Transcription:
To John Muir Esq., LL.D. and my prayer is that it may long be so. You are writing an autobiography destined to take a place
apart in that most interesting instructive order of literature. You never wrote better: the book bids fair to be classic.
I have heard you say you hate to write; but it is not the facile, it is the reluctant, who write the real books. Keep this
in mind, for it means you, and press on toward the mark of your high calling. Pardon this exhortation from an unworthy admirer.
Ever affectionately Yours, Melville B Anderson