Letter from J. E. Calkins to John Muir, 1913 Apr 16.

[letterhead]Lordsburg April 16, 1913.My Dear Mr. Muir:_A day or so ago the mail brought me from Houghton Mifflin Co., a beautiful Copy of your beautiful book, The Story of my Boyhood and Youth , with a card inscribed with the Compliments of the Author . A most valued treasure, and a most delightful surprise. I am sure you would have felt a degree of satisfaction if you could have seen the reception the whole family gave this charming arrival.These are busy days, so I have not had time to advance beyond the 33rd page, which reeks of blood and battle. and is an awful temptation to deny the flesh by burning the midnight oil till these thrilling thrashings, on and off the playground, are passed. But I am only waiting my time and Chance, and I promise myself Some good times, looking backward with you over those wild boyhood days, and the others that came after them.I am simply delighted to have this further chance of readng something from your pen, and to know that you have thought Enough of me to remember me in this opulent fashion. I hardly know0542

Letter from J. E. Calkins to John Muir, 1907 Nov 29.

2252 West Thirtieth street.Los Angeles, California,NOV. 29, 1907.My Dear Mr. Muir:-Forgive me for becoming too much engrossed with my own small concerns to be fairly neighborly with you. I have been getting my goods and chattels settled into some sort of homelike arrangement, and this work, indoors and out, takes times and makes a man forget what is due from him.Your last letter, enclosing the Hetch-Hetchy chapter, came duly to hand, and was very welcome, though the news of Miss Helen\u27s serious illness was far from comforting. We have both been taking the liberty to worry somewhat on her account. She seemed to us to need a gentler climate than wintry Arizona or the moisture of the next four months in the vicinity of her home. No doubt she is getting the best that can be provided for her, still we shall feel anxious till we know that she is on the way to health and strength.Did you get a consignment of Hetch-Hetchy photographs from our mutual friend, T. P. Lukens of Pasadena? I paid him a visit several weeks ago, and we canvassed the Hetch-Hetchy matter at considerable length. He said he had some 60 negatives at his home, all taken in the valley, and that he thought yon might be able to make some use of them in your correspondence with Washington, and that he would at once have a set of good prints made, and send them to you. Later I received a card from him in which he stated that he had sent the pictures as promised. I do not know whether he wrote you in connection with this shipment or not; perhaps he did not deem any lengthy communications necessary; but in conversation with him he spoiled my hopes for capturing the influence of the Los Angeles Times. He says that while Gen. Otis of that paper is not in the scheme himself, he has a number of friends and fellow capitalists who are bent on similar designs upon the peace and beauty of the valley of the Kern, as soon as they get around to it, wherefore they cannot be induced to attack Mr. Phelan\u27s schemes; further, their influence mussles the Times.On the other hand Mr. Lukens thought that Gifford Pynchot might be in the way of provoking Gen. Otis to wrath and reprisal by his choice of associates while in this city- which was at that very time. Mr. Pynchot, it appears, was so unfortunate, or so ill-advised, as to betake himself almost wholly to the company of Gen. Otis\u27s dearest enemy. On this account, Mr. Lukens imagined, the Times might be led, in the end, to throw a few rocks at Mr. Pynchot, even if in the rebound they were to carom off the heads of some of the General\u27s friends; but I do not learn that Mr. Lukens has been able to secure any such degree of this hostility as we should like to see.I should have sent you the enclosed letters before this, but they, with other matters that were in need of attention, had the misfortune to be laid on the shelf till the convenient day came along. Representative Dawson stands for the Second Iowa Congressional district, and is a good fellow with whom I have had a very pleasant acquaintance covering several years. Mr. Ficke, to whom he writes, is a wealthy and cultured gentleman of Davenport, and one of my good friends there. He has been quite active in his correspondence in this matter, and I am sure it is resultful. I add to this letter of Mr. Dawson\u27s another of Prof. Thomas H. McBride, of the State University of Iowa, and one in which I am sure you will find matter to interest you. Macbride is one of the best men on earth, and you will find that you have made a distinct acquisition if ever you have the good fortune to add him to the list of your acquaintances.Your scheme of getting the thousand members of your club to take up the pen in defense of the valley is on the way to a successful issue, if I am not mistaken. It may; be, as you say, that many of them lack the effective note in this sort of correspondence, or it may be that many of them do not have the acquaintance that yields influence, but still it cannot happen that any given I [illegible] men will be altogether destitute of cleverness in the presentation of the case, or of pull with the powers that be. There must be many among them, if they will only take the pains and trouble to write, who can start somebody else going. The net result will be the sort of general pretest that cannot be disregarded.You