Title:
Letter from Cosie [Hutchings Mills] to John Muir, 1914 Sep 5.
Creator:
Cosie [Hutchings Mills]
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:
John Muir
Date:
1914 Sep 5
2008
Type:
Text
Format:
Image/jpeg2000
Identifier:
muir22_0626-md-1
Source:
Original letter dimensions unknown.
Language:
eng
Coverage:
Waitsfield, Vermont
Rights:
Copyright status unknown
Some letters written to John Muir may be protected by the U.S. Copyright Law (Title 17, U.S.C.). Transmission or reproduction
of materials protected by copyright beyond that allowed by fair use requires the written permission of the copyright owners.
Responsibility for any use rests exclusively with the user.
Transcription:
Waitsfieid, Vermont, Sept. 5, 1914. Dear Mr. Muir: For the little volume and the message, I thank you. I do surely prize
them both. The lang syne Yosemite days hold a cobwebless corner in my heart which nothing else can ever occupy. They seem,
with their bits of meadow, wealth of flowers, lovely out-of-the-way nooks, the clear creek, the roar of the falls, the evening
light on the Domes, like bits of Fairyland. Sometimes I get so heart-hungry for a sight of it, and the mountains beyond, I
think I cannot stand it, and yet I'd be half afraid to go back to the Valley, there have been so many despoiling changes.
The high mountains they can make but little impression upon. It is seven years since my husband, our boys, and myself came
to Vermont. We saw the advertisement of this farm in a paper, and expecting to make a change to where we might have better
school advantages, and a better climate than the Puget Sound country, we came this way, were pleased, and stayed. It is a
corner in the hills, upon a bench overlooking the Mad River Valley,--Bald Mountain right back of us, and Camels Hump across.
The woods are full of interests and delights. Our two youngest boys - David (12) and Hiram (9) are as fond of them as I, and
have a fuller acquaintanceship with their secrete. Since a year ago last May, my mother has made her home with us. She is
frail but is always about, and even stood the severity of last winter without any ill effects. My brother, Will, who had lived
with us through the five years of our stay in the Suoqualime Valley, died there in January of the last winter. Though never
very strong he had not been ill, and the end came very suddenly, and wholly unexpectedly to us--with some heart malady the
cause. I have thoroughly enjoyed The Story of My Boyhood and Youth , and am wondering if the great Scotch discovery is responsible
for the intrepidity, and endurance that has come from there. With happy recollections and with warmest regards accompanying
my thanks to you for Stickeen and its inscription, I am, just as much as ever, in spite of gray hairs, Cosie (Hutchings
Mills)05841