Transcription:
Tulare, Calif. Sept. 22--1913 My dear Mr. Muir:- Your kind letter came just in the midst of confusion and almost intolerable
heat. Fancy moving and trying to settle a home with the house you wok in sizzling at about 112 Now and then, at what seemed
to be my last gasp I would take your beautiful book about the Yosemite -- which reached me safely, thank you -- out of doors
and read as the damned might read of heaven And of course I felt much like dropping every task and accepting your invitation
just as cordially and simply as it was given. But that would be to leave my young folks here pretty shabbily in the lurch--and
besides, my brother-in-law, who, you know, is going in with me, has not yet joined us. The vacation is as much for his sake
as for mine. There are some little matters of business we must both attend to--for we mean to make a long break with the world
and must put things somewhat in order before leaving them-- and then we shall come north, not as your guests en route, but
very gladly as your guests on your ranch for a little, until we can avail ourselves of your extensive information. Then if
it entirely convenient for you to make that preliminary trip to the Yosemite you so generously suggest, we should be more
than delighted to have you accompany us. I could wish that we were just the kind of companions you would choose--but we have
two drawbacks: First, we are ignorant to a degree just where you are wise; and second, I, at least, shall have to recover
more thoroughly from the railroad accident that recently broke my knee and strained my back before I can climb or tramp even
many miles behind you. I like your word saunter as you use it a good deal in your book--though I suspect your saunter may
be faster than any gallop of mine Still, I hang on to the hope inspired by the word that you may really like to go slow and
look and dream as you go. What we are really looking for is peace and perspective and the power to see things in the sum
of their relationships. That is what moves and delights me in your books. I'm afraid I know too little of science to appreciate
your work on that side; it is the poet and the Seer whom I recognize. I am a writer--my field, essays, and some novels, principally
dealing with problems of education. Of course, I know Rousseau, Commenius, Pestalozzi, and Froeb illegible , whom I have tried
to follow in my training of my own children, drew their inspiration from Nature. Why should I be content to drink at second-hand,
instead of going straight to the source? Somewhat late in illegible Ife, when I am about to become a grandmother, it strikes
me as preposterous to attempt to train a child without knowing anything to speak of about the way Nature trains her children
My brother is a lawyer, and an economic and social reformer. It strikes him, who has been a life-long experimenter with various
colonization attempts to make life more sane, as equally preposterous to try to construct a social order without knowing how
Nature orders her bee and ant colonies, her migrating flocks, her tree plantations. Nobody, it seems to us both, gets down
to the real beginnings of things-- looks at facts with eyes cleared of all preposessions 05551