must pardon me for saying, as I think I said to you when we were together, that you yourself are the most capable advocate of the valley in this hour of its peril. I think Prof. Macbride states your relation to all Sierra interests very clearly and fairly. Your beautiful chapter on Hetch-Hetchy,03984 if it could be offered the press of the country, daily and periodical, would receive instant attention and arouse general interest, and, I am sure, set in motion a general protest against the proposed iniquity that would squelch it and the other like schemes that depend upon it.For, as I see the matter, it is vastly larger than the confines of the Hetch-Hetchy. If the program now laid out goes through Hetch-Hetchy will be only the starting point in a general campaign of commercialisation that will lay waste the finest things in the whole Sierra region, if indeed it stops at the door of that sanctuary, the Yosemite itself. If Hetch-Hetchy can be grabbed away from the people in the manner proposed, then Kings river, and the Kern, and the rest of them can be taken, and even the Merced, defended by the boundaries of a national park, may not be safe. The whole fight is to be won or lost right on this initial point. If Hetch-Hetchy goes, then all the rest of them will follow in swift procession.Again, we have in the White House at this time a president who is a personal friend of yourself, and a warm defender of the wilderness as a thing so necessary to the welfare of nature loving men that it is bread and meat for them. But he says this is to be his last term, whether or no. Will his successor care anything whatever for the sweet wild things of the high mountain valleys? Or will he even know who John Muir is, or care to learn? In short, Mr. Pynchot to the contrary notwithstanding, it seems to me that things lie right to defeat this whole unrighteous plot just at this time, and that there is no time to be lost. I can see it only this way, that now is the accepted time, and that there is no other man who can do so much as you, and thatwhat is done now in this matter will govern the whole situation, both now and to come. This is not to say that you are to do it all; only to say that you must show yourself as mainly and unselfishly interested---interested in behalf of the best interests of the people---and let your name be used wherever it will have influence. After that you must use whomsoever and whatever can be found that may be of assistance. I will do whatever I can, though at the best it cannot be much. I am too small a figure in every way to do anything great.It has seemed best for us, on several accounts, to spend the winter in this city. We are getting into comfortable shape, and as soon as we can get a few more things arranged we shall be delighted to have you come to us, in case you find it convenient to do so. This means the two of you. You have other Los Angeles friends who can make it very much more endurable here for you than we can. We have no automobile, for03984[illegible]instance, and a big auto\u27 really is a very comfortable adjunct to the home establishment in a region where the weather and the roads and the company are good. I have some work on hand, but if those old notes of yours seem to you to be in a state of ferment, and you want to do something with them, and think that I can do the mechanical part of the work to your liking, we might make an arrangement of some kind, might we not, whereby we could make use of our house down here and get that work done? It is a good thing to do, and it ought to be done. And there is no other man but yourself to do it. I simply hate to think of all that beautiful stuff being lost to the nature lovers of this country, for I know that they are hungry for it, and the record is one that should be made for the sake of keeping alive the truth. If you and Miss Helen do not go fossil hunting somewhere away from here, but decide to come here and see what can be done in these ways, I have no doubt that all can be conveniently arranged. And if the end of the adventure should be another book by John Muir the winter would have been well spent beyond telling. I am not trying to tickle you by simply saying nice things, but am speaking the words of truth and soberness, as I myself feel them.Have you put Stickeen into book form yet? I suppose not, but when you do please consider one copy sold to me, for my own personal use. After that I shall buy at will as the need arises to confer favor or pleasure on some friend, of whom I have several who are bound to be delighted with that book when they get it.I have ambled and rambled through four pages to very little purpose. You understand that I am ready for anything I can do in the Hetch-Hetchy campaign, under your generalship, and that our door stands open to you, and we will do the best we can for you in whatever way. I hope you can be with Macbride in Hetch-Hetchy next summer, and if I might go along, somewhere in hearing distance, and carry the bag of bread crumbs and the blankets and do other useful and unpoetic things, I should be too deeply delighted to sleep at the end of the day. We both send our warmest regards to Miss Helen, and should be delighted to have her here as long as she might find it agreeable to stay. For yourself you need no assurance of your welcome. Keep me notified of anything that I must do to take care of the valley, and believe me.faithfully yours,[illegible]0398

Reminiscence of John Muir by Calkins, J.E.

