Letter from John Muir to [William] Kent, 1908 Feb 6.
Martinez, Feb. 6, 1908[in margin: illegible]Dear Mr Kent:Seeing my name in the tender & deed of the Tamalpais Sequoias was a surprise of the pleasantest kind. This is the best tree-lover's monument that could possibly be found in all the forests of the world. You have done me great honor, &...
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| Language: | English |
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Scholarly Commons
1908
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| Online Access: | https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/muir-correspondence/5264 https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/context/muir-correspondence/article/6280/viewcontent/muir17_0152.pdf |
| Summary: | Martinez, Feb. 6, 1908[in margin: illegible]Dear Mr Kent:Seeing my name in the tender & deed of the Tamalpais Sequoias was a surprise of the pleasantest kind. This is the best tree-lover's monument that could possibly be found in all the forests of the world. You have done me great honor, & I am proud of it. Schools here & there have planted "Muir trees" in their playgrounds, & long ago Asa Gray named several plants for me; the most interesting of which is a sturdy frost-enduring daisy that I discovered on the shore of the Arctic Ocean near Icy Cape; a Sierra peak also & one of the Alaska glaciers bears my name, but these aboriginal woods, barring human action, will outlast them all, even the mountain & glacier. Compared with Sequoia glaciers are young fleeting things, & since the first Sequoia forests lifted their domes & spires to the sky, mounta[illegible] great & small, thousands of them have been weathered, ground down, washed away & cast into the sea; while two of the many species of Sequoia have come safely through all the geological changes & storms that have fallen upon them since cretaceous times, surviving even the crushing destroying ice sheets of the glacial period.Saving these woods from the axe & saw, from money-changers & water changers, & giving them to our country & the world is in many ways the most notabl[illegible] service to God & man I've heard of since my forest wanderings began - a much needed lesson & blessing to saint & sinner alike & credit & encouragement to God. That so fine devine a thing should have come out of money-m[ad?] Chicago! Wha wad'a' thocht it! Immortal Sequoia life to you.Ever Yours, John Muir |
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