Creator
Frank H. Sellers
Recipient
John Muir
Transcription
10 Astor St., Chicago.
Sept. 14, 1906.
My Dear Mr. Muir:
I have been asked a pleasant courtesy:- to write a letter of introduction to you for my friend Bert. Wentworth,- because it stirs me up to send you a note, and it takes quite a jolt to make me write to anyone. I do not know why I have such a constitutional reluctance to writing, but I have, all the same, and I have now come to be so fully aware of it, that I no longer make apologies.
Bert. Wentworth is a fine young fellow whom I have hot seen in years,
for his health failed him long ago and he went to the West. He is a manly, sincere fellow, and one I know you will like. He asked me for the letter and hopes soon to be able to meet you.
My affairs have been poking along in the usual uneventful way,-not sufficient to keep me really busy and yet enough to hold me here with an occasional business run to some large eastern city, where I have to see oceans of people, who weary me, and not a bit of Cod's real country. My wife, whose health is restored, goes off occasionally to her relatives and I sometimes fetch her home, with a day or two of trout fishing slipped in. Those trips are great, for we splash along in the abandoned rivers of the old pine country in Michigan, where nature is slowly claiming her own again, and one can breath pure air and see the trees and sky.
The other day our family doctor, a royally good fellow, ran off for an outing in the Big Horn valley, and we talked over his outfit and preparations. And what fun we had. I could almost live over again the glorious ride I took so long ago with you in the rainy, muddy Yellowstone
[illegible]
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and could smell the camp bread and the frying greasy bacon, those wonderful perversions of good food, and see you sitting on the slippery edge of some mud gyser as the rain pelted down, serenely quoting Bobby Burns' remarks about the hot hereafter and the "Deevil", as the mud balls puffed and choked and sputtered back at you. Those pictures of my mind are a part of me.
Now I suppose you are sizzling and drying up out on the sandy stretches of Arizona, digging up a monster tree each day and reading the buried secrets of the old ages. How I wish I were with you and that you could see the enthusiasm of my wife, if she were along, and found a newflower or bird. She does not know that country and its weird picturesque ness and romance, and it has always been my regret that she and I could not get you and wander about its mysterious stretches.
Father and Mrs. Sellers are well and would join with my wife and me in our best wishes for your well fare, if they knew I was writing.
Your most sincerely.
[illegible]
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Location
Chicago
Date Original
1906 Sep 14
Source
Original letter dimensions: 27.5 x 20.5 cm.
Recommended Citation
Sellers, Frank H., "Letter from Frank H. Sellers to John Muir, 1906 Sep 14." (1906). John Muir Correspondence (PDFs). 3571.
https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/muir-correspondence/3571
Resource Identifier
muir16_0365-let.tif
File Identifier
Reel 16, Image 0365
Collection Identifier
Online finding aid for the microform version of the John Muir Correspondence http://www.oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/kt0w1031nc
Copyright Status
Copyright status unknown
Copyright Statement
Some letters written to John Muir may be protected by the U.S. Copyright Law (Title 17, U.S.C.). Transmission or reproduction of materials protected by copyright beyond that allowed by fair use requires the written permission of the copyright owners. Responsibility for any use rests exclusively with the user.
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.
Pages
2 pages
Keywords
Environmentalist, naturalist, travel, conservation, national parks, John Muir, Yosemite, California, history, correspondence, letters
