John Muir and the Alaska Book 



35 



inside a great roll of papers conspicuously tied with red ribbons 

 and labeled in huge capitals "Copied!" and little by little the 

 orange-box full of manuscript and the piles of scattered notes 

 littering desk and table were reduced to a single working copy. 



By seven o'clock each morning Mr. Muir had breakfasted 

 and was ready for the day's work, usually lasting, with but the 

 interruption of an hour at lunch and dinner and another at mail 

 time, until ten at night. Composition was always slow and la- 

 borious for him. ''This business of writing books," he would 

 often say, ''is a long, tiresome, endless job." To read his easy, 

 flowing, forceful sentences, as rich in imagery and simple in 

 diction as Bible English, no one would dream what infinite 

 pains had been taken in their creation. Each sentence, each 

 phrase, each word, underwent his critical scrutiny, not once but 

 twenty times before he was satisfied to let it stand. His rare 

 critical faculty was unimpaired to the end. So too was the fresh- 

 ness and vigor of his whole outlook on life. No trace of pessim- 

 ism or despondency, even in the defeat of his most deeply cher- 

 ished hopes, ever darkened his beautiful philosophy, and only 

 in the intense physical fatigue brought on by his long working 

 hours was there any hint of failing powers. 



Mr. Muir himself, however, seemed to know that the end was 

 near. Very touching were his attempts to rehabilitate the old 

 house, whose forlorn emptiness and desolation were never al- 

 lowed to weigh upon his own serene spirit, to put it in readiness 

 for whomsoever should next live there. During the latter months 

 of his life he often expressed the conviction that he would never 

 live to write another book. His plan had long been to have his 

 books tell the story of his life and travels, and in the early days 

 of our work together he would often speak of the volumes of 

 this wanderer's autobiography that he hoped yet to complete. 

 But he was curiously untroubled about leaving his work unfin- 

 ished. To a most unusual degree he seemed to feel that his had 

 been a glorious life, wholly worth while. "Oh, I have had a hully 

 life !" he said once. "I have done what I set out to do." And 

 again: "To get these glorious works of God into yourself — 

 that's the great thing ; not to write about them." That nature's 

 beauty had a deep and lasting influence on character was one of 

 his most earnest beliefs. No impassable gulf between things ma- 



