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THERE was an interval of ten
years during which Mr. Muir devoted himself with great energy and success to
the development of the Alhambra fruit ranch. According to a fictitious
story, still encountered in some quarters, he was penniless at the time of
his marriage. On the contrary, he had several thousand dollars at interest
and, according to a fragment of uncompleted memoirs, was receiving from one
hundred to two hundred and fifty dollars for each of his magazine articles.
"After my first article," he wrote, "I was greatly surprised to find that
everything else I offered was accepted and paid for. That I could earn money
simply with written words seemed very strange."
In the same memoirs Muir
generalizes as follows on the decade between 1881 and 1891:
About a year before starting
on the Arctic expedition I was married to Louie Strentzel, and for ten years
I was engaged in fruit-raising in the Alhambra Valley, near Martinez,
clearing land, planting vineyards and orchards, and selling the fruit, until
I had more money than I thought I would ever need for my family or for all
expenses of travel and study, however far or however long continued. But
this farm work never seriously interrupted my studies. Every spring when the
snow on the mountains had melted, until the approach of winter, my
explorations were pushed farther and farther. Only in the early autumn, when
the table grapes were gathered, and in winter and early spring, when the
vineyards and orchards were pruned and cultivated, was my personal
supervision given to the work. After these ten years I sold part of the farm
and leased the balance, so as to devote the rest of my life, as carefree as
possible, to travel and study. Thus, in 1891, I was again free from the farm
and all bread- winning cares.
In the extant correspondence
of the early eighties one gets only indirect and fugitive hints of Muir's
activities. Worthy of notice is the fact that during July, 1884, he took his
wife to the Yosemite Valley, and their joint letters to the grandparents and
the little daughter, left at home, afford amusing glimpses of a husband who
has never played courier to a wife and of a wife who mistakes trout for
catfish and suspects a bear behind every bush. It should be added that in
Mrs. Muir's letters there is a note of concern for her husband's health,
which had begun to suffer under the exacting cares of the ranch. "I am
anxious about John," she writes. "The journey was hard for him, and he looks
thin and pale and tired. He must not leave the mountains until he is well
and strong again."
The arrival, in 1886, of a
second daughter, believed to have been of frail health during her infant
years, brought an increase of parental cares and anchored the family to the
ranch more closely than ever. Mrs. Muir was naturally disinclined to travel,
and both of them were full of misgivings regarding anything that might
imperil the safety of the children. Under the circumstances Muir became more
and more absorbed in the management of the ranch and care for his own.
Meanwhile time was working
changes in the Wisconsin family circle from which John had gone out in 1867.
Nearly eighteen years had gone by since he had seen his father and mother,
brothers and sisters. His brother-in-law David Galloway died suddenly in
September, 1884, his father and mother were growing infirm, the wife of his
brother David was smitten with an incurable malady, and death was thinning
the ranks of the friends of his youth. In view of these circumstances he
began to feel more and more strongly the desire to revisit the scenes and
friends of his boyhood. "I mean to see you all some time this happy new year
[1885]," he wrote to his brother David at the close of December. "Seeing you
after so long a journey in earth's wildest wildernesses will make [the
experience] indeed new to me. I could not come now without leaving the ranch
to go to wreck, a score of workmen without a head, and no head to be found,
though I have looked long for a foreman. Next spring after the grapes are
pruned and sulphured, etc., and the cherry crop sold, I mean to pay off all
but a half-dozen or so and leave things to take their course for a month or
two. Can't you send me some good steady fellow to learn this fruit business
and take some of the personal supervision off my shoulders? Such a person
could be sure of a job as long as he liked."
It seems worth while to
record, in this connection, an incident of dramatic and pathetic interest
which occurred during the summer of 1885, just before Muir made his first
return trip to his old Wisconsin home. Helen Hunt Jackson had come to San
Francisco in June after months of illness, caused, as she thought, by
defective sanitation in a Los Angeles boarding-house. Having recently been
appointed Special Commissioner to inquire into the conditions surrounding
the Mission Indians of California, she gave herself with devotion and
ability to the righting of their wrongs. Among her particular friends was
Mrs. Carr, at whose suburban Pasadena home, "Carmelita," she had written a
part of her Indian story "Ramona." It was quite natural, therefore, that she
should apply to John Muir for help in planning a convalescent's itinerary in
the mountains. "I know with the certainty of instinct," she wrote, "that
nothing except three months out of doors night and day will get this poison
out of my veins. The doctors say that in six weeks I may be strong enough to
be laid on a bed in a wagon and drawn about."
It is easy to imagine the
surprise and amusement of Muir when he read her statement of the conditions
and equipment required for her comfort. She wished to be among trees where
it was moist and cool, being unable to endure heat. She wanted to keep
moving, but the altitudinal range must not exceed four thousand feet, and,
above all, she must not get beyond easy reach of express and post-offices.
Her outfit was to consist of eight horses, an ambulance, two camp-wagons for
tents, and a phaeton buggy. The attendants were to comprise four servants, a
maid, and a doctor.
"Now do you know any good
itinerary," she inquired, "for such a cumbrous caravan as this? How you
would scorn such lumbering methods! I am too ill to wish any other. I shall
do this as a gamester throws his last card!" In conclusion she stated that
she had always cherished the hope of seeing him some time. "I believe," she
adds, "I know every word you have written. I never wished myself a man but
once. That was when I read how it seemed to be rocked in the top of a pine
tree in a gale!"
Muir's reply to this request,
according to the draft of a letter found among his papers, was as follows:
To Helen Hunt Jackson
MARTINEZ, June 16th, 1885
MY DEAR MRS. JACKSON:
Your letter of June 8th has
shown me how sick you are, but also that your good angel is guiding you to
the mountains, and therefore I feel sure that you will soon be well again.
When I came to California
from the swamps of Florida, full of malarial poison, I crawled up the
mountains over the snow into the blessed woods about Yosemite Valley, and
the exquisite pleasure of convalescence and exuberant rebound to perfect
health that came to me at once seem still as fresh and vivid after all these
years as if enjoyed but yesterday.
The conditions you lay down
for your itinerary seem to me desperately forbidding. No path accessible to
your compound congregation can be traced across the range, maintaining
anything like an elevation of four thousand feet, to say nothing of coolness
and moisture, while along the range the topography is still less compliant
to your plans. When I was tracing the Sequoia belt from the Calaveras to the
Kern River I was compelled to make a descent of nine thousand feet in one
continuous swoop in crossing the Kings River Valley, while the ups and downs
from ridge to ridge throughout the whole course averaged nearly five
thousand feet.
No considerable portion of
the middle and southern Sierra is cool and moist at four thousand feet
during late summer, for there you are only on the open margin of the main
forest zone, which is sifted during the day by the dry warm winds that blow
across the San Joaquin plains and foothills, though the night winds from the
summit of the range make the nights delightfully cool and refreshing.
The northern Sierra is
considerably cooler and moister at the same heights. From the end of the
Oregon Railroad beyond Redding you might work up by a gentle grade of fifty
miles or so to Strawberry Valley where the elevation is four thousand feet.
There is abundance of everything, civilized as well as wild, and from thence
circle away all summer around Mount Shasta where the circumference is about
one hundred miles, and only a small portion of your way would lie much above
or below the required elevation, and only the north side, in Shasta Valley,
would you find rather dry and warm, perhaps, while you would reach an
express station at every round or a good messenger could find you in a day
from the station at any point in your orbit. And think how glorious a center
you would have! - so glorious and inspiring that I would gladly revolve
there, weary, afoot, and alone for all eternity.
The Kings River yosemite
would be a delightful summer den for you, abounding in the best the
mountains have to give. Its elevation is about five thousand feet, length
nine miles, and it is reached by way of Visalia and Hyde's Mills among the
Sequoias of the Kaweah, but not quite accessible to your wheels and pans, I
fear. Have you considered the redwood region of the Coast Range about
Mendocino? There you would find coolness, moist air, and spicy woods at a
moderate elevation.
