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The unpublished works of John Muir are copyrighted by the Muir-Hanna Trust.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
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
2 pages
Keywords
Environmentalist, naturalist, travel, conservation, national parks, John Muir, Yosemite, California, history, correspondence, letters
