[Excerpts from Letters.]
JOHN MUIRΓÇöPILGRIM SOUL BY CHARLOTTE KELLOGG This is a personal record of the great naturalist and scientist who spent the long years of his life saving for America the heart of her continentΓÇöher mountains and forests. Mrs. Kellogg knew him when she was a little girl in California. Her picture of...
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Scholarly Commons
1921
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| Online Access: | https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/jmb/417 https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1416&context=jmb |
| Summary: | JOHN MUIRΓÇöPILGRIM SOUL BY CHARLOTTE KELLOGG This is a personal record of the great naturalist and scientist who spent the long years of his life saving for America the heart of her continentΓÇöher mountains and forests. Mrs. Kellogg knew him when she was a little girl in California. Her picture of him is a vivid tribute. His figure looms indeed against the skyline as one of the great men of A merka. TANDING against the sky-line, on the crest of his beloved Sierra, John Muir is the most conspicuous figure in the mountain world of America. Though his body has passed from the mountain tops, his spirit will long remain there. His was a fascinating personality. Almost all of us have read pages in the romantic chapters of his life-story that run like the tale of one of the poet-prophets of long ago. How vivid is our picture of the tall, gaunt mountaineer with flowing beard, broad forehead and kindly blue eye, spending most of his seventy-six years in the open, exploring, interpreting and fighting up to within a few days of his death to save the beauties of our national parks for our children's children. By his personal method of year- counting, his own life was immeasurable. "Longest is the life," he said, "that contains the largest amount of time-effacing enjoymentΓÇö of work that is a steady delight." Even as a little boy, on the stormy cast Scotland coastΓÇöhe was born in Dunbar in April. 1838ΓÇöhe found much "time-effacing enjoyment." AS I write, I am turning over a few of his unpublished letters on my desk and in each I read some tender reference to a child or children. In one, written when he was seventy- five, he says: "Tell darling Jean the kiss she sent came airy fast to me over the hills, for kisses have wings and fly far and never die and they make old folks young again. . . . When all the sky is diamonds, look at Hesperus and Jean and be calm. Even in cloud nights like this one, the stars are still bright and every rain-drop is a jewel like Jean. . . . This world is a shaky, bubbling place anyhow you take it. Earthquakes and the inner earth fires over which we float keep the whole rocky globe quaking and boiling forever, and the same wild work is going on in the heavens. Yet all is so neatly managed by the Housekeeper of the universe that on the very slag and cinders of our star baby Jeans and baby blue-eyes grow. Therefore have faith and be calm." WHEN John was only a lad of eleven his father left stormy Dunbar with him, a brother, David, two years younger, and Sarah, thirteen years old, to try his luck on the far American forest plains. They settled in Wisconsin, whither the mother and four other children followed, once the home site was assured. Then came the tree-felling and clearing yearsΓÇömixed magic and bitter endurance; the hunger for books and the need to give expression to a rare inventive gift, which led the thin undersized lad to slip down the cold attic stairs of the little wooden plains house shortly after midnight to read in the kitchen or to work on locks and wheels in the cellar. All sorts of things grew under his eager fingersΓÇölatches, water-wheels and thermometers, and a marvelous clock that told the days of the week and month and started fires and lighted lamps! More and more he thirsted for an education and believed he might succeed in a machine- shop. And kindly, pioneer neighbors encouraged him to THE TWO "JOHNNIES"'ΓÇöAS JOHN MUIR AND JOHN BURROUGHS CALLED THEMSELVESΓÇö WERE LONG AND DEVOTED FRIENDS. THIS PHOTOGRAPH HAS NEVER BEFORE APPEARED take his clock to the State Fair, where he finally arrived, carrying his treasure in a sack. It proved an immediate sensation, and the young inventor's hopes were high. Then arrived March, 1S(>7, heavily underscored in his life calendar! He had long been looking from the wild northern forests to the warm gardens of the South and dreamed of following them to South America. In March, 1867, a piece of metal cut into one of his eyesΓÇöand threatened blindness. By common belief in those days the loss of even one eye was an unsurmountable handicap in such a profession as mechanics So through the darkroom hours he waited and thought, to conclude in the end that, even if his eyesight were spared, life