Title:
Letter from [John Muir] to [J.B.] Mc Chesney, [1871] Jun 8.
Creator:
[John Muir]
Publisher:
University of the Pacific Library Holt-Atherton Special Collections. Please contact this institution directly to obtain copies
of the images or permission to publish or use them beyond educational purposes.
Contributor:
[J.B.] Mc Chesney
Date:
[1871] Jun 8
2008
Type:
Text
Format:
Image/jpeg2000
Identifier:
muir02_0462-md-1
Source:
Original letter dimensions: 33 x 21.5 cm.
Language:
eng
Coverage:
Yosemite
Rights:
Copyrighted
The unpublished works of John Muir are copyrighted by the Muir-Hanna Trust. To purchase copies of images and/or obtain permission
to publish or exhibit them, see
http://library.pacific.edu/ha/forms
Muir-Hanna Trust
1984
Transcription:
Original letter returned to Mrs. J. B. McChesney Yosemite, June 8th, 1871 . Dear McChesney: It is long since I wrote
you, and still I have not intended to neglect you. You belong to all of my moonlight wanderings at the upper falls. I have
been there many times by night and day since seeing you, and you always are present as one who is susceptible of the spiritual
influences that so gloriously abound there. I was up last full moon alone and found several new and most impressive chambers
to which i would like to Introduce you. Can you not come this season?, I wish you would come and bring your wife with you.I
think that all of the spirit creatures whose acquaintance you made last year are still to be found in our rocks and waters,
and they are willing to tell all that you are capable of heartily longing for. I am most intensely happy in their company
and in many a rock page once confused to blankness I now find magnificent words plainly written and sentences with easy beginnings
and whole glorious chapters of truth. I wish we could ramble together a month or two and learn these grand mountain lessons
together. June 9th. Last winter I read the narrative of an expedition across South America from Quito to Para, by Orton.
Was that the one you spoke to me about when you were here? I shall see the Andes some day, but I cannot tell how long these
communicative, loving, confiding Sierras will keep me. While they trust me and talk to me as they do now I shall not leave
them. I spent a most delightful week with R. W. Emerson when he was here. I wanted to steal him - to kid nap him from civilization.
How naturally he would have taken his place among the pure and happy ghosts of the upper mountains. Drawing of butterfly
What is the name of this big butterfly? It is very abundant now, in large flocks, mostly yellow in color, but marked with
black and also with red near the ends of the wings. What work do you study on bugs and insects in general? I would like to
obtain a good work on entomology. I heard that Bolander was coming here this summer. If you see him, tell him that I am very
anxious to know him and will be found in the mill or back in the mountains. Farewell. Yours, John Muir John Muir, June
1871 written on first page of letter. This year seems correct, as Emerson's visit is here referred to .