I have never seen so happy flowers in any other home. They lived with
you so cheerfully and confidingly, and felt so sure of receiving from
you sympathy and tenderness in all their sorrows.
How could they grow cold and colder and die without _your_ knowing?
They must have called you. Could any bedroom be so remote you could not
hear? I am very sorry, Mrs. Carr, for you and them. Can your loss be
repaired? Will not other flowers lose confidence in you and live like
those of other people, sickly and mute, half in, half out of, the body?
No snow fell here Easter evening, but a few wet flakes are falling here
and there _to-day_.
Thank you for sending the prophecy of that loving naturalist of yours.
It is indeed a pleasant one, but my faith concerning its complete
fulfillment is weak. I do not know who your other doctor is, but I am
sure that when in the Yosemite Valley and following the Pacific coast
I would obtain a great deal of geology from Dr. Carr, and from yourself
and that I should win the secret of many a weed’s plain heart.
I am overestimated by your friend. He places me in company far too
honorable, but if we meet in the fields of the sunny South I shall
certainly speak to him.
Tell him, Mrs. Carr, in your next how thankful I am for his sympathy. He
is one who can sympathize in full. I feel sorry for his like misfortune
and am indebted to him through you for so many good and noble thoughts.
A little messenger met me with your letter of April 8th when I was
on my way to the woods for the first time. I read it upon a moss-clad
fallen tree. You only of my friends congratulated me on my happiness in
having avoided the misery and mud of March, but for the serious part of
your letter, the kind of life which our plant friends have, and their
relation to us, I do not know what to think of it. I must write of this
some other time.
In this first walk I found _Erigenia_, which here is ever first, and sweet
little violets, and _Sanguinaria_, and _Isopyrum_ too, and _Thalictrum
anemonoides_ were almost ready to venture their faces to the sky. The
red maple was in full flower glory; the leaves below and the mosses
were bright with its fallen scarlet blossoms. And the elm too was in
flower and the earliest willows. All this when your fields had scarce
the _memory_ of a flower left in them.
I will not try to tell you how much I enjoyed in this walk after four
weeks in bed. You can _feel_ it.
Indianapolis, June 9th, 1867.
I have been looking over your letters and am sorry that so many of them
are unanswered. My debt to you has been increasing very rapidly of late,
and I don’t think it can ever be paid.
I am not well enough to work, and I cannot sit still; I have been reading
and botanizing for some weeks, and I find that for such work I am very
much disabled. I leave this city for home to-morrow accompanied by
Merrill Moores, a little friend of mine eleven years of age. We will go
to Decatur, Ill., thence northward through the wide prairies, botanizing
a few weeks by the way. We hope to spend a few days in Madison, and I
promise myself a great deal of pleasure.
I hope to go South towards the end of summer, and as this will be a
journey that I know very little about, I hope to profit by your counsel
before setting out.
I am very happy with the thought of so soon seeing my Madison friends,
and Madison, and the plants of Madison, and yours.
I am thankful that this affliction has drawn me to the sweet fields
rather than from them.
Give my love to Allie and Henry and all my friends.
Yours most cordially,
JOHN MUIR.
Roses with us are now in their grandest splendor.
My address for five or six weeks from this date will be Portage City, Wis.
[1867.]
I am now with the loved of home. I received your kind letter on my arrival
in Portage four weeks ago. I have delayed writing that I might be able
to state when I could be in Madison. I have never seen _Arethusa_ nor
_Aspidium fragrans_, but I know many a meadow where _Calopogon_ finds
home. With us it is now in the plenitude of glory. _Camptosorus_ is not
here, but I can easily procure you a specimen from the rocks of Owen
Sound, Canada. It is there very abundant, so also is _Scolopendrium_.
Have you a living specimen of this last fern? Please tell me particularly
about the sending or bringing _Calopogon_ or any other of our plants
you wish for. I have no skill whatever in the matter.
I am enjoying myself exceedingly. The dear flowers of Wisconsin are
incomparably more numerous than those of Canada or Indiana. With what
fervid, unspeakable joy did I welcome those flowers that I have loved so
long! Hundreds grow in the full light of our opening that I have not seen
since leaving home. In company with my little friend I visited Muir’s
Lake. We approached it by a ravine in the principal hills that belong
to it. We emerged from the low leafy oaks, and it came in full view all
unchanged, sparkling and clear, with its edging of rushes and lilies.