If an elevation of six
thousand feet were considered admissible, I would advise your going on
direct to Truckee by rail, rather than to Dutch Flat, where the climate may
be found too dry and hot. From Truckee by easy stages to Tahoe City and
thence around the Lake and over the Lake all summer. This, as you must know,
is a delightful region cool and moist and leafy, with abundance of food and
express stations, etc.
What an outfit you are to
have - terrible as an army with banners! I scarce dare think of it. What
will my poor Douglas squirrels say at the sight? They used to frisk across
my feet, but I had only two feet, which seemed too many for the topography
in some places, while you have a hundred, besides wooden spokes and spooks.
Under ordinary circumstances they would probably frighten the maid and stare
the doctor out of countenance, but every tail will be turned in haste and
hidden at the bottom of the deepest knot-holes. And what shuffling and haste
there will be in the chaparral when the bears are getting away! Even the
winds might hold their breath, I fancy, "pause and die," and the great pines
groan aghast at the oncoming of so many shining cans and carriages and
strange colors.
But go to the mountains where
and how you will, you soon will be free from the effects of this confusion,
and God's sky will bend down about you as if made for you alone, and the
pines will spread their healing arms above you and bless you and make you
well again, and so delight the heart of.
JOHN MUIR
"If nothing else comes of my
camping air-castle," she wrote from 1600 Taylor Street, San Francisco, two
days after receiving Muir's answer, "I have at least one pleasure from it -
your kind and delightful letter. I have read it so many times I half know
it. I wish Mrs. Carr were here that I might triumph over her. She wrote me
that I might as well ask one of the angels of heaven as John Muir, 'so
entirely out of his line' was the thing I proposed to do. I knew better,
however, and I was right. You are the only man in California who could tell
me just what I needed to know about ranges of climate, dryness, heat, etc.,
also roads."
But the author of "Ramona"
was never to have an opportunity to play her last card, for she was beyond
even the healing of the mountains if she could have reached them. Indeed,
one detects a presentiment of her doom in the closing lines of her letter to
the man who had fired her imagination with his contagious faith in the
restorative powers of nature. "If you could see me," she writes, "you would
only wonder that I have courage to even dream of such an expedition. I am
not at all sure it is not of the madness which the gods are said to send on
those whom they wish to destroy. They tell me Martinez is only twenty miles
away: do you never come into town? The regret I should weakly feel at having
you see the 'remains' (ghastly but inimitable word) of me would, I think, be
small in comparison with the pleasure I should feel in seeing you. I am much
too weak to see strangers - but it is long since you were a stranger."
Whether the state of his own health had permitted him to call on "H. H.," as
she was known among her friends, before he started East, in August, to see
his parents, is not clear. Certain it is that by a singular coincidence he
was ringing her door-bell almost at the moment when the brave spirit of this
noble friend of the Indians was taking flight. "Mrs. Jackson may have gone
away somewhere," he remarked in writing to his wife the next day: "could get
no response to my ringing - blinds down."
The immediate occasion of his
decision to go East is best told in some further pages from unpublished
memoirs under the title of "Mysterious Things." Though Muir's boyhood was
passed in communities where spooks, and ghosts, and clairvoyance were firmly
believed in, he was as a man singularly free from faith in superstitions of
this kind. But there were several occasions when he acted upon sudden and
mysterious impulses for which he knew no explanation, and which he contents
himself simply to record. One of these relates to the final illness and
death of his father and is told as follows:
In the year 1885, when father
was living with his youngest daughter in Kansas City, another daughter, who
was there on a visit, wrote me that father was not feeling as well as usual
on account of not being able to take sufficient exercise. Eight or ten years
before this, when he was about seventy years of age, he fell on an icy
pavement and broke his leg at the hip joint, a difficult break to heal at
any time, but in old age particularly so. The bone never knitted, and he had
to go on crutches the balance of his life.
One morning, a month or two
after receiving this word from my sister, I suddenly laid down my pen and
said to my wife: "I am going East, because somehow I feel this morning that
if I don't go now I won't see father again." At this time I had not seen him
for eighteen years. Accordingly I went on East, but, instead of going direct
to Kansas City, I first went to Portage, where one of my brothers and my
mother were living.
As soon as I arrived in
Portage, I asked mother whether she thought she was able to take the journey
to Kansas City to see father, for I felt pretty sure that if she didn't go
now she wouldn't see him again alive. I said the same to my brother David.
"Come on, David: if you don't go to see father now, I think you will never
see him again." He seemed greatly surprised and said: "What has put that in
your head? Although he is compelled to go around on crutches, he is, so far
as I have heard, in ordinary health." I told him that I had no definite
news, but somehow felt that we should all make haste to cheer and comfort
him and bid him a last good-bye. For this purpose I had come to gather our
scattered family together. Mother, whose health had long been very frail,
said she felt it would be impossible for her to stand the journey. David
spoke of his business, but I bought him a railway ticket and compelled him
to go.
On the way out to Kansas City
I stopped at Lincoln, Nebraska, where my other brother, Daniel, a practicing
physician, was living. I said, "Dan, come on to Kansas City and see father."
"Why?" he asked. "Because if you don't see him now, you never will see him
again. I think father will leave us in a few days." "What makes you think
so?" said he; "I have not heard anything in particular." I said, "Well, I
just kind of feel it. I have no reason." "I cannot very well leave my
patients, and I don't see any necessity for the journey." I said, "Surely
you can turn over your patients to some brother physician. You will not
probably have to be away more than four or five days, or a week, until after
the funeral." He said, "You seem to talk as though you knew everything about
it." I said, "I don't know anything about it, but I have that feeling - that
presentiment, if you like - nothing more." I then bought him a ticket and
said, "Now let's go: we have no time to lose." Then I sent the same word to
two sisters living in Kearney and Crete, Nebraska, who arrived about as soon
as we did.
Thus seven of the eight in
our family assembled around father for the first time in more than twenty
years. Father showed no sign of any particular illness, but simply was
confined to his bed and spent his time reading the Bible. We had three or
four precious days with him before the last farewell. He died just after we
had had time to renew our acquaintance with him and make him a cheering,
comforting visit. And after the last sad rites were over, we all scattered
again to our widely separated homes.
The reader who recalls, from
the opening chapters of this work, the paternal severity which embittered
for John Muir the memory of the youthful years he spent on the farm, will be
interested in a few additional details of this meeting of father and son
after eighteen years. In spite of the causes which had estranged them so
long ago, John had never withheld his admiration for the nobler traits of
his father's character, and he apparently cherished the hope that some day
he might be able to sit down quietly with him and talk it all out. It seemed
futile to do this so long as the old man was actively engaged in
evangelistic work, which shut out from cairn consideration anything that
seemed to him to have been or to be an embarrassment of his calling. Now
that he was laid low, John deemed that the proper time had arrived, but for
this purpose he had come too late.
"Father is very feeble and
helpless," he wrote to his wife from the aged man's bedside. "He does not
know me, and I am very sorry. He looks at me and takes my hand and says, 'Is
this my dear John?' and then sinks away on the pillow, exhausted, without
being able to understand the answer. This morning when I went to see him and
was talking broad Scotch to him, hoping to stir some of the old memories of
Scotland before we came here, he said, 'I don't know much aboot it noo,' and
then added, 'You're a Scotchman, aren't you?' When I would repeat that I was
his son John that went to California long ago and came back to see him, he
would start and raise his head a little and gaze fixedly at me and say, 'Oh,
yes, my dear wanderer,' and then lose all memory again. . . . I'm sorry I
could not have been here two or three months earlier, though I suppose all
may be as well, as it is."
