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.