Remember me always to the Doctor and the boys and to Mrs. Moore, and I am ever yours,
John Muir.
I will return to the valley in about a week, if I don’t get over-deep in a crevass.
Later. Yours of Monday evening has just come. I am glad your boy is so soon to feel mother home and its blessings. I hope to meet Torrey, although I will push iceward as before, but may get back in time. I will enjoy Agassiz, and Tyndall even more. I’m sorry for poor Stoddard. Tell him to come.
I’ll see Mrs. H., perhaps, this evening and deliver your message.
Farewell.
New Sentinel Hotel,
Yosemite Valley, May 31, 1872.
Yours announcing the Joaquin and the Doggetts and more is here. I care not when you come, so that you come calm and timeful. I will try to compel myself down to you in August, but these years and ages among snows and rocks have made me far more unfit for the usages of civilization than you appreciate. My nerves’ strings shrink at the prospect, even at this distance. But if by diving to that slimy town sea-bottom I can touch Huxley and Tyndall and mount again with you to calm months in the Sierras, I will draw a long breath and splash into your fearful muds.
I would rather have you in September and October than at any other time, but a few weeks of this white water would be very glorious. Merrill Moores, who was with me in Wisconsin and at your Madison home, will be here soon to spend a good big block of a while with me. Why can’t you let Allie join him?