A few months earlier, when
Daniel Muir was still in full possession of his faculties, he had
particularly mentioned to his daughter Joanna some of the cruel things he
had said and done to his "poor wandering son John." This wanderer, crossing
the mountains and the plains in response to a mysterious summons, had
gathered the scattered members of the former Fountain Lake home to his dying
father's bedside, and, as the following letter shows, was keeping solitary
vigil there, when the hour of dissolution came.
To Mrs. Muir
803 WABASH AVENUE
KANSAS CITY, MISSOURI
October 6th, 1885
DEAR LOUIE
You will know ere this that
the end has come and father is at rest. He passed away in a full summer day
evening peace, and with that peace beautifully expressed, and remaining on
his countenance as he lies now, pure and clean like snow, on the bed that
has borne him so long.
Last evening David and I made
everybody go to bed and arranged with each other to keep watch through the
night, promising the girls to give warning in time should the end draw near
while they slept. David retired in an adjoining room at ten o'clock, while I
watched alone, he to be called to take my place at two or three in the
morning, should no marked change take place before that time.
About eleven o'clock his
breathing became calm and slow, and his arms, which had been moved in a
restless way at times, at length were folded on his breast. About twelve
o'clock his breathing was still calmer, and slower, and his brow and lips
were slightly cold and his eyes grew dim. At twelve-fifteen I called David
and we decided to call up the girls, Mary, Anna, and Joanna, but they were
so worn out with watching that we delayed a few minutes longer, and it was
not until about one minute before the last breath that all were gathered
together to kiss our weary affectionate father a last good-bye, as he passed
away into the better land of light.
Few lives that I know were
more restless and eventful than his - few more toilsome and full of
enthusiastic endeavor onward towards light and truth and eternal love
through the midst of the devils of terrestrial strife and darkness and
faithless misunderstanding that well-nigh overpowered him at times and made
bitter burdens for us all to bear.
But his last years as he lay
broken in body and silent were full of calm divine light, and he oftentimes
spoke to Joanna of the cruel mistakes he had made in his relations towards
his children, and spoke particularly of me, wondering how I had borne my
burdens so well and patiently, and warned Joanna to be watchful to govern
her children by love alone. .
Seven of the eight children
will surely be present [at the funeral]. We have also sent telegrams to
mother and Sarah, though I fear neither will be able to endure the fatigues
of the journey. . .. In case they should try to be present, David or I would
meet them at Chicago. Then the entire family would be gathered once more,
and how gladly we would bring that about! for in all our devious ways and
wanderings we have loved one another.
In any case, we soon will be
scattered again, and again gathered together. In a few days the snow will be
falling on father's grave and one by one we will join him in his last rest,
all our separating wanderings done forever.
Love to all, Wanda, Grandma,
and Grandpa. Ever yours, Louie
JOHN MUIR
To Mrs. Muir
PORTAGE CITY, WISCONSIN
September 10th, 1885
DEAR LOUIE:
I have just returned from a
visit to the old people and old places about our first home in America, ten
or twelve miles to the north of this place, and am glad to hear from you at
last. Your two letters dated August 23d and 28th and the Doctor's of
September 1st have just been received, one of them having been forwarded
from the Yellowstone, making altogether four letters from home besides
Wanda's neat little notes which read and look equally well whichever side is
uppermost. Now I feel better, for I had begun to despair of hearing from you
at all, and the weeks since leaving home, having been crowded with novel
scenes and events, seemed about as long as years.
As for the old freedom I used
to enjoy in the wilderness, that, like youth and its enthusiasms, is
evidently a thing of the past, though I feel that I could still do some good
scientific work if the necessary leisure could be secured. Your letters and
the Doctor's cheer and reassure me, as I felt that I was staying away too
long and leaving my burdens for others to carry who had enough of their own,
and though you encourage me to prolong my stay and reap all the benefit I
can in the way of health and pleasure and knowledge, I cannot shut my eyes
to the fact that the main vintage will soon be on and require my presence,
to say nothing of your uncertain state of health. Therefore I mean to begin
the return journey next Saturday morning by way of Chicago and Kansas
City....
Still another of your letters
has just arrived, dated August 31st, by which I learn that Wanda is quite
well and grandma getting stronger, while you are not well as you should be.
I have tried to get you conscious of the necessity of the utmost care of
your health - especially at present - and again remind you of it.
The Yellowstone period was,
as you say, far too short, and it required bitter resolution to leave all.
The trip, however, as a whole has been far from fruitless in any direction.
I have gained telling glimpses of the Continent from the car windows, and
have seen most of the old friends and neighbors of boyhood times, who
without exception were almost oppressively kind, while a two weeks' visit
with mother and the family is a great satisfaction to us all, however much
we might wish it extended.
I saw nearly all of the old
neighbors, the young folk, of course, grown out of memory and
unrecognizable; but most of the old I found but little changed by the
eighteen years since last I saw them, and the warmth of my welcome was in
most instances excruciating. William Duncan, the old Scotch stone-mason who
loaned me books when I was little and always declared that "Johnnie Moor
will mak a name for himsel some day," I found hale and hearty, eighty-one
years of age, and not a gray hair in his curly, bushy locks - erect, firm of
step, voice firm with ,.a clear calm ring to it, memory as good as ever
apparently, and his interest in all the current news of the world as fresh
and as far-reaching. I stopped overnight with [him] and talked till
midnight.
We were four days in making
the round and had to make desperate efforts to get away. We climbed the
Observatory that used to be the great cloud-capped mountain of our child's
imagination, but it dwindled now to a mere hill two hundred and fifty feet
high, half the height of that vineyard hill opposite the house. The porphyry
outcrop on the summit is very hard, and I was greatly interested in finding
it grooved and polished by the ice-sheet. I began to get an appetite and
feel quite well. Tell Wanda I'll write her a letter soon. Everybody out in
the country seemed disappointed, not seeing you also. Love to all.
Ever yours
JOHN MUIR
Early in 1887 a letter from
Janet Moores, one of the children who had visited Muir in his dark-room in
Indianapolis many years ago, brought him news that she had arrived in
Oakland. She was the daughter of his friend Mrs. Julia Merrill Moores, and a
sister of Merrill Moores, who spent a season with John in Yosemite and in
1915 was elected a member of Congress from Indiana.
To Miss Janet Douglass Moores
MARTINEZ, CALIFORNIA
February 23, 1887
MY DEAR FRIEND JANET:
Have you really turned into a
woman, and have you really come to California, the land of the sun, and
Yosemite and a' that, through the whirl of all these years! Seas between us
braid hae roared, my lassie, sin' the auld lang syne, and many a storm has
roared over broad mountains and plains since last we parted. Yet, however,
we are but little changed in all that signifies, saved from many dangers
that we know, and from many more that we never shall know kept alive and
well by a thousand, thousand miracles!
Twenty years! How long and
how short a time that seems to-day! How many times the seas have ebbed and
flowed with their white breaking waves around the edges of the continents
and islands in this score of years, how many times the sky has been light
and dark, and the ground between us been shining with rain, and sun, and
snow: and how many times the flowers have bloomed, but for a' that and a'
that you seem just the same to me, and time and space and events hide you
less than the thinnest veil. Marvelous indeed is the permanence of the
impressions of those sunrise days, more enduring than granite mountains.
Through all the landscapes I have looked into, with all their wealth of
forests, rivers, lakes, and glaciers, and happy living faces, your face,
Janet, is still seen as clear and keenly outlined as on the day I went away
on my long walk.
Aye, the auld lang syne is
indeed young. Time seems of no avail to make us old except in mere outer
aspects. To-day you appear the same little fairy girl, following me in my
walks with short steps as best you can, stopping now and then to gather
buttercups, and anemones, and erigenias, sometimes taking my hand in
climbing over a fallen tree, threading your way through tall grasses and
ferns, and pushing through very small spaces in thickets of underbrush.
