I have been looking over your letters and am sorry that so many of them are unanswered. My debt to you has been increasing very rapidly of late, and I don’t think it can ever be paid.
I am not well enough to work, and I cannot sit still; I have been reading and botanizing for some weeks, and I find that for such work I am very much disabled. I leave this city for home to-morrow accompanied by Merrill Moores, a little friend of mine eleven years of age. We will go to Decatur, Ill., thence northward through the wide prairies, botanizing a few weeks by the way. We hope to spend a few days in Madison, and I promise myself a great deal of pleasure.
I hope to go South towards the end of summer, and as this will be a journey that I know very little about, I hope to profit by your counsel before setting out.
I am very happy with the thought of so soon seeing my Madison friends, and Madison, and the plants of Madison, and yours.
I am thankful that this affliction has drawn me to the sweet fields rather than from them.
Give my love to Allie and Henry and all my friends.
Yours most cordially,
John Muir.
Roses with us are now in their grandest splendor.
My address for five or six weeks from this date will be Portage City, Wis.
[1867.]