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
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