Surely you must remember those holiday walks, and also your coming into my
dark-room with light when I was blind! And what light has filled me since
that time, I am sure you will be glad to know -the richest sun-gold flooding
these California valleys, the spiritual alpenglow steeping the high peaks,
silver light on the sea, the white glancing sun- spangles on rivers and
lakes, light on the myriad stars of the snow, light sifting through the
angles of sun-beaten icebergs, light in glacier caves, irised spray wafting
from white waterfalls, and the light of calm starry nights beheld from
mountain-tops dipping deep into the clear air. Aye, my lassie, it is a
blessed thing to go free in the light of this beautiful world, to see God
playing upon everything, as a man would play on an instrument, His fingers
upon the lightning and torrent, on every wave of sea and sky, and every
living thing, making all together sing and shine in sweet accord, the one
love-harmony of the Universe. But what need to write so far and wide, now
you are so near, and when I shall so soon see you face to face?
I only meant to tell you that
you were not forgotten. You think I may not know you at first sight, nor
will you be likely to recognize me. Every experience is recorded on our
faces in characters of some sort, I suppose, and if at all telling, my face
should be quite picturesque and marked enough to be readily known by anybody
looking for me: but when I look in the glass, I see but little more than the
marks of rough weather and fasting. Most people would see only a lot of
hair, and two eyes, or one and a half, in the middle of it, like a hillside
with small open spots, mostly overgrown with shaggy chaparral, as this
portrait will show [drawing]. Wanda, peeping past my elbow, asks, "Is that
you, Papa?" and then goes on to say that it is just like me, only the hair
is not curly enough; also that the little ice and island sketches are just
lovely, and that I must draw a lot just like them for her. I think that you
will surely like her. She remarked the other day that she was well worth
seeing now, having got a new gown or something that pleased her. She is six
years old.
The ranch and the pasture
hills hereabouts are not very interesting at this time of year. In
bloom-time, now approaching, the orchards look gay and Dolly Vardenish, and
the home- garden does the best it can with rose bushes and so on, all good
in a food and shelter way, but about as far from the forests and gardens of
God's wilderness as bran-dolls are from children. I should like to show you
my wild lily and Cassiope and Bryanthus gardens, and homes not made with
hands, with their daisy carpets and woods and streams and other fine
furniture, and singers, not in cages; but legs and ankles are immensely
important on such visits. Unfortunately most girls are like flowers that
have to stand and take what comes, or at best ride on iron rails around and
away from what is worth seeing; then they are still something like flowers -
flowers in pots carried by express.
I advised you not to come
last Friday because the weather was broken, and the telephone was broken,
and the roads were muddy, but the weather will soon shine again, and then
you and Mary can come, with more comfort and safety. Remember me to Mary,
and believe me,
Ever truly your friend
JOHN MUIR
Muir's literary
unproductiveness during the eighties began to excite comment among his
friends if one may judge by several surviving letters in which they inquire
whether he has forsaken literature. His wife, also, was eager to have him
continue to write, and it was, perhaps, due to this gentle pressure from
several quarters that he accepted in 1887 a proposal from the J. Dewing
Company to edit and contribute to an elaborately illustrated work entitled
"Picturesque California." As usual with such works, it was issued in parts,
sold by subscription, and while it bears the publication date of 1888, it
was not finished until a year or two later.
As some of the following
letters show, Muir found it a hard grind to supply a steady stream of copy
to the publishers and to supervise his corps of workmen on the ranch at the
same time. "I am all nerve-shaken and lean as a crow -loaded with care,
work, and worry," he wrote to his brother David after a serious illness of
his daughter Helen in August, 1887. "The care and worry will soon wear away,
I hope, but the work seems rather to increase. There certainly is more than
enough of it to keep me out of mischief forever. Besides the ranch I have
undertaken a big literary job, an illustrated work on California and Alaska.
I have already written and sent in the two first numbers and the
illustrations, I think, are nearly ready."
The prosecution of this task
involved various trips, and on some of them he was accompanied by his friend
William Keith, the artist. Perhaps the longest was the one on which they
started together early in July, 1888, traveling north as far as Vancouver
and making many halts and side excursions, both going and coming. Muir was
by no means a well man when he left home, but in a train letter to his wife
he expressed confidence that he would "be well at Shasta beneath a pine
tree." The excursion'-' took him to Mount Hood, Mount Rainier, Snoqualmie
and Spokane Falls, and Victoria, up the Columbia, and to many places of
minor interest in the Puget Sound region. In spite of his persistent
indisposition he made the ascent of Mount Rainier. "Did not mean to climb
it," he wrote to his wife, "but got excited and soon was on top."
It did not escape the keen
eyes of his devoted wife that the work of the ranch was in no small measure
responsible for the failure of his health. "A ranch that needs and takes the
sacrifice of a noble life," she wrote to her husband on this trip, "ought to
be flung away beyond all reach and power for harm.... The Alaska book and
the Yosemite book, dear John, must be written, and you need to be your own
self, well and strong, to make them worthy of you. There is nothing that has
a right to be considered beside this except the welfare of our children."
Muir's health, however,
improved during the following winter and summer, notwithstanding the fact
that the completion of "Picturesque California" kept him under tension all
the time. By taking refuge from the tasks of the ranch at a hotel in San
Francisco, during periods of intensive application, he learned to escape at
least the strain of conflicting responsibilities. But even so he had to
admit at times that he was "hard at work on the vineyards and orchards while
the publishers of 'Picturesque California' are screaming for copy." In
letters written to his wife, during periods of seclusion in San Francisco,
Muir was accustomed to quote choice passages for comment and approval. The
fact is of interest because it reveals that he had in her a stimulating and
appreciative helper.
To Mrs. Muir
GRAND HOTEL, SAN FRANCISCO,
CAL.
July 4th, 1889
DEAR LOUIE:
I'm pegging away and have
invented a few good lines since coming here, but it is a hard subject and
goes slow. However, I'll get it done somehow and sometime. It was cold here
last evening and I had to put on everything in my satchel at once.
Last evening an
innocent-looking "Examiner" reporter sent up his card, and I, really
innocent, told the boy to let him come up. He began to speak of the Muir
Glacier, but quickly changed the subject to horned toads, snakes, and Gila
monsters. I asked him what made him change the subject so badly and what
there was about the Muir Glacier to suggest such reprobate reptiles. He said
snakes were his specialty and wanted to know if I had seen many, etc. I
talked carelessly for a few minutes, and judge of my surprise in seeing this
villainous article. "John Muir says they kill hogs and eat rabbits, but
don't eat hogs because too big, etc." What poetry! It's so perfectly
ridiculous, I have at least had a good laugh out of it. "The toughness of
the skin makes a difference," etc. - should think it would!
The air has been sulphurous
all day and noisy as a battle-field. Heard some band music, but kept my room
and saw not the procession.
Hope your finger is not going
to be seriously sore and that the babies are well. I feel nervous about them
after reading about those geological snakes of John Muir....
My room is better than the
last, and I might at length feel at home with my Puget Sound scenery had I
not seen and had nerves shaken with those Qua monsters. I hope I'll survive,
though the "Examiner" makes me say, "If the poison gets into them it takes
no time at all to kill them" (the hogs), and my skin is not as thick.
Remember me to Grandma, Grandpa, and the babies, and tell them not the sad
story of the snakes of Fresno.
Ever yours
JOHN MUIR
To Mrs. Muir
GRAND HOTEL, SAN FRANCISCO,
CAL.
