Letter from John Muir to [Robert Underwood] Johnson, 1898 Jan 7.

• Main Author: Muir, John
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: Scholarly Commons 1898
• Subjects: Environmentalist; naturalist; travel; conservation; national parks; John Muir; history; correspondence; letters; Underwood; glacier; Alaska
• Online Access: https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/muir-correspondence/2054; https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/context/muir-correspondence/article/3053/viewcontent/muir10_0027_let.pdf

(61)Martinez, Jan. 7. 1898My dear Johnson.I'm not kidnapped, nor have I been beguiled into signing away any of my own or Century rights.The fuss you make about the bits of things I write is most flattering. As to the forestry articles two have been published & I'm at work on three others. The Yellowstone, Yosemite, & Sequoia National Parks. Sargent started them. He urged Page to write & write & got me started on them. Page offering my own term both for the magazine & book. Knowing what you had already done on forestry I had no reason to hope the Century would accept them. & I wanted to do all I could for the woods. Then spurred on as before by Sargent & others Page inquired whether I had made any engagement with the Century for an Alaska book & finding the ground clear offered to print the whole book chapter by chapter on a month 2in the Atlantic & then bring them out in a book. All on my own terms as to compensation, style, illustrations etc. & as you had given no such encouragement. but on the contrary had held one of the ten articles of the proposed book three years I thought I could not be wrong in accepting Houghton Mifflins offer.You say that I agreed last summer "to write for us some articles consisting of the most important memoranda of your life as an explorer" etc mentioning Aurora, Eagle-or Crow-attack. Auroral salmon etc. In this you are mistaken. You wrote me before you started for Europe proposing this patch work, but I made no reply to it. Instead of writing to Gilder I thought I had better wait your return & I reply now that I have no liking & no skill for such high colored crazy quilt odds-&-ends articles & must therefore decline attempting them. 3As to my obligations to the Century Co as I remember them. They are as follows, Years ago I offered an article on my sled trip across the Muir Glacier wh after consulting with Gilder You agreed to take. This you shall have if you still want it. (It will contain the Crow attack.) Again you ...