John Muir's Letters Part 1: The Journey

John Muir has become somewhat of an outdoor legend— almost a mythological being, something like the Sasquatch, both of whom are hairy creatures who spent every waking minute in the mountains, stalking around in the forests of North America with an infamous distaste for highway tourists and flatbed hunters. One of the only differences between the two is that we have plenty of proof that Muir actually existed, and, luckily for us, much of that proof lies within the thousands of pages he’s written.

Generally, people know that John Muir has had a lot of outdoorsy things and places named after him, everything from mountain passes to streets and libraries. He’s also found all over social media.

John Muir’s words are quoted and misquoted on the daily all around the world, gracing the likes of Facebook statuses, blurry Instagram photos, and hastily-designed generic t-shirts. What’s his most famous line? It’s probably “The mountains are calling and I must go.” I don’t think Muir in his wildest dreams would have imagined those words he wrote to his sister were going to end up on countless sweatshop-made coffee mugs.

The man simply loved nature. He loved the hell out of it. He studied plants and glaciers for fun. He fought to preserve parks and public lands. His political and conservational efforts earned him the nickname ‘Father of the National Parks’ and still today we can see the effects of his passion. Borders have been shaped by this man. Trails have been scraped in his name. Millions of acres of preserved natural forest owe at least a small part of their conservation to the one and only John Muir.

John Muir’s Truth

But he was also kind of a know-it-all, one of those ‘holier than thou’ types, at least in his younger years. Pobody’s nerfect as the saying goes. And Muir was a lonely man for much of his life because it was rare that he found someone who could match his environmental interest, much less passion.

He wanted to share the mountains with others, but as we’ll see in the readings ahead, he only cared to share them with people who he felt truly understood the worth of a tree perched on a granite cliff or the complete value of a seasonal stream. He despised the throngs of Yosemite Valley visitors who did little more than view what they could from the main road and the acreage around their hotel. Those vacationers would never know the mountains like HE did. Muir referred to them as valley scum.

I should point out that in the Letters to a Friend of which the following excerpts are from, John Muir was still a young man, and he was writing personal letters to a close friend of his, Mrs. Jeanne Carr. The angst and opinion he shared in these letters were not meant to be seen by the public. Instead, these letters reveal some of Muir’s true, private personality. He pours out his heart and soul to Mrs. Carr, who he called his “spiritual mother” because she was one of the few people in his life who understood him, who sympathized with him.

The upcoming letters have been edited for brevity, but all the words remain Muir’s own. Through his words, it will become clear that this man of the mountains was no better than you or me. He had passions and desires that he fought to preserve, but he also suffered through sadness and anger like the rest of us.

Most of these excerpts are taken from John Muir’s time living in Yosemite. However, the first letters in this collection address the time shortly after John Muir left the University of Wisconsin and the teachings of Jeanne’s husband, Dr. Ezra Carr. Muir worked and studied in Canada before finding a factory job in Indianapolis where he nearly lost his eye in a machinery accident. After recovering from his injury he began his famous 1,000-mile walk from Kentucky to Florida. He then traveled to Cuba and New York before making his way west to California.

Let’s follow Muir into the mountains and see what he had to say.

Read all parts of John Muir’s Yosemite adventure to get the whole story:

John Muir’s Letters: The Journey

April 3rd, 1867

You have, of course, heard of my calamity.

The sunshine and the winds are working in all the gardens of God, but I—I am lost.

I am shut in darkness. My hard, toil-tempered muscles have disappeared, and I am feeble and tremulous as an ever-sick woman.

My friends here are kind beyond what I can tell and do much to shorten my immense blank days.

I send no apology for so doleful a note because I feel, Mrs. Carr, that you will appreciate my feelings.

—

April 6th, 1867

I cannot tell you, Mrs. Carr, how much I appreciate your sympathy and all of these kind thoughts of cheer and substantial consolation which you have stored for me in this letter.

I am much better than when I wrote you; can now sit up about all day and in a room partly lighted.

Your Doctor says, “The aqueous humor may be restored.” How? By nature or by art?

