Letter from J. E. Calkins to John Muir, 1908 Nov 18 .

Creator

J. E. Calkins

Creator

J. E. Calkins

Recipient

John Muir

Transcription

[Calkins]Lordsburg Calif.Nov. 18. 1908My Dear Mr. Muir: -Your charming letter has too long awaited an answer. I might have had the good manners to tell you how genuinely glad I am that you are at work on some of those things we talked about when we had the honor of meeting you in your home. Oh, I'm glad too that you had a good restful summer, and good health, and that the dear girl is making progress toward better health. May the kindly Providence that watches over the invalid have her in especial keeping.Good for "Stickeen"! How I091932shall rejoice to greet him in his new dress. I am confident that he will safely cross the crevasse that always yawns between a book and its public, and find a warm welcome on the other side. But you must not let those journals lag or fail to come to completion. I am certain that the people who read such tales are legion, and eager for your story to appear.But whether you or Mr Harriman had most fun out of this summer's vacation I can't guess, not knowing Mr. Harriman; only I can be persuaded, with no great difficulty, that he got the worth of his money.09193 4you can find a [prime?] article here, and you may rest firmly assured your welcome will be as warm as we shall know how to make it. It will feel to you a good deal like living in a bureau drawer, after the large freedom of the big old house at Martinez, but what we lack in roominess we should hope to make up to you in warm-heartedness. At your convenience. If you feel like coming to a poor place like this, among folk too simple to help you or harm you, after rioting in opulence in the palaces of the Caesars, why091933I am meeting with some success in coaxing my little bunch of orange and lemon trees to burgeon and bear, and I have shaken away the last of the old brain paralysis, I belive, that used to possess me, tending them. It is great medicine to get one's feet in the dirt, and come in to every meal covered with the grime and dust of toil. The country here is beautiful, the climate, especially in the winter, is delightful, the water is pure and soft, and the neighbors - some of them - are the finest folk on earth. If you want a sunny, summery calm retreat from the fog and rain and mud of Martinez09193 5then in Heaven's name come on when you please. Sometime in the early winter we shall have 4 or 5 frost bitten Iowans here for a week or so, but we can manage to miss their dates, in case it suits your convenience to honor us with a bit of a stay, and the longer it is the happier we.I hope you will let us hear what you are about this winter; what your work is, and what your itinerary. What are your plans for escaping the Grip? If you ascend up to Heaven it is there, and if you091936make your bed in Hell it is there, and Hell is anywhere you happen to be when you have that miserable disease, but up here, they claim, it never ventures more than most briefly. I offer the suggestion. I am too wise to guarantee anything except gladness at our house to have you with us.Mrs. C. sends her love to you, and the boy hopes some day to know you, I don't count for much, but I hope and pray that this may be one of your best wintersSincerely yours,J.E. Calkins x09193