Title:
Letter from John Muir to John D.Muir [nephew], 1883 May 24.
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:
John D.Muir [nephew]
Date:
1883 May 24
2008
Type:
Text
Format:
Image/jpeg2000
Identifier:
muir04_1067-md-1
Source:
Original letter dimensions: 33 x 21.5 cm.
Language:
eng
Coverage:
Alhambra Ranch, Martinez, [Calif]
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The unpublished works of John Muir are copyrighted by the Muir-Hanna Trust.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:
Original letter in possession of David Gilrye Muir illegible illegible illegible Alhambra Ranch, Martinez. May 24,
1883. My dear nephew John D. Muir: Your nice letter came safely over the mountains and plains all the way from Portage
to this California valley, and I was glad to get your letter and hope that some day you will come yourself to see me and the
high mountains and the big rivers and the sea and the white waterfalls and the forest trees growing wild on the mountains,
the biggest trees in the world, and to see the grapes and oranges growing and all the other wonderful things to be seen here.
Your card looks very golden and grand, and I didn't know that you were so old and could write so well and were studying so
many useful things at school. Soon you will be a man. It does not seem more than a short time since your father and(me) I
were about your age, only boys, for people grow both day and night, like tree. I was frightened when you had told me in your
letter that you had been nearly killed last winter when the sleigh nearly ran over you. You must be very careful and look
well about you when you are playing. I have been nearly killed too, a good many times, but I am all right yet, and I hope
God will take care of you and keep you all the time and make you happy. The cherries are ripe now in our orchard, and there
are tons of them, and I am sorry that I cannot send you and your father and mother and Carrie and your brothers a whole lot
of them, but they would all be spoiled before you got them if I should send them. The birds are having a good time eating
cherries all day. Their bills are all red with the sweet juice. They eat about five hundred dollars worth every year. Give
my love to father and mother and Carrie and your brothers and write to me again when you have learned your lessons and get
time to write. Goodbye, From your affectionate uncle, John Muir