My acquaintance with John Muir was an episode that I have been constrained to think revealed a phase of his psychological organization that was little known, even by his nearest friends, but that was, possibly, a major characteristic of his makeup. It really began with the pleadings of my mother that Mr. Muir\u27s writings, then occasionally appearing in the better magazines, be sought out and read by me. Every letter I had from her reiterated these persuasions, but I was busy, and none of Mr. Muir\u27s work happened to fall across my path, till one day I caught his name, in connection with a short story, as I was glancing over a copy of the Century Magazine. Thinking to merely scan this tale I was presently so gripped by it that I could not lay it down till I had finished it— A Story of A Man, A Dog, and A Glacier. With that reading, I found, I had also finished with all indifferent neglect of John Muir and his writings. From that day on I read, with an eager and growing appetite, everything of his work that I could lay hand on. I had an actual hunger for anything and all that he had written, or that he might write, and presently, along with that zest, another developed; I wanted to meet and know the man who could frame mere dead dry words into such vital glowing phrases, and before. My acquaintance with John Muir was not ordinary or casual. Though most of his admirers never knew it he was not only the master of narative and descriptive English, he was also strongly psychic, and, though I had no idea, at the time of our meeting, that he was remarkably receptive of telepathic influences, I am now fully convinced that our quite unusual friendship was based on that susceptibility. This friendship really long this desire to know the man himself had become a major impulse. I knew it was crying for the moon, for there was no smallest probability that this longing could ever be gratified, but still the longing persisted. Then, quite suddenly, I was in California, with my craving for acquaintance ungratified, but redoubled. In a presumptuous moment I wrote to Mr. Muir begging for the pleasure of calling upon him. I put all the persuasion I could muster into that letter. I wrote as one Nature-lover to another, but as I feared and expected, my appeal was not answered. It lacked even the dignity of being refused; it was simply ignored. Disappointed and chagrined, I turned back home and tried to forget the discomforting incident. Months passed, then, like the proverbial bolt from a blue sky, I had a letter from John Muir, at his home. It was comforting with its explanation and elating with its cordial warmth. He had been half-way around the world when my letter reached his home; his reply had been written among the first that disposed of a stack of accumulated correspondence; written as by one Nature-lover to another. Real Nature-lovers, he went on to say, were not so numerous, and so should know each other, and stand together. He continued, at the length of pages, to tell where he had been and what he had seen, and then to lament that he had not been at home to receive and entertain us, and, finally, to hope that we would come to California again, to make his home our home as long as we could stay, with other cordial and captivating things. As one Nature-lover to another that letter was all that could have been desired; as one stranger to another it wad exquisitely heart-wanning. I had never had a letter like it before, and I have never had one like it since. Of course there were more letters, bridging over many months; then, on an unforgetable day in October, 1907, we were being greeted by John Muir himself; bare-headed, out in front of the big white house; looking as we had been expecting he would look; smiling the welcome we had hoped he would give us. By every friendly token of countenance, and word and manner our welcome was as genuine, and our host as unaffectedly sincere and cordial as we had been hoping, but it was hard for me to believe that it was actually happening. All clear details of that afternoon and evening have been blurred by the attrition of 35 years, but I know they passed in the pleasant process of getting acquainted. Mrs. Muir had gone; only Mr. Muir and Helen were there, attempting to fill those spacious high-ceilinged rooms with the atmosphere of home. Bereft of that lovely presence it was not difficult to understand that they were lonesome enough to be glad of any friendly visitor; but with those plain, forthright persons it seemed to me that they were giving us something far beyond mere courtesy, as John Muir was somehow boyond all that I had been imagining. The dominant note of that interior, as I caught it in that first look about, was its dignified simplicity; or, perhaps, its simple dignity. There was no telephone, no electric light, no domestic gadget of all the myriad of inventions with which even that day was beginning to complicate the American standard of living. Candles, and the open fire, gave light by night, and it was by the grace of the horse and buggy that one went to town. That same simplicity pervaded all the house. Sizable oil paintings of noble Sierra scenery surmounted some of the stately white marble mantels, or adorned wide wall spaces, all of them, I surmised, from the brush and palette of William Keith, but there was nothing ostentatious about them or their hangings, The kitchen was an ample and adequate workshop, with sufficient equipment. It did not overwhelm one by the number and variety of the mechanized appliances of the more abundant life, but it was a pleasant place in which to provide a good, plain old-time meal. I cannot definitely picture the dining room, but I am sure there was no mounted deer\u27s head, and no stuffed fish to gaze goggle-eyed from its varnished plank, and I still remember that I felt refreshed by their absence but there was plenty of plain satisfying food, and no ado about it, and very little waste. And I have the happiest of memories of the cheerful table talk that made each meal there an event. I don\u27t remember what we talked about, except that Mr. Muir told us quite a lot about his tour around the world, and that, at other times, he told us quite a lot about the mountains, and that we were more than content to let him do the talking. The only scrap of all this chat that is still distinct was his admiring word about our globe— my, but this world is a big thing! Oh! I can recall in a general way things he told us, such as his search in Australia for a eucalyptus larger or taller than our California big trees—a search that was agreeably fruitless— or his trailing of the ghinko tree to its native heath, or the gratifying incident of being recognized and called by name by somebody on the other side of the world who had never seen him. He smiled his pleasure as he related such an incident as that, and there could be no doubt that it went far to warm his heart when he was a stranger in a strange land. These things, and others, all remote from politics or business, were told or talked over, but that was all so long ago that the details are not remembered; but I do remember that there was never a time when conversation lagged or halted for want of a topic, or the