July 5th, 1889
DEAR LOUIE:
Here are more snakes that I
found in the "Call" this morning! The curly, crooked things have fairly
gained the papers and bid fair to crawl through them all, leaving a track
never, I fear, to be obliterated. The "Chronicle's" turn will come next, I
fancy, and others will follow. I suppose I ought to write a good
post-glacial snake history for the "Bulletin," for just see how much better
this lady's snakes are than mine in the "Examiner!" "The biggest snake that
ever waved a warning rattle" -almost poetry compared with "John Muir says
they don't eat sheep." "Wriggling and rattling aborigines!" I'm ashamed of
my ramshackle "Examiner" prose. The Indians "tree the game" and "hang up his
snakeship" "beautifully cured" in "sweet fields arrayed in living green,"
"and very beautiful they are," etc., etc., etc. Oh, dear, how scrawny and
lean and mean my snake composition seems! Worse in its brutal simplicity
than Johnnie's composition about "A Owl." Well, it must be borne.
I'm pegging away. Saw Upham
to-day. Dr. Vincent is at the Palace. Haven't called on him; too busy. Love
to all. Don't tell anybody about my poor snakes. Kiss the babies.
J. M.
To Mrs. Muir
GRAND HOTEL, July 6, 1889
Oh, dear Louie, here are more
of "them snakes" - "whirled and whizzed like a wheel," "big as my thigh, and
head like my fist," all of them, you see, better and bigger than John
Muir's.
And when, oh, when, is that
fatal interview to end? How many more idiotic articles are to grow out of
it? "Muir's Strange Story," "Elephants' bones are sticking in the Yukon
River, says geologist John Muir"! "Bering Straits may be bridged because
Bering Sea is shallow!" Oh! Oh! if the "Examiner" would only examine its
logic!!! Anyhow, I shall take fine cautious care that the critter will not
examine me again.
Oh, dear Louie, here's more,
and were these letters not accompanied by the documentary evidence, you
might almost think that these reptiles were bred and born in alcohol! "The
Parson and the Snakes!" Think of that for Sunday reading! What is to become
of this nation and the "Examiner"?
It's Johnson, too. Who would
have thought it? And think of Longfellow's daughter being signed to such an
article!
Well, I'm pegging away, but
very slowly. Have got to the thirtieth page. Enough in four days for five
minutes' reading. And yet I work hard, but the confounded subject has got so
many arms and branches, and I am so cruelly severe on myself as to quality
and honesty of work, that I can't go fast. I just get tired in the head and
lose all power of criticism until I rest awhile.
It's very noisy here, but I
don't notice it. I sleep well, and eat well, and my queer throat feeling has
nearly vanished. The weather is very cool. Have to put my overcoat on the
bed to reinforce the moderate cover. . . . Goodnight. Love to babies and
all.
J. M.
To Mrs. Muir
GRAND HOTEL, SAN FRANCISCO,
CAL.
July 11, 1889
DEAR LOUIE:
I was very glad to get your
letter to-day, for somehow I was getting anxious about you all as if,
instead of a week, I had been gone a year and had nothing but lonesome
silence all the time.
You must see, surely, that I
am getting literary, for I have just finished writing for the day and it is
half-past twelve. Last evening I went to bed at this time and got up at six
and have written twenty pages to-day, and feel proud that now I begin to see
the end of this article that has so long been a black, growling cloud in my
sky. Some of the twenty pages were pretty good, too, I think. I'll copy a
little bit for you to judge. Of course, you say, "go to bed." Well, never
mind a little writing more or less, for I'm literary now, and the fountains
flow. Speaking of climate here, I say:
The Sound region has a fine,
fresh, clean climate, well washed, both winter and summer with copious
rains, and swept with winds and clouds from the mountains and the sea. Every
hidden nook in the depths of the woods is searched and refreshed, leaving no
stagnant air. Beaver-meadows, lake-basins, and low, willowy bogs are kept
wholesome and sweet, etc.
Again:
The outer sea margin is
sublimely drenched and dashed with ocean brine, the spicy scud sweeping far
inland in times of storm over the bending woods, the giant trees waving and
chanting in hearty accord, as if surely enjoying it all.
Here's another bit: [Quotes
what is now the concluding paragraph of Chapter XVII in "Steep Trails,"
beginning "The most charming days here are days of perfect calm," etc.].
Well, I may be dull
to-morrow, and then too, I have to pay a visit to that charming,
entertaining, interesting [dentist] "critter" of files and picks, called
Cutlar. So much, I suppose, for cold wind in my jaw. Good-night.
Love to all,
J. M.
To Mrs. Muir
GRAND HOTEL, SAN FRANCISCO
July 12, 1889
DEAR LOUIE:
Twelve and a half o'clock
again, so that this letter should be dated the 13th. Was at the dentist's an
hour and a half. .. . Still, have done pretty well, seventeen pages now,
eighty- six altogether. Dewing is telegraphing like mad from New York for
Muir's manuscript. He will get it ere long. Most of the day's work was
prosy, except the last page just now written. Here it is. Speaking of masts
sent from Puget Sound, I write:
Thus these trees, stripped of
their leaves and branches, are raised again, transplanted and set firmly
erect, given roots of iron, bare cross-poles for limbs, and a new foliage of
flapping canvas, and then sent to sea, where they go merrily bowing and
waving, meeting the same winds that rocked them when they stood at home in
the woods. After standing in one place all their lives, they now, like
sightseeing tourists, go round the world, meeting many a relative from the
old home forest, some, like themselves, arrayed in broad canvas foliage,
others planted close to shore, head downward in the mud, holding wharf
platforms aloft to receive the wares of all nations.
Imaginative enough, but I
don't know what I'll think of it in the sober morning. I see by the papers
that [John] Swett is out of school, for which I am at once glad, sorry, and
indignant, if not more.
Love to all. Good-night.
J. M.
To Mrs. Muir
GRAND HOTEL, SAN FRANCISCO
July 14, 1889
DEAR LOUIE:
It is late, but I will write
very fast a part of to-day's composition. Here is a bit you will like:
The upper Snoqualmie Fall is
about seventy-five feet high, with bouncing rapids at head and foot, set in
a romantic dell thatched with dripping mosses and ferns and embowered in
dense evergreens and blooming bushes. The road to it leads through majestic
woods with ferns ten feet long beneath the trees, and across a gravelly
plain disforested by fire many years ago, where orange lilies abound and
bright shiny mats of kinnikinick sprinkled with scarlet berries. From a
place called "Hunt's," at the end of the wagon road, a trail leads through
fresh dripping woods never dry - Merten, Menzies, and Douglas spruces and
maple and Thuja. The ground is covered with the best moss-work of the moist
cool woods of the north, made up chiefly of the various species of hypnum,
with Marchantia jungermannia, etc., in broad sheets and bosses where never a
dust particle floated, and where all the flowers, fresh with mist and spray,
are wetter than water-lilies.
In the pool at the foot of
the fall there is good trout-fishing, and when I was there I saw some bright
beauties taken. Never did angler stand in a spot more romantic, but strange
it seemed that anyone could give attention to hooking in a place so
surpassingly lovely to look at -the enthusiastic rush and song of the fall;
the venerable trees overhead leaning forward over the brink like listeners
eager to catch every word of their white refreshing waters; the delicate
maidenhairs and aspleniums, with fronds outspread, gathering the rainbow
spray, and the myriads of hooded mosses, every cup fresh and shining.
Here's another kind -
starting for Mount Rainier:
The guide was well mounted,
Keith had bones to ride, and so had small queer Joe, the camp boy, and I.
The rest of the party traveled afoot. The distance to the mountain from Yelm
in a straight line is about fifty miles. But by the Mule-and-Yellow Jacket
trail, that we had to follow, it is one hundred miles. For, notwithstanding
a part of the trail runs in the air where the wasps work hardest, it is far
from being an air-line as commonly understood.
