“The Hollow,” January 21, 1866.
Your last, written in the delicious quiet of a Sabbath in the country,
has been received and read a good many times. I was interested with the
description you draw of your sermon. You speak of such services like
one who appreciated and relished them. But although the page of Nature
is so replete with divine truth, it is silent concerning the fall of
man and the wonders of Redeeming Love. Might she not have been made to
speak as clearly and eloquently of these things as she now does of the
character and attributes of God? It may be a bad symptom, but I will
confess that I take more intense delight from reading the power and
_goodness_ of God from “the things which are made” than from the Bible.
The two books, however, harmonize beautifully, and contain enough of
divine truth for the study of all eternity. It is so much easier for
us to employ our faculties upon these beautiful tangible forms than to
exercise a simple, humble living faith such as you so well describe as
enabling us to reach out joyfully into the future to _expect_ what is
promised as a thing of to-morrow.
I wish, Mrs. Carr, that I could see your mosses and ferns and lichens.
I am sure that you must be happier than anybody else. You have so much
less of winter than others; your parlor garden is verdant and in bloom
all the year.
I took your hint and procured ten or twelve species of moss all in fruit,
also a club-moss, a fern, and some liverworts and lichens. I have also a
box of thyme. I would go a long way to see your herbarium, more especially
your ferns and mosses. These two are by far the most interesting of all
the natural orders to me. The shaded hills and glens of Canada are richly
ornamented with these lovely plants. _Aspidium spinulosum_ is common
everywhere, so also is _A. marginale_., _A. aculeatum_, _A. Lonchitis_, and
_A. acrostichoides_ are also abundant in many places. I found specimens of
most of the other aspidiums, but those I have mentioned are more common.
_Cystopteris bulbifera_ grows in every arbor-vitæ shade in company with
the beautiful and fragrant _Linnæa borealis_. _Botrychium lunarioides_
is a common fern in many parts of Canada. _Osmunda regalis_ is far less
common here than in Wisconsin. I found it in only two localities. Six
_Claytoniana_ only in one place near the Niagara Falls. The delicate
_Adiantum_ trembles upon every hillside. _Struthiopteris Germanica_ grows
to a great height in open places in arbor-vitæ and black ash swamps.
_Camptosorus rhizophyllus_ and _Scolopendrium officinarum_ I found in
but one place, amid the wet limestone rocks of Owen Sound. There are
many species of sedge common here which I do not remember having seen
in Wisconsin. _Calypso borealis_ is a lovely plant found in a few places
in dark hemlock woods. But this is an endless thing; I may as well stop
here.
I have been very busy of late making practical machinery. I like my
work exceedingly well, but would prefer inventions which would require
some artistic as well as mechanical skill. I invented and put in
operation a few days ago an attachment for a self-acting lathe, which
has increased its capacity at least one third. We are now using it to
turn broom-handles, and as these useful articles may now be made cheaper,
and as cleanliness is one of the cardinal virtues, I congratulate myself
in having done something like a true philanthropist for the real good
of mankind in general. What say you? I have also invented a machine for
making rake-teeth, and another for boring for them and driving them,
and still another for making the bows, still another used in making
the handles, still another for bending them, so that rakes may now be
made nearly as fast again. Farmers will be able to produce grain at a
lower rate, the poor get more bread to eat. Here is more philanthropy;
is it not? I sometimes feel as though I was losing time here, but I am
at least receiving my first lessons in practical mechanics, and as one
of the firm here is a millwright, and as I am permitted to make as many
machines as I please and to remodel those now in use, the school is a
pretty good one.
I wish that Allie and Henry B. could come to see me every day, there are
no children in our family here, and I miss them very much. They would like
to see the machinery, and I could turn wooden balls and tops, rake-bows
before being bent would make excellent canes, and if they should need
crutches broom-handles and rake-handles would answer. I have not heard
from Henry for a long time. I suppose that this evening finds you in
your pleasant library amid books and plants and butterflies. Are you
really successful in keeping happy, sportive “winged blossoms” in such
weather as this?