will to carry on. Always and unfailingly Mr. Muir had so much to say, and we were so pleased to sit by and let him say it, that there was never lack of entertainment. As he talked at table, where he was always at his best, he seemed to need the feel of bread in his hand in order to be provisioned for a long discourse. Anything in the way of bread would do, if only it was friable enough to crumble easily. There was only white bread then; all the other brands of bread that we have now had not been invented; but if he had been permitted to pick and choose among all the varieties we have today I am sure he would not have been particular. One day I asked what kind of bread he preferred, cut and dried, to carry in his bread bag when he went ranging through his beloved mountains. just bread, he said; I don\u27t see that one kind of bread is better than another. That indifference to small things that really did not matter was one of his great characteristics. How he came to fall into that bread-breaking habit I often wondered but never thought to ask him, but, however it happened, it seemed to give him some sort of mental stimulus when he was in the way of talking at length after a meal was over, and the others were all set to listen, but I could never see that there was either desire or design in it. It was an innocent habit, wasteful perhaps, but really inexpensive, and he seemed to be altogether unaware of it. I cannot remember a moment when our common talk ever did go lamely for the want of a topic. Mr. Muir had so much to tell us, and we were so pleased to be there and hear him say it, that we were both agreeably occupied. But, I must not neglect to say that we never had the feeling that he was monopolizing the conversation. even though he might be doing all the talking. We never had the impression that he was talking down to us. On occasion ran in a more or less serious groove, but often it was embroidered with pleasant levity and amusing anecdote. We were a really cheerful party, even after, a few hours of contact had brought us to the status of old friends, a relation as delightful as it was surprising. There were never any jokes at our expense, but Helen was a fair mark for her father\u27s jocundities, which she usually took with a pleased little laugh. As on the morning when her cereal was a little on the thin side. He gave it no caustic criticism, but he told us what it was called it a poor thin beverage, and after another spoonful added, and it is so invincibly fresh! All in the way of play. A minute or two of this good natured sarcasm, with every word fitted into place as perfectly as though it had been pondered for publication. When our first evening was over, and our host surmised that we were tired, and so should rest for the good long day we should have on the morrow, we were shown, candle in hand, to a roomy, airy upper chamber, without a fireplace, or a family portrait, or any other effort at interior decoration, but with simple comfortable furnishings, the chief of these being a huge, old, high-post bedstead, capped off with a Gargantuan feather bed that looked to be unscalable without a ladder. By all visible evidence it was one of the old corded beds that were in vogue a hundred years back; no springs; but we did not miss them. Mr. Muir, whose ever-preferred bed chamber was the starlit open air, went to his repose on a aot/ on the flat roof of a west side porch, or bay window, and Helen slept in a small tent that was guyed fast on some similar flat area above the front door. The sleeping arrangements of the family were elementally simple, like all the rest of its equipment for living. But this elimination of the needless was not carried to absurd extremes; when light or fire was wanted matches were used, not flint and steel. John Muir had a fine sense of the practical. It was the very next morning — there had been only that first evening and then this first morning in which our measure could be taken— that I was conducted upstairs, to a large and relatively empty room, Mr. Muir\u27s workshop. Explicitly details are not remembered; only the impression that it was a grand, spacious, quiet place, ideal for the business of framing matchless phrases for the gratifying of mountain appetite in poor town-bound folk. It was roomy enough to house the gatherings and outgivings of a long and busy lifetime. Here, I opined, had been written those papers that had so captivated me, and I looked about me with something of awe and a full measure of reverence. I remember a few chairs, and a good sized fist top desk that stood against the west wall, between two windows. I think there must have been more pieces than these, but the thing that followed close upon ray entrance was so impressive that all details but these were blotted out. A devoted mountain student in long years of exploring peaks and camons, must inevitably come upon many interesting and curious things, worth retrieving for places in cabinets or museums, and I had supposed that John Muir would be the very properest of all persons to make great spoil of such finds, but here I was to learn that he was a student, not a collector. A few not so wonderful concretions lay along the wall on the floor, along with other odd-shaped rocks, but I saw nothing remarkable in any of them, and Mr. Muir did not notice them or mention them. I may have supposed that morning that he had lugged those specimens, with great labor, long miles from their sierra fastnesses, but now I think that these oddities were purely local; merely interesting bits picked up in the neighborhood, or on his own orchard acres. If there were any glassed cases, housing labelled fragments, or even open shelves, with their dusty omnium gatherum, I was not aware of them. After that marvellous morning I often wondered by what unwitting charm I had won so quiokly to the inner confidence of that man whose name is borne by a hundred schoolhouses scattered all over this land. It was only the afternoon before that I had come; there had not been time for any appraisal, yet here he was throwing open to me all the contents of that big over-loaded desk, to rummage through at my will. I had not asked that privilege; he had freely offered it, without condition. That desk had a solid bank of drawers on each side; they reached all the way down to the floor, and, as I remember them, they were all packed full of the notebooks in which his years of Sierra adventure, and observation and study had been recorded. All the harvest of his active life was concentrated in them. I did not comprehend it at first, for I had not imagined that I would ever be so privileged. I opened one of those books picked at random, with something of the reverent touch of the savant who has discovered a priceless ancient manuscript; then another, and then others. On every page I caught the glitter of those gems of speech that had already made such a treasure as this that made him famous. And pencil sketches, where he wanted to preserve a more accurate record than he could embalm in words. Book after book; every one of them a reliquary, full of unset jewels. Every one of them at my hand without limit or condition. It was almost intoxicating. When I had written