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June 21st, 1913. My dear Mrs. H arriman :Many, many thanks for your kind, cheery, charming Arden House letter. It makes
my library den shine. J The e'enin brigt a' hame (evening brings all home) as the Scotch say. So true is it that the swift-flying
age years draw friends ever closer. I don't know a finer family than yours - none more abounding in the gifts and fruits of
divine love. No wonder you are all happy and that I delight to dwell on the picture you draw of all the family offshoots,
each in a happy home, yet bound together as one in faith and love, growing like plants around the central sun home on the
happy Arden hill. How swiftly into lang syne the eventful years have fled since first we foregathered in Alaska. Roland,?
the little rosy-cheeked Commadore graduated from Groton and ready for Yale; bright little Averill, a graduate of Yale ? ready
for the wide world; lovely Cornelia and Mary with little love tots of their own; leaving only darling Carol singing and shining
in the home nest. You write that you wish I were with you taking another degree at Yale that we might share the graduating
fun together. Well, strange to say, only a few days before your letter was written I was taking another LL. D. in the Greek
Theatre at Berkeley. I thank you more than I can tell in a letter for your offer of help in making the Grand National highway
the wonderful Yosemite Park. I will explain the plan later after the fate of the Hetch Hetchy Valley is determined. In the
meantime I wish you would do all you can to defeat a bill that a few political thieves and robbers are trying to rush thru
Congress under the pretense of urgent necessity. For years, by Mr. H arrimanj's help the valley has been saved until now for
the benefit of all the world. My Boy book was sent direct from the publishers with my compliments that you might get a copy
as early as possible, but I'll send another with a suitable inscription. I thought of dedicating it to my blind friend at
whose Oregon Lodge it was written, but concluded to dedicate a worthier volume that I'm now writing, also begun at Pelican
Lodge. Ever, dear friend, faithfully and gratefully yours, JOHN MUIR (Copied from rough draft of letter on large piece
of cardboard)