Chapter 2

Adieu.J. Muir.

Address:Hopeton, Merced Co., Cala.

Address:

Hopeton, Merced Co., Cala.

At a sheep ranch between theTuolumne and Stanislaus rivers,November 1st, [1868.]

At a sheep ranch between the

Tuolumne and Stanislaus rivers,

November 1st, [1868.]

I was extremely glad to receive yet one more of your ever welcome letters. It found me two weeks ago. I rode over to Hopeton to seek for letters. I had to pass through a bed ofCompositætwo or three miles in diameter. They were in the glow of full prime, forming a lake of the purestCompositægold I ever beheld. Some single plants had upwards of three thousand heads. Their petal-surface exceeded their leaf-surface thirty or forty times. Because of the constancy of the winds all these flowers faced in one direction (southeast), and I thought, as I gazed upon myriads of joyous plant beings clothed in rosy golden light, What wouldold Linnæusor Mrs. Carr say to this?

I was sorry to think of the loss of your letters, but it is just what might be expected from the wretched mail arrangements of the South.

I am not surprised to hear of your leaving Madison and am anxious to know where your lot will be cast. If you go to South America soon, I shall hope to meet you, and if you should decide to seek the shores of the Pacific in California before the end of the year, I shall find you and be glad to make another visit to the Yosemite with your Doctor and Priest, according to the old plan. I know the way up the rocks to the falls, and I know too the abode of many a precious mountain fern. I gathered plenty for you, but you must see them at home. Not an angel could tell a tithe of these glories.

If you make your home in California, I know from experience how keenly you will feel the absence of thespecialflowers you love. No others can fill their places; Heaven itself would not answer withoutCalypsoandLinnæa.

I think that you will find in California just what you desire in climate and scenery, for both are so varied. March is the springtime of the plains, April the summer, and May the autumn. The other months are dry and wet winter, uniting with each other, and with the other seasons by splices and overlappings of very simple and very intricate kinds. I rode across the seasons in going to the Yosemite last spring. I started from the Joaquin in the last week of May. All the plain flowers, so lately fresh in the power of full beauty, were dead. Their parched leaves crisped and fell to powder beneath my feet, as though they had been “cast into the oven.” And they had not, like the plants of our West, weeks and months to grow old in, but they died ere they could fade, standing together holding out their branches erect and green as life. But they did not die too soon; they lived a whole life and stored away abundance of future life-principle in the seed.

After riding for two days in this autumn I found summer again in the higher foothills. Flower petals were spread confidingly open, the grasses waved their branches all bright and gay in the colors of healthy prime, and the winds and streams were cool. Forty or fifty miles further into the mountains, I came to spring. The leaves on the oak were small and drooping, and they still retained their first tintings of crimson and purple, and the wrinkles of their bud folds were distinct as if newly opened, and all along the rims of cool brooks and mild sloping places thousands of gentle mountain flowers were tasting life for the first time.

A few miles farther “onward and upward” I found the edge of winter. Scarce a grass could be seen. The last of the lilies and spring violets were left below; the winter scales were still shut upon the buds of the dwarf oaks and alders; the grand Nevada pines waved solemnly to cold, loud winds among rushing, changing stormclouds. Soon my horse was plunging in snow ten feet in depth, the sky became darker and more terrible, many-voiced mountain winds swept the pines, speaking the dread language of the cold north, snow began to fall, and in less than a week from the burning plains of the San Joaquin autumn was lost in the blinding snows of mountain winter.

Descending these higher mountains towards the Yosemite, the snow gradually disappeared from the pines and the sky, tender leaves unfolded less and less doubtfully, lilies and violets appeared again, and I once more found spring in the grand valley. Thus meet and blend the seasons of these mountains and plains, beautiful in their joinings as those of lake and land or of the bands of the rainbow. The room is full of talking men; I cannot write, and I only attempt to scrawl this note to thank you for all the good news and good thoughts and friendly wishes and remembrances you send.

My kindest wishes to the Doctor. I am sure you will be directed by Providence to the place where you will best serve the end of existence. My love to all your family.

Ever yours most cordially,J. M.

Near Snellings, Merced Co., [Cal.]February 24th, 1869.

Your two California notes from San Francisco and San Mateo reached me last evening, and I rejoice at the glad tidings they bring of your arrival in this magnificent land. I have thought of you hundreds of times in my seasons of deepest joy, amid the flower purple and gold of the plains, the fern fields in gorge and cañon, the sacred waters, tree columns, and the eternal unnameable sublimities of the mountains. Of all my friends you are the only one that understands my motives and enjoyments. Only a few weeks ago a true and liberal-minded friend sent me a large sheetful of terrible blue-steel orthodoxy, calling me from clouds and flowers to the practical walks of politics and philanthropy. Mrs. Carr, thought I, never lectured thus. I am glad, indeed, that you are here to read for yourself these glorious lessons of sky and plain and mountain, which no mortal power can ever speak. I thought when in the Yosemite Valley last spring that the Lord had written things there that you would be allowed to read some time.

