Creator
John Muir
Recipient
[Jeanne C.] Carr
Transcription
[Original letter in mounted set of letters to Mrs. Carr, #94].
Yosemite Valley, Oct. 7th, 1874.
Dear Mrs. Carr:
I expected to have been among the foothill drift long ago, but the mountains fairly seized me, and ere I knew I was up the Merced cañon where we were last year, past Shadow and Merced Lakes and our soda springs, etc. I returned last night. Had a glorious storm, and a thousand sacred beauties that seemed yet more and more divine. I camped four nights at Shadow Lake at the old place in the pine thicket. I have ouzel tales to tell. I was alone and during the whole excursion or period, rather, was in a kind of calm incurable ecstasy. I am hopelessly and forever a mountaineer.
How glorious my studies seem, and how simple. I found out a noble truth concerning the Merced moraines that escaped me hitherto. Civilization and fever and all the morbidness that has been hooted at me has not dimmed my glacial eye, and I care to live only to entice people to look at Nature's loveliness. My own special self is nothing. My feet have recovered their cunning. I feel myself again.
Tell Keith the colors are coming to the groves. I leave Yosemite for over the mountains to Mono and Lake Tahoe. Will be in Tahoe in a week, thence, anywhere Shastaward, etc. I think I may be at Brownsville, Yuba Co., where I may get a letter from you. I promised to call on Emily Pelton there. Mrs. Black has fairly mothered me. She will be down in a few weeks. Farewell.
John Muir
Location
Yosemite Valley
Date Original
1874 Oct 7
Source
Original letter dimensions: 31.5 x 22 cm.
Recommended Citation
Muir, John, "Letter from John Muir to [Jeanne C.] Carr, 1874 Oct 7." (1874). John Muir Correspondence (PDFs). 294.
https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/muir-correspondence/294
Resource Identifier
muir03_0208-md-1.pdf
File Identifier
Reel 03, Image 0207
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The unpublished works of John Muir are copyrighted by the Muir-Hanna Trust.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, click here to view the Holt-Atherton Special Collections policies.
Owning Institution
University of the Pacific Library Holt-Atherton Special Collections. 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