And there, too, was the meadow, with its brook and willows, and all the
well-known nooks of its winding border where many a moss and fern find
home. I held these poor eyes to the dear scene and it reached me once
more in its fullest glory.
We visited my millpond, a very Lilliputian affair upon a branch creek from
springs in the meadow. After leaving the dam my stream flows underground
a few yards. The opening of this dark way is extremely beautiful. I wish
you could see it. It is hung with a slender meadow sedge whose flowing
tapered leaves have just sufficient stiffness to make them arch with
inimitable beauty as they reach down to welcome the water to the light.
This, I think, is one of Nature’s finest pieces most delicately finished
and composed of just this quiet flowing water, sedge, and summer light.
I wish you could see the ferns of this neighborhood. We have some of
the finest assemblies imaginable. There is a little grassy lakelet about
half a mile from here, shaded and sheltered by a dense growth of small
oaks. Just where those oaks meet the marginal sedges of the lake is a
circle of ferns, a perfect brotherhood of the three osmundas,--_regalis_,
_Claytoniana_, and _Cinnamomea_. Of the three, _Claytoniana_ is the most
stately and luxuriant. I never saw such lordly, magnificent clumps before.
Their average height is not less than 3½ or 4 feet. I measured several
fronds that exceeded 5,--one, 5 feet 9 inches. Their palace home gave
no evidence of having ever been trampled upon. I do wish you could meet
them. This is my favorite fern. I’m sorry it does not grow in Scotland.
Had Hugh Miller seen it there, he would not have called _regalis_ the
prince of Balich ferns. I think that I have seen specimens of the ostrich
fern in some places of Canada which might rival my _Osmunda_ in height,
but not in beauty and sublimity.
I was anxious to see Illinois prairies on my way home; so we went to
Decatur, or near the centre of the State, thence north by Rockford
and Janesville. I botanized one week on the prairie about seven miles
southwest of Pecatonica. I gathered the most beautiful bouquet there
that I ever saw. I seldom make bouquets. I never saw but very few that
I thought were at all beautiful. I was anxious to know the grasses and
sedges of the Illinois prairies and also their comparative abundance;
so I walked one hundred yards in a straight line, gathering at each
step that grass or sedge nearest my foot, placing them one by one in my
left hand as I walked along, without looking at them or entertaining the
remotest idea of making a bouquet. At the end of this measured walk my
handful, of course, consisted of one hundred plants _arranged in Nature’s
own way_ as regards kind, comparative numbers, and size. I looked at my
grass bouquet by chance--was startled--held it at arms length _in sight
of its own near and distant scenery and companion flowers_--my discovery
was complete and I was delighted beyond measure with the new and extreme
beauty. Here it is:--
Of _Kœleria cristata_ 55
“ _Agrostis scabra_ 29
“ _Panicum clandestinum_ 7
“ “ _depauperatum_ 1
“ _Stipa spartea_ 7
“ _Poa alsodes_ 7
“ “ _pratensis_ 1
“ _Carex panicea_ 4
“ “ _Novæ-Angliæ_ 1
The extremely fine and diffuse purple _Agrostis_ contrasted most divinely
with the taller, strict, taper-finished _Kœleria_. The long-awned
single _Stipa_ too and _P. clandestinum_, with their broad ovate leaves
and purple muffy pistils, played an important part; so also did the
cylindrical spikes of the sedges. All were just in place; every leaf
had its proper taper and texture and exact measure of green. Only _P.
pratensis_ seemed out of place, and as might be expected it proved to
be an intruder, belonging to a field or bouquet in Europe. Can it be
that a single flower or weed or grass in all these prairies occupies
a chance position? Can it be that the folding or curvature of a single
leaf is wrong or undetermined in these gardens that God is keeping?
The most microscopic portions of plants are beautiful in themselves,
and these are beautiful combined into individuals, and undoubtedly all
are woven with equal care into one harmonious, beautiful whole.
I have the analysis of two other handfuls of prairie plants which I will
show you another time.
We hope to be in Madison in about three weeks.
To me all plants are more precious than before. My poor eye is not better
or worse. A cloud is over it, but in gazing over the widest landscapes
I am not always sensible of its presence.
My love to Allie and Henry Butler and all my friends, please tell the
Butlers when we are coming. Their invitation is prior to yours, but your
houses are not widely separated. I mean to write again before leaving
home. You will then have all my news and I will have only to listen.