I have not made a single friend in California, and you may be sure I strode home last evening from the post office feeling rich indeed. As soon as I hear of your finding a home, I shall begin a plan of visiting you. I have frequently seen favorable reports upon the silk-culture in California. The climate of Los Angeles is said to be as well tempered for the peculiar requirements of the business as any in the world. I think that you have brought your boys to the right field for planting. I doubt if in all the world man’s comforts and necessities can be more easily and abundantly supplied than in California. I have often wished the Doctor near me in my rambles among the rocks. Pure science is a most unmarketable commodity in California. Conspicuous, energetic, unmixed materialism rules supreme in all classes. Prof. Whitney, as you are aware, was accused of heresy while conducting the State survey, because in his reports he devoted some space to fossils and other equally dead and un-Californian objects instead of columns of discovered and measured mines.

I am engaged at present in the very important and patriarchal business of sheep. I am a gentle shepherd. The gray box in which I reside is distant about seven miles northwest from Hopeton, two miles north of Snellings. The Merced pours past me on the south from the Yosemite; smooth, domey hills and the tree fringe of the Tuolumne bound me on the north; the lordly Sierras join sky and plain on the east; and the far coast mountains on the west. My mutton family of eighteen hundred range over about ten square miles, and I have abundant opportunities for reading and botanizing. I shall be here for about two weeks, then I shall be engaged in shearing sheep between the Tuolumne and Stanislaus from the San Joaquin to the Sierra foothills for about two months. I will be in California until next November, when I mean to start for South America.

I received your Castleton letter and wrote you in November. I suppose you left Vermont before my letter had time to reach you. You must prepare for your Yosemite baptism in June.

Here is a sweet little flower that I have just found among the rocks of the brook that waters Twenty-Hill Hollow. Its anthers are curiously united in pairs and form stars upon its breast. The calyx seems to have been judged too plain and green to accompany the splendid corolla, and so is left behind among the leaves. I first met this plant among the Sierra Nevadas. There are five or six species. For beauty and simplicity they might be allowed to dwell within sight of Calypso. There are about twenty plants in flower in the gardens of my daily walks. The first was born in January. I give them more attention than I give the dirty mongrel creatures of my flock, that are about half made by God and half by man. I have not yet discovered the poetical part of a shepherd’s duties.

Spring will soon arrive to the plants of Madison, and surely they will miss you. In Yosemite you will find cassiopes and laurels and azaleas, and luxuriant mosses and ferns, but I know that even these can never take the place of the long-loved ones of your Vermont hills.

Forgive me this long writing. I know that you are in a fever of joy from the beauty pouring upon you; nevertheless you seem so near I can hardly stop.

My most cordial regards to the Doctor. Californians do not deserve such as he.

A lawyer by the name of Wigonton or Wigleton, a graduate of Madison, resides in Snellings. I suppose you know him.

I am your friend,John Muir.

920 Valencia St.,San Francisco, April 24th, 1869.

920 Valencia St.,

San Francisco, April 24th, 1869.

I enclose at last the name of the big orange book. Either Paqot & Co. or Grégoire & Co. will import it for Mr. Carr at the price he named,—for less if intended for the library.

I thought you would have been to make at least one of your small businesslike calls to see me ere this, but I suppose the office and conventions and your farm leave you precious little time. Your days all go by in little beats and bits, while you move so fast you are nearly invisible.

Had a moment’s talk with the Doctor. Am glad he is looking so much like himself again. The summer is coming. Don’t know how it will be spent.

Did you hear the Butlers the other day? Glassy leaves tilted at all angles.

Cordially yours,John Muir.

Seven miles north from Snellings,May 16th, 1869.

Seven miles north from Snellings,

May 16th, 1869.

The thoughts of again meeting with you and with the mountains make me scarce able to hold my pen. If you can let me know by the first of June when you will leave Stockton, I will meet you in the very valley itself. When the grass of the plains is dead, most owners of sheep drive their flocks to the pastures green of the mountains, and as my soul is athirst for mountain things, I have engaged to take charge of a flock all summer between the head waters of the Tuolumne and Yosemite, within a few hours’ walk of the valley. For the next two weeks I will be at Hopeton. Some time in the first week of June, I will start from this place (Patrick Delaney’s ranch) for the mountains. By the middle of June or a little later we will have our flock settled in the new home, and, having made special arrangements for a two weeks’ ramble with you, I will then be ready and free. Any time, say between the 20th of June and the 15th of July, will suit me. I intended to enjoy another baptism in the sanctuaries of Yosemite, whether with companions of like passions or alone. Surely, then, my cup will be full when blessed with such company.