to Mr. Muir, begging to be permitted to call on him, I had certainly not envisioned such an adventure as this. Ali Baba in the cache of the Forty Thieves had never freely opened to me without anjp form of open sesame. I would have supposed that so painstaking and precise a student as I had imagined Mr. Muir to be would have some such stock of field notes safely stowed in some fireproof storage, but I had not thought that even John Muir would have amassed so vast a treasure, and all exposed to the fire hazard of a frame ranch house lit with candles. I wanted to read them all, but that was beyond all possibility, for there seemed to be hundreds of them. I turned away from them reluctantly, but stirred by that unexpected show of confidence in me. It was natural that I should be made bold to go a step further, so I exclaimed why— Mr. Muir! Here is the stuff for the making of a whole five-foot shelf of books of the kind you write; the kind that a whole nation of readers are hoping you will write. Why, Mr. Muir— But Mr. Muir appeared not to be reproved, or even impressed. He tossed off my high tension appeal with a gesture of disclaimer and denial. Yes, of course, he admitted, one might, by searching, find out the material for a book or two, of a kind, but it would be a big job; and I am not sure that there are as many persons waiting for those books as you seem to think. You seem to have an extravagant idea of the demand for my books. From that starting point we went on with an argument such as I could not have believed possible a week before. I protested against his belittling of the interest in his writings; insisted that he was the only person who had such a mass of first hand material for such works; then that he was the only person living who had the art of telling about all this wildwood loveliness in a way that made mere cold type come alive and fairly glow in the telling, and, finally, that there were multitudes of poor town-bound folk who could never have any glimpse of all this wilderness beauty if he did not realize his duty to get about it and write books, and then more books. Also I had the temerity to tell him to his face that all this writing actually was a duty, and that I hoped, with thousands of others, that he would feel that obligation. Then he told me some things; first, that I was all wrong in thinking that a man could get the blessed flavor of the mountains by reading any book— the mountains would not come to him in any such weak left-handed way; he would have to go to the mountains; then he cited the authority of the psalmist — I will lift up mine eyes to the hills from whence my strength cometh; and after more of such negations he hit the nail on the head; beside, he said, it is such a tremendous task for me to write enough to make a book that shrink from it. I don\u27t want to undertake it again. Why! I cried out loud, astonished; you write so easily— O ho! he flung back at me, much you know about that! Let me tell you: writing is the very hardest kind of work I can lay my hand to. It is a if very slavery. I should dread to think of writing another book. I was quite taken aback. In my surprise at that statement I ceased to be in any degree impressive. I could manage only to murmur something about his writings being so easy to read, and that was no argument with him. Yes—easy to read! I hope they are; they cost enough hard labor. But you must have heard that anything that is easy to read has been hard to write. No. To write another book would be a tremendous job. We talked a little while about this writing business, and as we talked an idea took form with me. After all the liberties I had taken with him that morning one more impertinence might not matter, so I ventured: I think I understand. It is the mere mechanics of composition that seem to be such a heavy burden. If you could have that eased up the rest would not be so hard. You might even enjoy it. He shook his head; I don\u27t think I could ever have any help in composing. It wouldn\u27t be a help, but a hindrance. I made all haste to assure him that there should never be any such sacrilege as interference with his lone—hand composing. To keep the John Muir flavor, pure and unadulterated, with no admixture of any bungling efforts at assistance, must always be the first objective. As he had no rivals or competitors in his chosen field, so he could have no aid of that kind. It was the merely mechanical part that it had seemed possible to lighten. He sat looking at me, with that steady, long gray gaze of his, but without a question, so I had to go on without his bidding, for now that I had started I had to finish. It is very simple, I said. You sit there, or walk up and down if you prefer, and tell it, whatever it is, as you would tell A.C. Vroman, or any other good friend. Your assistant, man or woman, sits somewhere in range of your voice and catches what you say, and later puts it through the typewriter, with triple spacing and wide margins, so that you have room for the changes you may want to make, and two good carbon copies. Now you have a first draft of what you want to say, and my word for it, you will find that it is not a hard job to make the changes and corrections that you will think are needed. With that first unfinished form before you you will find that suggestions of betterment will come thronging, and the really laborious part of the job will be out of the way. He sat still, looking at me with that long, steady, studious gaze, but without a word. Where he had worn a sort of cynical suggestion of a smile he was now sober enough. Studying. Looking away abstractedly for a moment, then corning back to gaze at me again. At last his intent soberness broke up in a gentle little smile. I thought you might be meaning to lay out some such plan as Mr. Harriman had, he said. Mr. Harriman insisted that anything and everything I said was classic literature, and should be preserved, so he set his stenographer on me, to dog me around and catch every word, no matter how common, the muggins! As if anything could be made out of such stuff as that! It didn\u27t work. He had to give it up. At that it might not be easy to say whether Harriman, the railroad king, regarded John Muir the more, or John Muir regarded Harriman the more, but certainly Mr. Muir valued the friendship and regard of Mr. Harriman very highly. During the days we were together, as I seem to remember, he mentioned Mr. Harriman more frequently than any other man. I do not remember what further discussion we had. that rare October morning of my device for softening the hard lot of over-burdened authors, but I am sure we were at no loss for words. I do remember, however, that Mr. Muir acted as though he had been relieved of some burden or problem that had been giving him considerable thought; possibly even some anxiety. He was more outspokenly cheerful; more disposed to smile, which was a very eloquent circumstance, for he was not prodigal of his smiles. Probably he told us a thrifty Scotch story or two; certainly he was more generally just then, jocund. Nothing was said about my scheme for the relief of bowed-down A bookwrights, except one hopeful remark that a booft might be worked up on suc

