Letter from John Muir to Jeanne C. Carr, 1865 Sep 13

[4]O how frequently, Mrs Carr, when lonely & 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 & happy as though holding their leaves to the open sky of the most flower-lov- ing 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 too plainly seem, 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 in the rocks 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 her is difficulty-, I feel that I am altogether incapable of properly conducting a correspondence with one so much above me. We are indeed, so 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 studies & 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 00359https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/jmcl/42964/thumbnail.jp