Last May I made the trip on horseback, going by Coulterville and returning by Mariposa. A passable carriage-road reached about twelve miles beyond Coulterville; the rest of the distance to the valley was crossed only by a narrow trail. On the Mariposa route a point is reached twelve or fourteen miles beyond Mariposa by carriages; the rest of the journey, about forty miles, must be made on horseback. Tourists are generally advised to go one way and return the other, that as much as possible may be seen, but I think that more is seen by going and returning by the same route, because all of the magnitudes of the mountains are so great that unless seen and submitted to a good long time they are not seen or felt at all.

I think that you had better take the Mariposa route, for the grandest grove of sequoias ever discovered is upon it, and it is much the best route in many respects. You can reach Mariposa direct from Stockton by stage. At Mariposa you can procure saddle-horses and all necessary supplies,—provisions, cooking utensils, etc. Provisions can also be obtained at “Clark’s” and in the valley. Clark’s Hotel is midway between the valley and Mariposa. It would be far more pleasant to camp out—to alight like birds in beautiful groves of your own choosing—than to travel by rule and make forced marches to fixed points of common resort and common confusion.

You will require a light tent made of cotton sheeting, also a strong dress and strong pair of shoes for rock service. You will, of course, bring a good supply of paper for plants. I suppose, too, that you will all bring a supply of drawing-material, but I hardly think that drawing will be done. People admitted to heaven would most likely “wonder and adore” for at least two weeks before sketching its scenery, and I don’t think that you will sketch Yosemite any sooner.

Here is, I think, a fair estimate of the cost of the round trip from Stockton, allowing, say, ten days from time of departure from Mariposa till arrival at same point. Stage fare and way expenses to and from Mariposa, say $40.00; saddle horse, $20.00; provisions, cooking utensils, etc., $15.00; total, direct expense for one person, $75.00. Each additional day spent in the valley would cost about $3.00. If you and all the members of your company are good riders, and there are among you one or two men practical travelers, and you could purchase, or hire, horses at a reasonable rate in San José or Gilroy, you could cross the Coast Range via the Pacheco Pass or Livermore Valley, thence direct to the Yosemite across the Joaquin and up the Merced, passing through Hopeton and Snellings. This kind of a trip would be less costly, and you would enjoy it, but unless your company was all composed of the same kind of material it would not answer.

I hope the Doctor will come too. I want to see him and ask him a great many questions.

There is a kind of hotel in the valley, but it is incomparably better to choose your own camp among the rocks and waterfalls. The time of highest water in the valley varies very much in different seasons. Last year it was highest about the end of June. I think, perhaps, the falls would be seen to as good advantage towards the end of June as at another time, and at any rate there will be a thousand times more of grandeur than any person can absorb.

Here, then, in a word is the plan which I propose: That you take the stage at Stockton for Mariposa. At Mariposa you procure saddle-horses and one pack-animal for your tent, blankets, provisions, etc., (a guide will be furnished by the keeper of the livery-stable to take charge of the horses,) and that I meet you in the valley, which I can do without difficulty provided you send me word by the first of June what day you will set out from Stockton. Address to Hopeton.

When you arrive in the valley, please register your name at Mr. Hutchings’ hotel. I will do the same. If you should wish to reach me by letter after I have started with the sheep to the mountains, you may perhaps do so by addressing to Coulterville.

When you write, state whether you will visit the big trees on your way to the valley or whether you will do so on your return.

I bid you good-bye, thanking the Lord for the hope of seeing you and for his goodness to you in turning your face towards his most holy mansion of the mountains.

Hopeton, May 20th, 1869.

I forgot to state in my last concerning the Yosemite that I did not receive yours until many days after its arrival, as I was shearing sheep a considerable distance from here in the foothills, and the postmaster, knowing where I was, could not forward it; but I will remain here until the 1st of June, or possibly a few days later, and will receive any letters arriving for me at once either in Snelling or Hopeton.

The grove of sequoias is only six miles from the Yosemite trail, about midway between Mariposa and the valley. The trail leading through the groves leaves the Yosemite trail at Mr. Clark’s, where you can obtain all necessary directions, etc. It is not many years since this grove was discovered. The sequoias so often described and so well known throughout the world belong to the Calaveras grove. The Mariposa grove has a much larger number of trees than the Calaveras, and it is in all the majesty and grandeur of nature undisturbed.

You will likely make the journey from Mariposa to the valley in two days. No member of your company need be afraid of this mountain ride, as you will be provided with sure-footed horses accustomed to the journey and an experienced guide.

