Transcription:
Original letter in mounted set of letters to Mrs. car, 35 Tahoe City, Nov. 3d, 1873 . My dear friends Mr. and Mrs. Carr:
I received the news of your terrible bereavement a few moments ago, and can only say that you have my heart's sympathy and
prayer that our Father may sustain and soo the you. Dr. Kellogg and Billy Simms left me a week illegible 28? ago at Mono,
going directly to Yosemite. I reached this Queen of lakes two days ago, and rode down around the shore on the east side. Will
continue on around... portion of page cut off nor see you. Yet you shared all of my highest pleasures as I sauntered through
the piney woods pausing countless times to absorb the blue glimpses of the lake, all so heavenly clean, so terrestrial, yet
so openly spiritual. I wish, my dear, dear friends, that you could share this divine day with me here. The soul of Indian
summer is brooding this blue water, and it enters one's being as nothing else does. Tahoe is surely not one but many. As I
curve around its heads and bays and look far out on its level sky fairily tinted and fading in pensive air I am reminded of
all the mountain lakes I ever knew as if this were a kind of water heaven to which they all had come portion of page cut,
and following lines written across the sheet, lost portions being indicated ...pers that your Berkeley house was not likely
to be built ...my mind to winter among yosemite rocks again, but if ...ed better winter with you, say so in another letter
directed to the Valley and I will come. Ever yours, John Muir. Date supplied from letter of Oct. 16, 1873 .