Most cordially,
JOHN MUIR.
Indianapolis, August 30th, 1867.
We are safely in Indianapolis. I am not going to write a letter, I only
want to thank you and the Doctor and all of the boys for the enjoyments
of the pleasant botanical week we spent with you.
We saw, as the steam hurried us on, that the grand harvest of _Compositæ_
would be no failure this year. It is rapidly receiving its purple and
gold in generous measure from the precious light of these days.
I could not but notice how well appearances in the vicinity of Chicago
agreed with Lesquereux’s theory of the formation of prairies. We spent
about five hours in Chicago. I did not find many flowers in her tumultuous
streets; only a few grassy plants of wheat and two or three species of
weeds,--amaranth, purslane, carpet-weed, etc.,--the weeds, I suppose,
for man to walk upon, the wheat to feed him. I saw some new algæ, but no
mosses. I expected to see some of the latter on wet walls and in seams
in the pavement, but I suppose that the manufacturers’ smoke and the
terrible noise is too great for the hardiest of them.
I wish I knew where I was going. Doomed to be “carried of the spirit
into the wilderness,” I suppose. I wish I could be more moderate in my
desires, but I cannot, and so there is no rest. Is not your experience
the same as this?
I feel myself deeply indebted to you all for your great and varied
kindness,--not any the less if from stupidity and sleepiness I forgot
on leaving to express it.
Farewell.
J. MUIR.
Among the Hills of Bear Creek,
seven miles southeast of Burkesville, Kentucky,
September 9th, [1867.]
I left Indianapolis last Monday and have reached this point by a long,
weary, roundabout walk. I walked from Louisville a distance of 170 miles,
and my feet are sore, but I am paid for all my toil a thousand times over.
The sun has been among the treetops for more than an hour, and the dew
is nearly all taken back, and the shade in these hill basins is creeping
away into the unbroken strongholds of the grand old forests.
I have enjoyed the trees and scenery of Kentucky exceedingly. How shall
I ever tell of the miles and miles of beauty that have been flowing into
me in such measure? These lofty curving ranks of bobbing, swelling hills,
these concealed valleys of fathomless verdure, and these lordly trees with
the nursing sunlight glancing in their leaves upon the outlines of the
magnificent masses of shade embosomed among their wide branches,--these
are cut into my memory to go with me forever.
I often thought as I went along how dearly Mrs. Carr would appreciate
all this. I have thought of many things I wished to ask you about when
with you. I hope to see you all again some time when my tongue and memory
are in better order. I have much to ask the Doctor about the geology of
Kentucky.
I have seen many caves, Mammoth among the rest. I found two [ ]
ferns at the last. My love to Allie and all.
Very cordially yours,
JOHN MUIR.
I am in the woods on a hilltop with my back against a moss-clad log. I
wish you could see my last evening’s bedroom.
My route will be through Kingston and Madisonville, Tenn., and through
Blairsville and Gainesville, Georgia. Please write me at Gainesville.
I am terribly hungry. I hardly dare to think of home and friends.
I was a few miles south of Louisville when I planned my journey. I spread
out my map under a tree and made up my mind to go through Kentucky,
Tennessee, and Georgia to Florida, thence to Cuba, thence to some part of
South America, but it will be only a hasty walk. I am thankful, however,
for so much.
I will be glad to receive any advice from you. I am very ignorant of
all things pertaining to this journey.
Again farewell.
J. MUIR.
My love to the Butlers. I am sorry I could not see John Spooner before
leaving Madison.
Cedar Keys, [Fla.]
November 8th, [1867.]
I am just creeping about getting plants and strength after my fever. I
wrote you a long time ago, but retained the letter, hoping to be able soon
to tell you where you might write. Your letter arrived in Gainesville
just a few minutes before I did. Somehow your letters always come when
most needed. I felt and enjoyed what you said of souls and solitudes,
also that “All of Nature being yet found in man.” I shall long for a
letter from you. Will you please write me a long letter? Perhaps it will
be safer to send it to New Orleans, La. I shall have to go there for a
boat to South America. I do not yet know which point in South America
I had better go to. What do you say? My means being limited, I cannot
stay long anywhere. I would gladly do anything I could for Mr. Warren,
but I fear my time will be too short to effect much.
I did not see Miss Brooks, because I found she was 130 miles from
Savannah. I passed the Bostwich plantation and could not conveniently
go back. I am very sorry about the mistake.