Creator
[John Muir]
Recipient
[Louie S. Muir]
Transcription
01355
[1]
11. P.M.
Grand Hotel
San Francisco
July 8th 1889
Dear Louie no more [illegible]s Have managed to see more today. I will send you a page or two of my M.S. instead which no doubt you will like better though some would call it dull & [illegible] - I wrote it last night between 10 & 11 oclock after finishing my letter to you. By the way this makes five letters to you such as they are & not a line from you or even Wanda. Tell [Fran?] to sweep the roofs every day to prevent accumulations of lint. I also wet them with a few buckets of water. He has not much else to do. Also try to get Morgan to come out & put a new top on that chimney, & tell [Fran?] to be careful not to make larger fires than necessary, especially not to burn paper or much fine kindling to make sudden drafts. Send 50 more bxs apples. I'm lonesome, Tell Wanda.
01355 [2]
Probably the latter part of the 31st page will have to be compacted for it is difficult to hold the attention of most readers so closely as to enable them to follow when one is describing the [song?] of beauty coming from silent landscapes. Perhaps this will be better. Yet how fine the beauty they send to us across the broad blue distances! & how mysterious the influence of that beauty - traveling no wings of Light Divine Love - silent as to the outer sense, speeding it on its way. Yet coming into our souls with celestial pomp & song to abide with us forever
or thus Coming into our souls with celestial pomp & song. Divine Love speeding it on its way to abide with us forever in homes prepared for its coming. It is 11 oclock & Im tired & my critical taste is gone. The more I work on it the worse it may be. Good night
01355 [3]
I am trying here to describe the trip from Victoria to Port Tounsend speaking of the lovely archepelago of San Juan & Mt Baker & the grand mass of the Olympian Range -- Then spoke of the inability of most people to get into close contact with mountains etc which gave rise to these ideas - strange to say mostly entirely new to me though I have so long loved landscapes & tried to describe them
Pg 30
"The opportunity has not yet come to me to explore these mountains, & to most of us never will come, at least in this life. And even if a fitting opportunity as to means & time & freedom from other obligations should present itself, few have the requisite physical strength to urge a way up through these rugged solitudes. How good then, & how benevolent a thing it is that so much enjoyment may be derived from landscapes a hundred miles away. As we gase from the desk of the steamer, nothing of all the life of these Olympian
01355 [4]
31
mountains is visible-, the sleek wild animals with bright eyes that roam the woods, the birds, the vegetation, the myriads of creeping, flying, shining, rejoicing creatures-, not a hair or feather of them is in sight, not a leafe or painted petal of all the flowers there, not one of all the glowing crystals of the rocks or of the snow. Yet how fine the beauty they send to us across the broad blue distances; & how mysterious the influence of that beauty! traveling on wings of Light, silent as to the outer sense, yet coming into our souls with celestial pompt & song, not as angels come to deliver divine messages & go away again, but to abide with us forever in these spiritual mansions of the mind, Divine Beauty finding there a home built for it & fitted for its reception by Divine Love
Location
San Francisco
Date Original
1889 Jul 8
Source
Original letter dimensions: 28 x 21 cm.
Recommended Citation
Muir, John, "Letter from [John Muir] to [Louie S. Muir], 1889 Jul 8." (1889). John Muir Correspondence (PDFs). 1833.
https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/muir-correspondence/1833
Resource Identifier
muir06_0127-let.tif
File Identifier
Reel 06, Image 0127
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
4 pages
Keywords
Environmentalist, naturalist, travel, conservation, national parks, John Muir, Yosemite, California, history, correspondence, letters