At the Soda Springs near
Rainier:
Springs here and there bubble
up from the margin of a level marsh, both hot and cold, and likely to tell
in some way on all kinds of ailments. At least so we were assured by our
kind buxom hostess, who advised us to drink without ceasing from all in turn
because "every one of 'em had medicine in it and [was] therefore sure to do
good!" All our party were sick, perhaps from indulging too freely in "canned
goods" of uncertain age. But whatever the poison might have been, these
waters failed to wash it away though we applied them freely and faithfully
internally and externally, and almost eternally as one of the party said.
Next morning all who had come
through the ordeal of yellow-jackets, ancient meats, and medicinal waters
with sufficient strength, resumed the journey to Paradise Valley and Camp of
the Clouds, and, strange to say, only two of the party were left behind in
bed too sick to walk or ride. Fortunately at this distressing crisis, by the
free application of remedies ordinary and extraordinary, such as brandy,
paregoric, pain-killer, and Doctor somebody-or-other's Golden Vegetable
Wonder, they were both wonderfully relieved and joined us at the Cloud Camp
next day, etc., etc., etc.
The dentist is still hovering
like an angel or something over me. The writing will be finished to-morrow
if all goes well. But punctuation and revision will take some time, and as
there is now enough to fill two numbers, I suppose it will have to be cut
down a little. Guess I'll get home Thursday, but will try for Wednesday.
hoping all are well, I go to slumber.
With loving wishes for all
[JOHN MUIR]
To James Davie Butler
MARTINEZ, September 1, 1889
My DEAR OLD FRIEND PROFESSOR
BUTLER:
You are not forgotten, but I
am stupidly busy, too much so to be able to make good use of odd hours in
writing. All the year I have from fifteen to forty men to look after on the
ranch, besides the selling of the fruit, and the editing of "Picturesque
California," and the writing of half of the work or more. This fall I have
to contribute some articles to the "Century Magazine," so you will easily
see that I am laden.
It is delightful to see you.
in your letters with your family and books and glorious surroundings. Every
region of the world that has been recently glaciated is pure and wholesome
and abounds in fine scenery, and such a region is your northern lake
country. How gladly I would cross the mountains to join you all for a summer
if I could get away! But much of my old freedom is now lost, though I run
away right or wrong at times. Last summer I spent a few months in Washington
Territory studying the grand forests of Puget Sound. I then climbed to the
summit of Mount Rainier, about fifteen thousand feet high, over many miles
of wildly shattered and crevassed glaciers. Some twenty glaciers flow down
the flanks of this grand icy cone, most of them reaching the forests ere
they melt and give place to roaring turbid torrents. This summer I made yet
another visit to my old Yosemite home, and out over the mountains at the
head of the Tuolumne River. I was accompanied by one of the editors of the
"Century," and had a delightful time. When we were passing the head of the
Vernal Falls I told our thin, subtle, spiritual story to the editor.
In a year or two I hope to
find a capable foreman to look after this ranch work, with its hundreds of
tons of grapes, pears, cherries, etc., and find time for book-writing and
old-time wanderings in the wilderness. I hope also to see you ere we part at
the end of the day.
You want my manner of life.
Well, in short, I get up about six o'clock and attend to the farm work, go
to bed about nine and read until midnight. When I have a literary task I
leave home, shut myself up in a room in a San Francisco hotel, go out only
for meals, and peg away awkwardly and laboriously until the wee sma' hours
or thereabouts, working long and hard and accomplishing little. During meals
at home my little girls make me tell stories, many of them very long,
continued from day to day for a month or two....
Will you be likely to come
again to our side of the continent? How I should enjoy your visit! To think
of little Henry an alderman! I am glad that you are all well and all
together. Greek and ozone holds you in health.
With love to Mrs. Butler and
Henry, James, the girls, and thee, old friend, I am ever Your friend
JOHN MUIR
The event of greatest
ultimate significance in the year 1889 was the meeting of Muir with Robert
Underwood Johnson, the "Century" editor mentioned in the preceding letter.
Muir had been a contributor to the magazine ever since 1878, when it still
bore the name of "Scribner's Monthly," and therefore he was one of the men
with whom Mr. Johnson made contact upon his arrival in San Francisco. Muir
knew personally many of the early California pioneers and so was in a
position to give valuable advice in organizing for the "Century" a series of
articles under the general title of "Gold-Hunters." This accomplished, it
was arranged that Muir was to take Mr. Johnson into the Yosemite Valley and
the High Sierra. Beside a camp-fire in the Tuolumne Meadows, Mr. Johnson
suggested to Muir that he initiate a project for the establishment of the
Yosemite National Park. [For a very readable account of this eventful
incident see Robert Underwood Johnson's Remembered Yesterdays (1923).] In
order to further the movement it was agreed that he contribute a series of
articles to the "Century," setting forth the beauties of the region. Armed
with these articles and the public sentiment created by them, Johnson
proposed to go before the House Committee on Public Lands to urge the
establishment of a national park along the boundaries to be outlined by
Muir.
Our country has cause for
endless congratulation that the plan was carried out with ability and
success. In August and September, 1890, appeared Muir's articles "The
Treasures of Yosemite" and "Features of the Proposed Yosemite National
Park," both of which aroused strong public support for the project. A bill
introduced in Congress by General William Vandever embodied the limits of
the park as proposed by Mr. Muir, and on October 1, 1890, the Yosemite
National Park became an accomplished fact. The following letters relate to
the beginning and consummation of this far-sighted beneficial project.
To Mrs. Muir
YOSEMITE VALLEY, CAL.
June 3, 1889
DEAR LOUlE:
We arrived here about one
o'clock after a fine glorious ride through the forests; not much dust, not
very hot. The entire trip very delightful and restful and exhilarating.
Johnson was charming all the way. I looked out as we passed Martinez about
eleven o'clock, and it seemed strange I should ever go past that renowned
town. I thought of you all as sleeping and safe. Whatever more of travel I
am to do must be done soon, as it grows ever harder to leave my nest and
young.
The foothills and all the
woods of the Valley are flowery far beyond what I could have looked for, and
the sugar pines seemed nobler than ever. Indeed, all seems so new I fancy I
could take up the study of these mountain glories with fresh enthusiasm as
if I were getting into a sort of second youth, or dotage, or something of
that sort. Governor W- was in our party, big, burly, and somewhat childishly
jolly; also some other jolly fellows and fellowesses.
Saw Hill and his fine studio.
He has one large Yosemite - very fine, but did not like it so well as the
one you saw. He has another Yosemite about the size of the Glacier that I
fancy you would all like. It is sold for five hundred dollars, but he would
paint another if you wished.
Everybody is good to us.
Frank Pixley is here and Ben Truman that wrote about Tropical California. I
find old Galen Clark also. He looks well, and is earning a living by
carrying passengers about the Valley. Leidig's and Black's old hotels are
torn down, so that only Bernards' and the new Stoneman House are left. This
last is quite grand; still it has a silly look amid surroundings so massive
and sublime. McAuley and the immortal twins still flounder and flourish in
the ethereal sky of Glacier Point.
I mean to hire Indians, horses, or something and make a trip to the Lake
Tenaya region or Big [Tuolumne] Meadows and Tuolumne Cañon. But how much we
will be able to accomplish will depend upon the snow, the legs, and the
resolution of the Century. Give my love to everybody at the two houses and
kiss and keep the precious babies for me as for thee.
Will probably be home in
about a week.
Ever thine J. M.
To Robert Underwood Johnson
MARTINEZ, March 4, 1890
DEAR Mr. JOHNSON:
The love of Nature among
Californians is desperately moderate; consuming enthusiasm almost wholly
unknown. Long ago I gave up the floor of Yosemite as a garden, and looked
only to the rough taluses and inaccessible or hidden benches and recesses of
the walls. All the flowers are wall-flowers now, not only in Yosemite, but
to a great extent throughout the length and breadth of the Sierra. Still,
the Sierra flora is not yet beyond redemption, and much may be done by the
movement you are making.
