Creator
John Muir
Recipient
[Asa] Gray
Transcription
[4]
I have a rare chance of getting your plants packed out of the valley tomorrow & so have determined to send all together [deleted: together] with a few seeds in a box by Wells Fargo EX - I am ever cordially your friend John Muir
The books, both Hutchings & mine are along all right. Many thanks, I am hard at work on dead glaciers
[1]
Yosemite Valley Dec' 18th, 72
My dear Gray, I received the last of your notes two days ago announcing the arrival of the ferns. You speak of three boxes of Primula. I sent seven or eight.
I had some measurements to make about the throat of the South Dome so yesterday I climbed there. & then ran up to Clouds Rest for your Primulas, & as I stuffed them in big sods into a sack, I said Now I wonder what mouth- -fuls this size will accomplish for the Doctors primrose hunger. Before filling your sack I witnessed one of the
[2]
most glorious of our mountain sunsets. Not one of the assembled mountains seemed remote - all had ceased their labor of beauty & gathered around their Parent Sun to receive the evening blessing & waiting angels could not be more solemnly hushed. The sun himself seemed to have reached a higher life as if he had died & only his soul were glowing with rayless bodiless Light, & as Christ to his disciples so this departing Sun-Soul said to every precious beast.-to every pine & weed, to every stream & mountain, My Peace I give unto you ,
I ran home in the moonlight with your sack of roses slung on my shoulder by a buckskin string, - Down through the junipers - down through
[3]
the firs - now in black shadow - now in white light, past great South Dome white as the moon - past Spirit like Nevada- past Pywiack - through the groves of Illilouette & spiry pines of the open Valley, Star- crystals sparking above - frost crystals beneath, & rays of spirit beaming everywhere. I reached home a trifle weary but could have wished so Godful a walk some miles & hours longer & as I slid your roses off my shoulder I said This is one of the big round ripe days that so fatten our lives - So much of sun on one side, So much of moon on the other _____
Location
Yosemite Valley
Date Original
1872 Dec 18
Source
Original letter dimensions unknown.
Recommended Citation
Muir, John, "Letter from John Muir to [Asa] Gray, 1872 Dec 18." (1872). John Muir Correspondence (PDFs). 1498.
https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/muir-correspondence/1498
Resource Identifier
muir02_1005-let.tif
File Identifier
Reel 02, Image 1005
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
Gray Herbarium Archives, Harvard University. 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
