Transcription:
Letter of John Muir to J. B. McChesney, Jan. 10, 1873. continued 2 half of Nature. But I have lived with and loved Kalmia
many a day. and slept with my cheek upon her bonnie purple flowers, and I know that she is not a devil s foil for any plant.
She was born and bred in Love Divine and dwells in Love and speaks Love only. And I know something about (page 443) the blasted
trunk, and the barren rock, the moaning of the bleak winds, the solemn solitudes of moors and seas, the roar of the black,
perilous, merciless whirlpools of the mountain streams; and they have a language for me, but they declare nothing of wrath
or of hell, only Love plain as was ever spoken. Christianity and mountainanity are streams from the same fountain, and when
I read the bogles of Ruskin's mountain gloom, and mountain evil, and mountain devil, and the unwholesomeness of mountain beauty
as everyday breath and bread, then I wish for plenty of words and a preacher's commission. Farewell. My kindest regards to
your parents and wife and younglings. I am, Ever truly thine John Muir