Most persons visiting the sequoia grove spend only a few hours in it and depart without seeing a single tree, for the chiefest glories of these mountain kings are wholly invisible to hasty or careless observers. I hope you may be able to spend a good long time in worship amid the glorious columns of this mountain temple. I fancy they are aware of your coming and are waiting. I fondly hope that nothing will occur to prevent your coming. I will endeavor to reach the valley a day or so before you. The night air of the mountains is very cold. You will require plenty of warm blankets.

I am sorry that the Doctor has been so suddenly smothered up in business. If he and the priest were in the company according to theprophecyour joy would be full.

I am in a perfect tingle with the memories of a year ago and with anticipation glowing bright with all that I love.

Farewell.John Muir.

I received your letter containing “The Song of Nature” by Emerson and derived a great deal of pleasure from it.

J. M.

Five miles west of Yosemite,July 11, [1869.]

Five miles west of Yosemite,

July 11, [1869.]

I need not try to tell you how sorely I am pained by this bitter disappointment. Your Mariposa note of June 22 did not reach Black’s until July 3d, and I did not receive it until the 6th.

I met a shepherd a few miles from here yesterday who told me that a letter from Yosemite for me was at Harding’s Mills. I have not yet received it. No dependence can be placed upon the motions of letters in the mountains, and I feared this result on my not receiving anything definite concerning your time of leaving Stockton before I left the plains. I wish now that I had not been entangled with sheep at all but that I had remained among post-offices and joined your party at Snellings.

Thus far all of my deepest, purest enjoyments have been taken in solitude, and the fate seems hard that has hindered me from sharing Yosemite with you.

We are camped this evening among a bundle of the Merced’s crystal arteries, which have just gone far enough from their silent fountain to be full of lakelets and lilies [?], and the bleating of our flock can neither confuse nor hush the thousand notes of their celestial song. The sun has set, and these glorious shafts of the spruce and pine shoot higher and higher as the darkness comes on. I must say good night while bonds of Nature’s sweetest influences are about me in these sacred mountain halls, and I know that every chord of your being has throbbed and tingled with the same mysterious powers when you were here. Farewell. I am glad to know that you have been allowed to bathe your existence in God’s glorious Sierra Nevadas and sorry that I could not meet you.

John Muir.

A few miles north of Yosemite,July 13th, [1869.]

A few miles north of Yosemite,

July 13th, [1869.]

We are camped this afternoon upon the bank of the stream that falls into the valley opposite Hutchings’ hotel (Yosemite Falls). We are perhaps three miles from the valley.

This Yosemite stream is flowing rapidly here in a small flowery meadow, not meandering like a meadow stream but going straight on with ripples and rapids. It derives its waters from a basin corresponding in every respect with its own sublimity and loneliness.

July 17th. We are now camped in a splendid grove of spruce only one mile from the Yosemite wall. The stream that goes spraying past us in the rocks reaches the valley by that cañon between the Yosemite Falls and the North Dome. I left my companions in charge of the sheep for the last three days and have had a most heavenly piece of life among the domes and falls and rocks of the north side and upper end of the valley.

Yesterday I found the stream that flows through Crystal Lake past the South Dome and followed it three miles among cascades and rapids to the dome. Were you at the top or bottom of the upper Yosemite Falls? Were you at the top of the Nevada Falls? Were you in that Adiantum cave by the Vernal Falls? Have you had any view of the valley excepting from the Mariposa Trail? How long were you in Sequoia Grove?

We will, perhaps, be here about two weeks; then we will go to the “big meadows” twelve miles towards the summit, where we will remain until we start for the plains some time near the end of September. The kind of meeting you have had with Yosemite answers well enough for most people, but it will not do for you. When will you return to the mountains?

I had a letter from Professor Butler a short time ago, saying that he would probably visit California this month in company with a man of war.

Remember me to the Doctor and to Allie and Ned. Please send me a letter by the middle of September to Snellings. I have no hope of hearing from you after we start for the Big Meadows.

Two miles below La Grange,October 3rd, 1869.

Two miles below La Grange,

October 3rd, 1869.

My summer in the third heaven of the Sierras is past. I am again in the smooth open world of plains. I received three of your eight notes, which for mountain correspondence is about as might be expected. I learned by a San Francisco newspaper that Dr. Carr had accepted a professorship in the University, and Prof. Butler told me about a month ago that he had gone to Madison to fetch his cabinet, etc. Therefore I know that you are making a fixed home and that you will yet see the mountains and the Joaquin plains. We were camped within a mile or two of the Yosemite north wall for three weeks. I used to go to the North Dome or Yosemite Falls most every day to sketch and listen to the waters. One day I went down into the valley by the cañon opposite Hutchings and found Prof. Butler near the bridge between the Vernal and Nevada falls. He was in company with Gen. Alvord. He was in the valley only a few hours, his time being controlled by the General’s military clock, and I am pretty sure that he saw just about nothing.