The eye is pierced just where the cornea meets the sclerotic coating. I do not know the depth of the wound or its exact direction. Sight was completely gone from the injured eye for the first few days, and my physician said it would be ever gone, but I was surprised to find that on the fourth or fifth day I could see a little with it. Sight continued to increase for a few days, but for the last three weeks it has not perceptibly increased or diminished.

I called in a Dr. Parvin lately, said to be a very skillful oculist and of large experience both here and in Europe. He said that he thought the iris permanently injured; that the crystalline lens was not injured; that, of course, my two eyes would not work together; and that on the whole my chances of distinct vision were not good. But the bare possibility of anything like full sight is now my outstanding hope. When the wound was made about one third of a teaspoonful of fluid like the white of an egg flowed out upon my fingers,—aqueous fluid, I suppose. The eye has not yet lost its natural appearance.

I can see sufficiently well with it to avoid the furniture, etc., in walking through a room. Can almost, in full light, recognize some of my friends but cannot distinguish one letter from another of common type. I would like to hear Dr. Carr’s opinion of my case.

When I received my blow I could not feel any pain or faintness because the tremendous thought glared full on me that my right eye was lost. I could gladly have died on the spot, because I did not feel that I could have heart to look at any flower again. But this is not so, for I wish to try some cloudy day to walk to the woods, where I am sure some of spring’s sweet fresh-born are waiting.

I believe with you that “nothing is without meaning and purpose that comes from a Father’s hand,” but during these dark weeks I could not feel this, and, as for courage and fortitude, scarce the shadows of these virtues were left me. The shock upon my nervous system made me weak in mind as a child. But enough of woe.

When I can walk to where fruited specimens of Climacium are, I will send you as many as you wish.

I must close. I thank you all again for your kindness. I cannot make sentences that will tell how much I feel indebted to you.

Please remember me to all my friends.

You will write soon. I can read my letters now.

Cordially,  Muir.

—

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, 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.

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?

Give my love to Allie and Henry and all my friends.

Yours most cordially,  John Muir.

—

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.

—

Undated

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.

—

July 26th, 1868

I have had the pleasure of but one letter since leaving home from you. That I received at Gainesville, Georgia.

I have not received a letter from any source since leaving Florida, and of course I am very lonesome and hunger terribly for the communion of friends. I will remain here eight or nine months and hope to hear from all my friends.

Fate and flowers have carried me to California, and I have reveled and luxuriated amid its plants and mountains nearly four months. I am well again, I came to life in the cool winds and crystal waters of the mountains, and, were it not for a thought now and then of loneliness and isolation, the pleasure of my existence would be complete.

I have forgotten whether I wrote you from Cuba or not. I spent four happy weeks there in January and February.

I saw only a very little of the grandeur of Panama, for my health was still in wreck, and I did not venture to wait the arrival of another steamer. I had but half a day to collect specimens. The Isthmus train rushed on with camel speed through the gorgeous Eden of vines and palms, and

I could only gaze from the car platform and weep and pray that the Lord would some day give me strength to see it better.

After a delightful sail among the scenery of the sea I arrived in San Francisco in April and struck out at once into the country. I followed the Diablo foothills along the San José Valley to Gilroy, thence over the Diablo Mountains to valley of San Joaquin by the Pacific pass, thence down the valley opposite the mouth of the Merced River, thence across the San Joaquin, and up into the Sierra Nevada to the mammoth trees of Mariposa and the glorious Yosemite, thence down the Merced to this place.

The goodness of the weather as I journeyed towards Pacheco was beyond all praise and description, fragrant and mellow and bright. The air was perfectly delicious, sweet enough for the breath of angels; every draught of it gave a separate and distinct piece of pleasure. I do not believe that Adam and Eve ever tasted better in their balmiest nook.

The last of the Coast Range foothills were in near view all the way to Gilroy. Their union with the valley is by curves and slopes of inimitable beauty, and they were robed with the greenest grass and richest light I ever beheld, and colored and shaded with millions of flowers of every hue, chiefly of purple and golden yellow; and hundreds of crystal rills joined songs with the larks, filling all the valley with music like a sea, making it an Eden from end to end.