As to the management, it
should, I think, be taken wholly out of the Governor's hands. The office
changes too often and must always be more or less mixed with politics in its
bearing upon appointments for the Valley. A commission consisting of the
President of the University, the President of the State Board of
Agriculture, and the President of the Mechanics Institute would, I think, be
a vast improvement on the present commission. Perhaps one of the
commissioners should be an army officer. Such changes would not be likely,
as far as I can see, to provoke any formidable opposition on the part of
Californians in general. Taking back the Valley on the part of the
Government would probably be a troublesome job. . . . Everybody to whom I
have spoken on the subject sees the necessity of a change, however, in the
management, and would favor such a commission as I have suggested. For my
part, I should rather see the Valley in the hands of the Federal Government.
But how glorious a storm of growls and howls would rend our sunny skies,
bursting forth from every paper in the state, at the outrage of the
"Century" Editor snatching with unholy hands, etc., the diadem from
California's brow! Then where, oh, where would be the "supineness" of which
you speak? These Californians now sleeping in apathy, caring only for what
"pays," would then blaze up as did the Devil when touched by Ithuriel's
spear. A man may not appreciate his wife, but let her daddie try to take her
back!
As to the extension of the
grant, the more we can get into it the better. It should at least comprehend
all the basins of the streams that pour into the Valley. No great opposition
would be encountered in gaining this much, as few interests of an
antagonistic character are involved. On the Upper Merced waters there are no
mines or settlements of any sort, though some few land claims have been
established. These could be easily extinguished by purchase. All the basins
draining into Yosemite are really a part of the Valley, as their streams are
a part of the Merced. Cut off from its branches, Yosemite is only a stump.
However gnarly and picturesque, no tree that is beheaded looks well. But
like ants creeping in the furrows of the bark, few of all the visitors to
the Valley see more than the stump, and but little of that. To preserve the
Valley and leave all its related rocks, waters, forests to fire and sheep
and lumbermen is like keeping the grand hail of entrance of a palace for
royalty, while all the other apartments from cellar to dome are given up to
the common or uncommon use of industry - butcher-shops, vegetable-stalls,
liquor-saloons, lumber-yards, etc.
But even the one main hail
has a hog-pen in the middle of the floor, and the whole concern seems
hopeless as far as destruction and desecration can go. Some of that stink,
I'm afraid, has got into the pores of the rocks even. Perhaps it was the
oncoming shadow of this desecration that caused the great flood and earth-
quake - "Nature sighing through all her works giving sign of woe that all
was lost." Still something may be done after all. I have indicated the
boundary line on the map in dotted line as proposed above. A yet greater
extension I have marked on the same map, extending north and south between
Lat. 38° and 37° 30' and from the axis of the range westward about
thirty-six or forty miles. This would include three groves of Big Trees, the
Tuolumne Cañon, Tuolumne Meadows, and Hetch Hetchy Valley. So large an
extension would, of course, meet more opposition. Its boundary lines would
not be nearly so natural, while to the westward many claims would be
encountered; a few also about Mounts Dana and Warren, where mines have been
opened.
Come on out here and take
another look at the Cañon. The earthquake taluses are all smooth now and the
chaparral is buried, while the river still tosses its crystal arches aloft
and the ouzel sings. We would be sure to see some fine avalanches. Come on.
I'll go if you will, leaving ranch, reservations, Congress bills, "Century"
articles, and all other terrestrial cares and particles. In the meantime I
am
Cordially yours
JOHN MUIR
To Robert Underwood Johnson
MARTINEZ, April 19th, 1890
MY DEAR MR. JOHNSON:
I hope you have not been put
to trouble by the delay of that manuscript. I have been interrupted a
thousand times, while writing, by coughs, grippe, business, etc. I suppose
you will have to divide the article. I shall write a sketch of the Tuolumne
Cañon and Kings River yosemite, also the charming yosemite of the Middle
Fork of Kings River, all of which may, I think, be got into one article of
ten thousand words or twenty. If you want more than is contained in the
manuscript sent you on the peaks and glaciers to the east of Yosemite, let
me know and I will try to give what is wanted with the Tuolunme Cañon.
The Yosemite "Century" leaven
is working finely, even thus far, throughout California. I enclose a few
clippings. The "Bulletin" printed the whole of Mack's "Times" letter on our
honest Governor. [Charles Howard] Shinn says that the "Overland" is going
out into the battle henceforth in full armor. The "Evening Post" editorial,
which I received last night and have just read, is a good one and I will try
to have it reprinted.
Mr. Ohnsted's paper was, I
thought, a little soft in some places, but all the more telling, I suppose,
in some directions. Kate, like fate, has been going for the Governor, and I
fancy he must be dead or at least paralyzed ere this.
How fares the Bill Vandever?
I hope you gained all the basin. If you have, then a thousand trees and
flowers will rise up and call you blessed, besides the other mountain people
and the usual "unborn generations," etc.
In the meantime for what you
have already done I send you a reasonable number of Yosemite thanks, and
remain
Very truly your friend
JOHN MUIR
To Mr. and Mrs. John Bidwell
MARTINEZ, CALIFORNIA
April 19th, 1890
DEAR MRS. BIDWELL AND
GENERAL:
I've been thinking of you
every day since dear Parry [Charles C. Parry, 1823-90. Explored and
collected on the Mexican boundary, in the Rocky Mountains, and in
California. The other botanists mentioned are John Torrey, 1796-1873; Asa
Gray, 1810-88; and Albert Kellogg, who died in 1887.] died. It seems as if
all the good flower people, at once great and good, have died now that Parry
has gone - Torrey, Gray, Kellogg, and Parry. Plenty more botanists left, but
none we have like these. Men more amiable apart from their intellectual
power I never knew, so perfectly clean and pure they were - pure as lilies,
yet tough and unyielding in mental fibre as live-oaks. Oh, dear, it makes me
feel lonesome, though many lovely souls remain. Never shall I forget the
charming evenings I spent with Torrey in Yosemite, and with Gray, after the
day's rambles were over and they told stories of their lives, Torrey fondly
telling all about Gray, Gray about Torrey, all in one summer; and then, too,
they told me about Parry for the first time. And then how fine and how
fruitful that trip to Shasta with you! Happy days, not to come again! Then
more than a week with Parry around Lake Tahoe in a boat; had him all to
myself - precious memories. It seems easy to die when such souls go before.
And blessed it is to feel that they have indeed gone before to meet us in
turn when our own day is done.
The Scotch have a proverb,
"The evenin' brings a' hame." And so, however separated, far or near, the
evening of life brings all together at the last. Lovely souls embalmed in a
thousand flowers, embalmed in the hearts of their friends, never for a
moment does death seem to have had anything to do with them. They seem near,
and are near, and as if in bodily sight I wave my hand to them in loving
recognition.
Ever yours
JOHN MUIR
To Robert Underwood Johnson
MARTINEZ, May 8th, 1890
MY DEAR MR. JOHNSON:
....As I have urged over and
over again, the Yosemite Reservation ought to include all the Yosemite
fountains. They all lie in a compact mass of mountains that are glorious
scenery, easily accessible from the grand Yosemite center, and are not
valuable for any other use than the use of beauty. No other interests would
suffer by this extension of the boundary. Only the summit peaks along the
axis of the range are possibly gold-bearing, and not a single valuable mine
has yet been discovered in them. Most of the basin is a mass of solid
granite that will never be available for agriculture, while its forests
ought to be preserved. The Big Tuolumne Meadows should also be included,
since it forms the central camping- ground for the High Sierra adjacent to
the Valley. The Tuolumne Cañon is so closely related to the Yosemite region
it should also be included, but whether it is or not will not matter much,
since it lies in rugged rocky security, as one of Nature's own reservations.
