Title:
Letter from John Muir to [J. B.] Mc Chesney, 1872 Dec 20.
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:
1872 Dec 20
2008
Type:
Text
Format:
Image/jpeg2000
Identifier:
muir02_1026-md-1
Source:
Original letter dimensions: 33 x 21.5 cm.
Language:
eng
Coverage:
Yosemite Valley
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The unpublished works of John Muir are copyrighted by the Muir-Hanna Trust.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 To J. B. McChesney Yosemite Valley, Dec. 20th, 1872. My dear McChesney:
Among all the souls which shine upon my eye up from that dim and distant Oakland none is of purer ray than your own, and living
or dying, in this land or in that, I shall never cease to thank God for friends like you. My excursion down into that befogged
jungle of human plants in which you manage to live and love forms a far more notable chapter in my personal history than any
of you can comprehend, and now that I am warm again, safe nestled in mountain ether, I seem to have returned to life from
a strange and half-remembered death. Here many a thought comes crowding to my page, but I must hush them back, for they would
overcrowd a thousand letters. So drawing a long sigh I must content myself with saying'Thank you. for all your kindness, and
leave you to eat the good brown bread of your little hills,and whatsoever of God you can find there)until your angel shall
again guide you to the clean fountains of the Sierras. Remember me to all your family and to Kelsey and any of my friends
you chance to see. Miss Brigham, Sill, and all the rest. Kiss your Alioe some extra times for me. She is the sweetest flake
of childhood I found in all your town, and she comes back to me in form and voice and in touch too, with most living vividness.
Farewell. I am, Ever your friend, John Muir