Transcription:
10 Astor St., Chicago. Sept. 14, 1906. My Dear Mr. Muir: I have been asked a pleasant courtesy:- to write a letter of
introduction to you for my friend Bert. Wentworth,- because it stirs me up to send you a note, and it takes quite a jolt to
make me write to anyone. I do not know why I have such a constitutional reluctance to writing, but I have, all the same, and
I have now come to be so fully aware of it, that I no longer make apologies. Bert. Wentworth is a fine young fellow whom
I have hot seen in years, for his health failed him long ago and he went to the West. He is a manly, sincere fellow, and
one I know you will like. He asked me for the letter and hopes soon to be able to meet you. My affairs have been poking along
in the usual uneventful way,-not sufficient to keep me really busy and yet enough to hold me here with an occasional business
run to some large eastern city, where I have to see oceans of people, who weary me, and not a bit of Cod's real country. My
wife, whose health is restored, goes off occasionally to her relatives and I sometimes fetch her home, with a day or two of
trout fishing slipped in. Those trips are great, for we splash along in the abandoned rivers of the old pine country in Michigan,
where nature is slowly claiming her own again, and one can breath pure air and see the trees and sky. The other day our family
doctor, a royally good fellow, ran off for an outing in the Big Horn valley, and we talked over his outfit and preparations.
And what fun we had. I could almost live over again the glorious ride I took so long ago with you in the rainy, muddy Yellowstone
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