As to the lower boundary, it
should, I think, be extended so far as to include the Big Tree groves below
the Valley, thus bringing under Government protection a section of the
forest containing specimens of all the principal trees of the Sierra, and
which, if left unprotected, will vanish like snow in summer. Some private
claims will have to be bought, but the cost will not be great.
Yours truly
JOHN MUIR
While traveling about with
Keith in the Northwest during July, 1888, gathering materials for
"Picturesque California," Muir was one day watching at Victoria the
departure of steamers for northern ports. Instantly he heard the call of the
"red gods" of Alaska and began to long for the old adventurous days in the
northern wildernesses. "Though it is now ten years since my last visit
here," he wrote to his wife in the evening, "Alaska comes back into near
view, and if a steamer were to start now it would be hard indeed to keep
myself from going aboard. I must spend one year more there at the least. The
work I am now doing seems much less interesting and important. . . . Only by
going alone in silence, without baggage, can one truly get into the heart of
the wilderness. All other travel is mere dust and hotels and baggage and
chatter."
The longed-for opportunity
came two years Later. During the winter of 1890 he had suffered an attack of
the grippe which brought on a severe bronchial cough. He tried to wear it
out at his desk, but it grew steadily worse. He then, as he used to relate
with a twinkle in his eye, decided upon the novel experiment of trying to
wear it out by going to Alaska and exploring the upper tributaries of the
Muir Glacier. In the following letter we get a glimpse of him after two
weeks of active exploration around Glacier Bay.
To Mrs. Muir
GLACIER BAY
CAMP NEAR EASTERN END OF ICE WALL
July 7th, [1890]
DEAR LOUlE:
The steamer Queen is in sight
pushing up Muir Inlet through a grand crowd of bergs on which a clear sun is
shining. I hope to get a letter from you to hear how you and the little ones
and older ones are.
I have had a good instructive
and exciting time since last I wrote you by the Elder a week ago. The
weather has been fine and I have climbed two mountains that gave grand
general views of the immense mountain fountains of the glacier and also of
the noble St. Elias Range along the coast mountains, La Pérouse, Crillon,
Lituya, and Fairweather. Have got some telling facts on the forest question
that has so puzzled me these many years, etc., etc. Have also been making
preliminary observations on the motion of the glacier. Loomis and I get on
well, and the Reid [Professor Harry Fielding Reid.] and Cushing party camped
beside us are fine company and energetic workers. They are making a map of
the Muir Glacier and Inlet, and intend to make careful and elaborate
measurements of its rate of motion, size, etc. They are well supplied with
instruments and will no doubt do good work.
I have yet to make a trip
round Glacier Bay, to the edge of the forest and over the glacier as far as
I can. Probably Reid and Cushing and their companions will go with me. If
this weather holds, I shall not encounter serious trouble. Anyhow, I shall
do the best I can. I mean to sew the bear skin into a bag, also a blanket
and a canvas sheet for the outside. Then, like one of Wanda's caterpillars,
I can lie warm on the ice when night overtakes me, or storms rather, for
here there is now no night. My cough has gone and my appetite has come, and
I feel much better than when I left home. Love to each and all.
If I have time before the
steamer leaves I will write to my dear Wanda and Helen. The crowd of
visitors are gazing at the grand blue crystal wall, tinged with sunshine.
Ever thine
J. M.
The crowning experience of
this Alaska trip was the sled-trip which he made across the upper reaches of
the Muir Glacier between the 11th and the 21st of July. Setting out from his
little cabin on the terminal moraine, Muir pushed back on the east side of
the glacier toward Howling Valley, fifteen miles to the northward, examined
and sketched some of the lesser tributaries, then turned to the westward and
crossed the glacier near the confluence of the main tributaries, and thence
made his way down the west side to the front. No one was willing to share
this adventure with him so he faced it, as usual, alone.
Chapter XVIII of "Travels in
Alaska" gives, in journal form, an account of Muir's experiences and
observations on this trip. To this may be added his description of two
incidents as related in fragments of unpublished memoirs:
In the course of this trip I
encountered few adventures worth mention apart from the common dangers
encountered in crossing crevasses. Large timber wolves were common around
howling Valley, feeding apparently on the wild goats of the adjacent
mountains.
One evening before sundown I
camped on the glacier about a mile above the head of the valley, and,
sitting on my sled enjoying the wild scenery, I scanned the grassy mountain
on the west side above the timber-line through my field glasses, expecting
to see a good many wild goats in pastures so fine and wild. I discovered
only two or three at the foot of a precipitous bluff, and as they appeared
perfectly motionless, and were not lying down, I thought they must be held
there by attacking wolves. Next morning, looking again, I found the goats
still standing there in front of the cliff, and while eating my breakfast,
preparatory to continuing my journey, I heard the dismal long-drawn- out
howl of a wolf, soon answered by another and another at greater distances
and at short intervals coming nearer and nearer, indicating that they had
discovered me and were coming down the mountain to observe me more closely,
or perhaps to attack me, for I was told by my Indians while exploring in
1879 and 1880 that these wolves attack either in summer or winter, whether
particularly hungry or not and that no Indian hunter ever ventured far into
the woods alone, declaring that wolves were much more dangerous than bears.
The nearest wolf had evidently got down to the margin of the glacier, and
although I had not yet been able to catch sight of any of them, I made haste
to a large square boulder on the ice and sheltered myself from attack from
behind, in the same manner as the hunted goats. I had no firearms, but
thought I could make a good fight with my Alpine ice axe. This, however, was
only a threatened attack, and I went on my journey, though keeping a careful
watch to see whether I was followed.
At noon, reaching the
confluence of the eastmost of the great tributaries and observing that the
ice to the westward was closely crevassed, I concluded to spend the rest of
the day in ascending what is now called Snow Dome, a mountain about three
thousand feet high, to scan the whole width of the glacier and choose the
route that promised the fewest difficulties. The day was clear and I took
the bearings of what seemed to be the best route and recorded them in my
notebook so that in case I should be stopped by a blinding snowstorm, or
impassable labyrinth of crevasses, I might be able to retrace my way by
compass.
In descending the mountain to
my sled camp on the ice I tried to shorten the way by sliding down a smooth
steep fluting groove nicely lined with snow; but in looking carefully I
discovered a bluish spot a few hundred feet below the head, which I feared
indicated ice beneath the immediate surface of the snow; but inasmuch as
there were no heavy boulders at the foot of the slope, but only a talus of
small pieces an inch or two in diameter, derived from disintegrating
metamorphic slates, lying at as steep an angle as they could rest, I felt
confident that even if I should lose control of myself and be shot swiftly
into them, there would be no risk of broken bones. I decided to encounter
the adventure. Down I glided in a smooth comfortable swish until I struck
the blue spot. There I suddenly lost control of myself and went rolling and
bouncing like a boulder until stopped by plashing into the loose gravelly
delta.
As soon as I found my legs
and senses I was startled by a wild, piercing, exulting, demoniac yell, as
if a pursuing assassin long on my trail were screaming: "I've got you at
last." I first imagined that the wretch might be an Indian, but could not
believe that Indians, who are afraid of glaciers, could be tempted to
venture so far into the icy solitude. The mystery was quickly solved when a
raven descended like a thunderbolt from the sky and alighted on a jag of a
rock within twenty or thirty feet of me. While soaring invisible in the sky,
I presume that he had been watching me all day, and at the same time keeping
an outlook for wild goats, which were sometimes driven over the cliffs by
the wolves. Anyhow, no sooner had I fallen, though not a wing had been seen
in all the clear mountain sky, than I had been seen by these black hunters
who now were eagerly looking me over and seemed sure of a meal. The
explanation was complete, and as they eyed me with a hungry longing stare I
simply called to them: "Not yet!" |