Letter from J. E. Calkins to John Muir, 1906 Mar 12.

THE DAVENPORT DEMOCRAT AND GAZETTE AND LEADERDAILY, SUNDAY ANDWEEKLY EDITIONSEDITORIAL ROOM2843 II street, San Diego, California, March 12, 1906.Mr. John Muir,Martinex, California;Dear Sir:-Some two years ago I wrote you, soliciting for myself the privilege of a meeting with you at your home, through which I was soon to pass on my way back to Iowa after a winter in California.Months afterward I received from you a delightful letter, setting fort the details of the round-the-world trip on which you were absent at the time you should otherwise have received my letter of inquiry, and asking me to call again. The substance of this communication is an inquiry whether it will be agreeable for you to have me call upon you some day, say about April$ 4 - 10, merely for the sake of a friendly visit. I shall not repeat what I have written to you on other occasions concerning the pleasure your books and magazine articles have given me, and the delight I should take in such a visit. Neither am I on the hunt for material for a newspaper story or a magazine article. I feel that I have known you for years, and I should like to meet you and talk with you, and so to feel that I have some real sort of acquaintance with you. Mrs. Calkins is with me, and would be as much charmed as I to meet you. All of which presupposes that we pay our own freight, and that the Muir household, in any event, is not thrown into upheaval by our coming. It is not entertainment that we are seeking aside from that of a genial hour with you. And if this is not altogether agreeable and to your liking I trust that you will have the candor to say so.Sincerely yours,[illegible]0370

