Creator

John Muir

Creator

John Muir

Recipient

William Trout

Transcription

Martinez, California

Aug. 10, 1904.

William Trout.

Dear old friend:

Your kind letter of Aug. 2d came yesterday laden with Meaford memories & auld lang syne in general, and with it came the draft that has given you so much trouble. This closing a transaction 40 years old, illustrating moral integrity & patience of a kind far from common in financial annals.
The news of your coming to visit me is delightful. I have many visitors & thousands of friends, but those of the old days have for me an immortal charm wanting in others however high & honorable & flattering.
Often & often I look

2

longingly back into that blessed old "Hollow" among the hemlocks hoping to revisit it, & I believe I shall yet. Indeed I feel quite sentimental about it, it was so full of trees & mosses & liverworts & wild life of so many kinds, & its far reaching associations I could almost sing with Johnnie Boyce "O! how I love the sawmill"! I remember nearly all of that immortal poem. In the last verse mechanics & religion were curiously mixed, & both sense & rhyme went a trifle wrong, faith not uncommon in older poets. Here it is
"It was God who made the sawmill
That stands beside the stream
I hope to go to Him when I die
And in his kingdom reign"
But if I allow myself to wander



3

into these old days this letter will spread far & wide like a Wisconsin prairie.
When you come to California come direct to my house & bring Charlie Jay with you. "Muir station" on the Santa Fe railroad is on the side of our ranch & within an hour & a half of San Francisco. There are 2 morning & 2 evening trains to & from the city, so you can go & come to & from the meetings in the city, you refer to in your letter, every day. The first train from our station reaches San Francisco about 8. 30, A.M. - time enough for any sort of meeting - Let me know as soon as you decide the time of your visit so that I will be sure to be at home.

With kindest regards to Charlie & all your family I am ever faithfully yours John Muir

[in margin: I send herewith some old clippings I discovered lately which may amuse you or the children]

Location

Martinez, Calif.

Date Original

1904 Aug 10

Source

Original letter dimensions unknown.

Resource Identifier

muir14_0464-let.tif

File Identifier

Reel 14, Image 0464

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

The Huntington Library, Muir Family Papers, HM 57349-57497. 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

3 pages

Keywords

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

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