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Medford July 30th 1895. Mr. Jchn Muir, Dear Sir ; i My best thanks for your valuable raid fascinating book, The Mountains
of Calafornia, and for the hcnor your presentation does me. My brother and I read his copy a loud together last winter, and
it made us both wish more such book might be writ ten and read; for not only is the preservation of the forests-for which
it is the most stirring sort of appeal-fundamental to the preservation of abut all else worth preserving-human life included,
but before that preservation can take place ,we need to learn, just what it teaches ,how to love and to enjoy Nature for her
own sublime ,wonderful and infinately instructive sake. Its invigorating spirit ,with its science and rare power of description,
is enough to lift the tamest soul above itself; and its keen and loving sympathy with all the separate little and big lives
of that vast wild region, is awfully catching. Such a book ought to encourage the broadest and most generous politics ;and
put to shame all that is ungenerous, careless, cruel or unnecessarily destructive in privateienterprise and in our enjoyments.
My own copy shall have place with the books I love best on my shelves; and for an exploring trip so real, and to the grandest
inspirations of Nature, so just and appreciative ,I shall often take it down. Yours very truly, EllenM.Wright. 02008