & all the peaks & spires & broad shouldered rocks beyond are jeweled clothed with winters first born snow flowers. You have seen grand snowsheets spread smoothly upon your prairies. would that you could have one view of our valley in full winter snow, & of the distant summits. I shall not attempt a pen picture I only write now to say Happy New Year to you & to all Muirs throughout all their tribes & families, I do not know when this greeting will get over the snow, perhaps in a month, I feel a little sore by sympathy for the burned badgers at the upper end of your state though some doubtless deserved being smoked out. Send them a little money for me. You know better how much will be right than I do, All days & seasons flow past in one unmeasured, undivided stream to me, a result of the kind of life wh I live but I remember that old fashioned holidays are near, & I wish that you would say to every Muir, Reid, & Galloway that I want them to take any book from the Portage stores or any other at my expense, I dont know how
many souls you number now. You have perhaps become a multitude but I hope, not more than a hundred. Sarah is not afraid of Novels & I would suggest "Zanita" for her, a book that you can buy in Boston wh I helped Mrs Yelverton now Countess Avonmore to write last summer in the valley. I am one of the characters & it contains a good deal of Yosemite scenery, for all of the babies who are big enough, & ripe enough to open their eyes, I would suggest books full of colored pictures Mary can choose for herself in Madison, & Maggie & John Reid & David Galloway & yourself & Katie & all the half grown-saplings Anna Joanna etc. can do the same in Portage or from some of the Eastern Catalogues. I do not say this to avoid the work of choosing for you all but because I am locked up & cannot, when spring opens I will send a volume to mother by mail. I do not like to load the Indian now I am more lonely this winter than ever. Mr Lamon, & Mrs Hutchings have both left the valley & there is not left one soul with whom I can exchange a thought. However I will be pretty busy & have a good many books & when I can wallow through the snow will climb about in the valley walls. John -
Location
Yosemite Valley
Circa Date
[1871] Dec 1
Source
Original letter dimensions: 25.5 x 20 cm.
Recommended Citation
Muir, John, "Letter from John Muir to Dav[id Gilrye Muir], [1871] Dec 1." (1871). John Muir Correspondence (PDFs). 1408.
https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/muir-correspondence/1408
Resource Identifier
muir02_0597-let.tif
File Identifier
Reel 02, Image 0597
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, 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
