Creator
Geo[rge] T. Elliot
Recipient
John Muir
Transcription
[3]
[illegible] - partly though their own winning ways, and partly through their power to stir the imagination - into sympathy with the vast Spirit of Nature. To love even these little things is not to waste one's life; for in losing one's life in this way one often unexpectedly finds his human sympathies cleaner and keener through his nature-sympathies. I beg your pardon; I ought not to [see?] the silence of the forest aisles with my suburban peeping voice; but I am sure you will understand the spirit, if the voice can only peep.
Geo. T. Elliot.
[1]
88 [Dunbay?] St.
Brighton, Mass. 10/17/02
Dear John Muir:-
I am a boy of almost fifty, who, thanks to your pen, have played with you a great deal. I have been with you on the Alaskan glacier; I have made friends with the rattlesnake in Yo-Semite; I have shared your tramp with [Brownie?]; I have slept out with you under the sky, until I think I ought to tell you the name of one more of those (and there are a great many of them, all over the English-speaking world) who have the habit of saying "Dear John Muir". And then I want you to play a minute with me - this way. I love the woods and the hills, and though I
03078
[2]
get away a few hours every week into the wildest places in reach, and though my home is on a hill with wide sweep of view, yet I can't get far away from the city for more than two or three weeks every year. And so, since I can't transport myself bodily to the places where the conifers that I specially love are growing, I have planted in the open many different kinds; and have begged and bought and slipped many others, until I have a kindergarten pinet[illegible] of little trees in the house. They all behave very well, and they show such varieties of temperament, and have such delightful little surprises in store continually, as to little ways of growth; and they make it so much easier for the imagination to travel to the Himalayas, or the Andes, or to Australia, - that I never get tired of them. I think you will understand my fun, and that you will be amused by it, for a moment, a least. And I want very much three or four things. Dr. Franceschi sent me a Sequoia gigautea that was too large to adapt itself to our [illegible] climate, and I am afraid that I cannot save it. I think you can tell me where I can get a little gigautea and a small redwood, - only seedlings or yearlings, - and a Tenya Mertensiana, and perhaps the flat-leaved spruces - all wee things, of course. And if you yourself should sometime take the fancy to put into sp[illegible] some baby conifer or t[illegible]d and send it to me, I should [illegible] it more than I can tell you. I call these little trees my playthings; but they are much more than that; they are little friends and companions; they rest me and steady me, and [illegible]
Location
Brighton, Mass.
Date Original
1902 Oct 17
Source
Original letter dimensions: 16.5 x 26 cm.
Recommended Citation
Elliot, George T., "Letter from Geo[rge] T. Elliot to John Muir, 1902 Oct 17." (1902). John Muir Correspondence (PDFs). 4757.
https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/muir-correspondence/4757
Resource Identifier
muir12_0722-let.tif
File Identifier
Reel 12, Image 0722
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
