Part 13

Suppose I should give some of the journals my first thoughts about this glacier work as I go along and afterwards gather them and press them for the Boston wise; or will it be better to hold work and say it all at a breath? You see how practical I have become and how fully I have burdened you with my little affairs.

Perhaps you will ask, “What plan are you going to pursue in your work?” Well, here it is,--the only book I ever have invented. First I will describe each glacier with its tributaries separately, then describe the rocks and hills and mountains over which they have flowed or past which they have flowed, endeavoring to prove that all of the various forms which those rocks now have are the necessary result of the ice action in connection with their structure and cleavage, etc. Also the different kinds of cañons and lake-basins and meadows which they have made. Then, armed with this data, I will come down to the Yosemite, where all my ice has come, and prove that each dome and brow and wall and every grace and spire and brother is the necessary result of the delicately balanced blows of well-directed and combined glaciers against the parent rocks which contained them, only thinly carved and moulded in some instances by the subsequent action of water, etc.

Libby sent me Tyndall’s new book, and I have looked hastily over it. It is an Alpine mixture of very pleasant taste, and I wish I could enjoy reading and talking it with you. I expect Mrs. H. will accompany her husband to the East this winter, and there will not be one left with whom I can exchange a thought. Mrs. H. is going to leave me out all the books I want, and Runkle is going to send me Darwin. These, with my notes and maps, will fill my winter hours, if my eyes do not fail, and, now that you see my whole position, I think that you would not call me to the excitements and distracting novelties of civilization.

The bread question is very troublesome. I will eat anything you think will suit me. Send up either by express to Big Oak Flat or by any other chance, and I will remit the money required in any way you like.

My love to all and more thanks than I can write for your constant kindness.

Yosemite Valley, February 13, 1872.

Your latest letter is dated December 31st. I see that some of our letters are missing. I received the box and ate the berries and Liebig’s extract long ago and told you all about it, but Mrs. Yelverton’s book and magazine articles I have not yet seen. Perhaps they may come next mail. How did you send them? I sympathize with your face and your great sorrows, but you will bathe in the fountain of light, life, and love of our mountains and be healed. And here I wish to say that when you and Al and the Doctor come, I wish to be completely free. Therefore let me know that you will certainly come and when. I will gladly cut off a slice of my season’s time however thick--the thicker the better--and lay it aside for you. I am in the habit of asking so many to come, come, come to the mountain baptisms that there is danger of having others on my hands when you come, which must not be. I will mark off one or two or three months of bare, dutiless time for our blessed selves or the few good and loyal ones that you may choose. Therefore, at the expense even of breaking a dozen of civilization’s laws and fences, I want you to come. For the high Sierra the months of July, August, and September are best.

As for your Asiatic sayings, I would gladly creep into the Vale of Cashmere or any other grove upon our blessed star. I feel my poverty in general knowledge and will travel some day. You need not think that I feel Yosemite to be all in all, but more of this when you come.

I am going to send you with this a few facts and thoughts that I gathered concerning Twenty Hill Hollow, which I want to publish, if you think you can mend them and make them into a lawful article fit for outsiders. Plant gold is fading from California faster than did her placer gold, and I wanted to save the memory of that which is laid upon Twenty Hills.

Also I will send you some thoughts that I happened to get for poor persecuted, twice-damned Coyote. If you think anybody will believe them, have them published. Last mail I sent you some manuscript about bears and storms, which you will believe if no one else will. An account of my preliminary rambles among the glacier beds was published in the “Daily Tribune” of New York, Dec. 9th. Have you seen it? If you have, call old Mr. Stebbins’s attention to it. He will read with pleasure. Where is the old friend? I have not heard from him for a long time. Remember me to the Doctor and the boys and all my old friends.

Yours, etc., JOHN MUIR.

New Sentinel Hotel, Yosemite Valley, April 23, 1872.

Yours of Apr. 9th and 15th containing Ned’s canoe and colonization adventure came to-night. I feel that you are coming and I will not hear any words of preparatory consolation for the unsupposable case of your non-appearance. Come by way of Clark’s and spend a whole day or two in the sequoias, thence to Sentinel Dome and Glacier Point. From thence swoop to our meadows and groves direct by a trail now in course of construction which will be completed by the time the snow melts. This new trail will be best in scenery and safety of five which enter the valley. It leads from Glacier Point down the face of the mountain by an easy grade to a point back of Leidig’s Hotel and has over half a dozen inspiration points.

I hear that Mr. Peregoy intends building a hotel at Glacier Point. If he does, you should halt there for the night after leaving Clark’s. If not, then stop at the present “Peregoy’s,” five or six miles south of the valley at the Westfall Meadows--built since your visit. You might then easily ride from Clark’s to the valley in a day, but a day among the silver firs and another about the glories of the valley-rim and settings is a “sma’ request.”

The snow is deep this year, and the regular Mariposa Trail leading to Glacier Point, etc., will not be open before June. The Mariposa travel of May and perhaps a week or so of June will enter the valley from Clark’s by a sort of sneaking trail along the river cañon below the snow, but you must not come that way.

You may also enter the valley via Little Yosemite and Nevada and Vernal Falls by a trail constructed last season; also by Indian Falls on the north side of the valley by a trail now nearly completed. This last is a noble entrance but perhaps not equal to the first. Whatever way you come, we will travel all those up and down, and bear in mind that you must go among the summits in July or August. Bring no friends that will not go to these fountains beyond or are uncastoffable. Calm thinkers like your Doctor, who first led me with science, and Le Conte are the kinds of souls fit for the formation of human clouds adapted to this mountain sky. Nevertheless, I will rejoice beyond measure though you come as a comet tailed with a whole misty town.

Ned is a brave fellow. God bless him unspeakably and feed him with his own South American self.

I shall be most happy to know your Doggetts or anything that you call dear.

Good-night and love to all.

I have not seen any of my “Tribune” letters, though I have written five or six. Send copy if you can.

J. MUIR.

Farewell. I’m glad you are to get your Ned again. The fever will soon cool out from his veins in the breath of California.

The valley is full of sun, but glorious Sierras are piled above the South Dome and Starr King. I mean the bossy cumuli that are daily upheaved at this season, making a cloud period yet grander than the rock-sculpturing, Yosemite-making, forest-planting glacial period.

Yesterday we had our first midday shower. The pines waved gloriously at its approach, the woodpeckers beat about as if alarmed, but the hummingbird moths thought the cloud shadows belonged to evening and came down to eat among the mints. All the fire and rocks of Starr King were bathily dripped before.

they will go on Monoward for Tahoe. I mean to set some stakes in a dozen glaciers and gather some arithmetic for clothing my thoughts.

I hope you will not allow old H. or his picture agent, Houseworth, to so gobble and bewool poor Agassiz that I will not see him.

Remember me always to the Doctor and the boys and to Mrs. Moore, and I am ever yours,

JOHN MUIR.