One of the finest snowstorms is raging now; the roaring wind thick with
snow rushes cruelly through the desolate trees. Our rapid stream that
so short a time ago shone and twinkled in the hazy air bearing away the
nuts and painted leaves of autumn is now making a doleful noise as it
gropes its way doubtfully and sulkily amid heaps of snow and broken ice.
The weather here is unusually cold. How do matters stand at the
University? Can it be that the Doctor is really going to become practical
farmer? He will have time to compose excellent lectures while following
the plow and harrow or when shearing his sheep.
I thank you for your long, good letter. Those who are in a lonely place
and far from home know how to appreciate a friendly letter. Remember me
to the Doctor and to all my friends and believe me
Yours with gratitude,
JOHN MUIR.
[1866 or 1867.]
[Beginning of letter missing.]
I have not before sent these feelings and thoughts to anybody, but I
know that I am speaking to one who by long and deep communion with Nature
understands them, and can tell me what is true or false and unworthy in
my experiences.
The ease with which you have read my mind from hints taken from letters
to my child friends gives me confidence to write.
Thank you for the compliment of the great picture-frame. That is at least
_one_ invention that I should not have discovered,--but the picture is
but an insect, an animalcule. I have stood by a majestic pine, witnessing
its high branches waving “in sign of worship” or in converse with the
spirit of the storms of autumn, till I forgot my very existence, and
thought myself unworthy to be made a leaf of such a tree.
What work do you use in the study of the _Fungi_? and where can I get
a copy? I think of your description of these “little children of the
vegetable kingdom” whenever I meet any of them. I am busy with the mosses
and liverworts, but find difficulty in procuring a suitable lens. Here
is a specimen of _Climacium Americanum_, a common moss here but seldom
in fruit.
I was sorry to hear of your loss at the University of so valuable a man
from such a cause. I hope that the wheels of your institution are again
in motion.
I have not yet, I am sorry to say, found “The Stone Mason of Saint
Point,” though I have sought for it a great deal. By whom is it published?
Please remember me to my friends. I often wish myself near the Doctor
with my difficulties in science. Tell Allie Mr. Muir does not forget him.
Trout’s Mills, near Meaford,
September 13th, [1866.]
Your precious letter with its burden of cheer and good wishes has come to
our hollow, and has done for me that work of sympathy and encouragement
which I know you kindly wished it to do. It came at a time when much
needed, for I am subject to lonesomeness at times. Accept, then, my
heartfelt gratitude--would that I could make better return!
I am sorry over the loss of Professor Stirling’s letter, for I waited and
wearied for it a long time. I have been keeping up an irregular course
of study since leaving Madison, but with no great success. I do not
believe that study, especially of the Natural Sciences, is incompatible
with ordinary attention to business; still I seem to be able to do but
one thing at a time. Since undertaking a month or two ago to invent new
machinery for our mill, my mind seems to so bury itself in the work that
I am fit for but little else; and then a lifetime is so little a time
that we die ere we get ready to live. I would like to go to college,
but then I have to say to myself, “You will die ere you can do anything
else.” I should like to invent useful machinery, but it comes, “You do
not wish to spend your lifetime among machines and you will die ere you
can do anything else.” I should like to study medicine that I might do
my part in helping human misery, but again it comes, “You will die ere
you are ready or able to do so.” How intensely I desire to be a Humboldt!
but again the chilling answer is reiterated; but could we but live a
_million_ of years, then how delightful to spend in perfect contentment
so many thousand years in quiet study in college, as many amid the
grateful din of machines, as many among human pain, so many thousand in
the sweet study of Nature among the dingles and dells of _Scotland_, and
all the other less important parts of our world! Then _perhaps_ might
we, with at least a show of reason, “shuffle off this mortal coil” and
look back upon our star with something of satisfaction; I should be
ashamed--if shame might be in the other world--if any of the powers,
virtues, essences, etc., should ask me for common knowledge concerning
our world which I could not bestow. But away with this _aged_ structure
and we are back to our handful of hasty years half gone, all of course
for the best did we but know all of the Creator’s plan concerning us.
