Creator
Louie Strentzel Muir
Recipient
L. J. Fish
Transcription
Louisa, I am impelled to write to gain with the fond hope you will modify your previous unfavorable answer and lend a more favorable ear to my suit. You are very dear to me, and my hapinefs [happiness] depends when you, do not let my future be clouded and dreary, and all those bright and beautiful visions of happiness shared with you, be dissipated, and obliterated for ever, but make them real, and the world will wear a new smile for us and each day be brighter than the day before. My brightest ambition shall be to be worthy of you, and to gain and forever keep your respect and love. I have for you a true, a generous and a chivalric love, and your happiness shall be my happiness and you your sorrows shall be my sorrows. We will build us a pleasant home which taste and skill shall beautify, and which your beautiful presence shall glorify, and to which we can always return from our ramblings and our pleasure tours of which we will have many, with a joyous certainty of peace, quiet and happiness. When you are my wife Louisa I know you will be as loyal and devoted as ever was Cesars wife to Cesar, nor was Cesar more generous or more honourable than I will be to you. This single half life we live is unnatural, unsatisfying and ignoble. How unlike the full and perfect and perfect life of two souls united in one with one purpose, one hope, one effort and a devotion that knows no self and no happiness, or joy that is not mutual. You have felt as I have Louisa, that knowing at the heart, that perpetual yearning for that other self, that near and dear on, nearer and dearer than all else on earth in whoom [whom] can place the fullest trust, and who is more to us than self. That one to whoom [whom] can appeal in hours of gloom or trouble for sympathy or consolation, or counsel, with the most perfect faith and confidence. The one with whoom [whom] we share all those little or great confidences, which is such a relief or such a delight. I would not [ ] or filter you Louisa, by the use of unwelcome power, you should be as free as a bird, for I have perfect faith in you just same of right and duty. Do not deny me Louisa, but let me that I may come to you may hear from your dear lips that little affirmation word, that will make me the happiest of men, and you the happiest, and noblest of woman. Truly yours L J Fish
Location
Unidentified
Date Original
1878-09-06
Source
Original letter dimensions unknown.
Recommended Citation
Fish, L. J., "Letter from L J Fish to Mrs. Muir [Louie Stentzel Muir], 1878 Sep 6" (1878). John Muir Correspondence (PDFs). 6710.
https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/muir-correspondence/6710
Resource Identifier
1878 Sept 6 L Fish to Louisa
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
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 https://www.pacific.edu/university-libraries/find/holt-atherton-special-collections/fees-and-forms-
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
3 pages
Keywords
Environmentalist, naturalist, travel, conservation, national parks, John Muir, Yosemite, California, history, correspondence, letters
