Creator
John Muir
Recipient
[Jeanne C. Carr]
Transcription
Letter #69
[Letter copied from typewritten, bound set, as this letter is missing in mounted series of letters to Mrs. Carr]
To Mrs. Ezra S. Carr
[Spring, 1872]
[First portion of letter cut from page]
upward into light to the very heart of the sun and downward miles deep among Holy Ghosts of glaciers and seas of mountain domes.
[ First part of the letter missing.]
... I had a letter from Emerson. He judges me and my loose drifting voyages as kindly as yourself. The compliments of you two are enough to spoil one, but I fancy that he, like you, considers that I am so mountain-tanned and storm-beaten I may bear it. I owe all of my best friends to you. A prophecy in this letter of Emerson's recalled one of yours sent me when growing at the bottom of a mossy maple hollow in the Canada woods-—that I would one day be with you, Doctor,and Priest in Yosemite. Emerson prophesies in similar dialect that I will one day go to him and "better men" in New England, or something to that effect. I feel like objecting in popular slang that I can't see it. I shall indeed go gladly to the "Atlantic Coast" as he prophesies, but only to see him and the Glacier ghosts of the North. Runkle wants to make a teacher of me, but I have been too long wild, too befogged and befogged to burn well in their patent, high heated, educational furnaces.
I had a good letter from LeConte. He evidently doesn't [know] what to think of the huge lumps of ice that I sent him. I don't wonder at his cautious withholding of judgment. When my mountain mother first told me the tale I could hardly dare to believe either, and kept saying "what?" like a child half awake.
Farewell. My love to the Doctor and the boys. I hope the Doctor will run away from his enormous bundles of duty and rest a summer with the mountains. I have a great deal to ask him. I have begun to build my cabin. You will have a home in Yosemite.
Ever thine,
J. Muir
Location
[Yosemite]
Circa Date
[1872 Spring]
Source
Original letter dimensions: 33 x 21.5 cm.
Recommended Citation
Muir, John, "Letter from John Muir to [Jeanne C. Carr], [1872 Spring]." (1872). John Muir Correspondence (PDFs). 1457.
https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/muir-correspondence/1457
Resource Identifier
muir02_0833-trans.tif
File Identifier
Reel 02, Image 0833
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
1 page
Keywords
Environmentalist, naturalist, travel, conservation, national parks, John Muir, Yosemite, California, history, correspondence, letters