In our higher state of existence we shall have time and intellect for
study. Eternity, with perhaps the whole unlimited creation of God as
our field, should satisfy us, and make us patient and trustful, while we
pray with the Psalmist, “Teach us to number our days that we may apply
our hearts unto wisdom.”
I was struck with your remarks about our real home of stillness and
peace. How little does the outer and noisy world in general know of that
“real home” and real inner life! Happy indeed they who have a friend to
whom they can unmask the workings of their real life, sure of sympathy
and forbearance!
I sent for the book which you recommend; I have just been reading a
short sketch of the life of the mother of Lamartine.
You say about the humble life of our Saviour and about the trees gathering
in the sunshine. These are beautiful things.
What you say respecting the littleness of the number who are called to
“the pure and deep communion of the beautiful, all-loving Nature,” is
particularly true of the hardworking, hard-drinking, stolid Canadians.
In vain is the glorious chart of God in Nature spread out for them. So
many acres chopped is their motto, as they grub away amid the smoke of
the magnificent forest trees, black as demons and material as the soil
they move upon. I often think of the Doctor’s lecture upon the condition
of the different races of men as controlled by physical agencies. Canada,
though abounding in the elements of wealth, is too difficult to subdue
to permit the first few generations to arrive at any great intellectual
development. In my long rambles last summer I did not find a single
person who knew anything of botany and but a few who knew the meaning of
the word; and wherein lay the charm that could conduct a man who might
as well be gathering mammon so many miles through these fastnesses to
suffer hunger and exhaustion was with them never to be discovered. Do
not these answer well to the person described by the poet in these lines?
“A primrose by the river’s brim,
A yellow primrose was to him,
And nothing more.”
I thank Dr. Carr for his kind remembrance of me, but still more for the
good patience he had with so inept a scholar.
We remember in a peculiar way those who first gave us the story of
Redeeming Love from the great book of Revelation, and I shall not
forget the Doctor, who first laid before me the great book of Nature,
and though I have taken so little from his hand he has at least shown
me where those mines of priceless knowledge lie and how to reach them.
O how frequently, Mrs. Carr, when lonely and wearied, have I wished
that like some hungry worm I could creep into that delightful kernel of
your house, your library, with its portraits of scientific men, and so
bountiful a store of their sheaves amid the blossom and verdure of your
little kingdom of plants, luxuriant and happy as though holding their
leaves to the open sky of the most flower-loving zone in the world!
That “sweet day” did as you wished reach our hollow, and another is with
us now. The sky has the haze of autumn, and excepting the aspen not a
tree has motion. Upon our enclosing wall of verdure new tints appear,
the gorgeous dyes of autumn are to be plainly seen, and the forest seems
to have found out that again its leaf must fade. Our stream, too, has a
less cheerful sound, and as it bears its foam-bells pensively away from
the shallow rapids it seems to feel that summer is past.
You propose, Mrs. Carr, an exchange of thoughts, for which I thank you
very sincerely. This will be a means of pleasure and improvement which
I could not have hoped ever to have been possessed of, but then here is
the difficulty: I feel I am altogether incapable of properly conducting
a correspondence with one so much above me. We are, indeed, as you say,
students in the same life school, but in very different classes. I am
but an alpha novice in those sciences which you have studied and loved
so long. If, however, you are willing in this to adopt the plan that
our Saviour endeavored to beat into the stingy Israelites, _viz._, to
“give, hoping for nothing again,” all will be well; and as long as your
letters resemble this one before me, which you have just written, in
genus, order, cohort, class, province, or kingdom, be assured that by
way of reply you shall at least receive an honest “Thank you.”
Tell Allie that Mr. Muir thanks him for his pretty flowers and would
like to see him, also that I have a story for him which I shall tell
some other time.
Please remember me to my friends, and now, hoping to receive a letter
from you at least _semi-occasionally_, I remain
Yours with gratitude,
JOHN MUIR.
Address:--
Meaford P. O.,
County Grey,
Canada West.