I am glad that the world does not miss me and that all of my days with the Lord and his works are uncounted and unmeasured. I found the guide who was with you. He said that you wished me to gather some cones for you. I hope to see you soon in San Francisco and will fetch you specimens of those which grow higher than you have been. I am sorry that you were so short a time in the valley, but you will go again and remain a month or two. I would like to spend a winter there to see the storms. We spent most of the summer on the south fork of the Tuolumne near Castle and Cathedral peaks, and oh, how unspeakable the glories of these higher mountains. You have not yet caught a glimpse of the Sierra Nevadas. You must go to Mono by the Bloody Cañon pass. I will not try to write the grandeur I have seen all summer but I will copy you the notes of one day from my journal.

“Sept. 2nd. Amount of cloudiness .08. Sky red evening and morning, not usual crimson glow but separate clouds colored and anchored in dense massive mountain forms. One red, bluffy cap is placed upon Castle Peak and its companion to the south, but the smooth cone tower of the castle is seen peering out over the top. Tiger Peak has a cloud cap also of the grandest proportion and colors, and the extensive field of clustered towers and peaks and domes where is stored the treasures of snow belonging to the Merced and Tuolumne and Joaquin is embosomed in bossy clouds of white. The grand Sierra Cathedral is overshadowed like Sinai. Never before beheld such divine mingling of cloud and mountain. Had a delightful walk upon the north wall. Ascended by a deep narrow passage cut in the granite. Its borders are splendidly decorated with ferns and blooming shrubs. The most delicate of plantlets in the gush and ardor of full bloom in places called desolate and gloomy, where the dwarfed and crumpled pines are felled with hail and rocks and wintry snows; but as frail flowers of human kind are protected by the hand of God, blooming joyfully through a long beautiful life in places and times that are strewn with the wrecks of the powerful and the great, so in these far mountains, where are the treasures of snow and storms, live in safety and innocence these sweet, tender children of the plants. Had looked long and well for Cassiope, but in all my long excursions failed to find its dwelling-places and began to fear that we would never meet, but had presentiment of finding it today, and as I passed a rock-shelf after reaching the great gathered heaps of everlasting snow, something seemed to whisper ‘Cassiope, Cassiope.’ That name was ‘driven in upon me,’ as Calvinists say, and, looking around, behold the long-looked-for mountain child!”

Farewell! I do not care to write much because you seem so near. I hope that you will all be very happy in your new home and not feel too sorely the separation from the loved places and people of Wisconsin.

Remember me to the Doctor and to all of your boys.

I am most cordially,

Your friend,John Muir.

La Grange, November 15, 1869.

Dear friends Mrs. and Dr. Carr:—

I thank you most heartily for the very kind invitation you send me. I could enjoy a blink of rest in your new home with a relish that only those can know who have suffered solitary banishment for so many years, but I must return to the mountains, to Yosemite. I am told that the winter storms there will not be easily borne, but I am bewitched, enchanted, and to-morrow I must start for the great temple to listen to the winter songs and sermons preached and sung only there.

The plains here are green already and the upper mountains have the pearly whiteness of their first snows.

Farewell. I will bring you some cones in the spring. I hope that you enjoy your labor in your new sphere.

My love to all your family, and I am

Yours most cordially,John Muir.

Yosemite, December 6th, 1869.

I am feasting in the Lord’s mountain house, and what pen may write my blessings? I am going to dwell here all winter magnificently “Snowbound”? Just think of the grandeur of the mountain winter in the Yosemite! Would that you could enjoy it also!

I read your word in pencil upon the bridge below the Nevada, and I thank you for it most devoutly. No one or all the Lord’s blessings can enable me to exist without a friend indeed.

There is no snow in the valley. The ground is covered with the brown and yellow leaves of the oak and maple, and their crisping and rustling makes one think of the groves of Madison. I have been wandering about among the falls and rapids, studying the grand instruments of slopes and curves and echoing caves upon which those divine harmonies are played. Only a thin flossy veil sways and bends over Yosemite now, and Pohono is a web of waving mist. New songs are sung, forming parts of the one grand anthem composed and written “in the beginning.”

Most of the flowers are dead. Only a few are blooming in summer nooks on the north side rocks. You remember that delightful fernery by the ladders. Well, I discovered a garden meeting of adiantum far more delicate and luxuriant than those of the ladders. They are in a cover or coverlet between the upper and lower Yosemite Falls. They are the most delicate and graceful plant creatures I ever beheld, waving themselves in lines of the most refined of heaven’s beauty to the music of the water. The motion of purple dulses in pools left by the tide on the sea-coast of Scotland was the only memory that was stirred by these spiritual ferns. You speak of dying and going to the woods; I am dead and gone to heaven.

