Creator
[John Muir]
Recipient
[Jeanne C.] Carr
Transcription
[1]
Sissons Station Dec’ 21st 1874
Dear Mrs Carr. I have just returned from a fourth Shasta excursion & find yours of 17th. I wish you could have been with me in Shastas shoulder last eve in the sunglow. I was over on the head waters of the McCloud & what a head! Think of a spring giving rise to a river I fairly quiver with joyous exultation when I think of it. The infinity of Natures glory in rock cloud & water. As soon as I beheld the McCloud upon its lower course I knew their must be something extraordinary in its alpine fountains & I shouted
[2]
O where my glorious river do you come from? Think of a Spring 50 yards wide at the mouth iss[illegible] from the base of a lava bluff with wild songs. Not gloomily from a dark cavey mouth but from a world of ferns & mosses gold & green I broke my way through chaparral & all kinds of river bank tangle in eager vigor utterly un[illegible]able The dark blue stream sang solemnly with a deep voice pooling & bowlder dashing & [underlined: a-h-a-a-aing] in white flashing rapids when suddenly I heard water notes I never had heard before. They came from that mysterious spring & then the Elk forest & the Alpine Glow & the sunset, poor pen, cannot tell if
[in margin: #96]
[Page 2]
[3]
The sun this morning is at work with its blessings as if it had never blessed before He never wearies of revealing Himself on Shasta. But in a few hours I leave this Alter & all its [squiggly lines] Well to my Father I say thank you & go willingly
I go by stage & rail to Brownsville to see Emily & the rocks there & the [illegible] then perhaps a few days among the Aurife[illegible] drifts on the Tuolumne & then to Oakland & that book, walking across the coast range [deleted: by] on the way, either through
[4]
one of the passes or over Mt Diablo. I feel a sort of nervous fear of another period of town dark but I dont want to be silly about it The sun glow will all fade out of me & I will be deathly as Shasta in the dark but mornings will come Dawnings of some kind & if not I have lived more than a common eternity already
Farewell Dont [underlined: over] work that is not [underlined: the] work your Father wants I wish you could come a b[illegible] in the Shasta honey lands Love to the boys
00704
Location
Sissons Station, [Calif]
Date Original
1874 Dec 21
Source
Original letter dimensions: 20.5 x 25 cm.
Recommended Citation
Muir, John, "Letter from [John Muir] to [Jeanne C.] Carr, 1874 Dec 21." (1874). John Muir Correspondence (PDFs). 301.
https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/muir-correspondence/301
Resource Identifier
muir03_0240-md-1.pdf
File Identifier
Reel 03, Image 0239
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
