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1 Alaska Hotel Seattle Monday 30 '97 To Prof John Muir. My dear sir I have just received a letter from my brother
William in Milwaukee to whom I sent a copy of this paper of which the enclosed is a clipping. He seemed much interested and
recommended me to send this clipping to you as you would also like to see it. Accordingly I enclose it. He also gave me the
following assurance that you are just the same John Muir that I had knokwn thirty years ago notwithstanding the magnificant
success that you have made of life; and that you have not forgotten, nor do not wish to forget your old friends. I am certain
that I have never wished to forget you. I only feel proud to be able to say that I ever knew you. If I had followed my own
inclination I would certainly have been a student 02229 2 of nature like yourself; and I have just about egotism enough
to believe that if I had worked as patiently and industriously as you have done in studying nature I might have been pretty
near your equal in some respects by this time. I had thought that I could endure about as much privation, starvation, and
hardship as any living man; but if the account I saw in the Century some years ago is not exaggerated, I am certainly not
in it with you. Is it really true that you spent ten years in the mountains without seeing any human beings except a band
of Mono indians. Such an ordeal, I firmly believe, would make a raving lunatic of me. I remember one time when I had to spend
a week all alone in the mountains under a tree on account of the snow and rain and before that time was up I got to 02229