was too precious to be squandered on belts and saws; that while he was "pottering in a wagon factory, God was making a world." He determined to use what sight might be left him in a study of the process. So after his release from the dark room with one eye unimpaired he felt the time had come to start on his great southward adventure. He went quickly home to his family and friends for their "Godspeed" and by September 1867, was off on his now famous one thousand-mile walk to the Gulf. The diary of that journey is inscribed, "John Muir, Earth-Planet, Universe," and nothing he ever set down better suggested hi> cosmic consciousness. In Florida illness called a halt; Cuba he reached; but South America had for the time to be given up. And finally he said good-bv to spectacular tropical gardens and took his crooked way to California, reaching San Francisco in April. 1868. From that time the Golden Western State was to be as much his home as any particular place could be to one to whom the whole universe was home. He sought out the Sierras and the grand Yosemite Valley almost at once, and till the day of his death theirs were his most loved haunts and the preservation of their beauties his chief concern. He acted as guide in the valley to such friends as Emerson and Roosevelt. AS HE journeyed he studied all earth forms ΓÇö flowers, rocks, trees, birdsΓÇöit is hard to tell which attracted him mostΓÇöunceasingly, crammed note-books with his observations, and. happily, took time to make exquisite pencil drawings of many objects and scenes. His descriptions may be as awe-inspiring as those of storms of the high mountains or auroras of Alaska, or they may be as dcliciously humorous as his lines about silly sheep, or gay as his account of that queer, and jolly fellow the grasshopper, or tender as his lingering over lily-bells or birds ΓÇöthey arc for all moods and seasons. Of the smaller wild animals, the Douglas squirrel remained perhaps his favorite, and all who have read his incomparable dog-story, "Stickeen"ΓÇöknow how he felt about a dog. Why has the world followed him in such joyous companies? Why did his dream of a Sierra Mountain Club to which not a favored few, but all the people who wished to, might belong, so splendidly come true? Why have we Muir Woods and lakes and Muir trails and lodges as well as Muir peaks and glaciers scattered throughout all our mountain lands? It was certainly not merely because of what he knew, but largely because of the precious personality, the rare human qualities of (his teacher-friend. Perhaps if we look at him for a moment from some single more intimate human angle we may better see why he was always the greatly loved leader. I like, for instance, to remember his inconsistencies. Now even the superficial setting down of a few facts in his life has shown that no one was more magnificently consistent, fundamentally, than John Muir. In the inner fastnesses of his spirit he rested sure and tranquil in his unalterable faith in the wisdom and goodness of the Creator of the universe. His belief in the brotherhood of rock and lizard and lily-bell and star and man, his abounding and inclusive love for the whole created, related cosmos was the stanch activating principle of his years, which progressed with superb logic to their close. BUT against this rock-ribbed background of conviction and purpose was thrown delightfully a rare amount of contradiction and whimsicality. The tall, gaunt naturalist, with flowing gray beard and kindly blue eye, whose glacier-stride along any street was instantly arrestingΓÇö the simple, great manΓÇöwas guilty of many endearing inconsistencies. He himself was lonely and lost in man-made places, Continued on pait 14 rHE DELINEATOR, August, 1921 Digitized by Go, gle " Original from MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY How a Penny pi Saves a Dollar There are countless uses for Tirro, the handy mender. And most of them save money. No need to throw things away and buy new when Tirro prolongs their usefulness. Tirro is so adaptable, and a tiny bit can do so much, that this handy mender is not only a necessity, but a real economy. A new and handy mender Tirro is a sticky strip of strong tape. It comes on a convenient spool. It sticks to everything ΓÇö glass, metal, wood, china, etc. And it stays stuck. In fact, it becomes'a part of the article itself. Tirro stops leaks. Tirro mends breaks. Tirro patches torn things. Tirro wraps split handles. It can be used as insulation for worn electric wires. Tirro is waterproofed, rubber- coated. It clings like glue. It can be cut in tiny patches or wrapped many folds to multiply strength. The outer side is neutral gray, so it can be painted to match anything you wish. Tirro in Time Saves Many a Dime Waterproofed Tirro The Ideal Mending Tape Strong Above we picture some of the hundreds of