Letter from John Muir to [Annie Kennedy] Bidwell, 1882 Jan 2.

• Main Author: Muir, John
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: Scholarly Commons 1882
• Subjects: Environmentalist; naturalist; travel; conservation; national parks; John Muir; history; correspondence; letters; Arctic; Parry
• Online Access: https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/muir-correspondence/689; https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/context/muir-correspondence/article/1688/viewcontent/muir04_0765_md_1.pdf

[Page 3]Copy of Mr. Muir's letter of Jan. 2,1882.Martinez, California,January 2, 1882. Dear Mrs Bidwell,I wish you and the General a happy newYear I would be most happy could I deliver this greeting in person all the more so since I learn from your last letter that you are about to leave California for a few months. We enjoyed the short glimps we had of the General during his runaway visit but were greatly disappointed in his not spending the evening with [illegible] we shall look forward however to a good visit from you both as one of the best things promised in the newYear. Doctor and Mrs. Parry were here for two days some little time after their visit to Ranch Chico and they were most ardent in their praises of your beautiful home while I rehearsed our grand camp enjoyments about Shasta and Lassens Buttes and the Volcanoes, Bumpus, Geysers, Erigonum etc. and the weeks dozing rest about the house, and the drives, and the fine Sacramento sail etc etc etc,I have been anxious to run up to Chico in the old free way to tell you about the majestic icy facts that I found last summer in the Lords Arctic palaces, but, as you can readily guess, it is not now so easy a matter to wing hithert thither like a bird, for here is a wife and a baby and a home, together with the old press of fieldstudies and literary work, which I by no means intend to lose sight of even in the bright bewitching smiles ofmy wee bonnie lassie, Speaking of brightness, I have been busy for a week or two just past letting more light into the house by means of dormer windows, and in making two more open brick fire places, Dormer-windows, open wood-fires, and perfectly happy babies make any home glow with warm sunny brightness and bring out the best that there is in us.(End of chapter)[Page 4]Thanks for the clippings etc, Keep the " Sculpture" untill you come to visit us. Remember me to your sister when you go home, beleive me ever CordiallyYours, John Muir.[illegible]Rancho bhico, April 12, 1917;01057