Creator

John Muir

Creator

[John Muir]

Recipient

[Mary Averell] Harriman

Transcription

June 21st, 1913.

My dear Mrs. H[arriman]:Many, many thanks for your kind, cheery, charming Arden House letter. It makes my library den shine. J The e'enin brigt a' hame (evening brings all home) as the Scotch say. So true is it that the swift-flying age years draw friends ever closer. I don't know a finer family than yours - none more abounding in the gifts and fruits of divine love. No wonder you are all happy and that I delight to dwell on the picture you draw of all the family offshoots, each in a happy home, yet bound together as one in faith and love, growing like plants around the central sun home on the happy Arden hill.
How swiftly into lang syne the eventful years have fled since first we foregathered in Alaska. Roland,? the little rosy-cheeked Commadore graduated from Groton and ready for Yale; bright little Averill, a graduate of Yale ? ready for the wide world; lovely Cornelia and Mary with little love tots of their own; leaving only darling Carol singing and shining in the home nest.
You write that you wish I were with you taking another degree at Yale that we might share the graduating fun together. Well, strange to say, only a few days before your letter was written I was taking another LL. D. in the Greek Theatre at Berkeley.
I thank you more than I can tell in a letter for your offer of help in making the Grand National highway the wonderful Yosemite Park. I will explain the plan later after the fate of the Hetch Hetchy Valley is determined. In the meantime I wish you would do all you can to defeat a bill that a few political thieves and robbers are trying to rush thru Congress under the pretense of urgent necessity. For years, by Mr. H[arrimanj's help the valley has been saved until now for the benefit of all the world.
My Boy book was sent direct from the publishers with my compliments that you might get a copy as early as possible, but I'll send another with a suitable inscription. I thought of dedicating it to my blind friend at whose Oregon Lodge it was written, but concluded to dedicate a worthier volume that I'm now writing, also begun at Pelican Lodge.

Ever, dear friend, faithfully and gratefully yours,

JOHN MUIR (Copied from rough draft of letter on large piece of cardboard)

Location

Martinez, Calif

Date Original

1913 Jun 21

Source

Original letter dimensions: 21 x 30 cm.

Resource Identifier

muir21_0532-let.tif

File Identifier

Reel 21, Image 0532

Collection Identifier

Online finding aid for the microform version of the John Muir Correspondence http://www.oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/kt0w1031nc

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, see http://www.pacific.edu/Library/Find/Holt-Atherton-Special-Collections/Fees-and-Forms-.html

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

3 pages

Keywords

Environmentalist, naturalist, travel, conservation, national parks, John Muir, Yosemite, California, history, correspondence, letters

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