Letter from John Muir to Sarah [Muir Galloway], [1872] Oct 8.

[4]I will work always as I do now. I have great toil & greater rewards I would like [illegible] to spend a week or two among you all, & so I will when the right time arrives. It seems as though I was living more apart from you than formerly. I suppose on account of the difference of our pursuit. The Yellow days of Oct are full of that infinite calm & repose that so inspires every receptive soul whether in the Indian summers of Wisconsin or in the untrodden gardens of Calafornia Mtns - Farewell with love to David & all the younglings Ever affectionately John Muir [1] Yosemite Oct 8th [1872] Dear Sister SarahYour big woolly socks are safe in my possession & of course I am already thankful in all of my ten toes that tingled with anticipated comfort at the sight of [underlined: so much] warm wool. I got down last eve from the high Sierras - was out eleven days & in that time pushed through the hitherto un- explored Tuolumne Canon - Climbed three times to the top of Mt Hoffman & once to Mt Lyell. The Tuolumne Canon is a gorge twenty one miles long & from two to more than five thousand feet in depth full of the very grandest of rock forms & waterfalls & cascades of endless variety & size, it is in all respects a Yosemite.[in margin: The Yosemite Poem you send, I read in the out [illegible] manuscript the Poem was hatched here last summer. Joaquin Muller has gone to London] [2]I have abundance of work of a kind that I like & I now see my life work. I am at work now as I presume you know, on mtn structure, & am constantly in the outside mtns excepting the one day in a dozen or so that I come to Yosemite for provisions. I have met a good many of the noted men of Science but am disappointed in not seeing Prof Agassiz He wrote me a very kind letter & very flattering He said to one of my friends in San Francisco that Muir was studying to greater purpose & with greater results than any- one else had done I find a great many friends & all seem to [3]expect so much that I must needs accomplish something if for them alone. I will set out again in a day or two for the summits & will deposit some provisions in a central place where I can harbor in case of a big snow storm. Then I will come here & hide in a garret untill spring, writing up field notes etc. I can do so little in a letter that I never try to give you any definite idea of the kind of [illegible] & probable results that receive my attention, but I will write something that may be published & then you will understand my life better There is no rest for me 0062