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First draft of letter,in note-book March 1, 1903 . Dear Prof.Sargent: At last the Silva review is off my hands, and
on its way to the Atlantic. I have requested the editor to send you copy of the proof, and hope it may please you. As to
Russia, etc., I'll go with you when you like for 6 mos. or so if you'll agree to manage all baggage and money affairs. I'll
outfit in Boston, under your direction, taking only a couple of hand-bags from here, and I'll put 500 in your hands, or whatever
sum you think I'll need, and then we will settle when we get home. You know how I hate all civilized travel, with its tickets,
passports, letters of credit, money changing, baggage, and unknowable beds, etc. With no practice or skill in the book reviewing
business, the thing was entirely out of my line of work, but for the sake of the trees and the compound oak and Sequoia, author
and friend, I have awkwardly but lovingly done the best I could, and since so many seem to be reading my own little tree book
(which but for you would never have been written.) In one place I have touched on nomenclature, and of course there we differ
a little. But this, perhaps,is fortunate, for without some little adverse criticism the whole review would, in the minds of
most readers, have been in danger of thawing and dissolving into a monotonous mush of praise. I suppose I ought to stick
to my desk in winter and the wilderness in summer until I get two or three books done. But a tree trip with you before I get
too old to travel is hard to resist, so if you will personally conduct me,as tourists way, I'll go.I cannot hope to repay
you for taking so much trouble. John Muir