The scenery, too, and all of Nature in the pass is fairly enchanting,—strange and beautiful mountain ferns, low in the dark cañons and high upon the rocky, sunlit peaks, banks of blooming shrubs, and sprinklings and gatherings of flowers, precious and pure as ever enjoyed the sweets of a mountain home. And oh, what streams are there! beaming, glancing, each with music of its own, singing as they go in the shadow and light, onward upon their lovely changing pathways to the sea; and hills rise over hills, and mountains over mountains, heaving, waving, swelling, in most glorious, overpowering, unreadable majesty; and when at last, stricken with faint like a crushed insect, you hope to escape from all the terrible grandeur of these mountain powers, other fountains, other oceans break forth before you, for there, in clear view, over heaps and rows of foothills is laid a grand, smooth outspread plain, watered by a river, and another range of peaky snow-capped mountains a hundred miles in the distance.

That plain is the valley of the San Joaquin, and those mountains are the great Sierra Nevadas. The valley of the San Joaquin is the floweriest piece of world I ever walked, one vast level, even flower-bed, a sheet of flowers, a smooth sea ruffled a little by the tree fringing of the river and here and there of smaller cross streams from the mountains. Florida is indeed a land of flowers, but for every flower creature that dwells in its most delightsome places more than a hundred are living here. Here, here is Florida. Here they are not sprinkled apart with grass between, as in our prairies, but grasses are sprinkled in the flowers; not, as in Cuba, flowers piled upon flowers heaped and gathered into deep, glowing masses, but side by side, flower to flower, petal to petal, touching but not entwined, branches weaving past and past each other, but free and separate, one smooth garment, mosses next the ground, grasses above, petaled flowers between.

Before studying the flowers of this valley, and their sky and all of the furniture and sounds and adornments of their home, one can scarce believe that their vast assemblies are permanent, but rather that, actuated by some plant purpose, they had convened from every plain, and mountain, and meadow of their kingdom, and that the different coloring of patches, acres, and miles marked the bounds of the various tribe and family encampments.

The yellow of these Compositæ is extremely deep and rich and bossy, as though the sun had filled their petals with a portion of his very self. It exceeds the purple of all the others in superficial quantity forty or fifty times their whole amount, but to an observer who first looks downward and then takes a more distant view, the yellow gradually fades and purple predominates because nearly all of the purple flowers are higher. In depth the purple stratum is about ten or twelve inches, the yellow seven or eight, and second purple of mosses one.

I’m sorry my page is done. I have not told anything. I thought of you, Mrs. Carr, when I was in the glorious Yosemite. It is by far the grandest of all of the special temples of Nature I was ever permitted to enter. It must be the sanctum sanctorum of the Sierras, and I trust that you will all be led to it.

Adieu.  J. Muir.

Further Exploring John Muir’s Letters

John’s view on life changed after that life-threatening eye injury. He sent himself on a thousand-mile walk because, as he put it, the “spirit of the wilderness” called to him. His adventure carried him all the way to the Sierra Nevada of California, to Yosemite, to the mountains which he is most known.

How often do we dream of embarking upon such an adventure, only to let go of those dreams for the sake of responsibility to work or family or whatever excuse we can come up with. Fear is the root of complacency. We fear journeying into the unknown. We fear leaving the people and places we know. We fear excusing ourselves from societal expectations because most of us are deathly afraid of being labeled as an outcast, as someone who doesn’t belong, doesn’t conform. We fear not being seen as perfect by everyone around us.

Those same fears perpetuated by society may very well have lived within Muir for most of his young life. It took a life-threatening accident for Muir’s perspectives to shift, for him to see that what he was most afraid of was living the normal 9 to 5 life that was expected of him. He feared dying without fulfilling his need for adventure, without engaging his wanderlust. It’s one of the most restated cliches on the planet, but you only have this one life to live, so make it your own. An explorative life like Muir’s isn’t for everyone, but it sets a precedent for all of us that is worth thinking about.

This series continues with several more collections of John Muir’s Letters. Read the next segment – Lonely in Yosemite.