uses. Your own imagination will supply many more. Once you begin to use Tirro, you'll find it mighty handy at home, office and shop. Some carry it in their cars, others in their golf bags. Here are other suggestions: For torn clothing, use a strip of Tirro on the under side. For a torn picture or painting, A Free Trial Strip We'll gladly send you a sample, if you*re unfamiliar with Tirro. Merely mail dm coupon. We'll also send our Hook of a Thousand Uses. Once you try Tirro, you'll want it handy always. BAUER & BLACK Chicago New York Toronto mount Tirro on the back. Use it to mend a leak in a tent or a canoe. Use it to form a grip for baseball bat, tennis racket, golf club. Patch a torn auto top, or mend a leaky hose on the radiator of your car. Everybody every day has use for Tirro. One use suggests another. Tirro comes in two sizes. Prices in the United States: 74 inch wide, 30c; 1! s inches wide, 50c. For sale at all druggists, HpREE TRIAL STKI1>~] I BAUER & BLACK I 2500 S. Dearborn St., Chicago Mail tut strip of Tirro ΓÇö also book. I I Concluded /r JOHN MUIRΓÇöPILGRIM SOUL shut off from the friendly universe, and that enveloping and sustaining sense of the immanence of the common spirit quickened by unmolested observation of the pageants of day and night, of the seasons and cycles. "1 can make my exhilarated way over an unknown ice-field, or sure-fooledly up a titanic gorge of the Himalayas, but in these terrible canons of the city of New York I am a pitiful, unrelated atom that loses itself at once!" If, in life, more than a granite rock and a spruce bough were needed, well, there was the log cabin or the shed such as the one buih over the babbling brook which sheltered him in the Yosemite. Such habitations he preached and. in the main, practised. And many of us have been his guests on the granite rock or beside the stream. But in the end he capitulated to a substantial brown house on a hillock in the vine-garlanded Alhambra Valley in California. Here he was at home with the two children, Wanda and Helen, and his devoted wife, Louie, daughter of the Polish patriot, Doctor Strentzel. I chiefly remember of Mrs. Muir that she loved music and Mod- jeska; that her garden was filled with rosemary and thyme and lavender and bees; that she spent her days in good works, covering the valley in her little road-buggy on her errands to those in difficulty, and above all that she adored her John, with whom, in the early days, before a cruel, long-continuing illness held her valley-bound, she climbed the mountain ranges. The house had no elbowing neighbors, and crowning it was an odd, glassed-in lower-room usually strung with drying grapes, roseate Tokays and golden Muscats. Here the worker could mount for silence and skyviewing and raisin-munching. Half-way between the spice-beds and the grape-strung eyrie was the study, inviolable for successive weeks to disarranging broom or duster. There was the mantel with its closely clustered groups of friendsΓÇöThoreau, Emerson, Burroughs, among the goodly companyΓÇöwith the Keith oil-painting of dusky California oaks above them (the house held several fine oils of mountains and glaciers and ocean); along the wall a> the right ran shelves for cones and fresh boughs and recent treasure of petrified wood orore; opposite was the many-sectioned color map of the Colorado canon and the large-scale drawings of the astonishing mechanical desk and clock; there were the littered desk and tables, the cluttered floorΓÇöand in their midst the great teacher transcribing his endless notes. 'THERE was a certain emptiness and auster- Γûá*Γûá itv in this house as a whole that made it different from others. Its days were not shattered by convention and ceremony, not bereft of continuity and significance. There was time for the stars and the sunshine and flowers, the dog, and the daily verse-making walk after luncheon with Helen, the younger daughterΓÇöand for much thought and talk. Now, as I repicture the study with its mantlepiece array of photographs of famous men and rare friends, word comes of the loss of another one among them. And the death of Jnhn Burroughs proves once again how near our hearts is the friend of birds and (lowers, the lover of the world of beauty and magic we long to know more intimately. The friendship between John of New F.ngland and John of California started in lswi on the Alaska expedition in which Mr. E. H. Harriman included both. And from that, meeting time they were affectionately known as the "Two Johnnies." But from the chosen granite rock and the green roof to the top floor of Mrs. Joseph Hooker's Los Angeles house, which had been especially fitted up for the naturalist's comfort, was a long step. Vet he gaily look that step, and still preaching the open tent as the only dignified habitation of man, and enjoying the humor of his inconsistency, he