Letter from J. E. Calkins to John Muir, 1910 Nov 12.

Lordsburg, Calif. Nov. 12. 1910.My dear Mr. Muir:—Your valued letter of Nov. 7 is before me. It was a real treat to us both to hear from you — and to read in plain type, and between the lines, that you are well housed, well fed, and generally well fixed to enjoy life and work. If I am not wrong in my hearings 325 W. Adams is somewhere in the vicinity of John D. Hooker\u27s home — and I know when you are there you\u27re all right. He and his family will keep curious callers away. and let you do as you please, which means much in the direction of conserving ones peace of mind.Glad enough we are to hear that you are sawing away at some more books. That is good news, indeed! The titles, and nature, of these works, as indicated by you, sound good to us both. It seems to me you must take great pleasure in these tasks. I know that readers a-plenty are waiting for them, literally with out-stretched hands. Now, when these are done, I wish you would give us some more glimpses of Yosemite, and the Sierra and San Joaquin countries generally, such as only you can compass. It\u27s up to you: if you don\u27t do it it will never be done. What a book, or group of books, you could make out of those notebooks of yours, with their wealth of04900[in margin: Phone us before you come. - San Dimas exchange of Home Phone. #496. We want to meet you at the train.] 2incident!I must thank you for your generous proposal to send me copies of these books that are now forthcoming. I shall be only too glad of the opportunity of purchasing if only you will continue to produce, but I must confess that when the book bears upon its flyleaf your name in your hand it is enormously enhanced in value. You may be sure I will not forget.We are just beginning to enlarge our Camp out here by the addition of a room with a porch and a fire place, and a little more sleeping space. Unless the rains, now plainly promised, are too generous, we shall be done in a month, and then — anytime you want to exchange the sybaritic luxury of West Adams St. for the few crumbs of bread and small and homely comforts of our modest ranch we shall be able to give you common necessaries, and talk some, It will be a great delight to us to have you with us any time you can see your way comfortably to a call. Mrs. C. thinks she may be able to lure you out here by suggesting a call, and then keep you awhile; seeing that she never has had here the visit with you she longs for. But anyhow you know you\u27ll be welcome here whenever or however you come.Sincerely YoursJ. E. Calkins0490

Letter from J. E. Calkins to John Muir, 1907 Sep 6.

Davenport, Ia., Sept. 6, \u27o7.My Dear Mr. Muir:---Your delightful letter, making us more than welcome to your home, was duly welcomed. It is very fine of you to say such things to us whom you have never seen, and we deeply appreciate it all, but you must not think that we are going to weigh you down with the burden of feeding a couple of hungry Iowans for an indefinite or indeterminate time. You are more than kind with the invitation you have given us, but there will be no occasion to kill the fatted calf in anticipation. But, unless something happens, we shall deny our good friend who has been wanting us to go with him Santa Fe way, and Journey via Salt Lake and Martinez. It will be a great pleasure to us to meet you, and we look forward to it with no end of expectation but shall not be so inconsiderate as to make of your home a hotel for our convenience.It will be soon after Oct. I when we get to your town. In the meantime we will keep you advised in the event of delays of our inability to come. You are not to change your plans in any particular to suit us We shall come by the S.P. from Salt Lake--- where do we alight, and which way do we go?The weather here has grown more tolerable the past few days, but the winter! It is only a month or so away, Your Coast country stands over against it as a welcome refuge.Sincerely yours,[illegible]0393

Letter from J. E. Calkins to John Muir, 1907 Aug 18.

