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The John Muir Newsletter, Fall 1997, The John Muir Center For Regional Studies

Muir Center Newsletters, 1981-2015

Fall 1997 NEWSLETTER Intimacies of a New England Trip: John Muir's 1898 Excursion by j. Parker Huber (Editor's note: Parker Huber, a regular contributor to these ■pages, here excerpts and discusses a few days of John Muir's life from the pages of Muir's journal of 1898 and from his letters.) ohn Muir's extensive travels included five trips to New England, finch occurred in 1893,1896,1898,1903 and 1911. His longest fxposure to New England came in late summer and autumn of 1898. This visit had three phases: first an overnight on Cape Cod, ; which is considered here, followed by a tour …

The John Muir Newsletter, Summer 1997, The John Muir Center For Regional Studies

Muir Center Newsletters, 1981-2015

MUIR 1997 What Does Love Have To Do With It: ~Chr7sTIAi^^ &~KlNDRED REDEMPTION by Bonnie Johanna Gisel (Editor's note: Adjunct Assistant Professor of Nineteenth-Century American Cultural History at Drew University '' TnIleVrSey' ^se[ant^PTlthe coJ^on, in Fall 1997, of her Ph.D. dissertation ZJeannecZrrntitled Jeanne C. Carr: Into the Sun. A Nineteenth-Century American Woman's Experience in Nature and Wilderness) copyright @ 1997, by Bonnie J. Gisel hi ! amination of the letters of Elvira Hutchings written to me C. Carr and to John Muir above all reveal a portrait of friendship shared by Muir and Elvira Hutchings. A further examination provides insight …

The John Muir Newsletter, Spring 1997, The John Muir Center For Regional Studies

Muir Center Newsletters, 1981-2015

JOHN WgW Volume 7, Number 2 NEW MUIR Spring 1997 X I 4 J^,AN EPISODE IN THE YOSEMITE: by Frank E. Buske copyright @ 1989,1991, by Frank E. Buske (Editor's note: Dr. Frank Buske, emeritus professor and former Chair of the English Department at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, now lives in Tucson, Arizona. This paper was presented at the 1990 John Muir Conference at UOP, and is published here, along with letters from a private collection, with the author's permission.) ('•< Muir spent the winter of 1873-75 at the McChesney home in land, having come down from his beloved mountains to spend time putting into words some of the observations he had made • ■ nig the trees and the glaciers and on the ■ - les. Mrs. Jeanne Carr and others of his I «ls had, for a long time, been * •imaging him to do more writing; they HHgested that there was a market for his j I les and a need for him to set down his ilf|overies while they were still fresh in his mind. Mrs. McChesney, in a later reminiscence, described Muir as "dressed gi»iei ally in what we call now negligee, i.e., he wore a blue flannel shirt, but was never : without a sprig of some green plant as an-S*0 jjpment." Muir's apparel would be appropriate for ij§krnd of life he most enjoyed. He disliked lifting to dress for any formal occasion and hied to avoid any social gathering that would HHuire clothing and behavior that were not comfortable to him. Although he had uently written of his loneliness, sped1 w.f t enviously about his relatives and ids who had married and were raising families, he seems to made no effort to alter his own bachelor status during that Winter in the Bay Area. Mrs. J "• ' Carr The subject of John Muir and his relationship with women is interesting to ponder, and is a topic that has received a good deal of attention and even more misinformed speculation. Some verses that he wrote before this time, highly critical of young women, their appearance and the way they dressed, prompted his friend, Bradley Brown, to write the eighteen-year old Muir, "Excuse me, John, but perhaps unreciprocated love was the cause of your rhyming against the sweet little creatures. To love is painful, that is true. Not to love is painful, too. But oh! It gives the greatest pain to love and not to be loved again." The subject of Muir's poem may well have been imaginary but Brown's observations can certainly be considered prescient. At twenty-two, in Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, working with ice-boat inventor Wiard, John Muir wrote his brother, David, telling him of the people he was meeting. David, very much a ladies' man, replied, "I would like very well to hear that piano and Miss E.P. (excuse me, John) playing on it." Miss E.P. was, of course, Emily Pelton, niece of the proprietors of the Mandell House where Muir was living. In December of that same year, John Muir wrote his sister, Sarah, and her husband, David Galloway, of an occasion which shows a rather vivid picture of his social skills: UNIVERSITY OR page 1 (continued on page 3) PACIFIC

NEWS NOTES: JOHN MUIR CENTER PUBLICATION PROGRAM The John Muir Center announces the continuation of its series of …