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304 HOYT STREEET May 17, 1912. Dear Mr. Muir:- After hesitating and delaying for many years, T have come to the point
of writing you in appreciation of your writings about Nature as she manifests herself on our great West Coast,in our National
Parks, mountains, glaciers and valleys, and to thank you for the pleasure and inspiration which has come to me through your
hooks and magazine articles, For some eighteen or twenty years I have collected magazine articles by yourself, by John Burroughs
and Walt Whitman,together with articles written by others about these three, to me in common with ever increasing thousands,greatest
interpreters of Nature, or we are not able to keep in constant communion with the great out-doors, need someone to bring that
vast domain to our desks and our evening lamp, and to keep alive in us that, too often smothered,natural impulse to get close
to Mother earth at every opportunity, T have just been re-reading your My First Summer in the Sierra ,in which your vital
descriptions have made me to walk with you under the translucent fronds of the giant California ferns,face with bated breath
the upreared,lei surely tolerant cinnamon bear and sit with awe-struck senses with my heels wedged in a throe inch crevice
over the edge of mighty Yoeemite.fhie last scene the more vivid to me,because of bringing to monory ray own feat some years
since,in leaping a narrow ribbon of rushing Bnoqualmie and sitting for hours on the point of rock which splits (or did a few
years ago) the rushing flood at the very brink of its nerr 300 foot leap, my logs hanging in space, my soul soaring higher
than ever the water foil, I have the two magnificent volumes of the Karriman Alaskan Kjqredition, with your wonderful descriptions
of the Glaciers in that Northern wonderland, with the illustrations of those mighty river: Your doscriptions have been a constant
incentive to me, since the work appeared, to break away and behold these marvels for myself, but a wife and three bairns are
rather solid anchors to a single locality, unless one be possessed of (will not say blessed with) considerable means. I have
now put off to the end of my letter, as T have delayed for these years, the request I would make: I am not an autograph hunter,
have never bought an autograph in my life (such would have no ehnrm for rue) but I have sent volumes of my favorite authors
to them for that personal,intimate touch a bit of the handwriting which formed the book gives to them, T would like to send
my copy of My First Summer in the Sierras to you for a fly-leaf inscription,if that would not infringe upon your time. Please
write me if T may send the book. I had a good letter the other day from Mr. Clara Barrus, who was ill in Now York City when
she write, but she said the doctor exported her to be able to return to Pelham in about a week, T certainly envied her the
privilege and the pleasure of having John o'Birds and John o Mountains both with her on the former's 75th birth anniversary,
Whether you feel to comply with my rather large request or not, I again thank you, my dear sir,for your bookstand hope to
add many another to my shelves, With cordial best wishes,believe me,ever Faithfully yours, illegible 05201