called that retreat his Sicrran garret. To the luxurious Harriman c-tate at Arden was a longer step. How like a child loving his fairy-talc he was, when having settled his gaunt length in a deep arm-chair, he relived the wonders of his visiting days there. He painted gleeful pictures of the great guest followed by a secretary ready to pounce upon his least utterance as he marched solemnly through halls and glades making oracular pronouncements. To thoseof us who knew, there was pathos behind this playful picturing. What would he not have been spared had he been able successfully to use such a secretary! Mr. Harriman tried to teach him to accustom himself to dictating, knowing how bitterly he labored with pencil and pen and how constantly the thought of the packets of little note-books crammed with observations and pencil sketches repioached him. What a rare guest he was! His ever- present consciousness of this pilgrim soul of ours enriched for him all hospitlaity, revealed its full meaning and beauty. Lor to the wanderer on the endless way, tarrying here but for a breath, every gracious roof spread for a moment above him made that moment exquisite and poignant. No human in>litulion of error called forth from the insatiate student more satirical thrusts than did our modern system of education, to him futilely artificial and unsound. He held that the good old Scotch habit of inculcating the Bible and Shakes- j>eareand Bobbie Burns did more to prepare man for life and death than any modern hash called a curriculumΓÇöfor did not they go farther with concentration and holy purjx>se toward achieving the only legitimate end of educationΓÇöthe answer to the supreme question: What is the meaning of man on this earth? TJll'T we find him in PHI blithely accepting the invitation of Vale University to a Commencement where he was to be honored with the doctorate. Now his habit was to flee crowds and ceremonies. He was convinced of his utter failure as a public speaker on public occasions. How dcliciously he recounted the tale of his appearance, following much persuasion, on a Sacramento platform, and of his precipitate flight after the first attempted sentence. In private, in the midst of a circle of friends, his magical talk flowed on for hours, but he preferred a wilderness of wild beasts to a formal audience. Yet Yale was honoring him chiefly because of his efforts to save our national parks, and after all, whatever were his opinions of our attempts to educate, he genuinely appreciated the aims and achievements of Vale. So he graciously accepted the robes loaned him by Mr. Osborn and stepped grandly forward to the center of the stage! How greatly did this amused tolerance and occasional delighted acceptance of a part in the play dec[>en his charm for us who saw always behind the whimsical appearances the austere outlines. And all the while the tall spare prophet of the Cordilleras and the' icy wildernesses, the poet -lover of flower-bell and squirrel and child, was leading the many thousmds happily away from harnesses and cages to the high places. 1913 was a difficult year; bronchitis, since long an enemy, tightened its grip. Mrs. Muir had died and both daughters were married; one of them, to be sure, lived on a neighboring farm. Sisters and brothers had followed him from Scotland and shared the Alhambra valley vineyards with him. But now in the house on the hillock he lived alone, with a faithful old Chinaman. Toward the end of November I met him unexpectedly at the San Francisco ferry- landing where he was about to lx>ard a streetcar. I took it with him. "I had thought to go alone," he said, "but I should so like having your advice," adding with a wry smile, "I'm going to a shop to buy some hangings and things." I hid my astonishment, and once there, busied myself with the velvets and rugs spread before us. I dared not formulate the thought, but instinctively I knew that he was preparing his house for guests, and that his indomitable will hacl thwarted weakness in this effort to make that house fresh and decent as the forests he loved,but where he could not, it seemed, die. Three weeks later, my sad conviction attested, I sat shut off in quietness from the rest of the house by the soft woodsy hangings. before the bow-window where rested the coffin hidden under violets and heaped about with the boughs of pine and sequoia we had brought to enfold him. And then we followed across his California fields to his chosen grave-plot beneath a white-barked eucalyptus-tree on the stream bank and watched there in mute farewell till the quail were still and the tree-shadows had softly covered his dear head. THE DELINEATOR, Aio^f, 1921 | Digitized by QjOOQIC 31 Original from MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/jmb/1416/thumbnail.jpg |
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