THE DAVENPORT DEMOCRAT.. .. .. .. AND LEADER.. .. .. .. DAILY, SUNDAY AND WEEKLY EDITIONSEDITORIAL ROOMDavenport, IOWA, Aug. 18, ’07.My Dear Mr. Muir:--At last we seem to see California rising above our horizon. By the latter part of September we expect to be on our way there. Our son is today on his way to Palo Alto, to resume work in the civil engineer course at that school. We – my wife and I-- intend to make our way, by some road or other, to Los Angeles, where we have friends, and from which we will look around. But in the meantime, as long as the matter has been on my mind for [illegible] many years, I am writing to ask if you may be at home , or if not at home where else you may be about Sept 2o -- Oct. 15, and if it may be convenient to you to let us make that call on you. You understand we are not proposing to make a prolonged stay at the expense and inconvenience of the Muir household; we only want a chance to convert into more tangible and personal terms an acquaintance that for us has covered a score of years -- on paper -- and which, as far as we are concerned, has the greatest interest and value. Of course we have everhting to gain; I cannot assure you that you will find it at all worth while. But such good folk as you, and Mrs. Austin, and John C. Van Dyke, fill me with a great longing for something more intimate than that impersonal glimpse one gets through the printed page.How my dear Mr. Muir, you are not to let this, in the slightest manner, interfere with your convenience or arrangements. If we do not meet this time we shall meet at some other time. My pleasures of anticipation will only be by so much prolonged. And in the event it is in order for us to drop in and shake your hand, you are not to go to the smallest outlay or inconvenience. We have no claims to urge, and we are pleasuring ourselves, doubtless, far more than you in this matter, so you are to feel perfectly free to be yourself and say what you feel in every respect. I am sure you will do me the favor to be thus free in your reply.When we last heard from you you were under the shadow of a great grief. We trust that time has in some measure dulled the edge of that pain, and that it is well with you and yours.Sincerely yours[illegible]0391

Letter from J. E. Calkins to John Muir, 1913 Apr 16.

[letterhead]2which of these 2 things gives me the greater pleasure. Possibly the being personally remembered. That is the subtlest and most seductive form of flattery, and I own that it is a style of compliment that takes me completely captive. I simply cannot thank you enough.I am the veriest Poor Oliver that ever was. When you are treating me to one of your outpourings you will always find me coming up and crying for more. I suppose if you were to write and publish one book on end of another I should still be hungry. Certainly I have never yet had enough. I know there is a very treasure-mine of the richest and best of stuff where these other books have come from and I cant help wishing and hoping that you may yet point your quill afresh and dig into it, for the benefit of us all. Mrs. C. says, tell Mr. Muir to come on out to the ranch and we\u27ll arrange things so you (meaning me) can keep him, at his will. If I had any glimmering notion that I could be of any slightest aid or value to you I should even insist. It would be a delight to work on some such thing05423 [letterhead]3as these books with you, and if it should happen that you should need my weak hand and feeble sense you would be more than welcome here, come work, come play.I wish we might have you here for even a few days. I have been on the point of writing you, more than once, since you came back from that last globe-girdling ramble of yours, to beg and insist that you come for a while, at your convenience. Now that I am already so much in your debt I am making bold to tell you that nothing could so much delight us. Can\u27t you find time and the way, one of these days soon? I am now engaged in some work for the Country Assessor, but that will presently be out of the way, and then we can have time for a quiet word. We await your pleasure in this.We are well, but considerably occupied with the effort to recover from the January freeze, which cost us dear. We all send our warmest regards to you, and beg to be remembered to Mrs. Funk, of whom we cherish very delightful recollections. We hope to see you some day soon, and when we shall see you, we hope you will not be in any hurry. So hoping, I amSincerely Yours,J. E. Calkins.0542