An Indian comes to the valley once a month upon snowshoes. He brings the mail, and so I shall hope to hear from you. Address to Yosemite, via Big Oak Flat, care of Mr. Hutchings.

Yosemite, April 5, 1870.

I wish you were here to-day, for our rocks are again decked with deep snow. Two days ago a big gray cloud collared Barometer Dome. The vast booming column of the upper falls was swayed like a shred of loose mist by broken pieces of storm that struck it suddenly, occasionally bending it backwards to the very top of the cliff, making it hang sometimes more than a minute like an inverted bow edged with comets. A cloud upon the dome and these ever varying rockings and bendings of the falls are sure storm signs, but yesterday morning’s sky was clear, and the sun poured the usual quantity of the balmiest spring sunshine into the blue ether of our valley gulf, but ere long ragged lumps of cloud began to appear all along the valley-rim, coming gradually into closer ranks, and rising higher like rock additions to the walls. From the top of these cloud-banks fleecy fingers arched out from both sides and met over the middle of the meadows, gradually thickening and blackening, until at night big, confident snowflakes began to fall. We thought that the last snow-harvest had been withered and reaped long ago by the glowing sun, for the bluebirds and robins sang spring, and so also did the bland, unsteady winds, and the brown meadow opposite the house was spotted here and there with blue violets. Carex spikes were shooting up through the dead leaves, and the cherry and briar rose were unfolding their leaves, and besides these spring wrote many a sweet mark and word that I cannot tell; but snow fell all the hours of to-day in cold winter earnest, and now at evening there rests upon rocks, trees, and weeds as full and ripe a harvest of snow flowers as I ever beheld in the stormiest, most opaque days of midwinter.

April 13th.

About twelve inches of snow fell in that last snowstorm. It disappeared as suddenly as it came, snatched away hastily almost before it had time to melt, as if a mistake had been made in allowing it to come here at all.

A week of spring days bright in every hour, without a stain or thought of the storm, came in glorious colors, giving still greater pledges of happy life to every living creature of the spring, but a loud, energetic snowstorm possessed every hour of yesterday. Every tree and broken weed bloomed yet once more; all summer distinctions were leveled off; all plants and the very rocks and streams were equally polypetalous.

This morning winter had everything in the valley. The snow drifted about in the frosty wind like meal, and the falls were muffled in thick sheets of frozen spray. Thus do winter and spring leap into the valley by turns, each remaining long enough to form a small season or climate of its own, or going and coming squarely in a single day. Whitney says that the bottom has fallen out of the rocks here (which I most devoutly disbelieve). Well, the bottom frequently falls out of these winter clouds and climates. It is seldom that any long transition slant exists between dark and bright days in this narrow world of rocks.

I know that you are enchanted with the April loveliness of your new home. You enjoy the most precious kind of sunshine, and by this time flower-patches cover the hills about Oakland like colored clouds. I would like to visit these broad outspread blotches of social flowers that are so characteristic of your hills, but far rather would I see and feel the flowers that are now at Fountain Lake and the lakes of Madison.

Mrs. Hutchings thought of sending you a bulb of the California lily by mail but found it too large. She wished to be remembered to you. Your Squirrel is very happy. She is a rare creature.

I hope to see you and the Doctor soon in the valley. I have a great deal to say to you which I will not try to write. Remember me most cordially to the Doctor and to Allie and all the boys. I am much obliged to you for those botanical notes, etc., and I am ever most

Cordially yours,John Muir.

Here is a moss with a globular capsule and a squinted, cowl-shaped calyptra. Do you know it?

Yosemite, May 17th, 1870.

Our valley is just gushing, throbbing full of open, absorbable beauty, and I feel that I must tell you about it. I am lonely among my enjoyments; the valley is full of visitors, but I have no one to talk to.

The season that is with us now is about what corresponds to full-fledged spring in Wisconsin. The oaks are in full leaf and have shoots long enough to bend over and move in the wind. The good old bracken is waist-high already, and almost all the rock ferns have their outermost fronds unrolled. Spring is in full power and is steadily reaching higher like a shadow and will soon reach the topmost horizon of rocks. The buds of the poplar opened on the 19th of last month, those of the oaks on the 24th.

May 1st was a fine, hopeful, healthful, cool, bright day with plenty of the fragrance of new leaves and flowers and of the music of bugs and birds. From the 5th to 14th was extremely warm, the thermometer averaging about 85 degrees at noon in shade. Craggy banks of cumuli became common about Storm King and the Dome. Flowers came in troops. The upper snows melted very fast, raising the falls to their highest pitch of glory. The waters of the Yosemite Fall no longer float softly and downily like hanks of spent rockets but shoot at once to the bottom with tremendous energy. There is at least ten times the amount of water in the valley that there was when you were here.

