Title:
Letter from John Muir to [Jeanne C.] Carr, 1872 Aug 5.
Creator:
John Muir
Publisher:
University of the Pacific Library Holt-Atherton Special Collections. Please contact this institution directly to obtain copies
of the images or permission to publish or use them beyond educational purposes.
Contributor:
[Jeanne C.] Carr
Date:
1872 Aug 5
2008
Type:
Text
Format:
Image/jpeg2000
Identifier:
muir02_0876-md-1
Source:
Original letter dimensions: 33 x 21.5 cm.
Language:
eng
Coverage:
Yosemite Valley
Rights:
Copyrighted
The unpublished works of John Muir are copyrighted by the Muir-Hanna Trust.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://library.pacific.edu/ha/forms
Muir-Hanna Trust
1984
Transcription:
Letter 67 Letter copied from typewritten, bound set, as this letter is missing in mounted series of letters to Mrs. Carr
To Mrs. Ezga S. Carr Yosemite Valley Aug. 5th, 1872. Dear Mrs. Carr: Your letter telling me to catch my best glacier
birds and come to you and the Coast mountains only makes me the more anxious to see you, and if you cannot come up I will
have to come down, if only for a talk. My birds are flying everywhere, into all mountains and plains of all climes and times,
and some are ducks in the sea, and I scarce know what to do about it. I must see the Coast Ranges and the coast, but I was
thinking that a month or so might answer for the present, and then, instead of spending the winter in town, I would hide in
Yosemite and write, or I thought I would pack up some meal and dried plums to some deep wind-sheltered canyon back among the
glaciers of the summits and write there and be ready to catch any whisper of ice and snow in these highest storms. You anticipate
all the bends and falls and rapids and cascades of my mountain life and I know that you say truly about my companions being
those who live with me in the same sky whether in reach of hand or only of spiritual contact, which is the most real contact
of all. I am learning to live close to the lives of my friends without ever seeing them. No miles of any measurement can separate
your soul from mine. Part of the letter missing The Valley is full of sun, but glorious Sierras are piled above the South
Dome and Starr King. I mean the bossy cumuli that are daily upheaved at this season, making a cloud period yet grander than
the rock sculpturing, Yosemite making, forest planting glacial period. Yesterday we had our first midday shower, the pines
waved gloriously at its approach, the woodpeckers beat about as if alarmed, but the hummingbird moths thought the cloud shadows
belonged to evening and came down to eat among the mints. All the firs and rocks of Starr King were bathily dripped before
the Valley was vouchsafed a single drop. After the splendid blessing the afternoon was veiled in calm clouds, and one of intensely
beautiful pattern and gorgeously irissed was stationed over Eagle Rock at the sunset. Farewell... As ever your friend,
John Muir