In crossing the valley we had to sail in the boat. The river paid but little attention to its banks, flowing over the meadow in great river-like sheets. But last Sunday, 15th, was a dark day; the rich streams of heat and light were withheld; the thermometer fell suddenly to 35 degrees, and down among the verdant banks of new leaves, and groves of half-open ferns, and thick settlements of confident flowers, came heavy snow in big, blinding flakes, coming down with a steady gait and taking their places gracefully upon shrinking leaves and petals as if they were doing exactly right. The whole day was snowy and stormy like a piece of early winter. Snow fell also on the 16th. A good many of the ferns and delicate flowers are killed.

There are about fifty visitors in the valley at present. When are you and the Doctor coming? Mr. Hutchings has not yet returned from Washington, and so I will be here all summer. I have not heard from you since January.

I had a letter the other day from Prof. Butler. He has been glancing and twinkling about among the towns of all the States at a most unsubstantial velocity.

Did you see the gold of the Joaquin plains this spring? There is a later gold in October which you must see.

Remember me warmly to Dr. Carr and all the boys, and I remain always

Most cordially yours,John Muir.

Yosemite via Big Oak Flat.

Yosemite, Sunday, May 29th, 1870.

I received your “apology” two days ago and ran my eyes hastily over it three or four lines at a time to find the place that would say you were coming, but you “fear” that you cannot come at all, and only “hope” that the Doctor may; but I shall continue to look for you nevertheless. The Chicago party you speak of were here and away again before your letter arrived. All sorts of human stuff is being poured into our valley this year, and the blank, fleshly apathy with which most of it comes in contact with the rock and water spirits of the place is most amazing. I do not wonder that the thought of such people being here, Mrs. Carr, makes you “mad,” but after all, Mrs. Carr, they are about harmless. They climb sprawlingly to their saddles like overgrown frogs pulling themselves up a stream-bank through the bent sedges, ride up the valley with about as much emotion as the horses they ride upon, and comfortable when they have “done it all,” and long for the safety and flatness of their proper homes.

In your first letter to the valley you complain of the desecrating influences of the fashionable hordes about to visit here, and say that you mean to come only once more and “into the beyond.” I am pretty sure that you are wrong in saying and feeling so, for the tide of visitors will float slowly about thebottomof the valley as a harmless scum, collecting in hotel and saloon eddies, leaving the rocks and falls eloquent as ever and instinct with imperishable beauty and greatness. And recollect that the top of the valley is more than half way to real heaven, and the Lord has many mansions away in the Sierra equal in power and glory to Yosemite, though not quite so open, and I venture to say that you will yet see the valley many times both in and out of the body.

I am glad you are going to the coast mountains to sleep on Diablo,—Angelo ere this. I am sure that you will be lifted above all the effects of your material work. There is a precious natural charm in sleeping under the open starry sky. You will have a very perfect view of the Joaquin Valley and the snowy, pearly wall of the Sierra Nevada. I lay for weeks last summer upon a bed of pine leaves at the edge of a [ ] gentian meadow in full view of Mt. Dana.

Mrs. Hutchings says that the lily bulbs were so far advanced in their growth when she dug some to send you that they could not be packed without being broken, but I am going to be here all summer, and I know where the grandest plantation of these lilies grow, and I will box up as many of them as you wish, together with as many other Yosemite things as you may ask for and send them out to you before the pack train makes its last trip. I know theSpiræayou speak of. It is abundant all around the top of the valley and on the rocks at Lake Tenaya and reaches almost to the very summit about Mt. Dana. There is also a purple one very abundant on the fringe meadows of Yosemite Creek, a mile or two back from the brink of the Falls. Of course it will be a source of keen pleasure to me to procure you anything you may desire. I should like to see that ground again. I saw some in Cuba but they did not exceed twenty-five or thirty feet in height.

I have thought of a walk in the wild gardens of Honolulu, and now that you speak of my going there it becomes very probable, as you seem to understand me better than I do myself. I have no square idea about the time I shall get myself away from here. I shall at least stay till you come. I fear that the agave will be in the spirit world ere that time. You say that I ought to have such a place as you saw in the gardens of that mile and a half of climate. Well, I think those lemon and orange groves would do, perhaps, to make a living, but for a garden I should not have anything less than a piece of pure nature. I was reading Thoreau’s “Maine Woods” a short time ago. As described by him, these woods are exactly like those of Canada West. How I long to meet Linnæa andChiogenes hispidulaonce more! I would rather see these two children of the evergreen woods than all the twenty-seven species of palm that Agassiz met on the Amazons.

These summer days “go on” calmly and evenly. Scarce a mark of the frost and snow of the 15th is visible. The brackens are four or five feet high already. The earliest azaleas have opened, and the whole crop of bulbs is ready to burst. The river does not overflow its banks now, but it is exactly brim-full. The thermometer averages about 75 degrees at noon. We have sunshine every morning from a bright blue sky. Ranges of cumuli appear towards the summits with neat regularity every day about 11 o’clock, making a splendid background for the South Dome. In a few hours these clouds disappear and give up the sky to sunny evening.

Mr. Hutchings arrived here from Washington a week ago. There are sixty or seventy visitors here at present.

I have received only two letters from you this winter and spring, dated Jan. 22nd and May 7th.

I kissed your untamed one for you. She wishes that she knew the way to Oakland that she might come to you.

Remember me to the Doctor and all your boys and to your little Allie. I remain ever

Yours most cordially,J. Muir.

[1870.]

I am very, very blessed. The valley is full of people but they do not annoy me. I revolve in pathless places and in higher rocks thanthe worldand his ribbony wife can reach. Had I not been blunted by hard work in the mill and crazed by Sabbath raids among the high places of this heaven, I would have written you long since. I have spent every Sabbath for the last two months in the spirit world, screaming among the peaks and outside meadows like a negro Methodist in revival time, and every intervening clump of week-days in trying to fix down and assimilate my shapeless harvests of revealed glory into the spirit and into the common earth of my existence; and I am rich, rich beyond measure, not in rectangular blocks of sifted knowledge or in thin sheets of beauty hung picture-like about “the walls of memory,” but in unselected atmospheres of terrestrial glory diffused evenly throughout my whole substance.

Your Brooksian letters I have read with a great deal of interest, they are so full of the spice and poetry of unmingled nature, and in many places they express my own present feelings very fully. Quoting from your Forest Glen, “without anxiety and without expectation all my days come and gomixedwith such sweetness to every sense,” and again, “I don’t know anything of time and but little of space.” “My whole being seemed to open to the sun.” All this I do most comprehensively appreciate and am just beginning to know how fully congenial you are. Would that you could share my mountain enjoyments! In all my wanderings through Nature’s beauty, whether it be among the ferns at my cabin door or in the high meadows and peaks or amid the spray and music of waterfalls, you are the first to meet me and I often speak to you as verily present in the flesh.

Last Sabbath I was baptized in the irised foam of the Vernal and in the divine snow of Nevada, and you were there also and stood in real presence by the sheet of joyous rapids below the bridge.

I am glad to know that McClure and McChesney have told you of our night with upper Yosemite. Oh, what a world is there I passed! No, Ihadanother night there two weeks ago, entering as far within the veil amid equal glory, together with Mr. Frank Shapleigh of Boston. Mr. Shapleigh is an artist and I like him. He has been here six weeks and has just left for home. I told him to see you and to show you his paintings. He is acquainted with Charles Sanderson and Mrs. Waterston. Mrs. Waterston left the valley before your letter reached me, but one morning about sunrise an old lady came to the mill and asked me if I was the man who was so fond of flowers, and we had a very earnest, unceremonious chat about the valley and about “the beyond.” She is made of better stuff than most of the people of that heathen town of Boston, and so also is Shapleigh.

Mrs. Yelverton is here and is going to stop a good while. Mrs. Waterston told her to find me, and we are pretty well acquainted now. She told me the other day she was going to write a Yosemite novel and that Squirrel and I were going into it. I was glad to find that she knew you. I have not seen Prof. Le Conte. Perhaps he is stopping at one of the other hotels.

Has Mrs. Rapley or Mr. Colby told you about our camping in the spruce woods on the south rim of the valley and of our walk at daybreak to the top of the Sentinel Dome to see the sun rise out of the crown peaks of beyond?

About a week ago at daybreak I started up the mountain near Glacier Point to see Pohono in its upper woods and to study the kind of life it lived up there. I had a glorious day and reached my cabin at daylight by walking all night. Oh, what a night among those moon shadows! It was seven o’clocka.m., when I reached the top of the Cathedral Rocks,—a most glorious twenty-two hours of life amid nameless peaks and meadows and the upper cataracts of Pohono.

Mr. Hutchings told me next morning that I had done two or three days’ climbing in one and that I was shortening my life, but I had a whole lifetime of enjoyment and I care but little for the arithmetical length of days. I can hardly realize that I have not yet seen you here.

I thank you for sending me so many friends, but I am waiting for you. I am going up the mountain soon to see your lily garden at the top of Indian Cañon.

“Let the Pacific islands lie.”

My love to Allie and all your boys and to the Doctor. Tell him that I have been tracing glaciers in all the principal cañons towards the summit.

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